Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 123, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 751 & 752, March/April 2004

Paul Revere’s Bell by Edward D. Hoch

Ellery Queen considered the mystery involving real historical figures the hardest type to write. “It is really a monumental task — so herculean a labor that your editors have never had the temerity to attempt it...The historical figure has to be convincing as well as authentic, and the scene, speech, and manners have to be projected with equal authenticity.” Mr. Hoch frequently brings real figures into his Alexander Swift stories, and does a fine job integrating them with fictional characters.

It was the spring of 1794, a time when British seizures of American ships in the Caribbean was becoming a major problem. Alexander Swift had arrived in Philadelphia to report to President Washington on continued progress with the Patowmack Canal, but he found that Washington had other things on his mind.

“It is always good to see you, Alexander,” he said, offering a firm handshake. “I hope your wife and son are well.”

“Very well, sir. And this city seems back to normal following the yellow-fever scourge.”

Washington nodded. “It’s difficult to remember how bad it was just six months ago. Now our attention is given over to foreign matters. The British are disrupting our trade with the West Indies. Jefferson wanted us to be firm with them, to retaliate in kind, but since he resigned as Secretary of State our policy has floundered a bit. My new Secretary, Edmund Randolph, is no Jefferson. Nonetheless, I am resisting retaliation and will send Chief Justice John Jay to London in hope of averting war. Our country is too young to risk another clash with the British.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Alexander asked, more out of habit than anything else.

President Washington eyed him for a moment, perhaps remembering all his earlier assignments, in the days of Benedict Arnold. “There is one thing,” he said slowly. “You can go to Boston and see about Paul Revere’s bell.”

Boston in 1794 was the third-largest city in the United States, with a population approaching 19,000. Built on a somewhat isolated peninsula connected to the rest of the state by a narrow strip of land called Boston Neck, it was the center of the universe for the new nation’s first immigrants. Though he was approaching his sixtieth birthday, Paul Revere remained the acknowledged leader of the city’s artisans, with his own foundry on Lime Street near the tip of North Boston and a silversmith shop on Anne Street.

He received Alexander Swift on a cool May morning in his little office at the foundry, a place that brought back memories for Swift of the one north of West Point where the fabled Hudson Chain had been forged during the war years. “Sometimes I think Boston is a city of rope,” he told Swift after being complimented on the foundry. “From the earliest days there have been cordage factories here for the shipyards. Ropewalks, they call them. I have always dealt in sturdier stuff.”

Paul Revere was a stout, dignified man with hair that was turning white and the beginning of a jowled appearance to his face. Swift wanted to ask him if he still rode horseback a great deal, but the remark might have seemed flippant. Instead he said, “President Washington tells me you have recently begun casting bells.”

“So I have, Mr. Swift. Sit down and let us take tea together. I cannot believe the President sent you to Boston to talk about my bells. I should never have informed him of my misgivings.”

An employee named Rossiter brought them a pot of tea and two cups, and Swift remarked, “You seem to have a good relationship with your workers.”

“I pay them well and treat them like human beings. I know I could hire men for less, but they wouldn’t be loyal like my people. John Rossiter has been with me for twenty years.”

“Tell me about these bells.”

“It came about in an interesting manner,” Revere said, warming to the subject. “Two years ago, the bell on our church — the bell that hung on the famous Old North Church until British troops took the building down for firewood — cracked and could not be rung. There was talk of shipping it to England to be recast, but none of the church leaders wanted to do that. At our meeting, mellowed by some bottles of fine Madeira, I not only agreed to be one of thirty-five contributors to the cost of restoring the bell but also offered to recast it.”

“Had you ever recast a bell before?” Swift asked, sipping his tea and thinking wistfully of that fine Madeira.

“Never,” Paul Revere admitted. “In fact, very few bells have been cast in America. The most famous, of course, is the Liberty Bell. But I knew there was a bell foundry in Abington and I sought help from them. I must admit that that first bell was harsh and shrill, but I am getting better at it. I am even running small advertisements in area newspapers. My goal now is to craft a bell for every steeple in New England.”

“A noble but difficult task. The President tells me you have already run into unexpected problems.”

