Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[loetar44]

If John Surratt was in Washington D.C. on April 14, and he left the town in the early morning of April 15, was it then possible that he could travel (unseen) to Montreal, Canada where he arrived on April 18, at 2 p.m. I’m wrestling with the so called “handkerchief incident”.

Charles H. Blinn, the night watchman at the Vermont Central Railroad office at Burlington, Vermont found a handkerchief under the bench where a “Canadian returning home” and looking sick, had rested on his way to St. Albans, Vermont. The name “John H. Surratt” was written in its corner. Blinn positively identified Surratt at his trial. If Blinn’s story is at all true, I have three questions:

(1) Conventional wisdom is that Surratt first took the train from Canandaigua, New York to Albany, New York (roughly 180 miles) and afterwards traveled via St. Albans, Vermont (roughly 130 miles) and then to Montreal (roughly 50 miles), arriving there at 2.00 am on April 18. However Blinn said that Surratt arrived at Burlington by taking the ferry across Lake Champlain. In Burlington he took the train to St. Albans). How was his exact route? And if it is true that Surratt came from Washington D.C. how was his route in this case to Burlington?

(2) When exactly was the handkerchief incident? At the trial Blinn testified as follows:
Q. [by Mr. Pierrepont] You have before testified to a man lying upon a settee, and to your picking up a handkerchief in that spot after he got up. What night of the week was that ?
A. Monday night, the 17th.
However: in the article "How I lost one hundred thousand dollars" in “Overland Monthly”, Januari 1912, Blinn described the incident and says: “The station in which I was employed was at the wharf, and not at the regular passenger depot. The ice in Lake Champlain broke up about the middle of April. On the 16th the first steamer of the season arrived. The landing was made at about two o’clock in the morning. When the gang-plank was run out, one solitary passenger came ashore and walked into the station. Etc.” This man was identified by Blinn as John Surratt. (https://archive.org/download/howilostone...0blin.pdf)
And in “John Surratt: Rebel, Lincoln Conspirator, Fugitive”, by Frederick Hatch, p. 92, I read: “Charles H. Blinn said he found the handkerchief on the morning of April 18, and that the man who left it was travelling with another man”.
So we have three dates: April 16, 17 and 18. April 18 seems to me a mistake, because we know that Surratt signed his name at the St. Lawrence Hall on April 18 and left the hotel the same day, not leaving a destination.

(3) Detective Daniel R.P. Bigley, accompanying McDevitt, Weichmann and Holohan to Montreal testified that the handkerchief was found at St. Albans, not at Burlington. How is that possible?