“A moment’s wait, if it please you, sir!” a male voice called from somewhere in back.
The shop was actually quite shallow—presumably the bulk was taken up by the back where the work would be done. Bolts of cloth were stacked on shelves with a single waistcoat displayed on a tree. The waistcoat was well stitched and sturdy enough, but the material wasn’t of the finest. This led Sam to think that this tailor probably catered to merchants, doctors, and lawyers, instead of more wealthy gentlemen. There was a tall counter and beyond that an open doorway. Sam slipped behind the counter and peered into the doorway. As he’d suspected, the room behind the shop was much larger. A long table took up much of the space, with odd pieces of cloth, marking pencils, spools of thread, and paper patterns scattered along its length. Two young men sat cross-legged on the table, sewing, while an older, balding man bent over a swath of fabric, swiftly snipping with a pair of shears.
The older man glanced up but didn’t stop cutting. “Only a moment, sir.”
“I can talk as you work,” Sam said.
The man looked puzzled. “Sir?” His hand flew over the fabric as if it had a life of its own.
“I have some questions for you. About a former neighbor of yours.”
The tailor hesitated for a second, eyeing him.
The bruises weren’t helping his case, Sam knew. “There used to be a cobbler’s shop next door.”
“Yes, sir.” The tailor pivoted the fabric and went back to cutting.
“Did you know the owner, Dick Thornton?”
“Might.” The tailor bent over his task as if to hide his eyes from Sam.
“Thornton’s father had the place before him, I believe.”
“Yes, sir. That was old George Thornton.” The tailor threw down his shears, whipped the fabric off the table, and smoothed a new piece of cloth in its place. “A fine man. He’d only opened the shop a year or so before he passed. Even so, he was much missed on this street.”
Sam stilled. “The elder Thornton had just opened the shop? He wasn’t here before?”
“No, sir, he weren’t. Moved from someplace else.”
“Dogleg Lane.” One of the men sewing piped in suddenly.
The master tailor gave him a gimlet eye under his brows, and the man ducked his head back to his work.
Sam hitched his hip onto the table and folded his arms. “Was Dick home from the war in the Colonies when his father died?”
The tailor shook his head once. “No, sir. It were another year or so before Dick came home. His wife, what was George’s daughter-in-law, ran the shop until Dick returned. She was a good lass but not the canniest of women, if you follow my meaning, sir. Wasn’t doing too well by the time Dick made it home, but he soon turned it around. Dick were here only a couple of years before he got a bigger shop somewheres else.”
“Did you know Dick before he came home from the war? Had you met him?”
“No, sir.” The tailor frowned as he deftly snipped a perfect oval in the cloth. “’Twasn’t a loss, not knowing Dick Thornton, neither.”
“You don’t like the man,” Sam murmured.
“Not many here did,” the sitting tailor muttered.
The master tailor shrugged. “He puts on a nice face, always smiling, but I didn’t trust him. And his wife was afraid of him.”
“Was she?” Sam looked at his moccasins as he spoke. If what he suspected were true, Mrs. Thornton should’ve shown much more than fear. “Did she act odd in any other way?”
“No, but it wasn’t as if we saw her long after Dick returned.”
Sam glanced up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Died, didn’t she?” The tailor met his eyes, his own shrewd, before he looked back at his work again. “Fell down the stairs and broke her neck. That was what her husband said, anyway.”
Both of the sitting tailors shook their heads to show what they thought about that.
A savage thrill of triumph went through Sam. This was it, he knew. Dick Thornton wasn’t who he said he was. The prisoner MacDonald crouching under a wagon as the battle raged all around. MacDonald catching Sam’s eye from his hiding place. MacDonald grinning and winking. That was what Sam had remembered the night before as he’d pushed through the crowd at Emeline’s party. The way MacDonald used to grin and wink—the same way that Thornton grinned and winked now. Somehow MacDonald the prisoner had taken Thornton’s place.