“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 pockets 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.”