“At the moment, as I’m sure Jailer Strangway has informed you, those threats are going to keep you in that miserable cell for at least two or three weeks,” Marc said, “by order of the governor.”
Billy’s face fell. “I’ll freeze to death in there,” he moaned.
“Our only hope is to somehow persuade the governor and magistrate to drop the charges,” Robert said, and before Billy could get his hopes raised, he added quickly, “but at the moment I can’t see how we’ll go about that.”
“I do,” Marc said.
Billy and his attorney listened with increasing optimism as Marc outlined his plan. First, there was the fact that not only was no one injured, but even the police had concluded that Coltrane had consciously chosen to miss his target, an honourable tactic often used in duels where honour alone was to be satisfied. No bullet having been found in the wall behind the major, Cobb had assumed that Billy’s errancy had been due to his inexperience and understandable nervousness and not to any conscious decision to aim elsewhere. This inference was made plausible only after the fact, when Cobb had been witness to Billy’s tantrum. But could the latter not be attributed to the young man’s embarrassment by the arrival of outsiders who had observed his ineptness? Young and impulsive, he had shouted threats and uttered boasts to cover his shame and maintain his manhood before strangers.
“My God, man, you’re almost ready for the bar,” Robert said, smiling.
“I won’t lie,” Billy said. “I did mean to shoot him, but yes, those stupid threats were made ’cause I was angry and frustrated.”
“You don’t have to lie,” Marc said. “Under British law, the Crown must prove intent. You have the right to remain silent. In a court of law, the Crown is obliged to demonstrate on its own and without your help that you wished Coltrane’s death before the incident and at the moment when you pulled the trigger. Your shooting four feet over his head may speak louder than any words could.”
“But we can’t wait for a trial or for bail a month from now,” Robert reminded his apprentice.
“Exactly. Before we take our plea for bail or an outright discharge to the magistrate, we’ll need to do two things. First, we’ll need to convince Mr. Thorpe, and Sir George, that the duel was a pro forma affair between two army officers who, by deliberately shooting wild, inflicted no harm while preserving their honour. Second, to give credence to our claim that Billy’s spate of after-the-fact threats was a momentary and uncharacteristic outburst, we’ll need assurance from the other participant that he himself did not take Billy’s words seriously and, indeed, has no present concern for his safety in that regard.”
The latter part of this proposal was greeted with awkward silence.
“You aren’t suggesting that we get Coltrane to swear that the duel was more or less staged and that Billy’s intemperance was entirely benign?” Robert said at last.
“I’m sure he’s quite delighted I’m rottin’ in a cell somewhere,” Billy said bitterly.
“Perhaps,” Marc said. “But then he doesn’t yet know you saved his life, does he?”
• • •
Ten minutes later, a course of action had been sketched out. Billy would refrain from making any statements about the incident to anybody—not even to Dolly, should she be magnanimous enough to visit him. (She would, bringing warm clothes and extra food.) Robert would draw up a sworn statement stipulating conditions for Billy’s release on his parole; to wit, he would remain within the confines of his mother’s home until such time as the court disposed of the charges against him, on pain of forfeiture of a hundred-dollar bond and his freedom. At the same time Robert would work out the particulars of the defense that Marc had earlier suggested, in anticipation of presenting it to Mr. Thorpe and, if necessary, to the attorney general. None of these tactics would actually be deployed, however (save Billy’s silence), until the third part of the plan had been successfully completed: convincing Coltrane to go along with the defense’s version of events.
“I want you to see Coltrane this afternoon,” Robert said.
Marc looked surprised but not displeased.
“Well, you were a commissioned officer yourself,” Robert explained, “and you too, if I recall, know the glory that can attend battle. If anyone can get through to this Yankee yahoo, it’s you.”
“I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to be flattered by that comment or not.”
“But you will go, won’t you, sir?” Billy said. “Fer Dolly’s sake?”
