Death of a Patriot

by Don Gutteridge

  “May the first, sir,” Billy said to Marc and the walls behind him. “She doesn’t know about this meetin’, of course, but she said she’d marry me even if she had to drag the preacher into prison!”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Marc said, helping Strangway remove the shackles. “But the most important thing you can do for both of you is to make a positive impression on Caleb Coltrane. He was truly affected by the revelation that you put the tourniquet on his arm and saved his life.”

  “And I can tell him every detail that’s on that kerchief. I spent many a lonely night down there in Essex with it in my hands.” He blushed in saying this, but Marc, who well knew the pangs and abashments of romantic love, recognized the emotions here as genuine and heartfelt and was encouraged. Billy would cooperate, even humble himself, despite the anger he must still harbour against Coltrane, because he now had a reason: Dolly and a shared future. Like Marc’s friend Rick Hilliard, Mel would become a gradually receding tableau of fixed memories, painful and pleasant in equal measure.

  “What are those?” Billy asked, pointing to the clothes Robert had brought along.

  “Your disguise,” Marc explained, offering the topcoat.

  It was decided that Marc and Billy would ride together in one sleigh, as two gentlemen out for an airing, to be followed by another within hailing distance, carrying Chief Sturges and Constable Cobb. Marc’s view was that the less conspicuous the entourage, the better. (Sir George had wanted a regimental escort.) The “gentlemen” slipped out the rear door of the Court House, climbed aboard, and made their way to Newgate Street, which they followed westward towards Brock Street at the edge of town. However, near John Street, Billy begged Marc to let him stop at his house for one minute to reassure his mother, whom Dolly had reported as sick with worry. Marc could see no reason not to. He waited in the front room of the cottage while Billy talked quietly to his mother in the kitchen. Billy then went into the bedroom briefly, “to fetch a rabbit’s foot Mel gave me in grade three.” Chief Sturges was visibly relieved to see Marc and Billy emerge intact a minute later. The rest of the journey to Chepstow was uneventful.

  Colonel Stanhope was not on hand to prescreen the visitors. It was a maid who answered the bell, looking decidedly nervous.

  “Please, wait here, sir, while I fetch Mr. Shad,” she said, but instead of going down the hall to the butler’s room, she went to the head of the stairs and called down, “They’re here, Mr. Shad!”

  Moments later, Absalom Shad came padding up from the anteroom below. “Ah, right on time, gentlemen,” he said without making eye contact. Then, as if out of long habit, he reached for their hats and coats and moved to arrange them on the hall tree. “I’ll follow you down,” he said.

  As Marc and Billy started down the stairs, Cobb and Sturges came in and were likewise relieved of their coats. Cobb was stationed at the top of the stairwell, while the chief thought he ought to make contact with Stanhope and utter helpful noises of reassurance.

  “He’s in his study,” the maid directed.

  On stepping down into the anteroom, Marc was surprised to discover that Lardner Bostwick was not there to greet them. “What happened to the lieutenant?” Marc said.

  Shad muttered, “Gone off somewheres.” And good riddance was the clear implication. “I been made the zookeeper,” he grumbled, rubbing his lopsided nose self-consciously.

  “Do you propose to beat back the escaping prisoner with your clothes brush?” Marc said, with a wink at Billy, who had grown strangely quiet and tense.

  Shad found no humour in this quip. “When the visitors come this mornin’, I called one of them Highlanders down here to help me open and close the door.”

  Marc showed Billy where to sign in. As he scrawled his own signature, Marc noticed the two morning visitors: Boynton Tierney, the Orange alderman, and a Mrs. Jones.

  “I see Mr. Tierney has been here again,” Marc said to Shad, who was peering up the stairs. “It’s all right, that’s a police constable up there, and his chief is in your master’s study. You may open the door.”

  Shad actually smiled, weakly. “Mr. Tierney’s been here four times that I know of,” he said, extracting a large key from his pocket. “He’s fond of arguin’, he is.”

  “He and Mr. Coltrane have heated discussions, do they?”

  “Go on fer an hour or more, they do.”

