The Murder of Willie Lincoln Read online

  “You have seen many cases of typhoid fever, or bilious fever, or whatever you think to-day that it was. Please, did you see any symptoms that did not accord with…?”

  “I understand your question, Mister Hay. And I am trying my damnedest not to answer it.”

  “Successfully, so far.”

  “You do understand the confidences that exist, that must exist, between doctor and patient. Your father is a doctor, is he not?”

  “He is, and I do. But your patient is … no longer with us. And your patient’s father has asked me—instructed me, ordered me—to make these inquiries. If you like, we can both go to the grieving father so that you can hear his order in his own words. Or you can believe me.”

  Dr. Stone considered his choices and made up his mind. “There was one symptom Willie exhibited that did not fit with typhoid fever. A green stool, rather like spinach.” The doctor watched Hay to gauge his discomfort. “This is a symptom of mercury poisoning.”

  “Why did you not mention this before? Or wonder about it, at least?”

  “To repeat myself, Mister Hay”—this time, the honorific was without mockery—“there is no typical case of typhoid fever, or of bilious fever. A single symptom, or the lack of it, signifies nothing.”

  Hay could not shake the feeling that Dr. Stone was hiding something. He had certainly had the opportunity to administer a toxic amount of mercury. But he had, in fact, promised to “do no harm.” Had he done any? Probably. Doctors do. But if it was inadvertent—heroes often fall on their faces—he was not really to blame, unless he had purposely violated the president’s, the father’s, orders. And if it was purposeful, because of … what?… a sympathy with the South? Speculating was pointless. Hay’s gut told him … maybe. That it was conceivable Dr. Stone was involved, that he had been heroic and then some. Probably for some untreasonous reason. But, in any event, it was worth learning more.

  “Then why did you keep administering it—the calomel—if he showed signs of taking too much?”

  Dr. Stone leaned toward Hay and said with conviction, “So he would live.”

  Yes, Hay wanted to ask, how well had that worked? But he kept his silence.

  * * *

  Hay was toiling at his desk, waiting for Nicolay so they could stroll to Willard’s to dine—to drink and dine—when he felt a shadow at his back.

  Pinkerton.

  “What do you want?” said Hay, bracing for a tirade about his meeting with John Watt.

  “Information. To give ye.”

  “I am all ears,” Hay said, knowing that nothing was free.

  “About the secesh. In this buildin’.”

  “Please.” Hay gestured Pinkerton into a chair.

  It was not a pretty tale. The detective recounted some of the incriminating stories in Potter’s affidavits, and in the exact language, but adding some of his own. Of Thomas Stackpole and John Watt seen carousing in a tavern with a trader known to have sold muskets to the rebels. (Hay could not picture Stackpole “carousing” at all.) Of Stackpole tending to Watt’s orchids in the gardener’s absence. Of Watt conferring with Dr. Stone in the conservatory late one night.

  “So?” said Hay.

  That Stackpole had spent part of his boyhood near Washington City—where or why, Pinkerton’s men had not learned yet. Did Hay know that William Spaulding had married Stackpole’s sister? (Pinkerton frowned at Hay’s reply.) Or that Spaulding had been seen in Watt’s presence, in the greenhouse, just before the gardener’s arrest?

  “What?”

  “Oh yes,” Pinkerton said. “Conferrin’ head-to-head.”

  The makings of a conspiracy, indeed.

  Chapter Nine

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1862

  “John, I want you there as a witness.” Lincoln had popped his head into Hay’s bedroom at first light. “I daresay you will enjoy it. But not a word to anyone, please.”

  Hay glanced across his bedroom—Nicolay was gone, probably already at his desk.

  “Besides him,” Lincoln said.

  Stanton, the emotional war secretary, had burst from the president’s office the previous evening, muttering, “A damned fizzle, a damned fizzle,” and Hay had been delighted to learn why. General McClellan had sent pontoon boats up the C&O Canal, alongside the Potomac, to help secure the railroad at Harpers Ferry. However, the boats were four to six inches too wide to pass through the locks. Stupidity. Or arrogance—an assumption the material world would yield to the general’s will. In either case, in Hay’s mind, a stroke of luck.

