“And it would be a lot easier for him to be rescued from Chepstow than the jail or the fort, wouldn’t it?”
“Exactly. When I spoke with him, he did not in any way appear to be a doomed man, though I believe he was a consummate actor and dissembler.”
“But if all this is so, the colonel was playing with fire every hour of every day.”
Marc whistled slowly. “Perhaps he got tired of the game with his unpredictable guest and decided to make sure that any agreement they had tacitly made would be rendered null and void.”
“You mean by poisoning him.”
“Exactly. Though I doubt he would risk it by salting the snuff box the evening before the murder, because of the possibility of involving his daughter. I really must interrogate him again.”
“Do you believe Almeda is a republican sympathizer, as the letter says?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to ask her.”
Beth raised both eyebrows.
“I’ll find a way to get to her, even if I have to hide in the bushes and wait for the old martinet to leave the house.”
“Don’t forget, he’s a soldier.”
“As I was,” Marc replied with a reassuring grin.
Marc now felt as if they were getting somewhere with the case. He realized, though, that a vaguely dated letter with only a pair of initials to identify its author and his paramour would be neither admissible nor useful in court. He had to get corroboration from Almeda Stanhope in advance of the trial, and although that would not be easy, he was confident that he could find a way. The handwriting was very distinctive, and it occurred to Marc that they might be able to match it with that of the notes and personal papers Coltrane had in his prison chamber. But as soon as he had mentioned this possibility to Beth, he recalled that Stanhope had already packed everything personal of Coltrane’s and shipped the lot to Detroit. Was this the act of a gentleman carrying out the murdered man’s likely wishes or one of enlightened self-interest? Either way, it was hard not to believe that the colonel had rifled through every item looking for the evidence used to blackmail him, whatever it was. And if he had found it, it would be burned or buried by now.
All this was explained to Robert Baldwin the first thing Saturday morning. Marc and Robert went over the letter again, phrase by phrase, but came up with nothing that had not already been thought of.
“There’s every reason to be hopeful,” Robert said. “We’re beginning to stir up the kind of information that Dougherty asked for in our two-hour discussion last night. The man’s limbs may move slower than an adder in January, but his tongue and his brain are lightning quick and almost as lethal. He feels that our best approach is to suggest other candidates with motive and opportunity. For example, he’s sure that the colonel will be a key witness for the Crown and that he’ll be able to make hash out of him on the stand. I’m sure he’ll know precisely how to use this letter, even if it doesn’t make it in as evidence.”
“But if I can get Almeda Stanhope to verify it, then we’ll get it in and be able to call her as our own witness, hostile or not.”
“That’s a tall order, Marc, even for you.”
“There’s another aspect of the letter that intrigues me. It’s plain that the blackmail was initiated and continued entirely by letter, sometime in late September or early October. By November fourth or fifth, Stanhope was in Amherstburg training the Windsor militia, but there would be no safe time or place for the two men to meet down there. The money, I’m sure, would have been sent by mail or letter of credit.”
“What are you saying?”
“That it’s conceivable, even probable, that one or more pieces of incriminating correspondence were still in Coltrane’s possession-somewhere in that prison chamber.”
Robert gave that notion some thought. “That would explain Coltrane’s iron grip on the colonel. He could have made a copy of one of the colonel’s letters to spook him and kept the original stashed nearby.”
“If so, then Stanhope would have scoured that chamber while Coltrane took his daily exercise in the yard outside, or even in the middle of the night. But wherever it was hidden, it seems to have stayed so. Coltrane was still getting his way on the day of his murder.”
“Perhaps the cunning bugger had made arrangements with one of his many sympathizers here or in Michigan in regard to the letter or one like it, to be made public should he be mistreated or hanged.”
“Then why would the colonel risk killing him?”
“Good question, Counsellor,” Robert conceded. After a pause he said, “By the way, I spoke with Cummings a while ago. There’s only one Jones within a mile of Streetsville, and he’s a sixty-year-old bachelor.”
“Putting him in a dress and bonnet wouldn’t fool even Butler Shad,” Marc said.
“So we’re not likely ever to discover the identity of the mysterious Mrs. Jones who signed Coltrane’s visitor’s book.”
Marc agreed, but added, “It’s possible, though, that Mrs. Jones is connected to the fellow I saw skulking about the grounds on Wednesday.”
“An American sympathizer, perhaps, looking to free Coltrane?”
“That’s the best bet, I’d say. Jones could have been delivering information about a rescue attempt. Perhaps they saw Bostwick leave and decided to make their move before a proper replacement was installed.”
Robert hesitated before saying, “You don’t suppose that Jones was sent by the Hunters to poison Coltrane, do you?”
“We can’t discount that, can we? Thieves do fall out.”
“You’re referring to some internal feud or power struggle among the Hunters.”
“What I’m doing,” Marc admitted ruefully, “is clutching at straws.”
Marc declined the macaroon Robert offered him from a crystal dish on his desk. “But I’ve just thought of something important in regard to the blackmail theory. There are only two ways that Coltrane could have had possession of incriminating material in his cell.”
Robert said without hesitation, “It was shipped to him in the goods from Detroit or-”
“Or he had it on his person at Windsor and wasn’t searched properly.”
“Maybe our chivalric colonel was too courteous to do it thoroughly.”
“There is one person whom we can ask about that, isn’t there?”
Robert nodded.
Billy McNair was not in good shape when Marc and Robert met him in Calvin Strangway’s anteroom at the jail a half-hour later. Despite his accomplishments, he was still a young man and thus susceptible to the sudden ups and downs characteristic of youth. Dolly’s visit the evening before had lifted his spirits enormously and her departure had depressed them correspondingly. Robert tried to cheer him by briefly outlining the new evidence and playing up the vaunted abilities of Doubtful Dick Dougherty.
“I do appreciate what you’re doin’ fer me,” Billy said with glum resignation. “But Mr. Strangway says the governor’s fixed on me as the culprit and I better prepare to make peace with my Maker. I told him I didn’t want to see no preacher in here!”
“Fortunately, your jailer is not your attorney,” Robert said soothingly. “Nor is Sir George the maharajah of Upper Canada. You will get a proper trial. Mr. Dougherty and I-along with Chief Justice Robinson-will see to that.”
Marc cleared his throat. “But right now, Billy, you are the one who can help us most.”
Billy looked up expectantly. He was a young man, fatherless since three, who was always more comfortable helping himself than relying upon the aid of others. “Tell me how,” he said.
“I’d like you to think back to the day you captured Coltrane, painful as that may be,” Marc said.
“I think of it every day. What do you need to know?”
“You were the one to go through Coltrane’s papers, and you delivered them to Colonel Stanhope.”
“I was.”
“Can you recall what those papers were?”
“I can. There was one with military orders on it fer Coltrane’s unit and with it a kind of battle sketch or route march. Most of it was mumbo jumbo to me. Then there was a silly proclamation to be read aloud in village squares. I just folded the three sheets up and gave them to the colonel. He seemed very pleased.”