Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

“Now, Mrs. Brookner. I have information that you also quarrelled with your husband, as recently as last night.”

The gallery was more shocked than the witness, who answered calmly, “Yes. My husband and I quarrelled often. Over many things. We are both strong-willed, I am afraid.”

“And which of those many things did you quarrel about last night?”

“Randolph thought I showed excessive and unbecoming grief during the obsequies for my sister in Montreal.”

“That seems somewhat callous, does it not?”

“I would not call my husband callous. He was set in his convictions and beliefs and he had a surplus of both. To remind me of my folly, he removed his mourning band the day after the funeral. I accused him of disrespect for the dead.”

“Did you quarrel about anything else?”

“He upbraided me for correcting him in front of the other passengers. It was a subject we argued about many times.”

“And you are a woman who does not easily let inaccuracies in conversation go by unnoted?”

“I have tried to do so. But, of course, I was angry with him over his removing the armband.” There was the slightest trembling of the lower lip, but she quickly mastered herself.

“Let us move on to this morning. You awoke after your husband?”

“Yes. About nine o’clock. He was already dressing.”

“In his parade uniform?”

“I’m afraid so. Jacket, breeches, boots, greatcoat-everything military except his ordinary fur hat. I begged him not to go out. After that death-threat was found, I pleaded with my brother to forget his differences with Randolph and try to dissuade him from such foolhardy bravado. But Randolph was stubborn and proud.”

“So we’ve been assured. Did you follow your husband downstairs?”

“I wasn’t dressed. I threw on my clothes. I didn’t have time to pin up my hair properly. I’d been crying much of the night over the loss of my dear sister. I looked a wreck. . ”

Murmurs from the gallery denied that this could ever be so.

“Was your husband gone when you did get downstairs?”

“Yes. It couldn’t have been more than four or five minutes later, but he had gone out the side door, or so my brother and Mr. Pritchard told me.”

“And you did not think to go immediately after him, knowing the reality of the danger to his person?”

“Not right away. It was very cold out and snowing a bit. I had no coat or hat.”

“But you did subsequently persuade Mr. Sedgewick and Mr. Pritchard to do so?”

“Yes, using the excuse that the coach had to leave by ten o’clock if we were to reach Gananoque or Kingston by this evening.”

“Let me review these times, then, just to get them straight. Your husband left your room, fully dressed for the outdoors, at about nine-ten or so. He arrived downstairs, we’ve been told, about fifteen minutes past the hour, observed by all those at breakfast with a clear view across the foyer. Mr. Sedgewick spends less than a minute, say, trying to discourage the captain from going out. He does go out, however, a little after quarter past nine. You arrive downstairs less than five minutes later and join the others at the breakfast table.”

“Yes, though Mr. Lambert was heading down the back hall just as I arrived.”

All eyes swung towards Charles Lambert, who had been sitting stolidly on the witness bench, staring straight ahead as if preoccupied with more weighty or more pertinent matters. He continued to do so.

“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Brookner. We will hear testimony on his whereabouts in due course. What we have so far, then, is this: I have retraced the route Captain Brookner took this morning and, walking at a steady pace, I found it took ten full minutes to reach the spot where he was shot. However, your husband was accustomed, was he not, Mrs. Brookner, to stroll along in leisurely fashion enjoying the scenery?”

“That is right. He would march along for a bit, then pause to take in something that caught his eye, especially if he were in a new place.”

“In all likelihood, then, it may have taken him fifteen to twenty minutes to reach that fatal spot. Which would bring him there about nine-thirty or nine thirty-five. You arrived at the breakfast table about nine-twenty. How long were you there before you asked Mr. Sedgewick to follow your husband?”

“Not more than five minutes. Mr. Pritchard had had time to fetch me some coffee from the sideboard.”

“That means that Sedgewick and Pritchard, who took several more minutes to fetch their coats and boots, began to follow after him at about nine-thirty or so. They were obviously in a hurry. They must have reached him by, say, nine-forty or nine forty-five-not more than a few minutes after the shot must have been fired, but far enough away not to have heard the report of the pistol. A minute or two sooner and their presence might have prevented this tragedy.”

The gallery took this in. Adelaide looked stoically ahead.

“It seems improbable, if not impossible, then, that anyone seated at the breakfast table from nine-fifteen to nine twenty-five could have fired the fatal shot.”

Again, all eyes swung to scrutinize the only member of the travelling party who had not been present during these critical minutes. Charles Lambert looked down, fingers clasped tightly.

Adelaide Brookner was excused with thanks. She walked through the crowd and out of the room, with Mrs. Dingman one solicitous step behind her. The next witness was Charles Lambert. It took four gavel raps to quell the muttering and morbid speculation.

The coroner began by leading Lambert over some familiar territory, so that it was soon ascertained that he had not known or ever knew of Randolph Brookner until meeting him at the hotel in Montreal and joining his travelling group.

“Did you have any reason for disliking any member of the Queen’s regulars or Her militia?”

“No, sir. I am a loyal citizen.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Marc had not yet told the magistrate about Lambert’s true identity, partly because the information had been given to him in confidence by an officer of the army and partly because he thought it would throw a red herring into the proceedings. If, as a Quebecker, Lambert wished revenge for alleged atrocities, it was Marc who would have been the target, not Brookner.

“Please tell this inquest at what time you left the breakfast table, and why.”

“Mrs. Brookner was just coming downstairs when Mr. Dingman and I left for his office.”

“That would make it close to nine-twenty?”

“I believe so.”

“Who suggested that you go there, you or Mr. Dingman?”

The spectators leaned forward to hear the witness’s response to this potentially incriminating query.

“I did,” Lambert said very softly.

“And did you go straight to Dingman’s office?”

Lambert hesitated again. “No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“The office is at the far end of the hall near the rear exit of the building. When we got there, I realized I would need one of my law books to facilitate the business Mr. Dingwall had been asking me to attend to ever since my arrival here.”

“Which was?”

“To help him rewrite a complicated will involving previous entailments on this valuable property, and several new codicils as well.”

“But no-one at breakfast reports seeing you return to the foyer to mount the stairs to the guest-rooms above.”

“They were not the only stairs, sir.”

This brought the gallery to rapt attention.

“I see. Go on.”

“Because Mr. Dingwall and I were already at the rear of the building, I decided to slip out the back door, go up the outside fire-stairs, and reach my room that way. I had no coat or hat, but I did have my boots on.” When Doctor Mac lifted one skeptical brow, Lambert added, “It just seemed the most convenient way of doing so.”