Page 13 of The Girl from Greenwich Street

I cannot be a general and a practicer of the law at the same time without doing injustice to the government and myself.

—Alexander Hamilton to James McHenry

New York City

February 24, 1800

It is very certain that the military career in this country offers too few inducements and it is equally certain that my present station in the army cannot very long continue under the plans which seem to govern . . .

The pen was a good one, the ink fresh, but Alexander felt like he was writing the letter in his own heart’s blood, each word squeezed out unwilling. His aide-de-camp, George Izard, had asked his advice about staying in his current position with Alexander or taking up an offered post as secretary to the minister plenipotentiary to Portugal.

It was galling having to put down on paper the truth Alexander had been avoiding as long as he could: his army’s hours were numbered.

Since returning from Albany, Alexander had flung himself into the army’s business, as if he could remedy by industry what others lacked in interest. But it wasn’t enough, it was never enough—they had halted enlistment, and he knew what that meant. It was a preliminary step to disbanding it entirely, everything Alexander had worked for, planned for, neglecting his family, his law practice, pouring out reams of correspondence, leaving his Eliza to drill the troops, enduring leaky tents and inadequate supplies, dipping into his own pocket to entertain dignitaries, badgering that idiot Adams for pay for his troops. . . .

For nothing. All for nothing.

Alexander could feel an abyss yawning beneath him. On the one side, all his plans: a military academy, a naval academy. Had anyone else given serious thought to how many steps per minute were ideal in a march? On the other, a howling void, all he’d built knocked down with the glorious unconcern of a small child building a block tower only to shatter it down again. Only this wasn’t a child’s toy, this was the republic they’d fought for with the lives of their comrades. Had they all forgotten so soon? If General Washington were still alive . . .

Grief oppressed him. Grief for the lives lost, for the lives still to be lost. General Washington, gone. His father-in-law, once a vibrant, powerful man, now plagued with illness. Alexander hadn’t wanted to worry Eliza, he had tried to make it sound as nothing, but during his stay in Albany his father-in-law had taken a turn so bad they had sent for Eliza’s youngest sister, Kitty. He’d rallied, thank the Lord, but it had struck Alexander to his core, the contrast between the Philip Schuyler he had so admired, a soldier, a statesman, a lord of the North, to a querulous old man in a bath chair who looked to Alexander to solve his financial and political difficulties.

And Alexander was happy to do so! His mind was constantly whirring, seeking sinecures for Angelica’s husband, so that Angelica might continue to cut a dash, and financial remedies for his father-in-law, so he could reign, as he had always reigned, from his seat in Albany. Raise Eliza’s brother’s son, get Eliza’s sister Peggy out of scrapes. All of that, Alexander would do all of that; he would raise an army, he would file motions, he would badger his friends with letters to stop Burr’s ambitions, but if he paused, even for a moment, it would all come crashing down and he would be left naked and shivering, revealed as the poor forked creature he was.

Retire, Eliza urged. Live the life of a country squire. But without occupation, what was he? Nothing but a bastard from an island so small it was barely a dot on the map. All his achievements—they felt so fleeting. He had come from nothing and in a moment he would return to nothing, and where would that leave his Eliza, his children, who trusted him, who believed in the myths he had spun around himself?

The door crashed open and Philip Church breezed in, red-cheeked with cold, and a faint smell of rum about him.

“Where have you been?”

Philip rubbed his cold hands together. “Betting on sleigh races. Cadwallader Colden paid some men from the livery stable on Broadway to race a sleigh to the Manhattan Well and back again. I won half a crown off Peter De Hart.”

“Sleigh races,”

Alexander repeated, trying to still his annoyance at Philip, annoyance that wasn’t the boy’s fault but the world’s. He had been twenty and high-spirited once.

Sometimes it was hard to look at Philip and not think of the compromises he’d made, the bargains he’d struck, to keep John Church in employment so that Philip might wear a coat of the latest cut and waste half a crown on sleigh races.

Sleigh races.

