The Seventh Bullet (17 page)

We too left, following Beveridge downstairs to the corridor in which Henry Cabot Lodge was awaiting us, for it was indeed he who had been addressing the small assemblage. From the distance, his aloof demeanour and measured speech had put me in mind of an Oxford don; on closer inspection, his piercing gaze and pointed beard reminded me more of Mephistopheles than Faust.

“I will admit to you, Mr. Holmes,” he said when my friend asked him about Phillips, “that he hurt me deeply. I could tolerate the barbs aimed at me, you understand, but those directed at my family I couldn’t abide.”

“Quite,” Holmes said.

“As a rule, I don’t speak ill of people—however common,” Lodge said, his eyelids fluttering. “Ask anyone, Mr. Holmes.”

“Like Senator Van den Acker?” Holmes queried.

Ignoring the question, Lodge said, “But the man who shot David Graham Phillips laid to rest a great source of personal irritation for me.”

I was impressed with Lodge’s candour.

“I understand,” Holmes said simply. Then, changing topics, he asked, “Did you perchance know the assassin’s family, Senator? I should imagine that the Goldsboroughs and the Lodges must frequent the same social circles.”

Lodge shook his head. “Excluding the perpetrator of this evil deed, Mr. Holmes, I have heard only the most well-deserved accolades bestowed upon the family. But, alas, no, I have never had the pleasure of meeting them.”

It might have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that following Holmes’s last question, Senator Lodge began to grow anxious. Perhaps he was merely warm when he mopped his brow with a linen handkerchief, but he did all too quickly fish out of his waistcoat pocket a great gold hunter, which he popped open to consult.

“I really must be going, I’m afraid,” he said. “At any moment I’m expecting the bell to announce a vote. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Phillips; but, you see, that is the risk one runs when one goes in for character assassination.”

“Are you condoning murder then, Senator?”

“Mr. Holmes!” Beveridge exploded. “You go too far!”

“Relax, Bev,” Lodge cautioned, laying a hand on Beveridge’s arm. To Holmes he said, “I merely mean that rankling the wrong people can end up being costly. Phillips should have stuck to his novels. Many critics thought them quite good. He should have stayed with real fiction instead of what he tried to pass off as Truth.” Lodge then clapped his hands. “Gentlemen,” he repeated, “I must run.” And with that, he walked briskly down the long corridor and beyond our view.

I was about to comment on Lodge’s implied threat when, with a
surreptitious shake of his head, Holmes gestured for me to remain silent. For his part, an annoyed Albert Beveridge ushered us out of the building.

“Please, Mr. Holmes,” he said once we reached the open air, “try not to insult these men. They are my friends, after all, and I am the one responsible for bringing you here.”

Holmes grunted a noncommittal reply.

It was by now late morning, and bright sunlight had cut its way through the thick clouds. From the steps of the Capitol, Beveridge pointed out the Mall just across the road; our journey was to the Botanic Gardens at its centre. Once within the luxuriant grounds, we followed a footpath amidst the swaying greens until we reached a large pool up from which rose an impressive exhibition of statuary.

“The celebrated Fountain of Light and Water, gentlemen,” Beveridge announced.

Holmes and I inspected the Classical and Renaissance forms. Painted to look like bronze, three cast-iron nereids more than ten feet tall supported with their gracefully up-stretched arms the large basin rimmed with light fittings that crowned the display. Rivulets of water cascaded from atop the affair down to the base where reptilian sea creatures were endlessly spitting out their own streams of water.

“Water and light,” Holmes mused prophetically, “one so prominent in this drama, the other so meagre.” Then he said to Beveridge, “The fountain was designed by Bartholdi, if I’m not mistaken—the creator of your Statue of Liberty.”

“Quite right, Mr. Holmes,” Beveridge responded. “Just because our meetings are of a serious nature doesn’t mean that our
surroundings have to be.” He then pointed in the direction of two darkly clad men who looked uncomfortable seated so stiffly in the bright sunshine on a stone bench but a few paces past the fountain.

Beveridge was obviously right about the benefits of being outdoors, however. Sounding much more lighthearted than he had with Lodge just moments earlier, he presented us to the strangers almost gaily. “Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson,” he said, “allow me to introduce you both to Senators Bailey and Stone from Texas and Missouri. I thought it best to isolate the Democrats!”

