He gave me a long, hard stare, then raised the textbook. “I wrote this book, Mr. Snow. What do you think?”
“Sorry.”
Freidman slowly leaned back in his chair once more. “Tom Howard quit in late 1894 to open a Kinetoscope parlor here in the city. But after buying the machine and collecting various films, he went bankrupt and never saw his business to fruition.”
That… explained why an “assistant named Tom” had a Kinetoscope and all these rare films in his possession, before they were eventually sold to the now-murdered collector, James Robert. So perhaps, when Tom quit to cash in on the latest entertainment craze sweeping the nation, he took the compromising movie footage with him. Hewasthe one who passed on the story that it had to stay hidden to protect Dickson…. But if that were the case, Tom would have to have known about the murder too.
Because that’s what this all had to be about. The man who’d been murdered was somehow a threat to Dickson. Perhaps John McCormack here, already guilty of killing the servant in the case that sent him to prison, murdered not because he and the other man had a beef with each other, but because doing so was meant to… protect Dickson? And in an attempt to help cover up the death, Assistant Tom took the test reels with compromising footage on them, and left Edison’s company permanently.
“Is thatA Study in Silenceyou have?” Freidman asked. He leaned over the desk a bit to stare at my pile.
“Yes, sir.”
“Which edition?”
I opened the book and held it close to my face as I scanned the copyright and publisher information. “Second edition.”
Freidman tutted under his breath. His chair creaked as he spun around in order to study his bookshelf. “We use the third edition in class now.”
“Have there been significant additions to the content?”
“Enough that I don’t want students missing out.” He plucked the massive book from a lower shelf, then set it on his desk and sifted through the pages. “Therewasa death on the crew,” he said after a long bout of silence. “Unfortunately so many details were swept under the rug that I fear we might never know the truth of the matter.”
I leaned forward in my chair.
“Ah, here.” Freidman tapped a page. “It’s suspected the man was one Albert Martin.”
I patted my pockets, swore, and grabbed a sticky note and spare pen from Freidman’s desk without asking permission. I jotted the name down as he ignored me and kept speaking.
“I suspect the identity is correct, but scholars have never been able to confirm his name beyond a shadow of a doubt. As for murder—yes, that might have been his unfortunate fate. Personal documents from a few of the original Kinetoscope crew members suggest this man—Albert—was highly suspicious of Dickson. There was attempted sabotage at one point in the inventing process as well. By the accounts we’ve unearthed, this fellow, if it is indeed Albert Martin, did not get along well with his teammates.”
I stopped writing. The story Greta had told me over beers and pretzels came to mind. About something—orsomeone—putting Edison’s general manager on the scent of Dickson. He’d been removed by 1895 because he’d been moonlighting for other companies. Could the rat have been Albert, and he’d gotten evidence of Dickson’s betrayal to the company before being silenced in the most horrific way possible? If so, the wheels would have been put into motion, and even his death couldn’t have kept Dickson’s job safe.
I looked at Freidman. “I had a piece of test footage that shows John McCormack killing another man in 1894.”
Freidman’s eyes grew a little.
“Could Albert Martin be that man?”
“P-perhaps so,” he stuttered in a sort of astonished tone.
“Could Albert have snitched to the general manager about Dickson’s moonlighting, just before his death?”
“It’s highly probable snitching is what got Albert killed. But moonlighting wasn’t the only factor in Dickson’s removal from the company,” Freidman replied.
“Then, what? Did Albert ever make a threat against Dickson’s life? Something that would have provoked the other teammates into protecting him?”
Freidman’s expression grew more serious as he shook his head. “No, no. It wasn’t Dickson’s life that’d been threatened. There are personal accounts that indicate a dispute over the ownership of now long-lost prototype drafts. Dickson designed a number of inventions that would have put Edison’s fledging film company out of business. He drafted these new machines while employed for Edison. So Gilmore, the general manager, threatened Dickson to hand them over under the claim that the inventions belonged to the company.”
“But he didn’t?” I asked.
“No,” Freidman answered. “And Dickson left in 1895.” He shut the book with enough force to make me jump. “Had Dickson built those inventions and sold them, there’s little doubt Edison would have gone after him legally in order to protect his own interests.”
“It would have destroyed Dickson,” I said, piecing my thoughts together out loud. “He wouldn’t have stood a chance against someone like Thomas Edison. His finances and reputation would have been ruined.”
Freidman nodded. “Dickson left America. The drafts never resurfaced in Europe.”
As long as the Kinetoscope and footage were kept hidden, Dickson would be okay.
