A Marked Man (32 page)

Fort Hill lay only a few hundred yards from Sam’s house, outside of Boston proper at the eastern end of that sprawled plot of open ground that had once comprised the whole of the town’s Common Land. During the wars with France, batteries had been established to guard the harbor in case a French fleet came down from Canada. Now that the French were gone from Canada, the North Battery, in old Boston proper where Ship Street ran into Lynn Street, was scantly manned. The soldiers in charge of the guns there were ferried straight across from Castle Island for their watches and straight back, and observed with invisible zeal by the ruffians, idle prentices, and Sons of Liberty who frequented the wharves. The South Battery, more isolated on its hill outside the confines of the town, had a cluster of barrack huts surrounded by a palisade, so that the men charged with keeping the Sons of Liberty from stealing the thirty-five cannon in its gun park had at least someplace to sit on bitter spring days like this one. Even before the events of last December, as tensions mounted between the Crown and those who protested its interference in the colony’s government, the soldiers had learned to remain within the wooden palings on the hill’s east side. There were always loafers on the wharves along the Battery March, and should any untoward number of soldiers attempt to land on Rowe’s Wharf or Apthorp’s or any other close by, word would flash through the town with the speed of a heliograph, and an armed mob would be waiting before the invaders reached shore.

Thus Abigail didn’t blame Lieutenant Dowling for taking the better part of valor and asking that she—a respectable married woman—venture into what constituted a miniature Army camp. The sentry on the gate glanced at her and the handsome, smiling black woman who walked at her heels, and pointed out the hut where Lieutenant Dowling waited.

“Lieutenant Coldstone is well,” the young surgeon answered her first question, bringing up another chair to the fire of the rather grubby little office that the post commander relinquished to him. Abigail knew women—numbering Mrs. Fluckner and her friends among them—who’d have left Surry to wait outside in the cold. Though Lieutenant Dowling would not fetch a chair for a servant-woman, he raised no objection to her simply standing close to the fire. In fact, in the way of that class of Englishmen to which he, Lieutenant Coldstone, and Margaret Sandhayes all belonged, he simply did not appear to see her at all.

He went on, “Per your request, m’am, I have kept information about his condition to the fewest possible hearers. Do you honestly think him in danger, even out at the camp?”

“I scarcely know,” confessed Abigail. “I would have said, No, and assumed that the attempt upon his life was the work of some”—she hesitated, then went on smoothly—“of some traitor, perhaps, who had heard of his association with me. Did my own note—the one requesting a meeting in some place at his convenience—reach his office at the camp?”

“It did, m’am. The hands were compared and are very like. Yet if you had baited a trap with the first, why send a second? Moreover, the Lieutenant insists upon your innocence.”

“I appreciate his confidence.” Abigail smiled. “I had meant to bring some bread and jellies for him, but . . . Well, I would rather now be a little careful, who is seen giving food to whom.” And she told him of the events of Sunday night. “ ’ Tis the opinion of my medical friends that the death of Cottrell’s servant Fenton resembles in its symptoms the effects of the death-cap mushroom. My friends found it suspicious that there was no fever, nor were others in the Governor’s household sick with like symptoms.”

“Poison?” Dowling frowned. “Why would anyone poison a servant?” Unspoken was the question,
Why would anyone bother
?

“Why would anyone poison me or my family?” returned Abigail. She brought from her marketing basket the little packet of paper, carefully folded and sealed, that she had carried from the house. “Whatever this was, ’twas deadly enough to kill two mice almost on the spot. Dr. Warren was kind enough to conduct a postmortem on one of them, but all he could say was that he found neither corrosion nor internal bleeding. It has been a little mixed with the flour in the barrel,” she added, as Dowling tapped the contents of the crock out onto a dry saucer. “’Twas the darkest place I could find, of the half-mixed streaks.”

“It seems to be vegetable.” The surgeon stirred it with the tip of his penknife, then carried it to the window’s light.

“I was wondering,” said Abigail, following him, “if ’twere familiar to you from the West Indies?”

Dowling bent his head close to the saucer, and sniffed, carefully. “By the color it looks a little like oleander,” he said at last. “Yes, it is grown in the Indies, in gardens; also in Italy, though it’s originally an Asian plant. A virulent poison.” He shook his head, sparse fair eyebrows tugging together. “I have known men to die from having spitted meat on its twigs to cook. Yet Sir Jonathan himself wasn’t poisoned, but beaten—by the look of the bruises on his head and shoulders—and left to die of cold.”

