Shadow of Dawn (35 page)

“Actually there were two people. One was the
wife of someone on President Davis’s staff. She copied it from her
husband’s papers…he knew nothing of her activities. She was born in
the North and moved here after her marriage. She confessed
everything when we confronted her. She hates the South, says she’s
never been accepted here. She in

turn passed the information to someone in
this room, who then passed it on to Bart.”

All but a few heads jerked in surprise.
Martin sat down heavily in a chair. Miranda, still clutching her
tangled knitting, pressed close to Sallie, who ignored her.

Mrs. Shirley spoke for the first time,
drawing all eyes to her long face with its habitually grim
expression. “When Major Pierce discovered the truth about Mr.
Kelly’s involvement, after he had been traced to the rental house,
we knew there had to be at least one other person acting as a
contact between Kelly and Ingram.

“Major Pierce already had suspicions about
this officer’s wife, though she seemed to have no connection with
Ingram. When it became obvious that she had to be the source, Major
Pierce confronted her. We learned that she passed along the
information to someone else during the meetings of a ladies’ sewing
circle. She was not a member of the circle…she used a servant.”

The cold eyes moved to the prisoner. “An
almost-ingenious operation, Mr. Kelly. You could sit back and tell
your people what to do with practically no risk to yourself, since
almost none of them knew your identity. But the first rule in
espionage is to involve as few people as possible. You had too many
contacts and too many couriers, some of whom were not very clever.
Of course, we would have found out almost immediately, but the
woman gladly gave us the name of the member of the sewing circle to
whom she gave the reports.”

After a moment Sallie sobbed and put her
hands over her eyes. “I didn’t know! They tricked me! Bart tricked
me! I thought I was giving information to help the Confederacy, not
harm it!” No one said anything. Miranda moved discreetly away from
Sallie.

Sallie looked up and cried fiercely, “You
don’t believe me! I tell you it’s the truth!”

Martin gave a heavy sigh. “Sallie, this has
been hellish for me. I knew something was going on, for months now.
I overheard you and Bart talking. I thought you were both traitors.
Yet I couldn’t prove anything, and I certainly didn’t know how to
question you without seeming to accuse you.”

“Oh, Martin, I’m not like Bart!”

“And then after Bart was murdered—I didn’t
know what to do. I wondered if whoever killed him would come after
you next. And there were times, heaven help me, when I thought
maybe you had quarreled with him and shot him yourself.”

“I didn’t know what was going on! You must
believe me!”

Catherine said unexpectedly, “I believe you.”
Everyone looked at her. She said, “Uncle Martin, you have only her
word. She can’t prove to you what she thought, but Bart tried to
trick me, too. I don’t think Sallie would willingly betray the
South.”

Martin stared at his niece for a moment, then
he stood up and reached out for Sallie. She pressed her face into
his shoulder.

“This is all very touching,” said Andrew.
“But I’m the one who is being vilified. Major Pierce is saying all
this to discredit me, to cover up his own foul deeds.”

“If you’ll be patient, Kelly, I’m not
finished vilifying you. Or should I say, exposing you for the
villain you are.” Clayton’s voice was hard with suppressed anger.
“Not only are you guilty of treason, you plotted with the other
members of the group to assassinate General Lee. Your man in the
North offered a substantial reward. You’ve been looking for a
marksman, again through correspondence. A mercenary. We intercepted
some of your letters. Your handwriting will be easy to
identify.”

For the first time, Andrew went pale. “Lies!
You can’t—”

Clayton cut him off. “Your meeting at the
house in the woods had two purposes: to plan the assassination and
to get rid of a troublemaker. The two other men present had already
seen your face. Bart never had. He had no idea the man living in
his sister’s house was the leader of his own group of traitors. He
really thought you were just Andrew Kelly, back from a Yankee
prison.”

