“Would you like to see Caleb’s room?” Gladys was standing in the kitchen doorway with a tea towel in her hand.
“I would be honoured,” Lord Briggs said with aristocratic élan, and he followed Gladys through a narrow hall, which led to a bedroom on either side. Inside what was now clearly a shrine, she took Marc through the remaining artifacts of her brother’s life, turning up for his approval every medal, framed citation, dismantled weaponry, militia regalia, and the half-dozen books that had not followed him to Toronto. There was no incriminating letter in this archive.
Meanwhile, Cobb began fiddling with the snuff boxes nearest him, holding them up to the light and rotating them in his right hand as a jeweller might an exotic gem. Setting them down at his feet, he poked and prodded and kneaded. Suddenly, one of them sprouted a drawer from its base, a slim cavity no roomier than a gentleman’s cigarette case but capacious enough to secret a one-page billet-doux.
FIFTEEN
Back at the hotel, as they prepared for the ten-mile trip to the Wayfarers Inn, Marc perused the discovered (and purloined) letter for the third time, and said to Cobb, “What made you think of a secret compartment in one of the snuff boxes?”
Cobb’s reply was immediate and simple. “Well, them con-trap-shuns is all made by fellas from foreign places in Europe, eh? And I figure them countries are forever squabblin’ amongst themselves, and so they’d be full of spies and secret agents, and they’d need hidden drawers and such-more’n most of us would. And they tell me they all puff snuff like a hog sucks swill.”
“Brilliant! So tell me what you make of the letter.” Marc handed the note to Cobb.
November 1, 1838
My Dearest C:
Come soon or I’ll be driven to find my own route
to your heart, with all the risks and fretful dangers to
our secret. And when you do, tucked in your strong arms
and safe in your embrace, I promise faithfully to supply
you with enough kisses to keep you forever attached
to me and our mutual goal. And should our reward
be in Heaven only, I’ll treasure those blessings received
already. But I must go-he’s had me watched since Saturday!
Ever yours,
D
“Well, it’s a bill-an’-coo all right,” Cobb opined.
“It should be helpful in Dougherty’s hands. He’ll be able to prove that something was going on between Caleb and Duchess Almeda, enough to give Stanhope a motive for murder and weaken the case against Billy.”
“But it could all’ve been in Coltrane’s head, couldn’t it?”
“I doubt it, Cobb, now that I see this letter.”
“So Mrs. Dobbs was lyin’ to us?”
“Fibbing a little, I suspect, to protect the reputations of those dearest to her. But it doesn’t matter much how far the renewed relationship went, does it? It’s the letters themselves that are damning. And we now have a complementary pair.”
“Which ain’t exactly signed,” Cobb felt constrained to point out.
“Dougherty will deal with that, I’m sure.”
“So why don’t we just head fer home now? We got what we came for.”
“We could, but beyond getting Billy acquitted, I am determined to find the real murderer as well. I feel I owe it to Billy to have him fully exonerated, and I now have a debt to Mrs. Dobbs that I must repay. Knowing who killed her brother, and why, might justify the subterfuge we had to enact there this afternoon and might also bring the bereft woman some peace of mind.”
“That’s quite a conscience you got, Major,” Cobb said, reaching for his coat.
The journey down to the Wayfarers Inn was unexpectedly easy. With a bright moon in a starlit sky and a single passable road to the south, the Michigan Hunters were not likely to deceive themselves into thinking their meeting could be secret. A dozen riders thudded past Lord Briggs’s cutter without a sideways glance, and they weren’t on their way to Toledo at seven-thirty of a winter’s evening with the temperature near zero. But three times before they reached the crossroads that justified the existence of the inn, they were stopped by a brace of well-armed men and asked where they were going. As soon as the Wayfarers was mentioned, the passwords were demanded and given. Such cloak-and-dagger business seemed slightly surreal to Marc, seeing that the U.S. Army could have staked out the place at any time during the day and hauled the lot of them off to jail. But they hadn’t, despite the promises made by President Van Buren.
At the crossroads, Marc was surprised to find an unprepossessing one-storey hotel and tavern, set in a ragged clearing on the east side of the road. A single sleigh and two horses stood outside. Where were all the Hunters? The answer came soon enough. Two riders, cloaked and in a hurry, galloped in from the west crossroad, cantered across the clearing, and swung into the bush behind the inn. Marc guided the cutter after them and found at the back of the building a broad and well-used pathway, just wide enough to accommodate a sleigh. Following it as it wound through the woods, they came to a gate and four or five stout chaps with muskets in hand.
“Paul Revere rides a donkey!” Marc declaimed in his most orotund tones.
“Pass,” came the muffled reply.
And they did, negotiating two more bends before coming out onto a huge clearing, at the end of which loomed a large, barn-like structure. In front of it a dozen sleighs of various sizes and types were parked, with their horses stamping their feet and emitting frosty breaths as big as sugar bags. Several youths were tending to the beasts, and one of them dashed up and took Marc’s filly by the bridle. At the wide double door, Marc again gave the passwords, and he and Cobb found themselves guests of the Michigan chapter of the infamous, and dangerous, Hunters’ Lodge.
They were standing at the rear of a rectangular hall with a high, vaulted ceiling and, at the far end, an unpainted plank stage beneath a Stars and Stripes bigger than most circus tents. Torches set in sconces on brick pillars along the side walls threw out both light and heat. In each of the four corners, iron stoves throbbed red-hot, like swollen, aggrieved hearts. The centre floor was occupied by a crowd of men sporting deerstalker caps and woollen plaid shirts of bluish hue. No one seemed to take any notice of the two unconventionally attired strangers. The meeting had already begun, and something spoken from the platform had stirred catcalls and other unhappy comment from the audience.
“Brother Hunters! I have come tonight to bring you definitive news of Hunter Bumppo.” The speaker stood behind a lectern, tall and gesticulating above it, the wavering torchlight washing shadow in and out of his angular features.
This announcement was greeted not with respectful attention but with strident cries of “Bumppo fer President!” “We want Bumppo!” “Call the question, Deerslayer!” “Resign, ya limey-lover!”
Above the din, the embattled speaker-flanked by two portly Hunters whose posture suggested they were not bodyguards but very important persons attempting to remain above the undignified fray below them-shouted back at his detractors. “There will be no presidential vote tonight!”
At this, one of the naysayers bounded up onto the stage. The three platform figures froze just as four more active ones stepped out from behind the draped flag with muskets poised and live pistols quivering in their leather belts. But the interloper merely wanted to address his fellows on the floor. He turned to the assembly and hollered, “Our constitution says we can vote for a candidate in absentia! And in America, constitutions are sacred, are they not? Hunter Bumppo led our glorious liberation army against the tyrant not once but twice. He shed his blood for us upon the tyrant’s soil. The oppressed peoples of Canada are counting on us!”