This last seemed a joke since, despite their apparent formality, the Democrats in question laughed right along with Beveridge. “Good thinkin’, Bev,” the senator identified as Bailey drawled, “especially when you pick so gorgeous a day to do the isolatin’. In fact, we were just talkin’ about the cherry trees Mrs. Taft helped plant here last Friday.”

“A gift from Japan,” Beveridge explained to us. “When they finally bloom, all Washington will look like a spring bouquet.”

Unfortunately, however, the promise of the season did not guarantee the success of our enquiries, for neither Bailey nor Stone had anything more to contribute to the story of Phillips’s demise than had Crane or Lodge earlier.

Our subsequent meeting with Republican Senator Shelby Cullom of Illinois was particularly frustrating since our rendezvous took place in the seclusion of the Spring Grotto just west of the Capitol. We had taken the few steps down into the red-brick, triangular hideaway that enclosed a much smaller and simpler fountain than Bartholdi’s, and with our voices protected by its reassuring gurgle and our conspicuousness shielded by the ferns and moss-clad stones beyond the grilled oval ports, we hoped for
some news of the Phillips case that warranted our isolation. But Cullom, like the two Republicans with whom we later lunched in the Senate dining room—Knute Nelson from Minnesota and Boies Penrose from Pennsylvania—had little to add beyond his irritation with Phillips. Indeed, the highlight of our meal in the Capitol was not any information relevant to Phillips that we gleaned from the senators but rather the delectable Senate Bean Soup that they had recommended as the starter for our repast.

“The secret is using Michigan pea beans,” Senator Nelson confided in hushed tones.

In point of fact, each of the seven senators we met that day (not to mention former Senator Buchanan on Friday last) offered little variation from what Senator Crane had initially told us in the morning—that he was relieved not to have to read Phillips’s lies any longer, but that no-one should rejoice at the death of any other human being, and that Van den Acker seemed to be the person with whom to converse on the theory of conspiracies.

“Tell me,” Holmes asked Beveridge after we had finished our interviews, “how do you account for the uniformity in the responses of so many of your colleagues?”

Beveridge considered for a moment, a crease furrowing his usually unruffled brow. Then he said, “I believe you’ll find, Mr. Holmes, that professional politicians learn to deal with certain topics in similar ways. Take higher taxes. It’s an issue that generally evokes a disagreeable reaction. What politician is going to say he’s
for
them? But, as we all know, it’s very easy to state a policy and then not support what you’ve said because of pragmatic considerations. The same is also true about death. No politician would ever want to be overheard applauding the demise of a
fellow countryman—especially that of a prominent or formidable opponent like Graham. Hence, the similar answers.”

“Death and taxes, eh, Senator?” Holmes mused. “I believe it was your statesman Benjamin Franklin who observed that no two events are more certain.”

“You know your American history, Mr. Holmes; I’ll give you that. But I’m not so sure you understand our politics. You seem to disagree with my explanation. Do you have another idea?”

“Only the obvious one,” Holmes countered. “That all these men have discussed in advance precisely what they were going to tell us.”

We left Senator Beveridge shaking his head in the corridor.

As Holmes and I were not planning to depart for New York until the next morning, we took rooms in the stately Hotel Washington just across the road from the Treasury and the White House. Fortunately, we saw nothing of President Taft during our stay because I am certain that if we had, Holmes would surely have asked him just how the chief executive himself was connected to the Great Phillips Murder Mystery!

Empty-handed—or so it seemed to me—we made the journey back to New York early the next day. Despite my own feelings of frustration, Holmes looked remarkably contented sunk in the softness of his green-velvet cushions adjacent to the door that gave access to the corridor, a carriage configuration typical of the American railway. His silence prompted my gaze at the luxuriant countryside skipping past. We had the compartment to ourselves, and both of us might have enjoyed the view afforded by a window seat, but Holmes seemed quite willing to forgo the pleasure. Indeed, as the train banked slowly at bends in the
roadway, he seemed especially pleased to stare vacantly in the opposite direction.

