Child was subsequently arrested and bound over at Kingston to the spring assizes.
Marc’s own actions and his report to Sir John Colborne, who forwarded it to Sir Francis Head, the newly arrived lieutenant-governor, had two immediate consequences for the young ensign, one happy and one not. Marc was promoted to lieutenant on Sir John’s enthusiastic recommendation, for which he was more than grateful, but that gentleman also suggested that Sir Francis put him in charge of security for Government House and make him his aide-de-camp. Both of these honours were regarded as promotions and were the cause of much envy among his fellow officers. Marc, however, saw the new posting as an insuperable obstacle to his being transferred to Quebec, where rebellion and true military action were thought to be imminent.
Ferris O’Hurley, the escaped peddler, never reached the border. He had unwisely decided to circle back to Perry’s Corners and liberate his donkey, still in the hands of its captors, and was caught trying-unsuccessfully-to persuade it to accompany him home. O’Hurley soon confessed to having “witnessed” Ninian T. Connors as he “assisted” Jesse Smallman to hang himself in his barn, following a violent quarrel over the spoils of their rum-running business. And while he admitted that he was aware of the American dollars that Marc had impounded, he maintained that all he was ever told was that it had come from the Hunters’ Lodge in New York State and that Connors was taking it to a group of Upper Canadians to aid them in their ongoing struggle against tyranny. Only Connors knew who the contact person was, and that secret died with him.
As Marc sat at his desk pondering these matters, he could not help feeling that his week in Crawford’s Corners had been somewhat more than an adventure. He had carried out a successful murder investigation. He had learned much about this odd colony and its extraordinary citizens. He had made some friends. He had met a woman to whom he would shortly send a long and, he hoped, persuasive letter.
He picked up his pen and began to write.