Giving Up the Ghost (12 page)

“Does she still work there?”

“Oh, sure. And she was plenty heartbroken over the death of the old bird, too. Attended his funeral and cried and everything. The only person there other than railway employees. Helped go through his things.”

“When was the funeral?”

“A week ago Sunday, I think,” he said. “We buried him in the cemetery, just past the mill.”

“So, he was sick and clumsy and going blind,” I said. “It appears he wasn't well liked. Did anyone stand to gain anything from his death?”

“He didn't
have
anything, Professor,” he said. “You should have seen the inside of his shack. It was just a bunch of rubbish. We just packed everything up into crates and set it outside, to be hauled away. Even the old camelback that he gave Mackie wasn't worth much, as old as it was.”

“Did Hopkins have any enemies?” I asked.

“You mean, was he murdered?” Cecil asked. “Yeah, I heard the message on the wire, claiming that old Hapless was murdered. Don't know who was sending that message, but it sounds crazy to me. He was just a sad old man. Other than annoying people with his stories, he didn't hurt anybody.”

I closed the ledger and slipped it back into the satchel.

“Oh, one other thing,” I said. “Did you notice a strange, dark train pass after the trouble started?”

“Thought I dreamed it,” he said. “It was silent and just glided by. Couldn't have been real, I thought. Then I heard some fellows from the maintenance gang talking about it. They swore it was a ghost train, crewed by phantoms. Was it real?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks. You've been a help.”

“Can't imagine how,” Cecil said. “The lines are still tied in knots, the trains aren't running, and I'm sort of afraid of the dark. It's not just the lights in the sky, Professor, or the blue lightning on the lines; it's how angry the people are getting about all of this. They seem to blame the railroad.”

There was a knock at the window. It was Delaney.

“No relief coming anytime soon?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Since Hapless died, the railroad has been sending a man from Newton, until someone new can be hired for here,” Cecil said. “But with no trains running, I have no help. It's a one-man shop, all day—and all night.”

“I will speak to young Delaney here, and see what we can do about that,” I said. “In the meantime, use extra caution, and speak to no one about what we have discussed.”

I shook Cecil's hand. Then I slipped out, and he locked the door behind me.

“How are things at the infirmary?”

“They are resting comfortably enough now,” Delaney said. “They both had a violent fit of vomiting. But McCarty dosed them both with something from his bag, and they quieted.”

“Laudanum,” I said.

“Did you learn anything of interest here?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Follow me, please. First, we need to see if there is still some rubbish at a shack behind the post office. Then, we need to investigate an angel of mercy and her famous vinegar pie.”

“Didn't Grunvand recommend that?”

“Indeed,” I said. “But tell me, why wouldn't it be on the menu?”

“Well, that's obvious,” he said.

“Not to me,” I said. “I don't cook.”

“Vinegar pie is good in lean times, because the ingredients can be found in every kitchen, no matter how bare the larder—eggs, water, sugar, and of course vinegar,” Delaney said. “It's not something that a hungry traveler would either want or expect at a fine restaurant.”

From the depot, we walked into town along Fifth Street and then turned east on Main, to the center of town. The post office was in the middle of the block, on the west side of the street, between a general mercantile and a drugstore. We went behind the buildings and found, in the alley, a public well and a cabinet shop, from which there came the sound of wood shaving. Not far behind the cabinet shop was a shack that was about ten by fifteen feet, with one window and a tarpaper roof.

The structure was painted in the same shade of yellow the railways used, and I guessed Hopkins had scavenged drips and drabs of paint that had been left by work crews. Against the wall of the shack were three wooden boxes filled with the personal belongings of the luckless telegrapher, waiting for the rag and bone men.

“Not much of a home,” Delaney said.

“Any home is better than none,” I said.

“I would have thought he could have afforded better,” Delaney said. “We pay our telegraphers a competitive wage, even someone who is old and apparently going blind. Why, this place is a disgrace.”

“Is that the measure of a man?” I asked. “What kind of house he lives in? Strange, but I always thought it was what was on the inside that mattered most.”

