The Trainmasters Read online

  Collins thought a moment. “First off,” he said, warming to the task, “there’s not enough whores an’ booze. We’ll need more whores. An’ more booze.”

  “Yes, precisely!” Gibbon said brightening, nearly forgetting in his excitement his painful tooth. “That’s the time! I’m sure we can provide a limitless supply of both commodities.”

  “And you would like my teamster friends to rough them up?” Kean asked.

  “I trust you to devise your own suitable solution to my client’s problem. It helps of course that his aims and yours so nicely coincide.”

  “What will he pay?” Kean asked.

  Collins looked up sharply.

  Gibbon rolled his glass back and forth a few times between the flattened palms of his hands. “One thousand dollars,” he said finally. “Five hundred now. And five hundred on the successful completion of our enterprise. You, Mr. Kean, would of course stand to profit doubly from our project.” He paused again, rolling his glass. “There will be papers, that I have drawn up for each of you to sign. These will commit you to the project and ensure your loyalty to it. I will keep these papers in a safe place, and they will be returned to you when our enterprise is completed.”

  “No,” Kean said. “Nothing goes in writing.”

  “I’m for that too,” Collins said. “Make no mistake about that.”

  “And second,” Kean said. “I don’t like the money. There’s not enough of it. And there’s not enough to start with.”

  “That’s right,” Collins agreed.

  “My client has been most generous,” Gibbon said. “I’m afraid that he has only authorized me to make one offer.”

  Actually, the client was paying Gibbon a ten thousand dollar fee, out of which Gibbon would take care of all expenses.

  “I don’t care a damn about generous, you pompous fraud,” Kean said. “I care about fair. I can do what you want me to do, and you know it; or you would not have come begging me to do it. I’m going to be takin’ a lot of risk, and it’s goin’ to cost me more ‘an a little. So you or your man better be able to pay.”

  Collins looked from one to the other with a beatific smile on his face.

  “I cannot, Mr. Kean, I truly cannot offer you a more substantial sum,” Gibbon said.

  “Then I’ll tell you good-bye,” Kean said, rising.

  “Wait!”

  “What’s on your mind?” Kean said. By now he was halfway to the door.

  “I cannot guarantee this,” Gibbon said, “but I may be able to prevail upon my client to offer you an additional five hundred dollars. Payable at the end of the project, naturally.”

  “No. Two thousand. Half now. Half then. And no papers. I’ll sign no papers.”

  “Yes,” Collins agreed.

  “Outrageous!”

  “Stand up Collins,” George Kean said, “and leave with me.”

  Collins rose. He was immediately followed by Abraham Gibbon. “No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head in surrender and dismay. “I can’t have you leaving.”

  “Well then?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “And no papers?”

  “No papers.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gibbon,” Kean said, returning to Gibbon to shake his hand. “Then I’ll take your hand on that.”

  Collins also extended his hand, and Gibbon reluctantly shook it.

  “When will we see the money?”

  “In a few days,” Gibbon said vaguely.

  “Wednesday,” Kean insisted.

  “Wednesday,” Gibbon sighed.

  After the two were gone, Abraham Gibbon walked to his other office. And from there he later proceeded to his club, not for the sake of pleasure but for the sake of business. He needed to contact some of his sources of local gossip on behalf of his new client who was quite interested in finding out why William Patterson quickly required an amount well in excess of $100,000.

  Like Abraham Gibbon, Edgar Thomson maintained two offices, but for very different reasons. Thomson’s official office was in the Pennsylvania Railroad’s administrative building adjoining the railroad yards in northwest Philadelphia. His second office was in a converted railroad passenger car. The car also contained two cubicles for sleeping and a small galley kitchen. From his railroad-car office Thomson could not only oversee the everyday workings on the line, but he could also travel out to construction sites.

  It was out of this office, in fact, that Thomson mostly worked, and it was there on Monday afternoon that his daughter, Kitty Lancaster, was told she could find him.

  As she approached the car, Kitty could see that something unusual was going on. Most noticeable was a temporary telegraph wire that joined her father’s car with the line that connected the main office with the work sites in the west. And as she approached the car, she could see several more people than usual inside it. Some of these she did not instantly recognize. Among those she did recognize, however, was the man whose name she didn’t know but whom she nevertheless vividly recalled. It was the Englishman who had attended the dedication ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The man had been often on her mind during the two days since then. And she remembered especially his penetrating, yet warm and kind, green eyes.

  She was lifting her skirt up so that she could climb the high step leading to the platform at the fear of the car when a young clerk burst out of the car door and dashed down the steps, very nearly knocking her off her feet.

  “Oh, excuse me, ma’am,” he said, embarrassed. His arm stretched out to steady her. “Are you all right?” he continued, when he was sure she would not fall.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Kitty said.

  “Then I have to run.”

  “Wait!” she called out after him. “What’s happening?”

  “Sorry ma’am,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “I have to run.” He waved at her a handful of telegraph flimsies by way of explanation.

