The noise from the street was tremendous. It started as a roar, far off, and resolved itself over time into a chorus of cheers and shouts. As I listened, the voices came clearer.
And once I knew that it was the day I’d waited for—the day the war ended—then I knew it was time to follow through on the promise I’d made myself. Allan Pinkerton had offered me a position as an operative when the war was over, and this was the day I’d answer him.
I couldn’t get to the office fast enough. I wasn’t even sure he would be there or whether DeForest or Hattie or anyone else I knew might be, and in a sense, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to walk through the door again. I just wanted to be among my fellow Pinkertons.
I could barely contain my excitement, and as I walked, it indeed spilled out of me, and the smile on my face became a laugh and then a yelp of joy. I must have seemed insane, but on this day of all days, I knew I would be pardoned; the whole city, the whole nation, was going mad with happiness, and we had good reason. The streets were crowded for the early hour, and it took much longer than it usually would to make my way to Clark Street, but I wasn’t impatient. I was in motion. All was as it should be.
No one else was at the office yet. It was barely past six in the morning. They would all come later, I told myself, but for the moment, I was alone. The door stood silent, closed, but behind it lay promise.
Did I still have a key? I wasn’t even sure, and it didn’t matter. I desperately wanted to be back in that office, behind a desk, ready to throw myself into the work. I imagined the rows of shoulders of empty clothing in the costume closet, Pinkerton’s immense, scarred wooden desk, the drawers full of manila folders, each keeping a case file’s secrets. I had been away too long. Now I was early, but it was right and good. At last, I was just where I needed to be.
I tried to turn the knob. It resisted. The packet of lock picks was in my hand in a flash, and I worked quickly. I couldn’t hear the click of the tumblers, of course, but I felt them yield.
“Someone has to be first,” I told myself ruefully, joyfully, and swung open the door.
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Author’s Note
Kate Warne is one of the most interesting people we know almost nothing about.
The real Kate Warne was indeed hired as the first female Pinkerton agent by Allan Pinkerton himself in 1856 after answering a newspaper ad. That much we know. Multiple accounts say she was a widow, though what happened to her husband is not clear, nor why she took the extremely drastic step of applying for a position that had never previously been open to women.
We’re not even sure what Kate looked like. There are no confirmed images of her. Two photographs show up from time to time in discussions of her. Both date from the Civil War, and both show a person in men’s clothing, so it’s far from certain that we’re really looking at Kate. For such an influential and pioneering figure, precious little information about her has been recorded and passed down. Then again, as a detective and a spy, that’s probably how she liked it.
Everywhere we turn for information on Kate’s life, there are blank spaces. Many of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency’s files are kept in the Library of Congress, and those files are extensive; however, much of the material previous to 1871 was wiped out by the Great Chicago Fire, and Kate’s entire career was previous to 1871. From those files, we know a few things: We know she was the first female detective, because Pinkerton wrote about hiring her. We know her work included befriending suspect Nathan Maroney’s wife to gather evidence on the Adams Express theft case. We know she disguised herself as a medium to investigate a poisoning case at the behest of a Captain Thayer (whose sister and her lover were, in fact, trying to poison him, as the investigation proved). And we know she was instrumental in saving Lincoln’s life on his way through Baltimore to his 1861 inauguration by pretending to be the sister of the disguised “invalid” Lincoln in his shawl and soft cap. Not a bad résumé, but there must have been so much more we don’t know about. In a way, that makes her the perfect subject for historical fiction. I’ve had the freedom to imagine her, for which I’m intensely grateful.
As for the world I’ve drawn around her in these pages, I can say this: if truth isn’t always stranger than fiction, it is at least a great deal more complicated. I have streamlined, combined, and edited many people and events from the historical record to serve my own purposes here.
Historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, George McClellan, and Ward Hill Lamon appear here in positions they held in real life, though, of course, I have put words in their mouths. (It’s my job.) As for the Pinkertons, Hattie Lawton and, obviously, Allan Pinkerton worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency during the years this book is set. Tim Bellamy is based on Timothy Webster, Pinkerton agent and highly skilled undercover spy for the Union, who was apprehended behind enemy lines in Richmond and hanged in April 1862. Many sources take it for granted that Allan Pinkerton and Kate Warne had a long-term affair, but there is no real proof of this. I’ve taken her romance in a different direction. This novel is really a love story between a woman and her work.