Page 29

Despite John Byrne promising to ask his patrons, not a single other person had come forward yet with any credible word of the sleigh, although one not entirely sober person had told him he’d seen a sleigh bearing the Archangel Michael with a flaming sword. On recollection, though, the Archangel Michael’s sleigh had bells, the man had decided. What sort of madman drove a sleigh without bells?

“It was that night—the Sunday before Christmas. I was on my way home from meeting with my children—yes, Henry—and I had to pull them out of the way as the sleigh went past us. There were two men and a woman in the middle, all laughing very loud.”

“Two men and a woman, you say?”

“I saw them clear,” she said. “They were all talking and laughing very lively, particularly the woman.”

“What time was it?”

“A quarter past eight,” she said decidedly.

“Might it have been any later?” Cadwallader asked, but without much hope.

It was the wrong number of people in the sleigh and there wasn’t any way Levi could have got Elma to the stable and into the sleigh that quickly. They hadn’t left the Ring house until nearly a quarter past. It seemed strange there would be two sleighs without bells that night, but it was quite possible that this woman just hadn’t noticed the bells in the general din of the street.

The woman was firm on the point. “I know particular because I looked at the clock on the mantel as soon as we were inside—meeting ran long and I needed to get the children to their beds.”

Unless . . . A second man, waiting in the sleigh—holding the horses, harnessed and ready to go. All Levi would have to do would be to lead Elma out and into the sleigh, wherever it was waiting.

“Mr. Colden? Sir?”

Cadwallader bowed formally. “Mrs. Freeman, I can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been. You, as well, young man.”

The boy stuck out his tongue at him.

Cadwallader didn’t care. He could see the case unfolding before him. He had the why of it and now the how. Levi Weeks had courted Elma Sands; he had enjoyed her favors; he had lured her to the well under promise of marriage, spirited her off in his brother’s sleigh, and cruelly and foully murdered her.

Just one last question puzzled him. Who was the second man in the sleigh?

Chapter Nine

One day my master said to me, “You must not think it strange of my keeping Elma’s company—it is not for courtship nor dishonor, but only for conversation.” One night I pretended to be asleep, and the prisoner undressed himself, and came with the candle and looked to see if I was asleep or not. Supposing I was, he went downstairs in his shirt, and did not come back until morning.

—From the testimony of William Anderson, apprentice, at the trial of Levi Weeks

New York City

January 22, 1800

“It’s only to collect my master’s things.”

Catherine watched stony-faced as William Anderson sidled past her toward the stairs, the key that had been Levi’s clenched in his hand. He tripped on the bottom step and bumped against the wall, wincing as much with shame as with pain.

“Give it me,” said Caty shortly. “I’ll let thee in.”

Meekly, Levi’s apprentice followed her up the stairs to the room he had shared with Levi. No one had entered since Levi had been taken up by the constables nearly a month before. Levi’s spare shirt hung on a peg on the wall; his sketches littered a small table; and an untidy heap of blankets lay snarled on the pallet where his apprentice had slept.

“I—I am sorry,” the boy stammered. “About Elma—Miss Sands.”

“Take what thee came for.” If he was looking for exoneration, Caty wasn’t going to provide it.

She stood there, in the doorway, as the boy hastily gathered together Levi’s belongings: his clothes, his few books, his papers, the shaving kit that sat next to a basin and ewer still filled with weeks-old dirty water.

She’d have to clean that. She’d empty and scrub and re-let the room to someone else. But right now Caty could only stand there, consumed with emotions she couldn’t even begin to name as she watched Levi’s apprentice creep about, removing his things as though he’d never been there, never caused them this shame and grief.

“Did thee know?” The words tore out before she could stop them. “Did thee know what thy master and Elma planned?”

The boy paused, a clumsy pile clutched to his chest. “I—no. No, they never told me.”