“What?”
“When I left the mill,” Marc said breathlessly, his heart racing as fast as his mind, “I saw a letter from Lydia Stebbins’s mother in Buffalo: it was addressed to Lydia Connors.”
“She was a Connors?”
“That’s right. And her father was a bigwig in the Loco Foco wing of the Democratic Party, a group of fanatics who hate centralized government and big banks and go about rattling sabres everywhere. The Hunters’ Lodges could easily be an offshoot. And Connors’s mate O’Hurley was hiding out at Stebbins’s place the day I went there. He hobbled my horse so I couldn’t trail Stebbins to some secret meeting out past Mad Annie’s.”
Beth leaned back, a bit overwhelmed by Marc’s fervid narrative. “But I heard he’s a gambler and dicer,” she offered.
“He tells his wife and everybody else he’s going hunting!”
“Most of the farmers hunt-”
“Don’t you see, hunting is the code word. And he’s never come back with a deer that anybody’s actually seen. Gambling at Mad Annie’s was just another cover story, like the hunting. Somewhere out in the bush there were secret and dangerous meetings going on.”
“But how did Father-?”
“Joshua would’ve found out from you that Jesse was out in Buffaloville doing carpentry work most of the summer and fall before he died. My hunch is that your father went out to Stebbins’s place to confront him with whatever he thought he knew. Remember that Joshua must’ve had mainly suspicions at this point. If he had had hard evidence, he would have gone immediately to Philander Child with it.”
“Come to think of it,” Beth said, “Father did go out that way-once-sometime in October, to look at some pigs.”
Marc scarcely heard. “As it was, he was probably relying on surprise and conviction. We’ll likely never know exactly what Joshua thought he knew: whether it was suspicion that Jesse was a rum-runner whose death could have been linked to those outlaws, or something more sinister, like secret societies and vendettas against turncoats.”
“Turncoats?”
“Well, if Jesse joined the Hunters even nominally and then got cold feet, they would have considered him to be a turncoat. In that case, either Connors forced him to hang himself, or he and O’Hurley did it for him.”
Beth shuddered. “So you’re sayin’ that if Connors didn’t kill father, then Stebbins did?”
“It could have been any one of the Hunters,” Marc said. “Stebbins no doubt denied all the accusations, and, without proof, being an honourable man, Joshua told no one for the moment. But I’m certain he had not given up. Nevertheless, the wind was up among the conspirators. My guess is that on New Year’s Eve one of their lesser lights delivered a message to Joshua. The bait would have been information related to Jesse’s death. It might well have hinted that somebody knew something to suggest it had not been suicide after all. That would have drawn your father out in a blizzard on any night. It would also have sealed his own silence in the interim. Likely he was instructed to tear up the note and scatter the pieces, or his killer callously came down from the cave and removed it.”
Beth was having difficulty with the pace and fever of Marc’s monologue as well as with what he was saying. For a moment she had an image of this man in the thick of some battle, eyes ablaze, sword raised in righteousness. “But Azel and Jess were good friends,” she said. “We went to rallies together.”
“Not everyone is what he seems,” Marc said, and the sudden deflation of his voice and demeanour caused her to glance at him in alarm.
Marc took a deep breath. “I should have told you this right at the outset,” he said quietly. “You must believe me when I say it was not because I mistrusted you. I trusted you right away, and I’ve had no cause to regret it.”
“What is it?” Beth appeared incapable of bracing herself for more news, good or bad.
“I didn’t want to tell you unless it became a necessary part of the investigation. I think now that it is.” After the briefest of pauses he said, “Joshua Smallman was a commissioned informant for Sir John Colborne. He sent back monthly reports on suspected incendiaries in this district.”
Beth sighed, not with disappointment but relief. “I’ve known all along.”
“You have?”
“Oh, he never told me. But I knew all the same.”
“But you took him to Reform rallies, to party meetings!”
“I told you that first day: he was the most honourable and decent man I ever met.” Something in her glance intimated that she might have added “until now.”
“You see, I knew he would report the truth. And the truth’s always been that the farmers of this township are simply fightin’ for their rights and their livelihood by electin’ members who’ll represent their interests. It’s not been us who’ve twisted the laws for our own ends.”
Marc wisely refrained from mentioning contraband rum and bat-wielding rallymen. “I’ve got the last report he ever wrote in my saddlebag,” Marc said. “When you read it, you’ll see that your faith in him was justified.”
“But why is this important now?”
“If the Hunters, or whoever they really are, suspected your father was an informant or even a personal friend of Sir John’s, they would be even more desperate to silence him, and to do it quickly.”
Beth took that in. Then she said, “But what are you goin’ to do about Stebbins? You’ve got no more proof than Father had.”
“Maybe not-not until we run O’Hurley to ground anyway. But I don’t intend to wait for that to happen. If Stebbins himself didn’t kill your father-in-law, then he knows who did. The answers lie somewhere in Buffaloville. And, Sabbath or not, I’m riding out there as soon as I can get the horse saddled. I’m going to shake the truth out of that conniving weasel and then haul him before the magistrate!”
At the door Beth said, “Be careful. There’s been too much death around here lately.”
Marc had just finished saddling the colonel’s horse-which showed no sign of lameness, thanks to a temporary shoe and the ministrations of Thomas Goodall-when Hatch came puffing up to him. He had a piece of paper in his hand, but before he could comment on it, Marc launched into a sustained narrative of his theory of the murders of Jesse and Joshua Smallman. Thomas and Erastus stood wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
“So you see,” Marc concluded his tale, “it’s been about rum and politics all along. I’m going to tell Stebbins that you and I witnessed Connors’s deathbed confession, and that he admitted to Jesse’s murder and complicity in Joshua’s. That ought to shake him up!”
“My God, but you’re a devious fellow for one so young.” Hatch laughed. “I reckon you’ll be pleased then to see what I’ve dug up for you.” He held out the quarto-sized sheet of paper he had brought with him.
“What’s that?”
“All this talk about smuggling reminded me of one of them lists we found back in December. In fact, it’s the one we mentioned to you Wednesday night. I took it from Isaac Duffy before we packed him off to Kingston for smuggling. This one’s got names, places, and the kind and amount of booze as well. It was enough to nail the bugger in court.”
Marc was scrutinizing the information. It covered the full page. Under headings for “Rum: Jamaican” and “Bourbon: Charleston” appeared lists of names and what seemed to be townships or locales.
“It’s J. Smallman again,” Hatch prompted, with evident satisfaction. “And it’s been crossed out-real faint, mind you, but crossed out just the same. We saw it there in December, but with Jesse dead a year, I paid it no heed.”
When Marc continued to pore silently over the document, Hatch decided to press on unaided. “Don’t you see, lad? Jesse was definitely up to his ears in this sordid business. And Joshua found out! There’s the connection we’ve been looking for, eh?”