With the aid of Cobb’s lantern, Marc carefully examined the bloodstains on Rick’s jacket, breeches, and boots. The smear patterns on the jacket appeared to have been caused by Rick rubbing his hands over the splotches there, but there was a curious and unexplainable absence of blood spatters. If Merriwether’s ruptured aorta was spouting blood, surely there should have been spots of it where it had sprayed and landed.
Marc knelt down in front of the distraught ensign. “You could only have blanked out the second time for a minute or so at most,” he said calmly. “Beasley’s told Cobb he heard Tessa’s cry, too, and reached the room as soon as he could. It appears, and I say appears, that Merriwether was struck and stabbed in the time between Tessa’s cry and Beasley’s arrival. Now tell me: you say you’ve concluded that you murdered Merriwether, but you have no actual memory of doing so?”
“I have no memory of killing Merriwether. I had no idea he was even in the room.”
“Then, until you do remember it, I am going to assume you are innocent, and look for the killer elsewhere.”
Tears of gratitude welled up in Hilliard’s eyes. “But I must’ve done it, Marc. Tessa had to be saved from-”
“Stuff and nonsense!” Spooner cried, prancing across the room with a sequence of stiff manoeuvres found in no training manual. “I’ve heard enough of this drivel!”
Cobb stepped out in front of him, but Marc drew the constable gently away. “Lieutenant Spooner, I intend to report to Sir Francis in the morning that the case is still unresolved. Ensign Hilliard is a prime suspect, but there was, patently, a rape or attempted rape engineered by the victim with the aid of drugged wine, something I need to know a lot more about before laying any charge of murder.”
“You have no evidence for that assumption!” Spooner tipped up on his toes, but the effort merely brought his bristling gaze level with Marc’s chest.
“I intend to get it, sir.”
“The girl’ll be able to tell us more in the mornin’,” Cobb added.
A smirk spread across Spooner’s narrow face, he jutted out his receding jaw, and his metallic locks shook. “Mrs. Frank says the girl is saying nothing. So how do we know that it wasn’t your friend Hilliard who attempted to violate the young lady, was interrupted by Merriwether, who heard her cry from his room just across the hall and came running to the rescue in his nightshirt, only to be butchered by this scoundrel?”
Rick flinched, but said nothing.
Marc was seething inside, but he realized the deceptive plausibility of this version of events. “So Ensign Hilliard drugged himself as well as Tessa in order to facilitate his purpose?” he asked sarcastically.
“Attempts at drugging have gone awry more than once,” Spooner sputtered, tipping up on his toes to drive his argument forward like a puff-adder seeking the insertion point. “And if you don’t inform the governor of this possibility, I shall take it upon myself to do so.”
“The only thing you’re gonna take on yerself is my fist!” Cobb hissed.
“Gentlemen!” Dr. Withers chided, coming across the room.
“We all need to put a damper on our tempers,” Sturges said with a sharp look at Cobb. “It’s the middle of the bloody night an’ we’re all damn near bushed.”
“What in hell’re we gonna do with all these people? And a dead body?” Cobb said, back in control.
Without diluting the venom in his smirk, Spooner said, “I’m taking the ‘prime suspect,’ as you call him, with me to Government House, where he will be placed under twenty-four-hour guard.”
“Not in irons, you ain’t!” Sturges snapped.
“Then I’d like you to accompany me, sir. I don’t want this disgrace to a uniform making a dash for the woods.”
“Okay,” Sturges said with a resigned sigh.
“What about everybody else?” Cobb said.
“The governor wants this mess contained at any cost. I’m using his executive authority to order this establishment quarantined-”
“You can’t do that!” Ogden Frank rolled his rotund body into the room from the dining area. Sweat beaded his hairless dome. “I’ll be ruined!”
Spooner ignored him. “I want all these actors placed in their rooms upstairs and a guard posted. Mr. Frank, you will see that they are fed and watered. No-one is to have access to them without permission from me or from Lieutenant Edwards. I want no loose-lipped chambermaids near that upper floor-”
“But who will-”
“Your good woman, Mr. Frank: she already knows what’s happened. But no one else must get the slightest inkling of the grotesque events here tonight. No one. Lieutenant Edwards will remain here to question the witnesses in the morning. And I’ll be back with fresh instructions from Sir Francis.” He gave Marc the courtesy of a final nod.
“I’ll prepare sleeping draughts for these people before I leave,” Withers said through his fatigue. “They’re in pitiable shape. The black fellow’s got a wicked toothache, but if he can’t get to the barber tomorrow, I’ll try and pull it before I leave.”
“I’d like a sleeping draught for the wife,” Frank said.
“I’ll make up two,” Withers offered.
Marc took Rick’s arm. “You’ll have to go with Lieutenant Spooner and the chief constable to Government House. Dr. Withers will come along as soon as he’s finished here. I’ll see you again before noon tomorrow. Tessa’s going to be all right. Try not to worry.”
Sturges helped Rick across the barroom, and he was escorted out the front door of the tavern onto West Market Street, more like a man trudging off to the gallows than to the relative comfort of confinement in Government House.
But as badly as he felt for Hilliard, Marc realized that he must bring matters to completion here immediately, and start afresh in the morning. He went over to the entrance to the dining-room. Five pairs of glazed eyes looked up at him as if he were perhaps a kindly executioner come to put them out of their misery. “Dr. Withers will give you each something to help you sleep. Mr. Beasley, take Mr. Armstrong to your room for the night. Mrs. Thedford, would you be good enough to let Miss Clarkson share your room? And would you convey to Mr. Jefferson that he may return to his sleeping-place, where the doctor will attend to his aching tooth.”
“Are we under arrest?” Mrs. Thedford said, and the sudden resonance of her deep, authoritative voice seemed to revivify the others, who now turned to stare at her, then at Marc, with something resembling self-interest.
“No, you are not. But I will not be satisfied that Ensign Hilliard is guilty until I have questioned each of you carefully tomorrow morning. Until then, at least, the lieutenant-governor has ordered that all of you are to be held as material witnesses. Food will be brought up to you and maid-service supplied-”
Ogden Frank groaned behind him, wondering how he was to inform his “good woman” of this disquieting news.
“A police guard will be posted at the bottom of the stairs, but largely for your own protection,” Marc said unconvincingly. He saw Mrs. Thedford shake her head slightly.
“What about our Tuesday evening performance?” she asked with steely calm.
“Surely you can’t be thinking of continuing?”
Mrs. Thedford smiled wanly. “We are a theatre company, Mr. Edwards.”
Ogden Frank tugged at Marc’s sleeve. “Wouldn’t it be best to carry on as if nothing has happened?” he suggested, hope rising improbably for the first time since the mute had pounded on the tavern door and he had crawled out of a warm bed to answer its grim summons. “If the tavern and theatre don’t carry on normally, folks’ll start to get mighty curious.”
“He may be right, Major,” Cobb said to Marc.
“We could tell the customers Merriwether took sick.” Frank looked to Mrs. Thedford for support.