find.” Again he toyed with the moustache. “Don’t give me that look, Miss Canner. We are down to the last few votes, and the trial hasn’t even started yet. I assume you heard that Nebraska became a state yesterday? So that’s where we are. Not a single piece of evidence has been placed forward, and there are thirty-one Senators ready to convict. They only need three more votes.”
“We have been … keeping track.”
“And do you wish Mr. Lincoln to be convicted?”
“Of course not!”
“Good. Because I understand that you want to be a lawyer. Well, you are going to have to learn that nothing is more important than protecting your clients.”
She nodded toward a book on the shelf. Jonathan had recommended it, but Abigail had found time to read only ten or twelve pages. “In the introduction to his treatise on ethics, Mr. Curran De Bruler says that a lawyer’s highest duty is not to his client but to the public whom the bar serves.”
“Then Mr. Curran De Bruler is a fool. If you decide that a lawyer’s highest duty isn’t to his clients, pretty soon you’ll lose your clients to somebody who decides it is.” Heading for the door, he eyed the mess. “As I said, I really think you should clean the place. Tell Dennard I’ll be by later.”
“Mr. Dennard is in California.”
“No, he’s here. He arrived in town yesterday. Didn’t anybody tell you?” A laugh, low and affectionate. “Well, don’t worry about it. Nobody tells anybody anything in this town. If they did, everybody would be in jail.”
He was gone.
Abigail looked around the room, then stopped and, as Sickles had suggested, began to clear the papers he had strewn about the floor. She studied them closely, trying not to wonder what was in the envelope he had taken from the drawer. Her admiration of Mr. Lincoln was too great for her to take seriously the possibility that he might be concealing evidence. And it occurred to her, as she fetched the broom to begin sweeping up the chips of wood thrown off by all the prying, that the entire episode was too obvious. Precisely because she did not know what might have been in the envelope, she did not know for sure that it was important. It was peculiar indeed that she should have happened on Dan Sickles at precisely the right moment to catch him in the act of jimmying the drawer. She wondered what he was really looking for, and why he was so interested in the safe. And she reminded herself that Lincoln’s own reputation as “Honest Abe” said nothing about the veracity of his friends.
CHAPTER 8
Widow
I
THAT SAME SATURDAY morning, Jonathan Hilliman called again upon Mr. McShane’s widow, Virginia—a most unfortunate name with which to be saddled during the conflict. The McShanes lived on K Street near Nineteenth, halfway between the President’s House and the outskirts of the city proper. Beyond their house were the canal, several belts of trees, and George Town, with its rows of shanties for the negroes and poor whites. Mrs. McShane was a tiny woman. Seated in the dark parlor of her home, draped in enough black crepe to cover a catafalque, she blended into the shadows. Even squinting Jonathan barely was able to pick her out. She sat very still, a bird seeking cover. Friends and relatives fluttered round her like avian bodyguards. He apologized for the inconvenience, but before he could finish his condolences, Virginia McShane launched upon a discourse. Her husband had been a good man, said Mrs. McShane; a man of kindness and decency. It was his decency that had drawn him to the law. He had studied for the ministry before deciding to read for the bar. He had served as a vestryman at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, just north of the Executive Mansion, where Mr. Lincoln occasionally attended services. Her husband would never have consorted with a fallen woman, Mrs. McShane insisted, and had never visited a bawdy house in his life.
Jonathan had not intended to discuss the murder
“We have been … keeping track.”
“And do you wish Mr. Lincoln to be convicted?”
“Of course not!”
“Good. Because I understand that you want to be a lawyer. Well, you are going to have to learn that nothing is more important than protecting your clients.”
She nodded toward a book on the shelf. Jonathan had recommended it, but Abigail had found time to read only ten or twelve pages. “In the introduction to his treatise on ethics, Mr. Curran De Bruler says that a lawyer’s highest duty is not to his client but to the public whom the bar serves.”
“Then Mr. Curran De Bruler is a fool. If you decide that a lawyer’s highest duty isn’t to his clients, pretty soon you’ll lose your clients to somebody who decides it is.” Heading for the door, he eyed the mess. “As I said, I really think you should clean the place. Tell Dennard I’ll be by later.”
“Mr. Dennard is in California.”
“No, he’s here. He arrived in town yesterday. Didn’t anybody tell you?” A laugh, low and affectionate. “Well, don’t worry about it. Nobody tells anybody anything in this town. If they did, everybody would be in jail.”
He was gone.
Abigail looked around the room, then stopped and, as Sickles had suggested, began to clear the papers he had strewn about the floor. She studied them closely, trying not to wonder what was in the envelope he had taken from the drawer. Her admiration of Mr. Lincoln was too great for her to take seriously the possibility that he might be concealing evidence. And it occurred to her, as she fetched the broom to begin sweeping up the chips of wood thrown off by all the prying, that the entire episode was too obvious. Precisely because she did not know what might have been in the envelope, she did not know for sure that it was important. It was peculiar indeed that she should have happened on Dan Sickles at precisely the right moment to catch him in the act of jimmying the drawer. She wondered what he was really looking for, and why he was so interested in the safe. And she reminded herself that Lincoln’s own reputation as “Honest Abe” said nothing about the veracity of his friends.
CHAPTER 8
Widow
I
THAT SAME SATURDAY morning, Jonathan Hilliman called again upon Mr. McShane’s widow, Virginia—a most unfortunate name with which to be saddled during the conflict. The McShanes lived on K Street near Nineteenth, halfway between the President’s House and the outskirts of the city proper. Beyond their house were the canal, several belts of trees, and George Town, with its rows of shanties for the negroes and poor whites. Mrs. McShane was a tiny woman. Seated in the dark parlor of her home, draped in enough black crepe to cover a catafalque, she blended into the shadows. Even squinting Jonathan barely was able to pick her out. She sat very still, a bird seeking cover. Friends and relatives fluttered round her like avian bodyguards. He apologized for the inconvenience, but before he could finish his condolences, Virginia McShane launched upon a discourse. Her husband had been a good man, said Mrs. McShane; a man of kindness and decency. It was his decency that had drawn him to the law. He had studied for the ministry before deciding to read for the bar. He had served as a vestryman at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, just north of the Executive Mansion, where Mr. Lincoln occasionally attended services. Her husband would never have consorted with a fallen woman, Mrs. McShane insisted, and had never visited a bawdy house in his life.
Jonathan had not intended to discuss the murder
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