bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: “Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line.” This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West.’ ”
Grey could bring little of his attention to bear on the subject of the speech. His mind insisted on the criminal matter of Cosgrove’s death and Sears’s mysterious note. He desperately longed for his rooms in Portland, curtains drawn, blocking out the calls and clatters, all the distractions of a world both doomed and eager to pursue an endless slate of minute and ultimately trivial obligations. Intense concentration was denied him, so his mind prowled back and forth, caged in by the continuous assault of nearby noises. Whispered comments mingled with the scraping of chairs on the floor as occupants shifted their weight. The hacking coughs of elderly men, or those old enough to have smoked for far too many years, split the air. Struggling to overcome his annoyance at the sundry noises from the audience, Grey tried instead to focus solely on the monotonous voice of the speaker.
“ ‘In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. The frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, tools, modes of travel, and thought. But he must accept the conditions which the frontier furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indianclearings and follows the Indian trails. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe but a new product that is American.’ ”
As the room settled into the methodical rhythms of the speech, Grey’s thoughts fell into place, like the needle of a compass settling on magnetic north after having been spun about. He returned to the first element of the inquiry: the death of Frank Cosgrove. The motive was unknowable at present, meaning that the dead man’s old partner, Chester Sears, could not be eliminated as a suspect. Grey doubted that possibility. Sears’s hasty flight from Portland could indicate guilt, but the man hadn’t fled immediately after the murder—only after Cosgrove’s corpse had been disinterred and burned. There was another party involved in the goings-on in Portland.
What to make of the Boston connection? The note with Horsford’s name and Cambridge address, along with the apparent code, was found in Sears’s room. He hadn’t written the note for his own benefit; notes meant to be seen by only the writer’s own eyes didn’t require the use of a code. Cosgrove wouldn’t have written it, since it was on Tremont House stationery and referenced people living near Boston. Cosgrove worked exclusively in the Portland area. Besides all that, there was no discernible reason for the criminal partnership of Cosgrove and Sears to be interested in scholarly information or items such as would be present in the late Professor Horsford’s study. The only obvious motive for trying to steal something from the professor’s study would belong to a commercial competitor of his. The idea seemed logical given the fortune that Horsford had made from his various chemical inventions. But then his daughter had indicated that his recent studies were not at all commercial in nature. They amounted to little more than hypothetical musings, receiving scant notice in academic
Grey could bring little of his attention to bear on the subject of the speech. His mind insisted on the criminal matter of Cosgrove’s death and Sears’s mysterious note. He desperately longed for his rooms in Portland, curtains drawn, blocking out the calls and clatters, all the distractions of a world both doomed and eager to pursue an endless slate of minute and ultimately trivial obligations. Intense concentration was denied him, so his mind prowled back and forth, caged in by the continuous assault of nearby noises. Whispered comments mingled with the scraping of chairs on the floor as occupants shifted their weight. The hacking coughs of elderly men, or those old enough to have smoked for far too many years, split the air. Struggling to overcome his annoyance at the sundry noises from the audience, Grey tried instead to focus solely on the monotonous voice of the speaker.
“ ‘In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. The frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, tools, modes of travel, and thought. But he must accept the conditions which the frontier furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indianclearings and follows the Indian trails. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe but a new product that is American.’ ”
As the room settled into the methodical rhythms of the speech, Grey’s thoughts fell into place, like the needle of a compass settling on magnetic north after having been spun about. He returned to the first element of the inquiry: the death of Frank Cosgrove. The motive was unknowable at present, meaning that the dead man’s old partner, Chester Sears, could not be eliminated as a suspect. Grey doubted that possibility. Sears’s hasty flight from Portland could indicate guilt, but the man hadn’t fled immediately after the murder—only after Cosgrove’s corpse had been disinterred and burned. There was another party involved in the goings-on in Portland.
What to make of the Boston connection? The note with Horsford’s name and Cambridge address, along with the apparent code, was found in Sears’s room. He hadn’t written the note for his own benefit; notes meant to be seen by only the writer’s own eyes didn’t require the use of a code. Cosgrove wouldn’t have written it, since it was on Tremont House stationery and referenced people living near Boston. Cosgrove worked exclusively in the Portland area. Besides all that, there was no discernible reason for the criminal partnership of Cosgrove and Sears to be interested in scholarly information or items such as would be present in the late Professor Horsford’s study. The only obvious motive for trying to steal something from the professor’s study would belong to a commercial competitor of his. The idea seemed logical given the fortune that Horsford had made from his various chemical inventions. But then his daughter had indicated that his recent studies were not at all commercial in nature. They amounted to little more than hypothetical musings, receiving scant notice in academic
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