Alexander set down his pen, his attention suddenly very focused. “What is Cadwallader Colden doing holding sleigh races?”

Philip, cheerful with cherry bounce, was unperturbed by Alexander’s sharp tone. “They’re saying Levi Weeks carried Julianna Sands off in a sleigh and this proves it.”

“Gulielma. Gulielma Sands.”

The rumormongers could at least get the girl’s name right. It was the sloppiness Alexander found so offensive.

“Julianna sounds more romantical,”

said Philip cheerfully.

“This isn’t a romance. It’s a woman’s life—and a man’s,”

said Alexander sharply. He’d never thought of a sleigh. He’d hired Rhinelander to walk to the well and back, timing his progress, and had been comfortably assured he’d done what he ought, but this put a different complexion on matters entirely.

If Weeks was guilty . . . Alexander felt obscurely that this was all Aaron Burr’s fault. If Burr hadn’t been defending Weeks, Alexander would never have volunteered to join his defense, but here he was, facing two unpleasant options. Either Weeks was guilty, and Alexander would have to swallow his scruples and defend a murderer, or he was innocent, but with such damning evidence against him that it would take a momentous effort to defeat.

Burr wasn’t going to do anything about it and neither was Livingston; they were both off on their own affairs, and, goodness knew, Alexander should be busying himself with his.

Alexander looked at the pile of memoranda on his desk, the unanswered correspondence, the half-written letter to George Izard.

“I’m going out,”

he said abruptly. He jabbed a finger at the pile of correspondence. “Reply to that.”

He jammed his hat onto his head and strode out of his office, making for Greenwich Street. The cold air hit his face like a tonic, quickening his step, sharpening his thoughts.

If there had been a sleigh, the neighbors might have seen it. Alexander had meant to speak to the neighbors, but there had been no time before he’d left for Albany, and after his return he had been utterly preoccupied with the affairs of the army.

Alexander’s chest ached at the thought of his army, but he forced himself not to think of it, to keep moving, down Greenwich Street, the same path he’d taken that fateful day two months ago on his way to Joseph Watkins’s shop to buy Eliza a coffee biggin.

“Jos. Watkins, Ironmonger,”

read the sign above the door.

Inside were the usual wares of the ironmonger, nails and tools and cooking pots of every description, including a row of the coffee biggins he’d intended for Eliza. A young woman, about Alexander’s daughter Angelica’s age, was wrapping a parcel for a customer. Alexander paused to examine the coffee biggins—there was one with lion handles on the side that he rather fancied for Eliza—waiting until the door closed behind the customer before approaching the girl.

“Miss Watkins?”

It was a safe guess. These businesses were usually family concerns. “I was wondering if I might have a word with your father.”

The girl didn’t ask who he was or what he wanted. She raised her voice and shouted, “Pa! Gentleman to see you!”

A man in a leather apron bustled through the door that separated the shop from regions beyond. He had the same prosperous appearance as his shop; his graying hair was neatly cut. “How many times must I tell you, Fanny—General Hamilton! You honor us with your custom. How may I be of service to you?”

It was very gratifying being greeted with that sort of enthusiasm.

This, thought Alexander, was the very sort of tradesman they needed for the Federalists. He turned the full force of his charm on the ironmonger. “I’d intended to buy a coffee biggin for my wife—and very fine ones you have here. But I fear it’s other business that brings me here today. The matter of Levi Weeks.”

“Ah.”

The tradesman’s expression turned wary. “We’d imagined someone would be around about that, sooner or late. Would you like to come through, sir? My wife can give you a dish of tea. Or coffee from our own biggin.”

Alexander put his hat under his arm. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Fanny,”

said Watkins. “Tell your mother we have a distinguished visitor.”

“But, Pa . . .”

The request was clearly too great an imposition to be borne.

“Now,”

her father said firmly.

With a swish of her skirt, the girl departed. Alexander could hear her shouting, “Ma!”

Watkins looked resignedly after her. “My apologies for my daughter. She used to be a great help in the shop, but she’s of an age . . .”

