Don Gutteridge - Turncoat

“Joshua Smallman was not among the fanatics,” he said emphatically. “He was a humble citizen of the Empire endowed with common sense and a strict but not strident adherence to duty.”

“Was?”

“He died on New Year’s Eve. And I have good reason to suspect that he was murdered.”

Marc’s surprise registered clearly on his face.

“As you may already know,” Sir John said, in the same straight-ahead, matter-of-fact tone, “I have been unavoidably busy with packing my books and belongings in the past week.”

“Then it is true that you are leaving for Montreal,” Marc said.

“I am. Simply put, I am needed more urgently in Quebec, where open rebellion may be nearing. I am to lead the troops there. My sovereign has called me, and the long and short of it is that all of us, major general or drummer boy, must do his duty.”

The manner in which Sir John first looked down and then glanced furtively back up alerted Marc to the sudden change in his own fortunes about to be announced, and the necessity of an unwavering obedience.

“I have here,” Sir John continued, picking up a letter from his desk, “the last report that Joshua Smallman sent me. It is dated December 28, almost two weeks ago. It came into my hands after New Year’s Day, but I must confess to you-and upbraid myself yet again-that I let it idle amongst more trivial messages and petitions until yesterday evening.”

“He wrote you, then, three days before his … death?”

“That’s right. Naturally I was informed of that tragic event within the day by courier. The district magistrate, who is a staunch supporter of the government, sent me the news, and three days later I received from him and from the sheriff of Northumberland County at Cobourg a summary of their findings and the results of the inquest.”

“Murder?”

“Death by misadventure.”

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“According to Sheriff MacLachlan’s report and the minutes of the inquest, Smallman, for reasons undeterminable, set out on horseback from his daughter-in-law’s house on New Year’s Eve. He told her that he was doing so in response to a message, but she doesn’t remember seeing any note and swears no one came directly to the house that evening, other than neighbours invited in for a quiet celebration. Nor would he tell her where he was going, despite her earnest entreaty and her expression of fear for his safety.” Before Marc could interrupt, Sir John said, “The weather was inclement in the extreme: below zero with squalls of snow and a strong wind off the lake. But away he went.”

“Worried? Anxious?”

“One would assume so,” Sir John said with a rueful smile, “but apparently not. He was described as rather excited, eager even, with not the least suspicion of danger. In fact, his last words to the young woman-Bathsheba-were: ‘When I return I may have some news that could change our lives forever.’”

“How, then, did he die?”

“Presumably he headed east along the Kingston Road, turned off on one of the newly surveyed concessions-he was seen to do so by a reliable witness-and kept going towards the lake. Fortunately the snow stopped completely before midnight and the wind soon died down, so when a search party was organized the next morning by Philander Child, the magistrate, and the supernumerary constable for Crawford’s Corners, one Erastus Hatch, the trail left by Smallman’s horse was still traceable. They soon heard the wretched beast whinnying like a sick child from the woods nearby. They found it tethered and near death, and a few yards farther on they came across the frozen corpse of Smallman himself.”

“Surely he couldn’t merely have lost his way. Not with a horse to lead him out.”

“True. But he had donned snowshoes and trod straight into a deadfall trap set years ago by the Mississauga Indians and long since abandoned.”

“Could it have been re-rigged more recently? For other ends?”

With each question or comment from Marc, Sir John grew more assured that, despite the beardless and callow countenance of the youth sitting in near-solemn attentiveness before him, he had chosen the right man for the task he had in view.

“No,” Sir John said. “The entire area was thoroughly scrutinized by Sheriff MacLachlan and Constable Hatch. However, I expect you’ll want to see for yourself.”

“But what can I hope to discover that they have not?” Marc said, genuinely puzzled.

“Why I am suspicious of murder, you mean?” Sir John said dryly. “Well, I wasn’t, not until I read Smallman’s report last night.” He held the paper up as if he needed to consult its contents, whose import and detail he had committed to memory. “Among other things, not relevant to our concerns here, he hinted near the end that he had grown weary of playing secret agent, that he had started to have doubts about his own sentiments in regard to the grievances so recently raised by the Reformers in the Assembly.”

“He doubted his own loyalty?”

“Not at all. That he could never do, whatever the provocation. That is the very reason I trusted him. Even the frank expression of such fleeting doubts endeared him the more to me and further validated his probity in my eyes. When you have commanded men in battle as I have, or attempted to administer justice among colonial grandees driven by deceit and self-serving ambition, then perhaps you will better understand what I mean. No, I doubted not, nor do I now doubt, Joshua Smallman’s loyalty. But he did go on to inform me that he felt that his role as a ‘spy’-his characterization, not mine-was close to being exposed, that his daughter-in-law’s increasing sympathy for left-wing causes was becoming public knowledge and threatening to compromise him. He was beginning to feel torn between his patriotic duty to His Majesty and his Christian duty to his son’s widow and her family. Finally, he said that while he had no firm evidence yet, he felt matters were coming to a head on several fronts.”

“Did he suggest he was in any physical danger?”

“Yes. Not directly, mind you. I’ll read you what he wrote: ‘There are men in these parts who are growing more desperate by the week. Many of them I have mentioned in previous reports, all of whom, until quite recently, I would swear still held to legislative and lawful means to achieve their purposes. At this moment, I don’t know whether there is more danger in my being thought to be a true-blue member of the Family Compact or a Tory-turned-Reformer under the influence of his son’s wife. In either case, I fear my usefulness to you is at an end. I do not lack courage, but I must admit that I was shaken last week when a young lad from a radical family on one of the back concessions was found tarred and feathered and bearing a sign that labeled him a turncoat.’”

“Upsetting, but not evidence of a threat against him personally,” Marc ventured.

Sir John replied, with some of the steeliness that had earned him such respect on the Spanish Peninsula and later at Waterloo: “Joshua Smallman would not have left his home in the midst of a New Year’s celebration and ventured out into a blizzard upon a fool’s errand. He was born and raised along that portion of the lake, he knew every brook and ravine. His horse was found tethered, not roaming frantically on its own. He was going somewhere in particular and in earnest. And even though the surgeon testifies that he died in the manner suggested by the circumstances in which he was found, neither he nor the constables knew that Joshua was my agent, and friend. Nor will they.” He held Marc’s eye long enough to settle that point, then said, “They have no reason to suspect that he may have had some clandestine and possibly life-threatening motive for being out alone on the last day of one of the saddest years of his life.”