“I think they were one and the same man. And I believe the Sandhayes woman is in on it—”
“It changes nothing, Mrs. Adams.” He leaned toward her, strong brown fingers outspread on the stained diagram before her. “We have deduced a conspiracy but proven nothing. Nor can we prove anything until we have something in hand that will connect any of these people—whether they are two or three or even all one and the same—with the death of Sir Jonathan Cottrell on the night of the fifth of March. Until we can do that, we can do nothing—except get Harry away from Castle Island at the soonest possible moment, before the wind dies down, cost what it may. And that,” he concluded softly, “is what we need to do.”
Pattie tapped softly at the parlor door: “Mrs. Adams?”
Abigail rose and opened it halfway. “Get the children their dinner, and just put aside a little for me, if you will, please,” she said. “We shall be here a time.” Closing the door, she returned to the table, and for the next hour, she went over her visit to the Castle, step by step: guards, corridors, right turn, left turn. Cells, doors, windows. Revere made notes on the edges of the cartridge-paper, which was, Abigail saw, already laced with them. He must have worked up descriptions from smugglers, farmers, laundrywomen over the years that British troops had occupied the island—Abigail had one friend that she knew of who had made a regular study of the place, for the benefit of the Sons of Liberty. She heard Thaxter’s voice in the hall as he returned from his own dinner, heard the clunk of John’s office door shutting, and knew the afternoon was getting late.
Half closing her eyes, she made herself see again the corridor leading to Harry’s cell, the window’s size and height, the lock on the door. A craftsman himself, Revere had a good eye and a good memory for the tiniest of details: Who had the cell key? Where was it kept, in Coldstone’s office? Did the window of Harry’s cell have shutters? Bars? Glass? Could a man of Knox’s substantial frame get himself through it? (Abigail thought not.)
As the description took shape and Abigail studied the calm, dark face bent above the map opposite her, she thought, He’s going to lead the party in himself.
“You say we mustn’t let Harry be taken for trial to Halifax,” she said, when Revere was done, “lest being found guilty, he turn King’s Evidence rather than hang. Yet how much do you multiply their captives—multiply those who will face that same choice—if you carry through with this plan?”
The silversmith paused in rolling up his paper and grinned. “Then we mustn’t let ourselves be taken, must we?”
Nabby and Johnny had already finished cleaning up after dinner when Abigail and the Sons of Liberty passed through the kitchen. Both glanced up from their schoolbooks and slates at their mother’s face, and hesitated to speak to her as she walked her guests to the door into the yard. Neither Charley nor Tommy were so discreet, and neither approved of their mother’s preoccupation with matters that did not concern themselves. Tommy flung himself against the leading-strings, wailing, as Charley—free—clung to her skirts. Abigail couldn’t keep from smiling and ran a hand through Charley’s curls. But her eyes were somber as she bade Sam and Revere good afternoon.
“When shall this take place?” she asked softly, and Revere began to reply, but Sam cut him off.
“We haven’t decided.” For a man as friendly and gregarious as Sam quite genuinely was, he kept matters concerning the Sons of Liberty tight-shut in some battlemented corner of his mind. “With no moon in sight, ’tis a challenge at the best of times, even were we not going out against an inshore gale. ’Twill be soon.”
He turned away, but there was a flicker of grimness in his eyes, an anger, that made Abigail touch Revere’s sleeve: “Do you believe me?” she asked. “That there was a conspiracy—a very well-planned one—to . . . to surround Cottrell and run him to earth? Else why try to kill me? Why lure Lieutenant Coldstone ashore, where he could be shot at?”
“That could have been anyone,” pointed out Revere, with half a grin. “I think you could even get Sam to take a shot at an Assistant Provost Marshal, if he could be sure there was no way he would be connected with the crime. You think Elkins—or Palmer—was the one who entered the house Sunday night?”
