31 Bond Street Part 10

She heard the doorbell ring, letting in a fresh wave of guests and with them, the voice of Ambrose Wicken. Rattled, she stayed at the top of the stairs, unable to face the guests. Her eyes were near to tears, and she took a deep breath to keep them away. Finally, when her composure returned, she smoothed her gown and forced herself to start down the staircase. As she circled the half landing and reached the full view of the crowd milling in the hall below, she took each step slowly. Ambrose Wicken looked up, smiling at her. She pulled herself upright and raised her head high. She put on her broadest smile and made the last descent into the array of twinkling gla.s.ses and t.i.ttering greetings.

"You look enchanting, ravis.h.i.+ng," whispered Wicken, taking her by the arm. Together they moved through the throng in the hall.

"How do you do?" Emma said, nodding to one guest after another. "I am so pleased that you have come." She and Wicken moved into the parlor, nodding and greeting as they went.

A broad woman sailed toward Emma, with feathers in her hair. "Mrs. Cunningham, I am Mrs. Newcastle. This is such a lovely house. But I don't see the host?"

"Dr. Burdell has been called to a medical emergency," said Emma. "To Bellevue. There has been a terrible accident and they are in need of surgeons, so he has offered his services."

"How n.o.ble. But he leaves you, my dear, to dazzle, alone, at this soiree?"

"It is my penance, I suppose, for being engaged to a man in the medical profession." In the wake of Mrs. Newcastle, Emma overheard a woman whispering to a lady companion: "I rue the poor dentist his fortune, now that she has set her eyes upon it."

"I was sure they were engaged-I have heard the woman has inherited a fortune from her deceased husband," answered her companion. "With so much of her own, she may find that toothaches quickly become rather tiresome." Mr. Wicken could overhear as well, and he ushered her away from the vicinity of the huddled women.

"Ambrose!" said Emma. "Do you see Augusta? Isn't she a beauty?" Augusta was sitting on a sofa on the opposite end of the room.

"The incarnation of it," drawled Wicken. The parlor was animated with conversing guests, and the servant girls pa.s.sed silver trays with flutes of Champagne. Along the sideboards, the pastries and confections were piled high.

"So Dr. Burdell is absent? I do find it difficult to fathom how, once again, he can leave such a beautiful woman unattended. He gave me the distinct understanding when I first met him that your betrothal was imminent."

"Yes." Emma sighed. She was proficient at disguising her feelings, but she suspected that he was keenly aware of her disappointment. "It will transpire in good time," she said with a brave effort.

Wicken took her arm and walked a couple of paces to a spot where there were fewer people, but the movement drew attentive glances, and she understood that he was making a gesture. "Please be a.s.sured," he whispered, "that I can be your loyal consort and friend. A woman alone often finds that she needs a man to give her protection. Please rely on me if you need advice or counsel."

"Why, thank you," she whispered back, relieved. "Southerners have such refined manners. I wish more Northerners would take an example, here in New York." Now she felt emboldened to speak frankly with him. "Augusta's father had wonderful manners. He was most generous by taking care of her in the form of a dowry."

"I am sure that a dowry is insignificant in light of her charms," Wicken replied.

"But it is not insignificant," Emma insisted. "It has been placed most recently in a purchase of land, that is most valuable." She was leaning into him, in a conspiratorial way.

"In land you say? Would that be the land Dr. Burdell owns on the New Jersey side of the bay? It is a matter he has spoken about. She has a small interest then?"

"Why yes, but it is not small, it is a sizable portion. I have purchased it with money that was left to her. It has become, I understand, the most desirable portion."

"Aha," he said pensively. "You are a business woman, as well as a beauty. And a shrewd mother always has her child's best interests at heart."

Emma smiled. She watched him now glance appreciatively in her daughter's direction. "I may need your a.s.sistance and advice in managing the sale of this land," she said.

"Why certainly, you can come to me, as soon as you'd like. I am staying at the Broadway Hotel."

"I shall do that, thank you," she said.

"But for now," he said, "it is high time that I permitted you to return to your guests and I paid respects to Miss Augusta." Wicken released her with a bow and wandered over to Augusta, who sat on a divan, her skirt fanned around her, her hands folded demurely on her lap. Emma watched him hover, mouthing his usual flatteries. As she moved toward a crowd of guests, she overheard him extend an invitation to Augusta to join him tomorrow, on a wintry ride, north of the city, in an open carriage, bundled in furs.

Augusta hesitated, and Emma thought she was about to shake her head no, when she caught her mother's eye. Emma gave her a stern look of warning.

