Spies like us

Thanks to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and some (gasp!) female detectives, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived safely in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 23, 1861 after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Baltimore Plot was an alleged conspiracy in late February 1861 to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln en route to his inauguration. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, played a key role by managing Lincoln's security throughout the journey.

Kate Warne was a female Pinkerton agent credited with gathering and supplying information which helped convince Pinkerton that there was a plot to assassinate Lincoln in Baltimore.

Warne's employment as a detective was a significant moment in woman's history. Women were not allowed to be police until 1891 and could not be detectives until 1903.

When Pinkerton's son Robert conspired with other agents in 1876 not to hire female detectives, Pinkerton furiously sent Robert a telegram:

"It has been my principle to use females for the detection of crime where it has been useful and necessary. With regard to the employment of such females, I can trace it back to the time I first hired Kate Warne, up to the present time. And I intend to still use females whenever it can be done judiciously. I must do it or falsify my theory, practice and truth."

Hattie Lawton was also part of Pinkerton's Female Detective Bureau. What her exact role in the Baltimore Plot is unknown. Many of Pinkerton's early records were destryoyed in the 1871 Chicago Fire.

Once Lincoln's rail carriage had safely passed through Baltimore, Pinkerton sent a one-line telegram to the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad: "Plums delivered nuts safely."

Of course a certain female detective who shall remain nameless was also there.

Pipe dreams

According to my friend Betsy, I am now a Perfectly Awful Girl.

You see, she caught me with a pipe ... one that does not work since there is no hole in it!

So why a non-functional pipe? Tis the season!

1. Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows is coming out Dec. 16.
   
   I need to practice my sleuthing skills ... and appearance. Sidney Paget in his illustrations usually had Holmes smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Paget is also credited with giving the first deerstalker cap and Inverness cape to Holmes, something that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never mentioned.
   
   
2. Santa smokes one.
   
   "The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
   And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath"

   A Visit from St. Nicholas
   Clement Clarke Moore

3. And even some of the boys in Betsy's Crowd!

Betsy started reforming Phil. He smoked. He smoked a pipe. He was the only boy in Betsy's circle who smoked, except behind the barn. It was a wonderful evening when Phil gave Betsy his pipe. She hung it on a ribbon over her dressing table.

Betsy in Spite of Herself

Sometime before she had revived her last year's successful experiment in “reforming.” Phil's pipe still hung beside her dressing table. She discovered that Dave had a pipe and secured it to hang beside Phil's. Dennie gave her a sack of tobacco and some cigarette papers. Cab contributed a cigar.

Betsy had protested that. "You don't smoke! You're giving me one of your father's cigars."

"Well, gosh, Betsy!" Cab grinned. "If everyone else is going to be reformed, I want to be reformed, too."

Her father teased her about this enterprise....

"Have you heard about Betsy turning Carrie Nation?"

Betsy was a Junior

So now she has gone all Carrie Nation on Me and is demanding my pipe!

She even called me in front of the rest of The Crowd hoping I'd give in.

Betsy doesn't know me very well yet, does she?

Nancy Who?

Move over Sherlock, there's a new Detective in Town.

Oh, don't think I've given up on my aspiration to be the world's Greatest Girl Detective, too!

Thanks to Jennifer I now have (or soon shall) my own Deerstalker Hat!

Look closely, and you will see I already have the magnifying glass.

What else does a Famous Girl Detective need other than a Fabulous Sense of Style?

And a Mystery about an Old Clock seems rather Steampunkish to Me.