A corner of Child’s left eye twitched once-that was all. “You had no authority to trespass on my property and intimidate my servant,” he said, but it seemed more a pro forma objection than righteous umbrage.
“I have Sir John’s warrant authorizing this investigation, along with his detailed memorandum of instructions,” Marc said, tapping the pocket of his frock coat. “And when Miss Marsden saw the governor’s seal, she soon decided to tell me the truth.”
“If that is so, then I advise you to interrogate Elijah, not me. I fail to perceive what motive that deranged soul might have had to waylay and murder the man he worked for, whose daughter-in-law he protected as if she were his own child. In any case, Elijah is no concern of mine.”
“Ah, but he is. He is in every way your man. It was you who brought him here from Toronto, ostensibly to help Jesse and Beth to survive on their farm.”
“Indeed it was. He was the relative of a friend in the capital, addled but good-hearted, and knowledgeable in farming here. It was an arrangement that suited everyone involved.”
“And I have no doubt that your motives were less than altruistic. You needed someone you could control close to that scene, and such a gesture would be sure to disguise your true motive. And if need be, Elijah could be persuaded to be unhelpful.”
“You are inordinately cynical for so young and inexperienced a gentleman. But remember, when Jesse couldn’t pay Elijah’s wages, I did so,” Child said with serene detachment. “That is, until Beth found out. When Joshua came, she was able to pay the man properly.”
“Yes, and by then Elijah had become attached to Mrs. Smallman. But when you needed to, you made sure he realized where his loyalties lay. He owed his living to you. He took a shine to your cook. He spent more and more of his free time over here. Furthermore, I’m certain you have some more tenacious or threatening hold over him, something so compelling that he would do your bidding even if it entailed murdering Beth’s father-in-law.”
“And precisely how were such an improbable duo able to execute a scheme to assassinate a harmless dry goods merchant?” Child was looking relaxed and bemused again. No hint of a twitch. “Your fantasies are far more entertaining than Holy Communion at St. Peter’s.”
“I can only speculate on the details, but from the evidence available, I’ve been able to set your scheme reliably in outline. What I surmise happened that night was this. You decided that Joshua must be confronted and your suspicions put to him-man to man. Even if he could successfully dispute them, you likely intended to pressure him into selling the farm to you by threatening to ruin his reputation with vicious innuendo. After all, he couldn’t prove that the ‘J. Smallman’ on the smugglers’ list you confiscated was not him. You sent a servant with a note that contained some message designed to lure him out, even on a snowy New Year’s Eve. Beth thought it was an invitation to your soiree, but it was something more sinister.”
“But why did I not merely summon him here into my presence and have it out in this very room?”
“You did not do so because you had already determined that if he could not satisfy you of his innocence of sedition, you would execute him on behalf of the Crown-for its sake and to satisfy your own greed. That is why the double motive here and the explosive nature of your character are so relevant. For you, nothing could absolve a turncoat or exculpate a Guy Fawkes with a grenade in his fist. And your lust for land and status is without bounds.”
“And this Elijah chap is supposed to have joined me in my murderous crusade. Just like that?”
“I think you decided to confront Joshua in a secluded spot, interrogate him, and then, if necessary, have Elijah dispatch him-out where no one would think to look. Oh, they’d find his horse, all right, miles from the deadfall, but I believe the body would have been dragged along the lake ice and dumped into the snow half a township away. The bears and wolves would scatter the bones. They might never have been found, or identified.”
“You do have a florid imagination. You should take up novel writing: the three-volume Gothic variety.”
“As it turned out, you didn’t need to do any of that. Elijah established his alibi with your besotted cook, then slipped out and rode one of your horses to the smugglers’ cave at Bass Cove, a place you’d likely heard about from Durfee or one of the other longtime residents of the area. His instructions were to wait there for Joshua’s arrival, and then to keep him there, by force if necessary, until you came yourself to begin the inquisition. Elijah may appear old and addled, but he’s neither. He’s a muscular farmhand who can and does read. A knife or pitchfork would be all the weapon required to intimidate the older and weaker man.”
“I was in this room until two hours past midnight.”
“I’m sure you were, with many worthies to testify so. Your plan was to make some plausible excuse to retire early-a touch of indigestion perhaps-and then sneak out and ride undetected up the lakeshore to the cove at the foot of the ridge. But you did not have to. When you ‘stepped out for some air,’ say, around ten o’clock, Elijah himself was waiting for you in the stables. He told you that Joshua Smallman had indeed been lured out to Bass Cove but had never reached the cave. The God who anoints and protects monarchs had steered the turncoat into a deadfall trap meant for deer or bear, and thus meted out His own brand of retribution. And that’s most likely how you viewed what happened out there, though I strongly suspect that Elijah directed Joshua into the deadfall trap or, in the least, deliberately left him there to die. A personal trial of the man’s honour out there would have pleased you perhaps, but it was not to be. Higher powers had intervened and done the dastardly work for you.”
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform,” Child said with deliberate irony.
Marc didn’t notice, for he was riding the crest of a rhetorical adrenaline rush, soaring along on the wings of his own argument. “At first I thought Joshua had been tempted out there by a note from one of the political radicals suggesting knowledge about Jesse’s apparent suicide.”
Child was fussing nonchalantly with his snuffbox.
“But that was wishful thinking. Joshua may have been obsessed with his son’s inexplicable death, but I don’t believe now that he would have been foolhardy enough to venture up there in a blizzard unless he recognized the handwriting on the note delivered to him by one of your servants, who doubtless thought he was the bearer of an invitation, perhaps a peace-offering. Joshua read it in the barn while making his nightly check, a message from a man he had no reason to fear, even if he did quarrel with him over politics and land acquisition. After all, this man was a justice of the peace. What you put in that note I do not know, because the note was destroyed by Joshua or, more likely, removed from his body by Elijah after the fact. Joshua was knocked unconscious: alive but dying. Leaving a man to die and not reporting it is tantamount to murder. And those who seduced him out there under false pretenses are equally guilty. In the least, you are an accessory.”
“At the inquest, as I recall, even Beth could not swear to the existence of a note.”
“But her brother Aaron will.”
A minor twitch of the left eyelid. “I see. So you’ve been browbeating helpless cretins, have you?”
“The boy is as sharp as you or me. His testimony will stand up in court.”
“Perhaps. But you have nothing but a falsified alibi for evidence. You could not bring this within a mile of any court.”
Time to play his second trump card, Marc decided. “At this moment, I have your accomplice incarcerated in the miller’s office. He has confessed to the salient details as I’ve outlined them. Moreover, he has implicated you.” This devastating fabrication was delivered with such élan that Marc almost believed it himself.