“I have one of that age myself,”

said Alexander, although he couldn’t imagine his sweet Angelica behaving so.

“This affair next door,”

said Watkins, still clearly feeling some excuse was needed. “It’s unsettled her. It’s unsettled us all, to be honest.”

“Your house adjoins the Rings’ boardinghouse?”

“It does,”

said Watkins guardedly. He untied his leather apron.

Alexander watched him closely. “The night Miss Sands disappeared—did you see anything in the street? Hear anything?”

Watkins seemed to relax a little. “Not that night, no.”

“You didn’t see a sleigh?”

Watkins took his time hanging the apron on a hook by the door. “I saw any number of sleighs. But I didn’t see Elma Sands climb into one.”

“You’ve heard, then,”

said Alexander, wondering how long it would take for the whole town to know that Levi Weeks had abducted Elma Sands in a sleigh.

“It would have been hard not to. Mr. Colden began his trial just outside our door. My boys rushed out to follow the sleigh. But no, I didn’t see Elma in a sleigh that night.”

A shadow crossed Watkins’s face. “I was there when they found her. It’s a sight that will haunt me to my dying day.”

“How did you come to be there?”

“Elias Ring told me the muff Elma had been wearing that night had been found in a well. He wanted someone to go with him. So I went.”

Watkins’s face was gray. He recalled himself with an effort. “Here, it’s foolish to be standing in the shop with a dry throat when I might offer you coffee in comfort.”

Watkins led Alexander through the door that separated the shop from the house’s living quarters, into a comfortable front room containing somewhat more the usual amount of ironware. Candles stood on iron holders, an iron-and-tin coffee biggin sat on the table, and an iron stove warmed the room. A heavily pregnant woman not in her first youth was pouring boiling water into the coffee biggin.

“Let me, my dear,”

said Watkins, and took the kettle from his wife.

“Ha,”

said Mrs. Watkins, “showing off your good manners for your distinguished visitor? Sir,”

she added, dropping a clumsy curtsy to Alexander.

“Thank you for receiving me,”

said Alexander. “I’m afraid I’m here to talk to you about the sad matter of Elma Sands.”

“We’ve heard you’re to save Levi from the gallows,”

said Mrs. Watkins, who apparently had no thought that didn’t make its way to her lips. She jerked her head toward the wall. “You’ve made no friends over there.”

“In the Ring house, you mean?”

That was no news. When Alexander had attempted to interview Catherine Ring, she had accorded him the respect due his station, but made it quite clear she viewed him as being of the devil’s party.

“They’re not bad neighbors,”

said Watkins vaguely.

His wife didn’t seem to share that view. “People constantly coming and going, that Mr. Croucher oozing over here at dinnertime trying to sell me stockings and goodness only knows what fripperies, and that Elma—”

Alexander raised his brows, looking from one to the other. “That Elma?”

“She wasn’t the companion I’d have chosen for my girls, that’s all,”

said Mrs. Watkins, and busied herself with the coffee biggin.

Alexander nodded his thanks as she handed him a cup of extremely strong coffee, and made a note to remember to purchase Eliza her biggin before departing.

“Elma was an associate of Fanny’s,”

said Watkins, choosing his words carefully. “She had a way about her—Fanny was mad to fold her kerchief the way she did and copy the way she dressed her hair.”

“Elma was trouble,”

said his wife flatly, handing Watkins a cup. “Remember that time she told Catherine Ring she’d been here with us when she hadn’t? And Catherine blaming us for Elma catching a chill.”

“She wasn’t a bad girl. The little ones loved her. She always had time for them, even when Fanny didn’t. She’d play with their toys with them and listen to their stories.”

Mr. Watkins looked down at his coffee cup. “She used to tell me she wished she had a father like they did.”

“You just liked her because she flattered you,”

Mrs. Watkins accused her husband.

“No—I think she meant it. She needed a father, that poor girl.”

Alexander could feel the coffee energizing him, sharpening his wits. “You say she told Mrs. Ring that she was here with you when she wasn’t?”