“I’m sure of it. I marked him—”
“You did well,” said Revere. “It gives us another—What? Three days? Four days?—in which we can prove the connection, before the marks fade.” Turning his head, he studied the mottled dark roof of the evening sky above the houses, listened to the moan of the wind in the tangle of yards and alleyways that made up this close-built heart of the town. “Whether the wind will hold that long, God knows.” He donned his hat in order to lift it to her and, pulling his scarf close about him, hastened across the yard to where Sam waited in the passway, the stray whirls of the wind, even in that protected spot, tearing at the smoky stream of his breath.
Three days, thought Abigail, as she turned back toward the kitchen. Four days. If the wind holds . . .
Her younger sons clutched triumphantly at her skirt, as if they knew—she reflected bitterly—how signally her investigation had failed.
Palmer is a dark man and Elkins is tall and fair. And Margaret Sandhayes is somewhere in between them. Put a gray wig on his head—as Sam did for Hev Miller—and a patch on his eye, and all anyone will see is the gray hair and the eye patch. What had she said, only days ago? Money, and poison, and people disappearing . . .
But I knew him. That shocked twinge of recognition that had lanced through her as she’d seen the poisoner’s face in candlelight would not leave her mind. I saw him and I knew him.
Where have I seen him before?
I marked him. I have three days—four days—until the marks fade . . .
Abigail halted in the door of the icy pantry and stood for a moment, looking across the table where Charley was attempting to get the attention of Johnny and Nabby away from their slates. Johnny shoved his little brother impatiently—Charley shoved back, making the chair he stood on tilt perilously . . .
Abigail moved to cross the room, to break up the inevitable tussle—Just what the lad needs, another black eye when his last one’s barely been gone a week . . .
She stopped beside the table and stood for a moment, very still.
What was it Coldstone had said to her, in that dank little cubicle of his, the morning after Sir Jonathan Cottrell’s body had been found?
“Thaxter,” she called, and walked to the doorway of the hall, catching Charley as he did, in fact, overset the chair.
Her husband’s clerk put his head through the office door.
“Thaxter, dear, I’m desolated to ask it of you at this hour”—she set her middle son on his feet and kept a firm grip on his hand—“but could you get your coat on and take some messages for me? You can go straight to your mother’s after, but I think these really need to be sent tonight. Pattie—” She looked around, but Pattie had gone scampering out the back door, which had not closed properly, to catch Tommy before he made it across the yard to the passway to the street.
Honestly, I understand why ladies are never the heroines of anything, they simply cannot get away from their kitchens long enough to rescue anyone . . .
“Nabby, hold on to your brother until I get these notes written, and then Charley, yes, you shall have a story . . .”
One note was to Lieutenant Jeremy Coldstone on Castle Island.
One was to Lucy Fluckner.
And the third was to Dr. Joseph Warren.
Twenty-four
Abigail jerked to wakefulness and lay with pounding heart.
Blackness.
Silence.
Was it a sound? She saw again the open window in the kitchen on Sunday night, the dark form against her candle’s feeble glow, the dead mice beside the barrel of contaminated flour . . .
John dead. Johnny dead. Nabby dead . . .
What had waked her?
A shutter banging?
A footfall?
She slithered
from under the blankets and out through the curtains, shuddering in the cold, which seemed deeper and more intense than it had for two weeks now. Wrapped herself in her wool robe, scuffed slippers on her feet. Padded, silent as breath, to the door of her room and opened it, feeling rather than seeing the change of air in the dark of the hall. She’d dreamed of Paul Revere, of Dr. Warren, of other men she knew—dreamed of John, though she knew he would never undertake anything so mad-brained as what Sam proposed . . . Dreamed of them rowing across the choppy water of the bay, headed under pitch-black cloud-cover for Castle Island and death.
Was that what she had heard? Shots, cries . . . Impossible, across three miles of open water.
Then what sound—?
She was halfway to the stair before she realized that what had waked her was not sound, but stillness.
The wind had died.
Her candle-flame burned straight upright in its lantern when she crossed the yard two hours later, at the first crowings of Arabella Butler’s rooster. The new moon had set already, behind the breaking clouds. Thin starlight showed her her own breath.
Dear God, protect them . . .