Revere sighed. “Only in Washington’s mind. Some of these bells weigh up to eight hundred pounds, and as each one is finished now I cart it from the foundry to my own backyard a few blocks away on Charter Street. In the presence of a committee of church deacons and donors, and a group of neighborhood children, I sound the bell for the first time with a hammer. Should the tone be unacceptable, I will buy back the old metal. I must tell you, Mr. Swift, what the bell sounds like is largely a matter of luck. Still, my customers are usually pleased.”

“Then what is the problem?”

He took a sip of tea before responding. “My latest bell, and my largest thus far, is bound for Quebec. A delegation of Canadians will arrive tomorrow to hear it rung for the first time. Somehow the President is concerned their trip might be part of a British plot.”

Swift chuckled at the idea but said, “Perhaps he fears our old nemesis Benedict Arnold may sneak back into the country as part of your Canadian group.”

“In a nation this young, I suppose he must always be vigilant.”

“Certainly Arnold and others have tried to persuade George the Third to launch an attack on us, and the recent harassment of our West Indies shipping trade is troublesome. But from all reports, the British Parliament is loath to undertake any formal action against us.”

“What does President Washington want of you?”

“Only that I remain here until the bell is safely delivered to the Canadians and they depart. He didn’t feel it proper to send the militia—”

“I’m glad of that! Armed guards might give churchmen the wrong impression.”

“You are one of the true heroes of the revolution,” Swift reminded him. “It is always possible that the British might wish to assassinate you.”

Revere laughed at the idea. “I hardly think they’d consider me a threat at my age. If they came again, someone younger than me would have to spread the alarm. But come to my house Thursday, by all means! Another set of ears is invaluable in judging the tone of the bell. We plan to cart it over there around eleven in the morning, and to sound it for the first time at noon.”

“I will be there on Thursday,” Swift promised, “and accompany the bell on its brief journey.” But he couldn’t help wondering what had prompted the President to send him on this mission. Was it simply uneasiness with the Canadian delegation, or something else?

It was years since Alexander Swift had visited Boston, and he was encouraged by the way the city at last was beginning to shake off its postwar decline. Its trade with London and the West Indies had all but collapsed after the Revolution, and both the British and the French harassed the ships that did put to sea. There was talk in Philadelphia of forming a United States Navy to protect the ships, but in that spring of ’94 it was only talk. Still, the ropewalks and foundries and fish markets were busy, and traffic in the port was gradually increasing.

Revere had arranged for Swift to stay with a neighbor, Mrs. Patrick, in her pleasant little house on Charter Street. She proved to be a formidable widow with graying hair and a keen sense of the world around her. “You can call me Betsy,” she informed Swift when he arrived at her house. “Like the flag woman. It’s a very patriotic name.”

“It is indeed,” he agreed. “You must feel a part of history, being a neighbor to Paul Revere.”

“Well, I wasn’t yet his neighbor when he and Dawes made their famous rides. In fact, he still owns the house on North Square, but he rented this one a few years back to be closer to his foundry. He’s a proper sort and Rachel is a dear wife, ten years younger than Paul. They’ve had eight children, though only five survived their infancy. He had eight by his first wife, too, and it killed her.”

Somehow this was more than Swift needed to know. “He’ll be ringing a new bell on Thursday.”

Betsy Patrick sighed. “Paul is a good friend, but those darn bells really have started to annoy me. My dear husband, when he was alive, used to dread each new one. He would hear the cart trundling down Charter Street shortly before noon, and we both knew it was another bell on the way. The children know it, too. They flock around, as do the neighbors. These days he’s turning out the bells so fast there’s at least one a month.”

“Did your husband fight in the war?”

“He was a Minuteman,” she answered proudly. “He fought at Lexington and Concord.”

“The militia was our savior in those early days. People like your husband and Paul Revere and the rest made this nation possible. Certainly you can put up with the single gong of a bell once a month.”

“It’s not a single gong, though. Sometimes the buyers want several strokes to be certain the bell is sound. When I hear them coming now I stay in my house and play the spinet to try to muffle the sound.”

After dinner, Swift insisted Betsy Patrick play a few selections on her spinet. She was quite good, and he listened for nearly an hour before retiring early. He missed his wife and child, as he always did when traveling, but sleep came quickly to him.

Revere had arranged for dinner the following evening with his Canadian guests, and he sent a message inviting Swift to join them. The meal was at the Revere home, with his wife Rachel serving food for the six of them. She was a jovial, smart-looking woman with an oval facial contour that men seemed to admire. Swift thought her nose a bit long, and concluded that she was handsome rather than beautiful. Though some of their children still lived at home, she fed them separately before joining their guests at the table.

