“I’m afraid so, lads.”
It was at this point that Ewan Wilkie, never nimble at the best of times and downright clubfooted when he was cold and sleepy, stumbled and pitched forward. Thinking to break his fall with the prop in hand, he instead broke the latter resoundingly over the left knee of the ugliest tough. Assuming an ambush triggered by treachery, the mob behind him flew into action. Placard sticks were brandished and swung viciously in concert with primal cries of outrage.
Cobb barely had time to get his truncheon up to parry a lethal blow aimed at his head. The force of it stunned him momentarily, just long enough for a second stout placard handle to crack against the seam where his helmet met his forehead. He felt himself falling backwards into unoccupied space. Desperately he flung his left arm out to cushion his fall. A spasm of excruciating pain dazzled its way up to his elbow. Then the daylight vanished, and everything else with it.
• • •
Robert and Marc worked for another hour or so, writing up detailed notes on the facts of the case uncovered thus far, along with their current interpretation of them. Robert would take these up to Dougherty after supper, where the great barrister’s gloss would be added.
“Let’s take a step back, Robert, and get a grasp of the larger picture, shall we? There are several things that don’t add up in regard to the relationship between the colonel and Coltrane.”
“For example?”
“My sense of Stanhope is that he is a vain, pompous martinet, but I feel that his obsession with military protocol and honour are genuine.”
“So he’d need a powerful motive to murder the man he swore to protect?”
“True, but what’s puzzling me is the extent to which he seems to have gone in coddling the prisoner. It’s one thing to feed and clothe him properly, and even permit him nonhazardous reading material. But why grant visiting rights to journalists who then print inflammatory articles that disturb the very constituency who have placed the colonel on a pedestal and dubbed him patriot?”
“I see where you’re going here. And we’d have to include the lengthy visits with his own daughter.”
“There’s also the duel, remember, where all this started. To get that to happen, Coltrane must have procured Bostwick’s wholehearted cooperation. How? Bostwick owed his position and status to the colonel, not Coltrane. Did Coltrane have some kind of hold over Bostwick?”
“Or over the colonel. Remember, he might have known about the duel and merely looked the other way.”
“Exactly. I’m now convinced that it was the prisoner who was calling all the shots at Chepstow.”
“But what threat could he bring to bear on the colonel and Bostwick?”
“That is something that we will have to find out,” Marc said. “I’ll get to Cobb before morning. He can alert his snitches to look for Bostwick without compromising his duty, I’m sure. And when I get to that drunken lieutenant, I intend to grill him within an inch of his life.”
“That’s the spirit!”
• • •
Cobb came to in the outer room of the police station. He was lying on his back on Gussie French’s writing table. Around him, with faces so concerned that he became alarmed himself, were Chief Sturges, a white-cheeked Wilkie, Magistrate Thorpe, Doc Withers, and Gussie himself, peering anxiously at his toppled ink bottle.
“Jesus, my noggin hurts!” Cobb declared to the assembly.
“It ought to,” Withers said, looking much relieved. “You got a bump on it bigger than your nose!”
“Did ya catch the bugger?” Cobb said.
“We didn’t,” Sturges said, with a scowl at Thorpe. “The magistrate come out and shot at the church steeple with his musket, and everybody scarpered—except you, of course.”
Cobb tried to sit up and gave a yelp that startled the onlookers.
“I was just about to tell you not to try that,” Withers said. “I’ve examined your arm. It’s not broken, but you’ve got a very badly sprained wrist. You’ll need to have it in a sling for at least two weeks, I’d guess.”
Cobb was still wincing at the pain everywhere in his arm, but he managed to say, “But I can’t work with one hand.”
“Of course, you can’t, Cobb,” the chief said kindly. “I’m orderin’ you to stay at home fer the duration. I don’t want you in uniform anywheres near this place till you’re fit again.”
“But—”
“Put yer feet up and relax. Let Dora play nursemaid, eh?”