Their Majesties—as she sometimes called Cleopatra and Semiramis—blinked sleepily at her as she entered the cowhouse, waked before their usual time but accepting of it. Abigail was a poor sleeper and often rose at such an hour to do the milking and start her work rather than waste another three-quarters of an hour in bed in an unprofitable quest for further sleep. Their eyes flashed gold at her in the dark; the thick smell of hay was deeply comforting.
First light saw her hastening along Queen Street, when in other houses the kitchen-fires were just being lit. The market-square looked queer in twilight this early, without the booths and barrows she was used to seeing on Mondays and Thursdays. But life was stirring along the quays, as men called back and forth among the fishing-boats and warehouses—Maybe we’ll get down to Charleston this time . . . Looks to be clearing . . . Jaysus, we’ve had the hold filled for a week! If we’re caught in harbor again, Cap’n’ll have a seizure . . .
At Castle Island they’d be loading the Incitatus.
Paul Revere was eating breakfast when she rapped at the kitchen door.
Just the sight of him as Young Paul opened the door for her—the shutters in the front of the house were not yet taken down—flooded her with relief, like a benediction: “You didn’t go.”
“Blasted smugglers were taking a cargo across to Lynn with the boat—!” His dark eyes fairly glittered. “And now—”
“Now I think I know at least a part of what happened,” said Abigail. “At least enough to make an argument for the Provost and Colonel Leslie. But I must get word across, and quickly—what time does the tide go out?”
“It won’t turn ’til near noon.”
“Good,” said Abigail. “Will you come with me to Old North? I need to speak to our brave boys from Maine.”
Matthias Brown was still asleep when Revere and Abigail crossed Sun Court to the church; Hev Miller was helping Robbie Newman take down the shutters on the vestry, and explaining in intense detail just why his mother’s way of cooking canvasback duck with woodchuck-fat was superior to and more healthful than the Boston way, not meaning any disrespect to Mrs. Newman . . .
He listened to the question Abigail put to him and shook his head. “No.”
“Had he any remnant of it? Any mark whatsoever?”
“No. I don’t see how he could have gotten one,” the Mainer added. “The man wouldn’t have put up a fight if you’d walked up and spat in his face. Is there a chance Matt and I might be getting back to Boothbay, now the wind’s turned to the north?” he added, looking over at Revere. “Matt and I took a turn along Ship Street yesterday, and I’ll swear we saw the Magpie, tied up at Burroughs’s Wharf—”
Revere glared at Robbie, who made a helpless gesture: “I couldn’t see the harm in it—”
“A few days more,” promised Abigail. And to Revere, “’Tis no matter, in fact ’twill help. Can you go find it there, and ask young Mr. Putnam if he’ll take us across to the Castle, the moment the tide turns? I shall be at the wharf at half past eleven—”
She had hoped to find notes from Dr. Warren, or Lucy Fluckner, or both, upon her arrival at her home at half past eight. Instead, when Abigail entered the kitchen she was startled to see Mrs. Sandhayes rise awkwardly from the table. “Please forgive me, Mrs. Adams, for calling at such a horrifying hour,” she said, holding out her hand. “I must speak to you. I have used you dreadfully—as I find that I have been used myself.”
Abigail was silent, regarding that beaky, over-painted face, the red mouth set and the green eyes filled with an expression of chagrin. She asked, “By Palmer?” and Margaret Sandhayes nodded. “Or Elkins, if that was his name—or was it Tredgold?”
Pattie’s footfalls reverberated dimly from upstairs, trailed by Charley’s toddling steps. Tommy, tied by his leading-strings to the leg of the sideboard, left off trying to undo the knots and stood up, holding out his arms for his mother: “Mama!”
“Who? Oh, the Seaford girls, yes.” Mrs. Sandhayes shook her head. “To be honest, Mrs. Adams, I don’t know. Your lovely handmaid said I might wait for you in the parlor—?”
“Mama!” crowed Tommy urgently.
“Of course.” Abigail kissed the boy, stood again—Tommy began at once to wail his protests—and picked up the teapot and her guest’s half-drunk cup and saucer. In the parlor a lively fire had been kindled to warm the room. A second cup, pristine, sat on the tray beside a small plate of gingerbread. God bless Pattie, for thinking of everything.
