The Gangster

Marion Morgan and Helen Mills’ report on the Underground Railroad entrance to Raven’s Eyrie emphasized the strong pro-slavery sentiments in the pre — Civil War Hudson Valley. So while the Black Hand Squad watched gates and boat landings, and undercover operatives kept an eye on the siphon tunnel, Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott climbed down from the top of Storm King Mountain. In theory, the Abolitionists’ passage for fugitive slaves would have been more safely hidden in the uphill side of the estate wall rather than in view of the busy river.

Slipping and sliding on a thin coat of ice-crusted snow, the Van Dorns descended within yards of the wall, then scrambled alongside, just above it, clinging from tree to tree on the steep wooded slope. Culp’s estate workers had kept a mown path clear of brush, but the stones were laced with ancient vines of grape and bittersweet that in summertime would have blocked any hope of spotting a break in the eighty-year-old masonry. Now that the leaves had fallen, they had a marginal chance of spotting a long-abandoned opening put back in use by Antonio Branco.

“Cunningly concealed,” Archie noted. “Seeing as how the neighbors would have loved to turn in Grandpa and his Quaker. Not to mention collecting the bounty on the poor slaves.”

Isaac Bell was optimistic. “Nice thing about a wall — if we can’t see in, they can’t see us poking around outside.” He was right. The two-mile wall lacked the regularly spaced turrets of a true fortress. And while the main gatehouse overlooked some of the front section — and the service entrance tower and some of the south side — neither was close enough to observe the back side.

“Are you forgetting that Mr. Van Dorn said don’t set foot on Culp’s estate?”

“As I recall,” said Bell, less worried about getting fired and more about the President being murdered, “Mr. Van Dorn said, in effect, no Van Dorn detective is to scale the Raven’s Eyrie wall again without his express permission. He didn’t say I couldn’t go through it. Or under it. Or lay a trap inside it to ambush Branco.”

“We’ve still got to find it.”

“We have two days,” said Bell.

But his optimism proved futile. They probed the full half mile of the uphill wall before darkness closed in but found nothing. “The Culps could have cemented it shut after the Civil War,” said Archie. “Or maybe the ladies turned up another quaint old Hudson Valley legend.”

40

In Wallabout Basin, across the East River from Manhattan, battleship USS Connecticut raised steam for a maiden voyage unique in the history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Shipbuilders and sailors swarmed over her guns, searchlights, superstructure, and decks, harassed by frantic officers exhorting them to paint, polish, and holystone faster. Put in commission only two months ago, and scheduled to head south for her shakedown cruise, Connecticut suddenly had new orders: Convey the Commander-in-Chief forty-five miles up the Hudson River.

To the great relief of her officers, icebreakers were clearing the channel only as far as West Point. So many things could go wrong on a brand-new ship that the sooner the Navy men landed President Roosevelt at the Military Academy pier, the fewer chances of a humiliating disaster. With luck, she would steam back to Brooklyn deemed worthier than her archrival USS Louisiana to be flagship of an American cruise around the world — while TR toured the Catskill Aqueduct by train and auto, shaking a thousand hands.

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The south wall of Raven’s Eyrie, which was closest to the main mansion, was divided midway by the service gate tower, which overlooked long sections in both directions. The Van Dorns who peered through a spy hole in the hogshead barrel had reported seeing no gatekeeper watching at night. But Bell was taking no chances. He and Archie Abbott made a thorough search of the sections in sight of the tower before dawn. They pressed farther along the wall in daylight but found no hidden passage and no indication that one had ever existed.

The Raven’s Eyrie north wall was almost as remote as the hillside wall the Van Dorns had first searched, though here and there they could glimpse the rooftops and chimneys of a neighboring estate house. Someone watching with good field glasses might notice two men creeping through the trees along Culp’s wall. But it seemed unlikely they would pick up the telephone to warn Culp when he and Archie could easily be stone masons making repairs or the estate foresters clearing brush. They traversed the full half mile of wall and again saw no relic of the Underground Railroad. All that remained unobserved was the long wall that faced the river, but they had lost the light.

Bell told Archie Abbott, “I’m worried he’ll use a sniper. You’re the only outdoorsman on the squad. The rest are city boys. Mark off a five-hundred-yard perimeter of the road to the siphon shaft and search every possible sniper hide. I’ll take the ice yacht tomorrow.”

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