“I’ll go,” Marc said, “but on one condition. It’s entirely possible that Coltrane, given his eccentric behaviour so far, may want to see you in person before he accepts my version of events and your sincerity.”
“He could go there under guard,” Robert said. “I’m sure I can get Thorpe to agree.”
Marc looked at Billy McNair. “Do you think you could face him again?”
“Yes,” Billy said, but not very convincingly.
• • •
Cobb had snapped at Fabian over breakfast for no particular reason except that he was uncharacteristically irritated with the state of the universe. The events of the past few days had conspired to subvert his bountiful good nature. Then, when eleven-year-old Delia interceded in defense of her younger brother, he had snapped again, bringing her close to tears and her mother charging in from the next room to adjudicate matters in her evenhanded way. Which is to say that he received a pincering glare and the kids a soothing, “There, there, Mister Cobb’s just grumpy ’cause he woke up grumpy, so you run along to school whilst I go about ungrumpin’ him.” His ears were still ringing from Dora’s efforts on his behalf when he reached Jarvis Street and began to think about what lay ahead.
The arrest of Billy McNair had been a dispiriting affair all around. Although Billy had come willingly enough, they had no sooner stepped onto Hospital Street than they had run smack into a gaggle of protesters on the way to picket outside the front gate of Chepstow. Within seconds he and Billy were surrounded, and the ringleader—a rail-thin fellow with pop-eyes—had demanded to know where a city constable might be escorting a war hero. Cobb had ignored them, pushing through their flimsy encirclement and telling them to mind their own business. But they had trailed him to the station, and an hour later the news of the arrest and the outrageous charge was out and abroad. By the time he and Constable Brown returned to the scene to check for physical evidence (as Marc Edwards had taught him), a full-blown mob of Orangemen, self-proclaimed Loyalists, and assorted troublemakers were waiting for them with cries of “Free the hero! Free the hero!”
Luckily, the constables were able to slip into the woodlot and enter Chepstow’s grounds through the rear gate. Finding the bullet would not help Billy’s case, Cobb realized, nor would the testimony of the malingering sentries who, when they woke up to the facts of the incident, had proved reluctant but truthful in their affidavits. But the bald truth was that he, Cobb, had taken into custody a much-admired young soldier for attempting to shoot a man detested and despised by nearly every citizen in the capital. And to top it all off, the sarge (as he called his superior, Chief Constable Sturges) had informed his men before they left for the pleasures of hearth and home that Billy would be kept in custody by order of King Arthur, the lieutenant-governor himself.
Crossing Jarvis, he could see the open space before the Court House and the jail next to it. His heart sank. Dora’s sausages sat up in his stomach and complained. Not yet eight o’clock and the defenders of everybody’s virtue but their own were already on the march. And what was worse, he could see as he drew closer that they were women! Instinctively he veered north up Church Street and made his way past the rear of the Court House and west along Newgate. At Yonge he decided to go into the British-American Coffee House for something hot and consoling.
He had just settled down in comfort with his coffee and a copy of the Constitution when he was accosted by a wretched creature, skinny as a starved greyhound, with rheumy eyes and greasy locks that
would have given Medusa a fright. With a resigned sigh, Cobb waved at the waiter, who brought a steaming mug and set it as close to the newcomer as the length of his arm and the twitching of his nostrils would permit.
“Good mornin’, Nestor,” Cobb said to Nestor Peck, his most reliable, and bothersome, snitch. “Why don’t ya sit down and have a cup of coffee?”
Nestor ignored the sarcasm or else was too busy warming his chapped fingers against his mug while the steam melted the stalactites from his whiskers.
“You got somethin’ helpful that might pay fer that coffee? And perhaps a hot biscuit?”
“With butter?” Nestor pleaded hopefully. His teeth would have chattered if he’d had enough teeth to knock together.
“Whaddaya got?” Cobb demanded, still grumpy and resigned to staying that way.
Nestor gave his coffee a long, slurping gulp and spoke low. “That Yankee fella up at Chepstow.” He glanced over at the counter where a platter of fresh biscuits had just been set down.
