Placide just nods, so Lydia finally says something. “We believe Mr. Green’s daughter, Nancy, is among the dead.”
Ritchie casts a quick glance at Jack, and Jack wonders if he should have divulged the information sooner. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “There’s been so much going on.”
Ritchie gives him a small nod of understanding, then clears his throat. “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that.”
Placide accepts his condolences with the sanctimony of a fool.
“Iwillneed to speak to him at some point,” Ritchie says. “But in the interim, please give him my condolences.”
“Nancy was a talent,” says Placide, whose body has pitched slightly to one side. Lydia takes a seat beside him and tries her best to prop him up.
“It goes without saying, but I shall say it anyway,” says Placide. “This is a devastating loss—for all of us.”
Ritchie leans back in his chair, as if he needs some distance to properly assess the room and its occupants. Placide is not lying—the fire was devastating, in every possible respect—but Jack wonders if Ritchie believes a word coming out of his mouth.
“I’ve been named the head of the inquest committee,” says Ritchie.
“I heard.”
“So, you can understand my obligation—devastating loss or not—to provide the citizens of this town with answers.”
Placide doesn’t argue with him, but it’s clear he wants to steer the conversation. “We sent Thomas Caulfield to find you. Did you speak with him?”
“About your slave revolt theory?”
“It’s more than a theory,” says Placide. “Didn’t he tell you what he saw?”
Jack realizes he’s holding his breath. They rehearsed what Caulfield should say, how he had run back to the tavern betweenThe Fatherand the pantomime to get a pouch of tobacco, and how when he had returned to the theater, he’d noticed a group of Negroes—men mostly—congregating near the rear of the building.Make sure you say that several of them were carrying torches, Anderson had reminded Caulfield several times before he’d set out.
“I spoke with him,” says Ritchie.
“In that case, I assume he told you that we are convinced the fire was brought about by outside forces?” Placide asks.
“I believe the words you used in your letter were ‘vile incendiaries.’?”
Placide bobs his head in appreciation. “You have a good memory.”
“I do,” says Ritchie, and there’s something about the way he says those two little words that makes Jack’s stomach muscles tighten.
“Caulfield must have told you about the way they were all loitering about?”
“Yes,” Ritchie agrees amiably. “But he said they were by the entrance to the gallery.”
Jack’s heart stops. Caulfield was most definitely meant to tell Ritchie he’d seen a band of Negroes milling about in an agitated state near the stage door.
“I asked him, ‘Isn’t the gallery entrance precisely where theyshouldhave been loitering?’ And he seemed confused by the question.”
Placide looks like he’s been turned inside out, and he begins to sputter.
Jack’s torn. On one hand, he’d like for the truth to come to light, for Ritchie to realize exactly what the company’s trying to get away with. But on the other, Anderson has scared him within an inch of his life, and Jack worries that failing to save Placide, when he has the chance, will look just as bad as turning on him entirely.
Jack clears his throat, trying to get both men’s attention, but they ignore him. “Excuse me,” he finally says. “It was Twaits who saw them by the stage door.”
All heads—including Lydia’s—turn to look at him, and he burns with shame.
“So, why did you send me Caulfield?” Ritchie asks, and Placide looks at Jack with pleading eyes, begging him to come up with something that makes sense.
Jack swallows. “Anderson thought it was Caulfield who saw everything, but he got it wrong. It was Twaits.”
