A Dream of Daring Page 20

  “Sheriff,” said Dr. Clark, “this is a carving knife that bears Polly Barnwell’s initials and evidently came from her plantation. It appears to have the right dimensions to be the murder weapon, and I can do measurements to confirm that. And, Sheriff, I also see fabric particles on the knife that I believe can be matched to the decedent’s clothing.”

  With great consternation Dr. Clark reached up to the platform to hand the items to the sheriff. All eyes turned to Duran as he examined the knife and read the letter. He paused, silently weighing the matter as he studied the new evidence, the prisoner, and the gathering. Then he gave the items back to the coroner. The group studied their lawman for his response, searching for a break in his marble composure.

  “In view of the new evidence, this matter needs to be investigated further. The warrant will not be carried out.”

  The sheriff tried to maintain his even keel, but his relief at the change of events was evident in the sudden spark of life in his eyes and in the more spirited motions he used now than he had in his earlier preparations. He promptly removed the noose from Cooper’s neck and untied his hands.

  Cooper’s eyes lost their doomed stare. His face dropped into his hands in utter relief from his ordeal.

  “The guards will take the prisoner back to his cell,” said the sheriff. “I’ll take the letter and knife into evidence and get the sworn testimony of Mr. Edmunton and Dr. Clark. And I’ll notify the court and the governor.”

  The coroner gave the evidence to one of the guards. Another directed Cooper off the scaffold. As the prisoner was escorted back to the jail, he passed Tom, and the two men glared at each other.

  “You really were telling the truth, weren’t you?” Tom asked incredulously. “You really did arrive at the carriage house after the crime, didn’t you?”

  “Why is that so hard for you to understand?” replied Cooper. The deathlike stiffness of his body had relaxed, but his voice remained hardened with resentment for Tom.

  “You really were aiming to destroy my invention, weren’t you?”

  Cooper smiled contemptuously. “You fool! You don’t understand us at all, do you?”

  CHAPTER 16

  The stunned group in the courtyard watched Cooper being led back to jail.

  Tom smoothed his hair and wiped the dirt from his face and clothes, trying to temper his shocking appearance. He and Rachel looked at each other in silent greeting. His eyes held sorrow at her distress; hers seemed resentful, as if he were to blame.

  Stepping off the scaffold, the sheriff directed the crowd to leave but asked the coroner and several others to stay. Those he wanted to remain—Tom, Nash, Markham, and the Barnwell women—were the ones, aside from Cooper, who had knowledge of the invention and its whereabouts and who were at the Crossroads on the day of the murder.

  The sheriff’s probing eyes seemed to be searching for a person or clue among the people remaining that would indicate what new direction he must take on the crime.

  “Somebody killed Senator Barnwell. If it wasn’t Mr. Cooper, then who?” He began the discussion by stating the obvious. “Who left the knife at Manning Creek? And who wrote the letter?”

  The people in the group glanced suspiciously at one another.

  “It seems we have a murderer with a sudden pang of conscience who wrote a note at the last minute to prevent an innocent man from hanging for his crime,” the coroner added.

  “So what do we know?” The sheriff asked, throwing his questions out to the group, his eyes sweeping from one person to another to enlist a response and study their reactions. “Let’s take the knife. Where did it come from, and who took it?”

  Tom was cooling off, and his energy was returning. Now that the emergency had passed, he began pacing as he began analyzing. “The knife I found at the creek definitely came from the Crossroads.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Duran.

  “The monogram on that knife was on all the silverware at Polly Barnwell’s funeral reception. I saw carving knives on food platters that were going in and out of the kitchen that day that were identical to the knife I found this morning,” Tom replied.

  The sheriff turned to Markham. “You live there. What do you say?”

  “Miss Polly had a collection of carvin’ knives just like the one he brung here,” Markham affirmed.

