The Lady of Bolton Hill (19 page)

Clyde was a good man to have covering his back. One would never have guessed the small, wiry body could contain such a fierce warrior, but that was what Dr. Clyde Endicott was.

Exhaustion was beginning to pull on the edges of Daniel’s consciousness, but he forced the feelings away. He’d spent hours last night at the Baltimore Police Department, laying out precisely what had occurred and offering a huge bonus to the department if they could locate Clara. Not that he intended to rely on the police to solve this crime. He and Clyde had ridden directly from the police department to his offices on Calvert Street. There he was met by the small army of guards he had hired this month to secure his railroad lines during the recent unrest.

“I want Alfred Forsythe’s house watched,” he told Micky O’Shea, the foreman of the crew. “Have at least six men covering the house. If anyone leaves, I want him tailed. I want men stationed at Forsthye’s offices and steel mills, as well. The men need to be armed and ready to take action. Anyone who is squeamish about firing shots at Forsythe’s henchmen can stay home. I am demanding cold, steel-eyed determination.”

“Done,” O’Shea said.

As soon as the men were deployed to strategic locations throughout the vicinity, Daniel began the toughest part of the evening—calling on the heads of all the labor unions in Baltimore’s tough lower south end. Eddie Maguire was captain of the local cannery union and lived on the same gritty block where Daniel had spent the first twenty years of his life. The scent of the wet bricks and coal dust brought back sharp memories. He understood the hardscrabble outlook of the men who lived and worked in this part of town where the sun rarely shined above the bleak tenements.

It took some coaxing to get Eddie Maguire to the front door, and Daniel talked quickly once the burly man stood before him. “There is a meeting at the stockyard beside Camden Station tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” he said. “The war between me and Alfred Forsythe just got a lot more personal. Send out the word that anyone who cares about moving the cause of labor forward should show up. I’ll make it worth your while to be there.”

As Daniel and Clyde moved from street to street, they used a list of names supplied by the Baltimore Police Department. A hefty bribe had yielded the names of all known union organizers, ranging from the steel workers, cigar rollers, cannery workers, and ship builders. And, of course, the railroad workers.

At two o’clock in the morning, Clyde asked if they should stop until daylight, but Daniel flatly rejected the notion. “The message will carry more urgency if it is delivered under cover of darkness and with little forewarning. Trust me, I know how this will be received.”

The sun had barely cleared the horizon when Daniel finished contacting all the names on the list. When he looked at Clyde’s haggard face and bloodshot eyes, he figured he probably looked at least as bad, but this was no time for resting. They had three hours before the meeting at the stockyards and more work to do. They mounted their horses and headed back toward Daniel’s office on Calvert Street.

“That last issue of
The Christian Crusade
—the one with Clara’s story in it—do you have any more copies?” Daniel asked.

Clyde straightened in his saddle. “Father always holds a few copies back. I think he also has a box for shipment overseas, but those have not been sent yet.”

“Where are they?”

“The printer delivers the entire run to his house. They are in the storage shed, all boxed up for shipping.”

“Get them,” Daniel said. “I don’t care if you have to beg, borrow, or steal a wagon to get them down to the Camden stockyard, but this little chat we have with the unions will go much better if we blanket the crowd with that rag your father publishes.”

Clyde needed no further prompting. He wheeled his horse around to head for his Bolton Hill home, and Daniel headed toward his bank on Charles Street. He’d greased a number of palms overnight, and this morning he would no doubt be offering more bribes to whoever could help him in turning this city inside out and upside down in his quest to shake Clara loose from wherever she was being held.

Shortly before ten o’clock in the morning Daniel arrived at the Camden Station stockyard and was relieved to see a healthy crowd had already gathered in the open space that was used as a holding area for cargo ready to be loaded onto the trains. Hundreds of hardened workers mingled with curious boys and other onlookers. Word about Daniel’s strange midnight communiqué had spread like a blaze through parched grasses in summer. As Daniel scanned the crowd he saw policemen lurking along the edges, and he gritted his teeth in annoyance. The sight of the uniformed men was likely to inflame the already suspicious crowd, but the damage of the police presence had already been done. He would just have to work that much harder to earn these men’s trust.