Watkins looked troubled. “She did come and stay over here now and again. They’ve a lot of coming and going at that house; boarders there for a few weeks and then gone.”

Mrs. Watkins snorted. “Catherine Ring would rent out her own bed if it would make her a penny.”

Her husband sent her a quelling glance. “Elma used to say there were nights when she hardly knew where she was to sleep or whether there’d be a bed for her.”

“As if we have that many beds here with six of our own and your apprentices!”

Mrs. Watkins let out a long breath. “There was a time or two that Elma stayed for supper and stayed on after—I’d hear her and Fanny up whispering to all hours and goodness only knows what they were talking about, the two of them! But there was a night she said she was here that she wasn’t.”

“Maybe Catherine Ring misunderstood her,”

said Watkins.

“I think Catherine Ring understood her very well,”

his wife retorted. “After what she got up to in September—”

She broke off, biting down hard on her lip.

“More coffee?”

she asked, lifting the biggin.

Alexander wasn’t to be distracted. “What did Elma get up to in September?”

The ironmonger and his wife exchanged a long look.

Mr. Watkins said slowly, “As you may have seen, our house shares a wall with the Ring house. The wall is only a plank partition, plastered and lathed on both sides.”

“My husband made it himself—and might have made it thicker,”

Mrs. Watkins said pointedly. It was clearly an old argument. “You can’t sneeze in here without them over there hearing it. We’ve no privacy at all.”

“And nor have they,”

admitted Mr. Watkins. “I hardly like to say it. . . . It may have been nothing at all. But I imagined one night I heard the shaking of a bed and considerable noise there, in the second story, where Elma’s bed stood.”

“Imagined, ha! If you imagined it, I imagined it too.”

Mrs. Watkins turned back to Alexander. “He said to me, Joseph did, she’ll be ruined next. Elma, that is.”

It was just in keeping with this thoroughly awful day that his investigation would yield information damning for Levi Weeks, thought Alexander grimly. Previously, only Richard Croucher had been willing to attest to relations of a sexual nature between Elma and the accused. Perhaps Burr and Livingston had the right of it; perhaps he should have insisted the girl committed suicide and looked no further. Perhaps he should never have involved himself in the case at all.

“And you have no doubts as to the nature of the noise?”

asked Alexander.

“There was no mistaking it,”

said Mrs. Watkins firmly. “I was of two minds about letting Fanny associate with her after that, but we knew it wouldn’t go on after Catherine came back from the country—and Elma did have a winning way about her,”

Mrs. Watson allowed grudgingly. “But once Catherine Ring told me Elma was saying she was here when she wasn’t, I knew it was starting up all over again—and we would have said something—but we didn’t want trouble—it’s never good to have trouble with your neighbors—and who knew it would come to this?”

Who, indeed. Alexander asked himself that on a daily basis about the army, about his legal practice, about his expenses, about the state of the country. How had it come to this? He forced himself to return his attention to the Watkinses. If this information was true, then it was time he had a long talk with Levi Weeks, who had claimed that he had visited Elma “only for conversation.”

If he had lied about that, what else might he be lying about?

“You are quite certain you heard Elma Sands in a compromising position with Levi Weeks?”

A curious stillness seized both the ironmonger and his wife. Watkins froze with his coffee cup half to his lips; Mrs. Watkins’s lips opened as though to speak, but no sound came out. She looked to her husband.

“We heard Elma Sands in a compromising position, yes,”

said Watkins slowly. “But . . .”

Mrs. Watkins gave her head a brisk shake. “Go on. Tell him. What’s the use of hiding it now? It’s bound to come out anyway.”

Watkins hesitated, looking a decade older than his years.

Alexander drew himself up, embodying all the majesty of the law. “If you have some information that has a bearing on the murder of Elma Sands, it is your bounden duty to share it so that justice might be served.”

Watkins set down his coffee cup. “It wasn’t Levi Weeks I heard through that wall with Elma. It was Elias Ring.”