“Not on the horse nor the chaise, m’am, given they was out in the rain all the night. But just lookin’ at the poor lady’s shoes, an’ at the hems of her petticoats, if you’ll excuse me mentionin’ such a thing, m’am, and her poor face, he says she wasn’t tidied up and laid on the bed by him what killed her, but by others, hours later, for what purpose God only knows.” He gave her a bow, and then—not to omit any sign of respect—saluted her as well, before excusing himself and hurrying off.

A caution indeed, Abigail reflected, reopening Pamela and taking a nibble of the regimental cook’s excellent cake. Wet hems and wet shoes meant she’d arrived in the rain, and the settling of the blood that Dr. Warren had spoken of told its own tale of how long she’d lain on her face before she was put on her back on the bed. Just because he knows someone tampered with the house doesn’t mean he knows who.

Was that why he suspected John? Because Rebecca would have admitted him to her house without question?

Try as she might to absorb herself into her favorite book—not, as Rebecca had described it, “the world’s longest shilly-shally,” but (Abigail had repeatedly pointed out to her) a serious look at how men and the world regarded a woman’s right to choose her own destiny—Abigail found her mind returning again and again to the riddle that lay before her, like a labyrinth plunged in darkness and reeking with the smell of blood.

It was close to two when John emerged at last from Colonel Leslie’s office—Abigail checked twice more at the door, as the hour had dragged on, to make sure she could still hear his voice—and he was escorted only by the subaltern who had shown him in. She would have given much to have been able to hear what Lieutenant Coldstone and Colonel Leslie had to say to one another in private, but even had John not worn the watchful look of one who isn’t certain he’ll actually be allowed to board the departing boat, she couldn’t think of an unobtrusive way of listening at the door.

“Damn Sam and his myrmidons,” said John softly, as they passed between the red-coated guards at the Castle’s gate and picked their way through the straggle of tents, boxes, and sheep pens toward the wharf. “Too many times they’ve run up against witnesses who’ll swear that one or another of the Sons of Liberty was elsewhere than where they know he was, or smugglers who’ll slip a man across the harbor at dead of night when the gates are closed.”

“That’s what they assume you did?”