Thinking the ordeal was over, the colonel blinked and spluttered, “I did, sir. The fellow was insufferably bold and offensive, but I maintained my silence in the face of his insidious provocation!”
“But this is the man, you have already testified, whom you deliberately volunteered to imprison in your home, whom you coddled like a visiting uncle, to whom you ordered your daughter to serve breakfast each morning-”
“Milord! I must-”
“I told you that I did so out of a sense of honour and duty, sir! The fellow was a true soldier, whatever his other failings might be. Besides, I had no money to pay any blackmailer-my business has not done so well lately-and my wife’s behaviour in all this has been beyond reproach. If you don’t believe me, ask her!”
Dougherty swung his head slowly towards Kingsley Thornton, who was quivering with rage behind his lectern, and gave him a gelatinous smile. They both knew that the defense had just got what it so desperately needed: Almeda Stanhope would have to take the stand.
“That’s enough,” the judge said to Dougherty, who was already in the process of leveraging his bulk down on the bench behind him. “The witness, who is not on trial here, has denied acquiescing to blackmail, and unless you have more tangible evidence in that regard, please move on.”
“I have no more questions at this time, milord. But I would like to reserve the right to recall the witness later on.”
Dismissed, the colonel looked as if he’d like to produce his sabre and do something felonious to Dougherty. He stumbled as he came down from the stand, righted himself, and marched out. Beth saw Almeda staring after him, terrified. But her attention was brought back to the front when she heard the clerk call out the name of the next witness: Mr. Marcus Edwards.
Marc, of course, had been unable to see what had been achieved so far this morning, though he heard a full account later in the day. While sitting in the witness room with the assistant bailiff, Absalom Shad, and Horatio Cobb-and forbidden to talk-Marc whiled away the time by working on the coded membership roster of the Michigan Hunters that he had taken from Ephraim Runchey in Detroit. He had been too tired to scrutinize it until now. Next to him Cobb flexed his sore wrist, hummed, and rattled a newspaper. Shad stared at the floor, visibly nervous. Just before his name was called, Marc cracked the code.
The approach Marc would take on the stand had been decided in Robert’s office early the previous evening. If the two or three helpful things Marc wished to say in defense of Billy McNair were to be credible and persuasive, he would have to be seen as forthcoming and cooperative. Any attempt to evade Thornton’s questions or consciously manipulate the facts would be sure to fail. Even so, Thornton made Marc boil inside. His evidence, alas, was mainly supportive of the Crown’s case, and the prosecutor made it seem even more damning than it was. Marc was compelled to provide detailed accounts of his efforts to persuade the jailed Billy McNair to agree to the reconciliation proposal and visit to the prison chamber. The source and depth of Billy’s anger were repeated and sharpened for the jury. Dougherty’s hearsay objections were brushed aside by the judge as Thornton cunningly focused on Marc’s role in these discussions and his description of Billy’s attitude and demeanour. Finally, when Marc was able to say that in the end Billy had agreed to the visit and a written apology, he was cut off before he could emphasize the genuine change of heart he had observed and Dolly’s part in it. Thornton then moved right to the fatal visit itself.
“You say you were able to hear the tone of the conversation between McNair and Coltrane through the partly open door of the cell?”
“I could.”
“At any time during your watch in the anteroom, did you detect a tone that might be termed confrontational or angry?”
Marc blinked. His candid discussion of these events with Chief Sturges while they had examined the crime scene and waited for Dr. Withers to arrive had unfortunately been passed along to the Crown, as they should have been. He did his best: “For the most part it was-”
“Answer my question, sir, not your own.”
“At one point, and one point only, I did hear their voices raised. But Coltrane-”
“What was the source of this angry exchange?”
“I could detect no words that I could put together coherently,” Marc equivocated, pretty certain that Thornton could have no inkling of the version that Billy had provided-and was forbidden by law to repeat in open court.
“Given your knowledge of the defendant’s violent history and penchant for duelling, did you consider getting up to intervene?”
Marc hesitated. “I considered it, but-”
“So you’re saying that this flare-up was so contentious that you actually thought you would have to forcibly intervene? And all this during a meeting designed to be conciliatory?”
“Milord,” Dougherty interjected, “the prosecutor is not a ventriloquist.”
“Try not to speak for the witness, Mr. Thornton,” the judge chided gently.
“Given this flare-up, this sudden, angry outburst on the part of the defendant, is it not possible, sir, that Mr. McNair was dissembling all the while, that he merely pretended to be regretful and compliant in order to get himself conveyed once more to face the man he hated and had threatened to kill?”
“At no time then did I think that, and I do not think it now,” Marc said. But he knew what was coming next, and the budding barrister in him perversely admired Thornton for omitting it earlier and coming back to it now.
“Then tell me why the defendant asked to be driven to his home, where he was permitted to spend several minutes unattended in his bedroom?”
Again, Marc squirmed and silently fumed, but the facts came out, and the members of the jury, sympathetic as they must be with young, brave Billy McNair, looked distinctly uncomfortable. Several frowned and stole worried glances up at the dock opposite them. No doubt they were thinking about the poison packet found in Billy’s coat.
What came next was not much better. Marc had to describe Billy’s wild exit from the prison chamber and his blind rush for the stairs and the front door. Once more, Thornton stressed the possibility of Billy’s dissembling and his need to find a way to dispose of the incriminating packet. Even Billy’s calls for a doctor were characterized as the actions of a cunning man, devoured by rage.
Dougherty did his best to undo the damage. As Thornton had introduced the matter of Billy’s demeanour and the negotiations that had preceded the fatal visit, Dougherty was able to elicit from Marc a more sustained and convincing description of Billy’s general character, his reengagement to Dolly, and its effects on his contrition and compliance with regard to the apology and the conditions of any subsequent parole. Thornton interjected often to disrupt the continuity but made no inroads. Marc finished up with his key point: both before and after the “flare-up,” the dialogue was congenial and, on Coltrane’s desk, he had discovered the signed document indicating an amicable settlement.
“As for Mr. Thornton’s unsubstantiated assertion that Sergeant McNair’s pleading cries for a doctor were part of an ongoing charade, do you suppose a murderer would try to plant an incriminating piece of evidence in the pocket of his own coat?”
“Of course not. It would be foolhardy-”
“Milord! The witness is-”
“Sustained. The witness will refrain from giving an opinion on matters in which he has no expertise. And Mr. Dougherty, you know better.”
In the redirect, Thornton went for the jugular. “If the defendant was able to deceive you into thinking he had given up his desire for revenge, did it not occur to you that it was in his own interest to appear conciliatory to Coltrane, to put him off his guard long enough to salt the snuff?”
“It did not,” Marc said, but the jury might think so now.