“I sent him packing a day ago. The bugger ran off with my keys and two bottles of my best whiskey.”
“When did he actually depart the premises?”
“After supper on Wednesday evening.”
“It is conceivable, then, that he, out of spite, might have put the poison in the major’s snuff box before he left. As jailer he’d have plenty of opportunity. But he couldn’t have put the packet in Billy’s coat.”
“Yes, I see.”
“What would be helpful, sir, is for me to know exactly where everybody was when the murder took place. Would you mind casting your mind back over the events of yesterday afternoon and telling me what you recall of them?”
“You really think Billy might be innocent?” From the look of concern and confusion on the colonel’s face, Marc was now convinced that Stanhope had indeed been very fond of his protégé and correspondingly hurt and angry at what he perceived to be a filial betrayal.
“I do. And anything you can tell me may help free him.” Stanhope looked uncertain, but Marc pressed on. “I’d like to know exactly what you saw and heard yesterday afternoon, but first, it would be useful for me to know as much about the, ah, arrangements made for the major’s incarceration.”
Stanhope went over to the fire and gave it a couple of ineffectual pokes. “What do you wish to know, specifically?”
“Well, sir, Bostwick showed me the prison rooms themselves, the reinforced doors and so on. I’ve seen the sentry system front and back for myself. I’ve examined the sign-in book. But who took the major his meals, for example?”
“Our maid did that, and tidied up the chamber just after luncheon each day. He had his own water closet; the area was used as servants’ quarters by the previous owner.”
“I understood from Bostwick,” Marc lied, “that your daughter served him breakfast.”
Stanhope frowned, more likely at Bostwick’s indiscretion than at Marc’s impertinence. “That’s correct. The maid, Stella, took him breakfast the first morning he was here. But she was ill the following day, so Patricia, who likes to be helpful, took the tray down for her. She and Major Coltrane got to talking. I’m sure you know firsthand how impressionable girls of nineteen react to a handsome tunic and stirring tales of war.”
“They enjoyed each other’s company, then?” Marc said with a man-of-the-world glance at the colonel.
“I believe so. But when he asked that she be allowed to repeat the procedure each day, I attached the strictest conditions to my consent.”
“As any conscientious father would.”
“She was to stay there only while he ate his meal and no longer than fifteen minutes. Bostwick was in the anteroom from seven in the morning till six at night and often slept there. He kept an eye on the situation.”
Some eye, Marc thought. The fifteen-minute breakfast was an hour long and spiced with periodic, clandestine visits during the day. But Marc had no desire to complicate family relations here needlessly. He made no comment on Bostwick’s probable collusion in Patricia’s flouting of her father’s will. Instead he said, “You negotiated these terms yourself, I take it?”
“I did, sir.”
“You saw the major often?”
“Only for the first two or three days. I felt it an officerly courtesy to get to know the man who was my worthy adversary at Baby’s orchard.”
“And what did you find?”
Stanhope coloured. “A brilliant, vain, garrulous man of middle years who was obsessed with American republicanism and all its clichéd claptrap.”
“Who wouldn’t cease telling you about its glories?”
Stanhope smiled thinly. “I forgot that you spent an hour with him the other day. Well, then, you know why I quit going down there. But I’d given my word that he would be treated like a captured general, and I kept it. I allowed him to see anyone he liked, within reason. He had good food and drink. I even had his books and trinkets shipped here from his sister’s place in Detroit. And to show the cynical world out there that I am still a man of my word, I sent Shad down to the major’s room an hour ago to begin packing those personal effects in the wooden crates they arrived in. They will be on their way back to Detroit by special coach before noon.”
“You have gone well beyond the call of duty,” Marc said, unsure what ironies were entailed by the comment, if any.
“Thank you. Now, you were asking about yesterday.”
“Yes. You’ll recall that Sergeant McNair and I arrived in concert with Chief Sturges and Constable Cobb. The chief came down to this room, did he not, while Cobb was stationed at the head of the stairwell near the front door?”