They were six in all, the Reveres and Swift, plus three delegates from the church in Quebec. One was a woman, Mrs. Southworth, a pale, attractive lady in her thirties who was introduced as the church’s organist. Then there was Rollo Blake, a parishioner, and the Reverend Douglas Hayes, the church’s rector. Revere introduced Alexander Swift as a personal representative of President Washington, which seemed to impress them immensely.

Swift was seated next to Mrs. Southworth, who wanted to hear all about the President. After a few minutes he managed to shift the conversation to church organs. “Was yours built in Canada?” he asked.

“No, no. The good organs all come from Europe. Ours was brought over on a brig from Germany. We thought it would never arrive. Now our church is almost complete. We lack only Mr. Revere’s bell for our tower.”

“How have you traveled to Boston?” he asked, curious as to the problem of transporting the bell back to Canada.

“It has been an arduous journey in Mr. Blake’s wagon, now parked in Mr. Revere’s yard. He was kind enough to send our horses to a stable down the street. Tomorrow the bell will be transferred to our wagon and we will carry it back with us, but it is not the most comfortable method of travel.”

“We are almost three hundred miles north of here,” Rollo Blake explained. “We stopped overnight at a Vermont inn, a charming place.”

“You should come this way in autumn for the change of seasons. I’m told the colors of the foliage are less vivid in Canada.”

“We’re close enough to the Vermont border that it makes little difference. I often visit Boston, and on one of my previous trips I learned that Mr. Revere was now casting church bells. I communicated the news to Reverend Hayes and he was most enthusiastic.”

“Indeed I was,” the minister agreed. Hayes was a bit younger than Rollo Blake, probably still in his forties. He was quite slender, with a pale complexion.

“How do you happen to have business here?” Swift asked the older man. “Is trade increasing between our countries?”

“It is, and as a former resident of the Massachusetts Colony, I am always pleased to return here.” He smiled slightly. “I confess I was one of the Loyalists who fled to Canada when your Revolution succeeded.”

“We have put all that behind us,” Revere told him. “We hope to be friends with our neighbors to the north, and with George the Third, too, for that matter.”

“With the revolution in France, all monarchies are shaky these days. However, I believe the king will endure.”

Mrs. Revere’s dinner was a tasty mix of traditional Boston dishes, and her guests thoroughly enjoyed it. Following another hour of pleasant conversation, with cigars for the men, the Canadian visitors departed, promising to return before noon for delivery of the bell.

“They seem very nice,” Rachel Revere commented. “Mr. Blake looks familiar.”

“He said he travels here on occasion. You may have seen him in North Square,” her husband suggested.

“And how are you getting on with our neighbor, Mrs. Patrick?” Rachel asked, directing her attention to Swift.

“She is a charming woman, very talkative. I thank you for arranging the accommodation.” He took out his pocket watch. “Now I believe I must return there, before the poor woman shuts the door on me. I will see you both on the morrow.”

Like many residences in the city, Paul Revere’s Charter Street house sat flush with the sidewalk and had no front yard. Swift and the Canadians passed through a gate in the wall to reach a yard at the rear where Rachel maintained a small garden. The gate also provided entrance for the bell, which arrived on a wagon driven by Revere’s assistant, John Rossiter. As soon as the neighborhood children saw its approach, they ran to meet it, crowding into the backyard to such an extent that Revere himself had to order them back.

Mrs. Southworth, Mr. Blake, and the Reverend Hayes were all caught up in the rush of children. The big bell, forged from a mixture of copper and tin, with some zinc and lead as well, remained on the wagon, hanging from a crossbeam. Its clapper had not yet been attached. Rossiter climbed onto the bed of the wagon and handed Revere a hammer with which the first blow would be struck. Around them there was silent anticipation.

“This is it,” Revere announced. “The first ringing of a new church bell.” All eyes were on him as he lifted the hammer above his head to bring it down. Then, suddenly, there was the sound of a gunshot and the ping of something hitting the bell. Swift’s first thought was that one of the older children had fired at the bell, but then he saw Rollo Blake fall to the ground clutching his chest.

“He’s been shot!” Rossiter yelled. “He’s bleeding!”

Blake made an effort to lift himself from the ground, but it was too much for him. He dropped back and lay still. Reverend Hayes turned him over, to reveal even more blood. “Rollo! Rollo!” Then his face seemed to crumple. “May God have mercy! He’s dead.”

