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雙語·林肯傳 33

所屬教程:譯林版·林肯傳

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2022年06月06日

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33

In 1876, a gang of counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln's body. It is an astonishing story, which few books on Lincoln say anything about.

“Big Jim” Kinealy's gang, one of the cleverest counterfeiting crews that ever vexed and perplexed the United States Secret Service, had its headquarters, during the seventies, in the guileless corn-and-hog town of Lincoln, Illinois.

For years Big Jim's suave and mild-mannered “shovers,” as they were called, had been sneaking out across the country and shoving bogus five-dollar bills across the counters of credulous merchants. The profits had been fantastic. But by the spring of 1876, a deadly paralysis was creeping over the gang, for their supply of counterfeit currency was almost exhausted, and Ben Boyd, the master engraver who made their bogus greenbacks, was in prison.

For months Big Jim sniffed vainly about St. Louis and Chicago, trying to get another engraver to make counterfeit bills. Finally he resolved that somehow the invaluable Ben Boyd must be set free.

Big Jim conceived the unholy idea of stealing the body of Abraham Lincoln, and hiding it away. Then, while the whole North was in an uproar, Big Jim would calmly drive a hard and fabulous bargain: he would agree to return the sacred corpse in exchange for Ben Boyd's pardon and a huge pile of gold.

Dangerous? Not at all. For Illinois had upon her statute-book no law against the purloining of bodies.

So in June, 1876, Big Jim set about clearing the decks for action. He despatched five of his conspirators to Springfield, where they opened a saloon and dance-hall, masquerading as bartenders while making their preparations.

Unfortunately for him, one of his “bartenders” drank too much whisky one Saturday night in June, drifted into a redlight house in Springfield, and talked too much. He boasted that he was soon going to have a barrelful of gold.

He whispered the details: on the eve of the next fourth of July, while Springfield was shooting off rockets, he would be out in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, “stealing old Lincoln's bones,” as he put it; and late that night he would bury them in a sandbar under a bridge spanning the Sangamon.

An hour later the parlor-house madam was hurrying to the police, to tell her thrilling news. By morning she had blabbed it to a dozen other men. Soon the whole town had the story, and the masquerading bartenders dropped their towels and fled the city.

But Big Jim was not defeated. He was only delayed. He shifted his headquarters from Springfield to 294 West Madison Street, Chicago. He owned a saloon there. In the front room his man, Terrence Mullen, dispensed liquor to working-men; and in the back he had a sort of club-room, a secret rendezvous for counterfeiters. A bust of Abraham Lincoln stood over the bar.

For months a thief named Lewis G. Swegles had been patronizing this saloon and working himself into the good graces of Big Jim's gang. He admitted that he had served two terms in the penitentiary for stealing horses, and boasted that he was now “the boss body-snatcher of Chicago.” He declared he supplied the medical schools of the town with most of their cadavers. That sounded plausible enough then, for grave-robbing was a national horror; medical colleges, in order to obtain bodies for dissection in their class rooms, were forced to buy them from ghouls who sneaked up to the rear door at two o'clock in the morning, with caps pulled low over their eyes and bulging sacks slung across their backs.

Swegles and Kinealy's gang perfected the details of their plan for rifling Lincoln's tomb. They would stuff the body into a long sack, pitch it into the bottom of a spring-wagon, and, with relays of fresh horses, would drive with all possible speed to northern Indiana; and there with only the water-fowl to see them, they would hide the body among the lonely dunes, where the wind from over the lake would soon wipe out all telltale tracks in the shifting sands.

Before leaving Chicago, Swegles bought a London newspaper; and, tearing out a piece, he stuffed the rest inside the bust of Lincoln that stood over the bar at 294 West Madison Street. That night, November 6, he and two of Big Jim's gang climbed aboard a Chicago & Alton train headed for Springfield, taking with them the fragment of torn newspaper, which they proposed to leave beside the empty sarcophagus as they dashed off with the body. The detectives finding the paper would naturally keep it as a clue. Then while the nation was rocking with excitement, one of the gang would approach the governor of the State and offer to return Lincoln's body for two hundred thousand dollars in gold and the freedom of Ben Boyd.

And how would the governor know that the self-styled spokesman was not an impostor? The gangster would carry with him the London newspaper; the detectives, fitting their fragment into the torn page, would accept him as the bona-fide representative of the ghouls.