“I had this”—from her pocket, Mrs. Sandhayes drew a folded sheet of paper, which she handed across the small table to Abigail—“last night. Brought to the back door as usual by a boy picked at random off the wharves—at least, the whole time I knew Mr. Palmer, if that was in fact his name, it was never the same boy.”
“Last night?” Abigail unfolded it.
Mags, it said, in a sprawled and jagged hand, sorry to do this, my dearest dove, but the time has come for us to part. There’s a man come forward, that says he saw me follow Sir J from the wharf to the house, and I can’t risk staying. Thank you for all the help you’ve given. Perhaps we’ll meet again. A thousand kisses—A.P.
Abigail looked up, frowning, as her guest poured her out a cup of the yellowish chamomile tea.
“You must be frozen.” Mrs. Sandhayes pushed the plate of gingerbread nearer. “Did you make this gingerbread, my dear? I used to make a fair gingerbread myself.” She sighed, bitter and weary, and sipped her tea. “I thought—Well, I’m well served, I suppose, for believing the man.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That Cottrell had—ruined, I suppose the novelists would say—his sister . . . though I suppose it is stretching the truth a bit, to speak of ruining an actress. She was caught with child, and being very young and inexperienced, I suspect she let matters go a little too long before she took steps to resolve the matter, and the long and the short of it was that she died.” The Englishwoman’s hand strayed nervously to the black Medusa cameo at her throat, rubbing it, as if it were a talisman of some loss of her own. “She was the only person he had ever cared about, he said, and it enraged him that no one would so much as chide the man for his deed. I was angry for his sake, and for hers—but more than that, I’m ashamed to say I . . . I simply enjoyed being part of a conspiracy.”
“Why you?” asked Abigail. “What part had you to play, if you’d never exchanged a word with Cottrell?” She set the note down, groped for the teacup, and picked it up.
Raising her eyes, she saw—for one instant only—the intent-ness with which Mrs. Sandhayes watched her, before the other woman turned her eyes away.
Arrested by that expression—coldly eager and almost inhuman—Abigail’s glance went to Mrs. Sandhayes’s own half-empty cup and she thought, She cannot abide chamomile.
And then, as if she’d opened a box
and seen all the events stored there like game-tokens: She came to Boston sometime after Christmas, at the same time as Androcles Palmer, and Sir Jonathan Cottrell . . . From where?
If she’s a part of this conspiracy, this may ALL be another lie.
She put the cup to her lips, raised it as if drinking, her lips pressed tight shut, and tried through a surge of panic to remember what Lieutenant Dowling had said about oleander’s deadliness. She set the cup down and immediately rested her chin on her hand as she studied the note, in such a way as to unobtrusively wipe her lips . . .
The paper on which the note was written looked like the same kind used in the Fluckner household. The ink, too: blue black with a good color to it, not the thinner sort used by John for drafts and documents of little importance. She was conscious of her heart pounding, of a shivering coldness rushing through her body. If EVERYTHING she has said is a lie . . .
Raising her eyes again, she became aware that Mrs. Sandhayes had changed the way she dressed her hair. No one—no grown woman that she knew, certainly no woman with the slightest pretension to fashion—wore her hair to cover her ears. The schoolgirl curls that the chaperone had induced to cluster around her face, hanging down from the more fashionable side-rolls of hair, were grotesque in the extreme, but grotesque in a different manner than the woman’s usual swagged fantasias of poufs and powder. As if her eyes had changed their focus, it seemed to Abigail that she could see through the gaudy makeup, to the severe—almost masculine—bone structure of the face, the strong chin and long nose . . .
She said, in a tone of surprise, “What on earth did you do to your ear?”
Mrs. Sandhayes’s left hand jerked toward that mass of curls, and as she touched them, Abigail saw that indeed the lobe of the ear was scabbed as if recently torn. With swift deliberation she raised her teacup to her tight-sealed lips again, made the pretense of drinking. Anything to put Mrs. Sandhayes off her guard—to put her at ease and make her think the danger is already taken care of—
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