The Pinkerton Files Five-Book Bundle Read Online Free Page A

geometric shape. Again, this came out of nowhere and was mirrored on both sides of the mechanism.
    After another pause, gears flashed in three dimensions. Twin patterns came into contact with damage caused by the iron plate. Switches hit that area from both sides.
    The narrow space left by the plate acted as a conduit. Geometric forms bent into fluid waves of clicking switches. They twisted into currents and passed through the gap.
    I could no longer see discreet points of origin where bursts were formed. All the switches roiled in unison. After watching for a half hour, I attached the mechanism to a music box. I didn’t think it would play a tune. I just wondered what it might sound like.
    It was awful. The cacophony broke my spell. I made up my mind to pull the leads, disconnect the vial and open some case files.
    Without warning, the noise stopped. The switchbox whirled in silence then each individual note was struck in sequence. Notes were paired together and then matched with others to create new combinations. It was not musical but it was structured.
    I closed my eyes. Blocks of notes were repeated at intervals. These were interrupted by shorter tones like values entered under headings on a list. The longer I listened, the more it sounded like data sets such as the ones I fed into the punch card machine in New York.
    This was madness, of course. A machine couldn’t remember.
    I pulled the leads. The only non-insane thing to do was discard the whole mess.
    Instead, I removed the manual crank from a ledger counter and attached the switchbox. Ledger paper spun. The switchbox printed my Northern Central results.
    I ignored the impossibility of what was happening and sifted through the numbers. Here was the pattern I suspected all along.
    Northern Central was as prone to robbery as any other rail company. We knew that from the start. What set them apart was the fact that so much money stolen from their line could not be recovered by police or our Agency.
    It took me getting arrested in New York, and discovering this switchbox on the train, but I had evidence now. Heists worth tens of thousands had taken place on Northern Central shipments. Itineraries for those trains failed to be logged in the manifest until a quarterly audit. The robberies always took place south of Union territory.
    Someone at Northern Central was sending money to the South. I could prove it.
    I could prove it to anyone who believed that this switchbox remembered my investigation in New York and printed the results on a ledger counter in my office. That is, I could prove it to no one.
    The switchbox finished printing. It recalled the entire manifest. I had fed all the records into the machine in New York but Kennedy’s men burst in before I could read the results. I now held the last entries in my hand.
    Days before I was arrested, another irregularity appeared in the manifest. A train was headed south on a long haul voyage but no money was being transported. The cargo was industrial equipment.
    *   *   *
    Ernie Stark
    February, 1861
    Saul led us to base camp. It took two days of hard hiking from Asheville. There were fifty men, give or take, in the clearing.
    I was wrong about the Golden Circle. They weren’t short on cash. Field cooks, all slaves, worked at fire pits. Tents were new; no rust on the poles. I didn’t hear any griping about rations. Men were well fed and in good health.
    Not the slaves.
    As we came in, other groups hiked out. I asked why.
    â€œThis close to the Union, slaves have a mind to run.” Saul said. “They know where we’re at and they’d finger us in a second. There’s no trusting the mongrels.”
    It was savage logic. Freedom was a blot on a black man’s character.
    â€œAlso, the boys spring any traps lawmen set in our path. Teams that don’t come back, we steer clear.”
    â€œCouldn’t those men trade on your whereabouts if they get picked