The Drowned Man Page 17

  As darkness eased through the western sky, displacing the retreating light of day, she imagined Washington big and bright ahead of her, though she failed to see any landmarks. She knew that she had entered Civil War country. It was a mark of her joy at finally being in America that she resolved to read a history or two of the devastating war. She experienced a fleeting thrill: she would like to become an American.

  Unknown to Alice, the armoury she had remarked on in Springfield had been the centre of rifle and small-arms production for the Union through much of the conflict. Now, the boyhood home of John Wilkes Booth lay just a few miles off to her left. She was entering territory that a million soldiers had traversed on their way to battle. She remained unaware of these facts but did feel the presence of the battlefields around her. She understood that she was circled by ghosts.

  The towns on the Chesapeake peninsula bore names like Prince Frederick and Scotland. The Brits and the Yanks had always been great globetrotters, naming their local towns after exotic foreign locations, even when the label made little sense. Her atlas showed Utica, Rome, Batavia, Syracuse, and Ithaca, and that was just in New York State.

  She passed through Dunkirk and Bristol and Lothian, silent, bucolic towns. The final leg of her marathon, made in darkness on mostly empty roads, took her along the main street of Chesapeake Beach. Cheap hotels and seafood restaurants lined the route. Newer hotels had been erected right at the harbour’s edge; coming closer, she understood that these were in fact residences, probably condominiums, although she didn’t quite grasp the North American condo concept. She hoped to arrive at Lembridge’s place well after sundown, in order to lessen the risk of being seen on the roads near his house.

  Exhausted, she pulled into a broad, asphalted area by a seaside walkway that itself belonged to a new hotel. She parked and walked to the edge of the sea along a wood-slatted path. She looked out on the Intercoastal Waterway, although the far side wasn’t visible from the deck, even with her hyperacute vision. On her right, a narrow dock probed out into the bay. She impulsively decided to walk out to the end, to the last tethered sailboat. As soon as she started, something extraordinary happened. Alice had always feared water; there was little of it in the state of Bihar except during the monsoon floods, but then it was a living, killing force. She had never been on a boat. When Jack saved Rose in Titanic, she had cried, as much from fear and nausea as joy. And, of course, there was her uncle’s garage. Now, she padded along the slender quay and felt the sea calming around her, somehow granting her dominion over the water, over the slow tide that was arriving to her call. She looked up and imagined she hovered above the water, not like in the Bible story, but as a flying, ruling sea bird, not a petrel nor a heron, but Vishnu in one of her shape-shifting tricks. She reached the end of the dock, touched the last boat for luck, and turned back, ready for the next phase of her life.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lembridge’s house stood on an upward slope off a dirt road a few miles in from the harbour, a chalet in what Alice imagined to be a Swiss style. A light beckoned in a big front room behind floor-to-ceiling windows. The house was isolated from the main road. Her first thought — a sign of her stress — was that she could kill Lembridge, if necessary, without anyone hearing from down by the entrance to the driveway.

  She was sure, from his voice and her experience with men, that Lembridge would be alone.

  The reliable Ford made little noise as she slid up the path onto the parking pad, the crunching of the tires blending with the background crickets. Still, Lembridge must have noticed, for his silhouette darkened the big window and she felt him looking down at her. She turned off the motor. The letters were in folders in a bag in the boot of the Ford and she retrieved them. She took her time, thinking that keeping him waiting gave her an edge. She was operating on instinct.

  He waited on the top deck as she climbed the freshly painted stairs. Lounge chairs were lined up along the platform and the glowing central room inside looked inviting. Without speaking, he ushered her into the big room. A Labrador retriever lounged by the unused hearth and the professor had positioned candles, as yet unlit, across the mantelpiece. It was a cliché seduction scene.

  “Miss Cameron,” he said, and reached to take the folder with the letters. She let him.

  He was between forty and forty-five, she estimated, a crucial time when a man tries to mould his image for mature middle age and often gets told by his ageing body that his ideal may be unsustainable. But he was doing pretty well at it. His jaw was set nicely and his brow remained unwrinkled. He razor-cut his hair and he was still lean; a jogger. The moustache should go — it made him look artificially older and close to avuncular — but he was at ease in his T-shirt and linen slacks, and he moved with the savoir faire of a naturally graceful man in his own home.

  She had wrapped her pashmina scarf around herself before leaving the car. She hadn’t worn it since Montreal. She did so now in order to give him something to hang up, and to demonstrate that she had kept her ethnic links, unashamedly. She may not have matched the image of an embassy functionary but she knew that she looked good, exotic. Her form was trim, compelling men to fantasize about unwrapping her. Her skin was flawless, except for the pair of small marks under each breast.

  Alice found that she was most alluring to men when she was initially reticent, forcing them to come on to her, and she played it that way now. She kept silent in order to make him speak first.

  “I am sorry to drag you all the way down here,” he said. “Come in, relax.”

  She became business-like. “Professor, I don’t claim to know much about the two documents, or the Civil War generally, but we are told that you are the man who can help us. Could you look at them now?”

