Lambert’s lips began to twitch.
“Your initial opportunity came on that first day when we ran up against the barricade, set there by rebel habitants, though I doubt they knew they were helping one of their own. In fact, as a maudit Anglais yourself, you risked being shot by those marauding gangs. Nevertheless, when you observed me limping off towards the river, while the others went to the other side of the road, you saw your chance and seized it. You kept a pocket pistol, I believe, in your big overcoat, and you followed me till I was well away from our party. But it was snowing and you had only one shot to make, and you missed. While I lay waiting for a second blow, you returned to the coach by a roundabout route. If I had revealed the incident to Brookner, the presence of vigilantes in the area would have readily and conveniently explained the ambush. I accepted such an explanation myself until yesterday afternoon, when I received word of your true identity. But you are a clever and patient man. You knew there would be further opportunities.”
Lambert, lips quivering, remained speechless.
“Your next move-diabolically clever-was to plant that death-threat in Brookner’s carriage. The tale of the Scanlon brothers and the real possibility that Brookner would be the target of the escaped brother, Miles, gave you a fresh opening, for not only were there vigilantes behind every bush but a vengeance-seeking rebel who might easily mistake one military greatcoat for another. Unfortunately, despite the captain’s urgings, I did not accommodate you by donning my tunic and shako. So you began to grow desperate. Here we were at Prescott, a day from Kingston and the breakup of the party. It was now or never. You knew that Brookner slept in the room next to mine. If I were found stabbed to death-a pistol would have been too noisy-it could be postulated that Brookner was the intended victim and Miles Scanlon the likely suspect. You must have been pleased, smug even, that I had not revealed the earlier attempt on my life. No-one knew that I was a potential target, except one of my fellow officers back in Montreal.”
There was a rustling sound just outside the door. “Are you ready, Mr. Lambert? Our sleigh is waiting. Shall I send the lad up for your bags?” It was Pritchard.
“Give us fifteen minutes!” Marc barked, and something in his voice got through to Pritchard, for he mumbled “All right” and shuffled off.
“So we come to your penultimate act. In the middle of the night, with snow conveniently falling, you went out onto the fire-stairs, shuffled along the ledge past the Brookners’ room, then climbed into mine and drove a knife into the body on the bed. But it was a dummy you stabbed. You may even have realized it at the time and decided to get out while you could. If not, your calm reaction to my appearance at breakfast would have made an Old Bailey hack proud. By now you were, despite your icy demeanour, frustrated and enraged. If you couldn’t kill me, then you’d damn well kill somebody in uniform before the trip was over.”
“I been sent up fer the bags,” a tremulous, adolescent voice called out from the hall.
“Go away!”
A hasty scampering ensued, then silence.
Marc wheeled around and stepped closer to Lambert. “This morning at breakfast, you watched Brookner go out that side door, and when Dingman arrived a few minutes later, you saw a last chance present itself. You knew all about the rear doors and the fire-stairs. It was you who suggested that you and Dingman go to his office. You followed him into the back hall, then excused yourself on the pretext of getting a law book. You hurried outside and trailed Brookner down the scenic path you knew he’d just taken. You had your pistol on you, as I suspect you have at this moment. You crept up behind and fired into the back of his head.
“As you rushed back along the path, you likely had to sidestep Pritchard and Sedgewick-they must have given you a bit of a fright coming up to the scene so soon after the event. But you found cover and returned unseen to Dingman’s office where you made some excuse about not finding or needing the law book after all. If Dingman, whom you knew to be an addled soul, were to testify that you were gone overly long, you could calmly dispute his claim. And, more important, you had no apparent motive for killing Brookner, while the notorious Miles Scanlon did. You couldn’t murder me, but you did manage to take some measure of revenge for the depredations of General Colborne’s troops. I will not be surprised even now if you were to pull out your pistol and try to finish the job, though I wouldn’t advise it.”
To Marc’s great relief, Lambert did not draw his pistol. The trembling of his lips had reached a crisis point, and his mouth opened wide. Then he clutched both hands to his belly, rolled back onto the bed, and shook with helpless mirth. It took him fully a minute to stop laughing and regain control of his voice. Marc looked on, incredulous: Had Lambert gone mad, broken under the relentless pressure of Marc’s accusations?
“You find all this amusing?”
“You’ve just told the funniest, wildest, most preposterous tale I’ve ever heard. In fact, you’ve managed to get most of it completely backwards.”
“What on earth do you mean? Don’t try lawyer’s tricks on me. They won’t wash.” But Marc was suddenly not as certain as he sounded.
“Now it’s your turn to sit down while I tell you a story,” Lambert said, wiping his eyes. Cautiously, Marc sat in a nearby chair, but kept a wary eye on Lambert’s right hand.
“I am what you see, Lieutenant: no more, no less. I speak both languages fluently, and I am, in a real sense, both English and French. I was born and spent my childhood on a farm near St. Denis. But unlike most Quebec families, my parents had but two children, my sister Sophie and me. When I was six, my father inherited money and land from an uncle in Vermont. We moved there. My father sold the farm and became a merchant. I was sent to the best English schools. My sister spent her summers in St. Denis with our cousins, but I soon became as English as I was French. I apprenticed law in New York City. It is English law I know, not the Code Napoleon. My sister fell in love with a local boy in the Richelieu Valley, married him, and moved back there to farm. When I was on business in Buffalo last year, I met my wife, Marie. She was visiting her aunt, but her home was in Kingston. She was of Scots Irish stock. Although I was raised Catholic, I had long ago fallen away from the Church. We were married last spring in a Presbyterian ceremony in Kingston. I was offered a junior partnership in the Cobourg law firm of Denfield and Potter. We arrived there early in October.”
Marc, who had been listening with increasing interest and much chagrin, finally found voice to say, “But you can’t have known so little about-”
“That is easily explained. Marie fell ill with a fever the day after we arrived. Our house was a mile east of the town. I was the one who nursed her. A doctor did come to see her and left medicines, but I was in the village then, informing my new employers that it would be some weeks before I could safely take up my post. Marie may have mentioned the doctor’s name, but if so, I must have forgotten it. We had a girl from town to help out, but I still refused to leave Marie’s side.”