“I must confess I’m surprised,” Marc said, as they turned into the suite of rooms reserved for the legal side of the Baldwin enterprise and headed for Robert’s chamber. “Why do you think he’d take on the task of defending a local man accused of killing one of his own countrymen?”
“He didn’t say. I had several cogent pleas rehearsed, but he said yes before I could deploy them.”
They entered the cozy confines of the office-cum-library and its heartening fire.
“Personally, I think he just decided he was getting bored with trying to eat himself to death.”
“Will he be coming here for conferences?”
Robert gave the half smile that was characteristic of a man who remained, through thick and thin, the cautious optimist. “I doubt it. He’s asked that all relevant documents, including any written reports from you, be couriered to his home—which means his chair. I shall be summoned occasionally for oral debriefings.”
Marc sat down opposite Robert and proceeded to recount in some detail the results of his morning’s efforts. When he had finished, Robert said nothing for some time; then, “I’d say our best bet is the mysterious Mrs. Jones.” It was typical of him not to dwell on the negatives, of which there were many.
“They do say that poison is a woman’s weapon,” Marc mused. “And it’s conceivable that she and Lardner Bostwick, the former jailer, are somehow in league.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, Shad implied he hadn’t seen her before, but the ease with which she seems to have gained entry suggests she may have been there previously—without having to sign in or be vetted by the colonel. That is, Bostwick may have been letting her in without telling Shad or Stanhope.”
“Well,” said Robert, ever pragmatic, “there’s no sense in speculating about the woman until we know whether there really is a Mrs. Jones from Streetsville.”
“What are the odds of finding out?”
“Quite fair. My father’s man Cummings has a brother in Streetsville who serves as the local postmaster. I’ll have Cummings drive out there right away. If any Joneses do reside in the township, he’ll know.”
“Excellent. Now tell me, have you seen Billy?”
“I have. He’s been pathetically forthcoming, but nothing he has to say is in any way helpful. He did admit tumbling about in the hallway, but since he won’t be allowed to testify in his own behalf, we’ll let the prosecution try to prove that.”
“In that regard, it is the Stanhope women who may have been closest to Billy when he tumbled, and who could be critical to our defense.”
“But the colonel is keeping both women locked up?”
“Not for long. While I’m busy here writing up notes for Doubtful Dick, Beth and Rose Halpenny will be delivering hats and a dress to Chepstow. Beth is hoping to wheedle some useful information from Patricia and her mother.”
Robert frowned. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“I never underestimate my wife.”
• • •
Beth was shown into the sewing room by Absalom Shad. Mrs. Halpenny was then led farther down the hall to the parlour, where she would display the bonnets and cloches she had brought for Almeda Stanhope’s inspection. This arrangement suited Beth fine. Shad had stared at her extended abdomen as if an opossum or kangaroo might pop out at any second, and Beth was still smiling when the door closed behind her and she came face-to-face with the young debutante.
“I’ve brought your ball gown, Patricia,” she said. “Mrs. Halpenny’s done a splendid job on it.”
“Then she’s wasted her efforts,” Patricia declared. She was standing in the middle of the room with a fierce frown creasing her brow and her arms akimbo. Her feet were planted some distance apart, as if she were bracing for an onslaught she was doubtful of being able to resist. Her lower lip trembled. “I am sorry you had to come all the way out here, Mrs. Edwards, but I won’t be needing that dress.”
“You’re not going to the gala?”
Her collapse was sudden and spectacular. Her hands flew to her face; all the rigidity went out of her body like air out of a balloon. Her legs shook and seemed about to fold under her. Beth dropped the dress box, stepped across the room, and grasped the girl, who promptly fell into her arms and commenced sobbing. Beth made soothing noises and led Patricia to a padded settee. They both sat down.
“What on earth has happened?” Beth said softly. “I knew you were not keen to go tomorrow night when you came into the shop for your fittings, but surely it can’t be the dance that’s upset you like this.”
