The Later Journeys - 18. Sleuth

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I was in the kitchen with the contents of several cabinets and drawers spread out on the table and the floor. I heard a quick knock elsewhere in the house, and then a door opening.

“Ben.” Warren’s voice. “Let’s go. You’ve been cooped up most of the day. Y’need fresh air.” Warren was a fairly tall guy, whose father had been a Marine and a decorated cop. He knew how to use a voice of authority. He had used it in the classroom, and now he was using it on Ben. A moment later, the three of them were coming down the hall, but instead of going out back as per usual, Trevor opened the front door.

“Want to help us wash a car?” he asked Ben, who promptly broke out into a grin. Without further conversation, they headed out onto the front porch and the driveway beyond.

“Have fun!” I called out, as an afterthought. As soon as the door shut, I was up and headed toward the bedrooms.

I passed the bathroom and proceeded toward my bedroom, and looked over my shoulder to see if anything I did was visible through the front window. But the blinds were still closed from the morning. And so I carefully detoured to the other side of the corridor and eased open the door to Ben’s bedroom. I closed it behind me. If Ben suddenly came in to answer a call of nature, I didn’t want him to immediately know I was in his room.

I paused inside the door and took my time, looking carefully around the room, determined to touch as little as possible. I saw the small bed with its two pillows, neatly made; a linen nighshirt and cap, hung over one of the bedposts; the washstand, and a small table next to the bed, now sporting the electric lamp. However, an oil lamp was very close by, on the floor. I wondered which one Ben would reach for first, in the night. We had put night lights out in the hall and in the bathroom to help minimize his chances of becoming disoriented.

Now I walked slowly around the bed to the opposite wall, where his belongings were kept. There weren’t many. I opened the closet and saw a scant few items of apparel hanging there. Below them was a small brass-bound trunk in hand-tooled leather. Aside from a large haversack and a couple of other cloth bags, that was the extent of his luggage. I remembered reading novels that detailed processions of servants transporting trunks for long journeys, but most of those were set in the 19th century, when railroads crossed the country and people had become more avid travelers. Ben had traversed the Atlantic quite a few times, but he was an exception. Travel, in his day, was still a dicey proposition.

I wondered if he was homesick.

More to the point, I wondered who he really was.

I shook off the thought. My purpose here was to get the answer, not to mull the question. So I first “frisked” the garments hanging in the closet and found no papers or plastic ID cards. There was, of course, a distinct possibility that he might have them in the clothing he wore. Part of Trevor and Warren’s plan in having him help him with the car wash was to get wet clothes off him to dry, with the possible opportunity to check the pockets.

Then came the trunk. I pulled it out into the room, then stepped to the door and locked it. If Ben happened to want access to the room, I’d be alerted as he tried the knob and hopefully the guys would be there to run some kind of interference so I could put things in order and make an excuse for my intrusion.

The trunk was beautifully made, despite the wear it showed. Items like this routinely sold at auction for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars and were often counterfeited. I flipped the latches, opened it and breathed in a very old, rich and rustic scent. In it were a pair of short boots, two pairs of heavy leather gloves, what looked like folded stockings, a pair of linen “underdrawers,” which looked like a cross between boxer briefs and an old-fashioned ladies’ girdle; a large fur hat that was probably extremely warm, and a large leather wallet. Inside of that were papers. I carefully drew these out and saw that they were letters, written on crackly parchment and bound with silk ribbons. I didn’t undo the ribbons but flexed the pages -- no stiff plastic card betrayed itself -- and peeked in along the sides. I saw what looked like a line drawing, and upon a bit closer inspection, concluded that it was a drawing of a nude woman. I couldn’t help but smile. Ben’s flirtatious proclivities had survived the censors of history. Here was proof of it. I put the papers back in the wallet and replaced it in the trunk as I had found it. I checked once more but found nothing else. No hidden compartments. Nothing tucked into the boots -- I checked the toes and even tugged at the heels -- or any of the other clothing. I put the trunk back, closed the door and continued to the other side of the room. The haversacks had nothing in them. They were standing empty, waiting to be filled with whatever Ben accumulated in his travels.

I was struck by how lightly he had traveled for a multi-night stay, and then realized that having come from a transatlantic voyage, his larger trunks and other baggage must have been carried by a team of servants across New Jersey and back to Philadelphia. He had made this side trip for some specific purpose and had seen no need to schlep a wagon’s worth of trunks and boxes. He had expected to be home shortly after his belongings got there.

I straightened, went to the nightstand and did a quick but thorough check of the drawer. Nothing. Finally, I peered under the bed, felt under his mattress and the pillow with the zippered case. Also nothing. Same for the bowl in the washstand, which was dry, so most likely he was migrating toward modern accommodations. I made sure everything was in order, unlocked the door and slipped back into the hallway. I glanced down toward the front door and faintly heard the splash of water and the men shouting, laughing and bantering. It was a warmish, sunny day. Perfect for washing a car. They would be a while. So I went into the study, where Ben had been writing. Again I closed and locked the door. My presence here could be far more easily explained than in the case of his bedroom.

The notebook I’d given him was on the desk with the pen beside it. I glanced at the pen. In the light from the desk lamp, I could see through the barrel that the level of ink was much lower than it had been an hour or two before when I gave it to him. Opening the notebook, I saw line after line, closely filled ... a few words on the overleaf, then abandoned and continued on a fresh page.

It was a fine, ornate script, inscribed into the paper with some pressure, hence the decision not to use both sides of each sheet. I supposed he was more used to parchment than this thin, mass-produced stuff with red margins and blue lines. I tried to make out what was on one line, but was stymied by the constructions of words. From the best I could see, they were the same types of things that had bamboozled me during our preparations for this encounter: S’s that looked like F’s. L’s that looked like T’s. And so on and so forth.

I flipped through the notebook. The pages were firmly attached to the spiral binding. Nothing had been taken out. He had filled six pages.

He had written this. There had been no one else in the room, and the book had been blank when I gave it to him.

Was it possible? Was it really possible? I hadn’t truly thought so, in my heart of hearts -- I suppose I’d assumed that suspension of disbelief was preserving the illusion -- but in total, there was absolutely nothing about our guest that belonged in this century. Unless Gerry had hired a phenomenally gifted homeless Method actor and paid him a ridiculous amount of money to do this, the man we were hosting, the man helping my friends wash a car just outside...

...was really the Benjamin Franklin.

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