“That is so. I heard you arrive and stepped out to greet Wilfrid. We came in here and we smoked a pleasant pipe together. By then I had reconciled myself to Billy’s visit, having said my piece in a communication to Sir George. It was out of my hands.”
“And when did you realize that something was amiss?”
“That’s easy. Billy came hurtling up the stairs hollering at the top of his lungs, ‘Get a doctor! Get a doctor! He’s dying!’ ”
“So you dashed out into the hall—”
“Wilfrid was ahead of me, but yes, we both ran out, just in time to see Billy try to skip past the constable, still hollering his head off.”
“But Cobb stopped him?”
“He did. Billy was white as a sheet, I’d even say hysterical if he were a woman. We knew right off that something terrible had happened downstairs.”
“What then?”
“Wilfrid reached the stairs and called out to Cobb to hold on to Billy and to stop anybody else from coming down the stairs after him. Then he disappeared.”
“Surely you were anxious to get down there yourself?”
“You’re damn right I was. But Mr. Cobb is a powerful man for all the fat he carries around his middle. He gave Billy a push into the arms of the two Highlander guards who’d come charging in at that moment, and then plunked himself in the cellar doorway. I’m embarrassed to report that we exchanged angry words.”
“I was, of course, in the anteroom by then and I heard women screaming as well.”
“Almeda and Patricia were in their sewing room next to the vestibule. They came out to the fright of their lives. Their home was suddenly full of police and soldiers and an hysterical man and a great deal of shouting. They were terrified and distraught. Then Stella came down from upstairs, equally upset. I had to turn my attention to them, regardless.”
“Who went for the doctor?”
“Absalom Shad. He had been in his butler’s carrel across from this study and was the last of the household to arrive on the scene. Following my orders, he managed to fetch Angus Withers and incidentally recruit another constable on the street.”
“That would be Wilkie.” Marc paused to emphasize the importance of his next point. “The police are claiming that Billy slipped the incriminating poison packet into the pocket of one of those coats on the hall tree during the mêlée—with a view, they will claim, to disposing of it at the first opportunity or, if it landed in someone’s coat other than his own, of shifting the blame.”
“Sounds far-fetched to me,” was Stanhope’s response.
“I agree, but I suppose they will claim Billy’s hysteria was a calculated act. He may have thought he could push past Cobb and reach the porch, where he could toss the paper into the snow before being stopped.”
“Preposterous!” Stanhope declared. Then his face darkened. “I just remembered something.”
“About the coats?”
“Yes. When Billy got pushed by Cobb, he stumbled into the hall tree and fell against the coats. The Highlanders caught him up. But he was sprawled there for several seconds among the spilled coats and hats.”
Marc was appalled. His clever interrogation had elicited the most damning piece of evidence yet, a point that Stanhope might otherwise have overlooked. In straightening the coats a little later, Cobb must have thought to search the pocket
s and thus found the packet. Even the famous Richard Dougherty would be flummoxed by testimony of this ilk.
“You realize, Lieutenant, that if I am put on the stand and asked about these events, I am honour bound to tell the truth and the whole truth. I cannot let any personal feelings I may have for Billy or his possible innocence compromise my duty.”
What could Marc say to that but amen?
“I appreciate that, Colonel, as I do your forthrightness and honesty.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes. I’d like to speak to your wife and daughter, if I might.”
“Surely you do not suspect the ladies of murder, sir?” The moustache flipped to rigid attention.
“No, no, no. You mistake my purpose entirely. It has occurred to me that their timely arrival might have allowed them to have observed Billy’s actions from another angle than your own. If they were witnesses to his tumble into the coats, they might provide me with invaluable, exculpatory information.”
