“You were worried sick about Patricia and Caleb.”
She flinched. “I was. But someone helped me out there, didn’t they?”
“I don’t believe it was Billy, ma’am; that’s why I’m here. I have no desire to disrupt your household and domestic life arbitrarily or needlessly, but I know you can help me prove the lad’s innocence.”
Almeda smiled with her lips, but her whole countenance seemed to darken. “None of us is innocent, Mr. Edwards. At least not after we’re weaned.”
“You realize that I have grasped the implications of the letter you kept and hid from your husband.”
“You’re only guessing that it concerned me and my husband. How do you know it wasn’t sent to one of my servants?”
Marc decided to ignore the evidentiary aspects of the matter for the moment. “It is a love letter to an older woman with whom the writer had had an affair in their youth. The ogre-husband is wealthy and thus ripe for blackmail. The love affair was renewed last spring, a time when you and Gideon were visiting relatives in St. Thomas, a half-day’s journey from Detroit. The lovers share a political ideaclass="underline" to ‘liberate this province.’ A blackmail threat has already been made, and the ogre apprised of the liaison. None of this sounds like a billet-doux penned to a servant.”
Almeda stared at the fire and played absently with her fine, manicured fingers. “You are very perceptive. They told me you knew how to investigate.”
“Have I interpreted the letter correctly?” Marc said very gently, almost in a whisper.
“No, not quite. Not at all in any way that really matters.”
“But blackmail is a powerful motive for murder.”
Almeda appeared not to have heard this probing remark. She continued to stare at the fire. “You see, Mr. Edwards, Caleb Coltrane and I were cousins. His sister Gladys and I were not only related but the best of friends. We grew up together just outside of Detroit. Caleb and I had a brief but passionate romance when we were very young, children really, trying on adult roles. It was over in a single summer.”
“But you did see him last spring?”
“I went from St. Thomas to see Mrs. Dobbs-Gladys-who now lives in Detroit. We hadn’t seen each other for a few years, not since her husband died.”
“And Caleb was there?”
“He came on the second last day.”
“The letter suggests you renewed your relationship.”
“I know what it says. But I also know what happened.”
Marc saw where she was going. “The reinfatuation was entirely on his side?”
“It was. He was obsessed with the republican cause and his role in the Michigan chapter of the Hunters’ Lodge. He was a man of many passions. But we did not ‘renew our relationship,’ as you so tactfully put it. And I have lived happily in this province and this city for twenty years. Both are my home. My husband and daughter are British subjects.”
“Then you’re suggesting that the letter is a fantasy on Caleb’s part?”
“He was a fanatical democrat. In his zeal he may have misread my response to him in Detroit.”
“But he speaks of using that affair to blackmail your husband, and of reuniting with you when the province has been liberated.”
“I assumed that he needed money.”
“Surely your husband would have confronted you about the attempted blackmail and the grounds for it, doubly so if he were pressed for cash.”
Almeda stared hard at the flames, as if her glare could douse them. “Of course, he did. I told him the truth. We never spoke of it again.”
“But he didn’t exactly believe you, did he? He is a proud and vain man. He feared any breath of scandal would scupper his hopes for standing and success, so he succumbed to the blackmail. And he continued to do so throughout Caleb’s incarceration in this house-not with dollars but rather with favours of every kind, including the exposure of his daughter to the blandishments of a villain.”
“Gideon does not discuss such matters with me; I’m only his wife,” she said, with no attempt to acknowledge the irony or moderate her bitterness.
“You must have wondered why Caleb was treated so well, why he was able to insist that Patricia visit him for lengthy breakfasts.”
“Of course I did!” She had turned at last to face him. “But I got no answers from my husband, and I had no control over my daughter’s romantic foolishness!”
Marc leaned forward. “Mrs. Stanhope, we have every reason to believe that Coltrane had in his possession, at Windsor and here at Chepstow, an incriminating letter that he had hidden somewhere and with which he was able to threaten your husband. My hunch is that it was a letter in your handwriting, either a love note or a letter with enough ambiguity, given the circumstances, to persuade your husband of its potential dangers if made public.”
“I did write Caleb a letter after I got home. As his cousin and friend, I begged him to abandon the Hunters’ Lodge and stay where he was, safe in Michigan. And naturally I expressed my joy at seeing him and Gladys, the three of us together again. .”
So there was such a letter! Billy’s hazy description of it did not do it justice. The question was, where was it?
“But why do you need to know all this? Even if I had had an affair with Caleb in Detroit-and I didn’t, as my cousin Gladys will tell you-what pertinence does it have to his murder? You may be right about my husband’s pandering to Caleb; I don’t have any idea of what they discussed or why. If Gideon didn’t believe my denial, he has not raised the issue since. And Caleb was destined to be hanged by the end of the month.”
“Blackmail and threats, based on tangible evidence, are both sound reasons why Caleb might be murdered. After all, he still held a trump card-your letter, however tenuous its implications-one he could play before he could be hanged.”
Almeda went white. “Oh, I see. You’re trying to give my husband a motive for murder!”
“Yes. But rest assured we could never prove he did it. However, we need to show the court only that there were other, plausible sus-”
“And rest assured I will not take the witness stand and give evidence that might implicate my husband. It would destroy him.”
“I understand, ma’am.”
“And surely you would not deliberately smear his good name on the basis of one letter from a self-serving fanatic?”
“I would not, unless we were to find the other letter, the one actually used for blackmail.”
“If such a letter exists.”
Marc nodded. The thought of a subpoenaed Almeda Stanhope being grilled by the ruthless Mr. Dougherty sent a chill up Marc’s spine. But it might be necessary. He was convinced that somewhere among her frank admissions lay a lie or two. But where?
“Thank you for speaking so candidly with me. Nothing you said will leave this room unless it proves vital to saving an innocent youth from the gallows.”
Marc rose and bowed. He paused halfway to the door and turned around. “May I ask one last question? Why did you keep Caleb’s letter in the lining of your gown?”
Her eyes were filled with tears, the dignified tears of one who has suffered and survived. “You don’t understand, do you? You’re not a woman. What Caleb and I had that summer long ago was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’ve only felt half-alive since. I love my husband and daughter, but I wanted to keep some warm reminder that I could touch from time to time, when I was out dancing and trying to be happy.”
Marc had a sudden and palpable image of this intelligent and mature woman on the arm of the nouveau-riche merchant who thought he was Lord Wellington.
The front door banged shut. They both froze.
“The colonel!” Almeda gasped.
Marc put his finger to his lips.
They heard the sound of Stanhope stamping about as he removed his outer clothing. Then the voice of Absalom Shad as he came running down the hall towards his master: “I wouldn’t go in there, sir, the Duchess is-”