“Then do come in, sir. In fact you’ve come at a very good time.”
“How so?” Had someone preceded them?
“All Caleb’s treasures arrived here last night from Toronto. The authorities say his body will follow shortly. Until I have him home again, I am comforted by his possessions. You may think me a sentimental old woman, but I’ve just been polishin’ up some of his favourite snuff boxes.”
“I would be honoured to see them, ma’am, and any other memorabilia you may care to show me.”
Marc stepped into a tidy, pleasant room.
“You ain’t gonna leave Mr. Bartlett out there in the cold, are you?” Gladys was peering around Marc at Cobb stamping his feet on the stoop and looking suitably hangdog.
“Bartlett generally keeps an eye on the horse,” Marc said.
“Well, you just invite him on in, Mr. Briggs. I got hot tea and fresh biscuits just outta the oven. We don’t let folks stand out in the snow by themselves—not in this country, we don’t.”
Marc accepted the gentle reprimand and waved Cobb in. There was a bit of the Coltrane spirit in Gladys Dobbs after all.
After tea and biscuits were served and further condolences expressed, Gladys Dobbs settled the two gentlemen on an afghan-covered divan, in front of which sat two opened crates of Coltrane’s books and treasures. Gladys did not shrink from regaling the distinguished London journalist with stories about her illustrious brother and the future he had been denied. She did not speak of the circumstances of his death, perhaps too recent and too horrible to confront, Marc thought. Gladys loved and admired her brother but did not wholly embrace or understand his cause.
It took three pots of tea for the somewhat disjointed biography of the remarkable Major Coltrane to be played out: his boyhood feats, his bravery as a teenager at the Battle of New Orleans, where he first acquired a taste for shooting at redcoats, his stormy tenure as representative in the Ohio legislature, his half-dozen spectacular failures in business, his pivotal role in the rapid expansion of the liberation lodges, and so on. The closest she came to recent events provided Marc with a valuable tidbit.
“Caleb was to be the next president of the Michigan branch of the Hunters’ Lodges, you know. They were holdin’ up the vote till he came back to Detroit.”
Marc listened, took notes with dutiful deference, and occasionally prompted when the multiple plot-lines got too entangled. During one judicious pause, Marc said, “You haven’t mentioned any women in your account, Mrs. Dobbs. Did the major have time for romance?”
Gladys smiled indulgently. “Of course he did. He was a red-blooded American, after all. But his loves and losses don’t have a lot to do with the more important things, now do they?”
“Ah, but they can make him seem fully human to my readers in England, who put much store, perhaps too much store, in such matters.”
“Well, as a young man he did have a crush on our cousin, Almeda Rankin. She was a dear girlhood friend of mine, as well as a relative.”
“So you haven’t seen her for some time?”
“But I have. She came for a visit last May and stayed three days. We had a wonderful reunion, and as it happened, Caleb was here at the same time. He and Almeda went back over old times and chatted up a storm.”
“And perhaps revived their relationship?”
Gladys’s pause suggested to Marc that he had asked one question too many, but she continued willingly enough.
“Heavens, no. Almeda is a married woman in Toronto now. We had three happy days together, though, reliving lovely memories.” Gladys Dobbs’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears.
Marc cleared his throat to break the spell. “Well, we’ve taken up so much of your time, Mrs. Dobbs, and you’ve been very kind. I have more in my notes than I can use. But before I leave, would you mind if Bartlett and I thumbed through your brother’s collection of books here? I’d like to see what he’d been reading and browse through any correspondence he may have kept—to better understand his republican philosophy and perhaps discover some quotable passages in his own voice, as it were.”
“Oh, please go right ahead. But I’m afraid you won’t find any of his letters or articles in these boxes.”
“No?”
“They sent back all my letters to him, but I couldn’t find a scrap of anything important he’d been writin’ up there in Toronto. I do have three personal letters he sent to me in December. You’re welcome to see them.”
