He booted his mount down the lane by which he had approached. Low branches whipped his cheeks and forehead. The man behind him fired a second round. It missed. Orry galloped into the wider main road that curved away from the James. Pulling away from his pursuer and topping a slight rise, he saw the sky glow that identified Richmond.
He breathed deeply of the wind rushing against his face. He was riding away from shock and peril — but toward an inevitable meeting with his conscience. It took place about midnight. Madeline sat on the edge of their bed, arms folded over the bosom of her nightdress, while he paced one way, then other, lumps of mud falling from his boots.
After he told her everything, the first thing she said was: "How in heaven's name did she become involved?"
"Right away I decided it was because of James. But I'm not so sure. Something bothers me about that explanation, though I haven't figured out what it is. Anyway, explanations hardly matter at this point. I'm the one person with knowledge of a direct threat to the President's life. Other lives, too —"
He seized the bedpost. "I must go to Seddon with the information. And Winder. The provost can pick up the conspirators quietly — It's the first time I've ever been thankful Stephens failed in his congressional crusade." In February, despite the politicking of the vice president, suspension of habeas corpus had been reenacted.
"All the conspirators?" Madeline asked. "Does that include your sister?"
"She's one of them. Why does she deserve special consideration?"
"You know, Orry. I don't like her any better than you do. But she's family."
"Family! I'd sooner have Beast Butler for a relative. Madeline, my sister tried to have Billy Hazard murdered."
"I haven't forgotten. It doesn't change what I just said. I know you dislike hearing it, but it's true. There's also this: No crime has been committed as yet."
"The very most I could do — and I'm damned if I think she deserves it — is refrain from mentioning her name or the fact that I saw her."
"You would have to do the same for James."
"I owe him nothing."
"He's Ashton's husband."
A long silence. Then a disgusted sigh. "All right. But that's as far as I'll compromise for either of them. I'll identify Powell and no one else. If he implicates Huntoon or my sister, so be it."
"We're discovered — we'll be arrested — what in God's name are we to do, Lamar?"
Huntoon's wail sickened Ashton. Outside the implement building, with the others crowding around, Powell shot out his hand, twisting Huntoon's collar. "The one thing we will not do is cry like infants." He shoved Huntoon away as the sentry, Wilbur, came trotting back across the field to report.
"Lost him."
"But you got a look at him —"
"No, I didn't."
"Damn you." Powell turned his back on Wilbur, who tugged his farmer's hat down over his eyes and sat silently.
Powell rubbed his knuckles against the point of his chin, thinking.
Another of the conspirators cleared his throat. "They'll be out here by morning, won't they?"
Huntoon spoke up. "Perhaps not. Suppose it was just some nigger boy hunting chickens to steal." He was trying to reassure himself.
"It was a white man. I seen that much," Wilbur said.
"But maybe he meant us no harm —"
"Are you an imbecile?" Powell said. "He approached by stealth. He observed us through one of the cracks in that wall. But setting that aside, do you seriously imagine I'd sit and wait to find out whether he's harmless?"
He shoved the humiliated Huntoon aside and strode along the weedy strip of ground beside the implement shed. He scanned the bluff, the field, the other buildings. "What we require are sound tactics for meeting the situation. If we think them out carefully and keep our heads, we'll come through this unscathed."
Badly scared, Ashton clung to her faith in Powell's brains and courage. But it was shaken when he returned to them, smiling, and she heard him say, "The first thing we must do is enlist the aid of Mr. Edgar Poe. My favorite author. How many of you know his tale of the purloined letter?"
"You're the one who's an imbecile," Huntoon ranted, "talking of cheap hack writers at a time like this."
For once Ashton silently sided with her husband. Her lover didn't say a word to explain himself, merely gave Huntoon another insulting push and walked past him, laughing.
At daylight, Orry marched up the high stoop of Secretary Seddon's residence and used the knocker so loudly he was sure he woke the whole neighborhood. Within minutes, grumpy Winder was summoned. When he arrived, he resisted for half an hour — Orry was not, after all, one of his most trusted colleagues — but gave in under pressure from Seddon. He would send investigators to Wilton's Bluff before noon.
"I'll go immediately to the President," the secretary said. He was by now largely recovered from the shock of Orry's news. "All cabinet members will be warned. Meanwhile, Colonel Main, yours is the privilege of casting the net for the biggest fish."
"I'll do it with pleasure, sir."
A few minutes past ten, a curtained van raced to Church Hill and wheeled into Franklin Street. Orry jumped out and led an armed squad up the front steps. A second squad, dropped off a block away, had already deployed in the garden. Orry quickly found himself reacting as Seddon had when he first heard the story.
The front door offered no resistance. Dumbfounded, he said to his men, "It's been left unlocked."
Inside, the household furnishings remained, but no clothes or personal belongings.
Lamar Powell had disappeared.
That evening, a second shock. It came in Winder's sanctum, delivered by the man with the long nose, weedy black clothes, and vaguely clerical air.
"I found nothing. No signs of habitation. And, most especially, no trace of those crated weapons you reported, Colonel. In my opinion, no one's been at that farm for months. The neighbors I questioned agree."
Orry jumped up. "That can't be."
Antagonized, the other man said, "Is that so? Well, then —" a gesture to the door, derisive "— question the two operatives I took with me. You've heard my report, and I stand by it. If you don't like it, ride back there and make your own."
"By God, I will," Orry said, as Israel Quincy stepped to the window and gazed at the sunset.
Evening's dark red glinted on the river, lighting Orry's stricken face. He had searched the implement building and found what Quincy and his colleagues predicted: nothing. He had left the building a moment ago, closing its door on the dirt floor, straw-littered and unmarked by any boot prints save those of men. Some were his. Some surely belonged to Winder's operatives — and Powell's crowd. Or did they? Orry hadn't discovered a single imprint of a woman's shoe.
He felt angry, humiliated, baffled. He walked away from the bluff and searched the farmhouse. He found only dust and nesting rats. He searched the barn and chicken coop. Again nothing. By then night had come. He mounted and took a shortcut toward the main road, walking his horse across the same field he had crossed last night. The black of the plowed earth matched his mood exactly.
His meager supper of rice and corn bread untasted, Orry said to Madeline, "Quincy's been bought. Winder, too, for all I know. Mrs. Halloran inadvertently stumbled on a conspiracy that must reach very high. I intend to find out just how high."
"But the President is safe now, isn't he? He's been warned —"
"Yes, but I still have to know! At this moment, I wouldn't be surprised if Seddon and his wife were speculating on my mental condition. Am I a drunkard? Do I take opium? Did I see visions at the farm? I swear to you" — he went to her around the table — "I did not."