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“The Sunday before the young woman was missing,” recited the man, “I saw a young man sounding the Manhattan Well with a pole. I went up to him and asked him what he was about. He said he made the carpenter’s work, and that he wanted to know the depth of the water. He measured it in different places and found it five foot five inches, five foot eight inches, and six foot.”

Colden’s haggard face blazed with triumph. “How was this man dressed?”

“He had on a blue coatee, red jacket, blue breeches, and white stockings. I noticed the red jacket particularly.”

Brockholst looked down his impressive Roman nose. “How do we know that Levi Weeks owns such garments? Mr. Weeks is certainly wearing no such garment now. The man was unable to identify the prisoner’s face. Do we have evidence as to the contents of his wardrobe?”

Justice Lansing leaned forward. “Perhaps Mr. Ring might be recalled to speak to this point.”

“I’ve never seen him wear a red jacket,” Elias Ring said flatly. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. Elias Ring was a broken man. He didn’t even have the will to lie.

“Never?” Colden asked desperately. “Stretch your memory.”

“Never.”

Sitting on her bench in the front row, Catherine Ring’s lips were buttoned tight, as if she were trying to keep herself from crying out.

“Perhaps the witness was mistaken—or he might have kept the jacket at his brother’s—” Colden’s face sagged. “If the court please, we give up this point.”

Justice Lansing looked pointedly at the clock. The hands stood at a quarter to one in the morning. “If the prosecution has no further witnesses . . .”

“Your Honors, I beg the court to reconsider your ruling on the admission of the deceased’s statements,” Colden pleaded. “It is not that I question the judgment of this court, but only that the complexion of the case has changed: the defense has made it a point that the deceased was melancholy—and deranged! Surely, the words of the deceased, as well as how she appeared to others, should be given in evidence in such circumstances? Without that, how are we to arrive at the truth?”

Aaron stepped forward, but Justice Lansing forestalled him.

“We are to arrive at the truth with the testimony of the seventy-five living witnesses you have already seen fit to call,” said Justice Lansing drily. “You may spare us your eloquence, Colonel Burr. The court sees no reason to reconsider the point.”

“In that case . . .” Colden turned, casting his eyes desperately around the room, at the assembled spectators and witnesses. “The people call Ann Ashmore to the stand!”

Hamilton’s face lit up like a Roman candle.

Aaron regarded the assistant attorney general with disbelief. If the man had any sense, he would have abandoned the whole question of Croucher, left him as he was, nothing more than a scandalmonger. Like the red coat, it was a point he ought to drop. But Colden—Colden was swaying as he stood, his cravat untied, drunk with fatigue, in that state of exhaustion where it was very hard to think straight.

Not that Aaron had terribly much respect for his powers when fully rested.

Ann Ashmore nodded at Aaron as she made her way to the stand, a composed and credible witness. “On the twenty-second of December, being my little boy’s birthday, I invited some of my friends to come and sup with me, and among the rest, Mr. Croucher. This was between twelve and one o’clock. Accordingly, between four and five in the evening he came, and remained there until four or five minutes after eleven.”

“Could he have been absent twenty minutes during that time?”

“No, he was not,” said Ann Ashmore calmly.

Feverishly, Colden called the party guests, all four of them, but none could attest positively that the party had been before, rather than after, Christmas, only that it had been on a Sunday, and to celebrate the birthday of Ann Ashmore’s child.

Everyone in the courtroom was left with the impression that not only might the party have happened a week later, but even if it had occurred that Sunday, Croucher might have been traipsing through Lispenard’s Meadow, murdering maidens, and they’d still swear he was there. Some quantities of brandy, it seemed, had been consumed. In a celebratory way, of course.

Colden’s face had gone gray. He had made a mistake, and he knew it, but, in classic fashion, instead of doing what he ought to have done, and directing attention back to Levi, he redoubled his error and recalled Richard Croucher to the stand.

“How many times were you at Ring’s on Sunday evening of the twenty-second of December?” Colden was so hoarse, his voice came out as a croak.

“Three times, and the latest about three o’clock.”

“Did you ever publish the handbills about apparitions, murder, et cetera?”

“No, I never did, nor do I know who did. I was at Mrs. Wellham’s and I saw one there which I asked leave to bring to Ring’s, but I was not permitted and that is all I know of them or ever saw of them.”

Hamilton seized his moment. “Mr. Croucher! Did you pass by the Manhattan Well that night?”

“No! I only might have said I wished I had that I might have saved the girl’s life. . . . I was never near the well!”