Unholy Alliance (26 page)

“Weller’s sleigh usually stops here comin’
an’ goin’,” she said in reply to his opening query. “A week ago
Tuesday, you say? Now let me think. Yes, that was the day the young
lady puked all over my welcome rug. There was only two other riders
with her, her husband and an elderly gent.”

“And the next day, the Wednesday?”

“That’s easy. There were four passengers: a
very chatty merchant gentleman from Montreal, headin’ to the big
city, he said, to sign some paper or other that’d make him rich.
But I let all that sort of braggin’ roll off like water down a
duck’s ass. An’ there was a girl with a club foot, got on at
Cobourg, I think, along with her mother and uncle.”

“What about Thursday?” Cobb asked, knowing as
he did that the impostor was spotted by young Cal Struthers getting
off Weller’s stage late Thursday afternoon.

“You’re expectin’ me to remember an awful
lot, ain’t ya?”

“What if I was to buy a jug of yer hooch?
Would that
re-gress
yer memory?”

“Might do the trick,” she chortled as she
gave his gentlemanly duds a further appraising look. “Let me see .
. . It was Thursday of last week when Danny Stokes the driver
pulled in with a near-lame horse. My husband – least that’s what he
calls himself – helped him put a new shoe on her. The passengers
all sampled my wares except fer this well-dressed fella who talked
with a ten-dollar accent. Coulda been English. He turned his nose
up at my hot biscuits.”

“Was he bald-headed?”

“Yer cousin was hairless, was he?”

“Bald as a bull’s
whatchamacallits
.”

“Well, this fella kept his fancy hat on in a
most unmannerly way, but I could see his greasy orange hair
stickin’ out from under it.”

“Then that wouldn’t’ve been my cousin
Graves,” Cobb said. He gave her a quarter for a jug of her homemade
whiskey, thanked her, and headed back out into the cold – mightily
pleased with his efforts in there. For he now knew that the real
Graves Chilton had not got this far, that somewhere east of this
point the red-headed impostor had pounced.

“Let’s go, Ben. We got a ways to travel
yet.”

***

Marc spent the rest of Saturday morning in his room
going over the accumulated notes he and Cobb had made on the case.
He was looking for any angle they might have overlooked or any
questions they might have failed to ask. They had not pressed the
Struthers, father and son, very hard, particularly in light of the
fact that they seemed to be the only employees on the estate who
had ready access to the outside or were unaccountable in general
for their whereabouts. But they had no discernible motive, and of
all the persons resident in Elmgrove this week, they seemed the
least perturbed by the events in the manor house. But something was
definitely niggling at the back of his mind, some fact or other he
had not viewed from every possible vantage-point. But two hours
spent poring over these notes did nothing to bring it to light.

At one o’clock he went to the dining-room for
some lunch, and was relieved to find only Garnet Macaulay there. He
looked haggard, but did his best to greet Marc with a smile.

“I don’t think I could play another game of
backgammon or piquet without having a brain seizure,” he said,
poking at a soft-boiled egg.

“That bad, eh?” Marc said, sitting down.

“It’s Bérubé. He’s mercilessly sociable.
LaFontaine is quite content in the library reading back issues of
Hincks’s
Examiner
and the Tory
Gazette
. Bergeron is
reading in the parlour. But I was unable to get away from Bérubé
and the games table – that is, until I got an inspiration.”

“Which was?”

“To find him a risqué French novel from
Elizabeth’s collection. He’s reading it in the sanctity of his
bedchamber. Thank the Lord for minor mercies, eh?”

“What about Tremblay?”

“Well, he brooded in his room all morning,
but fifteen minutes ago he came down and asked me for a pair of
raquettes.”

“Snowshoes?”

“Right. I took him to the back shed and
outfitted him with a pair, a huge wool sweater, and a tuque. Seems
he did a lot of snowshoeing back home.”

“And he’s gone off on his own?” Marc said,
letting his alarm show.

“Oh, don’t worry, Marc. I helped him dress
for the outdoors. He wasn’t concealing anything contraband on his
person, and I doubt he’ll attempt to snowshoe all the way to
Montreal.”

“I suppose blowing off a little steam through
physical exertion can’t do him any harm.”