  “The murderer could be someone who was intent on stealing the invention and who had Polly’s knife with him as a precaution,” Tom added. “If he met resistance in his thievery, he couldn’t shoot a gun, which would wake up the household, but he could use a knife to thwart anyone interfering with his scheme. If the weapon were found later, a knife from the plantation would throw suspicion on a person who was there and had access to it. That would be convenient for a culprit who no one thought was at the Crossroads when the crime was committed.”

  “But them knives are locked up at night,” said Markham.

  “Maybe someone had access to the knife earlier.” Tom stopped pacing, as if coming to a conclusion. “Someone who was seen in the . . . kitchen.”

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows and nodded subtly, as if he was coming to the same conclusion.

  “After the reception, someone was seen in the kitchen and indeed was thrown out of it by the senator. That person could have stolen the knife, left the plantation with the other guests, then returned with the weapon later to steal my invention.”

  Tom and Sheriff Duran both turned their heads to the same person: Nash. The others followed their glance.

  “Nonsense!” Nash scowled. “These wild fantasies are insulting! If this little affair is over, I have other things to do!”

  Nash bowed his head to the Barnwell women, taking leave of them, then walked indignantly toward his horse at the back of the yard.

  As he untied the horse from its post and was about to mount, an object on his saddlebag caught Tom’s attention. Shining in the late morning sun was a large ornament above the buckle on the flap of the leather pouch. Typical of the extravagance of its owner, the ornament was composed of gemstones and glittered like a large, showy brooch. The gemstones were aquamarine and gave off a flashy blue sparkle.

  “Wait! Just wait a minute!” cried Tom.

  He rushed toward Nash and examined the decorative bag that hung from the saddle. “Sheriff, this is the same blue stone that I reported seeing on the night of the murder! I told you about the stranger with a sack that I saw on my way to Markham’s cottage, and the shiny blue object that looked like jewelry flashing in the moonlight. The sack I saw was this saddlebag. And the shiny blue object I saw were these gemstones. They caught the moonlight and sparkled with the same blue color.”

  Rachel and her mother looked at each other, mortified.

  In a flash, the sheriff was toe-to-toe with Nash. “What about it, Mr. Nottingham?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Gemstones aren’t uncommon on bags and other accessories used by people with fine taste.” He turned to Tom, his voice low and hateful. “I don’t know what you saw that night, but I was home sleeping, as my mother told the sheriff.”

  “Your mother said she saw you when she went to bed and again at breakfast. That doesn’t include the middle of the night,” said Duran.

  “You lied to the sheriff, and you lied at the trial, under oath,” Tom charged. “You were at the Crossroads that night. It was you I saw. The shiny blue ornament was that one on your bag.”

  “Poppycock! That’s sheer poppycock!” Nash laughed dismissively.

  “You were just steps away from the murder scene that night, with this bag,” Tom continued. “You were seen in the kitchen arguing with Wiley Barnwell earlier. And you were one of only three men who knew what my invention was, where it was, that it wasn’t yet patented, and that it had the potential to make a fortune. The only other two men who knew these facts were the senator, who’s dead, and Cooper, who’s innocent.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Mr. Nottingham,” said
the coroner, moving close to the accused, joining the sheriff and Tom in cornering him, “I think you’d better explain.”

  “This humbug’s gone far enough. I’ve nothing more to say.”

  Nash reached for the reins of his horse, but Tom grabbed them first.

  “Mr. Nottingham, were you at the Crossroads Plantation on the night of the crime?” Duran pressed.

  “I never saw the senator. I never saw the invention. I never harmed anyone or anything.”

  “Were you there? Was it the blue ornament on your saddlebag that Mr. Edmunton saw that night?” Duran continued.

  Nash removed the bag from his horse. “There’s nothing suspicious in there. Look for yourself.” He offered the bag to the sheriff. “There’s no blood, no fabric, nothing that would tie me to the weapon or the crime.”

  The sheriff and coroner inspected the saddlebag, found nothing of interest, and gave it back to Nash.

  “Were you at the Crossroads that night?” Duran repeated.

  “There’s nothing in my bag, Sheriff.”

  “There’s nothing in it now,” interjected the coroner.

