ALSO BY PAUL COLLINS Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn’t Change the World Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books Not Even Wrong: A Father’s Journey into the Lost History of Autism The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars 2 Copyright © 2013 by Paul Collins All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress. eISBN: 978-0-307-95647-7 Map by David Cain Jacket design by Albert Tang Jacket illustrations: [House of Representatives] Encyclopaedia Britannica/ Universal Images Group/Getty Images; [Burr] MPI/Stringer Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images; [Hamilton] Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images v3.1 3 To my brother Peter, whose room was my first library 4 [C ] ONTENTS Cover Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Map of the City of New York, 1798 Prologue PART I THE VICTIM 1. T G S HE REAT ICKNESS 2. A B C OARDINGHOUSE BY ANDLELIGHT 3. T Y Q HE OUNG UAKER 4. T B V HE LACK EIL 5. T M M HE YSTERY IN THE EADOW PART II THE ACCUSED 6. S P P Y U OME ERSON OR ERSONS AS ET NKNOWN 7. T G C N HE LOOMS OF ONSCIOUS IGHT 8. W I B A HATEVER S OLDLY SSERTED 9. A P M ERFECT ONSTER 10. T S S HE ILENT LEIGH PART III THE TRIAL 11. T A P HE MERICAN HENOMENA 12. B H S Y THE OLLOW TAIR 13. T C H N HE OLOR OF A ORSE IN THE IGHT 14. A , S SLEEP EEMINGLY 15. T D ’ A HE EVIL S DVOCATE PART IV THE VERDICT 16. L P OOK UPON THE RISONER 17. T C C HE ATCHPENNY ONTRIVANCE 18. E M V VERY ARK OF A ILLAIN 19. D D UEL AT AWN 20. A C E OMPLICATED VIL Acknowledgments Notes Sources About the Author 5 6 D D UEL WITH THE EVIL 7 P ROLOGUE [January 2, 1800] A B a horsebreaker when Elias Ring NDREW LANCK HAD JUST BEEN SITTING DOWN TO LUNCH WITH and Joseph Watkins showed up and battered on his door. It was a bitterly cold day, and it took a fairly tough sort to live out in Lispenard’s Meadow—but the boardinghouse owner and his neighbor, an ironmonger, were not to be trifled with. Where did you get it? The well, Blanck replied. One of Aaron Burr’s new municipal wells was out in the meadow, and Blanck’s son had found a muff, for covering the hands in cold weather, floating in there more than a week before. On Christmas Eve, in fact— just as the bells were tolling for the death of General Washington. I went to the well the next day and looked in, he explained, but I saw nothing. Joseph and Elias marched out to the meadow, followed by the horsebreaker. The men threw off the wooden cover and ran a long pole down into the dark hole. Mr. Ring could feel an object in the water, a heavy and inert mass, but he couldn’t hook it. The local boys were now gathering to look, and one was sent back for some rope, with which they created a simple net. This time the mass came up. There was a tangle of hair floating in the water—a wet shoulder—and a face looking upwards … 8 9 [Six Months Earlier] 10