He inched his way back until he was standingin front of the barn’s only door. He gave a series of irregularknocks, as if it were some code. There was no response for thirtyseconds or so. He repeated the sequence of knocks. From inside camea tentative whisper:
“That you, Chilton?”
In what he hoped was a reasonableapproximation of the butler’s voice, Marc replied, “Yes. Openup.”
Again there was a lengthy pause. Then thedoor-latch was cautiously slid back. Marc didn’t wait. He pushedinward with all his strength. The door jerked open, and a malefigure was flung backwards with it. In the half-light all Marccould see was the underside of two upturned snowshoes.
He stepped inside, bent over the stunned man,pulled him up by his coat-collar, and plunked him down on thenearest bale of hay. He was a short, wiry fellow with a stableman’sstrength, but the sight of Marc’s six-foot frame blocking the lightand his escape route was enough to convince him to remain seated.In lieu of resistance, he opted for bravado.
“Who the fuck are you?” he snarledshakily.
“My name is Edwards. I’m with the Torontopolice. And you have to be Giles Harkness.”
“What of it? I ain’t done nothin’ the policeneed to get bothered about.”
“That remains to be seen. What are you doingskulking about this estate?”
“I work here. I got a right to be anywhere Ilike.”
“You left your employment over two weeks ago,and since then you’ve been overheard making threats against yourformer employer.”
“What’re you gonna do, arrest me fertrespassin’? How do you know I ain’t come to visit Struthers orBragg?”
“Quit avoiding the obvious. Just now you wereexpecting Graves Chilton to be outside that door, not Struthers orBragg. It is five o’clock, and that was your rendezvous time eachday, wasn’t it? Chilton arrived with an envelope, handed it to you,and you snowshoed back into the bush and made a run for the city todeliver the news. We’ve known all about it, we just didn’t know — till now — where the drop-off was and to whom.”
“It ain’t against the law to carry messages!”Harkness cried, but most of the bravado had dissolved as Marc hadzeroed in on the truth. “I had no idea what was in them envelopes,”he added with a whine and a desperate glance at the solitary door.“Honest!”
“Last Thursday at two-thirty you received anenvelope from the butler, delivered it, and returned again at fiveo’clock. But this time you not only received, you delivered,didn’t you?”
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“You delivered a little gift for Mr. Chilton,a bonus for his success at getting three envelopes to his bettersin town: one on Wednesday and two on Thursday. You brought the goodbutler a bottle of Amontillado sherry, didn’t you?”
“So what? The gentleman we worked for askedme to deliver it. Is that a crime too?” Harkness’s blusterwas increasing in proportion to his anxiety.
“You don’t know, do you?” Marc said with aslow, quizzical smile.
“Know what?”
“Your Graves Chilton is dead. He died earlyFriday morning. The Amontillado you gave him had enough poison init to fell an elephant.”
Harkness went chalk-white, and began totremble. “You’re lyin’! We was just tryin’ to make him woozy — enough to get him fired.”
“That’s irrelevant. Whoever put the poison inthat wine and the man who delivered it are both guilty of murder,and will hang,” Marc said in the tone he used to badger a hostilewitness in court.
“I ain’t gonna hang fer this! It wasn’t myidea! None of it!”
“Then you had better give me the name of theman who is responsible.”
A few minutes later Marc and his prisoner reachedthe path that would take them to the manor-house. Harkness wentmeekly, carrying his snowshoes. As they neared the rear entrance,Marc heard the snap of reins across a horse’s back.
“This way,” he said to Harkness, and directedhim towards the circular drive in front of the house.
Just as they arrived, a horse and cutterwhirled out of the treed lane and came to a halt a few feet away.Cobb stood up, dropped the reins, and grinned at Marc. Beside him,hunched over and shivering, sat a slim, well-dressed gentleman.
Marc grinned back, indicated Harkness, andsaid, “I’ve found us a murderer, Cobb.”
“And I got us a bona-fidee Englishbutler!”
FIFTEEN
While Cobb took a befuddled and half-frozen GravesChilton around to the servants’ wing and placed him in the capablecare of Mrs. Blodgett and the Janes sisters, Marc led GilesHarkness through the front door and into the library. A few minuteslater Cobb came up the main hall to join them, followed by GarnetMacaulay, who had spotted Cobb going past the dining-room. Withoutproviding any details, only some of which were known for sureanyway, Marc indicated that the case was almost solved, and askedMacaulay to alert Robert and Hincks. Together they were able toconvince the Quebecers that all would be well and that they shouldremain ready some time later in the evening to receive final wordfrom the police in Toronto and, at last, be free to put theirsignatures to the historic accord.
Marc and Cobb then spent the next hourgrilling Giles Harkness. Fifteen minutes into the interrogation,Cobb went to the dining-room and asked Macaulay to send theStruthers lad back along the Indian trail in the bush to the northof Elmgrove until he came to an abandoned trapper’s cabin, where hewould find a horse tethered. Said horse was to be brought back tothe kitchen garden, where Cobb, a little later, would examine itclosely. As Marc had already surmised, Harkness had used the routeMacaulay had mentioned to Marc yesterday as his means of enteringand exiting Elmgrove and slipping unobserved to and from the cityby a roundabout route.
A half-hour later, after giving a thumbs-upto Robert and Macaulay, Marc and Cobb then drove Harkness straightto the jail on King Street. Hincks came along with them, havingvolunteered to act as envoy for the news that would permitLaFontaine to sign the agreement and seal the “unholy alliance.”Magistrate James Thorpe was roused from his after-supper snooze andpersuaded to come down to the Court House and take the statement ofGiles Harkness, who seemed eager to confess or, as Cobb saw it, gethis side of the story on paper before the other fellow’s. WhileThorpe’s clerk, hauled out of church, copied out the formaldocument for Harkness to sign, Cobb gave Marc an edited account ofhis trip to Cobourg and the unmasking of Mrs. Jiggins and her plotat The Pine Knot, excising certain extraneous details for the sakeof brevity. When he emphasized the limited knowledge, andliability, of Mrs. Jiggins, Marc made no effort to probe himfurther on the subject. For his part, the real Graves Chilton wasnot of a mind to press charges of forcible confinement, though hewas heard telling Mrs. Blodgett in the Elmdale kitchen that shemust keep the cooking sherry well out of his reach.
So it was almost eight o’clock on a moonlit,snowy Sunday evening when Marc and Cobb walked up to the front doorof the handsome brick residence on Jarvis Street and engaged theornate door-knocker. It took half a minute for the door to bepulled slowly open by a middle-aged maid with a sallow complexionand a surly demeanour. “Whaddya want?” she said, suspicion sittingundisguised in her eye.
“We’re here to interview your master,” Marcsaid politely. “Is he at home?”
“He is, but he ain’t seein’ nobody today. Igot my orders.”
“Please inform him that Constable Cobb andMr. Edwards are here to see him on official police business.”
“It’ll haveta wait till — ”
“We got a warrant from the magistrate,” Cobbsaid sharply. “Yer master ain’t got a choice in the matter.”
The maid blinked, nodded her understanding,and then without a word wheeled and started to trot away from them.Cobb pushed the door open and stepped into the vestibule. “We’lljust hang our coats an’ hats here!” he shouted after her.