He glanced with concern at Catherine’s
shocked face but went on ruthlessly. “You are not Andrew Kelly. You
are his brother, John. You’ve been lying low, due to an incident on
a riverboat where you were caught cheating at cards and were nearly
killed. You were contacted by the man in the North. You made your
own contacts and found Bart Ingram…a man with few or no
convictions, who wanted money. You set up the spy ring.

“Somehow you found out that Andrew had been
shot for desertion, even though his death had not been reported for
various reasons. You had access to all sorts of information, thanks
to your shady friends. You knew that Bart lived in the same house
with Andrew’s wife. Perhaps Andrew had even recommended Bart to
you…your brother’s involvement is unclear but it doesn’t matter
now. You became dissatisfied with Bart. He made mistakes. You
wanted to watch him. So you decided to assume your brother’s
identity.”

Miranda gasped. Martin made some sort of
exclamation.

The prisoner’s face had gone from white to
red. “You are a liar, sir! Why don’t you tell about your own
treachery!” His eyes went around the room. “He is the man in black,
the man who pretended to be me! He is the spy! He took my wife into
his bed!”

“She’s my wife,” Clayton said, so quietly
that his gaping listeners did not at first grasp his words. Then
they turned as one to stare at Catherine.

“What?” said Martin. “What is this?”

Clayton thought for a moment and replied, “I
did pose as Andrew Kelly. I’m a spy, or was. A Confederate spy. My
purpose was to stop Bart from getting out information and to find
out who his leader was. Catherine discovered my identity quite by
accident.”

He looked at her again and said, “I love her.
We were married in January.”

Martin and Sallie sat down, thunderstruck.
Andrew glared at Clayton. “She is not your wife!”

Clayton gave him a curious look. “Why do you
keep insisting that you’re Andrew Kelly? It can do you no good now.
We have all the proof we need. Your employer has been captured by
our own agents in Washington and no doubt will soon be persuaded to
tell all he knows. The other men in your circle have also been
arrested, including the two who were there the day you shot Bart
Ingram.”

“You killed Bartie!” cried Sallie with a
moan.

Miranda looked at her cousin with horror.
“Oh, I should never have confided in you, Cousin!” She turned to
the others, her words rushing out in a torrent. “I listened behind
the door the day Catherine was talking to Ephraim, after I finished
my pie. I couldn’t hear it all…sometimes she started whispering.
But I heard the part about Major Pierce posing as Andrew, and her
marrying him. I thought they were wronging Andrew…that’s why I told
him. I mean, told John. Of course, I never dreamed he was
John.”

Her face suddenly brightened. “But there is a
way! A way to prove who he is!”

Catherine frowned. “But Miranda, you told me
they were exactly alike, that there were no marks.”

“I was thinking of birthmarks. But this just
occurred to me…John was in a lot of duels. Usually he won. But
once, before he left home for good, he was hurt. It was a sword
fight. The point caught him just under the ribs. I’m sure there
must be a long scar.”

The audience sat riveted. Clayton seemed to
relax suddenly. “How about it, Kelly? Will you show them your scar,
or shall I?”

Nobody moved; nobody spoke. Then Miranda
marched forward, saying, “I’ll show them!”

Clayton called a warning but it was too late.
Her cousin grabbed her, whirled her around, snatched a long needle
from the knitting in her hands, and held the point against her
throat. Clayton already had his gun in his hand, but he froze at
once when he saw the stance his prisoner had taken.

Pulling Miranda with him, Kelly backed out
into the hallway. “Cousin or not, I’ll kill her if you don’t get
out of my way.” Miranda stopped squirming and her eyes bulged.

What happened next had the curious effect of
time speeding up and yet standing still, every movement drawn out
to an impossible degree…

Clayton raced out the first doorway to block
Kelly and Miranda. Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine saw Mrs.
Shirley, with a revolver in her hand, move swiftly to the second
door. Catherine ran after her.

Obviously Mrs. Shirley did not expect Kelly’s
quickness, for he flung Miranda into Clayton and reached out to
grab Mrs. Shirley by the arm, wresting the gun from her. Miranda
screamed and latched onto Clayton, and he could not take proper
aim. As he tried to throw her off, Kelly pointed the intercepted
gun directly at Clayton’s head.