I touched the door of the shack and it opened inward. The inside of the shack was papered with newspapers, and the floor was planked with lumber in different widths and hues. An iron bedstead with a bare spring mattress was beneath the window, and an ancient lamp hung from the ceiling. In the corner was a small stove, with just enough of a top for a rusted can in which to boil coffee. The stovepipe went straight up to the roof, where it disappeared through a hole sealed with tar.

“He must have scavenged all of this.”

“Yes, that lamp looks as if it is railway property,” Delaney said.

“This was all his,” I said. “He made it. It was what he wanted.”

“Yes, but what did he do with his money?”

Delaney knelt and started picking through one of the wooden crates. There were bundles of newspapers and books, now swollen and discolored because they had soaked up water. There was a tin can with a label that said PEACHES, but which now held an assortment of pencils. An old gallon coffee can was stuffed with a collection of pipes, with a defect in each, from split stems to burned and cracked bowls. Delaney picked up one of the pipes, a bent briar with a broken bowl.

“Hello there,” a man called as he stepped from the door of the cabinet shop. “What are you doing? That's private property.”

Delaney dropped the pipe back into the can.

“We thought it was trash,” he said.

“Beg your pardon,” I told the man, offering my hand as I walked toward him. “We didn't know you were the owner of the structure. We were looking into the effects of Mr. Hopkins, but we should have thought to ask first.”

The man, who was dressed in work clothes, was powdered with pine shavings. The little white chips even clung to his beard.

“I own the property,” he said, “but I don't own the shack. Nobody owns it, not now.”

“Was he your friend?” I asked.

“As much as anyone, I suppose.”

The man said his name was Davis and that Hopkins had rented the spot from him for fifty cents a month, and had refused any offers of help to build the modest structure.

“What are you going to do with the shack now?” Delaney asked.

“I suppose I should tear it down for firewood, but somehow I can't stand the thought,” Davis said. “I may come around to it, once I get used to the idea of Hopkins being dead and gone.”

Dead, I thought, but possibly not gone.

“Can you tell us anything about his personal habits?” I asked.

“He was friendly enough, and would sometimes pass the time with me and the boys in the evening. He was full of stories of his youth, and we never knew whether to believe him or not.”

“How so?” I asked.

“He talked about how he learned the telegraphy business as a boy, back in Kentucky where he was born,” he said. “He said one of his friends at the telegraph office was Andrew Carnegie, and that was pretty hard to choke down. If he'd been boyhood friends with Carnegie, do you think he would have ended up here? The other thing he claimed was that the inventor of the telegraph had personally taught him the code.”

“Samuel Morse?” I asked.

“He didn't say, but that's who we took him to mean. We just listened politely; because he enjoyed our company so much, we didn't want to offend him.”

“That was kind of you.”

“He was a nice man,” Davis said. “Sad, but nice. And gentle.”

“I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet him.”

“You say you're going through his things?” Davis asked. “You can't be family, because Hopkins said he had no family left.”

“No, we're not family,” I said. “But young Delaney here represents the railroad.”

“The girl from the hotel was already here, a couple of days ago,” Davis said. “Oh, what's her name? Maggie or something.”

“Molly?”

“Yes, the Irish girl with the dark hair and gray eyes,” Davis said. “She went through all of the boxes there, and took a look around inside, too. Just like you're doing.”

“Did she find anything?”

“Not that I saw,” Davis said. “But she didn't know where to look.”

“What do you mean?” Delaney asked.

“It was raining the morning she came, and I had the door to the shop open, like it is now, and I was sitting just inside watching,” he said. “She went through everything and she seemed to get real flustered about not finding what she was looking for. I had the feeling she was looking for money, so I was not inclined to give her any advice. You're not looking for money, are you?”

“No,” I said.

“Then what are you looking for?”

“Clues.”

I explained that I was a detective.

“We have fear that Hopkins was murdered,” I said. “Do you know anyone who would have wanted to harm him? This girl, perhaps?”