“What about him?”
“There’s a plan to spring him,” Nestor said, with evident delight that he should be father to such a revelation.
“There’s been humpteen plans to rescue Coltrane ever since he come here, three or four a day. And the bugger’s still in his cell, ain’t he?” Cobb turned to his newspaper.
Nestor looked crushed, at Cobb’s rebuff or the potential loss of a warm breakfast. He recovered adroitly. “A strange character’s been seen skulkin’ around the colonel’s place. One of them Hunter fellas, they say, from Michigan.”
“Is that so? And just how do they know all this? Spotted a tattoo on his arse, did they?”
“No need to get nasty,” Nestor said, attempting a pout but finding his cheeks were not yet sufficiently thawed to effect one.
“I ain’t begun to get nasty. Now gimme whatever ya got, straight out!”
Nestor put down his empty mug. “Fella’s been seen twice outside Chepstow. Easy to spot, too. He’s got yella curls, stringy and long as a girl’s, and a scar down his cheek big as an eel. And he walks with a limp.”
“The perfect disguise fer a secret agent.”
“There’s more.”
“There better be if ya expect breakfast.”
“I seen him myself in the Cock and Bull yesterday. And I heard the fellas he was talkin’ with—Americans livin’ here, I’m sure. I heard them use his name.”
Cobb’s ears pricked up.
“Sounded like Rung-gee.”
Cobb smiled, feeling a portion of his grumpiness fade slightly. It was enough to take to Sarge, who would pass it along to the governor. On the other hand, maybe they’d all be better off if somebody did liberate Coltrane and take him back to the land of the free.
He sighed, and beckoned the waiter.
SIX
The messenger that Robert Baldwin had dispatched to Chepstow to seek an immediate interview for Marc with Caleb Coltrane returned an hour later with disquieting news. The major was fully booked for the day, with extensive afternoon interviews scheduled with the editors of the Hamilton Free Press and the Cobourg Star. In the evenings, it appeared, the captive commander reserved his time for reading and reflection. Moreover, at least two days’ notice was normally required. However, in light of the fact that the request was being made in the name of a former military officer, an exception would be made and a Wednesday morning meeting would be entertained. Mr. Edwards might call on Major Coltrane at ten o’clock.
“Who does he think he is?” Robert fumed, as they stood open-mouthed, listening to the clerk read aloud Coltrane’s written response, “some petty panjandrum offering an audience to a grovelling serf?”
“More to the point,” said Marc, “is the eccentric behaviour of the man nominally in charge of the panjandrum’s imprisonment.”
Robert nodded. “You’re right. Do you suppose that the victory parade before Christmas and all the public adulation since has softened Gideon Stanhope’s brain?”
“Well, I intend to find out when I go there tomorrow, that’s for sure.”
“I’m sorry it couldn’t happen today. It’s not healthy to have Sergeant McNair locked up in our jail—not for him and not, I’m afraid, for the well-being of the citizenry.”
“The natives are getting increasingly restless, aren’t they?” Marc said.
A few minutes later he excused himself and headed straight up to Smallman’s to bring Dolly the latest word and suggest that a timely visit to the prison, with food and fresh clothing, might go some way to preserving the sanity of her beau, and a long way towards reestablishing a broken engagement.
• • •
When Marc returned to Baldwin House, he encountered Dr. Baldwin on his way out.
“Marc,” Baldwin greeted him, pausing on the porch, “you’ve done a good thing in getting Robert involved in this case. I haven’t seen him this excited since Augusta died. Thank you.”
Before Marc could respond, the elder Baldwin strode away down the walk with that much-admired air of confidence and purpose.
Robert was waiting for Marc in the vestibule with his coat and hat in hand. “I want you to come along with me,” he said with some of the enthusiasm his father had just alluded to.
“Where are we going?”
“Up the street two and a half blocks, to call on a retired barrister.”
