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There was a pause. “No.”

General Hamilton pushed past Colonel Burr. “What materials is the partition made of between Watkins’s house and yours?”

Elias blinked. “It is a plank partition, lathed and plastered.”

“Is Mr. Watkins a clever man and a good neighbor?”

“Yes, he is.”

Colonel Burr gently eased past General Hamilton. “Do you remember how Elma appeared on the twenty-second of December?”

Elias’s chin stuck out pugnaciously. “She was as cheerful and gay as I ever saw her.”

“Pray tell what you remember particularly about that day.”

Elias expanded under Colonel Burr’s regard. “On the twenty-second of December, I had been to meeting in the afternoon.” Once everyone had sufficiently admired his piety, Elias went on, “I returned and found Elma dressing and my wife helping her in dressing. About eight o’clock, Elma went out. I saw her go out of the room, and I heard the front door open and shut about three or four minutes after. My wife took the candle and was gone about two minutes.”

“Did you hear her go upstairs?” inquired Colonel Burr as if it were a matter of only idle interest.

“I am not certain that I heard anybody go upstairs,” said Elias dismissively. “When my wife returned, I asked, ‘Who went out?’ She said Elma and Levi. I answered that it was wrong, Elma would get sick. She replied”—Elias gave Caty another resentful look—“he will be more careful of her than I would be.”

Hope could have shaken him.

“Did Mr. Weeks return that night?”

Elias made clear what he thought of this “Mr. Weeks” business. “About ten o’clock Levi came in. He asked if Hope had got home.”

It was foolish, but that still gave Hope a strange feeling in her stomach, every time. She felt exposed, raw, even though she knew Levi had only been using her as a cloak for his real actions, and not genuinely concerned about her whereabouts.

“He asked, ‘Is Elma gone to bed?’ My wife answered, ‘No, she is gone out.’ He observed it was strange she should go out so late and alone.”

A shaft of afternoon sunlight lit General Hamilton’s hair, making him glow like flame. “Have you not threatened the prisoner at some time since this affair began?”

Elias gaped at him. His mouth opened and closed, frog-like. “I never threatened him—that I know of,” he sputtered.

He’d threatened to shoot Levi. Hope had heard him. So, apparently, had many other people. Maybe, thought Hope angrily, if he’d spent less time drinking at the tavern and more time at home helping Caty, he wouldn’t have been so loose with his words. Or so foolish as to try to lie about them!

Elias twisted like an animal in a trap. “I had a conversation with him! In which he asked me if I had not said certain things about him, respecting Elma being missing.”

“A conversation?” repeated General Hamilton, his voice ripe with disbelief.

“It was he threatened me!” Elias protested shrilly. “He said if I told such things of him he would tell of me and Croucher!”

Chapter Twenty-Four

And here I observe, before I enter upon the evidence on either side, that it is not my intention to give even a detail of all the different testimonies. Many of them appeared to have no sort of connection with the point in question.

—An Impartial Account of the Trial of Mr. Levi Weeks for the Supposed Murder of Miss Julianna Elmore Sands, by James Hardie, A.M.

New York City

March 31, 1800

A surge of elation rushed through Alexander.

First Ring’s attempt to interfere with his wife’s testimony and now this—what further proof did they need that Ring was guilty?

Colden quickly jumped in, trying to direct attention back to Levi. “Did you not tell the prisoner at the bar you believed him guilty? How did he appear?”