  This was repetitive of their phone conversation but he pretended not to notice and showed no surprise or urgency. She opened the cardboard folders in which the letters were preserved under translucent glassine covers. Food smells wafted from the open kitchen at the far end of the big room. He had prepared appetizers. He handed her a flute of white wine and took the material to the dining room table, placing the pages under the glare of the wrought-iron chandelier. The ensnarement proceeded.

  “Well, first of all, these are extraordinary, it’s obvious,” he said almost immediately, real interest entering his voice. “They are undoubtedly from the period.” He continued to read. “Besides, who would fake pieces of obscure history like this?”

  In her brief exposure to Americans in England, India, and Pakistan, Alice had noticed their tendency to disparage anything that did not bear directly upon the United States, and the documents were perhaps more sacred to Canada’s history than America’s. She continued to wonder about the professor: would he manufacture excuses, attempting to minimize their historical import and their commercial value? She resolved to observe him closely when the question of market price came up.

  But if his integrity as a historian was battling with the obscurity of the subject matter, his professionalism won out. He waved his head back and forth in appreciation.

  “Extraordinary.”

  She smiled and tried to appear collected. It was time to make a move, to redirect his perspective onto the question of forgery. She had seen many faked religious scrolls on sale in the Patna bazaar when her father took her there as a child and she knew scepticism was a wise policy. She came to the table and leaned over the single page. “What will it take to authenticate them, Professor?”

  Jasmine scent from the pashmina floated around her sleek hair. For the moment, he was too entranced by the documents to be diverted. Quickly retrieving an old-fashioned magnifying glass, he examined the Booth letter. It took him five minutes.

  He stood back from the light.

  “It’s real. It’s a shame you don’t have the third piece. Consul Hilfgott told me it’s from the head of British forces in Canada to Commissioner Thompson, and it references the Booth let
ter.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Alice remembered bits of the content from Johnny, and from her haphazard glances at the originals. She couldn’t admit any of that to Lembridge. She changed tack again. “How much would a single letter be worth in the current market?”

  Perhaps she was too eager, or mercenary, in her tone, for he gave her a wry look. “Gee, I don’t know, Miss Cameron. But doesn’t Mrs. Hilfgott want them for their heritage value? To complete the record, she said?”

  Hilfgott’s still a bitch, Alice wanted to say. But Miss Cameron said, “I’m just intrigued. I don’t know what she wants. I remain a loyal servant of Her Majesty.”

  Alice unbuttoned the top of her blouse and retreated to an overstuffed divan closer to the cold fireplace. The dog hadn’t moved since her arrival, but now it raised its head and watched her, perhaps sensing that she hated dogs. She pretended to lose interest in the letters. She sprawled back onto the divan in a Dietrich pose from Shanghai Express and scanned the room with a bored look to signal she wanted him to pick up the pace. He might consider her quixotic and shallow, it didn’t matter to her. Keep him off balance until he revealed his estimate of the letters’ value; that was her main purpose.

  She saw no downside to flirting. There was always a chance that she wouldn’t do him; she told herself that she still had that option. She could walk away.

  Her wine glass was empty. Six ounces of wine had almost knocked her out and her mind wandered as he still refused to move away from the table. To flatter him she shot him looks that were appreciative of his decorating taste — she bet that he would take credit for his wife’s decisions — although the carved wooden ducks hanging in flying formation from the peak of the cathedral ceiling and the rough miniatures on the mantel of fishermen, complete with rods with strings attached, repelled her. The Sword had given her a taste for European Modern. She went and poured herself more wine. She wanted to leave but knew that she was locked in to her fate for the night. It wouldn’t be so bad; the chalet at least provided a hiding place from the police.

  “I’m right!” he said, turning to her. He walked over to the divan, took the white wine bottle from her and hoisted it like a boy with a trophy. “They are valuable. They add to the historical record. Your Madam Hilfgott was spot on. They’re important to the history of all three countries. Aren’t I the ecumenical one.”

  Not really, she thought. Don’t condescend to me, Professor, with expressions like “spot on.” Impatience began to overwhelm her. She hoped for a tough-minded partner for the next stage of her plan but if he didn’t get to the money question soon, she would leave and take her chances — with Greenwell, maybe.

  He continued. “The Booth letter shows that he had a broader view of the benefits that could flow from attacking the Union presidency itself. Scholars believe Booth only focused on his little kidnapping plot. New research has connected him to the Signal Corps, the spy network run by the Confederacy. This letter indicates he was capable of embracing innovative strategies and working with the Confederate commissioners in Canada.”

  I’m bored fucking stiff, Alice thought. She borrowed the wine bottle. He would get there at his own pace, she knew, although they might arrive at sex and the money answer at the same moment.

  Lembridge prattled on boyishly. “The second letter is important, too. It shows that Thompson could have met Booth. That’s a breakthrough. Until now, it was believed they never interacted in Montreal.”

  That was enough for Alice. She went over to the mantel and lit a wooden match. Lembridge fell silent as she fired the wicks of the seven squat candles. (She considered setting fire to the dog.) When she started back to her seat, the professor stood up and stopped her and lightly kissed her. She held him away with her flat palm.