The children were hustled away, retreating to the street where they crowded around the gate fighting for the best view. But the uproar brought neighbors, including Mrs. Patrick, to the scene. “What happened?” she asked Swift. “It sounded like a shot.”

“It was a shot. Someone killed Rollo Blake, one of the Canadians.”

“But who would do that?”

“Some would-be patriot, I fear,” Paul Revere told her. “The man was a British loyalist who had fled to Canada.”

Boston law-enforcement officers were summoned to the scene. Though they wore no uniforms and carried no guns, they were the first such force in the new nation, predating the Revolution by several decades. Swift was unimpressed by the two men who arrived to take charge, and their main action was to search everyone in the crowd for a weapon. No one had seen anything, and no weapons were produced.

“It could have been one of the older children,” Mrs. Southworth suggested.

Swift knew that was a possibility. He went out to the street to speak with those who were still there, well aware that a guilty child might have fled when the law officers arrived. One boy, taller than the rest and probably around seventeen, seemed nervous. “What is your name, son?” Swift asked.

“Gerber, sir.” The youth was already edging away.

Swift gripped his shoulder with a firm hand. “Do you know anything about this shooting?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you see anyone with a flintlock pistol? Perhaps someone was trying to ring the bell with it and hit that man by accident.”

“I don’t know anything,” he whined, trying to break free.

“Do you own a flintlock?”

“No, no!”

“Then why are you so nervous?”

“I knew him. I seen him around.”

“The dead man? Rollo Blake?”

“I didn’t know his name, but I seen him down the street at the Pig and Whistle a couple of times.”

“When was this?” Swift wanted to know.

“Back last fall and winter.”

“Was he with anyone?”

“Don’t know. Le’ me go!”

“Something must have made you notice him.”

Revere’s assistant, John Rossiter, had joined them on the sidewalk. “What’s the trouble here?”

“This boy claims to have seen the victim in the neighborhood last year.”

“Sure, didn’t Mr. Revere tell you? That’s how we got the job. Mr. Blake came down here occasionally on business and heard about our bell casting.”

Now Swift remembered Rollo Blake mentioning his frequent Boston trips at dinner the previous night, but he was still surprised to learn the dead man had been a patron of the local pub. Perhaps he had made an enemy there.

“Do you ever go to the Pig and Whistle, John?”

“Been in the place a few times. Never saw him there, though.”

Swift wished there was some way to convey the news of the killing to President Washington in Philadelphia, but a courier would take two days by horse. He couldn’t help feeling that Washington’s motive in sending him to Boston might have had something to do with Blake’s presence in the city. But if that was the case, the President must have learned of the planned visit from Paul Revere.

Swift released his grip on young Gerber’s shoulder. Revere was the one he had to speak with.

Once the official investigation had wound down and Blake’s body had been removed, Revere turned his attention to the bell. The fatal flintlock ball had passed through Blake’s body, apparently from back to front, with the back wound being higher than the front. Then it had hit the bell near the bottom of the rim. Revere examined the tiny dent and proclaimed it almost invisible to the eye, which in truth it was. “A bit of buffing should remove it entirely,” he assured Reverend Hayes and Mrs. Southworth.

“When will we hear it rung?” she asked.

“There is no time like the present.” So saying, Revere picked up the hammer and swung it at the bell. It gave off a deep mellow tone that brought a smile to Mrs. Southworth’s face.

“A fine sound, don’t you think?” she asked Reverend Hayes.

“Glorious! I only wish Rollo were here to experience this moment.”

Revere reached the hammer inside the bell and struck it about where the clapper would hit. The sound seemed to resonate even more. “That should bring your worshipers in,” he said.

The minister smiled. “We’ll take it,” he said, shaking Revere’s hand.

“But how will we get it back home without Mr. Blake to drive the wagon?” Mrs. Southworth wondered.

At Revere’s side, John Rossiter cleared his throat. “If Mr. Revere allows it, I could drive that wagon up to Quebec for you. I know how to handle a good team of horses. I can trail my own mount behind the wagon and ride him back.”

Reverend Hayes seemed to sigh with relief. “Mr. Revere, if you would allow it, this would be of great help to us. Managing a team of horses pulling a heavy load such a long distance might be more than I could handle.”