“How can you be so calm, Holmes?” I finally asked. “This trip has been a waste of time! We saw fewer than half of the senators described by Phillips because the rest are out of office, and the seven with whom we did speak answered in unison like a Greek chorus.”

Until my last remark, Holmes had been watching the empty passageway without expression. Smiling now, he turned to me. “One can only be disappointed, old fellow, when one has great expectations. I never thought that we would learn much from this little venture. But still it had to be done. Remember our enquiries so many years ago concerning the poisoned razor strop. As in that ingenious case, it has been necessary for me to sense firsthand the resentment and loathing so many of these men must have felt towards the victim.”

“But surely, Holmes, you can see that in this instance there are too many suspects. Counting all those politicians—not to mention the Freverts and even Beveridge—”

“Don’t forget Roosevelt,” he added with another grin.

“Really, Holmes!” I cried. “Can’t you be serious?”

“An open mind, Watson, can be the best conduit through a closed case. I suspect everyone until the culprit is known.”

“But so many people were so greatly troubled by Phillips’s behaviour at one time or another.”

“On the contrary, Watson,” Holmes said, “I think you’re overestimating the bleakness of this affair. Phillips charged the Senate in 1906; he was killed five years later. That is a long period during which to harbour a grudge. I would cautiously suggest that we might direct our attentions to someone who had a grievance
against Phillips only just prior to Phillips’s death, someone who only recently might have undergone an experience that could have triggered a murderous hatred of the writer.”

“Amazing, Holmes. You do bring order out of chaos.”

“You know my methods, Watson. In order to eliminate the impossible, you must first become acquainted with all the characters in the drama. That is why I am so surprised to hear you say that you think our journey to Washington was fruitless. Discovering the prevalence of so much animosity regardless of who was actually to blame is one of two reasons I feel we must be making progress towards understanding what really happened in Gramercy Park.”

“But how can we possibly survey so personal an investigation of so many people?”

“Tut, tut, Watson,” he chided. “The pages of any old local newspaper would suffice for a start. What sort of person did Phillips hurt the most with his journalistic attacks?”

“Why, members of the Senate.”

“Exactly. But what would wound a politician even more than poor notices in the press?”

“A political defeat?” I offered.

“Right again! And so we turn to the election closest to the date of Phillips’s murder to see if any of the targets of Phillips’s sharpened pen were voted out in November 1910, but a few short months before he was killed.”

“Beveridge!” I ejaculated. “I thought as much. I never have trusted him—or that chauffeur of his. The bearded man who was following me was always in the proximity of Rollins; maybe they were exchanging messages. And a sinister-looking man like
Rollins could very well fit the description of the ill-clad vagabond Goldsborough wrote about in his dairy.” It all made sense to me, everything except the motive. “But what I can’t understand is why politics would be more important to Beveridge than his lasting friendship with Phillips.”

“Why indeed, Watson,” Holmes said with a wry smile. “As usual, you have constructed an excellent argument, but I am afraid that you have neglected to note a key ingredient of the case against the assassin.”

“And what might that be?” I asked, hoping my clipped words conveyed my irritation at being corrected.

The train whistle hooted, and Holmes waited for it to cease before he answered.

“Are we not operating under the premise, old fellow, that the suspect in question was one of those attacked by Phillips in
The Treason of the Senate?”

“Exactly!” I said.

“Then, Watson, you forget: It is true that Beveridge was Phillips’s best friend, and it is also true that Beveridge was defeated in 1910, but Beveridge never became a victim of Phillips’s pen. He was not a target of the articles.”

Holmes was right, of course. I had forgotten.

“Then who
was
both a target and also recently defeated, Holmes?” I asked. “How many are there?”

“Just two, Watson, just two. And while I don’t say these two are our only suspects, I do suggest that they represent a beginning. One is Millard Pankhurst Buchanan, Democrat of New York, whose acquaintance you have already made.”

“A most melodramatic fellow he is,” I said. “And the other?”

“The other is Peter Van den Acker, the Republican from New Jersey about whom we have heard some tantalising remarks. Indeed, since I have learned from your most thorough notes that Senator Buchanan has gone abroad, I suggest that, before too much more time elapses, we pay a visit to former Senator Van den Acker. He lives, I have been told, in Morristown. It’s about twenty miles from the Hudson River.”