The Prince of Spies (Hope and Glory #3) - Elizabeth Camden Page 0,6

his voice. Clyde had always wanted lots of children, but her mother’s fragile health precluded more.

“The government pays you to take photographs like this?” Congressman Dern asked, disapproval plain in his voice.

Her father heard it and jumped to her defense. “They need as many photographs as possible in preparation for the McMillan Plan.”

The McMillan Plan was an optimistic vision to tear down old government buildings and clear the way for a huge national park around which new cultural and administrative buildings would be erected. Everyone she knew, including most of the people at the Department of the Interior, thought the McMillan Plan was an extravagant waste of money. That was why she’d been assigned to photograph the existing architecture and how people used the public spaces.

“The entire McMillan Plan is a misuse of taxpayer funds,” Congressman Dern said. “It’s all so that Washington can compete with the great capital cities of Europe. I say the business of our country is business. Not lavish green spaces.”

“I agree,” Clyde said as he wandered over to her collection of images of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station. “This one is okay,” he said after a pause.

It was faint praise. Her father was no artist, but he had keen instincts, and she trusted his judgment.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

He continued frowning at the picture as he studied it. “Do you have any others of the train station?”

“I haven’t enlarged them, but I’ve got a dozen or so other shots.”

“I’d like to see them.”

The other pictures were only three-by-five inches in size, the standard format of the Brownie camera. After she developed the film, she selected only the best photographs to enlarge. The eight-by-ten-inch pictures would be added to the government repositories that would document the city for future generations. Even without the McMillan Plan, Washington was undergoing a state of regeneration as the red brick buildings of the colonial era were torn down and replaced by monumental buildings in the neoclassical style. She’d been hired to document the process as old buildings were torn down, the land graded and levelled, and the skeletal frameworks of new buildings were erected.

She brought over the other pictures of the Baltimore and Potomac and handed them to her father, who flipped through them quickly, identifying three and setting them on the dining table.

“These might make your case better,” he said.

“Why?” she asked. The three close-up photographs seemed boring and didn’t capture the gothic beauty of the station. The B&P was only thirty years old and a masterful example of Victorian gothic architecture. It was made of red brick and featured three towers with slate roofs and ornamental ironwork. Its beauty made it one of the most popular images on the postcards bought by tourists. It was only three blocks from the Capitol and was the primary railroad station used by everyone serving in Congress.

“If the McMillan Plan passes, the B&P is slated for demolition,” Clyde said. “Congressmen see it every day, but your close-ups highlight the expense that went into creating the hand-carved entablatures and the ornamental ironwork. There’s value in that. Roland? What do you think?”

The younger man nodded. “If the government tears down a perfectly good railroad station for the benefit of a public park, I think the nation should know what we stand to lose.”

Clyde walked over to the sideboard to return the smaller pictures, then paused. “What’s this?”

She stiffened. Her father held Luke’s photograph in his hands, and his face was a mask of disapproval. True, Luke wore no shirt in the picture, but it wasn’t a lewd photograph. A coat was draped over his shoulders, and Bandit covered most of his torso.

“That’s the man who got Bandit out of the ice,” she said. “I couldn’t resist taking a picture.”

“This is the man who rescued Bandit?” he asked in a surprised tone.

“Yes. He was very heroic.” She was about to say that he had even sent her roses afterward, but the grim look on Clyde’s face made her reconsider.

After a moment he set the picture back on the stack. “It’s probably best you don’t see that man again,” he said stiffly.

He gestured for Congressman Dern to follow him into his private office, leaving Marianne to stare after him in bewildered confusion.

Luke’s jaunt beneath the ice turned out to be more troublesome than expected. He didn’t catch pneumonia or anything drastic like Gray had feared. It simply sapped his strength beyond all reason. He spent the next few days buried underneath a mound of