The gang arrived in Springfield, according to schedule. They had chosen what Swegles called “a damned elegant time” for their adventure. November 7 was election day; for months the Democrats had been denouncing the Republicans for the graft and corruption that had besmirched Grant's second administration, while the Republicans had waved the “bloody shirt” of the Civil War in the face of the Democrats. It was one of the most bitter elections in United States history. That night, while excited crowds were milling about the newspaper offices and jamming the saloons, Big Jim's men hurried out to Oak Ridge Cemetery—dark now, and deserted—sawed the padlock off the iron door of Lincoln's tomb, stepped inside, pried the marble lid off the sarcophagus, and lifted the wooden casket half out.

One of the gang ordered Swegles to bring up the horses and spring-wagon which he had been delegated to have ready and waiting in a ravine two hundred yards northeast of the monument. Swegles hurried down the steep bluff until he was lost in the darkness.

Swegles was not a grave-robber. He was a reformed criminal now employed as a stool-pigeon by the Secret Service. He had no team and wagon waiting in the ravine; but he did have eight detectives waiting for him in the memorial room of the tomb. So he raced around there and gave them the signal they had all agreed upon: he struck a match, lighted a cigar, and whispered the password “Wash.”

The eight Secret Service men, in their stocking-feet, rushed out of their hiding-place, every man with a cocked revolver in each hand. They dashed around the monument with Swegles, stepped into the dark tomb, and ordered the ghouls to surrender.

There was no answer. Tyrrell, the district chief of the Secret Service, lighted a match. There lay the coffin, half out of the sarcophagus. But where were the thieves? The detectives searched the cemetery in all directions. The moon was coming up over the tree-tops. As Tyrrell rushed up onto the terrace of the monument, he could make out the forms of two men, staring at him from behind a group of statuary. In the excitement and confusion, he began firing at them with both pistols, and in an instant they were firing back. But they weren't the thieves. He was shooting at his own men.

In the meantime, the thieves, who had been waiting a hundred feet away in the darkness, for Swegles to return with the horses, dashed off through the woods.

Ten days later they were caught in Chicago, brought to Springfield, thrown into a jail, and surrounded by heavy guards day and night. For a time there was intense public excitement and indignation. Lincoln's son Robert, who had married into the wealthy Pullman family, employed the best lawyers in Chicago to prosecute the gang. They did what they could, but they had a hard time. There was no law in Illinois, then, against stealing a body. If the thieves had actually stolen the coffin, they might have been prosecuted for that, but they hadn't stolen it; they had not taken it out of the tomb. So the best the highpriced attorneys from Chicago could do was to prosecute the ghouls for having conspired to steal a coffin worth seventy-five dollars, the maximum penalty for which offense was five years. But the case did not come to trial for eight months; public indignation had died down by that time, and politics were at work; and, on the first ballot, four jurors actually voted for acquittal. After a few more ballots the twelve men compromised and sent the ghouls to the Joliet prison fox one year.

Since Lincoln's friends were afraid that other thieves might steal the body, the Lincoln Monument Association hid it away for two years in an iron coffin under a heap of loose boards lying in a damp, dark passageway behind the catacombs—a sort of cellar. During that time thousands of pilgrims paid their respects to an empty sarcophagus.

For various reasons Lincoln's remains have been moved seventeen times. But they will be moved no more. The coffin is now imbedded in a great ball of steel and solid concrete, six feet beneath the floor of the tomb. It was placed there on September 26, 1901.

On that day the casket was opened, and human eyes gazed down for the last time upon his face. Those who saw him then remarked how natural he appeared. He had been dead thirty-six years; but the embalmers had done their work well, and he still looked very much as he had looked in life. His face was a trifle darker, and there was a touch of mold on one wing of his black tie.

33

一八七六年,一個制造假幣的團伙企圖偷走林肯的遺體。這是一個十分驚人的故事,在寫林肯的諸多書籍中,很少有書提到這件事。

基尼利綽號“大吉姆”,他的幫派是一個非常聰明的假幣制造團伙,長期以來一直讓美國特工處倍感頭痛。在七十年代,“大吉姆幫”總部設(shè)在伊利諾伊州的田園小城林肯市。

“大吉姆”稱自己的手下為儒雅的“推銷員”。數(shù)年來,他們遍布全國,并成功地將偽造的五元紙幣推銷到了全國各地的柜臺之上?!按蠹穾汀鲍@得了暴利。但是到了一八七六年春天,“大吉姆幫”卻遭遇了致命危機,因為幫派的假幣刻版大師本·博伊德被捕入獄,假幣的供應幾乎處于枯竭狀態(tài)。