  She shook her head in exasperation and tried the step again, more cautiously this time.

  Inside was pandemonium. At her father’s desk a telegraph machine had been set up. Its operator now occupied her father’s usual chair behind the desk. Her father stood behind the operator, bent over him, watching him decode and transcribe a message. Clerks and secretaries had been positioned on the other side of the desk and elsewhere in the room. As they wrote, they whispered among themselves. Their chattering was full of alarms and forebodings, Kitty thought, though she could not imagine why.

  She was about to walk over to her father when the tall Englishman intercepted her.

  “Hello again,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh, my!” she said, startled. She remembered that he was a railroad man, and so there was probably a logical explanation for his presence. She also realized that she was glad to see him again. And she had no doubt that he was glad to see her. Though he had the same serious expression she remembered from the other day, his face had softened perceptibly when he recognized her.

  Kitty was about to address the Englishman again, but Edgar Thomson had heard her voice. When he saw who it was, Thomson looked up and angrily shook his head. “Damn it, Kitty. You’ve picked the worst possible time to come here.”

  “But what’s happening, Father?”

  Her father did not hear her question. While she was asking it, he was shouting at no one in particular. “There are too many people in here!” he yelled out. “I only need one stenographer. The rest of you get the hell out of here and find something useful to do.” Then he looked at his daughter. “Kitty,” he said, in a softer voice, “you sit down and keep quiet. Or better still, leave and come back later.”

  “But, Father, what’s happening?”

  Edgar Thomson, ignoring her, returned his attention to the message the telegraph clerk was transcribing. As the message continued, Thomson’s face grew increasingly grave.

  Meanwhile, all but one of the other clerks trooped out the door. And the room, after they left, grew silent, except for the dots and dashes of
the telegraph receiver. Kitty sat down. But then the tall stranger leaned over close to her.

  “Come,” he whispered, motioning with his hand toward the door that led out to the rear platform. “I’ll explain.”

  Kitty rose and glanced at her father, but he was still intent on the message. So she followed the Englishman out the door.

  “It’s the tunnel at Gallitzin, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said to her once they were standing outside on the platform. “There’s been a collapse. It looks extensive.”

  “God! A collapse?” She raised her hands to her face in dismay. “Were many people trapped inside?”

  “It’s very hard to say—which is the reason why your father is so intent on the telegraph reports.”

  “Was the damage great? Will it take long to clear it out?”

  “No one knows very much about that either.” The stranger shook his head sadly.

  “What will happen next?”

  “Your father is learning all the information he can from the first reports. Then he will go up to the tunnel and direct the rescue attempt.”

  She shook her head. Her father had to remain here, in Philadelphia. He was required at the board meeting on Wednesday! Yet she knew that his presence was also immediately required at the tunnel. Oh, damn, damn, damn! she thought, baffled and frustrated.

  Then turning away from him in order to collect herself, she stared off at the maze of tracks that made up the railroad yard. For quite a long time she searched for a cure for her frustration. But she did not succeed. Then, realizing that she was ignoring him, she brought her attention back to the tall Englishman.

  When she was once again facing him, she saw that he was watching her intently despite his casual air.

  She was disconcerted, nonetheless, not by his gaze but by her own embarrassment. She had been grossly impolite to him by ignoring him for so long.

  “Oh, my,” she said to him, a warm and vivid flush spreading from her breasts to her neck and face. “I’ve been totally dreadful to you, Mr… !” She stopped, for she realized that she didn’t even know his name.

  “Dreadful?” He smiled warmly. “How so?”

  “I’ve been terribly impolite, ignoring you just now.”

  “I could see you were distressed. It would have been impolite of me to interrupt your privacy.”

  She lowered her eyes briefly at that, for she was touched by his sensitivity. Then she looked again at his face.

  “But now I’ve been the impolite one,” he said, with a gentle, playful laugh. “What a rogue I am! You don’t know who I am. Nor why I am here.”

  “No,” she admitted, “I don’t. And, I’d like very much to know who you are.”

  “My name is John Carlysle, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said. “And I’m an engineer… from England.” He extended his hand, and she took it, liking again the warm, hard outdoorsy feel of it.

  “Please call me Kitty,” she said, still holding his hand. “It’s so much less formidable than Mrs. Lancaster.”

  “All right.” He paused uncertainly, “Kitty.”

  “I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Carlysle. This second time.”

  “Not Mr. Carlysle, Kitty, but John.”

  “John.”

  And then her face lit up. “Of course!” she said. “You must be the one Father has been talking about!”

  “He’s been talking about me?”

  “About a new engineer from England who is about to take an important position under him. A man with the very best recommendations and the very highest qualifications. He has been looking forward to your arrival.”

  “He has?” John said, politely modest. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  It was now her turn for gentle, playful laughter. “There is other news of you, as well,” she said. “He tells me that the Englishman has been spending his days talking to bankers and business leaders about the railroad, conducting his own private investigation into its operations and management.”

  “Is he bothered by that?” he asked.

