For a minute or so the weight of this conclusion silenced the group, and fresh cigars were clipped and lit.
Barnaby spoke first. “I think we’re agreed that truly treasonous information would not likely bubble up at the meetings Joshua and Beth attended last summer and fall. But what if those meetings were not the source?”
“What else could be?” Durfee said.
“You said yourself that Jesse Smallman was treading dangerous waters near the end.”
“I only meant he was flailin’ about-angry, in despair-at what was happenin’ to him because of the Clergy Reserves. And how he kept repeatin’ that there didn’t seem to be any political party capable of gettin’ anythin’ done.”
“Is it possible, conceivable even,” Barnaby continued, “that Jesse joined or thought of joining one of the annexationist groups, one of the secret societies, and that he might have been privy to treasonable information?”
“Now we’re really grasping at straws,” Hatch said.
“The man’s also been dead for twelve months,” Child said.
Barnaby, who was beginning to enjoy himself wholeheartedly, persisted. “What if Joshua discovered this information? Among his son’s effects, for example? And was thought to be an agent as well?”
“You’ve got a surfeit of ‘what ifs’ in that hypothesis,” Child said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Durfee said. “Only one person is left who can shed any light on Joshua or Jesse.”
“You’re not suggesting Beth might be involved in anything unsavoury?” Hatch said sharply.
“I think he’s merely implying that some of the answers to our questions lie in the Smallman household,” Barnaby said. “For the sake of the reputations of two men no longer able to defend themselves, I think it behooves us to engage in some hard questioning, indelicate as that might prove.”
They all turned to gaze, with expectation and much relief, at Ensign Edwards.
The arrival of Coggins with a tray of cheeses and sweetmeats and decanters of wine stinted the flow of serious conversation for some minutes. However, as soon as the sighs of satisfaction had abated, Philander Child picked up a thread of the previous dialogue.
“While I concur that we must press Mrs. Smallman as forcefully as her delicate circumstances permit in order to eliminate any possibility that Joshua Smallman might have been an informer or that Jesse was anything other than a misguided Reformer, I would advise young Marc here to aim his investigation in more obvious directions.”
“To those in the county already known to be fanatics,” Marc said.
The squire smiled patiently. “My years on the bench compel me to consider facts before hypotheses. Someone has to ascertain, among the living, whether there was any actual contact or real acquaintance between Joshua and known extremists. We need facts, dates, notarized statements, sworn information or affidavits. No one gets himself murdered-and even that assumption is still conjecture, remember-without coming into contact, in some discernible way, with his assassin.”
“So, I need to find out whether any such extremists knew Smallman or were seen with him over the past twelve months.”
“And I can suggest two or three likely candidates,” Child said.
Marc smiled. “Azel Stebbins, Israel Wicks, and Orville Hislop,” he said, recalling these names from Sir John’s notes.
“Sir John has been well briefed,” Child said.
“When will you begin, then?” Durfee said.
Marc smiled. “I already have.”
James Durfee and Charles Barnaby left together shortly after ten o’clock, because the doctor was tired after nine hours in his Cobourg surgery and Durfee wished to help Emma clear up after the chaos of the afternoon stage stop and the brisk evening trade of local elbow-benders.
As the remaining three were finishing their nightcaps, Hatch happened to mention to Child that Marc had manhandled a couple of Yankee peddlers on his way to Crawford’s Corners.
“You are a soldier, young man.” Child laughed appreciatively. “And a damn good one.”
“Marc has reason to think they were involved in smuggling rum,” Hatch said.
“What puzzles me,” Marc said, “is why anybody, peddler or freebooter, would bring tariffed spirits into a province where whisky itself is duty-free and there seem to be more local distilleries than gristmills. Grog’s a penny a cup at every wayside shebeen.”
“A fair question,” Child said, nodding towards Hatch. “But these smugglers are ‘importing’ high-quality spirits and wines: rum from the West Indies, bourbon from the Carolinas, Bordeaux and Champagne from France, port from Iberia-and all of it, you can be sure, pirated or hijacked at some point along the way. They peddle it only around the garrison towns-Kingston, Toronto, London, Sandwich, Newark-to establishments that cater to a higher class of citizenry and that, in addition to cut-price vintage spirits, offer the further comfort of a warm bed and willing flesh.” The squire, long a widower, shook his head sorrowfully, as a man who has seen much folly and never quite accustomed himself to it.
“But that means tuns, barrels, packing cases,” Marc said.
“Oh, the peddlers don’t do the actual smuggling,” Hatch said. “They’re just petty advance men, order-takers, messengers, and the like. Peddling door to door is a perfect cover for the work. The county is crawling with them, summer and winter.”
“Erastus and I apprehended one of the blackguards a while back,” Child said. “What was his name now?”
“Isaac Duffy,” Hatch said, and his face lit up with pleasure at the memory. “Caught him trying to sell a bottle of His Majesty’s finest sherry to Emma Durfee, an item he’d most likely pilfered from some smuggler’s drop he knew about.”
“He’s in irons down in Kingston,” Child said, “but before we shipped him off, he gave us a lead to two scoundrels in the area we’d long suspected of actually hauling the stuff across the lake on the ice.”
“Jefferson and Nathaniel Boyle,” Hatch said. “Brothers who operated two so-called farms out past Mad Annie’s swamp.”
“Hatch and I hopped on our horses and rode right out there like a pair of avenging angels.” Child laughed, and Marc did too, at the image of Magistrate Child’s two hundred and fifty pounds of pampered flesh astride and agallop.
“Without a sheriff or constables?” Marc asked above Hatch’s chortling.
“I’d been after them Yankee cattle thieves for years,” Child said with sudden vehemence. “I had a pistol tucked in each side of my waistcoat, and Hatch here had his fowling piece. My God, I can still remember every moment of that ride.”
“By the time we got there,” Hatch said, “they’d already skedaddled, as they say in the Republic.”
“Those sewer rats can smell authority a mile away.” The squire sighed. “I hate smugglers of every stripe. They undermine the fragile economy here, flout the King’s law, and offer incentives to others to do the same. And when they’re Yankees to boot, I detest them as much as I do a traitor or a turncoat.”
“All we found were two abandoned wives, just skin and bone, and a dozen half-starved youngsters,” Hatch said sadly.
“Well, they haven’t been seen since,” Child said with some satisfaction.
“And when I took Winnifred out there with some food and clothes at Christmas,” Hatch said, “the women and children had packed up and gone. The whole lot of ’em.”
Marc had witnessed the effects of grinding poverty on the streets of London and never become inured to it, or to the callow disregard shown towards its victims by the prosperous and the morally blinkered. The thought of Winnifred’s charity warmed him in ways the brandy, cigars, and stimulating company had failed to.
Philander Child wished Marc well in his efforts on Sir John’s behalf, complimented him on his good manners, and offered his assistance if it should be required. Walking back to the mill, grateful for Hatch’s companionable silence, Marc went over the evening’s conversation. He concluded that he had been told much that had been intended and some that had not.