Page 12 of The Girl from Greenwich Street
Mr. Williams testified that at the request of the Attorney-General, he had made an experiment in what time a man might drive a horse the most usual route from Ring’s to the Manhattan Well, and from there back again to Ezra Weeks’s down Barley-street, and that although the roads were bad, he performed it once in 15 minutes and once in 16, without going out of a trot.
—From Coleman’s report of the trial of Levi Weeks
New York City
February 24, 1800
Cadwallader pulled out his watch as the sleigh jingled to a stop just a few yards away from Ezra Weeks’s property.
John Williams, from the livery stable, stood up in the seat, shouting, “The time?”
“Fifteen minutes!”
Cadwallader called back, and a cheer went up from the motley crowd of onlookers who had somehow assembled as John Williams and Sylvester Buskirk had raced a sleigh—as close in kind to Ezra Weeks’s as Cadwallader could find, pulled by a horse of similar power—from the Ring boardinghouse to the Manhattan Well to Ezra Weeks’s lumber yard.
He felt a moment of misgiving that this experiment had become so public. He knew it had always been a risk running it right under Weeks’s nose and had deliberately picked a day when he knew Weeks and his crew to be at James Cummings’s house. It had never occurred to him that the sight of a sleigh pounding ventre à terre down Barley Street, not once, but three times, might eventually draw a crowd. Some even clutched hot cups of mulled wine. Vendors had followed the sounds of excitement, turning Cadwallader’s sleigh trials into an impromptu public outing.
But he had the results he needed.
“Told you I could go it in under fifteen minutes,”
said John Williams smugly, jumping down from the sleigh and handing the reins to his colleague.
It was technically at fifteen minutes, not under, but Cadwallader wasn’t going to deny him his triumph.
In the crowd, money was changing hands. High-spirited young lads would bet on anything, thought Cadwallader indulgently. When he was a boy at school in England, he had once bet a quarter’s allowance on who could hop first on one foot three times around the classroom. It had seemed a perfectly reasonable venture at the time.
Was that Hamilton’s nephew there, clapping his friend on the arm? Cadwallader hoped not. Not that he had any hope of keeping this secret—he wasn’t sure why he had thought he could—but he had felt more comfortable with the idea that he could gather his evidence quietly while they were all occupied elsewhere.
General Hamilton had returned to the city a week ago now—Cadwallader knew because Maria had taken tea with Mrs. Hamilton—but as far as anyone could tell had been utterly preoccupied with his work for the army, a state of affairs that suited Cadwallader perfectly.
Not that it mattered what he or any of the lawyers for the defense did or discovered; Levi Weeks had done it and Cadwallader could prove it.
Cadwallader forced his attention back to Williams, who was justifiably waiting for praise. “And not out of a trot?”
“I might have given her her head a bit on that straight stretch . . . but no. Not out of a trot. Not for more’n a moment, anyway.”
Williams gave the horse an affectionate scratch behind the ears. “She’s a good ’un, she is.”
Cadwallader lowered his voice so the gathered onlookers couldn’t hear. “Could Ezra Weeks’s horse do the same?”
Sylvester thought on it for a moment. “He stood in my stable for sale this past month—I think he could.”
Cadwallader felt a glow of satisfaction. They had him. The jury had to see how suspicious it was how quickly Ezra Weeks had taken steps to extract the horse from his own stable. It was only surprising Weeks hadn’t also found a way to quietly remove the sleigh.
Cadwallader pressed a coin first into Williams’s hand, then Sylvester’s. “My thanks to you both. You’ve been of more assistance than you can know.”
“Shall we give you a ride home, sir?”
“Why not?”
said Cadwallader giddily. He felt like a Roman emperor being borne through the streets in a triumph, only somewhat more comprehensively clothed.
They’d done it. They’d proved, conclusively, that even on a bad road, the trip could be undertaken between the time Levi was known to have left the Ring boardinghouse and the time he supposedly returned to the Weeks kitchen.
Of course, the defense was sure to argue that it had been night; one could drive faster by day; the horse was sturdier; whatever they could say to discredit the results, but he, thought Cadwallader proudly, was prepared for them.
There’d been a moon that night, making it easier to see. Any delay from the dark would be more than discounted by the comparative lack of traffic on the road. He’d even made sure to have a second man in the sleigh to more closely approximate the weight the horse would have been pulling that night.