At the far end of the stockyard he saw Clyde navigating a wagon through the crowd of workers and stacks of freight containers. Daniel sprinted through the crowd, grabbed hold of the horse bridle, and helped move the wagon directly into the center of the crowd. When the wagon was positioned precisely where he needed it, Daniel sprang aboard and used a crowbar to pry the lid from the first crate of newspapers. A curious red-haired boy climbed up on the side of the wagon to watch. “My dad said you are Daniel Tremain, but I don’t believe it,” the boy said.

Daniel stared at the child. The boy was wearing the exact same type of bandanna tied around his neck as Daniel had once worn. All the boys working in the steel mills wore them to keep the sweat from their faces from staining the front of their shirt. “I’m Daniel Tremain,” he said, and the boy seemed to light up as though he had just confessed to being the president of the United States.

“I work at the Forsythe coal room in the steel mill. The men in the mill said it is the exact same room that you used to work in.”

“That’s right,” Daniel said. What an odd sensation, to look at this younger version of himself. Daniel reached inside his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill. He pressed it into the boy’s hand. “Start blanketing the crowd with these newspapers,” he told the boy. “When you finish, come back for more newspapers, and there will be another five in it for you.”

The boy had probably never seen such a fortune in his life, and within an instant the bill had been shoved deep into his pants pocket before he scooped up the newspapers and began handing them out to the crowd.

By ten o’clock the newspapers had been distributed and the workers were getting restless. Daniel stood in the center of the wagon, Clyde standing guard with a long-barreled shotgun resting on one shoulder. With his frontier garb and long braid of hair, Clyde looked more like a barbarian than a doctor, but Daniel was grateful for his presence. Daniel grabbed a railcar train horn and squeezed off a few blasts to signal that the meeting was about to begin. The throng of workers settled into an uneasy silence as they waited for Daniel to speak.

“I know these stockyards well,” he called out in a voice loud enough to echo off the brick factory walls. He pointed to the northeast corner of the stockyard. “I grew up two streets down from here, and lived under the same roofs, drank the same lousy well water, and worked for the same wages you work for.” At the mention of wages, a rumble rippled through the crowd, but Daniel didn’t stop.

“I’ve pulled myself up and out of here, and plenty of you think I’ve done so by stepping on your throats on my way up.” A smattering of applause sounded from the back of the crowd, but the men standing before him remained still, with arms folded across their chests and faces rampant with skepticism. “One of the people who thinks I have treated you unfairly wrote the cover story on the newspaper that is floating around amongst you.” There must have been close to a thousand people gathered in the yard now, and only a few hundred newspapers scattered among them. Still, even as he spoke, Daniel saw a number of the papers being passed hand-to-hand through the crowd.

“Clara Endicott wrote the story condemning the way Alfred Forsythe and I have been conducting our business, and the only reason she cared was because of the effect that it has on you and your children’s lives. Clara Endicott was driven out of England because she spent two years crawling through the underbelly of the coal-mining industry, trying to protect children from the abuses of the mine owners. She risked her safety; she risked her security on behalf of children whose names she did not know. She published stories in the London newspapers that brought the rage of mine owners down on her head.” A low murmur of approval began to roll through the crowd, and Daniel had to raise his voice to be heard.

“And now Clara has come back to the United States. Once again, she is working toward the betterment of the laboring classes, and she has taken up your cause—” Now the crowd was stamping their feet, rumbling with approval. Daniel had to struggle to be heard, his throat raw from calling out over the din of the crowd. “Clara Endicott has taken up your cause, but someone doesn’t want her to succeed, and as of last night, she has been taken from us and held without communication.”

The crowd fell silent, and Daniel could feel the heat of every gaze in the crowd focused directly on him. “Clara Endicott has only two known enemies in this city. Myself, and Alfred Forsythe. And I’m not the sort to make war on a good woman. I don’t know if Forsythe is behind this, or some other corporate titan who does not want to see Clara Endicott do to the corporations of this city what she tried to do to the mine owners in England. All I know is that someone in this town knows where Clara is and who took her. And, my friends”—Daniel leaned forward and strengthened his voice—“
I will pay well
for this information.” His vow was met with the stamping of feet and a few fists raised in the air.

