Death of a Patriot

by Don Gutteridge

  Kingsley Thornton seemed to realize that in the case of this witness, reluctantly called, less was more. He asked her in simple and straightforward words to corroborate her husband’s testimony that he had received a blackmail threat from Coltrane regarding an alleged affair with the colonel’s wife, and that she and Gideon had discussed it, knew that the claim was unfounded, and ignored the audacious attempt at extortion. He succeeded in doing so without ruffling a feather or disrupting the jury’s sympathy.

  Then it was Dougherty’s turn.

  “There is no reason to be apprehensive, Mrs. Stanhope,” he began. “We are all in pursuit of the same goal here: to persuade the truth into light.”

  “I have never feared the truth,” she replied, her face pale and drawn but nonetheless beautiful. This was a woman of character, who might well be a match for Dougherty’s wit.

  “Let’s begin, then, with the letter—”

  Thornton rose. “Milord, the letter has—”

  “I sense this is another letter,” said the judge. “Am I right, Mr. Dougherty?”

  Doubtful Dick smiled. “You are, indeed, milord. The clerk will provide you, ma’am, with the original and then give copies to Mr. Thornton and the foreman of the jury to pass along. I have already submitted to the chief justice an affidavit explaining the provenance of the document.”

  Almeda picked up the copy handed to her. She drew in her breath quickly but gave no other sign of concern. She looked up slowly, waiting.

  “My first question is this: do you recognize the handwriting?”

  “I do. It resembles mine.”

  “Milord, I must protest. Here we have yet another letter with both salutation and complimentary closing in the form of a single letter only: ‘C’ and ‘D.’ ”

  “True, but I must allow Mr. Dougherty to ask the witness if she herself can clarify the identities. If not, then he will have to move on.”

  “But I fail to see the relevance here.” Thornton had worked himself into a righteous quiver—at ten-fifteen of a Monday morning.

  “Continue, Mr. Dougherty.”

  “Do you, in fact, recall writing this letter on or about November first, 1838, the date indicated on it, and just two days before your husband left for Essex?”

  The members of the jury were scanning the contents of their copy of the letter Cobb had discovered in Detroit, as it was passed along to them. They were shaking their heads with a kind of sorrowful disbelief, but they all looked up at the critical question.

  She did not hesitate to reply, “I do. I wrote this in the afternoon of November first, and my maid posted it later in the day.”

  The spectators, who did not yet know the tenor of the missive, leaned forward in anxious expectation. What could it be?

  “Out of deference to you and your position in Toronto society, ma’am, I shall not ask you to read all or even part of the letter. But would it be fair to say that this is inarguably a love letter written by you to ‘My Dearest C’?”

  The galleries and benches gasped and wanted to buzz, but not so much as they needed to hear the lady’s response.

  “It is wholly a declaration of love, sir. And it was posted to Caleb Coltrane in Detroit.”

  Justice Robinson was swinging his gavel even before the onlookers got started. Marc was baffled. Surely this admission of authorship and Coltrane’s later use of the letter were potent facts in establishing a motive for her husband to kill his wife’s lover. Was she naive or merely addicted to truth telling?

  “And according to the affidavit of Mr. Edwards, this billet-doux was recovered from a secret drawer in one of Mr. Coltrane’s silver snuff boxes in Detroit, the letter and snuff box having been sent there by your husband the morning after the major’s death.”

  Kingsley Thornton looked ready to spring, but something in Almeda’s face and posture gave him pause.

  “Caleb was a great one for secrets and codes,” Almeda said.

  “I shall return to those facts shortly, but right now I’m interested in obtaining your response to your husband’s testimony on Saturday, which my learned colleague alluded to a few minutes ago. At that time he told the court that he had received at least three letters from Coltrane in September and October, in which Coltrane attempted to extort money from your husband—using an alleged adulterous affair between you and him. He also testified that he came to you immediately and was so reassured by your response that he ignored the threats and did not pay the blackmail. Did you, ma’am, deliberately deceive your husband?”

  “Milord, this is outrageous!”

  “I’m exploring motive for an alternative version of the crime, milord.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Well, Mrs. Stanhope?”

