Outside, a child shouted something, and a man’s voice reproved: “Hush, there, Shimmi, we’re not here to make trouble . . .”
And the voice of the guard, “And what are you here for, then, Rebel?”
Coldstone, interrupted in the midst of his reply, frowned. As he walked to the window John stepped closer to Abigail’s side, stage-whispered, “You’d price Johnny at thirty pounds?”
She shrugged, never taking her eyes from the officer’s crimson back as he angled his head to look through the thick panes into the street. “We’ve two other sons.”
Coldstone looked back sharply over his shoulder at them, narrow face expressionless. Then he stalked to the table, where his sabertache lay, and from it withdrew a sheet of paper. Abigail helpfully fetched her writing box from where it lay on a corner of the mantelpiece, and set it before him. The officer regarded her in hostile silence, then took the quill she offered him, studied the point critically, adjusted it with his penknife, and wrote:
Mr. John Adams, lawyer, of Queen Street, Boston, is hereby summoned to appear before the Provost Marshal of His Majesty’s forces at Castle William on Friday, 25 November 1773 at noon to post bond for his good conduct in the matter of the murder of Mrs. Richard Pentyre of this town. Lt. J. Coldstone, on His Majesty’s behalf.
“Do not fail.” He dusted it, poured off the sand, and handed the sheet to John as if he were sorry that it was not poisoned. John inclined his head respectfully.
“I will not. Thank you for your forbearance, Lieutenant.”
Coldstone opened the door to the hall, snapped, “Muldoon!” in the direction of the kitchen, and the young man appeared, vastly flustered and with crumbs of molasses candy on his jacket. “Get your musket,” he reminded him disgustedly. “And come.”
John and Abigail walked them to the front door, emerged onto the step to bow another farewell. From the step it could be seen that Queen Street was filled end to end with men: most of them young, though Abigail recognized Billy Dawes the cobbler and the blacksmith Isaac Greenleaf, who had to be in their thirties and masters of their own shops. None were armed, but all were watching the house, and there were a lot of them. More arriving even as the remaining sentry saluted.
Knowing Bostonians, the moment Coldstone turned away, John put his finger to his lips for silence—but when the Lieutenant and his two sentries turned the corner into Cornhill, somebody let out a cheer that was taken up for the length of the street.
Coldstone didn’t turn around.
Seven
“We’vemadeanenemy.” John closed the door, after thanking the mob, a little stiffly, for its appearance. John was never comfortable with the idea that it was often Sam’s mobs, rather than the well-reasoned justice of British Law, that got things done in Boston.
“He was our enemy when he arrived.” Abigail went back into the parlor, picked up a beaker of tepid cider. It was well past noon, and she had intended, she recalled, to share breakfast with Rebecca. “Did he say why he was so certain you were the killer? Other than that your name is Adams?”
“In that case, why not call on Sam? Which he clearly didn’t, if Sam was able to marshal a mob at short order—”
The parlor door crashed open, and Pattie and the children swarmed through. “Ma, did you see it? Did you see it? Uncle Sam brought them, and Mr. Dawes, and Mr. Revere, and they made that lobsterback captain look nohow!” “Oh, Mrs. Adams, that Irishman said as they were going to take Mr. Adams up for murder—” “Ma, you should have shot him!”
Nabby flung herself silently at John, clutched him around the waist, buried her face in his coat, and burst into tears. Tommy, still very uncertain of his balance, did likewise with Abigail.
“I will say this for Sam,” remarked Abigail, as their family tugged them into the kitchen, “he’s quick.”
“So was the lad who picked my pocket last month in front of Christ’s Church, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him in charge of the destiny of this colony. I’m quite all right, dear girl.” John put a gentle finger under Nabby’s chin, raised her eyes to his. “Spartan women didn’t shed tears after defeat in battle,” he added with a smile. “So why weep for a victory? Keep an eye on your brothers and help Pattie with dinner—Lord, I’m hungry!—while I talk to your mother. What happened?” His voice dropped to a whisper as he followed Abigail to the sideboard, helped her carry to the table the heavy iron Dutch oven and the crock of lard. “Was he telling the truth? Perdita Pentyre! Did Mrs. Malvern know her?”
“She must have.” Abigail dug in her pocket, brought out the note. “I think she must have been Rebecca’s source, for secrets and scandal in the British camp. I suppose there’s no doubt that it was she, and not another? Her face was . . . much mutilated.”
At the other end of the table, Pattie raised a cleaver and whacked off the head of one of the dinner chickens. The other, decapitated, gutted, pale, and naked, lay on a plate before Abigail already. Her empty stomach turned, and she looked queasily away.
“That officer at least was as sure as he could be,” rumbled John as he unfolded the slip of paper. “Mrs. Pentyre is indeed missing from her home. According to Lieutenant Coldstone, the stableman there says that Mrs. Pentyre took a light chaise out, fairly late in the evening, and its horse was found wandering loose on the Commons this morning. They’re dragging the Mill-Pond for the chaise.” He added drily, “I understand that if Richard Pentyre is unable to identify his wife’s body, Colonel Leslie knows it well enough to do so.”
“It isn’t a matter for jest.” In a low voice Abigail recounted what she had found in Rebecca Malvern’s house that morning, and what she had done about it. “I could have beaten Sam with a broom handle for going through the place as he did,” she finished, as she tucked the chicken into its place in the pot. “The more so now, that any trace of evidence that it wasn’t you has been destroyed. I went to Malvern’s after we left Hazlitt’s printshop.”
“You don’t think she’d have taken refuge with him?”
Abigail shook her head. “No. I think she’d have taken refuge with Revere, or with us, or with Orion Hazlitt. But she didn’t.”
John said, “Hmmn.”
“If she had,” Abigail went on slowly, drying her hands, “I wouldn’t put it past Malvern—I don’t think I’d put it past Malvern—to take her in, and then lock her up again, as he did before—”
He glanced back at her from the note, which he was studying by the stronger light of the kitchen window. “You truly think he would do something like that?”
Abigail hesitated. “I truly don’t know,” she said at last. “One hears of it—and not just in novels,” she added, seeing the corner of his mouth turn down. “He is—a man who will have his own way, no matter what he has to do to get it. Mostly, I wanted to speak with him before the Watch told him of the crime and Rebecca’s disappearance. I knew he’d see no one, afterwards.”
“You’re probably right about that. And much as I hate to admit it, if Sam and the others hadn’t cleared up the scene I suppose Coldstone would have had grounds to arrest me for sedition this morning, instead of being put off with a thirty-pound bond.” At that point in Abigail’s narrative, he’d snatched off his wig and thrown it at the wall; it lay like a dead animal now on the sideboard near his hand. Without it, his face looked even rounder, his blue eyes more protuberant. His mouse brown hair, short-cropped, was graying, and Abigail had to suppress the urge to kiss the thin spots above his forehead. “You say Sam didn’t recognize Mrs. Pentyre? Or know about her?” He turned the note over in his fingers. “Did you take a close look at this?”