Marc sipped at his brandy and stared into the blazing hearth. “If I hadn’t let the lad go in to see his mother, he would be a free man now.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Marc,” Robert said, then added delicately, “You’re absolutely certain Billy didn’t do it?”
“Absolutely. I was there. I heard the tenor of that conversation. And you saw Billy before we left the station. He had just set his wedding date. He was heading off to play it humble and safe so that he could be released to his sweetheart’s arms. In order for us to accept him as a conniving killer with a packet of poison hidden in his bedroom at home, we’d have to believe him capable of an incredible deception, of a level of dissembling quite beyond his abilities. Nor was Coltrane any fool. The chances of Billy slipping strychnine powder into one of those snuff boxes, which sat on Coltrane’s side of the desk, are nil and none.”
Robert held up his hand. “You don’t need to convince me, Marc. I just wanted to be sure you felt as I did.”
“What really angers me, though, is the cavalier way in which Wilf Sturges cuffed Billy and hauled him away to be charged.”
“Well, you must admit that all the obvious evidence points to his guilt. He did have a powerful motive, however much we ourselves feel it may have evaporated. He did threaten to kill Coltrane after failing to do so in a duel. He did have the chance to obtain and secure the poison. And the near-empty packet was found in the borrowed coat.”
“But that skein is full of holes. Anyone in the day leading up to the incident could have salted the snuff. We do know who came there officially and who might have slipped in for a casual visit. Bostwick has run off with the estate keys in his pocket. I wager we’ll find that Stanhope has demoted him or drummed him out of the regiment for the fiasco over the duel. So he may well have a motive: revenge against the Yankee who duped or suborned him. Moreover, why would Billy keep strychnine cached away in his bedroom when he fully intended to shoot Coltrane on Monday morning?”
“Right. And Cobb took him straight to jail after the duel. Unfortunately, Billy won’t get a chance to testify to these matters because under our laws the accused cannot take the stand on his own behalf.”
“I’d forgotten that. Still, there are other suspects here besides Billy, aren’t there?”
“Like the Orangeman, Tierney,” Robert said. “He hated Coltrane enough to go there more than once.”
“Nor can we discount the Stanhopes. The daughter was enamoured of Coltrane, I’m sure. She and her mother were feuding over it. If Stanhope found out, he may have taken matters into his own hands.”
“Though I really doubt he would kill the man he had sworn, on his soldier’s sword, to protect-at least not until after his coronation at the ball on Saturday.”
“The point is that Sturges has gone ahead with the charge and let Sir George know about it. Getting it reversed will be almost impossible.”
“I agree,” Robert said, reaching for a macaroon and then resisting its temptation.
“I begged Wilf to interrogate everybody immediately-a necessity in any attempt to investigate a murder. He refused. I pointed out that the only substantial incriminating evidence he had was the packet in the greatcoat. He saw that. Then I asked him how he thought Billy poured the strychnine out of it into the snuff box and subsequently managed to sequester it in a coat hanging upstairs on a hall tree. He reminded me that Billy had rushed out and past me, then raced up the stairs crying havoc. Cobb says there was so much hollering and confusion that Billy could easily have slipped the empty paper into the pocket, though he himself didn’t see him do so. When I asked Sturges why Billy would do so, he said to keep us from finding it.”
“That makes rough sense, I suppose.”
“By the same token, in the confusion up there, anyone could have done it. Cobb was at the door, he swears, all during the interview, but after that it was instant mayhem. Anyway, that alone should have warranted more investigation before charging Billy.”
“If the killer did plant it to cast blame on Billy, then that would seem to eliminate any of the earlier outside visitors from suspicion.”
“True, but I never rule out conspiracy or collusion.”
“I see: one person to set the poison in place and another to secure the frame-up.”
“I even asked Wilf, and then Cobb, if I could just speak briefly to the Stanhopes, to give them some details they might find helpful, but I was forbidden to do so. I really just wanted to get a look at the colonel and the women, to study their faces in the immediate aftermath. But they refused.”
“You must understand why the police, despite your helpfulness to them in the past, had to behave as they did.”
Marc looked puzzled.
“Well, you are one of the accused’s advocates, aren’t you?”
Marc instantly understood. “Of course! We’re on different sides now, aren’t we? I mustn’t be too hard on Cobb, especially. He’s a good man, and I consider him a friend.”
“Don’t worry, that’s allowed in the colonies,” Robert responded, then asked, “Is there any possibility that an outsider could have come in through the garden in the night?”
“I thought of that. I took a good look around in the prison chamber, even poked into the curtained-off sleeping area and the water closet. Then I checked the back door and the bars on the window. I found nothing suspicious.” Marc paused, recalling something from his first visit to Chepstow. “Come to think of it, I did spy a suspicious person skulking about the rear gate yesterday morning. I spooked him and he ran off. Still, even though the sentries back there are unreliable, when that back door is locked, the prison chamber itself is like a fortress.”
Robert drained his brandy. “Well, it looks as if we began as defense counsel for a man accused of attempted murder and inherited one charged with the real thing.”
“You’ll stay on the case, then?”
“If Billy is innocent, and I believe he is, he’ll need all the help he can get.”
“Beth and I will foot the bill. She’s devoted to Dolly. They’ll both be devastated by the news.” Marc waved off the brandy decanter. “I’ve got to go. Beth will be worried. But tell me quickly what I can do to assist you.”
“I’ve already thought of that. It occurred to me that you are an apprentice barrister but a seasoned and successful investigator of homicides.”
Marc was half expecting this turn of events and tried not to reveal his disappointment. “You want me to find the real murderer, then?”
“I do. In the circumstances, I think it is our best hope. You just said yourself that the police believe they have their man and enough evidence to convict him. They will look no further. And remember, this case won’t go to trial until the spring assizes begin in April. That gives you almost three months.”
“I trust I won’t need that long.”
“We should be able to get Billy released on bail shortly. But he may have to put his wedding on hold.”
The door opened and Dr. William Baldwin took two steps into the room. He waved a sheet of paper at his son.
“News, sir?”
“Could be. It’s a note just received from James Thorpe.”
“Then it can’t be good news.”
Baldwin senior began perusing the letter, while Marc and Robert waited impatiently.