  “Who was this Mrs. Jones who came in after eleven?”

  Shad looked confused for a moment, then said with elaborate casualness, “Oh, her. Some lady from Streetsville, I think, who brung him a book or somethin’. She didn’t stay long.” He essayed a smile as he added, “And I didn’t feel the need to call in one of them Highlanders on the porch.”

  “A young lady?”

  “Why’re you so interested?” Shad said with sudden alertness.

  “I’m trying to get to understand Mr. Coltrane, that’s all.”

  “Why bother? He’ll be stone cold in a month.”

  • • •

  Billy was to go in alone. Marc would sit in the anteroom and wait, in case there should be any trouble. Shad reluctantly agreed to leave the chamber door slightly ajar. Even more reluctantly he was persuaded to go upstairs and tend to his butlering until needed again.

  “You’re sure you’re all right with this?” Marc said to Billy when they were alone.

  Billy was pale, but there was a willed determination in his eye, the kind the sergeant had no doubt called upon more than once down in Essex. “I’ve got to do this,” he said. “For Dolly.”

  Billy then vanished behind the big, iron-reinforced door. Marc heard Coltrane’s hearty “Hello!” and little else. The two men, so recently adversaries in war and a life-threatening duel, were apparently sitting across from each other and having a civil conversation. Billy carried with him an affidavit drawn up by Robert and Magistrate Thorpe, the document Coltrane would sign if all went as planned. The murmur of their voices was a satisfying music in Marc’s ears. He felt justifiably proud of what had been achieved in the past twenty-four hours. He was happy for Billy and, for himself, was now more certain than ever that he had at last chosen the right profession.

  Suddenly Coltrane’s voice rose in anger, then Billy’s in heated response. Marc moved towards the door, but just as he was about to throw it open, the voices died down. Seconds later came a roaring chortle from Coltrane. Marc sat again. Ten minutes passed. Marc yawned.

  A strangled cry from the cell brought Marc upright in an instant. It was a sustained, gurgling half scream, as if a man were being inexpertly throttled. Before Marc could reach the door, it was flung open and Billy, whey-faced, shouted at him, “For God’s sake, get a doctor!”

  Marc grabbed Billy by the shoulders. “What’s going on?”

  “Coltrane’s havin’ a fit!”

  Marc let Billy go and dashed into the prisoner’s room. Coltrane had staggered up and away from his desk and was now crouched on the floor, teetering upon one knee. Both hands tore at his throat and face as if trying to rip them off his body. His hawk’s features were contorted in pain, his eyes bulged grotesquely, blood gushed from both nostrils, and a snarling gargle shot out of his twisted lips. By the time Marc reached him, he had toppled onto the carpet. A final breath, like a sigh of surrender, eased into the waiting air.

  Caleb Coltrane was dead.

  • • •

  Much of what happened next remained a blur for Marc until he was compelled later on to recall and sort out the precise coherence of events. When he raced back into the anteroom—there was nothing he could do for Coltrane—it was empty. He could hear Billy’s voice, strident and terrified, shouting and pleading above him. Footsteps came pounding down the hall. Women’s voices mingled with men’s, none of the words distinguishable. The front door was opened and slammed shut. Finally Wilfrid Sturges appeared on the stairs, meeting Marc on his way up.

  “What’s happened?” he said to Marc.

  “Coltrane’s dead.”

&
nbsp; “Jesus, did the kid shoot ’im?”

  “No. He’s had some kind of seizure, apoplexy, I’d guess. I don’t see how Billy had anything to do with it.”

  “Christ, man, I hope not. All hell’s going to break loose when Sir George gets wind of this.”

  “Well, you’d better come and have a look.”

  “Right. I’ve got Cobb up there holdin’ off the colonel and his women. Billy’s given ’em quite a fright.”

  The two men reentered the cell. Sturges knelt beside the rapidly cooling body. He whistled through his teeth. “This wasn’t no conniption fit,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t we get Doc Withers to tell us that?”

  “Oh, we’ll do that all right. But it’s pretty obvious. I seen two or three of these back in London when I was on the force there.”