“But we’ll starve—ow!” Cobb rolled over on his right side away from the throbbing.
“We’ve already started takin’ up a collection. Gussie here’s been put in charge.”
Gussie tried to smile at this accolade but couldn’t do it. “Watch that ink bottle, will ya?” he snapped at the patient.
• • •
Marc was surprised when he arrived home at five to find Beth already there. “Oh,” he said happily, “I’m glad you called it a day. You’ve had a full plate of it.”
“I just got in ten minutes ago,” Beth said. “I thought you’d be here or I’d’ve driven the cutter down to Baldwin’s.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. In fact there may be something right.”
Marc tossed his coat over a chair. Beth was holding a paper in one hand.
“A short while ago, Annie Brush came over from the workroom to see me. She said that yesterday she’d been ripping stitches out of a side seam in Mrs. Stanhope’s gown so we could make it fit Patricia, when she felt this piece of paper. It was sewn in between the gown and the lining. She gave it to Rose, who took it out and set it aside, and forgot about it till this afternoon. I think you’d better read it. It’s a letter.”
October 1
Dearest D.
I am appalled to learn that the tempestuous affair we shared in our youth—and oh so briefly renewed last spring in Detroit—has been discovered by the old ogre. But rest assured I shall make him pay for it and then rescue you from that humdrum and corrupt life under the tyranny of the British Crown. I know you secretly share my cause and will not flinch at the actions that must be taken. Your husband is both pompous and venal, a pretentious bankrupt. I have already written to him outlining my proposal. He may or may not wish to involve you, but he will accede to my “suggestion.” And when the province has been liberated and securely attached to the only free republic in the world, you and I shall be reunited—safe in one another’s arms.
Your demon lover,
C.
P.S. Please destroy this letter.
“My God, Beth, I could kiss you!”
“Don’t make promises you can’t carry out,” Beth said, laughing.
ELEVEN
“What does it mean?” Beth asked eagerly.
“Well,” Marc said, rereading the letter and thinking hard, “it was deliberately secreted in Almeda Stanhope’s gown. We have to assume that she hid it there herself. Any other assumption is untenable.”
“And the writer is ‘C,’ which could stand for Caleb, Caleb Coltrane.”
“That would be my first guess, certainly.”
“But then who is the ‘D’ it’s addressed to?”
“That would be Almeda Stanhope.”
“But she’s not a ‘D,’ ” Beth protested.
“To some she is. I overheard the butler, Absalom Shad, whom she brought to Toronto from Michigan, refer to her as ‘Duchess,’ a nickname from childhood, I’d wager.”
Beth’s eyes lit up. “I remember now, when she and Patricia came in the other day, I was sure I picked out an American accent. And she mentioned, when we got to talking, how much she’d enjoyed a trip to St. Thomas last spring to visit her brother-in-law—the colonel’s family lives there—because it was so close to home.”
“I’ll bet she’s from Detroit or thereabouts, then. And Butler Shad as well. He was recommended to her by a sister in Port Huron, but I suspect they’ve all known one another for some time.”
/> “Then this is a love letter, from Coltrane to Almeda?” Beth said, somewhat shocked.
“And a lot more than that. He warns her that the ‘old ogre,’ her husband, has learned of the renewal of their youthful affair ‘last spring.’ ”
“You figure she slipped over to Detroit for a rendezvous?”
“I do. And the two became lovers again. But if the colonel knows,” Marc went on, “then he certainly is not behaving like a cuckolded husband.”
“It isn’t something you’d go on parade with.” Beth smiled, ever amused at the pockets of naiveté still present in her worldly beloved.
“I think I see what’s going on here. You’re right, in that public exposure of the relationship—a decorated colonel’s wife consorting with an enemy ‘general’—would be ruinous to Stanhope.”
“Do you think he found some other love letters like this one?”
Marc smiled, marvelling at his wife’s innocence. “No, I don’t. I think Caleb Coltrane informed him—despite his disingenuous denial here—giving him chapter and verse, and threatening to go public with the sordid affair.”