He still hadn’t any idea who the second man in the sleigh might be. William Anderson, Levi’s apprentice? Demas Meed, Ezra Weeks’s apprentice, who had charge of the sleigh? Ezra himself? No, Ezra’s time was accounted for by the McCombs, and McComb was a man of stature, not the sort who might be easily bribed or shaken.
Pleasantly occupied in these musings, Cadwallader bade farewell to Sylvester Buskirk and John Williams and bounded up the steps to his own door, bursting to tell Maria his triumph. Happily unloading his cloak, gloves, and hat on a waiting servant, he burst into the parlor, only to be stopped short by the sight of his brother-in-law, perfectly turned out in the latest sort of frock coat and a pair of very well-tailored breeches, building houses out of books with David. Cadwallader recognized Blackstone’s Commentaries, now turned building block.
“Ah, Cadwallader.”
Josiah rose effortlessly to his feet. The edifice of legal thought collapsed and David set up a wail of disappointment.
“I’ll take him out,”
said Maria. There was a set to her mouth that made Cadwallader very nervous.
Indeed, there was something in the way that Josiah looked at him that made Cadwallader’s mouth go dry and his palms go damp. He was very aware that he was covered in the dust and grime of three sleigh trials and ought perhaps to have washed his hands and face before presenting himself in the parlor. Had he remembered to scrape his boots at the door? Cadwallader wasn’t quite sure.
He wished Josiah didn’t always make him feel such a hulking oaf. It hadn’t been so bad when he had been in his twenties, just home from his studies in England, but he was past thirty now, and might have reasonably expected to pick up some of the polish and poise his brother-in-law carried so effortlessly.
Of course, he couldn’t help his face. The square face and crooked nose that had looked so distinguished on his grandfather, the famous colonial governor, only made Cadwallader look more like an unsuccessful pugilist than a distinguished member of the bar.
Cadwallader had never quite understood why Maria had agreed to marry him. He was beginning to fear that Maria didn’t either.
Josiah shook out a paper that was lying on Maria’s tea table. “Have you seen today’s Commercial Advertiser?”
“Not yet.”
Cadwallader felt a growing sense of unease. Josiah didn’t usually call to discuss the day’s news. He was also wearing an expression that fell somewhere between pity and exasperation.
Wordlessly, Josiah handed the paper to Cadwallader.
PASTANO PARDONED
A dozen images darted through Cadwallader’s mind. Pastano, on the stand, pouring forth a flood of rapid Portuguese, Rabbi Seixas patiently translating. The corpse of Mary Ann De Castro, cruelly stabbed again and again. Brockholst Livingston, looking down the length of that impressive Roman nose, forbearing to offer any defense—because Pastano was guilty, because they all knew he was guilty, no one could deny he was guilty.
“He was guilty. He was indisputably guilty. He was discovered in the act of stabbing his landlady in the neck. With a knife!”
“It is an instrument generally used for stabbing,”
said Josiah drily.
“Mr. Livingston didn’t dispute his guilt. He didn’t dispute any of it. The jury declared him guilty. He was guilty.”
“No,”
said Josiah wearily. “Brockholst wouldn’t waste time disputing the indisputable. But you left his argument undisputed, and that’s how he caught you.”
What argument? Cadwallader didn’t remember him making much of one. There had been various witnesses to Pastano’s character—although what they hoped to prove given that the man had been caught in the act of stabbing his landlady Cadwallader wasn’t quite sure—but all they said was that the man had behaved oddly.
Josiah retrieved the paper and folded it under his arm. “Brockholst made a convincing case that the balance of his mind was disturbed, a case you made no effort to refute.”
“It was immaterial,”
said Cadwallader blankly. “Insanity offers no immunity from a charge of murder. It was his hand that committed the crime regardless of whatever was within his disordered brain.”
Josiah’s mouth twisted. “The legislature feels otherwise. They see him as a proper object of mercy. Based on the undisputed fact that the balance of his mind was disturbed, the legislature has passed the pardon and the governor has signed it.”
The governor was Brockholst Livingston’s brother-in-law John Jay. Not that Cadwallader could throw stones, given that he owed his present position to his brother-in-law, but it rankled a bit all the same.
