Don Gutteridge - Turncoat

Marc hesitated long enough for Beth to discern that he had absorbed and appreciated the reasonableness of this claim. After all, it coincided with everything he had heard so far about Joshua Smallman. Still, someone seemed to have wished him harm, or at the very least colluded in his death. He pushed ahead, gently. “Would you tell me as much as you can remember about that evening? If it’s too painful, I could return another time.”

“I’ll make some more tea,” she said.

“We were plannin’ to have a little celebration here to mark the end of the year, it bein’ also a year to the day since Father’d arrived. You understand, though, it couldn’t’ve been entirely a celebration.”

“Yes. Your … husband must have been uppermost in your thoughts.”

“Still, we were preparin’ a small party, with the Huggan girls, Emma Durfee, Thomas Goodall. We’d even asked Elijah to join us, but he’d already dashed off to visit Ruby the cook up at the squire’s.”

“Philander Child’s cook?”

“Yes. Father felt strongly that we had an obligation to these kind people, whatever our own sorrows might be. About six o’clock, right after milkin’ and supper, one of Mr. Child’s servants came to the door and said they were expectin’ Father at the gatherin’ of the Georgian Club-”

“I know about that,” Marc said. “Had your father forgotten about the New Year’s celebration up at Child’s?”

“He said-rather mysteriously, I thought-that he was through with all that frivolousness. I know he’d missed a few meetings of late, and he seemed to be growin’ a bit weary of their whist games and political chatter, but I was still surprised when he suggested that we plan our own celebration. Anyway, he sent the servant back with a polite refusal, and we started to get ready for some mulled wine and a few treats Father’d brought us from Cobourg.”

“Did he seem upset or agitated?”

“No. I could see he was sad, of course, as I was, but we were both tryin’ very hard not to be. Mary Huggan and her sisters were due to come over at seven. Father’d even hauled his violin out of the trunk.”

“What happened, then, to call him so suddenly away from all this?”

“I can’t say for sure. Just before seven, he went out to check on the animals for the night.”

“A regular routine?”

“Yes. Once in a blue moon Elijah gets into the liquor and so Father always checked the barn with him, or on his own, before comin’ in for the evenin’.”

“As he did that night.”

“I can only assume so. Father was gone a little longer than usual, I think, but the girls had arrived at the front door gigglin’ and carryin’ on, so I can’t say for sure. But when he did come in, he was a changed man.”

“Describe him, please, as precisely as you can.”

“As I told the magistrate, he was excited. Not pretendin’ to be happy as he’d been before. ‘I’ve got to go out, Beth, dear,’ he said. ‘Just for half an hour or so.’ When I looked amazed, he smiled and told me there was nothin’ to worry about …”

Despising himself, and beginning to feel more than a little resentment at the predicament in which Sir John had so cavalierly placed him, Marc forced himself to ask, “Did he have a note or letter or paper of any kind in his hand or on his person?”

“No. But he said he’d gotten a message, an important one that could change all our lives for the better.”

“Those were his exact words?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been unable to forget them.”

Marc pressed on lest his nerve fail him utterly. “But you saw no letter, and he never said or hinted who had sent this message to him?”

“I told the inquest that I heard what could’ve been paper rustlin’ inside his coat. But he’d been doin’ the year-end accounts earlier in the day and so there was nothing surprising about that.”

“The surgeon says no papers of any kind were found on him.”

“I know. I could’ve been wrong. I was so shocked to hear him say he was headin’ out into that awful weather and just abandonin’ his guests, I wasn’t thinkin’ too straight.” She sipped at her tea, found it unconsoling, and said, “But he seemed genuinely excited. Happy, even. I heard him ride out on Belgium twenty minutes later.”

“If there was a note, with instructions about a rendezvous and some bait to lure him to Bass Cove, could anyone else here have read it?”

Beth Smallman peered up at Marc with a look of puzzlement, pity, and the beginnings of anger. “I’m pleased you are takin’ such an interest in Father, and I would like some questions about that night to have better answers, but my husband’s father was an honest and well-loved gentleman. If somebody deliberately killed him, then you’ll have to come up with something less fanciful than notions about secret notes and mysterious footprints in the snow. You’ve got to hate or fear somebody with a passion before you can kill them. If there was a note, I was the only person here that night capable of readin’ it. Unless you suspect Emma Durfee.”

Marc got up and made a stiff bow. Beth’s features softened, and in other circumstances he was confident she would have smiled. “I have inconvenienced you long enough and imposed unconscionably on your hospitality,” he said, wrestling his way into his greatcoat.

Beth took an elbow and helped him complete the task.

At the door she said, “You will let me know what you find?”

“I can do no less, ma’am.”

“Call me Beth, please.”

He touched the peak of his cap and left.

Marc was grateful for the slow walk back to the mill, one that didn’t include a further encounter with the misanthropic Elijah. He needed a few quiet moments to mull over what he had learned before rehashing it with Erastus Hatch.

He was convinced that a note had been delivered. Joshua’s decision to leave the house had been made sometime in the half hour or so in which he was checking out the barn. Most likely as he was returning to the house, someone gave it to him-a servant or stableboy on foot or someone who had ridden in from farther afield specifically for the purpose. The need for detailed directions and some elaborate “hook” strongly suggested written instructions, but a personally delivered oral message, though riskier, was not out of the question.

At some point he realized he was going to have to interrogate Elijah about when he had left for the Child estate and whether he had seen his master beforehand. But deep down he was certain that, until some motive became clear, little beyond informed speculation was possible. Nevertheless, he was still in possession of a salient fact known only to him: Joshua Smallman was an informer for Sir John. No one in the region, not even a friend like Hatch, was aware of this. But had someone discovered or guessed at the truth? Some rabid annexationist or firebrand among the apostles of the rabble-rousing Mackenzie? Even so, the area was thick with Tories and loyalists, any one of whom could be (and likely was) viewed as a spy with a direct link to the powerful Family Compact in Toronto or the government itself. You’d have to arrange for the deaths of a lot of locals to assuage that particular fever, Marc thought. At the moment, the most plausible premise was that Smallman had discovered some critical information, the revelation of which presented a real danger to a particular individual or cause. Such information may have been revealed already (Sir John would not be above withholding “politically sensitive” material from his investigating officer), prompting a revenge killing.

It was far too early to tell anyone what he knew about Joshua’s relationship with Sir John. That he must, at some time, tell Beth Smallman that particular news filled him with dread: she obviously worshipped the father-in-law who in less than a year had become “Father.” Any suggestion that he might have been leading a secret life and had perhaps used her political activities to gather information on her associates might prove devastating. Then again, Beth Smallman did not appear to be a woman easily devastated.