Daniel held aloft a copy of the newspaper for all the masses to see. “Clara Endicott wrote this story for you, and now she is suffering for it. This is a woman who will fight to see that you earn a fair wage and your children have food in their stomachs every night.” Once again a roar of approval began moving through the crowd. As Daniel stared into the gritty, sweat-streaked faces of the hardened men before him, he knew they were his best chance of rescuing Clara, his generous, foolhardy Clara, whom he loved more than life itself. The pain in his throat swelled and threatened to choke off his words, but he needed to keep pushing through for Clara. “This woman is generous and valiant, and if we can save her from whatever thugs have her, this woman will turn every ounce of her glorious soul into making your world a better place. This woman is the best friend that labor has ever had, and any man who can bring me news as to where she can be found will never know a day of poverty again.”

The roar of the crowd was increasing, growing in volume and rhythm until it spilled over into a chant. “Clar-ra, Clar-ra, Clar-ra,” they chanted. Daniel met Clyde’s eyes, which were burning with confidence. If there was any union man in the city of Baltimore who knew where Clara could be found, they were on the way to discovering it.

C
lara had been feigning sleep for hours, even forcing herself to lay motionless when one of Bane’s men occasionally nudged her with the toe of a boot to test her awareness. Would they kill her once they realized she was awake? She had been listening for any clue of their intentions, but all she heard was Bane discussing navigation routes and tidal schedules. She could make no sense of the discussion, and that left her mind to wander. She wished Daniel were here. What she wouldn’t give to feel his arms around her and listen to the confident tones in his voice. Whenever she had been timid or afraid, he could always tease her out of it.

A lump formed in the back of her throat. She would probably never see Daniel again. Clara felt the terror begin in her spine and work its way up to her throat. Begging for mercy was useless with this boy, for he was utterly, entirely without a conscience. Her wrists were bound and she lay on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, she was still sluggish from the opium, and she was surrounded by henchmen who were at the command of an insane adolescent. She would never escape this place alive.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me
.

The words came unbidden to her mind. In this moment of inconceivable fear, the comfort of the passage reached out and soothed the worry that threatened to cripple her. Even in these darkest of hours, she knew that Jesus had not abandoned her. Her life was unfolding as God wished it to, and she must not yield to the soul-destroying effects of despair.

“Well, well. Sleeping Beauty has decided to rejoin us.”

Clara’s gaze darted to Bane, who was watching her through those crystal blue eyes. She struggled to push herself upright. Her newfound courage took a hit when she saw him approach her. How was it possible that she had once thought him fine looking? There was fierceness behind the boy’s icy blue eyes, a feral quality that sliced through the air and robbed her of composure. Bane hauled her upright and then squatted down beside her to look directly into her eyes. “I imagine you are thirsty,” he said, not unkindly.

Clara wouldn’t take a drink from this boy to save her life. Her tongue felt so thick she doubted she could speak, but when she managed to make it move, all she could say was, “I’m still alive.”

“For the time being.” Bane’s arm locked like a manacle about her arm and he pulled her to her feet. The ache in her head pounded and Clara felt herself sway, but Bane propelled her toward the table and chairs in the corner of the warehouse. She flinched at the sight of the small knife in Bane’s hands, but all he did was slice through the rope that bound her wrists. She sank into the chair, feeling the pressure in her head increase and slide about inside her skull. What a hideous sensation, but worst of all was the plaguing, unrelenting thirst. Bane pushed a pitcher of water toward her, and Clara had to clasp the seat of her chair to stop herself from grabbing it between both hands and swallowing from the pitcher until it was empty. She clutched at the chair until her knuckles went white, and Bane seemed amused by her plight.

“It’s plain water; I haven’t drugged it.”

Droplets of condensation rolled along the outside of the pewter pitcher, looking like the coolest, purest water she had ever seen. “I would drink the sweat from a horse before I drank anything you served me.”