"Yes," said Augusta, obediently, but without emotion, looking up at him. "I shall be most happy to join you for a ride."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

March 16, 1857 Clinton woke up and made his way to the kitchen. With the costs of running the new office, the servants had slowly been let go, and his household was making do on less and less. The cook only came on certain days, and the roof in the attic leaked. Most mornings, Elisabeth prepared him eggs in the skillet, but this morning he had risen earlier than usual. He left Elisabeth wrapped up in the four-poster bed. Maintaining the large house left her bone tired, so he let her sleep.

At this point in a case, the only thing on his mind was the trial. While adjusting a cuff link to his cuff, he would be mentally preparing a speech or a witness examination. At night, sponging himself in his bath, he would call out to Elisabeth, trying out various legal points, and she would reply with counterpoints, all while arranging his clothes in the bedroom. Because of the lack of servants, she hauled his buckets of bathwater upstairs to the water closet, heated on the giant kitchen stove. By the time he got home late at night, the water had cooled to room temperature, but now at least, the air had warmed, for it was nearly spring.

Clinton found some crumpets and bread in the pie safe, and a pot of jam with a fresh lid of wax. The milk cart came down the back alley every morning before dawn and left a bottle of milk in the tin box by the back door. He retrieved the fresh bottle, and as he reentered the pantry he saw two little shoes inside the door of the anteroom that held tools and old furniture. He peered inside, and in the dim light saw a nest of quilts and blankets spread across the floor. In the middle was a tousle of blond hair, and buried underneath, John was fast asleep.

His clothes were folded on the floor with a book and pencil on top. Clinton bent down and examined it. The flyleaf was written upon, in a boy's scrawl, practicing penmans.h.i.+p with lines from the Book of Matthew. Clinton studied the sleeping boy, dismayed. When the inquest ended, Elisabeth had approached him about letting the boy move into one of the bedrooms upstairs, but Clinton had vehemently objected. It was one thing to have him perform errands at the office and help Elisabeth at home. But taking the boy to live in their house was not a wise idea. "Elisabeth, this child can still be called as a witness. The prosecution can put him on the stand to establish the crime, the corpus delicti, which is the finding of the body."

"But, Henry, he is so young and he needs a good home. I am sure the prosecution won't use him," she protested.

"Harboring a witness is tampering. There could be an appearance of conflict, and even having him do errands is risky." Besides, Clinton lectured, John was not an orphan. He had a mother who lived in a garret downtown. She was arthritic and could no longer work or make money by sewing, so she relied on the coins earned by her son. John appeared to be itinerant, but he had a family and places to sleep.

But now, seeing the boy in the blankets, he realized that Elisabeth's desire to have him stay was about her own isolation. While Clinton was working long hours these last months, she was trapped in the house with few funds, no servants, and no children of her own. He should have known how attached she would become to him. He felt suddenly bereft by all the things he was failing to provide for her.

Clinton shook John awake. Startled, John sat upright, his hair sticking straight up on top of his head.

"You can't sleep here anymore, John," he said. The boy's eyes darted back and forth. "Do you have anywhere else to go?"

"I have my mum's house, but it was Mrs. Clinton's idea, not mine. I only sleep here now and then," he said.

"I know she arranged it for you, but it's not a good idea, and you should stay with your mother. But first, come into the kitchen and eat. I have some crumpets." The boy got dressed and sat at the table where Clinton set him up with a plate and a gla.s.s of milk. Like his wife, he couldn't help being charmed by the earnest manner with which John approached his food. As for the sleeping arrangements, he would straighten Elisabeth out later.

"John, tell me honestly, do you know where I can find Samuel?" he asked suddenly while the boy was filling up on the sweet bread. A look of concern pa.s.sed over John's face, and he swallowed slowly without answering. "You understand that Samuel was the last man to see Dr. Burdell alive? I just need to ask him some questions. Do you know where he might be?"

As Clinton suspected, he took awhile to answer. "I heard he got another job," John said.

"Where?"

"At a stable. At a big house, on Fifth Avenue near Tenth Street, but I couldn't say, exactly."

