The Glendower Legacy (21 page)

“My God,” Chandler breathed. “You can feel the terror even now. The poor kid … I damn well bet he never got home.” He leaned back in the cushions of the couch.

“I’m almost scared to open the other envelope,” Polly said. “I almost don’t want to know …”

“Makes you wonder just what we’ve gotten into. My grandson dead, an old man dead, and now this boy at Valley Forge … if he’d survived the war, this thing wouldn’t have had to wait until now. He’d have done something with it—I think he was a brave lad …” Percy’s voice was choked with emotion: “I can see him going into that clearing with the guns blazing … Brave lad.”

It was nearly midnight as Chandler took the final envelope and bent the clasp back, opened it. He belled it open and let the poor, soiled remnant of the past flutter to the table. The paper was discolored and spotted, smelled of a dried-out, centuries-old mildew. The top right corner was ripped jaggedly but the message, in ink, was plainly visible. The body of the written material had been inscribed by one hand, the signature large and bold was the work of another.

Chandler read it aloud, slowly, and finished in a whisper. They searched each other’s faces in the silence, unable to speak. As the grandfather clock chimed midnight Chandler placed the antique scrap of paper on the table before them. He couldn’t think of a single word to say as he read it again to himself.

10 Jan. 1778

To acknowledge the following—

1.      Receipt of agreed upon payment from the representatives of the Crown in regard to services rendered these past six months, concluding with 1 January 1778.

2.      Change of code name, effective for the twelvemonth beginning with 1 January 1778, to the single word ‘GLENDOWER’.

Signed willingly by yr. hmbl. serv.

Geo. Washington

T
HE LAST CHIME OF MIDNIGHT
faded into the stillness while Chandler’s sense of heightened awareness tightened its grip on his psyche. He felt like Jimmy Stewart on the rooftop in
Vertigo,
unable to resist the fall, almost needing the fall to somehow square accounts. The fire crackled and spit and he heard the squeak as Percy Davis leaned back against the ancient wicker. But all he saw was the signature, seen countless times in the past, bold, undaunted:
Geo. Washington.
And the images flickered silently through his brain: withdrawing the electronic bug from the tobacco jar, his Houdon bust exploding as it was smashed to the floor, himself staring up into the omniscient eyes, the impassively heroic face of the great man on horseback in the Public Garden …

Polly spoke first.

“Can it be, Colin?” She had leaned back from the table and was sitting cross-legged, looking up at him. “I mean, historically. Is it possible?”

Chandler shook his head, tried to loosen the webs of shock: “Possible? God, I don’t know … anything
is possible,
I suppose, but this is less so than practically anything I’ve ever heard … it’s like saying Franklin Roosevelt was working for the Japanese in 1941, no it’s even more unlikely, if you can imagine that. It’s incredible in the true sense of the word, but—”

“But what?”

“But the United States was full of people wanting to make deals with the Japanese and Germans in 1941, and there were probably far more during the Revolution who sympathized with England … You heard my lecture the other day. Loyalty was an issue of great weight,
the
issue, but loyalty to whom … king or country? But, this,” he nodded at the paper, “this is just beyond anything …”

“Colin, you’ve got to remember that you’re a man who worships George Washington—no, don’t quibble, worship or whatever word you choose. It all means the same thing—”

“The fact is, he is the greatest figure in our history, not necessarily the most brilliant, nor the cleverest, maybe not even the bravest, but taken as a man the greatest—”

“Please, not a lecture,” she said, half smiling. “My question is, would another historian find it so difficult to accept? That Washington was covering himself just in case?”

“Sure, you could find historians who’d love it, snot-nosed kids dying to prove the theory that there are no great men. Look at the kick they got out of Washington’s expense account … Petty bastards are always willing to reduce anyone to their own level of pettiness—”

Polly looked heavenward: “Oh, why did it have to be Washington, God, why?” she muttered. “But you don’t buy it?”

“I don’t want to buy it,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t see how I can …” He was finding it difficult to talk and he would not really have expected anyone else to fully understand. But the foundations of his adult life were grounded in his philosophy of history: he had no wife, no children, no responsibilities to divert him from the occupations of his mind. And if his view of history was wrong—if it was a joke, a boring and rather ugly story about run-of-the-mill men who happened to get written and talked about—then what was the purpose of his own life?