“Why don’t you slip home for a few hours?”
Macaulay suggested. “If you’re worried about being spotted coming
into town from this vicinity, you could take my saddle-horse and
head out the back way.”

“The back way?”

“Yes. You’ll recall the lumber road that you
arrived on just to the north of Elmgrove. Well, it soon turns into
a narrow Indian trail, not wide enough for a sleigh but suitable
for a horse and rider. It comes out of the woods at a swamp – now
frozen solid – where Parliament Street now ends. You could ride
down to your cottage from that direction.”

Marc laughed. “I haven’t been seen in town
riding a horse since I left the army two years ago. To say I’d be
noticed would be an understatement. Thanks anyway, but I’ll take
the usual route.”

“As long as you’ll go and get away from this
place for a while,” Macaulay said with evident relief. “I’ll have
Struthers bring a small cutter around to the front door in fifteen
minutes.”

Marc thanked Macaulay, and while he went off
to find Struthers, Marc had some lunch and thought about what he
might do in the city, in addition to spending some time with Beth
and Maggie. It would be useful, he decided, to seek out Nestor
Peck, Cobb’s most reliable snitch, and have him and his cronies try
to trace the movements of Giles Harkness over the past two weeks
and, if possible, determine his present whereabouts.

By the time the horse and cutter drew up at
the front door, Marc had packed his grip (with soiled clothes) and
pulled on his outdoor things. He stepped out into the cold, clear
afternoon, thanked Abel Struthers, and hopped up into the cutter.
It felt good to be outdoors and on the move after the
claustrophobia of Elmgrove. He snapped the reins and the horse
began to trot smartly up Macaulay’s driveway towards the Kingston
Road. The driveway wound its way among spruce and cedar, their
boughs still glistening and pristine with snow.

He was in sight of the highway when he heard
a strange sound coming from the grove of evergreens on his right.
He drew back on the reins. There it was again. It seemed to be a
lone blue jay shrieking, as they sometimes did in the early spring:
sharp and insistent. With the cutter stopped and the horse standing
still, the woods around Marc became eerily silent – until the
jay-shriek came again.

“
Au secours! Au secours
!”

Not a bird at all, but someone crying out
desperately in French, crying for help. Marc knew he could not get
the horse and cutter through the evergreens, so he jumped down and
ploughed straight towards the cry, which, after a brief pause,
started up again – somewhat fainter than before. The drifts were
three- or four-feet deep, and Marc found himself floundering in
them up to his thighs. It was easy to see why the locals resorted
to snowshoes to travel anywhere off the roads or trails. In less
than a minute he had become winded and, despite the piteous and
fading cries ahead, he was forced to stop and catch his breath.

“It’s all right! I’m coming to help!” he
shouted in French.

Several minutes later, panting and sweating,
Marc thrashed his way past a bushy cedar-tree and spotted the
source of the cry for help. Maurice Tremblay lay on his back in a
huge drift. One leg – still snowshoed – was sticking up in the air
and being shaken about as if it were trying to get a purchase on
the air itself. The other was, apparently, twisted underneath him
at an unnatural angle. He’s tipped over and sprained or broken his
left ankle, was Marc’s thought as he pushed his way the final few
yards to the stricken man.

“Don’t try to speak,” Marc said firmly. “I’m
here to help. I’ve got a sleigh nearby on the driveway. If you can
stand it, I’m going to lift you onto my back and carry you
there.”

Tremblay, his face white and contorted,
nodded, then grimaced horribly and sighed against the pain tearing
up through his injured leg.

Marc quickly removed the raquette from the
sound right foot, then got behind Tremblay and very gently lifted
him upright. But as the bent leg and twisted ankle straightened out
with the rest of his body, Tremblay screamed in agony, and the
shock of his scream almost sent Marc toppling. Realizing that it
would be too painful to try and remove the other snowshoe, Marc
simply eased himself around Tremblay’s body, squatted down, and
heaved him up onto his shoulders, pick-a-back.

