Don Gutteridge - Death of a Patriot

“If he’s still there when I get to it, Nestor, I’ll give ya a dozen eggs and throw in the rooster!”

“The eggs’ll do fine.”

Cobb quick-marched the two and a half blocks to Briar Cottage to relay the news to Marc. Fifteen minutes later, they were whizzing along in the cutter, northwards to the end of Jarvis Street, with Jasper Hogg perched on the seat back and hanging on as if clutching Charlene. The plan was simply to burst into Tipsy Dan’s shack-just off the lane that led into the shantytown of thieves, inebriates, and ne’er-do-wells-grab Bostwick, and haul him into the sleigh before anyone could ask why or raise an objection. It went off without a hitch, except for the fact that Bostwick was indeed comatose and a deadweight. Tipsy Dan didn’t even bother to wake up. As there was no room in the cutter for the body and three pallbearers, Marc volunteered to walk down to Baldwin House and bring Robert to Cobb’s place, where they had decided to take Bostwick for resuscitation. Robert came to the door himself, tossed his dinner bib to a startled Cummings, and raced after Marc with his overcoat dangling from one arm.

Cobb met them at his front door and directed them to sit in the parlour near the fire. It seemed that when he and Jasper had lugged Bostwick’s stinking bulk into the kitchen, they had been greeted by Dora, just returned from a successful delivery. She had immediately banished the upright males to the next room, shut the door, and set to work upon the unknowing victim. They heard the scrape of the tin tub across the kitchen floor, followed by the swish and gurgle of hot water (always on the boil in a cask-size kettle), a sequence of thumping noises, a mammoth splash, and a wrenching, drawn-out moan.

“Missus Cobb’ll sober the bugger up or else scare him to death,” Cobb said reassuringly.

Moments later, Dora’s head swung into view. She smiled at the visitors. “I got the stink washed off him and enough coal-tar on his noggin to kill a ridge-o-men of cooties. He ain’t sayin’ much, but he’s awake.”

The men went into the kitchen, where they found Lardner Bostwick wrapped in one of Dora’s flowered flannel robes, glowing pink of cheek and chin. The eyelids sagged, but the dark orbs behind them were taking in the world again, and not liking much what they saw.

Unable to douse the fiery demons in him with drink, Bostwick had apparently decided he would try drowning them with talk. No interrogation was needed: his story poured out so quickly that Marc’s shorthand scribble could not keep up with it.

“I don’t know what kinda hold that bugger Coltrane had over the colonel. All I know is every time he farted, I had to run and wipe his arse. We gave him wine and whiskey and snuff and brung his personal effects from Detroit. But the colonel’s been like a big brother to me, so I put up with it for his sake. I worried about Patty bein’ in there alone with him every mornin’, but it was the colonel’s call, though I did tell her mother about the visits.

“Then this Billy fella, one of our own sergeants, gets in a spat with Coltrane and agrees to a duel. Coltrane tells me to get the colonel’s permission-or else. So I go to the colonel and he’s furious. He says no. I wait a while and he comes to me and says it’s okay as long as I don’t tell him any of the details-he’s coverin’ his own rear end, eh? — but when he points to the pistols in the study, he says, ‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you put a paper ball in one of the pistols and make sure the Yankee shot chooses it.’ Then he walks away and pretends he knows nothin’ about what’s gonna happen. So I load the pearl-handled one with the blank-’cause I know the major will take the best-lookin’ weapon-and the other gets a regular ball. Then Monday mornin’, Billy shows up, and I present the pistols. Wouldn’t ya know it, but the Yankee picks the one with the bullet. I almost shit a brick.”

“That’s why I only found one bullet-in the wall behind Billy where Coltrane’s shot ended up,” Cobb said.

“I couldn’t believe he coulda missed, ’cause of the way he was always braggin’ he’d been a crack shot since the age of eight. But I was damn glad he did. Then the coppers come, and the colonel storms out there like he’s outraged and pretends to chew me out.”

“So he really didn’t drum you out of the house or the regiment?” Marc asked.

“No. He give me fifty dollars and told me to go to ground fer a few weeks.”

“You damn near went under ground,” Cobb said.

But Lardner Bostwick did not hear the comment, for suddenly his eyes rolled back into their sockets, syllables spilled out of his mouth with gusts of spittle, and his whole body began to quake.

“Christ!” Cobb cried. “He’s got the heebie-jeebies!”

Dora was summoned to minister to the stricken man. She managed to get a large dose of laudanum down his throat, and he was soon calm enough to enter a fitful sleep. Cobb carried him over to the stove and wrapped him in three blankets.

In the next room, with Jasper reluctantly dispatched home, Marc and Robert conferred on the significance of what they had just been told.

“Our biggest problem, Marc, will be to get him strong enough to testify. By the look of it, considering we’ll have to start the defense tomorrow, that won’t be possible. In the least, we need a signed affidavit. I’ll take your notes and have Clement draw up a statement. If the fellow dies, it might be enough.”

“Either way, this testimony is helpful, Robert. Stanhope was counting on Billy’s killing or seriously wounding Coltrane-despite the possible loss of face attendant upon his not delivering Coltrane to the court. Still, no one could fault him for a duel he could claim he didn’t condone, and who better to assassinate the meddlesome blackmailer than a young war hero? One way or another, what we know for sure, and what Dougherty can exploit, is that Gideon Stanhope made one indirect attempt upon the life of his blackmailing prisoner. Why not another?”

Robert nodded. “I suppose Cobb will have to report Bostwick’s reappearance to his chief in the morning.”

“They’re welcome to him,” Marc said, “whatever’s left of the poor sod.”

Everyone involved in Billy’s defense was up at the crack of dawn. Clement Peachey arrived at Cobb’s house at seven-thirty, where a somewhat recovered Bostwick was able to sign Robert’s rendering of last night’s statement with a trembling hand. The Cobbs acted as witnesses and Peachey notarized it. At about the same hour, Marc arrived at Baldwin House. He and Robert took the Baldwin’s four-seater up to Dougherty’s, and while young Broderick assisted his guardian in dressing behind an enormous screen near the fire, they related the events and consequences of the previous evening. As usual, Dougherty made no comment, not even a grunt to indicate he was paying attention. When Robert finished, Dougherty said, “I think you should go to the bank today, Brodie. They’re expecting you.”

“We’re both coming to court,” Broderick said.

“I think this statement of Bostwick’s could be our best hope,” Robert said. “It confirms intent, and along with motive and-”

“Our best hope,” Dougherty said, “is Chief Justice Robinson. The fellow may be a wool-dyed Tory, but he reveres the law.”

As you do, Marc thought.

Marc watched as Almeda Stanhope walked with grace and self-composure up to the stand to be sworn in as the Crown’s first witness of the day. He was sitting between Dolly and Beth in the front row of the left-hand gallery. The Cobbs and Mrs. McNair were in the row behind them. Dolly peered up at Billy standing in the dock until he noticed her, then gave him an encouraging smile. He returned an abbreviated version of it, then looked over at the bench and the witness stand beyond it. Each day so far, he had clamped his gaze onto the proceedings and kept it there. What he was thinking as he did so, no one knew.