“They were in a state of terror and bewilderment, sir. Indeed, they are still extremely upset. Having a man poisoned in a most ghastly manner in one’s home is hardly an everyday occurrence. We are one day away from the Twelfth Night Ball, and I am having enormous difficulty in pointing their attention towards that end. Your interviewing them will only stir everything up again. I cannot permit it.”
“As you wish, Colonel. But perhaps after the ball, say on Monday, I could approach them?”
Stanhope considered this while his moustache relaxed to the stand-easy position. “Only if they themselves agree. Come here then, and I’ll have an answer for you.”
“Does your interdiction include Stella?”
“Our maid fainted on the lower landing. She saw nothing.”
“That leaves Mr. Shad, then.”
“You may speak with him before you leave. He is downstairs packing the major’s effects, all save the snuff box the police have confiscated.”
So much for securing and preserving the crime scene, Marc thought.
He thanked Stanhope and headed once again down to the site of the murder.
• • •
Absalom Shad was forthcoming enough. He had just finished tapping the lid onto a big wooden box, and sweat had stained his white shirt. He was of no help in regard to Billy and the coats in the hall. By the time he had come up behind his master, he said, the Highlanders had Billy pinned against the outside door. Then he, Shad, was ordered to fetch Dr. Withers, which he did, bringing the doctor and Ewan Wilkie back with him.
“Is there a side or tradesman’s entrance to Chepstow?” Marc asked.
“Yes, sir. At the end of the hall where my den is, the door there leads down to the summer kitchen, just a storeroom now, but you can get out to the side yard there.”
So it was possible, if unlikely, that an outsider could have slipped in and down the hall to the coats. But only if Cobb were distracted, and there was little chance of that. Marc realized he was now clutching at straws. With motive, means, opportunity, and physical evidence in hand, the Crown had all it needed to put a noose around Billy McNair’s neck. His last hope here was the women, and he might or might not be given access to them. They could be subpoenaed, of course, but it was never wise to question hostile or resistant witnesses who might surprise you with their answers.
Marc tried another tack. “You greeted and let in two visitors yesterday morning.”
“I did. I was up and down all mornin’ doin’ two jobs because of that drunkard Bostwick.”
“Did you perchance overhear the conversation between Coltrane and Alderman Tierney?”
“A bit. Ya couldn’t help hear it, ’cause one shouted as loud as t’other.”
“They were arguing?”
“Carried on like that every time they met, accordin’ to Bostwick. I reckon they loved it, the both of ’em.”
“You don’t think Tierney got angry enough to kill Coltrane, do you?”
“Why bother? The man was as good as dead already.”
Shad had a point, and one which was going to make it nigh impossible for them to posit a perpetrator other than Billy, whose motive was personal and who had already made one attempt.
“What can you tell me about this Mrs. Jones from Streetsville?”
Shad seemed startled by the question. “Well, she just come here, on her own, like. Just after eleven, I think.”
“I thought all visitors had to be preapproved by the colonel.”
“That they do. But the colonel was out at his tailor’s. Mrs. Jones give me a note to take into Coltrane, and he said he knew who she was, a friend of one of his pals or a distant cousin, somethin’ like that. She had a book fer him. I didn’t take much notice. She looked harmless enough. Had a big bonnet on. Motherly sort, I should think. So I let her in.”
“Did she stay long?”
“I don’t think so. I had some chores to do upstairs, and when I come back down here, she’d gone.”
“She didn’t sign out?”
“I don’t really know. Reckon she did. Ya see, sir, I’m a butler and a val-ay, not a jailer. It was Bostwick shoulda been doin’ all this.”
“When did Bostwick leave?”
“Wednesday night, before the murder. He and the colonel had a set-to in the study. I heard Bostwick stomp down the hall and come down to the anteroom here to pick up his things. I come out into the hall just in time to see him almost bowl over Mr. MacPherson at the front door.”
“You don’t mean Farquar MacPherson? From the Commercial Bank?”
“I do. He had an appointment with the colonel.”
“And Bostwick has vanished?”
“To the nearest blind pig, if ya want my opinion.”
