“Information not for…listening ears.”
Pinkerton, still perched on the desk edge, looked back and forth between my face and Mortenson’s. He didn’t consider long before saying, “Mrs. Warne, if you wouldn’t mind. We’ll start again tomorrow.”
“Of course, Boss,” I said and refused to let the insult show on my face. “Good day to you, gentlemen.”
“I’ll live in hope of seeing you soon, Mrs. Warne,” DeForest called out as I left.
I marked him down in my mental ledger as a ladies’ man, one to be wary of. Even if I were in the mood for romance, I’d be a fool to entangle myself with a fellow operative. Pinkerton had said nothing on the subject, but he didn’t need to. I had to choose my time and place to be a woman.
The door closed behind me, and I wondered who’d closed it.
But as I went to set foot on the first step down to the street, I paused. They’d begun talking again already, clearly not waiting to be sure I’d gone. The door was thick enough to muffle their words but not to mask them completely. Curious, I slid back over to the door without lifting my feet and set my ear firmly against the wood, cupping my hands to block out any other sounds.
“…happy to help her in any way needed,” DeForest was saying.
“Thank you for that kind offer,” said Pinkerton, sounding amused. “I suspected you’d be eager.”
“She’ll need a lot of help, that’s for sure. Will a girl be any use at all?” asked Mortenson’s high-pitched whisper.
Pinkerton said, “Absolutely.”
“How do we even know?” asked Mortenson. “She helped Bellamy with Heck Venable, but you haven’t assigned her to a case since, have you?”
Before then, I wasn’t sure I was the subject under discussion; now, there could be no doubt.
“She’s in training,” said Pinkerton.
“Is that what she’s in?”
My fingers tensed, wanting to become fists, but I forced them back into the shape I needed.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Forget I said anything,” Mortenson said after a pause.
“No, explain yourself, sir.” Pinkerton’s brogue became a growl.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” DeForest said with what sounded like forced cheer. “We have an important report to make, so let’s make it, eh?”
“All right. Get on with it,” said Pinkerton, and I heard the sharp echo of his shoes against the wood as he strode to the far side of the desk and the groan and squeak as he lowered himself into the chair.
“The gap-toothed bastard said he was chasing runaway slaves, but there’s no way Nestor isn’t a free man. Been living in Chicago three years now. So we’ve started gathering the evidence…”
I didn’t stay to listen to the rest. I descended the stairs gingerly, placing each foot as near to the wall as possible, toe first and then heel, to avoid making noise. I was an operative now. Listening at doors was part and parcel of the work. Still, I regretted listening at this one.
Chapter Five
The Pinkerton Code
I made my way back to the boardinghouse by the most direct route, along the river. The breeze was welcome. The stench was not. But unfortunately, there was no separating the two. A week had passed without rain, so I could walk close to the river without risking my shoes to mud. I did refrain from breathing in too deeply.
This early in the day, the riverside was not yet bustling, but there was enough activity to occupy my gaze as I walked: a barge stacked with limestone headed to the stone works, a line of Irishmen wending their way toward the railroad office on Madison, hoping for a day’s work as track laborers, and a lone man with a rag and a ladder who looked to be scouring the edifices of the shops on Lake Street, one by one.
Chicago had been Charlie’s choice, not mine. Marriage had only replaced my parents’ edicts with my husband’s. But now that my choices were my own, in large part, Chicago seemed as good a place as any. The city was wild and strong. Besides, it would take money to leave.
For Charlie’s purposes, when we’d arrived a few years before, fresh off an unsuccessful run in Boston, it had the right balance of law and lawlessness. Midnight games of faro were unlikely to be interrupted by the meager police force, and even the worst disputes, the ones that spilled out into the street, rarely erupted into gunfire. We were neither the Wild West nor the puritanical East but a meeting in the middle. The canal, the railroads—everything came to us here or at least passed through. Wheat, cows, lumber. And criminals, I supposed, thinking of the Pinkerton case files, which named wrongdoers from all over.
Pinkerton. I couldn’t forget what I’d heard through the closed door at the top of the stairs. Trained by my parents both with and without intent, I was accustomed to sizing men up in an instant, reading their faces, guessing at their motives. Had I guessed incorrectly at Pinkerton’s? Had he hired me only as a prelude to seduction?
The idea seemed ridiculous. In a month of days, he’d given no sign of affection, no indication his feelings for me were anything beyond those of an employer for his newest, untested employee. If he’d wanted to put his hands on me, he’d had a score of chances. Instead, we sat chastely with that enormous desk between us. He barely seemed to register that I was a woman at all, let alone a desirable one. No, that wasn’t it.
But I also knew the truth was no defense.