  Hay’s hurried breakfast, at his desk, was watery coffee and a misshapen apple of the sort Lincoln favored for lunch. He was examining a wormhole that lacked a worm when a booming baritone sounded too hearty for so early an hour. The general in chief had arrived.

  Hay crossed the waiting room and entered Lincoln’s sanctum. George B. McClellan was barreling toward the far window, his hand outstretched, grabbing at the president’s. Hay figured a jab, then two or three punches to a belly thickened from the capital’s larders, followed by a hard right cross to the overconfident chin—this would flatten the general with a satisfying thud. Lincoln beckoned the Young Napoleon to a seat, but the general stayed on his feet, and so did the president. (And so did Hay, who longed to sit.) The difference in their heights was laughable, and Hay understood McClellan’s pleasure in being perverse—he often felt the same.

  The general scowled in Hay’s direction. “And why is this young whippersnapper here?”

  Hay would have been hard-pressed to explain.

  “I appreciate youth, General, as you can attest. The capable Mister Hay is my secretary. But this is a conversation between you and me. About the pontoon boats in Harpers Ferry.”

  There were to be no pleasantries. McClellan’s handsome face froze.

  Without a pause, Lincoln said, “Why in tarnation could you not have known whether a boat would pass through that lock before you spent a million dollars—gold, not greenbacks—taking them thar? I am no engineer, but it seems to me that if I wished to know whether a boat would pass through a lock, common sense would teach me to go and measure it first.”

  McClellan’s cheeks turned as red as his lips. Hay wondered if the wellborn general had ever been scolded before.

  “Have you never heard of a measuring stick, General? Please explain yourself.” This was Lincoln as a courtroom counselor, cross-examining a hostile witness, a man he had known since the ’fifties, when McClellan was the chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad and Lincoln often represented or fought the company in court.

  McClellan’s mouth moved but nothing came out. Lincoln would have waited until noon, Hay felt sure, but the general said at last, “Your Excellency, I am only as good as my military intelligence.”

  Hay’s mouth fell open in surprise: McClellan was blaming the blunder on Pinkerton.

  “How else can I learn the facts on the ground, Your Excellency?” Cockiness had returned to McClellan’s cadence. “I cannot be expected personally to visit the locks with a measuring stick, or does Your Excellency consider that the most strategic use of my time?”

  “How you spend your time is your own business, General. But the results of your performance are my business, the nation’s business, and I must hold you accountable. According to War Order No. 1, you were to be marching on Richmond by the twenty-second of this month. To-day is the twenty-eighth, and here you are before me, no closer to Richmond than you were. If you are not using your army, General, perhaps I could.”

  “I also rely on Mister Pinkerton for his estimates of enemy strength.” A pugnacity swelled McClellan’s chest. “And let me assure you, Your Excellency, that if I am furnished a suitable number of troops, I shall execute your war order without delay.”

  “The commander in chief’s order, you mean.”

  “Of course, sir—nothing less.” McClellan glanced around for a seat. “I have never run from my responsibilities, Your Excellency, and while there is breath in this
body, I never shall.”

  The man’s unctuous audacity left Hay in a boil of rage, and he marveled at Lincoln’s capacity to keep his calm while dismissing the general as if he were a butler who had delivered cold tea.

  * * *

  Columbian College was located out Fourteenth street, past the boundary of Washington City, but its National Medical College was housed downtown. The drab brick building was on E street, between Eleventh and Twelfth.

  The front door, unattended and unlocked, squeaked as Hay pushed it open. Inside, the moldy smell belied the presence of anything medical. He tried the staircase and found fresher air on the second floor. He knocked at the door to his right and, hearing no answer, entered an anteroom of sorts. A podium faced three rows of four seats apiece, all empty.

  “Can I help you, young man?” A deep and melodious voice caught Hay from behind.