  “I did no such thing, because I was not romantically involved with Caleb Coltrane.”

  This lie was uttered with amazing conviction, Marc thought. What was the woman up to?

  “Do you wish me to read your own words into the record?” Dougherty said, raising his rumble a notch and glancing at the letter before her.

  “I can explain, sir. When I stayed with my cousin and best friend, Gladys Dobbs, last May in Detroit, her brother Caleb joined us. He did make an attempt to renew a passion we had shared over twenty years ago. We went for a few walks to revisit the haunts of our childhood and told each other stories about our lives lived apart. When I got home, I wrote Gladys a long letter expressing the genuine joy I felt during my three-day visit. I waxed lyrical, overly lyrical as it turned out, about my feelings of friendship for her brother. It was this careless but entirely innocent paragraph that Caleb must have used to try and extort money from Gideon. My husband showed me a copy of my words taken from that letter, and the twisted interpretation put upon them. I was hurt, of course, but I also knew that Caleb was an idealist, obsessed with liberating the oppressed of the world.”

  “Your testimony, then, is that you and your husband together agreed to ignore the blackmail threat?”

  “Yes. But Caleb kept it up, sending more letters and upsetting my husband at a time of great worry. His business was not doing well and he was preparing to go off to another battle. So, two days before departure for the west, he came to me with a bold plan to silence Caleb once and for all.”

  “Which was?”

  “I would write an unambiguous and exaggerated love note to Caleb. But I would deliberately write it so that my script wobbled and slanted. It would look enough like my own hand to fool Caleb, but eccentric enough to suggest a poor forgery. Also, Gladys had given me a present of some beautiful vellum paper from New York. The ruse was that I would write an obvious forgery on paper that could be shown to be foreign—certainly not the usual paper we use. I signed it ‘D’ for my childhood nickname, Duchess. I thought it a risky scheme, but Gideon insisted on it, hoping Caleb would make the phony letter public so he could unmask his treachery. He even offered to compose the letter.”

  “Are you telling us that these romantic effusions were concocted by your husband?”

  “He wrote them out, and I then copied them onto Gladys’s paper word for word, while he watched me.”

  “Did the ruse work?”

  “We never found out. Gideon left two days later, and within a month the two men were shooting at each other in Baby’s orchard.”

  Whatever else the Stanhopes had fabricated in this amazing tale, Marc thought, the letter itself had been written on expensive vellum paper, possibly from New York.

  “Yet Mr. Coltrane kept this letter on his person and managed to bring it with him to his prison chamber in Chepstow, where he hid it in the secret drawer of one of his many snuff boxes. Are you suggesting that Coltrane used a bogus document, composed by your own husband, to gain favourable treatment whilst incarcerated?”

  “I am saying, sir, that such a letter was not used in that way. As a blackmail threat, it was useless. Caleb may have kept it, thinking he could produce it as a last desperate measure to save himself. If so, he was deluded. And in
the event, he did not live long enough to deploy it.”

  Game, set, and match. Marc sighed.

  Thornton, who knew when it was best to keep mum, did so. Almeda Stanhope was excused and walked past the jury with her head held high to sit beside her daughter in the gallery.

  The rest of the morning was taken up with the Crown’s final witnesses. Knowing the value of leaving the jury with critical facts and phrases ringing in their collective ear, Thornton called both sentries who had followed Cobb into the duelling scene, and of course each was seduced into repeating the exact phraseology of Billy’s death threat. They were succeeded by Stanhope’s upstairs maid, who, with a modest prompt or two, was led to confess that, just before fainting, she did see Billy McNair tumble into the coats and thrash about, after which he tried to sprint out the front door.

  Dougherty declined to cross-examine. Had he given up?

  “Is the defense prepared to present its case after luncheon?” the chief justice said to a hushed chamber.

  “No, milord,” Dougherty said quietly. “Before doing so, I would like to recall Gideon Stanhope.”