"Let's do some detective work. I need your help. Since you know the man by sight, I want you to come with me for a ride. We will go there and see if we can find him." Now John looked alarmed, as if he regretted his words. Clinton made sure he'd had his fill of breakfast and downed his tall gla.s.s of milk when he ushered him toward the door. Outside, he hailed a cab. "To Fifth Avenue, just above Tenth Street," he said. They piled in, and the cabbie pulled away at a clip. As they rounded Was.h.i.+ngton Square, the cl.u.s.ters of older townhouses gave way to larger, newer homes along Fifth Avenue. They pa.s.sed a row of new mansions, each one springing up as if in a spontaneous procession of growth. Instead of seeming more substantial, Clinton thought, these big homes seemed tentative: the bra.s.s was too s.h.i.+ny, the stoops too high, the lots absent of trees, with areas that were still under new construction. New York, a dreamscape of opportunity, often presented a flimsy mirage. Large houses rose around a sudden fortune then disappeared in half a decade, blown away like stage props.

Clinton quizzed John about the house where Samuel was employed. The boy peered out the window and seemed to have difficulty identifying which one. When they reached Twelfth Street they stopped before a large mansion and got out. A carriage-house door was open to the street. It smelled of sawdust and new leather; a row of carriages glowed with fresh lacquer. Clinton walked inside while John waited at the curb.

"I am looking for a groom named Samuel, who is said to work here," he inquired.

The man brus.h.i.+ng the horse's flank did not look up. "No one here by that name. You must be mistaken," he muttered. Clinton believed he saw a flicker of fear pa.s.s over the eyes of the stable hand, a Negro. Many were ex-slaves, fugitives seeking asylum in New York, and they knew better than to engage in a conversation that could send them back South, in shackles. Clinton asked another question, and after receiving a hostile silence, decided to retreat. Stepping back onto the street, he realized he was getting nowhere, and suddenly regretted being away from the office, with so much to do while the morning was slipping away. Clinton turned to the boy with a look of reproach.

"This isn't the place, John."

"I guess I was wrong. Perhaps I mixed that other fellow up with Samuel," he said, his voice edging upward. "I remember now! Samuel told me he lives past the reservoir, in the shantytowns. That is what I recollect, for sure!" A few miles to the north, Fifth Avenue turned into a dirt road that blended into a dusty horizon. It pa.s.sed the reservoir and the remote acres of fields where the city had built a fairgrounds and a Crystal Pavilion. Beyond that were the African shantytowns, constructed of barrel staves, where goats grazed on the granite bluffs. A Negro like Samuel could disappear, protected and hidden in the mazelike dwellings. It would not be easy to find him if he did not want to be found.

Clinton turned to look at the boy, who had the same gaunt look, no matter what the circ.u.mstance. "John?"

"Yes, sir?"

"We won't find Samuel in the shantytowns, will we?"

The boy looked startled.

"Why don't you tell me where this fellow really is?" said Clinton. John appeared to be struggling, and Clinton continued. "You are his friend, aren't you, and you know that he is in hiding. And now you are scared for him. You are scared that he will get into trouble-and maybe someone will blame this murder on him. And you don't want to be a part of that, do you?"

The boy looked up, with frightened eyes.

"Have you ever seen a hanging?" asked Clinton.

John nodded.

"Down at the Tombs? One of the public ones?"

Clinton waited. All boys had seen hangings, but not all enjoyed them as much as they pretended.

"Listen," continued Clinton. "I am not in the hanging business. In fact, my job is to keep people off the scaffolds. And that goes for a Negro named Samuel, just the same as for Mrs. Cunningham." Clinton bent down and pulled his gold watch from the fob on his vest. He cradled the watch in his hand, with its simple roman numbering and soft dents along the filigree, and showed it to John. "Do you see this?" he asked. John nodded obediently. "It was given to me by a man who was sentenced to hang for a murder he didn't commit. One night, he came upon a dead body, lying in an alley, and he reached down and took the dead man's coin purse. He didn't kill anyone, but he got caught with the purse. He went to jail, charged with murder. It wasn't until the morning he was to hang that I got a judge to set him free. He didn't have money to pay my fee, so he gave me his watch. I keep it here in my pocket, to remind myself that every man deserves a defense, even if he has done something terribly wrong in his life."

John finally spoke: "The District Attorney told me Samuel was in trouble, that he should fear for his life."

"The District Attorney?" asked Clinton.

"The first day, at the house, the Coroner asked me questions about how I found Dr. Burdell's body, and one of the deputies took me outside, back near the outhouse. The District Attorney and another man came, too. They said they wanted to find Samuel. When they asked me if he lived in the shantytowns, the deputy said they would go and burn him out."

"Who was the other man?" Clinton asked.

"He spoke like he was from the South. The man said I should tell them quick where Samuel lived, or I would be the next one to worry about my life."