  “Two or three of what?”

  “Poisonings. Strychnine, by the look of it. It boils a man’s throat out. The ghastliest way to die I can think of. You wouldn’t wish it on a rat.”

  While his heart beat wildly, Marc forced himself to remain calm enough to think. If it was strychnine, then Coltrane had been murdered. Moreover, he had been murdered in the sole presence of a man who had engaged him in a duel and subsequently threatened his life before witnesses. But how could it have been done?

  “We’ve gotta keep everybody outta here,” Sturges said, “till the doctor can be fetched. You stay with the body, Marc, while I go up to tell the Stanhopes.”

  “I won’t touch anything,” Marc said. “But we have to find out how the man was induced to pour strychnine down his own throat.”

  “Well, there are easier ways to kill yerself.”

  Sturges went back into the anteroom, and Marc heard him call up the stairwell, “Constable Cobb’s just doin’ his job. Now get back, all of ya!”

  Next came a woman’s piercing shriek. Patricia’s, no doubt, on her hearing the news.

  Marc cast about in search of the source of the poison. It didn’t take him long to find it. Evident upon Coltrane’s shrunken left hand, now seized about his throat, was a dusting of snuff. Marc recalled that Coltrane snorted it like a horse with the heaves. He went over to the desk. Two snuff boxes of ornate silver and some pedigree sat next to the leather-bound Bible where they had been yesterday. One of them was wide open. Marc leaned over and very cautiously gave its contents a sniff. No odour beyond that of the ground tobacco registered. He held the box up so that the window light illuminated its contents. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but the snuff there seemed to be mixed with a number of paler, more sinister-looking grains, like pollen. If Coltrane had been paying close attention, he would have noticed, or even felt, the alien presence. But he was a man of supreme confidence and histrionic gesture. It was during this thought that Marc spotted Dolly’s kerchief on the desk. Beside it lay the magistrate’s document. It was signed. The major had done one good deed before taking a snort of snuff to celebrate his magnanimity.

  • • •

  It took Doc Withers less than half an hour to arrive, accompanied by Constable Ewan Wilkie, and to confirm Marc’s findings.

  “I’ve seen many a fox and wretched coyote looking like this, but never a fellow human being. It’s strychnine all right.”

  The question now was straightforward: who had put powdered strychnine in the snuff box, Coltrane himself (unlikely) or one of his enemies?

  “If this had happened the day before the trial or the night before his hanging, then I might believe it was suicide,” Marc said to Sturges in the anteroom. Cobb and Wilkie were still struggling manfully upstairs to keep the commotion down, but the colonel’s shouts and threats still mingled with the wailing of one or more women.

  “I agree,” Withers said, coming out of the prison chamber. “He could’ve hanged himself in there easily enough. Less painful and equally dramatic.”

  “So we’re lookin’ at murder here,” Sturges said, with the deep sigh of a man who knows there is trouble ahead.

  “Definitely,” Withers said, “unless we find a suicide note.”

  “What sort of mood was the man in?” Sturges asked Marc.

  “I wasn’t in there with Billy, but the door was ajar. For most of the time they seemed to be having a friendly conversation. As you will see, the result of it was Coltrane agreeing to sign the affidavit Billy needed to have the charges against him dropped. I even heard Coltrane laugh out loud.”

  “Hardly the behaviour of a man about to swallow hellfire,” Withers said.

  “Just so,” Sturges said. Then he looked nervously at Marc. “You said ‘most’ of the time. What else happened?”

  “Well, I have to admit that at one point the two men exchanged angry words. I almost intervened. But it lasted only a few seconds, and it was after that that Coltrane laughed. And later on signed the affidavit.”

  “I see. But what are we gonna tell the governor when he finds out that Billy was in there alone with Coltrane . . . and that his prize bull’s been butchered?”

  “But surely it’s just a terrible coincidence,” Marc said. “We brought Billy straight here from jail. What’s more, one of the two visitors who came this morning could have diverted Coltrane’s attention long enough to plant the powder just before leaving, knowing that sooner or later he would make use of the poisoned snuff box.”