When Patricia’s sobbing had subsided enough to permit speech, she blurted, “No. It’s much worse than that. Much worse.”
“But of course, you and your mother have had a terrible thing happen right here in your own house. How could I have forgotten that?”
Patricia gave out a single sob of acknowledgement but no further response.
“Mr. Coltrane was, I’m told, a wicked man, but still, to have him—”
The ravaged young face swung up, eyes ablaze through tears. “Caleb was not wicked! He was the most beautiful, the most honest, the gentlest man I’ve ever known!”
Beth realized that she had struck home with her first probe. She took Patricia’s hand and waited for the weeping to work itself out. The burst of umbrage had sapped the last of the girl’s strength. She wept quietly, and Beth could see, beyond the redness of her eyes and puffed cheeks, the purple streaks that signalled a sleepless night.
“You loved him?” Beth asked, the question very close to an assertion.
Patricia nodded.
“Then I know how you feel, having lost him.”
“No one can,” Patricia replied, staring at the rug. “Mother, especially. My life is over.”
“No, it isn’t,” Beth said. “My first husband, Jesse, was killed, and it was I who found him in the barn. I thought my life was over too. But it wasn’t. I met a wonderful man. And look, I have his baby here inside me.” She took Patricia’s limp hand and laid it upon the fabric of her dress.
Patricia looked down, amazed, then up. “But there’ll never be another man like Caleb.”
“That’s so. And I’ll never know another man like my Jesse.”
Patricia accepted a hanky from Beth and blew her nose. After a minute she said, “The worst part of all this has been not having anybody to tell or talk to. My mother thinks it was puppy love and I shall be over it by the weekend.”
“Did she know about you and Caleb all along?”
“She figured it out soon enough. Caleb talked Papa into letting me take him his breakfast—he was the greatest persuader in the world—and I did so every morning for three weeks. Even on Christmas Day.”
“And you and Caleb got to talking.”
“Yes. Old Bostwick, who fawned about Papa like a lapdog, grumbled when I started staying in there alone with Caleb for an hour every morning. But Caleb somehow swore him to silence.”
“So your father never found out?”
“I don’t think so. If he had, he would’ve been furious.”
“He’s not a man to hold his temper, then.”
Patricia smiled wanly and nodded.
“But your mother guessed and confronted you?”
“Yes. Mothers are like that, aren’t they?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“She and I argued a lot, but I knew she would never tell Papa.”
“Because of his temper.”
“That, and the fact he would blame her. You see how mean and unreasonable he can be, keeping us locked in this house like criminals.”
“For your own protection, I assume, with so much unrest in the streets and all.”
“That’s what he says.”
“Why do you think, if he was so strict with you, that he let you go down there every morning and expose yourself to a man he took for a villain?”
“I don’t know. But I think he may have been getting a bit suspicious near t
he end, because the night before it . . . the night before, just after Mr. MacPherson left, I saw Papa go down to the cellar.”
Beth tried not to telegraph her surprise. Marc had told her that Stanhope was adamant that he had not visited Coltrane after the first few days of his incarceration. “To warn him away from you?” she wondered.
Patricia’s lip trembled again. “I think so.”
“Why didn’t your mother confront him?”
“I heard Papa forbidding her to go anywhere near him.”
Very gently, Beth said, “When did you last see Caleb?”
“I gave him his breakfast that morning.”
“You did?” Well, Papa’s visit the evening before had not borne fruit. Or had it?
“Yes. We had a wonderful hour together. He was in good spirits. He was looking forward to his morning visitor. He told me every day that his friends in Michigan were going to rescue him—and that he would send for me. Then he kissed me.” She tried to weep, but there were no tears left in her. “Now I’ve got to put this stupid hand-me-down dress on and go to the gala tomorrow night, where Papa will parade me up and down like a prize heifer!”