Revere thought about it. “Today is Thursday. Best to stay overnight and get a good morning start. Three days up would be Monday, three days back would be Thursday.”

“Or Wednesday night,” his assistant replied. “A lone horse and rider will make better time than a heavily loaded wagon with three passengers.”

“Very well,” Revere agreed. “But be careful. I cannot afford to lose you.”

His workmen transferred the bell to Blake’s wagon, and arrangements were made to wrap his body in protective sailcloth for the journey home. It was agreed that the travelers would spend one more night in Boston before starting out. “Perhaps it is fitting that Rollo accompany Mr. Revere’s bell to its new home,” Mrs. Southworth commented.

When they were alone, Swift asked Revere if he had contacted Washington about selling the bell to the Quebec church. “I sent him a message, but he had no problem with it,” Revere said.

Yet the whole thing bothered Swift. Later that night, back at Mrs. Patrick’s, he asked her about Revere’s yard. “That fence wouldn’t keep anyone out if they wanted to get in. Are there ever any prowlers over there?”

“Once in a while. Just last night I saw a couple of people from my bedroom window, moving around in the dark. The moon wasn’t bright enough to see who they were. Neighborhood kids, I suppose. I called out from the window and shooed them away.”

“Was it always like that, or just since Mr. Revere rented the house?”

“My husband died in ’ninety. It was quieter in those days. Our neighbors were an elderly couple who went to bed at dusk every night. The place is livelier with Mr. Revere and his family and I don’t resent that. He’s a great national hero.”

After supper, she played the spinet for a time, filling the house with the rousing sound of “Yankee Doodle.” Swift applauded at the end. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that played on a spinet,” he told her.

“It’s one of my favorites.” She closed the keyboard and stood up. “I’m going to bed now. I don’t like to disturb the neighbors by playing after dark. I’ll have breakfast for you in the morning.”

“I regret being such a bother. I promise to be gone by tomorrow night.”

“You’re no bother at all. It’s good having a man around the house for a few days.”

After she’d gone up to her room, Swift sat by the lamplight for some time. Rollo Blake’s murderer, seemingly invisible to their eyes, must have had a motive. He rejected the idea that a youngster might have fired a pistol at the bell and hit Blake by mistake. Blake was an occasional visitor to the city and might have made enemies. If that was the case, he should check out the Pig and Whistle, the local pub where he’d been seen.

The streets were not quite dark when he left Betsy Patrick’s house, strolling along Charter Street toward the pub. He passed the fish market, and ahead he could see the glow of lamps in the pub window. There were a half-dozen customers at the bar. He ordered a beer, and when the bartender brought it he said, “I hear somebody shot Rollo Blake. Did you know him?”

He wiped up some of the spilled beer. “Not by name. They tell me he came here when he was in town.”

Swift glanced at the other customers. “Any of his friends here now?”

The bartender called down to the end. “Smitty, you knew that Blake chap, didn’t you?”

A young man with long blond hair, who appeared to be in his early twenties, answered. “I had a beer with him last night. Who wants to know?”

Swift moved down the bar to his side. “I’m Alexander Swift. I was there when he was shot this noon.”

“Don’t know anything about that, just what people are saying.”

“How about his wagon?”

Smitty shrugged and said nothing. He wasn’t the talkative sort. Swift finished his beer in silence. He was about to leave when the youth spoke up. “Why’d you ask that?”

“What?”

“About the wagon.”

“They’re not able to get it back to Quebec without Blake. I understand one of Paul Revere’s assistants will be driving it up.”

“They looking to hire a driver? Plenty of young gents around here could use the money. Me, for one.”

“I believe it’s been taken care of, Smitty.”

Swift left him at the bar and went out into the night street. A few people were on the sidewalk, but they ignored him. The city had once had a reputation for street fighting and even now as he hurried back to Betsy Patrick’s house he could not help but imagine he was being followed.

All seemed quiet at the Patrick and Revere houses, but he could see that the gate to the Revere yard was ajar. He entered, using the moonlight to guide him to Blake’s wagon. The heavy bell was in place for the return trip, and in the morning a team of fresh horses would be brought from the stable. Swift felt around the bell and the wagon itself, finally dropping to his knees to examine the underside of the wagon. Something was there, something —

The intruder was upon him before he heard a sound, wrestling him flat on the ground and striking his shoulder with some sort of club. They rolled over in the dirt, with Swift aware only that he was fighting a younger, stronger man who wanted to harm him. The attacker managed to straddle him and Swift turned his head as the club descended again, just missing him. He unseated the man and toppled him to the ground, following up on his momentary advantage to wrestle the club from him. The assailant scurried away in the dark, spiderlike, and Swift had only a quick glimpse of him in a sudden beam of moonlight as he got to his feet and ran.