And now, staring at the scrap of paper reaching across two hundred years to threaten the reason for his existence, he felt a deathly chill.

Betrayed, he felt betrayed, by his own convictions and by history itself.

Polly took his hand and held it in both of hers: was she sympathizing? Of course she was, but behind her concern, did he see her claiming a victory in their argument? Was history—as opposed to the day-to-day living through the events—only a false pattern applied to matters so complex as not to have a pattern? Was history a joke? Did Washington wear the cap and bells? God, it was worse than opening your eyes and seeing the threat of the gleaming pliers …

“Now, listen here,” Percy Davis said. He got slowly to his feet and hoisted another slab of coal onto the fire, prodded it into position. He took a large key from the mantelpiece and stood watching his two guests, turning it in his hand. “What’s the point in jumping in without checking the depth of the water first? Underhill and my grandson Bill wanted you to authenticate this doodad, now don’t that mean that they must have had their own doubts? Damn right, it does … The fact is, we don’t know that the man who signed this receipt really was old G.W. himself. Be honest now, we don’t, do we?”

“But the
sight
of him convinced William Davis. The piece of paper, the signature, that was his clincher—” Polly had shifted the paper on the table to see it better.

“And,” Percy said, “it was William D. himself who said he could no longer trust his eyes because of the lousy diet and weakness and disease all around him … So what he saw, I reckon, was a big, broad-beamed man who wrote G.W.’s name.”

“More than wrote it,” Chandler said numbly. “Forged it. It looks like Washington’s signature …”

“So what?” Percy retorted, taking the key and going to the tall clock. “Forgery ain’t nothin’ we invented in the twentieth century, y’know.” He began winding the mechanism. “How does the rest of it look, Professor? To the trained eye. Does it strike you as the real goods?”

“Sure, it looks okay. The paper and the writing
look
old, the style of the script itself looks authentic, the painting is the right age and I know damned well it’s a Winthrop Chandler, blah blah blah—sure, somebody wrote this a long time ago, a hell of a long time ago … But was it Washington? Or an imposter? Or an aide who had access to his papers and mastered his signature? Did the British rig the whole thing to use it as blackmail? Or was Washington actually trying to con the British?”

“Or was he working for the British?” Polly asked. “It’s a possibility we’ve got to consider—”

“Well, he made a damned bad job of it,” Percy said, “if he was trying to help the British. You may remember, he won the war—”

“He could have switched sides again,” Polly said, “once the army survived the winter at Valley Forge. It may have been that he was looking at the war and finding no way to win it, the country’s most influential men divided, the army dwindling … he may have bottomed out in seventy-seven and decided he’d better gradually extricate his army with honor, decent terms, and the least agony possible …”

“If only we could see them in that clearing,” Chandler mused, imagining that remarkable moment in the corner of his mind. “I’d recognize George, I’d know him in an instant …” He came back to them with a perplexed smile: “But it’s Washington, you see, that makes it all so farfetched. Anybody else. But not Washington himself …”

“But he was only a man, Colin,” Polly said.

“No, he was far more than that,” he said. “He was a
great
man.”

“Right, right, so I’ve heard,” she snapped back impatiently. “Oh, Colin, I’m sorry, I know what this means to you, but you’ve got to be ready … to accept the truth, if it manifestly is the truth—”

“Well, we’re a long way from that point now.”

“Excuse me, folks,” Percy said, “I don’t mean to interrupt the seminar, but history aside, how does this piece of paper fit in with the deaths of Bill and Underhill? How could it cause them?”

