“And nothing else?”
Billy hesitated, then said casually, “There was a personal letter, but I tucked it back into the major’s blouse.”
“Personal?” Robert said with restrained excitement. “How so?”
“Well, it was a love letter from some lady, his mistress, I think. It was written in a woman’s style anyways.”
“Can you recall any names in it, or what it said?”
Billy had to think about this. “It was addressed to ‘my dear C’ or somethin’ like that-no name. I don’t remember anything particular about the message, except it was gushy. It didn’t have anything to do with Coltrane’s unit and so I really didn’t want to read every word. There was another initial signed at the bottom.”
Marc and Robert waited, but Billy just shook his head regretfully.
“Could it have been a ‘D’?” Marc prompted.
“Yeah, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Marc said, thinking hard about how he might use this new information in any interview with Almeda Stanhope. Then he turned his attention back to Billy. “Was Coltrane taken to the surgeon as soon as you reached headquarters?”
Again Billy did not hesitate. “He was. I took him there myself, and I watched the surgeon cut off his shirt and cauterize the wound.”
“Where was the love letter you’d tucked in there?”
This time Billy did pause to reflect. “It fell out. And I said to the doctor and one of the majors, ‘It’s okay, it’s just a letter from his girl.’ So the surgeon tucked it into a leather Bible Coltrane kept in his kit.”
Marc whistled.
“What is it?” Robert said.
“That same leather Bible sat on Coltrane’s desk, between the two snuff boxes.”
Robert and Marc walked through the tunnel to the Court House. Robert had suggested that they inquire of Magistrate Thorpe, who had been assigned to prosecute the case, whether the Crown’s attorney had taken possession of the affidavit Coltrane signed just before his death. After which, they intended to return to the office and mull over the implications of what Billy had just revealed. However, they were forestalled by the unexpected appearance of Chief Sturges in the hallway outside Thorpe’s chamber.
“What’s the matter, Wilf?” Robert said. “You look as if you’ve been hit by a cricket bat.”
Sturges grimaced. “Not me, lads, but poor ol’ Cobb got it, flush on his bald spot.”
“Is he all right?” Marc asked, instantly concerned.
“Who would do that?” Robert demanded at the same time.
“That gang of thugs picketin’ outside the jail yesterday afternoon. We’d been just ignorin’ them, but ’is majesty ordered us to clear them off the road, so we went out to persuade them, like, and the next thing you know, there’s a stampede, and Cobb gets clobbered with a stick, and when he falls, he manages to sprain his wrist. His helmet took the sting outta the blow, but he’s got a mighty sore arm. I told him not to show up here for two weeks. I’ve just been signin’ up supernumeraries to cover for him.”
“I’ll go over and see how he’s doing,” Marc said to Sturges, “as soon as I can. He’s only two blocks from my house.”
“I’d advise that,” Sturges said, forcing a chuckle, “ ‘cause Dora’ll need people to keep him outta her hair-else he’s likely to get another whack on the noggin!”
“It’s too bad it was Cobb,” Robert said. “You could use him when the Orangemen go marching later today.”
“You’re right, there. Cobb’s my best man. But we’ve been promised help from the two Toronto militia regiments.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, Sir George has called in all the officers fer a strategy meetin’ this mornin’. They oughta be there fer the next hour anyways.”
Marc didn’t even say thank you or good-bye. He was heading for the door and Chepstow, twenty minutes’ walk away. Colonel Stanhope would be the first officer to answer the governor’s call to arms. Which meant he would be absent from home, for an hour or more.
Almeda Stanhope would be on her own.
Marc walked north up Brock Street and approached the house cautiously from the side. It was past ten o’clock, and the colonel was almost certainly at Government House preening and advising. It was the butler he had to be wary of. He realized that this might be his only chance to confront Almeda before the trial next Friday. He crossed his fingers, nodded to the sentries on the walk, stepped up onto the porch, and tugged the bell rope. Thirty agonizing seconds later, the door was opened by Shad.
“Whaddaya want?” he snapped in a very unbutler-like tone.
“Kindly tell Mrs. Stanhope that Mr. Edwards must see her. It is a matter of life and death.”
“She ain’t home.”
“Sir, I know she is, by the colonel’s command.”
“Know an awful lot, don’t ya?”
Marc merely waited the man out. Finally Absalom Shad turned and disappeared down the hall, but not before kicking the door shut in Marc’s face. With one foot against the jamb, Marc easily stopped it from clicking closed. He heard voices from what he took to be the women’s sitting room near the head of the hall. Shad shuffled back to Marc, still truculent. “This way, sir. The lady will see you.”
Almeda Stanhope was seated on the very edge of a brocaded settee near a Venetian marble fireplace. She turned to face her visitor, and Marc saw a striking woman of forty-five with rich, dark curls, faded gray only at the temples, and very delicate, feminine features of a kind favoured by porcelain artists. She was fashionably attired, and except for the perilous perch she had on the settee’s edge, one would have taken her for the chatelaine at ease in her own home and ready to welcome a gentleman to tea and polite conversation.
Marc bowed. Shad had taken his overcoat, hat, and gloves: he sensed this visit would be neither brief nor pro forma.
Almeda looked directly into Marc’s eyes. Her own revealed a woman of some character and depth, no cringing wife to a martinet husband. In a low but controlled voice she said, “You’ve found the letter.”
This was not the way he had envisaged the conversation opening, but he recovered enough to say quietly, “We did.”
“It was stupid of me to keep it in the first place,” she said without emotion, as if the fact were in evidence and irretrievable.
“May I sit down, ma’am?”
“Please, do. You must forgive my manners; I’ve been somewhat distracted of late.”
Marc sat down opposite her on a Queen Anne chair. “You’ve had a man murdered in your own house. .”
She nodded. “The gown was mine, of course-Mrs. Edwards knew that-and the question of Patricia’s having to wear it only came up after the New Year. You see, my husband has been paying so much attention to his army career, he has neglected his business.”
Along with sizeable chunks of cash paid out to a blackmailer, Marc thought. “So you were a trifle, ah, impecunious?”
“Yes. It turned out that we couldn’t afford to buy Patricia the coming-out gown she deserved. I tried to make it up to her by letting her choose one of mine to be made over for her. I was certain she’d pick one of the two I bought in September, but she chose otherwise.”
She made a small grimace of self-recrimination and continued. “To my consternation, she took the gown with the letter in it to her room. Next day it went straight to Smallman’s. I thought it best just to wait and hope it wouldn’t be found, and even if it was, I counted on Mrs. Halpenny’s discretion. I assumed she would immediately tuck it into one of the pockets or give it to me personally. My only fear at that time was that my daughter would find it. I didn’t know, of course, what was to happen here on Thursday.”
“Before that, however, I believe you’d been distracted by more pressing, personal concerns,” Marc prompted.
“My life has been full of pressing personal concerns,” she said with a rueful smile. “Don’t believe only what you see around you here.”