“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.”