It took Doc Withers less than half an hour to arrive, accompanied by Constable Ewan Wilkie, and to confirm Marc’s findings.
“I’ve seen many a fox and wretched coyote looking like this, but never a fellow human being. It’s strychnine all right.”
The question now was straightforward: who had put powdered strychnine in the snuff box, Coltrane himself (unlikely) or one of his enemies?
“If this had happened the day before the trial or the night before his hanging, then I might believe it was suicide,” Marc said to Sturges in the anteroom. Cobb and Wilkie were still struggling manfully upstairs to keep the commotion down, but the colonel’s shouts and threats still mingled with the wailing of one or more women.
“I agree,” Withers said, coming out of the prison chamber. “He could’ve hanged himself in there easily enough. Less painful and equally dramatic.”
“So we’re lookin’ at murder here,” Sturges said, with the deep sigh of a man who knows there is trouble ahead.
“Definitely,” Withers said, “unless we find a suicide note.”
“What sort of mood was the man in?” Sturges asked Marc.
“I wasn’t in there with Billy, but the door was ajar. For most of the time they seemed to be having a friendly conversation. As you will see, the result of it was Coltrane agreeing to sign the affidavit Billy needed to have the charges against him dropped. I even heard Coltrane laugh out loud.”
“Hardly the behaviour of a man about to swallow hellfire,” Withers said.
“Just so,” Sturges said. Then he looked nervously at Marc. “You said ‘most’ of the time. What else happened?”
“Well, I have to admit that at one point the two men exchanged angry words. I almost intervened. But it lasted only a few seconds, and it was after that that Coltrane laughed. And later on signed the affidavit.”
“I see. But what are we gonna tell the governor when he finds out that Billy was in there alone with Coltrane. . and that his prize bull’s been butchered?”
“But surely it’s just a terrible coincidence,” Marc said. “We brought Billy straight here from jail. What’s more, one of the two visitors who came this morning could have diverted Coltrane’s attention long enough to plant the powder just before leaving, knowing that sooner or later he would make use of the poisoned snuff box.”
“He used more than one?” Sturges said.
“They were his toys, Wilf. There were two of them on his desk when I was here yesterday. I checked both of them in there today, and only one of them appeared to have been seeded with strychnine.”
“That’s how it looks to me as well,” Withers said. “So, in theory, you’re suggesting that almost anyone with access to the prisoner within, say, the last twenty-four hours, could have seeded one of the two containers on the desk?”
“I am. And in addition to any visitors, that would have to include the colonel and his family, as well as Bostwick the jailer and Shad, who replaced Bostwick this morning.”
“Good Lord,” Withers said, “we may never find out who did it!”
“That’s a long list,” Marc agreed.
“Where is this Bostwick fella?” Sturges said. “Wasn’t he the knave who was part of the whole duel business between McNair and Coltrane?”
“He’s disappeared,” Marc said. “According to Shad, he went off somewhere last night, leaving the butler to do his job. And, it has just occurred to me, he may have taken the ring of master keys with him. I saw Shad use a single key to open the cell door when we arrived.”
“Then he’s the most likely suspect,” Sturges said with obvious relish. “Still, we better get Billy down here to find out if he saw anythin’ in there we oughta know about.”
Constable Wilkie came down from the hallway above with Billy in tow. Billy looked bewildered and apprehensive. He glanced pleadingly at Marc, who gave him a reassuring smile.
“Coltrane’s been poisoned,” Sturges said to Billy. “So we need to know everythin’ that happened in there.”
In a slow but deliberate manner, Billy went over the details of his half-hour in Coltrane’s chamber. They more or less corroborated Marc’s account. Billy concluded his version with these words: “The major signed the document. He congratulated me on my engagement. He handed me Dolly’s kerchief. He offered me snuff to celebrate. I refused, politely. He took two great gaspin’ puffs himself and then. . It was horrible!” He couldn’t contain a shudder.
Sturges said quietly, “I hear you two did have some sorta disagreement.”
Billy looked at Marc. “Mr. Coltrane got angry when we was discussin’ the glories of democracy, as he called it. I asked him why, if all men were created equal, republicans still kept slaves.”
“That would have ruffled his feathers,” Marc added.
“But when we started to talk about the war and what happened at Windsor, there was no shoutin’ and no anger. I was surprised that he felt as sad as I did. He reminded me that we had shot and killed four of his men near the creek, and one of them was a cousin of his. And he did sign the paper to help get me outta jail.”
“As I suggested earlier, Wilf,” Marc said, “Billy had no cause to murder Coltrane.”
“I haven’t been thinkin’ he did,” Sturges said curtly. “But I gotta do my job.” Then he smiled to convey his general satisfaction that Billy’s story had jibed with Marc’s.
“Perhaps you can get Cobb to put the word out on the whereabouts of Bostwick,” Marc prompted the chief.
At this point, there was a clatter on the stairs. They all turned to see Cobb coming down, as if on cue. Draped over one arm he had the coat that Robert had supplied for Billy’s disguise.
“What is it, Cobb?” Sturges said, noting the strange look on the constable’s face.
“This is Billy’s coat, ain’t it?” Cobb said.
“It’s the one he wore, yes,” Marc said.
“Well, sir, I was scrummagin’ in the pockets and I come up with this.” In his free hand he was holding out a paper packet, the kind that druggists use for medicinal powders.
“Let me see that,” Withers said. While the others watched in stunned silence, the doctor took the packet over to the window, held it up to the sunlight, and said, “There’s a few grains of something still in here.” He moistened a finger and stuck it into the packet. “And I think we’ll find these are bits of strychnine powder.”
“But that’s not mine!” Billy shouted, dismayed.
“It’s true,” Marc said. “There was nothing in those pockets when I brought the coat into the station from Baldwin’s place.”
“And you brought Billy straight here?” Withers said.
“Not quite,” Sturges said, looking to Marc.
“We did stop for five minutes at your house, Billy.”
“But I was with you or my mum the whole time! You can check with my mother: we just talked. Tell them, Mr. Edwards.”
“Was he ever alone in there?” Sturges asked, his face suddenly grave. “For even a minute?”
Marc hated himself for what he was obliged to say next. “I’m afraid he was. He went into his bedroom to fetch his lucky rabbit’s foot.”
Cobb held up the talisman, as if to confirm Marc’s reluctant assertion.
“But I didn’t go in there to get poison!”
Sturges walked right up to Billy. “I ain’t happy about this, son, but I gotta put you under arrest for the murder of Caleb Coltrane.”
NINE
It was early evening, and Marc and Robert were in the latter’s office going over the calamitous events of the past few hours. Billy McNair had been formally charged with murder and returned to his cold cell. Doc Withers had confirmed strychnine in one of the two snuff boxes and in the druggist’s packet. It fell to Magistrate Thorpe to bring these tidings to Sir George Arthur. The consequent reaction-heard, it was claimed, by the officers a mile away at Fort York-was an apoplectic explosion on a par with Coltrane’s death throes. The creature who had been the centerpiece of Sir George’s scheme to bind his people to him and to the monarch he embodied had been squalidly assassinated. What was worse, he knew but could not admit that it was he who had indulged Stanhope and his quixotic notions of chivalry, hoping to keep the fool’s status as Pelee Island Patriot alive and politically useful. And it was he who had, over the mad colonel’s objections (put in writing, alas), sanctioned the disastrous visit of Billy McNair. Being lieutenant-governor, however, encouraged him to vent his initial wrath upon the hapless magistrate and any of his own staff within scolding range of his tongue. “This business is not over!” he vowed to all and sundry, hoping to divert attention away from his culpabilities and towards the guilt of others.