“Nooo!” Catherine heard the wail, dimly aware
it came from her own throat. Ephraim tried to pull her back into
the parlor, but she broke free and started toward her husband,
intending to help free him from the shrieking woman. Kelly,
distracted, glanced at Catherine and his aim lowered slightly, but
not enough, as he squeezed the trigger.

Simultaneously, in an amazing, lithe
movement, Mrs. Shirley placed herself between Clayton and the
bullet that discharged from the gun in Kelly’s hand. She slumped
against the wall and began to slide to the floor.

Clayton succeeded in ridding himself of
Miranda’s fear-maddened grip and sent her sailing back into the
parlor. Before the prisoner could take aim again, he lowered his
head and advanced toward Kelly, his own weapon leveled and his face
thunderous.

Kelly dropped the revolver with a clatter and
raised his hands. Clayton jerked him forward and slammed him
against the wall, glancing downward as he did so.
“Margaret…Catherine, help her. Ephraim, hand me that rope.”

Catherine ran to Mrs. Shirley, who had
crumpled like a doll, bleeding profusely from the middle of her
chest. Catherine pulled open a drawer of the hall table and her
groping hands encountered a tablecloth. She yanked it out and
pressed it tightly against the wound, cradling the woman’s head in
her other arm. Tears ran freely down her cheeks.

Even in death, Mrs. Shirley was in control.
“You mustn’t cry,” she said. “It was…for both of you. You have so
much to live for. I…have never had anyone to care for me.” Her gaze
left Catherine and her eyes already seemed to be seeing another
world.

Catherine’s hands shook and she kept
thinking, Hide the blood, cover it up, Mrs. Shirley can’t stand the
sight of blood. But there was no way to cover it or stop it.
Clayton knelt beside them, having successfully bound up his
prisoner and set Martin to guarding him. He took one of Mrs.
Shirley’s hands. “Margaret…”

The fading eyes met his. “No one except you.
You have been a brother to me. A brother and a friend.” She made a
great effort and summoned a smile. “I’m glad that I—”

She never finished. Clayton gently kissed her
forehead, still holding tightly to her hand. The smile melted away.
Catherine heard the awful rattle of death she had heard so many
times at the hospital, and Mrs. Shirley resolutely closed her
eyes.

After a moment, still with the greatest care
and tenderness, Clayton moved her head from Catherine’s lap onto
the floor and covered her face with the clean edge of the
tablecloth, tucking the rest around her long, thin body.

Slowly he stood up and drew Catherine to her
feet. He did not speak, but she saw the look in his eyes.

From down the hall Kelly watched them,
disheveled, his shirt torn and hanging half out of his trousers.
Martin stood just out of reach with Clayton’s gun.

Catherine wiped the wetness from her face,
set her lips firmly and walked toward the prisoner. Before he could
guess her intention, she grabbed his shirttail and pushed it back,
along with a good deal of his trousers. A long scar curved upward
from the bottom of his rib cage.

He flinched as though she had kicked him.
Then he looked up to meet her eyes.

“Why did you try to strangle me, John
Kelly?”

He did not answer for a moment. His eyes
narrowed as though he thought that over very deeply. Then he seemed
to shrug a little and said, “I wouldn’t have killed you. I only
wanted to scare you. I…liked being my brother. I liked you. I
thought that if you would not come to me out of love, you would
come to me out of fear.”

Her brows knit together as she considered his
words. “I don’t think I believe you. And how did you know about my
wedding night with Andrew?”

“My brother told me about it himself, months
before he died. He very much regretted your illness, I assure
you.”

“Today you meant to kill me, didn’t you? You
didn’t know exactly how much I knew about your…your operation.”

“No,” he said at once. “It would have been
foolish to take you out alone like that and kill you. There would
be questions; I would be suspected. Believe me, Catherine.”