A smile turned up one corner of Bane’s mouth, giving him an almost unearthly beauty. “While I would find it vastly amusing to watch, there’s no horse readily available. I suggest you drink the water.”

How cool the water would feel sliding down her throat. The cotton in her mouth seemed to swell, and Clara longed for nothing so much as the clean, tempting water just inches away from her.

She forced her gaze away from the water, and her eye was snagged by the form of a man curled atop a cot in the corner. His face was turned toward the wall, and unlike Bane’s other henchmen, this one was dressed in fine clothes. A dark suit and well-made leather shoes.

“Mr. Manzetti?” she asked as she rose from her chair. The man remained motionless, and her horrified gaze slipped to Bane. “Is he dead?”

Bane shrugged. “I certainly hope not, as that would upset my plans. He is enjoying the same narcotic you recently had.”

When she listened carefully, she could hear the slow wheezing of Manzetti’s breath as he slumbered. It was hard to remain standing on her weakened legs, and she sank back into the chair.

“What are you planning on doing with us?”

“I am planning on killing you, but Manzetti has other uses.” He tossed off the comment as though it were of no more consequence than what he intended to eat for dinner. Clara pushed back the wave of fear that threatened to clog the working of her brain. She had to reach behind that cool facade Bane wore so effortlessly and figure out who this boy was if she was to have the tiniest prayer of survival. What did he value? What had corrupted him at so young an age?

Bane poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher and drank deeply. The ache of thirst intensified as she watched him swallow, and he caught the look of pure longing on her face when he set his glass down. “It isn’t drugged,” he said. “That is the last thing I would do to myself in the middle of a business deal.”

She believed him, and she simply could not function until she quenched this agonizing thirst. Before he had finished his sentence she picked up the pitcher and swallowed directly from it. She sucked the life-saving water down her throat, savoring every second as it cleared the cotton from her throat. She tipped the pitcher higher, and water rolled down the front of her dress, but it didn’t matter.

When she had drained the pitcher she set it down, feeling well enough to do battle. Find out who Bane was, his weaknesses, his needs. “Do you use narcotics at other times?” she asked.

“Never. I’ve seen what opium does to the mind and have no interest in turning into a drooling idiot.”

“And yet you sell it,” she said. She had seen him that first night weighing and measuring the drug like a shopkeeper sacking up bags of flour.

“I have no qualms about making money from other people’s weaknesses. All over the world there are people willing to pay solid gold for the opportunity to snort, drink, smoke, or inject this poison directly into their veins. If I don’t ship it to them, someone else will.”

A curious turn of phrase. Someone who merely sold it on the street would not speak of “shipping” a drug. Baltimore had a harbor that reached the entire East Coast and Europe, as well. If Bane was using the Baltimore harbor to ship drugs, he was far more powerful than she originally thought.

Her gaze strayed to Mr. Manzetti, still lying unconscious on the cot. Bane may be a drug runner, but somehow she did not believe her kidnapping related to drugs. What was it that Bane had punished Richards for doing? Something about leaving a gun at the scene of a fire. And she knew of only one fire in recent days.

“Did you set the fire at Daniel Tremain’s house?” she asked.

“Personally? No.”

“But you were responsible for it.” She remembered Daniel’s face as he watched his home become engulfed by the flames. It was infuriating that Daniel had suffered at the whim of this terrible adolescent sitting before her. “What on earth did you gain from such a thing?”

“I was handsomely compensated.”

“By whom?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Was it the same person who paid you to kidnap me?” she asked.

His casual shrug was maddening. “Once again, you are asking questions I have no interest in answering. It’s getting a little tiresome. Now it is my turn to ask you a question.” There was something disturbing about those fine-looking eyes as he scrutinized her. Bane had the face and voice of an angel, but his eyes had a piercing intelligence that made it hard to look at him. “Tell me this,” he said silkily. “Why does Tremain have such animosity toward Alfred Forsythe? If the reports I have read are true, he has lost a fortune over the memory of a dead man. That seems a little off-balance, don’t you think?”

“Daniel loved his father very much. Why would such a thing surprise you?”