Clinton, who had been crouched low, now stood up. So Hall had been searching for the missing witness from the beginning. And it confirmed that Hall had worked fast, with the aid of his p.a.w.n, Coroner Connery, to purposefully set Emma Cunningham up as the murder suspect. Her trial would be a spectacle, but not a certain conviction. If the city prosecutor had wanted a speedy conviction, Negroes and ex-slaves were a surer bet to pin a murder on. They were easier to hang, even easier if they were runaways, for few lawyers would take on their cause. If Oakey Hall wanted to resolve the murder quickly for his own political gain, he would have the fastest success by capturing and incriminating Samuel, since the coachman was the last person to see Dr. Burdell alive. But, it now occurred to Clinton that Hall and his minions were not trying to find Samuel, they wanted to silence him. There was something Samuel knew, and the District Attorney wanted it suppressed. They didn't want him to testify. They wanted him dead.

Clinton stepped back into the carriage and told the boy to get in with him. "Lead me to where Samuel is," Clinton ordered. "He won't be out of danger until we find him."

"There! There!" said the boy as the carriage rounded the south side of Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park. "That's where he prays. He helped me get food from the pastor once, when Dr. Burdell didn't give me my pay." An iron fence enclosed Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park, and the homes around it formed an elegant quadrangle, except for the southwest corner, where the dilapidated wooden houses of the Negro quarter still burrowed into crooked lanes. Across the square, this African neighborhood had grown up around an old Indian spring named Minetta Creek. Somewhere, beneath the cobbles and the paving stones, the creek still flowed under the city, buried underground.

Clinton stopped the cab. He dismounted the carriage, and the boy popped out behind him in a jump. They entered a wooden church that was badly in need of paint. The vestry was dim; there were pegs along the scuffed woodwork. A table held a collection cup, a stack of Bibles, and a cracked copy of the Book of Psalms. Footsteps resonated from within, moving toward them from the recess of the quiet nave. A Negro minister appeared, his clergyman's skirts rustling, his skin the dusky color of the shadows around the altar. He did not seem surprised to see them in the dead quiet of a weekday morning in his empty house of wors.h.i.+p.

"Sir." The pastor greeted Clinton without embellishment, simply stating the fact that both were gentlemen, equally.

Respect seemed to require that Clinton avoid the obsequiousness of a deep bow, so necessary among his legal peers. "I am Henry Clinton, a lawyer," he said. "I am here on an important matter."

"Those who come here, come to address important matters to the Lord," said the clergyman.

Clinton paused. "With all due respect, this is a matter concerning a member of your congregation. I am looking for a man-his name is Samuel. He is tall and strongly built and he works as a groom and a carriage driver. Do you know where I might find him?"

The Reverend's lips tensed slightly. He seemed to ponder the request, as if searching for a scriptural response. It was clear he was not at ease with the request. "Forgive me, Reverend," said Clinton, sensing the man's reluctance. "I have not introduced this boy. His name is John, and he worked as an errand boy at the same house as Samuel. It was through their friends.h.i.+p that you once aided this boy when he was hungry. Perhaps you remember?" The boy's serious expression elicited a sympathetic smile from the minister. Clinton eyed the man closely and saw a crease of worry cross the pastor's brow. He knows Samuel, thought Clinton, and Samuel has been here since the murder to seek his counsel.

"I cannot help you," the Reverend said simply.

Clinton pressed on, speaking gently. "Reverend, I am sure you have heard much about the murder that took place on Bond Street. Samuel was present on the night that his employer, Dr. Burdell, was killed, and as such, he is an important witness. If Samuel has the courage to come forward, he may help us solve the crime." Clinton knew instantly that he had erred by phrasing his request as a challenge.

"Mr. Clinton, I am sure you are a most venerable member of the bar, and no doubt justice is foremost in your mind," replied the minister in a modulated voice that had the depth and resonance of an organ pipe. "But I will have you know that Samuel is a man of courage-he has placed himself in the faith of G.o.d, which takes all the courage a man can summon. He is an honest man, and he needs no other guide."

"Please, sir, I intended no disrespect to yourself or to Samuel. I do not suspect him of any crime. Samuel might know the victim's whereabouts on the night of the murder, and lead us to the perpetrator." Clinton added meekly: "Perhaps you can convince him to speak with me?"

The Reverend's brow remained furrowed; Clinton saw that he had not penetrated the pastor's resistance. "I do not sacrifice my brethren," he said with a tone of rebuke. "People come here to wors.h.i.+p in this church, which is their haven. This is a sanctuary where my paris.h.i.+oners shall always be safe."