Gladys opened a drawer in the nearby desk and came back with the letters. Cobb meanwhile had begun thumbing discreetly through Caleb’s books, seeking another and more significant letter. Marc set Gladys’s letters on the couch beside him, as if he were only casually interested.
“Well, then, I’ll go and do up these dishes while you gentlemen admire Caleb’s treasures. Are you interested in old snuff boxes by any chance?”
“I am indeed, ma’am. These appear to be antique masterpieces. I promise to handle them with great care. And I’ll put these personal letters back in the drawer so they won’t get mixed up with other items.”
“Thank you. Caleb would be so proud to see gentlemen of your quality appreciatin’ his collection.”
Marc cringed inwardly but managed a grateful smile. Moments later he and Cobb were left alone to intensify their search for Almeda Stanhope’s note. Every page of every book was flipped through. The boards or leather covers were scrutinized for hidden pouches or telltale bulges. Marc assumed that the colonel had destroyed all the papers with Caleb’s handwriting on them after combing through the rest of his possessions, then shipped them off by express post before anyone else showed an interest. But neither Marc nor Cobb found a stray paper of any kind.
While Cobb, visibly frustrated, began thrashing through volumes he’d already scanned, Marc read through the three letters from Coltrane to Gladys. Finding nothing of significance, he went over to the desk and placed two of the letters back in the drawer. Before replacing the third, he withdrew the concluding page from it and put it in his pocket. They might need a sample of Coltrane’s script with an attached signature. He would return the page later. Still, he could not hide from Cobb his own disappointment in not finding the very thing they had expended so much time and energy to uncover here at Mrs. Dobbs’s. He felt acutely that he had callously exposed Cobb to danger and needless suffering.
“Would you like to see Caleb’s room?” Gladys was standing in the kitchen doorway with a tea towel in her hand.
“I would be honoured,” Lord Briggs said with aristocratic élan, and he followed Gladys through a narrow hall, which led to a bedroom on either side. Inside what was now clearly a shrine, she took Marc through the remaining artifacts of her brother’s life, turning up for his approval every medal, framed citation, dismantled weaponry, militia regalia, and the half-dozen books that had not followed him to Toronto. There was no incriminating letter in this archive.
Meanwhile, Cobb began fiddling with the snuff boxes nearest him, holding them up to the light and rotating them in his right hand as a jeweller might an exotic gem. Setting them down at his feet, he poked and prodded and kneaded. Suddenly, one of them sprouted a drawer from its base, a slim cavity no roomier than a gentleman’s cigarette case but capacious enough to secret a one-page billet-doux.
FIFTEEN
Back at the hotel, as they prepared for the ten-mile trip to the Wayfarers Inn, Marc perused the discovered (and purloined) letter for the third time, and said to Cobb, “What made you think of a secret compartment in one of the snuff boxes?”
Cobb’s reply was immediate and simple. “Well, them con-trap-shuns is all made by fellas from foreign places in Europe, eh? And I figure them countries are forever squabblin’ amongst themselves, and so they’d be full of spies and secret agents, and they’d need hidden drawers and such—more’n most of us would. And they tell me they all puff snuff like a hog sucks swill.”
“Brilliant! So tell me what you make of the letter.” Marc handed the note to
Cobb.
November 1, 1838
My Dearest C:
Come soon 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
“Well, it’s a bill-an’-coo all right,” Cobb opined.
“It should be helpful in Dougherty’s hands. He’ll be able to prove that something was going on between Caleb and Duchess Almeda, enough to give Stanhope a motive for murder and weaken the case against Billy.”
“But it could all’ve been in Coltrane’s head, couldn’t it?”
“I doubt it, Cobb, now that I see this letter.”
“So Mrs. Dobbs was lyin’ to us?”
“Fibbing a little, I suspect, to protect the reputations of those dearest to her. But it doesn’t matter much how far the renewed relationship went, does it? It’s the letters themselves that are damning. And we now have a complementary pair.”
