Sowing Poison

by Janet Kellough

  “The one Francis gave you? I thought you had put it away and were only going to wear it for special times.”

  “That’s what Grandma told me to do. But I didn’t do it. I wore it all the time — underneath so nobody could see. And now I’ve lost it. I’ve looked and looked everywhere, but I can’t find it.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “If Francis finds out, do you think he’ll be mad? Do you think he’ll go away again?”

  Lewis had forgotten what it was like to be a child, how easy it was to add two and two and come up with five, and to interpret the actions of adults in the light of schoolyard logic. He folded the little girl into his arms. “No, my darling, he won’t be mad, and if he goes away again, it won’t be because of you, but for some other reason. Is this what’s been bothering you all this time? You should have told me, so I could help you look.”

  She snuffled. “I know, but I thought you’d tell Francis. And I thought Grandma would be mad, because I didn’t do what she told me.”

  “Well, you should have listened to her, but I promise you, she won’t be mad. I’ll tell her not to be, all right?”

  “Yes, sir.” There was a hesitation, though, and Lewis knew there was more.

  “You like Francis, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes. And I like Sophie, too. But what happens if Francis and Sophie get married?”

  What indeed, he thought. But he was astounded that even Martha appeared to have noticed the chemistry between the two.

  She went on. “One of the girls at school has a stepmother, and she says it’s horrible and she has to sleep in the shed and do all the work. If Francis and Sophie get married, will I have to go with them? I don’t want to sleep in the shed.”

  Lewis had to fight to suppress a chuckle, but he could see that Martha was extremely worried by this prospect. “Listen, sweetheart, Francis travelled a very, very long distance to come back and find you. He loves you very much. I don’t think he would make you sleep in the shed after going to all that trouble, do you? And Sophie is a lovely, lovely girl, and she’s very fond of you, so I don’t think she’d be mean to you either. And we don’t know for sure that they’ll get married, do we? After all, they haven’t known each other for very long. Maybe they’ll decide they don’t like each other that well after all.”

  Even as he said it, he knew that there was an element of wishful thinking in his argument.

  “But if they do, will I have to go with them?” she asked. “Because I’d rather stay here with you and Grandma.”

  “I don’t really know, Martha. It’s something I’ve been wondering about, too. But I have decided one thing — if Francis moves away and wants you to live with him, your grandmother and I will move with you, so we’ll always be close by. We won’t ever be so far away that you won’t be able to see us whenever you want to. Would that make it better?” He hoped that what he told her was in fact true, for he couldn’t imagine a life without her.

  The smile that had been so elusive over the last days returned to the child’s face. “Yes, sir.” Then her face fell again. “But I still can’t find my necklace.”

  “I don’t like secrets very much. I think we should tell everybody, and then everybody can help look for it.”

  “Horatio helped for a little while, but then he got bored and wanted to look for the Holey Man. I think I lost it when we were playing down by the lake.”

  “Well, we’ll have a good look around the hotel first, and make sure it didn’t just slip off here.”

  “I was going to ask Mr. Gilmour to keep an eye out for it, but he never came back.”

  “Mr. Gilmour? Why would you ask him?”

  “Because he was there. At the lake.”

  “When was this?”

  “Saturday afternoon. I saw him down by the wharf. I’d have asked him then, but I didn’t know it was lost then.”

  “Did he walk back to the hotel with you?”

  “No. I said hello and he nodded at us, but then he just stood there looking at the lake.”

  What would Gilmour have been doing down by the lake? Probably, Lewis thought, the same thing he had been doing in the marsh — looking for something. And now someone needed to look for him.

  He tucked Martha in and kissed her good night, but his mind was only half on what he was doing. The other half was wondering what exactly could have happened to their guest.

  The next morning, when Francis heard the reason for Martha’s listlessness, he did what he had wanted to do ever since he’d returned — he scooped her up in his arms and hugged her.

  Lewis had not totally excused Martha from responsibility for her actions. He made her tell both her grandmother and her father herself. Betsy’s eyes narrowed and her lips tightened when she heard that the necklace was lost, for after all, she had warned Martha, and the girl had disobeyed her. But Lewis forestalled her with a glance.

  “Well,” Betsy said finally, “I hope you understand now why you should have saved it for special.”

  Martha nodded, relieved that she was to receive no tongue-lashing to add to her misery.

  She approached Francis right after the breakfast rush was over, when everyone else had left the table.

  “I thought you would be mad.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, it’s just something I thought you would like. I’m sorry you’ve lost it, but I’m even sorrier that the losing of it has made you so miserable. We’ll see if we can’t retrieve it. Don’t ever be afraid to tell me things, though. I’m not sure what you could tell me that would ever make me angry with you.”

  She had hugged him back then, and the look on Francis’s face made Lewis wonder how he had ever suspected this man of any crime.

  Sophie and Daniel both promised to give the hotel a thorough search. Francis was still needed at the hotel in the mornings, but as soon as dinner had been served and the dishes cleared away, he and Lewis set off for the harbour. They had questioned Martha carefully about where she and Horatio had been playing, but when they reached the lake, Lewis realized that the children had roamed over a huge area, and the prospect of ever finding an object so small as a coral necklace was remote. Gilmour would be easier, if he were truly out there somewhere.

