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Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

“Well, the next time someone’s murdered in the house of one of the Sons of Liberty,” retorted Sam, “we’ll have John talk to the Watch . . . if he deigns to be in town for the occasion. In the meantime, when you were here this morning, you didn’t happen to see a brown ledger, about so big—” His hands sketched a quarto-sized rectangle, about half the size of the green-backed household ledger that still lay on the corner of Rebecca’s desk. “It would have ‘House hold Expenses’ written on the cover.”

“And I collect,” said Abigail, “it does not contain anything to do with the cost of candles and flour?”

There was another silence, as the men looked at one another. Then Sam nodded toward the niche as Paul fiddled shut its catch, and his heavy jaw set hard. “The rest of the papers in there had mostly to do with Rebecca’s pamphle teering, and her sources of gossip within the British camp. But the brown ledger held the names of our men in the British camp—and the ciphers we use to communicate with them and with the Committees of Correspondence in Virginia and elsewhere. If those fall into the British commander’s hands, we’re all going to be in a great deal of trouble.”

Four

Four

005

“ orHeaven’s sake, woman, don’t march out of here as if you were leading a troop of dragoons!”

Half past nine striking from Old South Meeting-House. Abigail—who had simply put her head out the rear door to ascertain whether Queenie was in the Tillet kitchen—could see no sign of activity in the house, but the sounds of passing footsteps, of sailors shouting to one another in Fish Street, of peddlers and stevedores along the wharves, came clearly to her. She drew back inside, where Sam, Revere, and Dr. Warren clustered nervously behind her.

“Give me the count of three hundred. That should give me time to go around to the shop, and ask the boys if Queenie or that scullery girl is there, and draw them out of the back of the house. You can empty the water and the rags into the outhouse as you go out, and I’ll keep them talking for a while, before we come back here and find the body. I’ll try to have Queenie with me when I—”

“No!” Sam’s big hand flinched in a shushing gesture. “We go to Hazlitt’s first. Then we call the Watch.”

“ ou really think that mother of his would have let Mrs. Malvern through the door?” Revere asked, a few minutes later, as the four of them made their way along Middle Street trying to look like people out pursuing their lawful business.