“But why would he do that?”
“Look at the date: October first. We have to assume it’s last fall.”
“I see. Two months before the raid at Windsor.”
“The ‘proposal’ mentioned here, whatever it is, is undoubtedly part of the blackmail scheme. Either the colonel does his bidding or he exposes him as a cuckold, with a love letter or two, I’ll wager, from Almeda as damning proof.”
“You figure it was due to the army business, then?”
“What else? And my intuition tells me that the colonel, as Coltrane hints here, may not have told his wife about the threat. My reading of him is that he is so brittle and so proud that he has likely been carrying on as if nothing has happened.”
“But Almeda does know, eh? And she even kept this dangerous letter, hiding it in the dress.”
“And was either ordered to stay away from Coltrane or was wise enough not to risk visiting him in his cell, though she must have been sorely tempted after learning about her daughter’s attraction to him.”
“But how could the colonel be helpful to the Yankee raiders?”
“Stanhope is a wealthy merchant, isn’t he? The odds are that this was an attempt to extract money, to buy arms and bribe government officials. Remember, love, that the Hunters’ Lodges are technically illegal in the United States.”
“So you think the colonel sent him money?”
“I do. Stanhope must have been worried sick, not only about Almeda’s affair being revealed, but if he did give Coltrane money, and Coltrane somehow had evidence of this—perhaps another letter—then not only could that fact humiliate him, he could be tried for treason.”
“But the letter calls the colonel ‘a bankrupt,’ ” Beth pointed out.
“A figure of speech probably. Even if Stanhope was cash poor, what with raising his own regiment over the summer, he still has property, possessions, and a business to draw upon.”
“If you’re right, love, it’s no wonder the colonel was coddling the prisoner.”
“Yes. I’ve thought all along that there was more than military courtesy involved. If Coltrane concluded he was going to hang, he intended to spend his final weeks on this earth in style. And in addition, his speechifying in the local press permitted him to propagate his fanatical opinions.”
“And it would be a lot easier for him to be rescued from Chepstow than the jail or the fort, wouldn’t it?”
“Exactly. When I spoke with him, he did not in any way appear to be a doomed man, though I believe he was a consummate actor and dissembler.”
“But if all this is so, the colonel was playing with fire every hour of every day.”
Marc whistled slowly. “Perhaps he got tired of the game with his unpredictable guest and decided to make sure that any agreement they had tacitly made would be rendered null and void.”
“You mean by poisoning him.”
“Exactly. Though I doubt he would risk it by salting the snuff box the evening before the murder, because of the possibility of involving his daughter. I really must interrogate him again.”
“Do you believe Almeda is a republican sympathizer, as the letter says?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to ask her.”
Beth raised both eyebrows.
“I’ll find a way to get to her, even if I have to hide in the bushes and wait for the old martinet to leave the house.”
“Don’t forget, he’s a soldier.”
“As I was,” Marc replied with a reassuring grin.
• • •
Marc now felt as if they were getting somewhere with the case. He realized, though, that a vaguely dated letter with only a pair of initials to identify its author and his paramour would be neither admissible nor useful in court. He had to get corroboration from Almeda Stanhope in advance of the trial, and although that would not be easy, he was confident that he could find a way. The handwriting was very distinctive, and it occurred to Marc that they might be able to match it with that of the notes and personal papers Coltrane had in his prison chamber. But as soon as he had mentioned this possibility to Beth, he recalled that Stanhope had already packed everything personal of Coltrane’s and shipped the lot to Detroit. Was this the act of a gentleman carrying out the murdered man’s likely wishes or one of enlightened self-interest? Either way, it was hard not to believe that the colonel had rifled through every item looking for the evidence used to blackmail him, whatever it was. And if he had found it, it would be burned or buried by now.
All this was explained to Robert Baldwin the first thing Saturday morning. Marc and Robert went over the letter again, phrase by phrase, but came up with nothing that had not already been thought of.