“I would say,” said Abigail, “it might be because the killer feared Sir Jonathan would recognize him if he somehow introduced himself into Governor Hutchinson’s party that night. Or it may simply be that he had not the clothing, nor the manner, to pass himself off as someone who would be welcome in the Governor’s house. The merchants of the town all know one another, and might be quick to spot a stranger. Where were you stationed in the Indies, Lieutenant? And how long ago?”

“I’ve been on post here six months.” He returned to the fire with her, and carefully wiped his penknife on a corner of his pocket-handkerchief, which he then knotted, as a reminder—Abigail assumed—not to do anything further with that cloth until it had been washed. A virulent poison indeed. “I was in Kingston four years.”

“Did you ever hear of an actor in those parts named Palmer? Androcles Palmer?”

“I saw him in
The Jew of Malta
, if he’s the man I’m thinking of.” The young man smiled at the recollection. “He played about six roles—all of them poisoned by the said Jew—and was one of the best things in the performance, which was shockingly bad . . . at least it seemed so to me, since I was seventeen years old and was used to Garrick and Woodford. He’s one of the men poor Coldstone has been seeking word of, isn’t he? I seem to recollect that he’s partner with a man named Blaylock—the fellow who did the Jew himself—and they tour the colonies every few years.”

“Do you know anything of him?” Coldstone—and Revere, who had done militia service—had both told her how gossip about anything and everything would be handed round military posts, by men with too little to do and too much time to do it in. “To his credit or discredit?”

“To his credit,” said Dowling, with a grin that made him seem even more boyish, “he was one of those actors who can change not only his makeup and wig, but his posture and voice and the way he walked. On stage I could tell by his stature ’twas the same man, but otherwise, he would go from a cringing slave to a bawling soldier to a pious nun. To his discredit, I understand the man is what my sisters call a
thoroughly bad hat
: a cheat at cards, they said on the post, and a thief of his partner’s share of the profits. Rumor had it that the only reason poor old Blaylock keeps with him is because he’s very good, and Blaylock, bless his ranting and his tears, is
very
bad. If they’ve parted company by this time, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Would rumor put it past him, to murder a man, if he were paid to do it?”

“I don’t think so.” The young surgeon considered the matter. “I don’t know, really. It’s a hard thing to say of a man, you know? Especially one who’s not here to defend himself. My impression is that he would have to be very well-paid, and the murder a very safe one, for everyone said he’s the most arrant coward who walks the earth. I can’t see him thrashing Sir Jonathan, for instance.”

He frowned into the pitiful fire. “Not that he wouldn’t walk off and leave him lying, I don’t believe—but I think that, given his choice, he would pick some other way to punish him. Beating a man and leaving him in an alleyway is . . . is only incidentally conducive to death, you know. Sir Jonathan would very likely have lived through a night less cold, for the contusions on him were all quite superficial.”

They were what a man would have sustained, Abigail reflected uneasily as she made her way back toward Queen Street, who had been beaten up by the large and angry sweetheart of a woman he’d insulted. Only the offended sweetheart had been busy that night, printing up the broadsides at present lodged in her attic, and Paul Revere’s, and a dozen others in the town—broadsides calling all men of courage to be prepared to stand against the tyranny of the Crown. Not an argument one could present in one’s own defense.

“Like as not the wretched actor’s halfway to New York by this time,” muttered Abigail. “And will be on his way back to the West Indies, or to London, by the time a letter reaches the proper authorities.”

“I don’t know about proper authorities, m’am,” said Surry, pacing calmly along a half step to Abigail’s rear. “But Mr. Sam’s had the word out since last Wednesday, when Dr. Warren first said that that poor manservant had been poisoned by this Palmer, and them friends of his travel faster than any postrider in New England. If Palmer’s above the ground, they’ll find him.”

“How, among all the men in New England?”

