These Honored Dead (A Lincoln and Speed Mystery #1) - Jonathan F. Putnam Page 0,41
favor us and hold his head just so, with his hair out of the way like this.” My sister took her place beside the prone man.
Meanwhile, Dr. Patterson was cutting the cloth off Gustorf’s crippled lower leg. It was plain the bone was shattered, and I knew amputation would prove the only suitable treatment. Patterson began manipulating the leg gently and Gustorf screamed out again in pain.
“Distract him while I attend to the leg, won’t you, Speed?” Patterson said from his end of the body. If the doctor still bore a grudge from our after-dinner conversation of the other night, he was showing no sign of it.
I positioned myself so the Prussian could meet my eyes without moving his head, which Martha was now holding in place while Jane threaded her surgical needle. I knew I’d been given the opportunity to question a prime suspect in a time of weakness and I intended to seize it.
“What brought you to Illinois, Herr Gustorf?” I began.
“After the defeat of the Emperor, my father’s bank failed,” he said, “so I was obliged to seek employment far from home. I found your country very much to my liking.” Gustorf’s breathing was returning to normal, and his voice, though labored, was deep and clear. He appeared to be about thirty, with attractive features and a strong nose. His whiskers were narrow and well-trimmed.
“I secured positions as a private teacher in German, first at Harvard and then at a school in New Haven,” Gustorf continued. “This winter—” He suddenly shouted out a vigorous Teutonic oath.
“I told you to ignore me,” Jane said. She had just sewed her first stitch in the Prussian’s forehead, and the needle was poised in her hand to make another loop.
“I’ll do my best,” Gustorf responded, gritting his teeth. “I spent the past winter in Philadelphia and I happened to talk at a gather—oh!—gathering with an Englishwoman, a Mrs. Martineau, who is collecting material for a book on your young nation for her . . . ah! . . . home country, and of course there’s Mrs. Trollope’s towering success, and Monsieur de Tocqueville’s new book about America has sold very well throughout Europe . . . ahhh! . . . and I concluded perhaps I could write about my own travels, for the German readership. So, after the final snows melted, I set off to the West, first by rail and then steamer down the Ohio and up the Illinois.”
“Where have you been in our state, before reaching Springfield?” I asked. “I want to make sure you haven’t missed any place of note for your book.”
Jane was sewing another stitch at that moment, so the Prussian took several deep breaths before continuing.
“I started up north in Galena, to see your iron mines. It was there I obtained my carriage and steeds. From Galena—oh!—I’ve driven due south, more or less, some twenty or thirty miles a day, stopping where I find places of interest.”
“Did you happen to see a settlement named Menard?” I said casually. My sister lifted her eyes to stare at me, but I ignored her look. “There’s a most interesting, er, blacksmith there. Very unusual method of heating the furnace.”
“I think I may have done,” Gustorf said. “About a day’s carriage drive north? I passed through it, I’m sure, now that you mention. Charming outpost. Though I confess I missed the smithy if that was the principal attraction of interest.” My heart started beating fast. So he had also been at the site of the first murder.
Gustorf gritted his teeth expectantly and looked up at Jane and Martha. “How many more?” he asked.
“We’ve been done for a few minutes now,” said Jane.
Gustorf relaxed from his clenched pose. “Your touch is agreeably light, Fräulein,” he said. “Yours as well,” he added with a nod and a particularly winning smile toward Martha. My sister blushed. The color was returning to Gustorf’s face, a development, I noted without pleasure, that made him look even more manly.
“How are you coming with that leg, Doctor?” I called out. “You’ll be wanting to sharpen your saw, I suspect. Shall I keep him talking while you do?”
The doctor shook his head. “I have something else in mind,” he said. “Drink the rest of this bottle, won’t you, Herr Gustorf,” he added, handing the purple bottle back to the prone man. Gustorf sat up partway and swallowed the remaining liquor in several long swigs, which he followed with a loud belch.