He leaned around Abigail to reach the tongs, brought up a coal from the fire to light his pipe. The sweet-cured scent of the tobacco mingled with the smell of the bread slowly baking in the oven. “God knows, with sufficient justification on their side, even men of accredited sanity, in Virginia, will have girls of twelve and fourteen whipped for stealing food from the kitchens, or locked up for weeks in conditions one wouldn’t make a dog endure, only because those girls happen to be Negroes, and not one of their neighbors thinks twice of it. Rebecca Malvern had left her husband—branding herself a Daughter of Eve in no uncertain terms. She ‘owed’ Mrs. Tillet sewing work, she had been ‘slack’ and ‘not doing her share,’ in an effort that Mrs. Tillet obviously sees as necessary to the material welfare of her family. And, as you say, with the murder she would be presumed dead: She would be officially accounted for. Therefore, no one was likely to search the Tillet house. Is the boy sure?”
“I am sure.” She told him of the attic window, unshuttered now after years closed, and of the dim shape she had seen behind it; of the basket of sewing, the jug of water, the bread on the plate, the extra chamber pot beside the door. “Hap says that he’s seen his mistress carrying bread, water, and sewing up to the attic two or three times in the past week, and once he sneaked up the attic stair, and thought he heard a woman weeping.”
“Hmn.” John knocked the ember from his pipe. “Well, we shall both look nohow if we go bursting in there with full military escort only to find the room being readied to rent—not to mention what Sam will say.”
“You tell Sam,” retorted Abigail, “to come and talk to me.”
John took the precaution of being absent from home the following morning.
When Abigail went to the front door at the sound of a military knock—it was barely nine; Shim Walton must have flown down to the harbor and taken one of the first boats across—the first person she saw past Lieutenant Coldstone’s square crimson shoulder was Paul Revere, lounging in the opposite doorway wrapped in his sorry old gray greatcoat (with a red scarf, drat him!). The second person she saw—and third, fourth, fifth, and on through at least twenty—were various neighbors, patriots, idlers, smugglers, and countrymen who’d come to town on account of the tea, also loitering here and there along Queen Street.
How wise of John, she reflected, to make sure the Sons of Liberty had been alerted to the Lieutenant’s visit so that they could form a cordon sanitaire around him and his men.
She waved to Revere, nodded to Sergeant Muldoon and his red-coated companion posted outside her door, and led the way to the parlor: “Lieutenant Coldstone, would your men care to go around to the kitchen for some hot cider on this dreadful cold morning? I’m sure they’d be more comfortable. The local children do make such pests of themselves.”
“Thank you, m’am.” As usual, the young officer gave the impression of having swallowed his own ramrod. “I’m sure the children do their best to obey their parents’ wishes.”
“To be sure they do.” She smiled dazzlingly, and went back out to send Muldoon and the other man—the same short and disgruntled private who had accompanied him here on the last occasion—around to the back, then reentered the parlor and sat beside the crackling fire. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“Are you certain of your accusation, m’am?”
“How certain do I need to be, Lieutenant?” she asked quietly. “Was the figure I saw in the window pounding the glass to get out? No. Have I seen baskets of sewing, and a little bread and water, waiting to be taken up—baskets similar to what one of the prentice-boys in the house has seen being taken up to the attic? Yes.”
“So you’re going on the accusation of a prentice-boy against a mistress he hates?” Coldstone didn’t speak the words scornfully, or with any kind of irony. He sounded rather like John had last night, or when John was testing out a client’s arguments with how they might sound to a jury. “You realize you’re risking a lawsuit.”
“ ’Tis a risk I’m willing to take. A woman disappeared on Wednesday night, and Thursday morning we have the sudden mysterious appearance of a locked attic, an extra chamber pot, food and sewing being taken up, and no one not of the household permitted anywhere near the house. The civilian magistrate of the ward is a close relative of the kidnapper, and the victim, a woman who through no fault of her own is considered beneath the notice of most of its respectable citizens. I’ve asked you to help me because you are able to move swiftly and independently, and to take the perpetrators of this—this mad scheme—by surprise, before they can cover their tracks. And I’ve asked you because I judge you to be a humane man.”
“Fair enough.” Coldstone inclined his head, and picked up his hat.
And if Rebecca has Sam’s precious “Household Expenses” book on or about her person, thought Abigail, Sam will eat me alive.
When the party reached Fish Street—still surrounded by a loose ring of Revere’s North End boys, to keep off unscheduled demonstrations of disapproval against Royal power and red uniforms—Lieutenant Coldstone signed the grim-faced little private to watch the yard gate, while he, Muldoon, and Abigail entered the shop. Nehemiah Tillet came around the counter smiling. “What can I do—?” before it dawned on him how extraordinary the presence of any British officer must be in Boston at this particular time.
The next moment he saw Abigail behind the Lieutenant, and his face blenched a little in the gray light of the shop.
“An allegation has been laid against you that you are unlawfully keeping a woman—who is herself wanted for questioning in the murder that took place here on the night of the twenty-fourth—prisoner under lock and key in this house.” Coldstone laid a paper on the counter. “Here is a warrant from the Provost Marshal, to search your house and ascertain the truth.”
“It isn’t true!” gasped Tillet. “She’s my daughter—my niece, I mean—she isn’t right in the head! We keep her locked up for her own protection—”
“Shut up, Tillet!” His wife appeared in the doorway, face even less attractive than usual due to its mottled flush of rage. She stabbed a furious finger at Abigail. “That slattern would say anything to disgrace us, before our church and before our friends! Bringing soldiers here, in broad daylight, to turn all our neighbors against us! She has always been jealous of this household, and worked as a go-between to ruin the marriage of an honest woman! Her accusation is ridiculous!”
“The question is not about her relations with your family,” responded Coldstone evenly, “nor whether her accusation is ridiculous, but whether it is true.” The two prentice-boys, Queenie, and the scullery maid had assembled in the doorway behind her, and Abigail saw the glance that went among the three youngsters. Queenie was staring at her, her big hands working and unmantled hatred in her eyes.
“Hap,” snapped Mrs. Tillet to the younger boy, “you go now, at once, to Mr. Goss the magistrate over at Went-worth’s Wharf and bring him here.” She turned furiously back to Coldstone. “My sister-in-law’s husband is the magistrate of this ward, sir! We’ll see if your warrant stands up to his authority!”