  “You have no evidence to accuse me of anything. I’m leaving.” Nash tried to grab the reins of his horse from Tom.

  “Not so fast.” The sheriff dropped an arm like a dead bolt in front of Nash’s chest to stop him. “Were you prowling around near the murder scene with that bag?”

  “I didn’t harm anyone.”

  “Were you there?”

  “Sheriff, I can explain—”

  “Answer the question.”

  Nash was trembling. He looked at Rachel and her mother with embarrassment. But then his eyes moved to other objects of more pressing concern. He looked with dread at the jail, and he looked with terror at the noose hanging from the scaffold.

  “Answer right now or face arrest!” Duran demanded.

  Nash closed his eyes.

  “Were you at the Crossroads on the night of the crime?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 17

  Duran led Nash and the others across the street to the courthouse to continue the meeting out of the sun. The group gathered around a table in the trial room where Ted Cooper’s guilty verdict had been issued, death sentence pronounced, and case closed. Now that case would be reopened. The group looked like unhappy members of a disgruntled family forced to interact at the dinner table.

  “I did not commit any crime!” insisted Nash.

  “At the very least, you committed perjury when you told us you spent the night at your house, and I can charge you with that,” said the sheriff, his eyes scouring the suspect. “What are you hiding?”

  The hot day added physical discomfort to the emotional stress of the occasion for the Barnwell women. Rachel sat fanning herself, her red curls swaying with the motion. The high collar of Charlotte’s mourning dress rubbed against her skin, forming red marks under her chin. The little burns seemed as abrasive to Charlotte’s skin as the events of the past three months had been to her nerves.

  Dr. Clark sat next to the women. Bret Markham sat opposite them, staring suspiciously at everyone. The guards standing off to the side added body heat to the room.

  Sheriff Duran, Nash, and Tom circled the table, too nervous to sit.

  “Sheriff, I assure you, I had nothing to do with the senator’s death,” said Nash.

  “Mr. Nottingham,” Duran replied, “you were in the kitchen at the Crossroads on the afternoon before the murder; that gives you access to the weapon. You knew about the invention, and you were seen arguing with Senator Barnwell; that gives you motive. And contrary to your sworn testimony, you went back to the property during the night; that gives you opportunity. If you have any explanation, now’s the time to share it.”

  Sweat formed a dark ring around Nash’s white collar. His grand airs now gone, he nervously wiped his face, sighed in resignation, and sank into a chair to begin his story.

  “That night, after my mother went to sleep, I quietly left my house and rode back to the Crossroads.”

  “Now, why would you do that?” asked the sheriff.

  “I was miffed at the audacity of a man who had left our town as a youngster, never kept in touch with any of us, lived among our adversaries, and then came back to upset us.” Nash brooded. “To understand why I went back to the Crossroads, you have to understand what weighed on my mind. And to understand that, you have to know something about the peculiarities of Tom Edmunton.”

  Tom quietly took Nash’s complaint.

  “Tom’s thinking has been twisted from living so long in the North. He doesn’t understand us and our ways. To my vexation, he doesn’t care to know how his father managed our local bank and showed more patience with his customers. Yes, Tom’s coldhearted way of banking peeved me. But that wasn’t all.”

  Nash pointed an accusing finger at his banker.

  “Anyone who’s ever been to his plantation can see how unseemly he is. I tell you, his slaves take outrageous liberties. One of them drinks Tom’s liquor and has the run of the house as if he were the owner.” The thought made Nash’s voice shrill. “And you should hear the way Tom talks to his servants, so polite-like. Well, of course he can’t control them. When I was there a while ago, the house was in disarray, the stable was in shambles, and there was no servant around to show me in. But there’s something even worse.” He leaned across the table and whispered to the others, as if revealing a shocking secret. “His slaves aren’t allowed to call him master.”

  Nash paused to allow his audience to absorb his words.

  “It’s a scandal, I tell you!” He turned to Duran. “How do you suppose I felt when this outsider reappeared in our town to steal my woman and meddle in our business with his wild schemes?”

