I read it aloud: “My kind friend: Because I have sympathy for your suffering country, I hasten to tell you something important. As you no doubt know, General Schuyler led troops into Canada two years ago. Being a man of unbridled passions, he contracted, at that time, an attachment for an English lady, a papist, by the name of Annabel Brace, and by her had a child. Both mother and child now live at the third house east of Dufresne’s wine shop in St. Louis Street, Quebec. Although General Schuyler pretends to have spent his own fortune in the American cause, he has in reality been in league with General Arnold to mulct the public treasury. He has stolen supplies from Canada and sold them at exorbitant prices to your suffering army. He has also privately sold, for his own account, ammunition, shoes and blankets intended for your brave countrymen, so that your army starves and freezes because of his avarice. The proceeds from these transactions have been sent to Annabel Brace in Quebec, and by her transferred to England. After General Schuyler has surrendered your army to the British, he intends to go with this woman to Bristol, in England, and to make his home on a large estate purchased by him on the River Avon.”

When I finished that bit of venom, Cap’s face was fiery red. “Dufresne’s wine shop in St. Louis Street!” Cap exclaimed. “By God! We ought to send somebody up there to find out!”

Nason almost burst. “You fool! You blundering damned fool! Can’t you see it’s all a lie?”

Cap was resentful. “Don’t I know it? Of course it’s a lie! But my God, Stevie! They wouldn’t say just precisely where the woman lives, would they, unless they knew something about Schuyler?”

Nason made inarticulate sounds, while I tried to explain to Cap. “It’s the story of the silver bullets, almost—the same story, only another version. Now you can understand why the army’s retreating: why it’s lost faith in Schuyler.”

I turned on the stranger. His eyes seemed filled with a baffled wonder, and I saw he was a good actor. “Who were you told to deliver this letter to?”

“I never saw it before,” he protested. “I dunno how it got into that ox-goad!”

“Don’t you indeed! You gave me a little kind attention at the Château de St. Auge a year ago. You advised me to eat and sleep well, after I’d come over Chambly rapids. You’d had dealings with Marie de Sabrevois.”

He shook his head. “No sir! I swear to God I never did! I dunno what you’re talking about!”