As they headed north on Bay in the crisp, clear air of January, Robert explained the nature of their errand. Dr. Baldwin had gone to see Chief Justice Robinson the previous evening and proposed putting Coltrane’s defense in the hands of the American émigré attorney, Richard Dougherty. In his quiet but forceful way he had presented the self-evident advantages of having the renegade major defended in the high court by a fellow Yankee, who was himself considered a renegade and a pariah by the New York legal bench. They had not actually disbarred Dougherty, but his moral turpitude had apparently been flagrant enough to see him squeezed quietly out of the profession and, as it happened, out of the country as well. If he agreed to accept the brief, then all that was required was that the chief justice should hold his nose and recommend Dougherty’s admission to the Upper Canadian bar. His current flouting of decorum and decency would permit the benchers to promptly disbar him when he was no longer needed.
Robinson, a staunch Tory and astute jurist, immediately grasped the ingenuity of the proposal: Coltrane would be defended by a lawyer with an international (if debased) reputation and acknowledged skill. Thus the trial would be fair and legitimized. Coltrane would hang, of course, but he would be no martyr condemned out of hand. Robinson gave Baldwin his assurance that the moment Dougherty agreed to serve, he would be made a licensed lawyer in his adopted land. The two men, among the most powerful in the province, then shook hands.
“So all we have to do,” Marc said with as little irony as he could manage, “is talk this scandalous creature, who hasn’t done a lick of law for the two years since he came here and apparently doesn’t need to, into taking on a hopeless case, whose political fallout he will readily discern?”
“You’ve got it all in a single sentence,” Robert said, and nearly laughed.
Robert Baldwin was not a spendthrift with his laughter. At thirty-four and only six years older than Marc, he had the air and posture of a man who had decided to take the world seriously at the age of eighteen and only occasionally regretted it. Unfortunately, his natural solemnness had turned to melancholia after his wife’s untimely death. For his part, Marc was happy enough to have such a person act as his legal principal as well as advisor in matters political and public. He knew he could not find a better tutor anywhere. As for Robert, he soon acknowledged and appreciated Marc’s native wit and quick insights into human motive and behaviour. After all, Marc had lived on both sides of the political and class divide, had been a man of decisive action under fire, and was now a committed adherent of the Baldwins’ obsession with responsible government. They had thus spent many evenings in the Baldwin family pa
rlour, smoking their pipes and ruminating on the future the province might have when Lord Durham’s report was completed. And sometimes they even discussed the finer points of the law.
As they crossed King Street, Marc said, “What sins is this chap supposed to have committed in New York that got him drummed out of town?”
“Well now, there are several tales to choose from. One story has it that he was an opium addict who fell asleep once too often during an address to the jury. Another insists that alcohol was his downfall, causing him to be belligerent with clients and outrageous to their ladies. A third has it on unimpeachable authority that he was a womanizer and frequenter of low-life brothels.”
“I know a few gentlemen here who would qualify on all three grounds,” Marc said dryly.
“Alas. But whatever his vices, it seems that the public flaunting of them became too much even for the New York bar and their claims to being egalitarian.”
“ ‘License they mean when they cry liberty!’ ” Marc intoned, quoting Milton.
“Exactly.”
“Well then, I am looking forward to meeting such a paragon of unvirtue.”
“You needn’t wait long. We’re here.”
The house was set back from the street and shrouded in the shadow of a dozen capacious evergreens, drooped with snow. The walkway was unshovelled and bereft of human footprint. Ahead of him Marc noticed a sturdy, utilitarian brick cottage of one storey, ungabled. The windows were frosted and seemed to cringe inward in self-defense. There was no knocker or bell pull.
“Not much of a residence for a blasphemous sinner, is it?” Robert said, as he raised a gloved fist and rapped on the door.
“Why advertise?” Marc replied, and when no sound was heard from within, added his fist to the rapping.
A further minute passed.
“No one’s home,” Robert said, disappointed.
“I’m sure I saw a shadow in that front window.”
Death of a Patriot Page 7