數(shù)月來,“大吉姆”一直在圣路易斯和芝加哥尋找新的刻版師,卻一無所獲。最后,他決定還是要想辦法把本·博伊德弄出來。

“大吉姆”產(chǎn)生了一個十分卑劣的想法:偷走林肯的遺體并把它藏起來,接著,待北方鬧得沸沸揚揚時,“大吉姆”再強勢地提出自己的訴求——只要釋放博伊德,再奉上一大堆金子,就歸還林肯神圣的遺體。

這么做危險嗎?一點兒也不危險,因為伊利諾伊州的法令全書上根本沒有對盜竊尸體定罪。

于是,一八七六年六月,“大吉姆”掃除了障礙,開始著手行動。“大吉姆”派了五名手下前往春田市,在那兒開了一家?guī)璩氐木起^,借著酒保的身份籌備盜竊林肯遺體的計劃。

可是不幸的是,他的一名“酒?!痹诹碌囊粋€星期六晚上喝多了,搖搖晃晃來到了春田市的一家妓院,然后不小心說出了他們的計劃。那名“酒?!贝祰u自己很快就會得到一桶黃金。

那名“酒?!毙÷暤卣f出了計劃的細節(jié):七月三日晚上,為了慶祝第二天的獨立日,春田市會發(fā)射火箭式煙火,到時他就溜到橡樹嶺公墓,“偷走老林肯的骨頭”——這是他的原話——等到半夜時分,將遺骨藏在桑加蒙河橋下方的沙堤之中。

一個小時后,得知這一消息的妓女匆匆趕往警局,將這駭人聽聞的消息告訴了警察。天亮時,她已經(jīng)和好幾個人說了這件事,于是整個春田市都知道了。那些假酒保不得不扔下手中的抹布,逃離了春田市。

但是,“大吉姆”并未被打敗,他只是延遲了計劃而已。他將幫派的總部從春田市遷至芝加哥的麥迪遜西大街294號。他在那兒有一間酒館。在前廳的時候,他是給客人們斟酒的特倫斯·馬倫(Terrence Mullen),但是在后院,他有一個套間,是團伙秘密會面的地點。酒館的吧臺旁立著一座林肯的半身像。

一連幾個月,一個名叫路易斯·斯維格爾斯(Lewis G.Swegles)的小偷一直光顧酒館,和“大吉姆”的幫派混得很熟。他承認自己已經(jīng)因為盜馬而“二進宮”了,還吹噓說自己現(xiàn)在是“芝加哥盜墓人的老大”。他聲稱,市里醫(yī)學院里的尸體大多是他提供的。這話聽起來有幾分可信度,當時全國都十分抵觸盜尸,因此醫(yī)學院只能被迫從盜墓人手里購買教學用的尸體。這些盜墓人總是在深夜兩點鐘的時候背著鼓脹的麻袋,將帽檐壓得極低地出現(xiàn)在醫(yī)學院的后門口。

斯維格爾斯和“大吉姆”的幫派一起完善了盜竊林肯墓的計劃。他們打算先將林肯的遺體裝入一個大麻袋,將麻袋扔進輕便馬車,接著沿途不斷更換新的馬匹,用最快的速度趕到北方的印第安納州。到了那兒之后,除了水鳥,沒人能知道他們的行蹤。隨后他們將遺體藏在偏僻的沙丘里,屆時湖面吹來的風會抹平所有沙丘被移動過的痕跡。

離開芝加哥前,斯維格爾斯買了一份倫敦報紙,撕下一角,將剩下的部分塞到了麥迪遜西大街294號內(nèi)林肯半身像里面。到了十一月六日那天晚上,他和“大吉姆”的兩名手下跳上了芝加哥至奧爾頓的列車。他們拿著那片報紙碎片,向春田市進發(fā)。他們打算偷完遺體后在空棺木旁留下這張紙片,到時探員肯定會將它作為證據(jù)保存下來。等到全國都鬧得沸沸揚揚時,再安排幫派的發(fā)言人和州長交涉,要求用價值二十萬美金的黃金以及本·博伊德的自由交換林肯的遺體。

