Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

Marc felt a sudden alarm. “What in hell do you mean, sir?” Spooner, who had been teetering heel to toe with hands locked behind his back for balance, now brought the latter into view. In his right hand he held an official-looking document. “I have here an affidavit, duly signed and notarized just minutes ago before Magistrate Thorpe.”

“An affidavit signed by whom?”

“By your Ensign Hilliard, of course. Who else?”

“You interviewed him without my permission? Sir Francis put me in charge of the investigation, not you.”

“I didn’t say boo to him. I didn’t need to. He called me in and asked for a magistrate.”

“That’s not possible.” But, of course, it was.

“It seems our young swain was materially moved after his visit with that little trollop from the theatre.”

Marc heard Cobb gasp behind him. “Tessa?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“She came flying in here a short while ago, wide-eyed and demanding to see the man who had tried to save her from a fate worse than … whatever. What could I do? My heart is not made of stone. I let her have a few minutes alone with him. Then I had her escorted back to the theatre: you must have passed her en route.” Spooner was enjoying himself immensely.

“You had no authority to do so!”

“Perhaps not, but I doubt very much if Sir Francis will quarrel with the result of my decision.”

Marc knew Hilliard well and was not surprised when Spooner delivered the coup de grâce. “He signed a confession. It’s all over.”

Marc’s furious glare rocked Spooner back on his heels, but he gave no further ground. “I still want to see him.” Marc struggled to control the anger building in him: this was no time to lose his composure.

“If you attempt in any way to have Hilliard withdraw his sworn statement or otherwise obstruct the course of justice, sir, I’ll have you court-martialled.”

“Are you questioning my honour, sir?”

Spooner took a step back, the flush of triumph fading from his face: images of a foggy meadow at dawn, pistols poised, and “seconds” holding their breath flitted before him. “Go in there and do as you like, then. It won’t matter. He’s finished. And then present yourself in my office-without your henchman. We have more important business to discuss.”

If Marc had expected to find his friend haggard and anxious after his ordeal, he was soon disappointed. Rick was sitting on a stool in the windowless room reading what appeared to be a novel by the light of a single candle. When Marc entered, Rick looked up and grinned a welcome that might have been meant for the happy arrival of a delinquent brother. “Marc, I’m so glad you’ve come. The most wonderful thing has just happened, and I need to tell it to the world!” He was beaming. The lines and pouches deposited on his face from two sleepless nights and endless hours of unceasing worry had been drawn into the service of a smile that, however transitory, was nonetheless genuine.

“What in Christ’s name have you done?” Marc said before he could stop himself.

“I told you she was an angel, didn’t I? Did you see her leaving?”

“You’ve as good as written your signature on a gibbet,” Marc said, still boiling, “and I’ve been working my balls into a sweat over you for the last thirty-six hours.”

Rick looked wounded, but rallied instantly with another ingratiating and infuriating smile. “But I killed him to save her, don’t you see?” The smile turned beatific.

“Are you telling me that you now have remembered smashing Merriwether on the skull and driving your sword through his chest while he lay stunned and helpless on his back?”

“I have no memory of doing either. But I must have, mustn’t I?”

“Then, for the love of God, tell me what you do remember.”

“I’ve put it all down in the affidavit.”

“Humour me.” Marc’s emotions were oscillating between anger and fear, and he fought to keep his mind clear and focussed on the task ahead.

“As I told you Monday night in the tavern, I fell asleep on the settee with my flies open. When I woke up, I felt something sticky all over me, like blood.”

“You couldn’t see it?”

“Not till I stood up in the moonlight.”

“Beasley swore he saw some light coming from the doorway.”

“Well, I think the little candle on Tessa’s night-table was still lit, but I was staring straight ahead at what I had done.”

So much for that discrepancy. “But how do you know you did it if you have no recollection of it? Could you stab someone so forcefully and have no inkling that you’d done it?”

“Ah, but I’d been drugged, Marc. I was confused. Some part of my brain must have seen that blackguard on top of my darling and brought me strength enough to smash him on the head with my sword-butt and then-this is what I wrote in the affidavit-I must’ve seen what he’d done to her and gone a bit crazy. But I was under the influence of the opiate, you see, and my motive was the purest one that any gentleman could have had.”

Looking into the guileless and callow face of his young friend, Marc recognized that Rick was assuming he would be released eventually because of the laudanum and the chivalric impulse behind the homicidal deed. “Neither of those defenses will stand up for one minute in a court. You must face the truth, Rick. I know: I’ve studied the law. And unless you recant and withdraw your confession immediately, using Tessa’s visit to explain your quixotic behaviour, your affidavit alone will propel you straight into the hangman’s noose.”

Rick peered up at Marc, suddenly serious. “I don’t wish to die, unless it’s in battle. But other than that kind of noble death, to die defending the honour of an innocent is surely a close second.” Rick’s eyes lit up again, pulling the sagging flesh of his face with them. “And you weren’t here, Marc, you didn’t see her, you didn’t hear her. She got down on her knees and thanked me from the bottom of her heart. She said I would live there forever. She wept for me-oh, they were the most beautiful tears of love and gratitude! And when she left, she gave me her favourite book to read and cherish. Look at the inscription. Is it not the most moving poetry you’ve ever read?” Rick held out the book and quoted from the inscribed flyleaf: “To my darling hero, Rick Hilliard; yours forever, Tessa.”

Marc noticed the title on the spine: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. He wasn’t surprised. He needed something sharp, cruel even, to shock Hilliard-the normally intelligent and ambitious ensign-back to reality. “You realize, Rick, that Spooner has suggested to Sir Francis that it was you who drugged Tessa for your own nefarious purpose and then savagely murdered Merriwether when he intervened? And so far, I have not been able to find evidence to wholly refute the charge. You will be hanged as a rapist and a killer, not as a hero out of the pages of Scott or Malory.”

Rick took this in. “The corporal told me about Spooner’s theory. But Sir Francis knows me: he’ll never believe a story like that. And with my confession, why would he bother anyway?”

“Because Merriwether is an American citizen. It just might suit Sir Francis’s political interests at present to have the American made the victim.”

“But he painted them all as Antichrists during the election!”

“That was then. Right now the governor may be more concerned to keep the U.S. government from financing the local rebels he sees under every bush.” Marc was improvising this argument as he presented it, but he had to do something, even if it was underhanded.

“I’ll take my chances on that score. Besides, I have Tessa’s judgement here in writing, and I’ll take the sight of her clutching my knees and weeping for me to my grave.”