  They picked their way along the sandbar, Lewis searching on one side, Francis on the other. They found nothing but a few glass bottles and a wooden spar that had washed ashore.

  When they reached the channel that separated West Lake from Ontario, beyond which the scrubby poplars and marram grass began to give way to more substantial cedars and thicker underbrush, they realized they would have to cross water to go any farther. But the state of the ice made Lewis profoundly uneasy. There were puddles lying on the surface and he could see two big cracks that ran nearly all the way across. Granted, this time he could be sure of aid if he fell through — it was broad daylight, not a bone-shuddering cold night; there was little current here, not like the fast-flowing waters that had nearly sucked him down between Kingston and Wolfe Island; and it was such a small distance to cover, no more than a few steps, really, and in all probability it was only a few feet deep. Still, only with a supreme act of will did Lewis force his legs to take the first steps out onto the frozen surface. Francis waited until Lewis had reached dry land again, then skipped across in a few easy strides.

  “Are you sure they came this far?” Francis asked. “Martha didn’t say anything about crossing the channel.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Lewis said. “But she did say something about seeing Mr. Gilmour down by the wharf. I’m just wondering if he wandered this way for some reason. Let’s climb this hill. We may be able to get a better view of things.”

  The two men clambered up the sandy slope until they crested the dune. From this vantage point they could see almost all of West Lake. Off to the right, Lewis spotted a plume of smoke drifting in the air, but it was impossible to tell where, exactly, it was coming from, although it was most likely chimney smoke from one of the farmhouses across the lake. Wellington lay over t
o their left, the village seeming small from this distance, its buildings huddled along the shore. As they looked to the northeast, the structures became fewer and were punctuated by the barns that belonged to the farms that fronted the lake. Lewis could just make out the Elliott house, a short field away from the water.

  From this perspective, he realized that West Lake was, in fact, nearly two inland lakes, bisected almost entirely by the islands and the long point of land that thrust out from the mainland opposite them. The marsh filled the part of the lake between the peninsula and the mainland, with the islands spilling out into the open water from there. He wondered if the entire lake would be filled in after a hundred or so years. Or perhaps it would take a thousand, he didn’t know; but even now, if the ice was solid enough, it would be but a short distance from the Elliott farm to the peninsula or to one of the islands.

  When they had been looking for Nate Elliott, he had dismissed the notion that the injured man had headed south toward this lake. He would have been spotted, they had all thought, if he had crossed the main road. But what if he had somehow got as far as the marsh, or staggered across to one of the islands and finally succumbed to his injuries there? But no, the lake had not been frozen then. It would have to have been the marsh. If so, it could be months, or maybe even years before anyone found his body.

  It seemed impossible that he could go so far unremarked. Except that it really wasn’t that far at all when you got out here and saw the geographic relationships from a different vantage point. And what if he hadn’t wanted to be seen, if he had for some reason taken advantage of the opportunity to slip away? Lewis knew that Clementine was a fraud and Nate had been her partner in it. What if there was more chicanery involved here? He wondered if Gilmour had reached the same conclusion.

  “I don’t see much of anything,” Francis said. “Should we head back?”

  Lewis hesitated. If Gilmour had come out here, something had certainly happened to prevent him from getting back. They could at least go on a little farther to try to find out what it was.

  “Let’s keep going for a bit,” he suggested.

  The sandbar was wider and the hills taller on this side of the channel, and cedars thrust their way up through the tough grass. These grew thicker as they progressed, and in places the overhanging trees forced the men out over the water. The ice underneath their feet was brittle and apt to crack suddenly. Here and there they could see markers that signalled traps and the piles of brush that served as dens. Muskrats would find the sandy soil here to their liking, and the marshy areas would provide plenty of food.

  As they worked their way along the shore, they could see evidence of human presence, as well, in the form of an occasional footprint that had been frozen in the mud and patchy snow cover. The marks were too large to have been made by Martha and Horatio, who claimed not to have ventured this far anyway. Perhaps they were the tracks of a hunter or trapper, or maybe the mysterious Holey Man, who, according to the children, wandered this way regularly. There were no returning prints to indicate anything but one-way traffic.

  The men stopped to rest for a moment when they reached a clearing — an area of springy grass that had held its own against the cedars.

  “Why is it that every time I go somewhere with you, there’s ice involved?” Lewis grumbled, wringing out the bottoms of his pant legs. They had become soaked when the ice had given way in their trek along the shore.

  Francis laughed. “At least it’s nicer weather today. That was a raw night at Wolfe Island. And, by the way, why would Mr. Gilmour have come along here? It’s not exactly the place someone would choose for a casual stroll.”

  Lewis realized that he needed to set aside any lingering reservations he had about his son-in-law and tell him at least a little of what he suspected.

  “I think he’s been following the Elliotts. I’m certain he’s been trailing Mrs. Elliott at any rate, and he may have thought he could find out what happened to her husband.”

  “Out here? But why?”

  Briefly, Lewis outlined what he had discovered so far — his knowledge that Clementine’s contacting of the dead was a trick, and his suspicion that the Elliotts were, in fact, the LeClairs mentioned in the newspaper.