  “He used more than one?” Sturges said.

  “They were his toys, Wilf. There were two of them on his desk when I was here yesterday. I checked both of them in there today, and only one of them appeared to have been seeded with strychnine.”

  “That’s how it looks to me as well,” Withers said. “So, in theory, you’re suggesting that almost anyone with access to the prisoner within, say, the last twenty-four hours, could have seeded one of the two containers on the desk?”

  “I am. And in addition to any visitors, that would have to include the colonel and his family, as well as Bostwick the jailer and Shad, who replaced Bostwick this morning.”

  “Good Lord,” Withers said, “we may never find out who did it!”

  “That’s a long list,” Marc agreed.

  “Where is this Bostwick fella?” Sturges said. “Wasn’t he the knave who was part of the whole duel business between McNair and Coltrane?”

  “He’s disappeared,” Marc said. “According to Shad, he went off somewhere last night, leaving the butler to do his job. And, it has just occurred to me, he may have taken the ring of master keys with him. I saw Shad use a single key to open the cell door when we arrived.”

  “Then he’s the most likely suspect,” Sturges said with obvious relish. “Still, we better get Billy down here to find out if he saw anythin’ in there we oughta know about.”

  Constable Wilkie came down from the hallway above with Billy in tow. Billy looked bewildered and apprehensive. He glanced pleadingly at Marc, who gave him a reassuring smile.

  “Coltrane’s been poisoned,” Sturges said to Billy. “So we need to know everythin’ that happened in there.”

  In a slow but deliberate manner, Billy went over the details of his half-hour in Coltrane’s chamber. They more or less corroborated Marc’s account. Billy concluded his version with these words: “The major signed the document. He congratulated me on my engagement. He handed me Dolly’s kerchief. He offered me snuff to celebrate. I refused, politely. He took two great gaspin’ puffs himself and then . . . It was horrible!” He couldn’t contain a shudder.

  Sturges said quietly, “I hear you two did have some sorta disagreement.”

  Billy looked at Marc. “Mr. Coltrane got angry when we was discussin’ the glories of democracy, as he called it. I asked him why, if all men were created equal, republicans still kept slaves.”

  “That would have ruffled his feathers,” Marc added.

  “But when we started to talk about the war and what happened at Windsor, there was no shoutin’ and no anger. I was surprised that he felt as sad as I did. He reminded me that we had shot and killed four of his men near the cr
eek, and one of them was a cousin of his. And he did sign the paper to help get me outta jail.”

  “As I suggested earlier, Wilf,” Marc said, “Billy had no cause to murder Coltrane.”

  “I haven’t been thinkin’ he did,” Sturges said curtly. “But I gotta do my job.” Then he smiled to convey his general satisfaction that Billy’s story had jibed with Marc’s.

  “Perhaps you can get Cobb to put the word out on the whereabouts of Bostwick,” Marc prompted the chief.

  At this point, there was a clatter on the stairs. They all turned to see Cobb coming down, as if on cue. Draped over one arm he had the coat that Robert had supplied for Billy’s disguise.

  “What is it, Cobb?” Sturges said, noting the strange look on the constable’s face.

  “This is Billy’s coat, ain’t it?” Cobb said.

  “It’s the one he wore, yes,” Marc said.

  “Well, sir, I was scrummagin’ in the pockets and I come up with this.” In his free hand he was holding out a paper packet, the kind that druggists use for medicinal powders.

  “Let me see that,” Withers said. While the others watched in stunned silence, the doctor took the packet over to the window, held it up to the sunlight, and said, “There’s a few grains of something still in here.” He moistened a finger and stuck it into the packet. “And I think we’ll find these are bits of strychnine powder.”

  “But that’s not mine!” Billy shouted, dismayed.

  “It’s true,” Marc said. “There was nothing in those pockets when I brought the coat into the station from Baldwin’s place.”

  “And you brought Billy straight here?” Withers said.

  “Not quite,” Sturges said, looking to Marc.

  “We did stop for five minutes at your house, Billy.”