Don Gutteridge - Unholy Alliance

“I did. Lord Sydenham, as he is soon to becalled, made that determination some time ago, though he has notyet announced it publicly. But I wanted more than the wealth thatmight accrue from my efforts in Kingston.” He gave Marc a solemn,almost pitiable, look as he added, “I have contributed more thanenough to the life of Upper Canada to be named a member of the newLegislative Council.”

Cobb snorted: “So you wanted to be filthyrich and a lifetime member of the bigwigs’ private pre-serve to boot?”

“Walking these documents over to the Palacewould not have hurt your chances any, would it?” Marc said,glancing at the charred pages Cobb had set beside him. “And as amember of the appointed council for life, you could ensure yourKingston properties would continue to be offered everyadvantage?”

“The risks seemed justified — at the time,”Winthrop said with obvious regret but, as yet, little remorse. “I’ma childless widower,” he added as if that helped to explain hisfolly.

“So, thus far, everything had gone accordingto plan. By last Thursday evening you had three reports fromElmdale, and you knew an agreement was imminent. Why on earth,then, would you jeopardize all you’d gained by putting a lethaldose of laudanum in a bottle of Amontillado from your stores andhaving Harkness deliver it when he went back to the hay-barn atfive o’clock on Thursday afternoon? It makes no sensewhatsoever.”

“Flett turned out to be a worse blackguardthan Harkness,” Winthrop said bitterly. “When Harkness arrived hereabout four o’clock with a summary of the morning session, there wasan extra note from Flett. He demanded double the amount of money Ihad offered. I believe he had grown weary of the butlerbusiness.”

Marc nodded. “I see. And you assumed thiswould not be the last demand he would make?”

“I was certain of it. Even though I doubtedhe would risk implicating himself, he knew I had a lot more tolose. He could inform on me and scuttle off to the States or evenEngland. I couldn’t let the bastard blackmail me for the rest of mylife!”

“So you decided then and there to poison him- knowing his fondness for drink?”

“Yes. And don’t let that weasel Harkness tellyou he wasn’t in on it. He stood right here and watched me emptyout several ounces of the sherry, pour in a vial of laudanum andrecork the bottle. He was more eager than I to do in the man heassumed was Chilton and the usurper of his brother’s place.”

“So Harkness did think it was Chilton allalong?”

“There was no reason to let him in on thescheme out at The Pine Knot. But even though the man had an offerto be part of a horse-raising farm near Burford, and I agreed tohelp him buy a stake in it, he was obsessed with his brother’sdeath and his future role at Elmdale. Alfred had been the onlyfather he ever knew. He foolishly thought that somehow, withChilton out of the way, he himself would magically turn intoElmdale’s butler. He took the sherry out there all right, and Flettaccepted it as his due.”

“But why kill the blackmailer outthere ? With a scheme that might not work, with the potential toharm others?” Marc said. “You’d have plenty of time and opportunityto get rid of him later and with much less risk.”

“But there was a more compelling reason to doit out there, and do it quickly. I wanted the negotiations to bethrown into chaos. What surer way to do that than to have a servantmurdered under mysterious circumstances? There was, you see,something else in that report of the Thursday-morning session.”

Even as Winthrop was speaking, Marc knew whathad precipitated the callous murder of Marcel Flett. “You read thebutler’s notation about the last item added to the coalition’splatform, didn’t you?”

“I damn near fainted, right in front ofHarkness.”

“What’re ya talkin’ about?” Cobb said,completely at sea.

“Daniel Bérubé, a merchant and businessmanlike Mr. Winthrop here, asked that the unholy alliance go on recordas favouring the immediate removal of the capital from Kingston toMontreal.”

“And if that happened,” Winthrop sighed, “Iwould be a bankrupt, my Kingston properties devalued or worthless.Even if I were made a Legislative Councillor, I might be helplessto stop it. So, you see, the decision to do away with Flett waseasy. I would eliminate a blackmailer and bring the negotiations toa halt.”

“You assumed that being treated as suspectsin a murder inquiry would be enough to destroy any sense of trustbetween English and French, and send the Quebecers scurrying backto the safety of their own bailiwick?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“But how’d you know the butler would guzzlethe sherry down on Thursday night?” Cobb said. He was intrigued bythe twisted intricacies of Winthrop’s scheming, but nothing richfolks did ever really surprised him.

“That was the weakness of my plan, wasn’t it?If Flett shared it with others, no-one would die, but they wouldstill be sick or befuddled, and the seeds of suspicion would besown. But then I’d have to deal with Flett afterwards, wouldn’t I?Yet I was pretty certain he would keep the special sherry forhimself or use a bit of it to weaken the knees of the nearest maid- his other character flaw, I’m afraid. He was a selfish, vain,ambitious fellow, who would interpret my gift as a signal of myacquiescence to his new demands. I couldn’t see him not celebratinghis fortune and success that very night.”

“But you weren’t sure, were you?” Marc said.“Or else you wouldn’t have risked sending Harkness back out thereat five o’clock on Friday, Saturday and again today.”

“That bumbling idiot was supposed to leavethe hay-barn and find a way to discover what was going on in themanor-house. Flett didn’t show up Friday or Saturday. Was he dead?Was he merely disabled? Had the meetings broken up? I was nearfrantic with not knowing. Nobody seemed to be leaving the placeuntil Saturday when Baldwin and Hincks were seen about town,looking perfectly normal. None of the Frenchmen had left, at leastnot by the back route they used to arrive there. I approached AngusWithers on the street, but was unable to get anything from himwithout giving myself away. On Saturday I ordered Harknessto approach Struthers, a friend of his, and get some hard news,anything to relieve my anxiety and let me get some sleep. But thebastard cowered in the barn and refused to budge. This afternoon, Itold him to stay at Elmdale until he had the information I neededor I would turn him into the police and put all the blame on him.Surely he could slip up to one of the girls out gathering eggs orfeeding the hens or emptying the slop-buckets.”

“He never left his sanctuary,” Marc said. “Hemistook me for Chilton, and I had him red-handed. He seemedgenuinely astonished when I told him Chilton wasn’t Chilton andthat he’d been dead almost three days.”

“Serves him right,” Winthrop muttered.

“Even so,” Marc carried on, determined to getthe whole truth out while he had the chance, “you were still leftwith the real butler, who was bound to show up sooner or later.What if he had arrived in the middle of our negotiations? Would notFlett have been exposed as an impostor, and would he not haveimplicated you to save his own skin?”

“Flett was instructed to take to the woodsthe second he spotted the real Chilton,” Winthrop replied, notunimpressed, even now, with the care with which he had planned hisdeception, despite its having gone wrong. “He was an expert onsnowshoes. He was to go to the trapper’s cabin, then make his wayback here.”

“But even if Chilton didn’t show up untilafter you’d poisoned Flett, would there not then have been aneffort to determine who the poisoned man was? And surely yourbrother would soon come to you wondering why his Mr. Flett had notreturned from your care?”