“Which ain’t exactly signed,” Cobb felt constrained to point out.
“Dougherty will deal with that, I’m sure.”
“So why don’t we just head fer home now? We got what we came for.”
“We could, but beyond getting Billy acquitted, I am determined to find the real murderer as well. I feel I owe it to Billy to have him fully exonerated, and I now have a debt to Mrs. Dobbs that I must repay. Knowing who killed her brother, and why, might justify the subterfuge we had to enact there this afternoon and might also bring the bereft woman some peace of mind.”
“That’s quite a conscience you got, Major,” Cobb said, reaching for his coat.
• • •
The journey down to the Wayfarers Inn was unexpectedly easy. With a bright moon in a starlit sky and a single passable road to the south, the Michigan Hunters were not likely to deceive themselves into thinking their meeting could be secret. A dozen riders thudded past Lord Briggs’s cutter without a sideways glance, and they weren’t on their way to Toledo at seven-thirty of a winter’s evening with the temperature near zero. But three times before they reached the crossroads that justified the existence of the inn, they were stopped by a brace of well-armed men and asked where they were going. As soon as the Wayfarers was mentioned, the passwords were demanded and given. Such cloak-and-dagger business seemed slightly surreal to Marc, seeing that the U.S. Army could have staked out the place at any time during the day and hauled the lot of them off to jail. But they hadn’t, despite the promises made by President Van Buren.
At the crossroads, Marc was surprised to find an unprepossessing one-storey hotel and tavern, set in a ragged clearing on the east side of the road. A single sleigh and two horses stood outside. Where were all the Hunters? The answer came soon enough. Two riders, cloaked and in a hurry, galloped in from the west crossroad, cantered across the clearing, and swung into the bush behind the inn. Marc guided the cutter after them and found at the back of the building a broad and well-used pathway, just wide enough to accommodate a sleigh. Following it as it wound through the woods, they came to a gate and four or five stout chaps with muskets in hand.
“Paul Revere rides a donkey!” Marc declaimed in his most orotund tones.
“Pass,” came the muffled reply.
And they did, negotiating two more bends before coming out onto a huge clearing, at the end of which loomed a large, barn-like structure. In front of it a dozen sleighs of various sizes and types were parked, with their horses stamping their feet and emitting frosty breaths as big as sugar bags. Several youths were tending to the beasts, and one of them dashed up and took Marc’s filly by the bridle. At the wide double door, Marc again gave the passwords, and he and Cobb found themselves guests of the Michigan chapter of the infamous, and dangerous, Hunters’ Lodge.
They were standing at the rear of a rectangular hall with a high, vaulted ceiling and, at the far end, an unpainted plank stage beneath a Stars and Stripes bigger than most circus tents. Torches set in sconces on brick pillars along the side walls threw out both light and heat. In each of the four corners, iron stoves throbbed red-hot, like swollen, aggrieved hearts. The centre floor was occupied by a crowd of men sporting deerstalker caps and woollen plaid shirts of bluish hue. No one seemed to take any notice of the two unconventionally attired strangers. The meeting had already begun, and something spoken from the platform had stirred catcalls and other unhappy comment from the audience.
“Brother Hunters! I have come tonight to bring you definitive news of Hunter Bumppo.” The speaker stood behind a lectern, tall and gesticulating above it, the wavering torchlight washing shadow in and out of his angular features.
This announcement was greeted not with respectful attention but with strident cries of “Bumppo fer President!” “We want Bumppo!” “Call the question, Deerslayer!” “Resign, ya limey-lover!”
Above the din, the embattled speaker—flanked by two portly Hunters whose posture suggested they were not bodyguards but very important persons attempting to remain above the undignified fray below them—shouted back at his detractors. “There will be no presidential vote tonight!”