  Rachel, flustered, admonished Nash. “I trust you’ll mind your manners and not be discussing my personal affairs.”

  “He chose his machines over you,” replied Nash. “He chose his Yankee life in Philadelphia over you. He came back only through the sheer accident of his father’s death, not for you.” Then he turned to the sheriff. “And the senator encouraged his courtship of her over mine!” The thought evoked a visceral anger in Nash.

  “Really, now! How very rude of you to say all this!” said an embarrassed Charlotte.

  “I regret that I’m forced to explain myself here. But please know that I was thinking only of Rachel’s good, Mrs. Barnwell. I was thinking that you could keep Rachel near you if she would accept my fervid wish to be her humble servant. I so wanted the senator to see that.” He bowed his head to Charlotte. “Why, I feared that with Tom more interested in scientific oddities than in being a proper match for your daughter, he could get homesick for the North and up and take Rachel away with him. Would you want your grandchildren brought up as Yankees?” He pleaded.

  “Sheriff, I think this discussion has gone far enough!” said Charlotte.

  Duran looked sympathetic but firm. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Barnwell. I would like you and your daughter to be close by, in case I need to question you. But if you’d rather wait outside . . .”

  The women looked at each other, coming to a silent conclusion. Charlotte spoke for them, her voice sharp with irritation. “We’ll stay, Sheriff. That way we’ll know what’s being said about our family, so we can defend our good name, if it comes to that!”

  The sheriff looked puzzled by Charlotte’s need to defend her name. “You and your family are not on trial, ma’am,” he assured her, then turned back to Nash. “You were telling us your state of mind, Mr. Nottingham?”

  “What could my state of mind be, Sheriff, after Tom told us he had a new invention that would turn our lives topsy-turvy? It looks like Cooper’s story about wanting to put a stop to that contraption was true. I’m not surprised,” he said, his voice heavy with resentment. “I had those very same thoughts too.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Duran.

  “After Tom told us his grand plan to transform our liv
es, I went home that night with his words festering in my mind. While I was with him that afternoon, I pretended to be amused. After all, he’s my banker, and I needed a little time on my loan. But I was disturbed by a ruthlessness in him that, well, reminded me of the Yankees in their sheer arrogance. Nowadays, no one can deny they’re hell-bent on destroying us. Like those scoundrels, Tom spoke about a future that dismantled everything we hold dear for a world of machines, factories, and slaves running amuck. I tell you, Sheriff, he riled me good!”

  Tom listened, his face questioning but his voice remaining silent.

  “Tom spoke their language, not ours. I wanted to push him back, to wipe him out, to get what was mine.”

  “So what did you do?” asked the sheriff.

  “I rode to the Crossroads that night and left my horse in the bushes. I walked out to a patch of soil in the slaves’ garden that had been turned for planting. I brought my saddlebag with me and bent down to gather some of the loose soil in it.”

  “Whatever for?” asked the sheriff.

  The others sat quietly. The coroner was absorbed in the tale, the Barnwell women looked wary, and Markham’s eyes darted around the room suspiciously.

  “That afternoon, Tom had shown us where the fuel was kept on his confounded machine. There were two tanks: for gasoline and kerosene. I was fixing to pour the soil into those tanks so the engine wouldn’t work.” Nash smiled sardonically. “I figured that when Tom tried to demonstrate the device at his big meeting in Philadelphia and the darn thing wouldn’t move, he’d be the laughingstock of the place. I reckoned his hopes would be shattered, and he’d come back a defeated man.” Nash’s face livened at the prospect. “Then Rachel and the senator would see him in a different light . . .”—he grinned—“as a fanatic . . . a dreamer . . . thwarted in his wild quest. Then the senator would look elsewhere to secure his daughter’s future.”

  He exchanged hostile looks with Tom.

  “You see, Sheriff, I didn’t covet that contraption. I didn’t want to steal it and make money off it. I wanted to destroy it.”