  Keep him off beam, that was the ticket. “Not so fast, Professor. Can you put a value on the Booth item? You said you would.”

  “Can I ask you a question first?”

  “I would rather you put a price on the letters.”

  They scribed a slow dance around one another in the centre of the big room. She broke off and walked to the window, and then circled around to the divan. He backed away and began to pace parallel to the big window. He made to speak — always the lecturer — but she jumped in to preempt him and maintain control.

  “You want to know my interest in these rare documents. Am I right?” said Alice.

  He smiled and stopped pacing. “I want to know if you are really from the D.C. embassy,” he parried.

  She turned off the swag lamp that hung in the centre of the panelled room below the squadron of ducks and then did the same with the chandelier over the dining room table, leaving only the candles for light. There was a goatskin rug directly in front of the hearth; unfortunately, the dog lay on it. Didn’t that curtain of fur ever move? They would have to do it on the divan.

  Alice then positioned herself centrally in the big room, creating an on-stage effect, and the expectation of a performance. She stayed motionless for a long minute and looked him in the eye, fixing him in place against the giant window. She concealed that she found all this ludicrous. He was handsome enough, in a self-absorbed way, but Alice hadn’t fallen in love in years and it wouldn’t be this man — the professor with a wife somewhere out there in the night. She glanced at the fireplace; one of the candles seemed to her at risk of tumbling onto the dog. That would get rid of the cur, she thought. She undid all the buttons of the blouse. She slipped out of her slacks and socks. Another girl might have paused and struck a pose in her lingerie but Alice swiftly took off the last items and kicked them away. Then she did pose, turning so that the candle shadows caught her curves and perfect, odalisque proportions.

  When to ask again about the money?

  Her movements added up to a carefully constructed test, one she had made work before with men. How he reacted would tell her a lot about her prospective new partner in crime. If he hesitated, he would break the mood and prove himself unreliable. If he tried to imitate her blithe strip act, self-mockery would set in and he would reveal himself as too adolescent, too soft to pull off the scam she had in mind.

  But Lembridge went for the experienced-older-man act. He slowly disrobed and beckoned her to him, so that they ended up body-to-body in front of the window. He was backlit by the sidelong glow of the postern lamp down by the driveway entrance. She gave him credit: the voyeurism of it electrified the mood, making his skilled gropings exciting.

  Alice liked sex, even if she was usually selling her act while doing it. This night she was weary and, now in his arms, remembered that she had slept no more than three hours at a stretch over the past three days. But the professor knew what to do and she was grateful that he was the one to figure out how to shoo the dog from the rug. He picked up Alice in his arms and nudged the retriever away with his foot. It dutifully got up and trotted off to a bedroom almost as if, it occurred to Alice, he had been in this situation before.

  The sex lasted no more than half an hour and the professor was rough. They rolled off the scratchy goat rug several times and at one point resumed screwing under the pergola at the back of the house. But Lembridge was no rougher than some cricketers and one footballer she could have mentioned, and she ended up surprisingly content and sleepy in front of the stone fireplace, the man lying parallel to her.

  But money was a better aphrodisiac. Dollar signs wafted into her reverie. She got up and went to the kitchen for a Perrier, leaving the light off. He called from the main room and asked if she wanted some cold wine. She stage-whispered, “No,” to keep the hushed afterglow in place, and walked silently, still naked, back into the main room. She tossed back the rest of the water, making sure that some spilled down her breasts and caught the candle shine. She came and sat next to him but he got up and retrieved a woven caftan for her, another for himself. They looked like hippies. She was lost in the robe but did her best to appear debauched. />
  Some men went to sleep afterwards but Lembridge was the kind who had to talk — to continue to show off. He anticipated her next question.

  “So, you want me to estimate the value of the documents. On the market, that is.”

  “Tell me more about them first. Why are they valuable to someone?” she said, stroking his cheek.

  “These letters will send a shock wave through the community of Civil War buffs. No one knew they existed. But it’s the collectors we should concern ourselves with. On the open market, the competition will be between the private collectors and the National Archives here in Washington. By my estimate, the money value is in the Booth signature, flavoured by the fact that it references, obliquely but clearly, the Lincoln assassination. But for the Archives all three letters are important historical artifacts, and they’ll bid high to get them. You know, the most famous rare documents in the Booth story are the missing pages from his diary, which he kept while on the run after killing Lincoln. The rumour is that the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, later tore out the pages because they incriminated top members of the administration in the plot to kill the president. Well, if the collectors can’t have the diary, this will be the next-best sensation.”

  “Does this mean the Canadian archives people will want to buy the letters, too? For ‘historical’ reasons?”

  He smiled again at her. She knew then that he would try for a second round of sex.

  “For sure,” the professor continued, academia trumping libido for the moment. “And that presents us with a problem. Who owns the letters — and I include the third one, wherever it is — and can that ownership be traced through legitimate buyers? Does the Booth family have a claim? We Yanks are a litigious bunch. There are competing international interests. Hilfgott bought the letters but that doesn’t mean she’s the legit owner.”

  His ramble was really an invitation for her to fill in the blanks. They were at a turning point. The unasked question hung in the air up there with the hovering ducks.