Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he enthused, tumbling his fists like a baker kneading dough. “Your approach has been presaged by the governor’s courier, and hence we have made estimable preparations for your comfort and pleasure. We will brook no efforts to make your stay with us a memorial one.” He thrust out his chubby fingers and shook the hand of each of the gentlemen, catching and recording their names. He gave the captain an extra pump and, being informed that Marc was also a military officer, returned and pumped it again. So excited was he that he almost seized the lady’s hand in a male embrace, caught himself in time, and made a bow so curt he threatened to topple over and crush her.

“Barker!” he shrieked at a wretched lad struggling towards the stairs with Marc’s big trunk. “Be careful! Use both the hands God gave you!”

It being only two hours till supper-time at six, the party decided to go to their rooms, perform their ablutions (there was a bathroom at the far end of the upstairs hall and tons of hot water to be fetched at a whim), and then drift down for a pre-meal sherry in the plush chairs of the lounge. “Where you will be unperturbed till dinner be serviced,” their host confided, with a trumpeting chortle that had no evident purpose.

Still aware that he must act prudently, Marc lingered behind the others a little to survey the layout. As he stood in the cavernous foyer looking towards the rear of the inn, the lounge or smoker lay to his left, and to his right was a tavern, abuzz with local barflies. Straight ahead and running underneath the second storey, where the guest-rooms were, was a long hallway ending in a rear exit. Off this hall were doors left and right, leading, Marc assumed, to various parts of the proprietor’s living quarters or those of his hirelings, and next to the exit itself Murdo Dingman’s office. Just to Marc’s left, around the corner from the lounge, a short hall brought one to the stairs leading up to the rooms above or, alternatively, to a side exit on the ground floor. Over to the right, below the arching beams strung with coloured candle-lamps, was the open dining-room set with generous round tables draped in white linen cloth. A clattering of pans somewhere beyond it suggested an adjoining kitchen.

Marc started for the hallway to his left and the stairs to his room. But Murdo Dingman came trundelling up the hall from his office and across the foyer, waving a letter in one hand. Marc stopped and waited politely for his arrival. Dingman came to a rolling stop in front of him, glanced warily over at the open tavern-door, slipped the letter into Marc’s hand with a deft gesture, and said, “Private communicado for your eyes only. From the currier at twelve hundred hours.” And he scuttled furtively back towards his office.

It was another note from Owen Jenkin in Montreal.

Dear Marc:

More disquieting news. One of Sir John Colborne’s spies has supplied information that Charles Lambert is actually Sharles Lam-bear (French pronunciation for both words), born in St. Denis but raised in Vermont across the border. Many relatives still in the area. Spent the past two weeks near the village, but his purpose is not yet known. His wife is English-speaking and, we believe, still in Cobourg. Watch your back. More news as it comes to me.

Owen

Well, old friend, Marc thought, I can’t look forward and backward at the same time. But Monsieur Lambert would soon receive a face-to-face surprise, for Marc could not afford to wait much longer. Still, though it was possible that Lambert had taken a shot at him back near Cornwall-and now seemed to have a motive for assassinating him-Marc was inclined to think it had not been him. That didn’t mean that Lambert wasn’t looking for such an opportunity. It just meant that there could be more than one person out to kill him. And why would Lambert bother with a death-threat against Brookner? True, Brookner was a Tory bigot and a miles gloriosus, but he hadn’t been involved in the carnage at St. Denis or St. Eustache. His principal offense, beyond his swaggering arrogance, had been against the Scanlon brothers, one of whom could well be stalking him.

Marc decided that the coming night would be critical for any assassin, for by this time tomorrow the Brookner party could be in Kingston, where it would break up, leaving Brookner on home ground and Marc, Pritchard, and Lambert to arrange their own unpredictable schedules. He walked slowly and pensively up to his room.

Supper was delayed fifteen minutes while the group waited, somewhat anxiously, for Captain Brookner to return from his obligatory walkabout, in full military regalia “Daring young Miles Scanlon to make him a martyr,” Sedgewick muttered for all to hear.

Murdo Dingman, too, was beside himself with worry: the roast chickens were cooling and the gravy with kidneys congealing on the table. But Brookner did arrive unmartyred, stamping the snow off his boots at the side exit in clear view of the diners seated across the foyer around a single, large table. He came across to them, pulling at the sleeve of his magnificent greatcoat. He was flushed and excited.

“I saw the bugger!” he cried. Then to his lady, “Pardon my French.”

“Scanlon?” Sedgewick asked, wide-eyed.

“I couldn’t be sure. But it was the shadow of a man-not a big man-moving through the trees to my left as I strolled along a little path beside the creek back there. I was admiring the scenery, especially a spring with the dark water bubbling up through the ice.”

It was obvious that the captain was enjoying himself.

Dingman broke into the narrative: “Were you insulted, sir?”

“No, I was not. At the first flick of movement, I opened my coat and surprised the the miscreant by flourishing my sword.”

Which would certainly have frightened an assassin with a pistol, Marc mused.

“Do you not think you are taking the threat from this Scanlon chap a bit too lightly, Captain?” Pritchard asked with some hesitation.

“I would turn your question around, sir: Miles Scanlon may well be taking me too lightly. At any rate, no Scanlon shall prevent me from executing my morning walk or enjoying the local scenery.”

“Hear! Hear!” Pritchard cried, then blushed when he realized he was alone in the sentiment. Marc was sure he heard Adelaide utter “Fool!” under her breath. If Brookner heard, he did not let on nor allow it to modify the pose of lofty valour he had assumed and then maintained throughout an awkward, jittery supper.

It had occurred to Marc that the shadowy figure Brookner claimed to have seen-if it had been real and not imagined for dramatic effect-was just as likely to have been stalking him as the captain. After all, there had been two actual attempts on his own life and a mere threatening note to Brookner who, in his vainglory, may have concocted it himself. Reluctantly, for he was once more extremely fatigued, Marc took out the pumpkin and set up the dummy-form in his bed. Then he rigged several noisy objects against the unlocked door. There was no wardrobe in his room to curl up inside, but a dressing-screen set in front of an improvised bedroll against a far wall provided a suitable vantage-point. He loaded the pistol and laid it on his chest. He kept his clothes and boots on, prepared for pursuit and capture if need be. He was just about to blow out the candle when the first sounds of argument in the room next to him made him pause.

It was the Brookners. Though muffled by the plaster-lath wall between Marc and them, their angry words were decipherable. It appeared that they were well into the altercation, the tone and temper of which had been steadily rising.

“-didn’t even have the decency to wear a mourning band!”