“There’s every reason to be hopeful,” Robert said. “We’re beginning to stir up the kind of information that Dougherty asked for in our two-hour discussion last night. The man’s limbs may move slower than an adder in January, but his tongue and his brain are lightning quick and almost as lethal. He feels that our best approach is to suggest other candidates with motive and opportunity. For example, he’s sure that the colonel will be a key witness for the Crown and that he’ll be able to make hash out of him on the stand. I’m sure he’ll know precisely how to use this letter, even if it doesn’t make it in as evidence.”
“But if I can get Almeda Stanhope to verify it, then we’ll get it in and be able to call her as our own witness, hostile or not.”
“That’s a tall order, Marc, even for you.”
“There’s another aspect of the letter that intrigues me. It’s plain that the blackmail was initiated and continued entirely by letter, sometime in late September or early October. By November fourth or fifth, Stanhope was in Amherstburg training the Windsor militia, but there would be no safe time or place for the two men to meet down there. The money, I’m sure, would have been sent by mail or letter of credit.”
“What are you saying?”
“That it’s conceivable, even probable, that one or more pieces of incriminating correspondence were still in Coltrane’s possession—somewhere in that prison chamber.”
Robert gave that notion some thought. “That would explain Coltrane’s iron grip on the colonel. He could have made a copy of one of the colonel’s letters to spook him and kept the original stashed nearby.”
“If so, then Stanhope would have scoured that chamber while Coltrane took his daily exercise in the yard outside, or even in the middle of the night. But wherever it was hidden, it seems to have stayed so. Coltrane was still getting his way on the day of his murder.”
“Perhaps the cunning bugger had made arrangements with one of his many sympathizers here or in Michigan in regard to the letter or one like it, to be made public should he be mistreated or hanged.”
“Then why would the colonel risk killing him?”
“Good question, Counsellor,” Robert conceded. Afte
r a pause he said, “By the way, I spoke with Cummings a while ago. There’s only one Jones within a mile of Streetsville, and he’s a sixty-year-old bachelor.”
“Putting him in a dress and bonnet wouldn’t fool even Butler Shad,” Marc said.
“So we’re not likely ever to discover the identity of the mysterious Mrs. Jones who signed Coltrane’s visitor’s book.”
Marc agreed, but added, “It’s possible, though, that Mrs. Jones is connected to the fellow I saw skulking about the grounds on Wednesday.”
“An American sympathizer, perhaps, looking to free Coltrane?”
“That’s the best bet, I’d say. Jones could have been delivering information about a rescue attempt. Perhaps they saw Bostwick leave and decided to make their move before a proper replacement was installed.”
Robert hesitated before saying, “You don’t suppose that Jones was sent by the Hunters to poison Coltrane, do you?”
“We can’t discount that, can we? Thieves do fall out.”
“You’re referring to some internal feud or power struggle among the Hunters.”
“What I’m doing,” Marc admitted ruefully, “is clutching at straws.”
Marc declined the macaroon Robert offered him from a crystal dish on his desk. “But I’ve just thought of something important in regard to the blackmail theory. There are only two ways that Coltrane could have had possession of incriminating material in his cell.”
Robert said without hesitation, “It was shipped to him in the goods from Detroit or—”
“Or he had it on his person at Windsor and wasn’t searched properly.”
“Maybe our chivalric colonel was too courteous to do it thoroughly.”
“There is one person whom we can ask about that, isn’t there?”
Robert nodded.
• • •
Billy McNair was not in good shape when Marc and Robert met him in Calvin Strangway’s anteroom at the jail a half-hour later. Despite his accomplishments, he was still a young man and thus susceptible to the sudden ups and downs characteristic of youth. Dolly’s visit the evening before had lifted his spirits enormously and her departure had depressed them correspondingly. Robert tried to cheer him by briefly outlining the new evidence and playing up the vaunted abilities of Doubtful Dick Dougherty.
Death of a Patriot Page 15
