“But don’t forget that Mohican wasn’t working alone. We have Nestor Peck’s account of his rendezvous with known republican sympathizers in downtown Toronto.”
“What’re you drivin’ at?”
“Mrs. Jones could have been any one of a dozen confederates willing to do Mohican’s bidding-perhaps even a woman.”
“Oh, I get it. This Jones person gets into the cell and-”
“Uses a password or code to identify herself as a Hunter or associate, and, with Coltrane’s guard relaxed, plants the poison. I’ll wager that even the request for a visit relayed to Coltrane by Shad itself contained a coded message that would have gained her instant access. You’ve just seen how obsessed these people are with pseudonyms and passwords and the like.”
“But how does any of this help Billy?”
“What we’ve unearthed here is another plausible alternative to the story that the Crown will present to portray Billy as the killer. I’ll suggest that Dougherty call me as a defense witness, and I’ll then be able to recount my sighting of Rungee at Chepstow and how what I witnessed here tonight makes it conceivable that there was a Hunters’ conspiracy to eliminate Coltrane-for crass political gain. And of course, I have you to corroborate the details.”
Cobb gulped but did not otherwise respond.
“With the reciprocal love letters between Caleb and Almeda Stanhope-both of them now in our possession-Dougherty will be able to offer the jury two plausible alternative theories. It doesn’t matter, for Billy, whether the colonel or his agent or Mrs. Jones actually did the deed. Any Toronto jury will be sympathetic to Sergeant McNair, so the presentation of credible alternatives should be enough to get him acquitted.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t see them anxious to hang their own Pelee Island Patriot either. I think we oughta push this Rungee business.”
“Well, partner, we aren’t lawyers yet. We’ll leave those decisions to Robert and Doubtful Dick.”
At this point the glow of lamplight from the houses on the outskirts of Detroit was happily visible.
“I think we made it, Major. And by the way, where do you suppose them Hunters came up with all those fancy names?”
“Pure fiction,” Marc said.
At the hotel, Marc proposed they return to Windsor without delay. Cobb readily agreed to collect their belongings from the hotel, while Marc tended to the horse, which had already suffered a hard run in severe cold.
Marc led the filly to the barn behind the main building. All the stableboys were either asleep or AWOL, so Marc went inside, found a thick wool blanket, scooped some oats into a feedbag, and came back out. He put the blanket over the shivering horse and hung the feedbag on her. The snow on the ground had already provided her with drink, but Marc looked around for the water trough anyway. He was just lifting a pailful when he felt a cold poke on the back of his head.
“That’s a pistol agin yer skull, Mr. Edwards. One flicker and you’re a dead Englishman.”
Marc did not need to turn his head to know that the man behind him was Hunter Mohican. He recognized the voice that had delivered the details of Coltrane’s fate an hour and a half earlier. Marc stiffened, set the pail down carefully, and waited.
“They told me some English pouf’d been seen sniffin’ around Gladys’s place. They reckoned you was some bigwig who’d do us a great favour. But I had my doubts, and now I see I was right. I seen you back in Toronto and spotted you in a second in the hall. It takes an awful lot to fool a Mohican.”
“What is it you want of me, Mr. Rungee?” Marc said, staring towards the hotel, where he expected Cobb to emerge at any moment. “I have not come here to do any harm to the Hunters. In fact, I’m trying to discover who really did-”
“Shut yer gob or I’ll send ya flyin’ to Hades now instead of later.”
Marc said nothing. There was no sign of Cobb, and Marc was actually glad that his friend was delayed. Rungee had surely brought other Hunters with him, and they could be lurking anywhere in the vicinity.
“That’s better. Now I want ya to turn slowly and walk ahead of me back to the barn. If you try to look back at me, I’ll blow yer eyes out.”
Marc did exactly as he was told. He could hear Rungee padding three or four feet behind him, cunningly out of arm’s reach. Any attempt by Marc to whirl about in an effort to disarm the man would be futile and likely fatal.
“Stop right there. Stand beside the horse and look towards the hotel. I’m goin’ to sidle back to the corner of the barn where I can watch you and blow yer brains out with one shot. I got another pistol in my belt, just in case.”
Marc heard Rungee shuffling back ten feet or so to the edge of the barn, where heavy shadow would keep him out of the bright moonlight.
“Now when that fat fella with the bum wing comes out, you just wait till he comes over here. If he calls out, you say somethin’ real friendly-if ya wanta live a little longer.”
“What are you planning to do with us?”
“I’m marchin’ the two of you up to the Pathfinder’s place. He’ll wanta know everythin’ you know, and when he does, I’ll have the pleasure of shootin’ ya and tossin’ yer bodies inta the nearest ditch. We got a lot of bad people runnin’ around our streets at night, so the vigilante brigade won’t be surprised to find a rich bitch like yerself robbed and shot.”
“You’ll have to get me and my associate past Brady’s Hundred first. Are you planning to march us up Woodward Avenue with your pistols drawn?”
Marc waited for a response, even as his eyes never left the side door of the hotel. But none came. In its stead was a sharp crack, as of wood splitting, followed by a soft thud. Then silence. Marc dared not turn around to investigate.
“You c’n take a peak now, Major. The fractious is all over.”
Marc turned to find Cobb standing over the felled body of the yellow-tressed Mohican, with half a stout branch in his good hand. The other half, having served its purpose against Rungee’s skull, lay at his feet. Cobb set his section of the club down and picked up the loaded pistol.
“One of these days, it’ll be your turn to rescue me.”
• • •
While Cobb kept a lookout, Marc disarmed the unconscious assailant and bound him hand and foot with his own scarves, then used one of his mittens for a gag. Next he detached a wallet from the fellow’s belt and rummaged through it.
“Hurry up, Major. There’s bound to be more of these villains hereabouts.”
Marc held several papers up into the moonlight. “His name is Ephraim Runchey.”
“Nestor Peck’s hearin’s about as sharp as his brain,” Cobb said, throwing their bags up onto the sleigh.
“What’s this?” Marc whistled.
“Whatchya got?”
Marc threw the horse blanket over Runchey and dragged him a little ways into the barn. He dropped the wallet on the body, just now beginning to groan and squirm, and came back to the cutter with the papers in his hand. “He’ll keep there till the grooms hear his groans.” He handed Cobb one of the sheets he had taken from Runchey.
Cobb scanned it in the imperfect light. “It’s just a bunch of scrambled-up letters,” he said. “Unless it’s Greek or somethin’.”
“Almost,” Marc said, climbing up next to Cobb and urging the filly cautiously out onto the deserted street. “It’s scrambled letters all right. Two columns of them on each page and two words in each item.”
“A list of some kind?”
“Yes. And I’ll fry my hat and eat it if, when I break this code, I don’t find we have in our hands the nominal roll of the Michigan branch of the Hunters’ Lodge.”
“Now all we gotta do is make it safe back to Toronto with all this stuff and our skins still stickin’ to our bones.”
Marc urged the filly into a full trot, and they sped down towards the river that provided a border between the fledgling colony and the redoubtable republic of America. No one followed. Even the wind had died, so that they were able to make their way across the ice bridge in relative comfort.