Cadwallader felt vaguely sick. He sat down heavily on one of Maria’s too dainty chairs, ignoring the ominous cracking sound it made. “Do you think—do you think that this was Mr. Livingston’s strategy all along?”
“Given the line he took at trial and the fact that he made no effort to argue for his client’s innocence—yes,”
said Josiah drily. “He had this determined before the jury sat.”
Cadwallader stared at the mud on his boots, feeling as though he’d been boxing and someone had landed a punch straight to his stomach. Or possibly lower. Pastano had been his one success since taking up the role of assistant attorney general, the one conviction he could point to. And now it was gone, signed away by an act of legislature because Brockholst Livingston had played a long game and Cadwallader hadn’t spotted it.
“I don’t need to tell you,”
said Josiah, although apparently he did feel the need to tell him, thought Cadwallader despairingly, since he was doing it, “how important it is that we achieve the conviction of Levi Weeks. Ah, thank you, my dear.”
Maria had returned without David, but with a maid bearing a tea tray. The maid set it down upon the table, on the spot where that damnable newspaper had lain. Maria busied herself with the important act of preparing the tea.
Cadwallader grasped after some of the euphoria he had been feeling a mere quarter of an hour ago. “I ran a sleigh trial today,”
he said incoherently. “From the Ring boardinghouse to the Manhattan Well and back to Ezra Weeks’s lumber yard. I can prove that Levi Weeks had access to just such a horse and sleigh—that the horse and sleigh were seen the night of the murder—and that Levi Weeks could have accomplished it in the time allotted.”
“With surety?”
asked Josiah. “If one link in the chain were to come undone . . .”
“I can prove every one.”
And so he could. But he had proved each step in the Pastano case too, and look what had become of that.
“Thank you.”
Josiah accepted a cup of tea from Maria. “New York is looking to us to bring this girl’s family justice. The entire country is looking to us.”
“I know,”
said Cadwallader hoarsely. Maria handed him a cup and he took a large gulp, scalding the back of his throat and making himself cough.
His brother-in-law looked at him doubtfully. “All of them seek to use the courtroom as a theater in which they can display their skills in advance of the election.”
No need to say which election; it was the April New York elections which consumed everyone. “If they cannot sharpen their wits on each other, they will whet them instead on you.”
The burned skin on the top of Cadwallader’s mouth prickled. “Sir, I cannot try to match them in skill or eloquence, but I believe we have justice on our side. I know we have justice on our side.”
His brother-in-law delicately sipped his tea. “Brockholst will try to unnerve you.”
“He already has,”
muttered Cadwallader.
“Burr will skewer you on points of law—and Alexander will talk in circles until you’re half-distracted,”
Josiah added fondly.
Josiah and General Hamilton were old friends, of such close association that five years ago, General Hamilton had nearly fought a duel as a consequence of coming to Josiah’s aid against one Commodore Nicholson.
“We can’t afford to show them any weakness in our argument.”
“No, certainly not.”
Cadwallader felt like David without a slingshot, or Hercules facing down the Nemean lion without his club. Or his strength.
Josiah looked at him keenly. “Is there anything to this story the girl might have taken her own life?”
“No.”
On this, at least, Cadwallader was able to speak with conviction. He could feel Maria’s eyes on him, judging him. “There was no history of melancholy. Miss Sands fell ill in early December with a”—he tried to remember exactly what Catherine Ring had told him—“with an acute disorder of the stomach. Cramping and such. She was given laudanum for the pain.”
“Was she known to take it with more frequency than her illness would warrant?”
“As far as I can gather, she was only known to have spoken of taking it the once,”
said Cadwallader. “And it was really by nature of a jest.”
“A jest?”
“She was a high-spirited girl. I can find a dozen people who will attest to that. The defense is only seizing on the idea of suicide because they have nothing else to offer. But we have people who swear they heard cries of murder from the well at somewhere between eight and nine on that night. No one planning to make away with herself cries murder.”
“One would assume not.”
“The case couldn’t be more clear,”
said Cadwallader firmly. He resisted the urge to sneak a glance at Maria to see if she was impressed. “Another boarder saw Levi Weeks and Elma Sands engaged in illicit relations as early as September. The whole family attests to his attentions to Elma. During her illness early in December he personally tended to her—he wouldn’t allow even her own cousin to take his place by her side.”
“But she wasn’t with child?”
“No.”
