Don Gutteridge: Unholy Alliance

“I feel I’ve just weathered the Battle ofWaterloo,” Macaulay sighed. “But LaFontaine has been as good as hisword. I’ve not heard a single complaint and no-one’s threatened toleave. However, as soon as they’ve eaten, they’ve asked for us allto assemble here — for the showdown.”

“And we’ve got nothing positive or new totell them,” Marc said gravely. “They’ll have no reason to sign ouraccord and little incentive to hang around Toronto waiting for aninquest that can spell nothing but trouble for them.”

“Cobb’s snitch wasn’t able to locateGiles?”

“Not yet. But if he is in the city,Nester will find him.”

Just outside the front window they heard ashout of “Whoa!”

“Thank God,” Macaulay said. “Robert andFrancis have arrived.”

“Someone else to share the gloom with, eh?”Marc said.

“I’ll go and say hello,” Macaulay said.

Marc sat by himself for a few minutes and,once again, tried to think of anything he or Cobb might haveoverlooked. Nothing came readily to mind. He got up and stared outat the snow-covered driveway, willing Cobb to appear. But, ofcourse, he didn’t. Perhaps the Quebecers would wait until it gotdark about seven o’clock before giving up on the police, and theReformers of Upper Canada.

Macaulay came back into the room.

“Robert and Francis are taking their thingsto their rooms. They’ll join us in a minute.”

Marc nodded, but he hadn’t actually heardwhat Macaulay had said to him. He suddenly knew what had beenoverlooked, what had been nagging at him for two days. “I’ve missedsomething that could be important,” he said.

“You have?” Macaulay said, much excited.

“Yes. We’ve been assuming all along that thethree pages missing from the butler’s ledger, which we now knowcontained details of our private discussions, had been torn out ofthe book and removed by the killer.”

“Why else would they be torn out?” Macaulayasked, somewhat deflated already. “Surely you were right inconcluding that the ledger was the perfect hiding-place for thosenotes on our meetings. If the impostor removed them himself, herisked their being discovered — by one of us or one of the staff,who have access to his rooms and legitimate reason to go there.And, remember, we haven’t found those pages anywhere.”

“True, but what if the impostor werefunnelling his notes to those on the outside as the meetingsprogressed ? A sort of meeting-by-meeting summary?”

“I did think of that, Marc, but Cobb andothers, including me this morning, have walked the periphery ofElmgrove and found no evidence of anyone coming or going. You’renot implying that someone came down the front lane?”

“Think back to Thursday, Garnet. We met ateleven to finish our discussion of step one, and then we broke fora working lunch. Did Chilton, as I’ll call our impostor for themoment, not ask for permission to go to the stable to check on asupply problem?”

“That’s right. He thought Struthers guilty ofsomething or other.”

“But Struthers denied that the butler evergot there.”

“My word! You think this Chilton might havebeen delivering a page of notes to someone out there who couldspirit it away to Toronto? To one of our opponents?”

Marc nodded. “Did Chilton not also take afifteen-minute constitutional every evening about fiveo’clock?”

“That’s right. As he did on Wednesday andagain on Thursday.”

“I’ve at least got to check out thepossibility that some sort of relay system was set up tosystematically steal vital information from us. After all,insinuating a phoney butler into Elmgrove was a complicated, boldand risky venture: there had to be a powerful motive behindit.”

Macaulay frowned. “You’re not going to accuseStruthers, are you? He’s absolutely trustworthy.”

“Don’t worry, Garnet. Desperate as I am, I’mnot about to jump to conclusions. I’m just going for a walk, afifteen-minute constitutional.”

After dressing for the outdoors, Marc left the houseby the back door, the one off the rotunda and the one the impostorhad probably used on Thursday in the early afternoon and again atfive o’clock. Struthers or his son had shovelled much of the snowoff the well-used path that led to several nearby sheds and achicken-coop and, farther to the northeast, to the stables and theStruthers’ cabin just beyond it. The constant tramping of theElmgrove staff during their various duties had left the path ahard-packed walkway threaded between two-foot banks. Marc felt thesting of the north wind on his left cheek as he made his way pastthe chicken-coop and into the open space before the cedar grove afew yards ahead. He crossed the rutted lane that Robert’s sleighhad used to enter the estate unobserved from the bush on itsnorthern border last Wednesday. He was grateful for the shelter ofthe cedar windbreak when he reached it, but as yet no particularplan of action had presented itself. He had thought that by puttinghimself in the butler’s overshoes, so to speak, he might get someflash of insight into how those ripped pages could have beensmuggled out of here and into the hands of one or the other of theTories in the city proper.

He was thinking so intently that he stumbledover the edge of the bank on his left. As he straightened up,facing the cedar windbreak, he spotted a rumpling of the snow justpast the nearest tree. It struck him then that “Chilton” could havejumped the bank easily and vanished into the grove without a trace.Who would go in there in ordinary circumstances? Marc hopped overthe bank himself and stepped knee-deep into the drifts that linkedcedar to cedar. While the trees had acted generally as a bufferagainst the prevailing wind and drifting snow, random gusts overthe past few days had created an eddied effect within the groveitself. In the narrow open spaces between trees Marc could seewhorls and zigzag patterns sculpted by these variable gusts, butthese were not enough to camouflage completely the telltale marksof human footprints. Obscured as they were here and there, Marc wasstill able to track them through the grove to its northern edge, adistance of about twenty yards.

He stood panting between two cedars, andstared due north. From where he now stood to the far edge of theestate he estimated to be forty or fifty yards. Up there, the bush,with the lumber road just inside it, was thick with spruce andcedar. But directly between him and the bush sat the small hay-barnhe had noticed on their arrival last Wednesday morning. It appeared“ Chilton” had thrashed his way through the cedars to this spot. Butif he had come this far, then how he got over to the barn or howhis accomplice had got here from there was not easy to determine,for the snow over the intervening space was unmarked. Theoccasional drifting of the past two days would have filled in somepart of any footprints but not enough to cover them up. ReluctantlyMarc had to admit that no-one had walked to or from this spot.

It was then that Marc spied a large sprucebranch lying a few feet away in a drift. There were a few sprucetrees scattered throughout this mainly cedar grove, so he glancedabout for the source of the broken branch. He found a tall spruce alittle to his left, not far from the branch, and looked up to seewhere — and how — it might have come down. What he saw was muchmore interesting. Eight feet above him, partly obscured by thebranches holding them in place, sat a pair of snowshoes.“Chilton’s” progress and its method became instantly clear. Thesnowshoes would have gotten him across to the hay-barn, while thespruce branch dragged behind would wipe away their imprint. Marchad seen this trick done during his first investigation four yearsearlier.

Leaving the raquettes where they were, Marcploughed his way slowly towards the little barn, scrutinizing thesurface just ahead of each step. The recent drifting evidently hadobscured the faint swishing pattern of Chilton’s spruce-branch, foreven at close range Marc could see nothing but a smooth blanksurface. However, his assumption was confirmed when he neared thebarn, where the building itself had blunted the drifting effect ofthe north wind. There in the very shadow of the barn he spied theunmistakeable pattern of that camouflaging branch. “Chilton” hadsnowshoed this far at least, and hidden his trail nicely.