“My advice, Patricia, is for you to go ahead and do as your father wishes. Then on Monday, you can sit down and think about the life that lies ahead of you and what you might be able to make of it. And if it will help, please come into the shop and have tea with me anytime you like. I think you need to talk with someone who can understand your loss.”
Just then the door flew open, and Almeda Stanhope breezed into the room, newly hatted, with Rose Halpenny and her half-dozen bonnets in tow. There would be no more intimate conversation at Chepstow today.
• • •
Beth dropped Rose Halpenny off at the shop and took the cutter down to Baldwin House. Robert hid his astonishment at a conspicuously pregnant woman making her way adroitly through the startled clerks in the outer office to the latter’s chamber. There, over a cup of tea and a scone, Beth recounted her conversation with Patricia Stanhope as accurately as she could, while Marc and Robert listened with increasing fascination.
When she had finished, Robert whistled softly and said, “Well, Mrs. Edwards, you have triumphed where no man, however clever he may deem himself, could have. You have produced new facts that put quite a different complexion on Chepstow and its troublesome guest.”
“First of all,” Marc said, taking Robert’s cue, “my suspicion that Patricia and Caleb were more than friends has been confirmed. Mama was objecting but was seemingly helpless. A volatile mixture of emotions, wouldn’t you say?”
“And everyone afraid of the colonel’s temper and prickly pride,” Robert added. “But if he suspected that his daughter was having an improper relationship with Coltrane, he not only hid it very well, he seems to have inadvertently promoted it by allowing her to see him every morning.”
“But he does finally go down there,” Marc said, “the evening before the murder, a fact he deliberately withheld from me.”
“Though the visit had no apparent effect on his daughter’s access to the prisoner,” Robert said, puzzled. “She’s there bright and early the next morning.”
“Maybe he didn’t need to have a showdown with Mr. Coltrane,” Beth said.
Marc smiled. “And I thought I was the detective in the family.”
“You think he took the opportunity to slip the strychnine into one of the snuff boxes?” Robert said, arching a brow.
Marc thought about that. “It’s possible, but consider the disadvantage of that manoeuvre. He knew, I’m sure, that Coltrane never or rarely took snuff until an hour or so after breakfast and in all likelihood saved his first snort for ostentatious display in front of his initial visitor each morning. Stanhope also knew that Boynton Tierney was due at ten o’clock and that Billy and I were scheduled for one o’clock. There were always two or more snuff boxes on that desk. Sooner or later Coltrane would take a puff from the poisoned one, perhaps throwing suspicion on whoever happened to be there at the time.”
“But very risky, eh?” Robert said, taking up the theme. “His own daughter would be there at breakfast. What if Coltrane broke his routine and died a ghastly death right before her eyes? It’s hard to believe he would take such a chance, remote as it might have been, especially when the prisoner was going to be moved to Fort York in three or four days, pending the start of the trial.”
“After which he would be hanged and out of his daughter’s life forever.”
“But if he didn’t go down there to poison Coltrane, and his daughter continued her daily assignation the next morning, why did he go there?” Robert said.
“I intend to ask him, if he’ll see me again.”
“But all he has to do is deny it or invent some plausible and innocent explanation, like taking the fellow some reading material,” Robert said, playing the barrister.
“You’re right. Certainly, if he is involved in some way, it’s proof we need, not speculation.”
“It might be wiser if we let Doubtful Dick loose on him when he cross-examines.”
“I’m looking forward to that.”
“And what about Almeda Stanhope?” Beth said.
“Yes, there’s something we don’t know about her yet,” Marc said. “Is she so much under the colonel’s spell or so afraid of him that she’d let her daughter’s honour be compromised rather than tell him about Patricia’s visits to Coltrane?”
“You’re hinting they did more than kiss?” Beth asked.
Robert blushed and looked out the window.
“You’ve read my mind, love.”
“Sometimes it isn’t that hard,” she said, and they both smiled.
Robert, his normal colour returning, coughed and said, “Don’t you think we might be speculating a bit far here?”
