He was right. The confession came quickly. The railroad sacked the accountant immediately and claimed his wife’s jewelry to recover what they could of what he owed. They chose not to bring criminal charges against him for fear of publicity, and by the time they went looking for Hazel Everette, she and her gems were already gone.
Our failure to bring Hazel to justice—she was more guilty than Vincent in my eyes—weighed on me. I didn’t care for the picture of her in my mind’s eye—on to her next victim, silk stockings and jade earbobs to help her snare him, footloose and fancy free.
And I had a victim of my own. I reported to my final day of work with Mr. Corwin, and the brilliant smile he turned on me as I walked in the door squeezed like a fist around my heart. Lincoln entered the door right after me, officious and brusque, and Corwin’s smile melted away. I could barely look at him as Lincoln explained what had happened, the investigation and its results, and how they would need an official accounting from him of all gems purchased on both the Vincent and Bronson accounts.
When Lincoln gestured to me in passing as he said, “Our fine agent, Mrs. Warne,” the look on Mr. Corwin’s face turned from surprise to anger, then disgust. I wanted to fling myself into his arms and apologize, tell him everything he thought was between us truly was, even if I’d misrepresented myself, but I kept my composure instead. We’d barely known each other. We had no future—a Pinkerton agent in Chicago and a jewelry store owner in Springfield, a liar and an honest man, worlds apart. As much as I wanted to confess, I couldn’t, knowing it would do no one good.
And so I watched his face turn hard, crushing my heart with every passing moment, and finally, I just stopped watching.
Chapter Fourteen
The Actress
Allan Pinkerton and I knelt on the floor of Bellamy’s costume closet, the cuffs of empty sack coats dangling just above our heads. The agency’s new office on Clark Street was a great sign of our increased success, but it hummed with constant activity, and this room was the only place the boss could avoid the never-ending parade of visitors and operatives wanting his attention. We met here for confidential conversations. Only this time, I feared the conversation might be our last.
In the new closet, there was a full rack of gowns, shawls, and other ladies’ garments set aside for my use. Bellamy had allowed me the space only grudgingly but didn’t interfere with what I chose. A glance around the room told a story that had not changed; men’s things and men’s things and men’s things, and then mine.
By the winter of 1860, the Pinkerton Detective Agency had doubled in size, with two dozen operatives and several clerks on its books. We also had a full-time secretary in the front office and half a dozen men who provided what we called “security”: beefy, intimidating men who rarely spoke more than a word or two at a time. I never could tell them apart. They all looked like they might be our sturdy colleague Taylor’s cousins or brothers or Taylor himself.
As for me, I was more successful than ever and a victim of my own success. Requests for female operatives had soared. The world—or at least Chicago—had finally caught on to what Allan Pinkerton and I had known for ages. Women were better suited to certain investigations than men. As a result, there was far more work than I could handle. I was always working at least two cases at a time. Getting less and less sleep.
And now it seemed there would be consequences. The night before, I’d failed to show up for a planned rendezvous with some out-of-town visitors we’d been asked to keep an eye on. I’d rarely made such an obvious error, but the boss had noticed this one, and he’d been waiting for me at the top of the stairs, sleeves rolled up. He motioned me toward the small office set aside as the costume closet and closed the door behind us.
“Warne,” he said, “we must talk.”
“We are talking.”
“About your future.”
“I sincerely hope to have one,” I said. Bravado was my only possible response; fear had settled into my bones almost immediately. I had no idea what might be coming next. I braced myself for a tongue-lashing at best. I didn’t even want to think about what the worst might be.
He sat back on his heels and said, “Our company is growing. There are new cases, new needs. While I would like to assign you to all of them, I can’t.”
I considered apologizing for last night’s error; it certainly sounded like he might be gearing up to chastise me for it. Instead, I said, “You can assign me to most of them.”
“No. I have to pick and choose. We turn away cases every day. Hundreds of people ask our help every month. They’re willing to pay, and most of them have a good story. I can only say yes to a fraction.”
“So hire more operatives.”
“Which I do and always have.” Shifting, he propped his weight on a thick fist. “But I’ve decided that we need a new…direction in hiring.”
“Meaning?”
“I’d like you to hire and head up my bureau of female detectives. There’s a need for more women like you.”
I hadn’t felt such a rush of joy and adrenaline since the first day I’d walked into this office. “That’s a lovely thing to say, Boss.”
“I don’t say it to flatter you. It’s a fact.” He didn’t smile, and I knew he was telling the truth as he saw it. “Women can go places men can’t, and now I need a team of women to investigate those places.”
“You could hire them yourself.”
“Faith, woman, are you trying to talk yourself out of a promotion? That doesn’t sound like you.”
Finally, I grinned. “No, it doesn’t. So you want me to do the hiring, since I know what it takes to make a successful female operative in your employ.”
“That’s the ticket.”
“And when you say ‘head up’?”
“Hire them and train them. Supervise them. Dismiss them if necessary, though I warn you it’ll look like poor judgment on your part if you fire too many. Looks like you reverse your opinion too quickly. Hire the right ones, and you’ll never have to fire any. Hire the wrong ones, and God help you.”