Excerpt:

     On Tremont Street Henrietta stopped among the thousands gathered to observe the troops representing New England’s independent citizen soldiery. Men dressed in full regalia rode proudly on horseback, the cold air giving life to their step. To her right a young woman waved a handkerchief with abandon as the Lynn Light Infantry passed. The Roxbury City Guard went by in such high spirits Henrietta wondered how their optimism could be warranted.

    Most felt the potential election of Mr. Lincoln made war a certainty. As she watched the units parade before the crowd her wistfulness deepened to melancholy. The display seemed almost a premonition of what awaited many young men here who might suffer Alec’s fate. She hoped Neville would delay his return from Europe.

    A flash of sunlight split the clouds, hitting the edge of a sword carried by the regiment before her. The weapons carried by these men were too thick to have killed Sweeney. These swords were too honorable for the vulgar nocturnal killing of a man in cold blood, even one wanted by the police.

    Between military units she spotted a gentleman across the street whom she recognized as Freddy’s friend from the Compass Club. The walking stick he carried caught the sun’s glare. It was a sword stick like her brother owned, offering discreet protection for men walking at night who risked being accosted. Freddy claimed the sword’s narrow blade concealed within his walking stick gave him a feeling of security after staying late at the laboratory.
Sweeney’s wound flashed through her mind in horrifying detail. It was more like the cut a sword stick might make than the thicker blade of a regular sword. No gentleman needed to defend himself in Sweeney’s apartment, for no one of their class had reason to visit.

    Then she remembered the witness who claimed he’d seen a gentleman nearby. She’d been unable to locate Freddy around midnight. Fanny’s husband and Corinthia’s father, she reflected, were missing as well.

    All were fashionable gentlemen who carried sword sticks.

    It sickened Henrietta to realize no common thief had killed Sweeney, but one of her own class. If the police investigated every Bostonian who owned such an accessory the murderer would have plenty of time to escape. Why investigate further when they suspected Freddy? If he’d killed McLaren, he wasn’t above killing Sweeney.

    Her talk with her brother seemed more urgent now. She hastened toward Pemberton Square away from the rousing songs of revolution, her mind squarely in the present.