"If Samuel fears he may be wrongly accused, I a.s.sure you, I can offer him protection," countered Clinton quickly. "I will see that he is granted immunity in exchange for his testimony."

"You and your law cannot protect Samuel," said the pastor with sudden vehemence. "Times have changed-and much for the worse. As a legal man, you are, no doubt, aware of the Fugitive Slave Act? Within the first year after that law, there were more Negroes removed from the North than had been captured in the preceding sixty years. And there is the case of Dred Scott most recently decided by the highest court in this land. And yet, as a New York City lawyer, you still come to my church to tell me that you can offer protection to my paris.h.i.+oner?" The Reverend nearly spat the words "New York City lawyer," as if there were no more contemptible species on earth.

"Follow this way," said the minister. Clinton followed to an easel with a notice board that had bits of paper tagged to its surface. He realized with alarm that the snips were newspaper clips about slavery that were often sprinkled into the New York dailies like a sharp spicing of pepper. Courtesy required that Clinton lean forward to read them: We learn that a slave man was burned at Abbeville, in Alabama, by a mob of people numbering over four thousand. He was tied to a stake, around which was heaped a fat pine wood, so as to make a pile six feet in diameter and four feet high. Fire was then applied and the poor wretch was burned to ashes. The crime of which he was accused was murder.

The New York Times, JANUARY 31, 1857 WHIPPING A SLAVE TO DEATH IN SAVANNAH.

The Negro Stepney was a runaway. He was arrested on Wednesday morning and returned to Boylan Jones, who gave him some thirty lashes with a riding whip or a small cowhide. When the Negro was released, he fell to the ground, speechless and prostrate. The constable ordered him to rise, and afterwards dealt him several more blows with a wagon whip while he lay on the ground insensible. Jones then dragged him from the place into the house where he died on Thursday morning.

The New York Herald, FEBRUARY 16, 1857 "If Samuel is to be protected, it will be by G.o.d, not by the law," said the minister, his eyes hard with determination. Clinton knew that it was not just the South that was aflame; crimes against freedmen and ex-slaves were escalating at an alarming rate in New York City, including a practice whereby Negro citizens who had never been slaves were being kidnapped and sold South, to be turned bodily into gold.

With little to lose, Clinton decided to be straightforward: "There is a woman who is accused of murder, and perhaps she will hang for it, falsely. It is for that reason that I seek Samuel; his information may exonerate her."

"This woman may be fighting for her life," replied the minister, "but a man with black skin is no less worthy. I will not trade one for the other." In a sudden flash, Clinton suspected that others had been to the church before him, inquiring about Samuel.

"Have any men from the District Attorney's office come here to see you?" asked Clinton.

The minister did not give a direct reply. "Last night, perhaps you have heard, they burnt the shantytowns," he said. "They said it was to make way for the new Central Park." The minister's mouth tightened around his spa.r.s.e words.

"They burnt them?" asked John, alarmed.

"Is Samuel safe?" asked Clinton, earnestly.

"He is alive," replied the minister.

"Thank you, if that is all you can tell me, I shall be satisfied." Clinton knew that the preacher's logic was clear and irrefutable: from his perspective, giving away information on Samuel would be the equivalent of having him lynched. The law cut both ways. A man's liberty could easily be taken for granted and with a twist of the blade, could as easily be taken away.

Clinton was not accustomed to ending an encounter at a disadvantage. By way of concession, he turned toward the boy, and said, "John, now that we know your friend is in good hands, it is time for us to get back to business. We have a murder trial to prepare, and there are innumerable things to do." He offered the clergyman his name on a card. "Reverend, you may contact me, should your thoughts on the matter change."

"Proceed carefully, when you exploit the innocent," said the clergyman, with a cryptic warning. Clinton bowed, and retreated. As he exited the church, Clinton studied the back of John's head, with its delicate blond tufts, fine as down. He was now certain that both John and the minister had seen Samuel since the murder. He made a point to a.s.sign Snarky the job of keeping an eye out, for John was in contact with him, thought Clinton-he cares about this man; they have a bond.

Outside, the hansom cab waited at the curb. Clinton opened the carriage door, and the boy scurried in. They headed downtown toward the office on Spruce Street, where a mountain of papers awaited. A man had been killed and a woman who had an uncertain relations.h.i.+p to the dead man was accused of the crime. But tangled up in Emma Cunningham's case was an eleven-year-old houseboy and a Negro groom, both as fragile as loose pieces of straw, blown into the path of a murder that was reaching deep into the strata of the city.