Bane shrugged his shoulders. “It just does. I’ve never met anyone who would walk away from that much money over a principle.” Bane’s eyes narrowed in thought. “In a way, I suppose it is admirable.”

Yet he sounded sad when he spoke the words, and for the first time, Clara saw a trace of softening in the cold marble of his face. She was still terrified of him, but her best chance of survival was in trying to understand him. “Has there been no one you have ever cared about?” she asked. “No one you would sacrifice for?”

A bitter smile twisted Bane’s mouth. “The man who is the closest thing I will ever have to a father is not the sort who would inspire lifelong devotion. If someone ever bumped him off, the only thing I’d feel would be relief.”

Clara’s eyes widened in shock. “You would not mind if your own father was killed?”

Bane shook his head. “My
real
father died long ago. I’m speaking about the man who raised me. He is a dragon, and I won’t shed any tears if he comes to a bad end.”

When Bane spoke, the revulsion in his voice was plain, but it masked the tiniest trace of anxiety. “Is he the person who is paying you to do all this wickedness?” she asked. “Burn down Daniel’s house and kidnap me?”

Several moments passed before he answered her. “You know, Clara, the less you understand about what is going on, the greater the likelihood you’ll be allowed to survive this ordeal.”

“I thought I was as good as dead anyway.”

“I did, too.” Bane almost looked surprised when he made the statement, but the look quickly vanished to be replaced by his usual nonchalance.

“What has changed your mind?”

He narrowed his eyes as he considered her. “I like you,” he said abruptly. “You stood up to Richards when he burst into your carriage. I didn’t expect that.” Clara remembered the incident when Richards had first shoved that imposing revolver in her face.
“Pointing a gun at women and children. Your mother must be so proud,”
she had said.

“Is that what it takes to impress you?”

“The only thing that impresses me is someone who has the guts to face down their fears. Maybe you qualify.”

“And if I do? Is it going to save my life?”

Bane shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Keep him talking, just keep him talking,
Clara thought. “Do you believe in God?” she asked suddenly.

The question seemed to take him aback, but he gave it consideration. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. The way he stared at her was unnerving, but she didn’t let herself look away. Finally he answered. “Maybe.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I believe in the devil. And if the devil exists, I suppose God probably does, too.”

Looking into those vacant eyes and hearing him proclaim his belief in the devil was chilling, but she could not afford to stop. “What makes you believe there is a devil?”

That peculiar smile spread across Bane’s face, revealing a row of white, perfect teeth. “Because I’ve met him, Clara.” He gave a snort of laughter at her shocked expression. “You may think I’m wicked, but trust me, the man I work for reeks of brimstone.”

It was too hard to continue looking at Bane. Fear was crawling up her spine again, and her stomach was filling with acid. She looked at the crates stacked up around them, forming a makeshift room in the corner of the huge warehouse. Contained in these crates was the recipe for unmitigated human misery. How many thousands of people would imbibe this poison after it left the warehouse? Marriages would crumble, children would suffer as their parents slipped into a narcotic haze, fortunes would be lost. All so that Alex Banebridge and his crew could line their pockets.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to look back at Bane. “Why do you always let the devil win?”

Bane stared at her blankly. “What?” he finally asked.

“Why do you let the devil run your life? Wouldn’t it be more of a challenge to stand up to him? You said the only thing you are impressed by is someone who has the guts to triumph over their fears. And yet you succumb to the devil rather than stand up to him.”

“Don’t tell me you are one of those dreadful missionaries. And I was starting to like you, too.”

She leaned forward across the table. Getting this close to Bane made her flesh crawl, but it had to be done. “Just how brave are you? Brave enough to walk away from all this”—she gestured to the crates—“and give yourself over to God? It wouldn’t be easy, Bane.”

“Is it true you are the daughter of some fancy minister?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose that accounts for this prissy God-talk.” Bane took out the knife and began twirling the point into the wood surface of the table. The gleam of the metal sent flashes of light about the warehouse. “Some people just aren’t cut out for walking with the angels. I’ve been destined for the darker side of life since I was six years old and was hand-delivered to the wickedest man in the world.”