  • • •

  Marc walked with Beth to Smallman’s. He was deflated by the morning session, for which they had had such high hopes. It was inconceivable that Stanhope’s favourable treatment of his prisoner was based solely on notions of courtesy. If Bostwick were telling the truth, the duel had first been acceded to and then utilized by the colonel in a vain attempt to have Billy kill off the blackmailer for him. But why would he do so before being lionized at the Twelfth Night Ball? And if cuckoldry were not the basis of extortion, what was? More immediately to the point, if Stanhope, who had not heard his wife’s testimony and was ordered to keep away from her during the break, were to confirm his wife’s story of the phony love letter (and who knew what pillow talk had surfaced at Chepstow on Sunday?), Dougherty would be left with only the Hunters’ conspiracy as a defense strategy. Even if they could resuscitate Bostwick, whom would the jury believe, a desperate drunk or the Pelee Island Patriot?

  Thus it was a glum luncheon at Smallman’s. Marc knew that he had to be back at the Court House to confer with his colleagues by one o’clock, but it was with reluctance that he kissed Beth on the cheek and pulled on his coat. Beth, bless her, had suggested that she and Dolly remain there, as a mountain of stitchwork might succeed where false cheer had failed.

  At the door, Beth said, “One thing’s been puzzling me about Almeda this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why didn’t the colonel just dictate the love letter or give her the gist of it? She’s a very smart woman, perfectly capable with words. Why would he ask her to copy out what he’d written down for her?’

  “Maybe he just thought it would be too embarrassing for her to compose such a declaration of false affection.”

  “A man’s more likely to blush at using intimate words than a woman.”

  Marc pulled his copy of the letter out of his briefcase and read it again.

  My Dearest C:

  Come soon, my love, or I’ll be driven to find my own route

  to your heart, with all the risks and fretful dangers to

  our secret. And when you do, tucked in your strong arms

  and safe in your embrace, I promise faithfully to supply

  you with enough kisses to keep you forever attached

  to me and our mutual goal. And should our reward

  be in Heaven only, I’ll treasure those blessings received

  already. But I must go—he’s had me watched since Saturday!

  Ever yours,

  D

  “My God!” he cried, “that’s it!” And he dashed out into the street without saying good-bye or amen. His mind was racing. How could he have been so blind? Once you looked for it, it was clear as day. He now knew not only who the murderer was, but the motive as well. As he ran full out towards the Court House, he hoped that Clement Peachey had been able to get hold of the field reports Dougherty had requested and that Broderick Langford had not gone back to work at the bank. He might well possess the final piece to the puzzle.

  • • •

  Gideon Stanhope was not in uniform. Although he had sat in the witness room all morning to be available for recall, he had not really expected to have to take the stand again. As a result, bereft of his tunic, he seemed unexpectedly vulnerable. He was also edgy, not knowing what was to come.

  “Since we last talked, sir,” Dougherty began, “new information has come to light that requires a response from you. Your absconding adjutant, Lardner Bostwick, has turned up and provided us with a sworn statement concerning the infamous duel in your garden, a document now in possession of the court.”

  Dougherty paused to let that chilling fact do its work upon the witness. Stanhope licked his lips and kept his posture rigid. His expression did not change.

  Dougherty continued. “You told us on Friday, sir, that you had no foreknowledge of the proposed duel between Sergeant McNair and Caleb Coltrane. Would you care to emend that statement before you are charged with perjury?”

  Thornton made a gazelle-like leap to the balls of his feet, but the judge got in before him. “There will be no more of that, Mr. Dougherty, or it is you who may find yourself charged.”

  “My apologies, milord,” Dougherty said, then moved his acid stare back to the witness. “Well, sir?”

  “I was asked if I had advance knowledge of the duel. I did not, although I knew that the major had requested one. When Lieutenant Bostwick came to me about it, I told him I would not permit it.”

  “Did you not give him access to your pistols?”

  “He had a master key that gave him access to most parts of the house. He was my most trusted officer.”

  “So you are saying that Bostwick went ahead on his own and arranged a duel that you, his commanding officer, had expressly forbidden?”

  “He must have.”

  “And you did not suggest that one of the pistols be loaded with a paper ball?”