“Well, let’s see some possibilities,” Chandler said, having forgotten for the moment the concerns of the present. It was the same old story, the past was more real, more involving than the present. “It could be a collector who’s gone crazy, or a demented historian … it’s all nuts, utterly nuts …”

“A collector, or historian, who hires the goon squad to kill and maim?” The doubt in Polly’s voice was hard to ignore. “I can’t accept that one. We’re dealing with a lot of people, you know. The guys who came to your office, Fennerty and McGonigle, whoever they really are, and the guys who came to your house … they’re all after this piece of paper, this signature and the incrimination that goes with it—Colin, I really don’t think we’re dealing with an academic scandal—”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I suppose you’re right—I’m baffled …”

“Well, how could anybody use this? Murder aside, how could anyone use it regardless of how they got it? What do you do with a thing like this once you’ve got it?”

Percy spoke up: “Be a hell of a blot on the old copybook, don’t you think? Make us all look mighty silly if the Russians, say, or the Chinese, or you-name-it, got hold of this and let the world know … sort of a Bicentennial present—”

“A PR gesture,” Polly said, nodding, lower lip jutting, “an embarrassment.”

“Come on, that’s crazy.” Chandler stood up and stretched, hearing his joints crack and snap. “Foreign powers—how could they know it even existed?”

Polly swiveled on the floor, slowly, and pointed a finger deliberately up at Chandler towering over her.

“Turn the coin over,” she said. “Say our side knew of its existence, knew there was evidence to show that George Washington was a traitor to his country—what would our side want to do?”

“Keep it damned well hidden, down the well for good and all, eh?” Percy rubbed his dry hands together, rising to the peculiarity of the situation. “It could be our own johnnies chasing about the countryside, killing and doing bodily harm … my God, one thing recent history’s taught me, anything is possible,
anything.”

“Yes,” Polly murmured, almost purring, “and the business of foreign powers isn’t such a problem when you remember one thing.”

“What, what?” Chandler asked impatiently.

“Nat visited Bucharest recently,” Polly said. “As simple as that.”

They proceeded to turn over the possibilities for the better part of two hours, adding nothing of great value and reaching no conclusions worthy of the name. Chandler felt his eyes tearing up from tiredness. His neck ached and he was tired from the stiffness brought on by the events of his recent night at the hands of the goons and the evening damp. But it was his brain that was weariest of all, his brain and his spirit. He yawned finally and nearly fell off the couch. He was only barely aware that the conversation had stopped. Both Polly and Percy Davis were staring numbly into the fire.

“Well, I for one can’t take any more,” he said. “My mind’s gone all furry—can’t think of anything that makes sense. I’ve got to get some sleep. Maybe in the morning I’ll know what the hell to do …” He stood up and Polly stood up with him.

“Good idea,” Percy said. “Things bound to perk up in the morning light. I’ve got a room ready—twin beds suit you? All the other beds are stripped, I’m afraid.”

“Fine,” Polly said, covering her own yawn.

Alone, in the large room with the glass rattling in the window frame, they collapsed on the beds. Chandler was almost asleep when he heard her voice above him. He cranked an eyelid open and saw her shape in the night’s faint glow.

“What?” he asked. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” She leaned down and he felt her mouth brush his. “Just a good-night kiss.” He reached for her, pulled her down and kissed her hard, holding her body against him. But he hadn’t the energy to go on. “Go to sleep,” she whispered, getting up. She pulled a blanket up and covered him.

“This room smells like a cedar chest,” he muttered.

“About George Washington,” she said from the other bed. “I really am sorry … maybe it’s all a mistake, Colin.”

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe not.” He intended to say more but anything else seemed just beyond him. He thought he could smell her against him, or taste her mouth on his, but he wasn’t even sure about that.

He’d be damned if he’d tell them about Kennebunkport … but the questions kept coming, the same thing over and over again, and the pain …

It had been going on quite a long time and for most of that time Hugh Brennan had wished he could simply pass out. But somehow oblivion just kept eluding him: he continued aware of his surroundings, the smell of the Vicks from his hairy chest, the burning sensation in his stomach from the beer and Excedrin …

No. That was wrong, there was nothing left in his stomach, but it was hard to keep his mind on the track anymore. The cold sweats, the vomiting that almost choked him to death as it hit the towel stuffed in his mouth and cascaded back down his throat and into his lungs, the involuntary urination, the horror when he’d bit through the towel and into the soft meat of his cheek and the rubbery gristle of his tongue and tasted his mouth filling with blood.