  She gave him a grim face, but then she laughed again before he had time to become worried. “No, not at all! He adores that. It’s exactly what he himself would have done!”

  John explained to her that although he had arrived in the country over a fortnight ago, he had waited to schedule his initial interview with her father until today. The tunnel disaster had occurred during their meeting.

  “I’m really terribly delighted that you’ll be working for my father,” she said after he was finished.

  “And so am I, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said, meaning it. He avoided calling her Kitty, for he was uncomfortable with the familiarity.

  “Thank you.”

  “And now, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said, “perhaps we should go back inside.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think we should.”

  Edgar Thomson was now sitting at his own desk, and the telegraph clerk was standing off to one side by a window. The other clerk was no longer present; he must have left by the door at the front of the car. But he had been replaced by another man whom Kitty identified for John as Herman Haupt. Haupt was the superintendent of the railroad. The earlier pandemonium had now subsided, but it was replaced by grim faces and deep, heavy breathing.

  The office itself was austere and functional. Besides Thomson’s desk, there were a table and hard chairs and two wooden benches with backs.

  When he was on his feet, Thomson looked at John and Kitty, who stood together just inside the door.

  “What news is there from Gallitzin?” Kitty asked.

  Thomson shook his head and frowned. “Please don’t ask me,” he said. “I’m too overwhelmed. I don’t want to speak of it.”

  And then he shifted his attention to John Carlysle. “I imagine that you have had a chance to become acquainted with my daughter,” he said.

  “Actually,” Kitty said before John could reply, “John Carlysle and I have met before today, but until now, I didn’t know his name.”

  And then Edgar Thomson realized where he had seen the tall Englishman before this afternoon. Before Kitty’s arrival he had felt that there was something familiar about the very handsome, elegant, and obviously competent and knowledgeable Englishman, yet he had not until this moment been able to place him. But now, when he saw John and Kitty standing together, he knew at once where he had seen him.

  He smiled an austere smile, then turned to his daughter. “Kitty,” he said, “has Mr. Carlysle explained that he will be a new addition to my staff?”

  “He has, Father.”

  “He’ll be a most welcome one, I’m sure. He is a friend and colleague of my good friend Sir Charles Elliot, who has urged me to take him on, praising him with words so glowing that I would be embarrassed to hear them said of me.”

  “Actually, Father,” Kitty said, “I told Mr. Carlysle that you’ve been telling me that an Englishman was coming to work with us. But from the way you’ve been talking, Father, I was expecting… someone much older.”

  “I’m glad that I have not met with those expectations,” John said with a smile.

  Kitty laughed, too. She liked this Englishman’s sense of humor. He was quiet and earnest, like her father, but he was not solemn.

  “Before you come to think of me as a roaring youth,” he said with another warm and gentle laugh, “you should know that I was married and have three sons… one of whom is twenty years of age.”

  Kitty’s eyes widened. And her voice fell. “And where is your wife?” she said to John.

  “I’m afraid that she is dead,” John said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. Her heart actually felt lighter when she heard that, though she was ashamed of herself for the feeling after it happened.

  “After she died, I decided to try my fortunes here in America. And Sir Charles helped me along.”

  “He’s helped him most handsomely,” Thomson said to Kitty, “to the tune of a thousand shares of our stock.”

  “My, my, a thousand
shares,” Kitty said and looked at John with greatly renewed admiration. “That is handsome. Amazingly so. And from Sir Charles Elliot?” She was about to pursue that question, but before she could, her father spoke.

  “All of you are standing,” he said, somewhat abashed that he might be thought a bad host, “and looking extremely uncomfortable. Please sit.” Everyone complied. Kitty looked at the empty place next to John on one of the hard benches. But she decided it would be more proper for her not to sit next to him.

  “And Herman?” Thomson spoke to the superintendent, “find us some whiskey. I expect we all need it by now.”

  While Haupt went to the cabinet where Thomson kept his whiskey, John Carlysle spoke.

  “Are you able now to tell us the news from Gallitzin?” he asked.

  “I’d much prefer not to, but you have a right to hear it,” Thomson said, shaking his head. There was a grim set to his lips. “It’s not good. Not good at all. There are many deaths. Though God only knows how many. The cave-in was toward the end of one of the headings being worked from the eastern shaft. And there were several men working behind it. It’s a damned bad business.

  “I’m going up there later this afternoon,” Thomson said as he took a glass from Haupt, who was handing them around. “I’m leaving as soon as a locomotive can be made ready. I should be in Tyrone by morning, and from there I’ll ride up on horseback.”

  Tracks had not yet been laid as far as Gallitzin.

  Kitty stared again at the Englishman. His face was lit by an intense and driven expression. Clearly he was most keen to join her father when he traveled to the tunnel.

  He spoke what his face had already revealed to her. “I hope there will be a place for me with you.”

  “Absolutely,” Thomson said. “I’d welcome your presence. Can you be ready by late this afternoon… or at the very latest early this evening?”

  Kitty looked hard at her father. “Are you really needed up there, Father?” she asked him.