  Hay turned and saw a stocky man with an unruly white beard that did not entirely conceal a smile. Hay considered briefly if the man meant may instead of can and decided no, he was asking if he might be capable of aid while reserving judgment on whether he would offer any. Hay needed both—the can and the may—or he was wasting his time here.

  “I hope so,” Hay replied.

  On the brisk walk from the Executive Mansion, Hay had considered how to solicit damaging information from the colleagues of a man he had to assume they revered. His stratagem required only a single untruth.

  The man invited Hay into a shabby office barely big enough for one person. Dr. George M. Dove was an affable man with stooped shoulders and a pliable, if half-hidden, face. He introduced himself as a professor of the theory and practice of medicine—“and an admirer of Mister Lincoln’s, if I may say so. What sort of appointment does Mister Lincoln have in mind, if I might ask?”

  “I am not permitted to say, I am afraid.” A doctor, Hay knew, would respect a confidence. “But you would trust Doctor Stone, I imagine, with your own children’s lives?”

  “Of course, of course, of course,” Dr. Dove said, a trifle too quickly to suit Hay.

  “Has he treated your children?”

  “No, Mister Hay. Both of my children passed on without his assistance.”

  Hay felt his cheeks burn. “Oh, I am sorry. How long have you known Doctor Stone?”

  “He arrived here in…’forty-eight, as I recall. I was already on the faculty here. Or ’forty-nine, he came. As a professor of anatomy. Not long out of medical school himself. Quite the genius, we were told.”

  “And was he?”

  “In his way. We all are,” Dr. Dove said gravely. “Then he left for a few years and returned in, let me say, ’fifty-eight. As a professor of ophthalmological anatomy. ’Fifty-nine, perhaps—please forgive my imprecision.” His eyes twinkled.

  “Where did he go for those years?”

  “Taught and practiced in Richmond, as I understand it. His wife is from Richmond, or nearby. He met her there. From a fine old family. Good stock.”

  “Still there, I take it.”

  “I would imagine.”

  “And sympathetic to the rebels.”

  Dr. Dove squirmed at his desk. “That, I cannot say.”

  “And Doctor Stone?”

  “Doctor Stone what?”

  “His sympathies.”

  A piercing look. “This is something we never discuss.”

  “Because?”

  “We are colleagues here, sir. Whatever our private beliefs.”

  “Do you know Missus Stone?”

  “Oh yes. A lovely woman. She is here now, of course.”

  “What brought them back to Washington City, do you know?”

  “An offer from the school. And an invitation from President Buchanan himself.”

  “To do what?”

  “To serve as his personal physician.”

  “Which he did, as I understand.”

  “And capably. Until the end of his term. And then for Mister Lincoln. Perhaps on Mister Buchanan’s advice. Making him, I suppose, the only living soul who has seen both presidents as God made them.” A rumble started in Dr. Dove’s abdomen and burst forth as a horselaugh. “And another man on our faculty, who was on our faculty, Doctor Garnett, left to serve as the personal physician for Mister Davis—Jefferson Davis. Who I gather is rather cold to the touch.” Another laugh. “Tell me, Mister Hay, is President Lincoln a warm man?”

  “In his way,” Hay replied. “Though remote.”

  “As all great men are.”

  “Were Doctor Stone and Doctor Garnett particular friends, would you say?”

  “Not that I noticed. None of us have much time for friendship.”

  “Or inclination?”

  An easy, affectionate laugh, one that would console at a bedside. Hay was prone to trust anyone who shared his sense of humor.

  Hay said, “Is he liked by his colleagues, would you say?”

  “Liked? Admired, certainly.”

  “Oh?”

  “He is a young man who has come very far. Not everyone likes that. And to be fair, he is not overly concerned if they do. He has stepped on toes. But he has never stepped on mine. Nor would he.” A tight smile. “I think highly of the man—in every way.”

  “As does he.”

  “No doubt he does. As do I. And, I might assume, as do you. That is why we are here, is it not? In the capital, at the center of things. For the most part, we selected ourselves. I did. Maybe you did, too.”

  “Not a sin, I hope.”

