Don Gutteridge - Death of a Patriot

“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.

“Colonel Stanhope testified that the coats on the hall tree were tumbled about when the defendant fell into them. Is it not likely that, in those circumstances, the accused merely stashed the poison packet in whatever crevice he found nearest to hand?”

“It was not possible, sir, because he did not have the packet.”

Thornton flinched, frowned, then swung around to the jury box. “We should all have such loyal friends, eh?”

“Mister Thornton!”

“I apologize, milord. Now, one final question, Mr. Edwards. You have touchingly described the so-called reengagement of Mr. McNair and Miss Delores Putnam and its effect on the former’s attitude. But do you not find it passing strange that the same young romantic, just three days prior to the murder, strode into the garden at Chepstow and took up arms against the victim with the express intention of shooting him dead, before a witness?”

“My point was that the lad had had a change of heart.”

“Some heart!” Thornton spun around with his coattails flying and sat down with a theatrical flourish. “No more questions, milord.”

Dismissed, Marc squeezed in beside Beth. He reached over and patted Dolly’s hand. Robert turned towards them and mouthed, “You did what you could.” Then they all looked towards the witness stand, where Horatio Cobb was being sworn in.

Poor Cobb did his best also to minimize the damage to Billy’s defense. But he was no match for the wily, relentless Thornton. He forced Cobb to admit that the stopover at Billy’s house had been unauthorized and had come as an unwelcome surprise to his chief. He was tricked into suggesting that Billy, having stashed the poison packet, was on his way out the door to freedom when he had crashed into the sentries. And of course, he confirmed finding the packet in one of the coats and reporting it to Sturges. Then, even more troublingly, he had to give the damning detail of the duel and its aftermath, confirming the colonel’s account and adding to it. Billy’s wild and seething words about killing Coltrane were repeated by Cobb and echoed several times by the gleeful prosecutor.

The only angle of reentry for Dougherty was to have Cobb reiterate Marc’s testimony about Billy’s calm and serious demeanour before leaving the jail for the visit, and a vague reference to his good character and behaviour as Cobb knew it from casual contact with him over several years. Thornton made such short work of this effort that Dougherty regretted bringing it up. Stunned, Cobb stumbled out of the box.

“Don’t worry,” Beth whispered to Marc, “he’s gotta put Almeda on the stand-soon.”

At the moment, this seemed their best hope.

However, it was not Almeda Stanhope who was called at two o’clock, but Absalom Shad. Marc and the three lawyers had had luncheon in a comfortable chamber down the hall, where Marc was brought up to speed and where he handed Robert the Hunters’ Lodge roster with the code explained and several examples laid out and flagged. Dougherty, who had to be assisted down the hall by his wards and fed like an invalid by Celia, seemed well pleased with Marc’s effort.

Under Kingsley Thornton’s gentle guidance-for Shad was exceedingly nervous, not making eye contact with anything but his fingers on the railing in front of him-the butler of Chepstow denied any foreknowledge of the duel, corroborated his master’s account of the scene in the garden, and confirmed that Lardner Bostwick, erstwhile jailer, had stomped out the front door on the Wednesday evening without explanation. Thereupon he, Shad, had been ordered to replace Bostwick and took up his duties in the anteroom at dawn on Thursday. Yes, Miss Stanhope brought Coltrane his breakfast as usual at eight o’clock and stayed until nine-thirty. No, he was not privy to their conversation, the cell door being shut and secured from the inside. At ten o’clock Alderman Tierney arrived, signed in, and spent nearly an hour shouting at the major. But he came out chuckling, and Coltrane appeared afterwards to be in high spirits. Yes, there was freshly spilled snuff on the desk, and Coltrane had remarked, “I love disputing with a man who ain’t afraid of a pinch of snuff!”

Shortly after eleven, Shad was startled when the doorbell rang upstairs and he answered it to find a strange woman there demanding to see Coltrane. As the colonel was out of the house, Shad said he didn’t know what to do except to check with Coltrane. The newcomer was a middle-aged woman who claimed to be a Mrs. Jones from Streetsville who was known to the prisoner. She gave Shad a note to take in. Being unarmed and nonviolent, Shad said he was afraid to open the cell door but eventually did so, delivering the note. Whatever was in it did the trick, for Mrs. Jones was welcomed in and spent a half-hour with Coltrane, though, as he neglected to have her sign out, he couldn’t be sure of the time. After lunch, of course, Billy McNair and Marc Edwards arrived, but after letting the former into the prison chamber and settling the latter in the anteroom, he went straight to his own den, where he remained until the ruckus over the poisoning erupted. And alas, he could shed no further light on the business of the poison packet, as he had gone straight out to fetch Dr. Withers.

Dougherty began his cross-examination by motioning his associate, Robert Baldwin, towards the high bench. Robert handed up to Justice Robinson a single sheet of paper, then walked over and gave a similar one to Kingsley Thornton. Finally he placed a third before the nervous Mr. Shad.

“What you have before you, milord, is a partial mock-up of a document which was seized in Detroit last Tuesday evening by Mr. Edwards. Mr. Baldwin is now giving you this original document along with Mr. Edwards’s sworn statement of its provenance.”

The judge held up his hand for silence and then perused the material before him. With a puzzled glance at Thornton, he said, “Proceed, Mr. Dougherty.”

“Mr. Shad, please tell the court how long you have been a member of the Michigan branch of the Hunters’ Lodge.”

This stunning remark caused a sensation in the chamber and a fearful trembling in the witness.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Shad stammered, with a weak attempt at truculence.

“I think you do, sir.”

“Milord! Counsel is badgering the witness! Moreover, he’s off on yet another of his fishing expeditions!”

“Where is this going, Mr. Dougherty? There’s been no reference to the so-called Hunters’ Lodges in Mr. Shad’s testimony.”

“My question goes directly to the credibility of this witness, milord. As the mysterious Mrs. Jones was the last person to see Coltrane before the defendant did, I need to explore fully Mr. Shad’s account of her arrival and her actions thereafter. I do not wish the jury to accept at face value his claims thus far.”

“I’ll allow it,” the judge said. “But go slowly.”

Dougherty nodded and may even have smiled. His eyes moved to the witness’s and locked on them. “Please look at the paper before you, sir. On it you will find a dozen coded names selected from the original document now in Mr. Justice Robinson’s hands. Below this list is an explanation of how the code works. It is fairly straightforward, based on a three-point, repeated sequence. That is, to decipher the first coded letter of a name, we count one letter ahead in the alphabet. Thus a B would be translated as a C . To get the second letter of the name, we count two letters ahead, and to get the third letter, three letters ahead. At the fourth letter, we start at one again. Using this formula, my associate has decoded the heading that appears on the document. Please read it aloud for the jury.”