“It appears as though an assassin has been in the presence of our commander-in-chief,” said Rook. “His name is Mazorca, and this is what he looks like.” He removed the photograph from a pocket and held it up. The image was too small for everyone to see at once, so Rook handed it to a major who was seated next to him. “Please take a good look and pass it around.”
The picture moved halfway round the table, with each officer plus Seward taking a quick glance, until it arrived at Scott’s place. The general stared at it for a long time. Nobody had said anything since Rook began his report. All wanted the see the reaction of the general prior to forming their own opinions. Would he accept Rook’s logic?
“So, Colonel,” said Scott as he set the photograph on the table rather than passing it on, “you found it impossible to work underneath me and decided to go over my head.”
“Sir, this is an amazing development that none of us could have foreseen-”
Locke broke in, almost shouting. “How do you know that this slave woman is telling the truth? She is a fugitive who ought to be returned to her rightful owner.”
Around the table, a number of heads nodded in agreement. Several others, however, were visibly annoyed at the suggestion. Here was the question that divided the nation, writ small.
“She has no reason to lie,” said Rook with agitation. “Let’s remember the focus of this conversation-it’s not about her.” He gestured to Portia and then walked around the table and grabbed the photograph from the spot where Scott had set it down. “It’s about him.” He held the picture at arm’s length, showing its image to the officers. “This man wants to murder the president. He may have come very close to doing it already. We must stop him from making a new attempt.”
The room erupted into a chaos of voices as several officers spoke at once. Rook could barely hear what any of them said. Soon, however, he became most interested in the one officer who was not saying anything at alclass="underline" Springfield had not taken his eyes off the photograph since Rook had held it up for the second time.
The sergeant rose from his chair, walked over to Rook, and asked for the picture. Rook gave it to him. Springfield looked at it intensely. He stroked his mustache. It was not long before everybody in the room noticed what he was doing. His deep interest in the photograph could mean only one thing, and everybody knew it.
“I’ve seen this man before,” said Springfield. “I know where he lives.”
Mazorca delayed his return to Tabard’s boardinghouse until the middle of the morning. He had not lingered long at the cabin in Maryland. He had eaten a quick supper, dragged the body of the man he had killed to a nearby stand of trees, and left the scene. He had taken a roundabout route home, avoiding the bridge he had crossed in the morning, using less-traveled roads, and coming into Washington from the north. This was faithful to his plan of keeping his movements irregular. At dawn, as he approached the city, he decided to give his fellow boarders time to eat their breakfasts and leave for their jobs. The less contact he had with them, the better. When he finally walked through the front door, he was exhausted and ready to sleep.
Tabard was in the dining room, wiping the table with a rag. “Good morning, Mr. Mays,” she said.
“Good morning,” replied Mazorca. He headed straight for the stairs.
“You will find a letter in your room,” said Tabard. “It arrived yesterday. I slipped it under your door.”
“Thank you,” called Mazorca without pausing as he made his way up to the second floor.
In truth, he was not at all thankful. He immediately regretted giving his address to Grenier. She was the only person who would have known it. He did not want to be contacted by anyone-even her. Then again, perhaps she had something important to tell him. Maybe she had learned an important detail about Lincoln’s security or his whereabouts.
He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and looked at the floor. There was no letter. He shut the door and scanned the entire room. He saw nothing and wondered whether Tabard had slid the envelope under the door with such force that it had coasted to the opposite wall. He looked under his bed, behind his trunk, and below the window. The search turned up nothing. The letter simply was not in the room.
A troubling thought gripped him. What if Tabard had put it under the wrong door? What if one of the other boarders had opened it?
Mazorca examined the room again. Still no letter. Something was definitely amiss. He thought about the strand of hair he had plucked from his head and positioned in the trunk. He raised the lid of the trunk slowly, not wanting a sudden motion to blow the hair from its place. Peering inside, his clothes appeared to be where he had left them. But the hair was gone.
Mazorca marched down the stairs and into the dining room, where Tabard was arranging a new centerpiece for the table.
“Mrs. Tabard, what did you say as I walked up the steps a few minutes ago?”
A look of concern crossed her face. “I said that I had slipped a letter under your door yesterday. Is there a problem?”
“I don’t know. Are you certain that you slipped it under my door and not somebody else’s?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“There’s no letter in my room.”
“Oh dear,” said Tabard. She pulled out a chair and sat down. The news clearly troubled her. “It came in the morning,” she said, trying to recall details. “You hadn’t been gone for very long-just a few minutes, actually. I even looked out the doorway to see if you were in sight. I didn’t think you would be, and you weren’t, but that’s how close the arrival of the letter followed your departure. When I didn’t see you, I went straight upstairs and put it under your door.”
Mazorca said nothing. A worried look appeared on Tabard’s face. “I am absolutely certain of this,” she said. “I recall it distinctly. I did not make a mistake.”
Either she was telling the truth, or she was an adept liar, thought Mazorca. His instincts told him to believe her. So did the missing piece of hair.
“What can you tell me about the envelope?” he asked.
“How big was it? What did it say on the outside? Tell me everything you remember.”
Tabard did her best, but there was not much to report: it was a small envelope, off-white in color. It was thin and probably contained only a page or two inside, though Tabard could not say for sure because she had not opened it. She didn’t recall any writing on the outside except his name and the address. Mazorca asked her several more questions but failed to learn additional details.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mays,” said Tabard. “It sounds like a very important letter. I’ll be sure to ask the other guests whether they saw it.”
Mazorca thought about this for a moment. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said as he turned toward the stairs. “There must be some other explanation. I’m going to search the room again.”
He had no intention of doing that. He knew the letter was not there. And that meant he had a very serious problem on his hands.
The officers hushed when Springfield announced that he had recognized the man in the photograph. “I’ve seen this man in the flesh,” he said. “The mangled ear-I am certain of it.” He looked squarely at Rook. “Mazorca is Mr. Mays, the man we investigated yesterday at the boardinghouse.”
“If he is our assassin, we can stop him right now,” said Rook, looking directly at Scott. “Just give the order, sir.”
The general took a deep breath. “Let me make sure I have this straight,” he said slowly. “A slave woman has given us a photo that is said to contain the image of a man who wants to murder the president. The president himself has identified the man in the photo as a person who met with him recently, almost certainly under false pretenses. And now Sergeant Springfield says that he has seen this man and that the two of you know where he may be found.”