Bushell muttered something under his breath. If all you thought about was Joseph Kilbride the Son of Liberty, you were liable to forget Joseph Kilbride the grocer. “Has he been traveling to Boston to buy from you in person for all that time?” he asked after pausing to think. Yawkey shook his big, blunt-featured head. “Up until three or four years ago, we dealt entirely by post. But he’s come into Boston several times now. I enjoy his company.” He chuckled at Bushell’s expression. “Oh, I’d guess he’s not the easiest sort for most to get along with. But him and me, we were both in the prize ring a time or three, and we tell stories long into the night. Him and Phineas Stanage, the brewer down in Victoria, it’s the same thing with them.”
So Kilbride hadn’t got his nose bent by accident then. But that was only a small part of what went through Bushell’s mind. “Three or four years?” he murmured, as much to himself as to Yawkey. Business trips into Boston would have given Kilbride a perfect cover for any other visits he made here. And Stanage wasn’t just a brewer; all the RAMs in Victoria knew perfectly well he was a Son of Liberty, though nobody had been able to prove a thing - not till now, anyway.
“I can give you exact dates, if you like,” Yawkey answered. “I’ll have ‘em all written down in my account books.”
“I may take you up on that,” Bushell said, his voice still abstracted. Had the plot to steal The Two Georges been ripening for four years? Or had Kilbride got involved in it only lately? He couldn’t ask the man now.
Samuel Stanley said, “Why did you let Kilbride go out your back door and down the alley?”
“We spent a deal of time in the storeroom in back of the shop,” Yawkey answered. “He was buying in bulk and seeing for himself what all I had back there. Let me think back, so I can tell you just how it was. . . . We’d come close to finishing when he went to the front for a moment. Then he came back and just sort of asked if he could stroll out that way. I told him there wasn’t anything to see in the alley but rubbish bins, but I didn’t think much about it at the time.”
“He must have spied McGinnity being inconspicuous,” Stanley said to Bushell, who nodded.
“Can I go back to my shop now?” Yawkey asked. “I’m the only one minding it, and I’m apt to be losing trade standing around here making chitchat.”
“A couple of more questions,” Mr. Yawkey,” Bushell said. The merchant’s brows came down like shutters; he wasn’t used to hearing no. Bushell pointed over to the cabinetmaker’s shop in front of which they all stood. “How long has Mr. Cavendish been in business here?”
“Him?” By the tone, Yawkey’s opinion of the late cabinetmaker was not high. Part of the reason emerged in his reply: “He’s a Johnny-come-lately, he is: bought the place from old Fred Jenkins maybe four years back. Hasn’t done any too well with it, either,” he added with a certain somber satisfaction.
“Isn’t that interesting?” Sam Stanley said, and Bushell nodded again. If the timing was coincidental, it made for a very large and robust coincidence.
“Did Joseph Kilbride ever go into Cavendish’s shop before or after he came to yours?” Bushell asked Yawkey.
“I never saw him do it, but I don’t know what that proves. I’m better at minding my own business than my neighbors’.”
Most of the time, people who said things like that were lying through their teeth. Bushell got the feeling Yawkey was telling the truth. He said, “That’s all for now. We may have more questions for you later.”
“If you do, ask ‘em in the shop,” Yawkey said firmly. “Good day to you.” He stumped on up Lansdowne Street as if it had been made for no one but him.
Major Harris came out of the furniture shop. “We’ll need a statement from you, Colonel, and one from Captain Stanley, and one from Dr. Flannery, too. The forms must be observed, as you know.”
“Oh, indeed they must,” Bushell said. “In triplicate.” It would be a long afternoon’s journey into night. And the Boston papers would have a field day, too. Three men killed in the course of an investigation?
Gunfire? Hand grenades? Newsboys would be shouting extras on the street corners tomorrow morning no, more likely tonight. Well, soonest begun, soonest done. “Let’s go,” he said. Sitting on the edge of Kathleen Flannery’s bed, Bushell blew a smoke ring up toward the ceiling. She made silent clapping motions, which set her bare breasts bobbing prettily. Bushell didn’t feel like applause. He walked over to the bottle of Jameson he’d ordered from room service, poured a glass three-quarters full, and then, after due reflection, used silver-plated tongs to add a couple of ice cubes.
Standing there naked by the chest of drawers on which he’d put the bottle, he said, “Victoria,” and then drank. It was not a toast. It was nothing like a toast. It was more on the order of getting the taste of the word out of his mouth.
But neither the whiskey’s complex, smoky flavor nor the burning it set up in his belly could take away that taste. No matter what happened here in Boston, no matter what the local RAMs and constables turned up, his trail, as best he could see it, led straight on toward the capital of the NAU. He hated the idea.
Kathleen watched him gulp down the glass of Jameson, pour himself another, and pour that one down, too. “Fix me a drink, please,” she said. “With some water, not just ice.”
“I thought you’d sooner have gin,” he said.
“I would,” she answered, “but this will be all right. After the grilling in the RAM offices, anything this side of chloroform would be all right.”
He grunted, took another crystal tumbler from its silver tray, put in ice and poured Jameson over it, then had to walk into the bathroom for some water. When he came back and handed Kathleen the glass, she murmured a word of thanks and patted the mattress beside her.
Bushell sat down. She sipped her drink. Her eyes widened slightly. “You didn’t put in much water.”
“You didn’t ask for much,” he said. After a moment, he pointed a finger at her. “I know what you’re doing.” Two fast knocks of Jameson hadn’t fuzzed his thoughts, but they might have made him less reticent about letting her know what those thoughts were: “You’re distracting me.”
“Why, Colonel Bushell, sir, I certainly do hope so,” she said, and stretched just enough to make his eye travel the whole long, smooth length of her: a length marred at the moment by gauze pads and adhesive tape on both knees, a forearm, and one elbow. Bushell was similarly decorated. He grunted again, this time in amusement. “Not what I meant - and you know it,” he added, stabbing out that accusing forefinger once more. “If I’m making drinks for you, I can’t very well be making any for me, and if I don’t make them for me, I can’t very well drink them, and if I don’t drink them I can’t very well get drunk - now can I?”
“No,” she answered, a little angrily. “And why should you want to, anyway? The only people I knew who turned the name Victoria into a swear word were the Sons of Liberty - till you.”
“And do you know what else?” he said after mulling that over. “We have the exact same reason, too.”
He waited for her to gape at him, and was not disappointed. Then he explained: “The Sons think Victoria, just by existing, puts a control on them they don’t want to accept.”
“Yes, of course they do,” she said. “But if there’s any man in the NAU more loyal to Crown and Country than you, I haven’t met him.”