州長怎么能確定這名自封的發(fā)言人不是騙子呢?到時就拿出那份倫敦報紙,偵探拿空棺木旁的紙片一比對就能知道他們是真的盜墓賊。

一行人按照計劃到達了春田市。他們選擇在斯維格爾斯稱為“天賜良機”的那一天動手。十一月七日正好是大選的日子,數(shù)月來,民主黨一直因為格蘭特第二任任期內(nèi)政府出現(xiàn)的貪污和腐敗而對民主黨大加詆毀,而共和黨則在民主黨面前揮舞著內(nèi)戰(zhàn)的“血衣”。這是美國歷史上一場驚心動魄的角逐。那一晚,當激動的人群擠滿了大小酒館,在報社門口漫無目的地轉(zhuǎn)悠時,“大吉姆”的手下趁亂來到了橡樹嶺公墓,鋸斷了林肯墓園鐵門上的掛鎖,走了進去。他們撬開大理石石棺的蓋子,將木制的棺材抬起一半。

斯維格爾斯負責準備馬匹和輕便馬車,然后將它們藏在紀念堂東北面兩百碼的山坳里?!按蠹贰钡囊粋€手下讓斯維格爾斯將馬車取來,于是斯維格爾斯順著陡峭的山路向下走去,消失在了夜色中。

斯維格爾斯并不是盜墓賊。他是一個改過自新的犯人,現(xiàn)在為特工處做內(nèi)線。山坳里根本沒有幫手,也沒有馬車,倒是墓園的紀念堂里有八名探員在等著他。于是他繞了一圈又跑了回去,給了他們一個之前約定好的信號:他劃了根火柴,點燃了雪茄,然后小聲地說出了密語——“洗澡”。

八名只穿了襪子沒穿鞋子的探員沖出了藏身之地,每人手里都拿著一把左輪手槍,隨時準備開槍。他們和斯維格爾斯一起沖到了紀念堂處,走進黑暗的陵墓,命令盜墓賊立刻投降。

四周一片寂靜。特工處區(qū)域長官蒂勒爾點燃了一根火柴,只見棺材還在,一半抬到了石棺外面。但是盜墓賊們在哪里?探員們在墓園里四下搜索起來。月亮升上了樹梢。蒂勒爾沖上紀念堂的臺階時,看到兩個人影躲在一群雕像后面看著他。帶著興奮和疑惑,蒂勒爾雙手持槍向兩人開了槍,那兩人立刻開槍回擊。但他們并不是盜墓賊。蒂勒爾打到了自己人。

與此同時,真正的盜墓賊躲在一百碼外的黑暗處,正等著斯維格爾斯帶著馬車回來。聽到槍聲后,盜墓賊迅速沖進了樹林。

十天后,他們在芝加哥被捕,隨后被押往春田市,由重兵日夜看守。一段時間內(nèi),民眾對這件事十分憤慨。林肯的兒子羅伯特娶了富有的帕爾曼家族的千金,他重金聘請了芝加哥最厲害的律師起訴“大吉姆”的幫派。他們費盡了心思,結(jié)果卻并不理想。伊利諾伊州的法律并沒有針對盜尸提出相應懲罰。如果這伙盜墓賊真的偷了棺木,那還可以借此提起訴訟。但是他們沒有,林肯的棺材并沒有被帶離石棺。于是,芝加哥最貴最好的律師只能以試圖盜竊價值七十五美金的棺木為名,起訴那些盜墓賊。這項罪名最多可判五年有期徒刑。但是,這個案子拖了八個月都未能進行庭審。這時,民眾的激情已經(jīng)退去,政治因素開始起作用。在第一次投票時,竟然有四位陪審員投了無罪釋放票。經(jīng)過了幾次投票后,十二位陪審員達成了一致,將這群盜墓賊送去喬利埃特監(jiān)獄服刑一年。

林肯的朋友們擔心再有其他人企圖盜竊林肯的遺體,因此林肯紀念堂協(xié)會將林肯的遺體放在一口鐵棺材里,松松地在棺材上蓋上木板,然后將棺材安置在類似地窖的地下墓穴后面那潮濕黑暗的通道里。在那兩年期間,前來哀悼的人們只能對著一口空石棺寄托哀思。

出于各種各樣的原因,林肯的遺體被移動了十七次。但是現(xiàn)在,誰也無法再移動他的骸骨了。一九〇一年九月二十六日,人們將林肯的棺木嵌在一個巨大的鋼筋混凝土圓球里面,然后安放在墓園地下六英尺處。

那一天,棺木被打開了,人們最后一次看到了林肯的遺容。據(jù)那些見到了林肯的人回憶,林肯看上去非常自然。當時距他去世已過了三十六年,但是在防腐劑良好的保護下,林肯看上去和生前沒什么不同,只是臉色更暗了些,以及黑色領(lǐng)帶的一角有一小塊霉斑。

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