They paused by the gate of Sam’s dwelling; Bess’s voice could be heard from the yard, singing a rather disreputable sailor’s song with her daughter Hannah. Surry smiled. “Among all the
honest
men in New England, they’d have a problem, m’am,” she agreed. “That actor fellow might be able to pass himself off as a Turk or a nun or a friendly fellow that’s safe to have a meal with, for a short time. But low blood and a low mind is going to come out, sooner or later, and I’m willing to bet you, acting is all the man can do. The weather bein’ what it is, we know he’s not took ship for England because
nobody’s
took ship for England. Which means he’s on his way to New York or Philadelphia, because that’s the only place he’ll find work, unless he’s set on livin’ off this Mrs. Cherne—whatever
her
real name is—that Mr. Sam said was payin’ Palmer’s bills at the Horn Spoon. The Sons’ll find him, m’am. Don’t you worry about that. There aren’t that many places an actor can be. And then you bet they’ll ask him who was the one who paid him to make sure Mr. Fenton wasn’t with his master when his master come home from Maine. And they’ll ask him so he’ll fall all over hisself to answer.”

Abigail knew Surry was right about that. Heaven only knew what the slave-woman—the sole remaining fragment, along with the house itself, of the patrimony that Old Deacon Adams had left his brilliant, scheming son—thought of the Sons of Liberty, in her heart.

Bess, when she came to the gate at the sound of Surry’s voice, understood Abigail’s excuse that she had to return home to begin dinner, for the older children would be home from school soon. “Sam has everything well in hand, dear,” declared Bess reassuringly, and pressed upon her a twist of paper containing a couple of spoonfuls of smuggled tea: “If you mix it with chamomile, you can get at least four pots from it.”

Sam has everything well in hand . . .
Abigail shivered, as she hastened her steps along Long Street, the sharp gales off the harbor whipping her cloak and turning her toes and fingers numb.

Except how to get Harry Knox out of the grip of the British. Except any assurance that, faced with the noose, the young bookseller wouldn’t turn King’s Evidence once he got to Halifax where the Sons of Liberty could not take their revenge. Harry, Abigail knew, was committed to the cause of colonial liberties and to the concept of the colony’s self-government, free of interference from the King’s Commissioners and the King’s bosom friends. He was committed, moreover, to the friendships that made up the heart and soul of any normal man: to Sam and Bess, to Dr. Warren, to Paul and Rachel Revere, to Robbie Newman at Old South, to herself and John. To the people he’d known in his home town of Boston all his life.

She knew also that once a man was hoisted on the gallows, it took twenty long minutes, dangling, kicking, at rope’s end, to suffocate to death.

She remembered how Revere had joked about breaking Matt Brown and Hev Miller out of the Boston jail; how her brother’s friends had gotten him out of the place almost casually, as if he’d been locked in a cupboard or a cellar. In Boston it was generally known that the King’s Commissioners couldn’t take a smuggler, because of the providential appearance of large numbers of armed dockside types—the chief reason that the Crown had begun to prosecute smugglers in Halifax.

Walking along Purchase Street, Abigail could look out across the bay and see the
Incitatus
, riding at anchor off Castle Island. Waiting for the wind to change.

“Mrs. Adams?”

A girl who was passing her as Abigail turned the corner into Queen Street halted on the pavement and put back the hood of her cloak. Under a neatly starched white cap, black curls flickered in the tug of the wind.

“I’m Mrs. Adams, yes.” Abigail wondered why the wide brown eyes, the heart-shaped face were so familiar . . .

“Miss Pugh,” she said.

“I’ve waited for you, m’am—Miss Pattie let me in—but I couldn’t wait no longer.” The girl cast a frightened glance back in the direction from which Abigail had come—the direction of the Common, and the handsome houses of the rich along Milk Street and Beacon Hill. “Mrs. Hartnell, she’ll be askin’ after me, and I don’t dare not be there—”

“I shall accompany you,” said Abigail promptly, “that you may lose no time. I’m sorry I was from home. Had I known—”

Gwen Pugh shook her head, “Oh, not your fault, m’am, no, please. I saw the chance, when Mrs. H was still abed, after being up all hours playing cards.” They crossed by the Customhouse and turned along Cornhill again, stepping quickly on the slippery cobbles. “I had to find you, and speak, m’am. I didn’t know Sheba well, but she was that kind to me, not just about the tooth-drawer but afterward, when I was in so much pain. And the way she spoke of her little girl, and how worried she was about her baby when she had to go out with Mrs. Sandhayes—” She shook her head. “Though she was a Negress and all, I did so much feel like I was home again, with my own sister and baby brother. And Mrs. H has been so very kind to me also, and took me in when I was barely a mite, when my mamma died, and didn’t know no manners or how to sew or iron, and had me taught . . .” Anguish at her own disloyalty pulled at the girl’s face. “But she lied to you.”