At this, one of the naysayers bounded up onto the stage. The three platform figures froze just as four more active ones stepped out from behind the draped flag with muskets poised and live pistols quivering in their leather belts. But the interloper merely wanted to address his fellows on the floor. He turned to the assembly and hollered, “Our constitution says we can vote for a candidate in absentia! And in America, constitutions are sacred, are they not? Hunter Bumppo led our glorious liberation army against the tyrant not once but twice. He shed his blood for us upon the tyrant’s soil. The oppressed peoples of Canada are counting on us!”
These sentiments inspired a wave of guttural cheering whose enthusiastic exhalation came close to extinguishing the pillared torches. Chairman Deerslayer allowed the righteous indignation to wear itself out, and something in the stillness of his demeanour prepared the Michigan Hunters for what he was about to say.
“Fellow Hunters, it is my sad but solemn duty to inform you that Hunter Bumppo is dead.”
The silence was palpable and eerie, coming as it did after the raucous display of democratic fervour. It was followed by a feverish murmuring among the stunned Hunters. Deerslayer spoke quietly above it. “Our agent has just returned from Toronto. He was delayed when his cover was blown in London and he had to spend two days hiding out in the bush. He made his report a mere two hours ago.”
The membership began to find its democratic voice once again: “Who killed him?” “You swore he’d be rescued!” “Down with the executive!” “Throw the bums out!”
“Hunter Bumppo was savagely and callously murdered in his jail cell by one or more of his captors, the cringing lackeys of the British Queen!”
Marc and Cobb began to edge back until they were touching the double door behind them, for the outrage that now seized the hall was monumental and seemingly unassuageable. The simple glimpse of an English periwig might push them into a frenzy in which murder and mutilation would be mere preliminaries.
“Order! Order!” All three dignitaries on the platform were screaming at once, to no avail. But the abrupt thunder of four muskets exploding and the curious shower of wood splinters and buckshot from the rafters above did what no appeal to parliamentary rules of order could.
“If you don’t keep your gobs shut, I won’t be able to give you Hunter Mohican’s report!” Then into the sullen, shaky silence that ensued, Chairman Deerslayer said, “Mohican spent five days in the tyrant’s capital, at great risk to his personal safety. As instr
ucted, he met with our sympathizers in the region and scouted the dungeon where Hunter Bumppo was incarcerated. A master of disguise, he succeeded in getting an interview with Bumppo, during which he hoped to firm up the escape plan.”
“What the hell happened, then?”
“I’ll let Hunter Mohican tell you himself.” Deerslayer reached down and pulled up beside him a slim figure. Beneath their mortician’s smiles, the two flanking Hunters looked particularly pleased with the proceedings so far.
Mohican limped to the podium and stood beside it. In hopping up onto the stage, his cap had flown off, releasing a mane of yellow curls that bounced on his shoulders. In the torchlight, the burn scar on his face glistened grotesquely.
“Brother Hunters, I am here to testify, upon my sacred oath as a founding member of this Lodge, that during my half-hour interview with our great and irreplaceable field general, he ordered me to abort all plans fer his escape, sayin’—and I swear this on my mother’s Bible and George Washington’s grave—sayin’ that he had his own plan fer breakin’ free. We were not to worry, he had everythin’ in hand. But they assassinated him before he could bring it off! He’s dead! Poisoned like a rat in a trap!”
When the outrage at this tragic revelation subsided slightly and the calls for swift and savage revenge grew hoarse with repetition, the chairman drew a pistol from his pocket and banged on the podium with its embossed butt. “It is my sad but solemn duty to declare Hunter Pathfinder here the new president of the Michigan Lodge—by acclamation!”
During the ensuing furore and general dismay, Mohican retreated from the limelight, but as he was stepping down from the platform, his eyes met those of a fashionably dressed, bewigged gentleman staring at him from the back of the hall.
“It’s Rungee!” Marc hissed. “And he’s spotted us.”
Death of a Patriot Page 21