For all the good he had done here, Marc felt he might have better spent the morning in a blind pig himself.
Shad trailed Marc up to the entrance hall. Marc waved off his assistance in donning his overcoat and hat, and Shad scuttled away. Just as he was opening the front door, Marc heard Amelia Stanhope’s voice calling out from her sewing room, “Is that you, Abe?”
“I’ll be right there, Duchess.”
Somehow, Marc realized, he would have to find a way of talking to the Stanhope women. There was still a great deal he needed to know about what really had been going on between the notorious Yankee and his accommodating hosts.
TEN
Marc went around to Boynton Tierney’s tack shop on John Street. The big, bluff Irishman greeted him heartily, and even when he discerned the purpose of Marc’s visit, he showed no indignation at being quizzed about his five meetings with a man he despised in his Loyal Orange bones. He cheerfully admitted to the blazing arguments that he had no doubt were audible throughout Chepstow. But he concluded his defense with the irrefutable point that a man due to be strung up within a month was not likely to attract assassins opposed to his politics.
As Marc was about to depart, he noticed a stack of wooden and cardboard signs in a far corner of the shop. Nothing appeared to be written on them yet. “Getting ready for the Glorious Twelfth a bit early, aren’t you?” Marc asked good-naturedly.
Tierney grinned. “If Sir George thinks he’s going to get away with hanging Billy McNair, he’s got another think coming. It’s no secret—in fact we don’t want it to be—that we’re planning a series of street marches, with signs and fife and drum and all the trimmings. That boy is a true loyalist. We’re going to force the governor to choose between the lad and President Van Buren, whose ruffled feathers he hopes to settle by going after Billy. He can’t have it both ways. And there’s more of us than him.”
“You’re not about to resort to violence, I trust?”
Again the grin. “Ah, now, you know we don’t condone violence. In fact, it’s because we’re worried about the unorganized protesters lurking about Government House and the jail that we’re going ahead with our own peaceful march. By tomorrow, they’ll be redundant.”
Marc thanked him for his time and his
candour and headed for the door.
“Say, you don’t happen to need any tackle for that new pony of yours, do you?”
• • •
Before reporting in at Baldwin House, Marc drove up to Smallman’s to have lunch with Beth. Rose Halpenny always had a pot of stew on her stove upstairs and shared it with Beth and the hired help in the workroom. Everyone was being inordinately cheerful today in an effort to keep Dolly’s spirits from flagging, but eventually Marc was able to draw Beth aside and, in the adjoining shop, give her a synopsis of his morning at Chepstow. There was nothing upbeat in his account.
“So it doesn’t look too good, I take it.” Beth said.
“The only hope I have at the moment is to get to the Stanhope women. If someone in that household poisoned Coltrane, I’ve got to discover their motive, one so compelling that they couldn’t wait for the victim to be hanged. There’s faint chance I’ll be allowed to see them soon, but I’ve got to try.”
“Not necessarily,” Beth said with a twinkle.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I could talk to the Stanhope women for you.”
Marc blinked.
“Mrs. Halpenny and I are due up at Chepstow at two o’clock. We’ve got Patricia’s dress finished, and Rose is taking a box of hats for Almeda to choose from.”
“But don’t they usually come here?”
“The colonel’s forbidden them to leave the house.”
“I see,” Marc said, mulling over this opportunity. “Do you think you can get one or both of them to open up?”
“It’s more likely they’d tell me about their troubles than a man. We spend a lot of time in the fitting room here listening to the heartaches of half the women in town. And they don’t need much prompting.”
“I believe you can do it,” Marc said with real enthusiasm. Then he made the mistake of glancing anxiously at the bulge in Beth’s dress.
She smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, love. I’m plannin’ to take the baby with me.”
• • •
Robert was waiting for Marc in the hall of Baldwin House with welcome news. Richard Dougherty had agreed to take the case.
Death of a Patriot Page 13