  Thornton interjected forcefully. “Milord, the witness has already testified as to the extent of his foreknowledge of the duel and clarified his earlier statement. Let the defense bring in Mr. Bostwick if they wish to further dispute the matter.”

  “I agree. Mr. Dougherty, until you produce Mr. Bostwick, I must ask you to move along.”

  So, Marc mused, it will come down to Bostwick’s word against the colonel’s. Still, there was the letter.

  “In her testimony this morning, Mrs. Stanhope told us about how you and she responded to the blackmail threats from Caleb Coltrane. Again, she alluded to details that you in your testimony on Saturday failed to mention.”

  “I answered all questions precisely as they were put.”

  “Indeed. Now tell us, sir, about the letter you and she cooked up to try and thwart Mr. Coltrane’s extortion scheme.”

  The colonel gave no indication of surprise. While neither he nor Almeda had known about its recovery in advance, perhaps they had discussed the possibility yesterday and prepared for it. But when a copy was handed to him, he gave it a wary glance, as if the words there were sheathed but lethal weapons.

  “Did you ask your wife to write this as part of an elaborate ruse to deceive Coltrane and perhaps flush him out into the open?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And did you yourself write it out first and then ask her to copy it exactly as written?”

  Stanhope hesitated and for the first time looked uncertain as to how he should reply. “I don’t recall doing so. My best recollection is that we discussed the contents together and she, of course, had to do the actual writing if the major was to be fooled.”

  “Now, sir, I want you to read aloud from your copy—which is an exact replica of the original—the last word of each line in the body of the letter.”

  Stanhope went white. The veins in his forehead bunched and stiffened.

  Thornton was apoplectic. “Is this some sort of parlour game, Mr
. Dougherty?”

  “The witness must answer,” the judge said sternly. “Please, sit down, Mr. Thornton.”

  Stanhope, trembling, barely breathed out the words. But they were nonetheless catastrophic. “Route—to—arms—supply—attached—reward—received—Saturday.”

  The crowded chamber went into momentary shock. Nothing had prepared the jury or the spectators for this revelation. Before the room could erupt in reaction, Judge Robinson declared loudly, “There will be no hubbub in my courtroom. I will clear the chamber at any outburst.” But none came. The news itself had silenced them.

  Stanhope glared defiantly at his tormentor, his frame still rigid, but it was all show. Something inside him could be heard crumbling.

  “Did you, sir, visit the Commercial Bank on the morning of November the first and deliver five hundred dollars to Mr. Farquar MacPherson in order to forestall the bank’s foreclosing the mortgages on two of your four warehouses?”

  A denial was on his lips, but the colonel seemed to recognize its futility. “I did,” he said.

  “And was this the ‘reward’ referred to in your letter to Coltrane?”

  “The source of the witness’s income is not relevant!” Thornton cried.

  “Leave that for the moment,” the judge said to Dougherty, but his avid attention had been gained, and he gazed down at the witness with some of the same incredulity as the ordinary, hero-worshipping citizens in the room.

  “Colonel Stanhope, I submit that, given the evidence already before this court, the meaning of the coded sentence you just read aloud is unequivocal. We have been told that Sergeant McNair’s rage against Coltrane was rooted in the ambush at the redoubt near Windsor. Two crates of ordnance were left buried there by a detail you were in charge of. I subpoened the field reports of the Battle of Windsor from Fort York, one of which includes a close description of the pursuit of Coltrane’s escaping squad and his eventual capture. It is signed and verified by you. In that report, it is stated that no more than ten minutes elapsed between the time Coltrane reached the redoubt and the militia’s arrival on the scene. As Coltrane’s men were already hiding in the nearby bush with fresh ammunition, we must assume that the major, in the space of ten minutes, chanced upon the useless, crumbling fort, flailed through the mounds of earth there, happened by a stroke of good luck to stumble upon just what he needed to save his troop, and instantly improvised a deadly ambush. Do you expect anyone in this room to believe that you did not mail Major Coltrane a map showing him the whereabouts of the arms cache, for which the Hunters’ Lodge paid you the five hundred dollars you needed to forestall bankruptcy and continue to command your regiment? And that this coded letter was not your confirmation of the deal?”