As he staggered forward with his burden, Marc
could feel the man’s trembling and his hot, wheezing, pain-driven
breath on the back of his neck. The extra weight caused Marc to
sink even deeper in the drifts as he made his way back towards the
cutter. At times he sank up to his hips, and had to use one
mittened hand to paw a path through the snow ahead while balancing
Tremblay and steadying him with the other one. Soon Marc’s
breathing became heavy and tortured. His chest tightened and burned
as he gasped at the icy air. He lost count of the number of times
he had to pause and rest, while Tremblay continued to whimper
pitifully. Perhaps he should have driven back to the house and
gotten a sled or toboggan, and expert assistance, Marc thought. But
Tremblay’s suffering had been acute and the cutter had seemed so
near.

Finally, Marc staggered onto the firmer snow
of the driveway, almost tipped over, righted himself and, using the
last reserves of his strength, eased Tremblay across the cutter’s
leather seat. He set the injured leg down tenderly and began
unlacing the raquette. Tremblay’s cries had now become a single,
heart-wrenching moan.

Marc took the reins and stood up behind the
seat to guide the horse. He was forced to take the cutter out onto
the Kingston Road in order to get it turned around, after which he
was able, at last, to transport Maurice Tremblay back to the
manor-house and whatever comforts it might offer.

***

“It’s not broken,” Macaulay informed Marc, who was
sitting in the kitchen being pampered by Hetty and Tillie Janes.
“It’s a severe sprain, which is often a damn sight more painful
than a clean break.”

“He’s settled in his room, then?” Marc said,
waving off another cup of tea from Tillie.

“Mrs. Blodgett’s been her usual wonderful
self. She poured brandy down his throat, probed for breaks, found
none, packed the ankle in ice, and made him put it up on a high
stool. When the swelling goes down, she’ll wrap it tightly or apply
a splint. Meantime, she’s given him a dose of laudanum.” He smiled
and added, “From her private supply.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Marc said. “It’s
hard to think what else could go wrong, eh?”

“By the way, Marc, Tremblay wishes to speak
with you – now, before the sedative takes effect.”

“I’ll go right up,” Marc said, putting down
his teacup and giving the sisters a grateful smile.

Upstairs, Marc found Tremblay sitting in a
chair with his leg propped up on a pillowed stool. He was looking
somewhat dazed, and barely able to open his eyes wide enough to
take in his visitor. He gave Marc as broad a smile as he could
muster.

“I’m pleased to hear that your injury was not
as serious as we thought it might be,” Marc said. “You’ll be in
good hands here, at any rate.”

“I wanted to thank you personally,” Tremblay
said, looking straight at Marc as he spoke. “What you did out there
was courageous and very – very
generous.
”

“I did what anyone would do in the
circumstances,” Marc said, meaning it.

“After the way I have treated you and your
colleagues, and abused our host’s hospitality, I could not have
blamed you for driving on and leaving me to my own devices. Who
would have known if you had? I wish to apologize with all
sincerity, and hope you will convey my apologies to Mr. Macaulay
and the others.”

“I will make certain of it.”

“I have been in turmoil all week,” Tremblay
said, fighting hard against the onset of the sleep his body was
demanding. “I have had to admit to myself the logic of many of the
arguments put forth on both sides of our discussions, but have been
unable to put aside the kind of hate and outrage that has built up
in me since the failure of the rebellion. This surprised me, and
made me even more difficult to get along with.”

“I do understand.”

“I wish you every success in your
investigation.”

“Thank you. Now I’ll leave you to rest.”

Tremblay had already closed his eyes.

In the hall, Marc joined Macaulay, and as
they descended the stairs, Marc said, “I think we may have done our
cause some good in that quarter.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Marc. Now it’s time
for you to do some good for yourself. Go home to Beth and Maggie –
this minute!”

***

Cobb estimated that there were fewer than two hours
of daylight remaining as he left the village of Port Hope. He had
been on the road for almost twelve hours, and had made five or six
stops along the way. At three of them he had been given reliable
information that confirmed the east-to-west progress of the
red-headed impostor in Weller’s stagecoach on the Thursday
afternoon of the week past. Exhausted as he was, and disappointed
that the spot where the ambush and exchange of identities occurred
seemed to be farther east than he had hoped, Cobb was determined to
reach Cobourg before he gave up for the day. He debated urging Ben
into a brisk canter, but the horse had been wonderful throughout
the arduous journey, requiring only brief respites and two
feedbags, and not once complaining – as long as he was permitted to
set his own steady pace.