He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Gerber, the tall lad who’d been at the scene of Blake’s killing earlier.

Swift took a deep breath and went back under the wagon, keeping the confiscated club handy for defense. There were four wooden barrels strapped to the underside, but without a light he could not identify what they were. Frustrated, he returned to the house and lit one of Betsy Patrick’s candles. Checking the yard and street to make certain his would-be assailant had not come back, Swift ducked under the wagon once more and held the candle up to the barrels. He saw the words Poudre a Canon and froze. It was a full five seconds before he had the wits to blow out the candle flame.

Rachel Revere came to the door in response to his knocking. She carried an oil lamp and was obviously frightened to be awakened in the middle of the night. Swift apologized and told her he must speak to her husband at once.

“What is it, Rachel?” Revere called out, coming down the stairs in his nightshirt.

Swift quickly explained the reason for awakening them. “There are barrels of gunpowder attached to the bottom of Blake’s wagon. They could blow up the entire house.”

Revere’s face was grim. “I’ll get dressed immediately.”

With an oil lamp on the ground a safe distance away, Revere examined the four barrels and carefully freed them from their bindings. Swift helped him carry them a safe distance from the house. “That should do it,” he said with relief.

“We’ll remove it in the morning. I thank you for your warning, Alexander.”

“Someone jumped me while I was searching the wagon. I believe it was one of the youths who were here yesterday. Mrs. Patrick said she’d chased some away the previous night.”

“The markings on these barrels are French,” Revere observed. “They were smuggled in from Quebec.”

“But why? Certainly there is no shortage of gunpowder here.”

“I fear it was meant for a bomb. It is nearly two centuries since the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament, but British loyalists may have been planning something similar here. Boston is our state’s capital and the cradle of revolution.”

“Do you think those Canadians planned this?”

“I doubt if the minister or Mrs. Southworth was involved. About Mr. Blake I cannot say. He was an admitted loyalist who fled to Canada when the Revolution began.”

“We must question Reverend Hayes and Mrs. Southworth about this.”

“Of course,” Revere agreed.

“Meantime, I’ll try to locate the youth who assaulted me.”

At sunrise he walked down to the fish market, carrying the club he’d retrieved from his assailant. The previous day’s catches were being sorted and priced while early shoppers began to drift in. One man holding a three-foot-long cod seemed familiar and Swift remembered him from the Pig and Whistle.

“Smitty, isn’t it?”

The blond-haired youth recognized him at once. “Looking for that driver, are you?”

“No, looking for a kid named Gerber. Younger than you, tall, maybe seventeen or eighteen.”

“I know who you mean. Hasty Gerber. Don’t hire him to drive your wagon. He’s a knacker.”

“What’s that?”

“He kills stray animals and sells their carcasses to rendering works. It’s a loathsome occupation.”

“Does he use a club like this?” Swift held up the weapon.

Smitty nodded. “Looks like one he carried.”

“Where do I find him?”

“Down by the docks if he’s not still asleep. Sometimes he helps unload boats at Hitchbourn Wharf.”

Following directions, Swift walked south to Fish Street and then west for several blocks to the wharf. He suspected Gerber’s height would make him easy to spot, and he was right. The youth was standing with some others as Swift approached. He saw him coming, saw the club dangling from his right hand, and took off down the pier. It was a dead end for him, but he didn’t seem to realize it till Swift had him cornered.

“I just wanted to return your club,” he told the youth. “You might need it to kill a stray dog or two.”

Hasty Gerber looked frightened. “I wasn’t trying to kill you last night.”

“I know. You came there for the gunpowder. Now you’re going to tell me who you’re working for, or I’ll do a little knacking myself.”

Some of the others on the pier had gathered around, but no one came to Gerber’s aid. “All right!” he pleaded, pushing out with his open palms. “Don’t hit me!”

Swift gripped him by the shoulder as he had on their first meeting. “Did you kill Rollo Blake?”

“What? You’re crazy! I never did it. I was just after those barrels of gunpowder.”