  “If so, there’s a reward offered by the man they bilked in New York. I’m wondering if Gilmour decided to collect it. The only thing that puzzles me is why he hasn’t turned Mrs. Elliott in long since.”

  “Because American law has no jurisdiction here,” Francis replied. “And none of her Canadian customers has put in a complaint. As long as she stays on this side of the border, Gilmour wouldn’t be able to touch her, short of kidnapping her and hauling her back to New York.” He reddened a little. “It sort of works both ways, you know.”

  Of course. Lewis should have realized that. But then he had little experience with the ins and outs of border crossings or international crime. Francis, who had fled across that same border as a rebel would understand much better the implications.

  “If what you think is correct, maybe Nate knew Gilmour was on his trail and arranged his own disappearance.”

  That was exactly what Lewis was beginning to think. Gilmour had arrived at Temperance House two or three days before Nate Elliott had gone missing. The timing was certainly right. And then Clementine had arrived, just at the point when Gilmour must have considered the whole thing a lost cause. Why had she come to Wellington, if her husband had gone to such pains to cover their tracks? Surely, if their theory was correct, her husband would have arranged to meet her somewhere, after the fact of his death had been assumed, and they could have gone merrily on their way. There was a piece missing somewhere in this puzzle, but Lewis couldn’t find it.

  He rose and stepped away from the clearing, but with the first step his right leg plunged through the ice, soaking his boot and leg to the knee.

  “Why is that when we’re on the ice together, you’re always the one to go through?” Francis commented mildly. “You seem to have a real talent for it.”

  Lewis’s retort died on his lips. There was something in the water. He had kicked against it when he pulled his foot away. As he broke a little more of the ice away around the hole, he discovered it was a small leg-hold trap, of the sort used for muskrat, fully baited and unsprung.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t step into that,” Francis said when he saw it. “It wasn’t marked at all. It wouldn’t be much fun out here with an injured leg. Somebody would have quite a time getting back home again.” Then he stopped to consider what he’d said. “You don’t suppose that’s what’s happened to our missing Mr. Gilmour, do you?”

  “Maybe.”

  It was an old trap that Lewis had found, covered with algae, and it had probably been there for a long time. That would explain why it wasn’t marked — it had been set and forgotten. He wondered if there were even deadlier traps scattered around the lake. Maybe he wasn’t the only person who had stumbled upon one.

  After the discovery, the two men continued more cautiously, testing each step before committing their weight to it. The trees were thick here, and at times they were unable to see more than a few feet into the woods. It was little wonder that they nearly passed right by the clearing without noticing it, but Francis suddenly missed his footing and slid across the slick surface, almost going down entirely. At the last moment, he stuck out a hand to save himself from a soaking. From this low angle, he could see through the lower branches of the thick cedars that masked a small gap in the growth.

  “Let’s check up in there,” he said, and they pushed their way through.

  There was no question that someone had been there. Vegetation was broken and smashed and the snow was stained a reddish brown. Something heavy had been dragged to the opposite end of the clearing, where a trail disappeared into the woods.

  “Someone’s taken a deer, maybe?” Francis suggested warily, but he sounded unconvinced.

  “I hope so,” Lewis replied, “but somehow I don’t think so.�
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  Francis was about to follow the trail that led away, but Lewis hesitated. “Just a moment,” he said. “Let me take a look around.” The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe, Dupin had said in the Rue Morgue story. Lewis would observe, and hope that he would find the knowledge he needed. He followed the marks on the side of the hill up to the top of the dune. They appeared to be a long skid that ended abruptly at the stain on the ground. There was no blood — for Lewis was sure that was what it was — on the hill itself, just at the bottom. Something, or someone, had fallen, landing against a broken cedar stump, for there, too, he could see a stain that darkened the wood. A few feet away he discovered a boot print, but this was well away from the skid. Did whoever fell manage to rise and walk away? Or had there been a second person in that clearing?

  Lewis looked more closely at the print. If it had been made by the trapper who supposedly guarded these woods, he would have expected him to leave the mark of a heavy, irregular tread of a homemade boot. This print was smooth, with very little tread at all — a city boot.

  Had Nate Elliott been hunkered down here in the wilderness all this time? Had Gilmour somehow figured this out and been ambushed for his trouble? Suddenly, Lewis was profoundly uneasy at what they might find if they followed the trail that led away through the trees, and he wondered if they should return to Wellington for help. But he wasn’t sure how he could persuade anyone that help was needed. A footprint in the snow and a brown stain wouldn’t be enough to propel Constable Williams out of his lassitude. He and Francis would have to go ahead, but they would need to be very, very careful, regardless of whether it was Nate Elliott or the trapper waiting for them at the end of the trail.

  The drag marks were easy enough to follow. Here and there, spots of blood marked the way. Then, on a low branch, Francis spotted a small jagged piece of cloth — the same brown tweed as Mr. Gilmour’s overcoat. Lewis had walked right past it. So much for making the necessary observations, he thought.

  “It looks like the branch caught on whatever was being dragged and ripped it away,” Francis pointed out.