“I must protest, milord, in the strongest possible terms!” Thornton screamed into the excited and noisy response of the galleries.
The gavel came down and came down again. “I warned you, Mr. Dougherty. You have gone too far this time-”
“Milord, I have proof of the claim here in my hand.” Dougherty was waving the letter they had recovered from Almeda’s gown, the one in which Coltrane proclaimed his love and alluded to the blackmail “proposal.” “I would like this letter entered into evidence, with permission to establish its authenticity through a handwriting comparison, and subsequently to recall this witness and question him on its contents.”
“Let me see the letter, sir.”
Dougherty handed it to Robert Baldwin. Chief Justice Robinson took the document and perused it, while Thornton shuffled nervously from side to side and the colonel looked simultaneously perplexed and enraged. And for the first time, fearful.
“This letter is not signed,” the judge said, into the prurient buzzing of the assembled citizenry.
“May we go into chambers to discuss the matter?”
“No, sir. You will kindly provide the Crown with a copy. I’ll take written submissions on the matter by seven o’clock this evening. I’ll rule on the question of admissibility at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Court is adjourned until then.”
The chief justice rose. Day one of the trial was ended abruptly amid sensation and speculation throughout the courtroom. Only Doubtful Dick Dougherty appeared unperturbed.
SEVENTEEN
Since Doughtery had to be taken directly home and secured in his chair before his spindle legs gave way, Marc, Robert, and Clement Peachey found themselves seated in a semicircle facing the sprawled, exhausted form of their leader and waiting for any words of wisdom that might drift their way. It was five o’clock and growing dark. Everyone was tired and hungry, but the only refreshment was a pot of weak tea served to them by Broderick Langford. The room was chilly, the fire smoky, the atmosphere sepulchraclass="underline" the ideal setting for a post-mortem.
Dougherty had his bare feet propped on his footstool, soles hearthward, and his new trousers rolled up to the knee to facilitate Celia’s massage of his calves with some sort of pungent liniment. The three men watched her supple fingers play over the veined flesh and were rewarded with intermittent, shy smiles. The pouches around Dougherty’s eyes intimated that he might be asleep.
It was Robert who broke the silence. “What are our chances of getting Coltrane’s letter admitted?” he asked the figure in the wing chair. “It indicates both a blackmail attempt and a romantic liaison, either one of which provides Stanhope with a motive goading enough to override the issue of Coltrane’s eventually being hanged. And it is just such an irrational rage that we have to demonstrate.”
“And we now have Almeda’s love letter to bolster the romance theory, found among Coltrane’s possessions by Cobb and putatively used to continue the blackmail after his arrival in Chepstow,” Marc added.
In the foyer outside the courtroom, the bailiff had served Marc his summons: the Crown wanted him as a prime witness. After which he had ridden with Robert and Dougherty in the lead sleigh over here. Thus he had had a chance to outline what he and Cobb had found in Detroit. Marc had been particularly keen to sketch out a second alternative theory of the murder: poisoning by an agent of the Michigan Hunters to ensure Pathfinder’s election to the presidency. Dougherty, thoroughly fatigued, had said nothing.
“I suggest that in our submission to the chief justice we include Almeda’s love letter in order to give Caleb’s letter more legitimacy,” Robert said.
“The initial ‘C’ at the bottom of Caleb’s letter and the handwriting sample Marc brought back from Mrs. Dobbs should convince the judge that we have reasonable grounds to accept it as written by Coltrane,” Peachey said. “But unless we can somehow get Thornton to put Almeda Stanhope on the stand, I don’t know how we can get around the business of the nickname ‘Duchess.’ ”
“And if we call her,” Marc said, “she’ll be a hostile witness and deny everything-or else claim husband-wife privilege. We don’t even have an independent sample of her handwriting.”
“The judge will give us only so much latitude in developing competing theories,” Robert reminded them. “Thus far he’s not been unreasonable. So what are our chances of getting Coltrane’s letter admitted?” Robert again addressed Dougherty’s comatose form.
The eye pouches did not move, but the lips did. “Not good, though I’ll make as strong a case as we can. We won’t throw in Almeda’s love letter though, tempting as that might be.” The voice was low and rumbling, as if the words were being forged somewhere below the throat and exhaled like oracular pearls at Delphi.
“But surely we need all the proof we can muster,” Robert suggested. “Robinson’s not likely to expose to needless embarrassment a regimental colonel whom Sir George decorated last Saturday before the town’s elite at the Twelfth Night Ball.”
“But if the judge throws out Coltrane’s letter tomorrow, he would in effect be throwing out Mrs. Stanhope’s billet-doux with it,” breathed the oracle.
“And you want to use the latter, I take it?”
“I want to use both of them. But tomorrow I may not need either.” The lips fell slack. One hand dropped from the chair’s arm and dangled like a spent trout. Doubtful Dick was asleep.
Celia rose from her kneeling position, every movement unconsciously sensuous. “He’ll only nap for half an hour,” she said to the carpet.
Broderick came over with a portable writing desk in his arms. “He’ll dictate the statement for Justice Robinson to me, and I’ll run it over to the court,” he said.
“Then we had better go back to Baldwin House,” Robert said, with some reluctance but little choice. They had cast Billy’s lot to Dougherty and that was that. “We’ll get a bite to eat. Then we’ll start sketching out our defense strategy, using the Hunters’ conspiracy as a fallback position. And if Cobb can locate Bostwick before the weekend is out, we can add him to the mix. Also, Marc, we need to prep you for your own testimony. After all, you’re likely the Crown’s favorite witness.”
Marc got home at nine o’clock. Beth was sitting up on the chesterfield, dozing, but she roused herself with his arrival. Marc insisted that she tell him all about her days with him away. He was growing weary of his own obsession with Billy McNair. Even an hour of casual talk and amiable gossip would be a sign that normal, everyday life was not only possible but inevitable.
The extra work entailed by Saturday’s gala had kept Rose Halpenny and the girls happily engaged-a blessing for Dolly, whose flagging spirits had to be continually boosted, both for her sake and for the sake of Billy, whom she visited with evangelical determination. Colonel Stanhope and Almeda had paraded up to the podium of honour at the dance (their daughter, unfortunately, “felled by the grippe” and unable to accompany them). Sir George had gritted his patrician teeth and pinned a medal to the colonel’s tunic, the latter feigning modesty with admirable aplomb. The petty aristocracy had thundered with applause. These details had come to Beth, in a variety of interpretations, on Monday and Tuesday, as soiled or torn gowns were brought in for rehabilitation. Patricia Stanhope had stayed secluded in Rose Halpenny’s apartment above the shop until late Sunday afternoon, when Beth received a note from Chepstow, in which Almeda stated tersely that the prodigal daughter was now welcome in her own home.
“So the family’s closing ranks?” Marc said.
“And that isn’t good for Billy, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
At the reference to the trial, Marc sighed and, seeing Beth wide awake after her nap, launched into an account of his trip to Detroit and a sketch of the evidence they had uncovered and the alternative theories they were pursuing. He seasoned the forensic narrative with comic asides about Cobb’s Bartlett and his own flamboyant lordship, and finished up with a faithful rendering of Cobb’s reunion with his father.