The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln Read Online Free Page B

deliberations—our strategy, if you will, for the trial—has made its way into unfriendly hands.”
    Jonathan forgot all about Meg. “Do you mean—you mean the Radicals?”
    “Exactly. The Radical Republicans, and some of their associates, seem to have obtained notes of some of our confidential discussions.” The hollowed eyes were grave. “That is why Mr. Baker is here.”
    “And exactly how will Mr. Baker know whether Miss Canner is a spy?”
    “You didn’t recognize him, did you, Hilliman? That was Lafayette Baker, formerly General Lafayette Baker. The chief of the Union Intelligence Services and the federal police. The man who caught Booth, and saw to it that he did not survive for trial.” A curt nod. “He’ll get the truth out of her.”

CHAPTER 2

Caution
    I
    “ DO YOU THINK he’s going to resign? Mary Henry says he is, and she is not nearly so crazy as they say. And of course Horace Greeley says it would be the
best
and most
patriotic
thing for the country. His name would go down in history. Lincoln’s, not Greeley’s, thank God. But Lucretia Garfield says Mr. Lincoln is going to stand for re-election in 1868. A third term! You know the Garfields, don’t you, Mr. Hilliman? They are
fabulously
pro-Lincoln. And, as I am sure you are aware, Lucretia is given to the most
vivid
imaginings. But the
idea
! Even Father Washington only served
twice
! And Mr. Lincoln could be President for the rest of his life. Lucretia Garfield says—well, she asked me to keep her confidence, but telling
you
is not the same as telling the
world—
Lucretia says Mr. Lincoln has not been the same since Mrs. Lincoln passed. He has nothing to go home to. Why
not
live out his days here in the President’s House? That’s what Lucretia says. I think it is all so fabulously exciting, don’t you? That’s why I left Madrid. I can’t believe that my father left the Senate to be minister to Spain. I had to come back. Spain is hot and wet and boring, and Washington City is so fabulously exciting. And then running into you here, at the Mansion—well, it has to be destiny, don’t you think? Delivering the Minister’s letter on the very day of your visit. Leaving Mr. Lincoln’s office at the very hour of your arrival. Destiny. It can be nothing else. Still. Sometimes life’s griefs arrive for a reason. And life’s pleasures. Such pleasures as encountering each other here, today, in this hallway. Destiny, Mr. Hilliman. Just as itis destiny that you are staying with the Bannermans, on D Street, and I at the National Hotel. Only two blocks away. We should dine. Yes. We must set a date. But
before
Mr. Lincoln announces his intentions, don’t you think? Because after that, I would imagine, you shall be rather busy.”
    The author of this breathless rumoresque stepped away from him at last, for she had been inching closer with every whispered word. Lucy Lambert Hale, known as Bessie, possessed a trick of dropping her voice toward the end of a sentence, at least when talking to a man, forcing her listener to lean ever nearer her ample chest; or, if he did not lean toward her, she would often lean toward him. As she had been leaning toward Jonathan here in the dank, shadowy corridor outside the President’s office, where, as usual, McShane had ordered Jonathan to wait; sometimes he waited for hours without ever entering the sanctum. As soon as the door closed, Bessie’s plump body had sprung at him, seizing him in an unsought and unladylike hug right before the bemused eyes of Noah Brooks, the President’s private secretary, who sat at a creaky desk behind a hardwood barrier badly in need of varnish.
    “Surely you do not believe any of that nonsense,” said Jonathan when Bessie finally paused. He had learned to affect a certain sternness with her, in order to keep her at a distance. “Mr. Lincoln is a fine man. He will do what is best for the country.”
    Bessie was carrying a small fan. It was the middle of winter, but she had