“Humour me for a while longer, please. I take it that the contents of these trunks are not required here in Toronto?”
“Jason told me that he had put all the materials we no longer needed into three trunks and was arranging to have them shipped to New York City.”
The three with the rifles in them, Marc thought, and they would have been mysteriously “lost” en route. But exactly where would they have been “lost” if Merriwether had not been prematurely murdered? And who would have “found” them?
“Did anyone other than Mr. Merriwether have keys to those trunks?”
“No. We each have our own trunks, but only Jason had keys for the others.” Suddenly she lost her composure for the first time, and with a breaking voice said, “He kept them in a secret pocket inside his King Claudius robe. He thought I didn’t know where they were, and I went along with it.”
“Please, don’t upset yourself over the matter, Mrs. Thedford. I only asked because it might be necessary at some point in the investigation to have access to anything which might have belonged to him.”
If she were puzzled by this lame explanation, she had the good manners not to show it.
“Do you know if Mr. Merriwether had any money troubles?”
“Not really,” she said, back in control of herself once more. “No actor ever has enough money, but Jason had no one to support but himself, and I was the one risking my meagre capital in the quixotic venture of owning and operating a theatre in New York.”
“And you were counting on his return to star status?”
“Yes. That was the main reason we were trying out so many different plays and playbills. I had hoped that Jason would also do some directing at the new Bowery, but now …”
“Thank you for your co-operation. I’ll let you know after the noon-hour whether you’ll be able to carry on this evening.”
“Thank you. As I started to say earlier, if we can, we will substitute our musical and recitation program for the Shakespeare. It’s something we have done on rare occasions when one of us is too ill to go on: it’s a simple series of ‘acts’ we can mount and adapt with an hour’s notice.”
“I am amazed at the resilience of actors.”
“Would you do me a favour?” she said, getting up to leave.
“Of course.”
“I promised your friend Mr. Jenkin that I would have luncheon with him today in the dining-room at one o’clock. He’s riding in from the fort. I know you want to keep the news from getting out-”
“Yes, but we also need to do nothing out of the ordinary to arouse suspicions. I’m sure you and Mr. Jenkin will find many more pleasant things to talk about.”
And, Marc thought, it’ll give me a chance to make up a cover story for being in town and for Rick’s unexplained disappearance-and have Owen take it back to the garrison.
“Thank you. Whatever we might say in our anger and our grief over the next few hours, please believe me when I say that we appreciate your kindness and courtesy.” With that she walked across the taproom and into the theatre.
Marc was about to send Wilkie to fetch Thea Clarkson when he heard the front door to the tavern slam open, and turned to see Lieutenant Spooner strut in and put an end to both kindness and courtesy.
ELEVEN
Lieutenant Spooner marched to the middle of the barroom with epaulets bristling, executed a teetering two-footed halt, and, regaining the perpendicular, whipped his shako-hat down to his thigh with an intimidating strop. Then he swivelled his head like a horned owl with a fixed stare, as if he expected to discover a cache of Yankee rifles under every table. Constable Cobb followed close behind but walked towards Marc.
“I think Mr. Spooner would like a word,” he said.
“Ah, there you are, Edwards. Why didn’t you reveal your position at once?”
“It seemed to me that I might actually be observable,” Marc replied.
“Constable, please leave this room. What I have to say to the lieutenant is strictly confidential.”
“I’ll stand out here by the bar an’ watch the doors,” Cobb said with a helpless shrug in Marc’s direction.
Spooner waited until he thought Cobb was out of earshot, then sat ramrod straight opposite Marc.
“I gather that Cobb has shown the note to the governor and mentioned our discovery of the contraband weapons?”
“Don’t patronize me, Edwards. You could be court-martialled for revealing that note to an illiterate bobby who may be sympathetic to the enemies of Queen Victoria himself. But the milk has been spilt, and Sir Francis is extremely agitated.”
“Has his agitation prompted a plan for us to deal with the situation?”
Spooner appeared momentarily flummoxed, both eyebrows in a regular tantrum of indecision. Then he managed to snarl, “The governor does not have enough information to formulate a response, as you know perfectly well.”
“Well, then, Lieutenant, let me lay out the situation as I see it-for you and the governor.”
“The guns must be secured before anything else is considered.”
“They are secure, sir. You have my word as an officer on that score. I’ll have Cobb show you their location, if you like, but my advice is to leave them where they sit.”
“To what end, sir? Leaving them open to unlawful appropriation by Cobb or one of his cronies?”
“I am assuming that Sir Francis, being an astute gentleman, is more concerned with tracking down the rebels to whom the rifles were heading than he is in impounding the guns themselves.”
Spooner’s face went as scarlet as his coat.
“Am I right?” Marc asked casually.
“Yes, damn you. He decided not to accept my advice that the weapons be seized and every known radical be rounded up and interrogated until the last dram of truth was squeezed out of him.”
“Please inform Sir Francis, then, that my preliminary investigation into Jason Merriwether’s untimely death has pretty much excluded assassination by any political fanatic. The killer is almost certainly one of the other actors. Whether more than one was involved or why there was a falling-out, I don’t yet know. But I intend to find out.”
Spooner was first astonished; then mocking. “Have you gone mad? The assassin is safely locked away at Government House. Sir Francis wants a full written report on the matter from you before noon tomorrow, after which Hilliard will be charged with murder and thrown into military prison to await trial. You are under direct orders from your supreme commander to concentrate all your efforts upon the business of discovering whom these guns are meant for.”
Marc took a deep breath. It appeared he had about twenty-four hours to find the real killer and save Rick from the noose. But there was a way in which he might be able to buy more time and simultaneously ingratiate himself with Sir Francis: a plan to flush out the seditionists was forming in his mind.
“Have you gone catatonic, sir?”
“Not yet, Lieutenant. But I want you to take a proposition back to Sir Francis for his approval.”
“I’d refuse if I could,” Spooner sighed.
“Explain to Sir Francis that if the news of Merriwether’s death can be contained within these walls until Wednesday night-and so far you’ve been successful in doing that-then the final contact for the guns may still be made, and the identity and whereabouts of the traitors disclosed.”
“But Merriwether was an actor and-”
“And this is what I have in mind,” Marc smiled, and outlined his proposal to a speechless aide-de-camp.
When Spooner had left on his mission to the governor, Marc went over to Cobb. “Did you get all that?”
“Every silli-babble, Major.”
Cobb, who made no comment on the audacity of the proposal, now joined Marc for the interview with Thea Clarkson. Of all those questioned so far, Thea appeared to be the most personally devastated. It could have been the consequence of her recent ill health, but if Ogden Frank had been telling the truth, it was almost certainly due to her relationship with the victim.