you to Mr. Adams in the most glowing terms. You looked after my father excellently. He still speaks of you with admiration.”
“And I admire him, Miss Van Trask. It was more than a pleasure to travel with so learned and pleasant a gentleman, even though it was the first time I ever carried a revolver on an assignment.”
“A revolver, yes, that brings me to the reason for my being here,” Roberta Van Trask said. “I’m sure what I have to tell you will go no further, but I am very worried about my father. I fear his position with the diplomatic service of the United States may be in danger.”
Septimus Dacers was surprised. He could hardly imagine that a man so manifestly devoted to his country’s well-being as Theodore Van Trask, who held a key position in the United States Embassy under Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, the son of the late President John Quincy Adams, could endanger his standing through any dereliction of duty. He had escorted Van Trask to the US Consulate in Liverpool on a most urgent mission, on which they carried vital documentsb and he had taken the measure of the man.
“Tell me more,” he pressed.
“It concerns a visitor my father had a few days ago,” said the girl. “A rather coarse man and an American—a Virginian. One cannot live in Washington as long as I did without recognising a Virginia accent, Virginia being just across the Potomac River. This man rather pushed his way into our home, demanding to see my father. When my father appeared, he was somewhat frightened and took him into his private room, closed the door and, pretty soon, there was the sound of angry arguing. My father, as you know, had suffered a spell of illness and I became alarmed, fearing he might get too excited, so I intruded, surprising them both.
“The man was standing close to my father quite menacingly and my sudden entry caused him to slip something into the pocket of his coat very hastily, but I saw what it was. It was a gun, a Derringer, the same kind of nasty little weapon John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. I think my father was being threatened with it at the moment I opened the door.”
“Do you know the name of your visitor?” Dacers inquired.
“He announced himself very roughly when he shoved past our butler at the street door. He said he was called Fairfax, but I think he was lying. It’s an old and honoured Virginia name and it just didn’t fit the man. He was obviously no Virginia aristocrat. After my intrusion, he left hurriedly, leaving my father looking very shaken.”
“And did your father tell you anything about the man and the reason for his visit?”
“No. And, ever since, he’s been preoccupied and appearing dreadfully worried. He hardly says a word to anyone. He’s clearly much disturbed, and I fear both for both his health and his position. Mr. Adams places the utmost trust in him, as does Mr. Henry Adams, the ambassador’s son and private secretary. I’m apprehensive that whatever is worrying him will eventually disturb my father’s valuable work at the Embassy.”
Septimus Dacers nodded. He remembered from escorting her father to Liverpool that U.S. Consul Thomas Dudley and his staff there treated Theodore Van Trask with grave respect. Britain was neutral in the American Civil War, and Dacers learned nothing of the exact reason for Van Trask’s mission to Liverpool. But that port, a major link with America, had played a significant part in the conflict. It was there that the famous Confederate raider Alabama, which wrought severe damage on United States’ merchant shipping, was built in secret. There, too, the sleek and speedy Shenandoah, originally built for the tea trade, was converted into a commerce raider for the Southern rebels. The representatives of Ambassador Adams were constantly trying to track down the elusive agents of the Southern states who organised these menaces to the commerce of the North.
Dacers felt Van Trask’s journey from London to the port on the Mersey must be connected to the Union’s bugbear of hostile shipbuilding. He remembered how he spotted suspicious-looking men lurking around the Liverpool consulate, obviously noting the comings and goings of persons. They frequently displayed signs of transatlantic origins: a hat with a broader brim than usual in England; a pair of American square-toed boots, or evidence of addiction to chewing tobacco, an American habit almost unknown in Britain. Doubtless, these were agents of the Southern Confederacy, keeping an eye on their enemy’s nerve centre in Britain. He tried to recall the appearance of some of them, but could not remember any resembling the one the girl spoke of.
“This man who was threatening your father, Miss Van Trask, what was he like? Did he have any distinguishing marks?” he asked. “I take it you’d know him again.”
“I certainly should. He was tall and powerfully built, with a heavy moustache rather blond in colour, and there was one very noticeable thing about him—he had a blue mark, what I think is called a powder burn, near his right eye.”
“You mean the kind of thing soldiers sometimes have, caused by the flashback of the breech of a musket when it’s aimed from the shoulder?”
“Yes, he looked as if he might have been a soldier at some time, but not an officer. He smelt of whisky and his manner was disgustingly uncouth. That’s why his name of Fairfax didn’t ring true. A genuine Fairfax would certainly be a Southern officer, and they pride themselves on their gentlemanly courtesy. I have to concede that point, though I was opposed to their cause in the late war, but this man had nothing of the Southern officer about him.”
Dacers smiled slightly. “Well observed, Miss Van Trask,” he praised. “London’s a big place and finding one man in it is no easy task, but at least this fellow has characteristics to mark him out in a crowd if you want me to find him and make him answer for his actions.”
The girl sighed. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Dacers, I’m in a dilemma and scarcely know what I want. My greatest desire is to see my father free of this worry, and never to be bothered by an armed ruffian barging in on him again. I keep remembering how, on the day Mr. Lincoln was shot, one of the conspirators charged into the sickroom of Mr. Seward, the Union’s Secretary of State, and tried to kill him in his bed. I fear something of that kind, because these men have something against him and it must be something political. At the same time, I do not want Mr. Adams, or his son, Mr. Henry Adams, or any of the Embassy staff, to get wind of the affair. Nor does my father, who is fearful of anyone connected to the Embassy getting to know.”
Roberta Van Trask sighed again, leaned forward and, after biting her lip as if in doubt about revealing something and dropping her tone yet lower, said: “You see, in the very strictest confidence, I fear my father is mixed up in something. Or, at least, unscrupulous people have entangled him in some intrigue. The Embassy must never know of it, nor the official British police. My father’s illness a couple of years ago weakened him considerably, and I worry that if this mysterious affair, whatever it is, creates a public scandal, it could even cause his death. I came to you because when I first met you, I formed the opinion that you are a truly honest and honourable man, and my father holds the same opinion. I feel you’re the one man in London who can help relieve my dreadful anxiety and, more importantly, my father’s troubles.”
“I could never see Mr. Van Trask involved in intrigue, and certainly not in anything damaging to the United States,” Dacers said.
She shook her head. “Mr. Dacers, you do not know Washington—especially the Washington of those years when civil war was raging. There were plots and counter-plots divided loyalties, spying, counter-spying, and every shade of treason. I remained there when my father was posted to England because I had a good position in the Treasury Department.
“My father became ill in 1863 so, since my mother is dead, I resigned and came here to help in nursing him, but my years in Washington gave me an insight into much double-dealing and trickery. Civil war