  “Not exactly a virtue,” Dr. Dove said. “But Doctor Stone, for what it is worth, was born here.”

  * * *

  The wisps of clouds did nothing to impede the stream of sunlight. Worse were the clouds of dust the cold wind stirred up. The National Theatre was dark to-day, its poster boards empty, and Hay shielded his eyes as he stepped past.

  Hay was trying to make sense of Doctor Stone. Yes, his wife’s family was probably—no, surely—loyal to Virginia and the South. But that was her family, not his. And yes, he had lived for a while in Richmond, but he was a native of Washington City—itself a swamp of secessionists, of course. Who could tell, Hay thought, what was in anyone’s heart? Maybe the heroic doctor had simply given the boy more calomel than he had intended—such a Narcissus would never admit it. But that was arrogance, not murder. Surely, the line was distinct between heroism and harm. Any other conclusion was absurd.

  Hay assailed himself for getting sidetracked, for veering from suspect to suspect. He needed to focus on the unheroic, on the names that appeared on both of Old Edward’s lists, on the possibility of a conspiracy among the mansion’s secessionists. Hay had questioned most of the overlaps already, to no avail. In search of a conspiracy, he had questioned John Watt, Thomas Stackpole, and Silly Billy Spaulding. Start at the edges and work your way in—Nicolay’s advice. Hay had started at the edges, and he was still there. So, what should he try next? Think! Think! Where was Vidocq now that Hay needed him?

  The northeast gate of the Executive Mansion was open to everyone, even to Hay (as Nicolay was wont to jest whenever they passed through). Just as Hay approached the front door, it opened. Did Old Edward use a secret peephole, or did he just know?

  “You saw my list, sir?” the doorkeeper said.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Useful, I hope.”

  “Not very, I’m afraid.”

  Old Edward looked hurt.

  “Only because your day ended at eight,” Hay rushed to add, “which left four hours unattended. And because so many people were here, it is difficult to know where to start.”

  “It would depend, I imagine, on what you are looking for.”

  “You are a wise man, Edward.”

  “I try to be, sir.” A warm Irish smile. “But if I might offer a piece of information?”

  “Please do.”

  “Was just wanting to say, sir, that Tom Cross was on the premises Tuesday night until ten or eleven o’clock, mostly here or under the portico.”
>
  “What was he doing all that time?”

  “I was not here, sir. You would have to ask him.”

  “How do you know he was here, then?”

  “I know.”

  Hay did not doubt it.

  Hay took four or five steps into the vestibule before he turned back. “One other thing. Billy Spaulding, the painter, says he was here Tuesday night to check the repairs in the State Dining Room. Do you remember this, by any chance?”

  Old Edward tried hardest when you challenged his capacity to keep track of things.

  “I was here, and he did come in. But not for the dining room, sir. The touching up there was finished six weeks ago. The other night, he was heading upstairs.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “You would have to ask him, sir.”

  * * *

  The sunlight had not filtered down into the basement of the Executive Mansion. The door to the messengers’ cloister was closed. Hay knocked and did not wait for an answer.

  Tom Cross was hunkered over the desk, his bald black scalp working angrily. One eye tilted up toward Hay.

  “Whachoo want?” The husky voice sounded self-restrained, for which Hay was grateful.

  “A question or two.”

  “Go.”

  Hay suppressed a spasm of anger. “Is another time better?”

  “I mean, go on. Ask.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Politeness to a Negro—Hay supposed he could get used to it. “Old Edward says you were here late the other night, Tuesday night, near the front entrance.”

  Hay waited for a confirmation but got a one-eyed stare. He said, “Do you recall what time you left?”

  “I do.”

  Hay waited and said at last, with only mild derision, “And what time was it?”

  “Near ta eleben o’clock.”

  “And starting when, would you say? Please.”

  “Nine.”

  “Did you see anyone enter or leave in that time?”

  “Yes.” Again, he stopped.

  “All right—who, then?”

  “Miz Cornelia.”

  “The cook, you mean—Cornelia Mitchell.”

  “Yes.”

  A long pause.

  “And?”