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A week ago, a day ago, she’d have said Elma would never have sacrificed her virtue to Elias, and yet, apparently, she had. In the front room.

“How did her countenance appear?” asked Mr. Colden.

“It looked like a person who had been walking against the wind.” The man on the stand grimaced. “Her appearance was horrid enough—her hat and cap off, her hair hanging all over her head, her comb was yet hanging in her hair, tied with a white ribbon, her shawl was off, her gown was torn open with great violence, and her shoes were off.”

If there was one thing Hope knew of her cousin, it was that Elma would have fought back. She wouldn’t have gone gently. Unless her neck was broken before she could fight. It was impossible not to imagine the scene. The field, lit only by moonlight. Elma, struggling, trying to claw her attacker’s hands from her neck, her shoes coming off as he dragged her across the ground toward the well.

“I went to the police and then with the officer to find the prisoner.” Everyone turned to look at Levi. “I told him I was very sorry for his situation. I felt affected—I expressed it to him—he turned about and said, ‘Is it the Manhattan Well she was found in?’”

One of the jurymen spoke up. “Was there any mention made of the Manhattan Well in the presence of the prisoner before he asked the question?”

“I did not hear any. I don’t believe there was.”

Hope looked at Levi. They were all looking at Levi, the whole courtroom, everyone sick with the image of Elma, limp and broken like a discarded doll, her hair about her face.

He had come back at eight. There was no reason for him to come back at eight and then leave again so soon, unless he had come to fetch Elma.

Colonel Burr rose. “How long before the deceased was found was the muff retrieved?”

“Blanck told me his boy found it just around Christmas,” said the man on the stand.

“Objection!” protested Mr. Colden. “My learned colleagues have argued hotly against the admission of hearsay evidence.”

“That’s not hearsay, that’s common knowledge,” said Colonel Burr drily.

Was it? Hope couldn’t remember when she’d heard of the muff. It was New Year’s Day that someone paying a New Year’s call on Mrs. Blanck had recognized Beth’s muff, and the word had begun to spread that the muff Elma was carrying when she disappeared had been found.

But beyond that, Hope didn’t know.

“Your Honor,” said Mr. Colden, “I would like to call the owner of the muff to the stand. She can testify as to when it became commonly known that the muff she had entrusted to Elma Sands was discovered in the Manhattan Well.”

“Then do so, Mr. Colden,” said Justice Lansing.

“I had a slight acquaintance with Elma Sands.” Beth Osborn had always thought she was better than they were and never bothered to hide it. “On the twenty-second of December, I lent her my muff. She came to borrow it herself, and I observed that she was very neatly dressed and she seemed to be very lively and very happy.”

Mr. Colden pulled at his cravat, which was tied crookedly. “When was the muff brought home to you?”

“It was brought home the day that she was found, and it appeared as if it had been wet.” From the way Beth spoke, thought Hope, anyone would think the primary tragedy was that her muff had been doused, not that a woman had been killed.

Elma would find that hilarious. Elma had done a brilliant impression of Beth Osborn, sniffing and pursing her lips.

“Did you understand the muff was found in the well?” asked Mr. Livingston.

“I did,” said Beth, looking as though she smelled something unpleasant. Hope missed Elma so fiercely it was an ache in her chest.

“Did you also understand that it had been found considerably before it was brought home to you?”

“I only knew of it the morning it was brought home to me.”

Beth had known of it only that morning—but had Levi heard?

“It’s all tricks,” muttered Caty. Her face was strained with lack of sleep. Her fingers were curled into claws in her lap. “They’re only trying to confuse us. He knew it was in the Manhattan Well because he put her there.”

A day ago, Hope would have agreed, emphatically. But now she wasn’t quite so sure. She twisted on the bench, looking at Levi, at Caty, at Elias.

If Levi hadn’t killed Elma, then who had?

Chapter Twenty-Nine