“Maybe,” Marc said. “But it’s Beth who saw how devastated the girl is. And it was I who peeked into the cozy, curtained-off bedroom where Coltrane slept. The door to the anteroom is thick and was closed during my hour-long interview with him. A very private sort of arrangement, I’d say.”
“Then you’re suggesting that Almeda may have figured out a way to put a quick and permanent end to the affair? In her mind, even three or four more days might’ve proved disastrous for her daughter.” Without intending to, he glanced at the pregnant woman in the room.
Marc sighed. “We’ve got to find Bostwick at all costs. He was the jailer there except for the day of the murder. If anyone knew what might be happening day to day and who could’ve been sneaking in, it’s him. Perhaps Cobb will play truant long enough to set his snitches on the adjutant’s trail.”
“Good idea. Will you approach him?”
“As soon as I can manage it.”
Beth got up. “I must return to the shop,” she said. “We still have a ton of work to do before the ball tomorrow.”
Robert was about to advise her to take it easy but thought better of it.
• • •
It was about four o’clock that afternoon when Horatio Cobb, his fingers and toes numb and his snout two shades of red darker, came ambling along King Street towards the Court House to report to the sarge that, miraculously, no marchers had yet appeared either at Government House or Chepstow. Now he knew why: they had all moved back for another go at the jail. This time, though, there were no women among the dozen or so placard carriers milling about in the courtyard like army ants without a hill. In fact he recognized no one. The usual Orange-a-tans were absent, gearing up, he’d been informed by Nestor Peck, for a massive protest tomorrow. These people here appeared to be ruffians from the township, bored or mischievous or both. Their signs were predictably banal: “Free Prince Billy Now!” and “McNair for Mayor!”
He strode through them with the disdain they deserved. Even though he himself was sympathetic to Billy and suspected that he might be innocent, Cobb disapproved of these bully tactics. Besides, he knew Marc Edwards (the major, as he called him affectionately), and if he wer
e given time, the man would get to the truth. Deep down, he wished he could join him in the effort. Investigating sure beat freezing your toes off while traipsing up and down the same street like some donkey on a mill wheel.
Cobb was surprised to be met at the door by the chief, flanked by Constables Brown, Rossiter, and Wilkie.
“What’s up?” he said.
“The governor’s dander,” Sturges said angrily.
“When ain’t it?”
“Thorpe’s just come over to tell us we’re under orders to chase these hooligans away from the area,” Sturges said, indicating the protesters.
“But they’ll go away as soon as the sun goes down and their balls start conjellin’,” Cobb said. “Don’t Saint George know that?”
“He’s decided he’s had enough of protests.” Sturges sighed. “He’s got wind of the big march planned fer tomorrow. He’s called all the militia officers in fer a meetin’ first thing in the mornin’. Meantime, he wants the streets cleared of all riffraff.”
“Get yer stick primed,” Wilkie said helpfully, with a nod at Sturges.
Following their chief’s lead, the four constables took out their truncheons and, moving slowly towards the crowd a dozen yards ahead, began tapping them on their gloved left palms.
“You are commanded by the governor to disperse yerselves immediately!” Sturges shouted, trying to recapture the sergeant’s intimidating boom from his salad days on the Spanish peninsula.
The youths looked more puzzled than intimidated. The handles of their placards were as thick as cricket bats and longer than the constables’ truncheons.
“This looks like trouble,” Sturges said. “Let me try to talk them down.” He dropped his truncheon to his side, and his men followed suit. He walked towards a burly, pug-nosed fellow who appeared to be their ringleader. Sturges affected a smile. “We don’t want nobody hurt here, and there’s no reason why there need be. You’ve had all day to make yer point with nobody botherin’ ya. The governor’s in the process of callin’ out the militia, so there’s no call to provoke him any further, is there?”
Three of the toughs swaggered brazenly up to Sturges and the constables flanking him. One had a menacing grin on his face. “The army, eh?” he said, with much bravado before his chums, as if relishing the superior challenge.
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