That would have made the case against Levi stronger. “But he did promise her marriage. She told her cousin Hope Sands that they were to leave to be married at eight on that Sunday night. A little after eight, Levi returned to the boardinghouse and collected her. That night, a sleigh was seen running without lights or bells and”—Cadwallader finished triumphantly—“a neighbor can testify that she saw the sleigh leaving Ezra Weeks’s yard just about eight, returning not long after.”
“Just be sure you have the evidence to prove what you claim,”
Josiah warned, setting down his cup as he rose from his chair.
“If I have to, I’ll interview every man in the city,”
declared Cadwallader recklessly, as he showed his brother-in-law back out into the frosty day.
When he returned to his own hearth, Maria was standing by the tea table, her mouth pinched into a thin line, staring at him over her new silver teapot.
“Every man in the city,”
she said. There was a fine, sharp edge to her voice.
“And women too.”
Cadwallader was not sure how he’d upset her, only that he had. That seemed to happen a great deal these days.
“Elma Sands’s illness—what do you think it was?”
It was nice that Maria was taking an interest in the case. It had been so long since they had shared anything. “Who can tell with these disorders of the stomach?”
Cadwallader said expansively. “The doctor said it came on suddenly. He wasn’t called until several days later, which makes it harder for him to tell. But it’s not really relevant, except insomuch as it explains the laudanum.”
Maria stared at him as though she had just seen something unpleasant crawling out of his cravat. Cadwallader reflexively smoothed down his hair. “You told Josiah she was seen in an indelicate situation with Levi Weeks in September. In December she had an illness that involved ‘cramping and such.’”
“Yes?”
Cadwallader had no idea what she was getting at.
Maria closed her eyes tightly. “We’ve suffered five disappointments, Cadwallader. Five. We’ve had five disappointments and you don’t even recognize the signs?”
“But—she wasn’t with child. The doctors examined her insides.”
Maria breathed in deeply through her nose, staring at the fine plasterwork of the ceiling. “Just because she wasn’t with child at the time doesn’t mean she hadn’t lost a child. I’m not with child, am I? And I’ve lost and lost and lost.”
“Maria—”
Cadwallader reached out a tentative hand to her. “We’ll have another.”
Maria flinched away, her skirts swirling with her. “Will we? You say that, but you’re not the one who has suffered acute disorder of the stomach. Five times!”
In the face of her grief and rage, Cadwallader had no idea what to say, so he ventured the first thing that came to mind. “You think Elma Sands lost Levi Weeks’s child?”
Maria slammed the door so emphatically behind her that the teacups rattled in their fashionably shallow saucers.
Cadwallader sank down into the chair vacated by his brother-in-law and absentmindedly helped himself to the rest of his tea, now stone-cold and exceedingly bitter.
If he went after Maria she’d only pretend nothing had happened; she didn’t like to display excessive emotion. He didn’t know that he could bear her mouthing polite nothings to him with a face like a marble mask.
Just because she wasn’t with child doesn’t mean she hadn’t lost a child.
He’d never considered the possibility that Elma Sands might have lost Levi Weeks’s child, that her illness—her cramps of the stomach—might have been anything other than the sort of disorder anyone might suffer.
You don’t even recognize the signs, Maria had accused him. And he ought to have. Now that she’d said it, it seemed so plain. Catherine Ring’s refusal to send for the doctor until the danger was past. Levi Weeks’s attentiveness during Elma’s illness—his refusal to allow anyone else, even her cousin Hope, to nurse her.
Had he hoped she would die then and free him from his embarrassments? Had he given her something to induce her to lose the child?
Cadwallader realized that he’d been holding the teapot over the cup for several seconds and nothing was coming out, although he appeared to have managed to dribble the last dregs down his leg. He scrubbed absently at the stain on his fawn-colored breeches, thinking hard.
There was no way he could prove any of it. Not unless Catherine Ring was willing to testify that Elma had been with child—and, from what he’d seen of her, he doubted she would admit it, even if she’d known. She must have known.
But what it told him was that Levi Weeks was even more of a cad than he’d previously imagined.
Was it once she’d lost his child that he’d promised to marry Elma—and began planning her murder?
Cadwallader extracted himself from the too small chair. It was time to forge the links of the unbreakable chain of evidence with which he would see Levi Weeks hang.
But first he needed to find some breeches without tea stains on them.