“Come along. You’re going to tell us all about that.”

In the presence of Paul Revere and a law-enforcement officer, Hasty Gerber told how he and another youth had been hired by Rollo Blake to sneak into Revere’s garden after dark and remove the four barrels from under the wagon. A neighbor had heard them the first time and frightened them off. After that, the other lad had wanted no part of it. Gerber had returned alone last night and encountered Swift. The law officer listened to it all and promised to pursue the investigation.

“It was all Blake’s doing, of course,” Swift remarked when he was alone with Revere. “He suggested the church purchase a bell from you so he’d have an excuse to cross the border with his wagon. The border guards had no reason to search it carefully with a minister and two parishioners on board.”

“All right,” Revere agreed, “but why did this Gerber youth try to steal the gunpowder last night, after he knew Blake was dead?”

“Just to have it for himself,” Swift answered.

“Do you think he killed Blake for that purpose?”

“I don’t know. When I grabbed him on the street just after the shooting he had no pistol with him.”

But he wasn’t satisfied. At ten o’clock, when Reverend Hayes and Mrs. Southworth arrived to begin their journey back to Quebec, he still wasn’t satisfied. He stood in Revere’s yard, near where Blake had fallen, and imagined where the killer might have stood. The sun had come out, bathing the city in the first real warmth of spring.

Betsy Patrick came out on her back porch and called to him. “I’ve made some lemonade if you’d like a glass.”

“That would taste good about now.” He went up the steps and she handed him a glass. He pulled up a chair to join her.

“I see John Rossiter has arrived,” she said, filling his glass from her pitcher.

“He’s volunteered to drive the wagon back to Quebec. Reverend Hayes was uncertain he could manage it with that heavy bell on board.”

“Will you be leaving today as planned, Mr. Swift?”

Swift nodded. “I only came here at the behest of President Washington.”

“He was concerned about Rollo Blake?”

“I believe so, yes. Now that Blake is dead and the bell is on its way to Canada, my work here is finished.”

“What about Blake’s killing?”

“That may have to go unsolved, at least by me. That is, unless you feel the need to confess.”

Her eyes shot up, suddenly full of fear. “What do you mean?”

“You killed him, Betsy. You shot him from your bedroom window with your husband’s musket.”

“How could you know that?” she demanded. “Did you see me do it?”

“No, but the angle of the bullet, entering high on his back and exiting lower down at the front, indicated he was shot from above. This would explain why none of us saw a weapon. You’d told me your bedroom window overlooked Revere’s yard when you yelled at the intruders two nights ago. You also told me you played the spinet to drown out the sound of the bells, but there was no spinet to be heard yesterday morning because you were at the upstairs window.”

“Why would I shoot Rollo Blake?”

“You know the true motive better than I do. You told me that Revere’s ringing of each new bell annoyed your husband, but Revere didn’t cast his first bell until seventeen ninety-two. Your husband died in seventeen ninety. Who was this person annoyed by the ringing of the bells, someone you equated in your mind with your husband? I contend it was Rollo Blake, a frequent visitor to Boston and to the Pig and Whistle pub just down the street. His face was even familiar to Rachel Revere. Visiting your house was how he learned of Revere’s bells and how he devised his plan for smuggling gunpowder into the city. He even told you about that, didn’t he?”

She’d put down her glass of lemonade and was staring across the yard at the wagon as the horses were hitched up. “Sometimes, after he’d been drinking, he got crazy. He talked about blowing up our State House. I wrote President Washington an anonymous letter warning about it, but he did nothing.”

He did something, Swift wanted to say. He sent me. Instead he said, “So you shot Rollo.”

“There was no other way to stop him. When I saw them trying to retrieve something from that wagon, I knew he was going through with his plan. He was a bad man, Mr. Swift, in more ways than one.”

“I suspected from the beginning that he was killed by a musket rather than a pistol, because the ball passed through the body with enough force to ring that bell. But no one standing near the victim could have hidden a musket under their clothing and fired it without being seen. I thought about that just now, and remembered the angle of the shot.”

“What will you do about it?” she asked.

“I will report back to President Washington that the situation was dealt with by a patriot named Betsy. Thank you for the lemonade.”

She smiled, perhaps with relief, as he got to his feet. “Tell me one thing, Mr. Swift. How did you know my husband had a musket?”

“Madam, you told me yourself he was a Minuteman, and I’m sure he was a brave one.”