Davis shook his head.

“I just think she was looking through his things, on a kind of treasure hunt,” he said. “All those boxes out there, that is trash. It's what the railway fellows came and boxed up after the funeral. But I saved some of the stuff that seemed important to Hopkins.”

“Important, how?” I asked.

“The things he used every day,” Davis said. “He kept his correspondence neat, all bundled with string and placed in a cardboard box, for example. His best pipes, some cups, his plates and dishes. I stored them here in the shop, thinking that someday some distant relation might come asking about him.”

“Could we see these things?”

We stepped into the shop and Davis brought the box down from a shelf.

“The dishes haven't even been washed,” Delaney said.

“He was too sick near the end, before his heart gave out,” Davis said.

I removed the cardboard box.

“Have you opened this?”

“I know what's inside, but I didn't undo any of the packets,” he said. “It just didn't seem right.”

I opened the lid of the cardboard box and thumbed through the correspondence. One packet was from his fraternal lodge, the Order of Railroad Telegraphers. Another bundle was letters from a widowed sister back home in Kentucky, more than ten years of them, and they ended with a letter, dated in 1876, from a physician saying that the sister had died of pneumonia, age fifty-two—and enclosed was a bill for five dollars for services rendered. Another packet was correspondence from an “A.L.V.” in Morristown, New Jersey. The latest of these letters, which were all in a precise and competent hand, was January 1859. I attempted to read two of them, but they seemed full of technical jargon and abbreviations I didn't understand.

The last thing in the box was a sheaf of correspondence from the Christian Orphans and Widows Home in Louisville, Kentucky. It took me only a moment to realize what the monthly letters of thanks meant.

“He had no money,” I said. “He gave it all away.”

“Every penny?” Delaney asked.

“Nearly so, it would seem,” I said. “Twenty-five dollars a month to the widows and orphans of Louisville.”

“That would leave him very little to live on,” Delaney said.

“That explains the shack,” I said. “But he was feeding and clothing a dozen widows and orphans a month, according to this letter. I can't imagine that kind of sacrifice.”

Davis rubbed his jaw.

“It does put the rest of us to shame,” he said. “I'm glad now I made the coffin in which he was buried. Oh, it was from odds and ends here in the shop, but he probably would have wanted it that way. He doesn't even have a headstone up on the hill at Cottonwood Cemetery. There was no money for it.”

“I'm sure the Santa Fe will bear the cost of a simple stone,” I said.

Delaney was silent.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I'll bring it to the general manager's attention.”

“You will do more than that,” I said. “It is part of the railway's moral responsibility to its former employee, and you will personally see to it that the stone is erected. You will do that, won't you, young Delaney?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I knew you would,” I said.

I put the lid back on the cardboard box, and returned the box to the crate.

“Mr. Davis, you have been so kind,” I said. “But I have one more favor to ask. Would you mind awfully if we took the box with us? It will be returned when the investigation is over, if you wish.”

“Take it,” he said. “I have no use for it. If it remains here, it will just make me sad.”

I thanked him, and handed the crate to Delaney.

“May I ask your opinion?”

“Of course, Mr. Davis.”

“How long do you think I should wait until I tear down the shack?”

“You'll know when it's time.”

“But how?”

“You'll find your own cause to give your money and talent to,” I said. “It might not be a home for widows and orphans. It could be a hospital, or a public school, or a library. But you will find some civic need that you can fill, and when you do, you won't need the shack as a reminder of sad and kind Hopkins anymore, because the work will be reminder enough.”

As we were walking away, with Delaney carrying the crate with both hands, he asked me if I had a charity I gave to, or whether I just gave advice.

“Of course I have a cause,” I said.

“What is it, then?”

“If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret,” I said. “Now, you go on to the Clifton Hotel with those things, and I'll be along by suppertime.”

“A bit hungry, at last?”

“No,” I said. “But dining is an excellent excuse for meeting this mysterious Molly with the dark hair, and not arouse her suspicion.”