Desperate Acts Page 10

  “You think Etta’s gonna quit?”

  “The last one just left here one night last summer and didn’t show up the next day. No goodbyes, no regrets, I guess. But we’ve got to have help in here. Business is brisk until the freeze-up on the lakes. We can use two girls if it comes to that.”

  “When’re you expectin’ him back?”

  “By opening time – at one.”

  “Tell him I’ll be seein’ him about then.”

  “I thought it was Nestor or me you wanted to question?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, let’s sit down, then.”

  They found an upright table and sat down on opposite sides. Gillian Budge was certainly a handsome woman of some forty years, Cobb thought. She had the figure of a debutante to complement her fair hair and rosy, freckled complexion. But few people envied Tobias, her husband, for she had a wicked tongue and was fearless in deploying it.

  “You were in the upstairs room about nine-thirty last night?”

  “Yes. The fat Englishman with the flabby fingers ordered me to arrive at his side with a tray of glasses and a bottle of fancy wine at precisely nine-twenty-five.”

  “They were windin’ up their confab?”

  “Right. Five of them were seated around the long table at the west end.”

  “Only five?” Cobb thought it best not to detail the circumstances that had brought him into that crowded playroom last week.

  “The other three went home after their food and cigars – about half past eight.”

  “Did you see any of the five leave – after nine-thirty?”

  “I did. After bringing them their nightcap drinks – they wanted to toast something or other, I think – ”

  “Bein’ rich an’ idle-izin’,” Cobb prompted.

  His quip drew a guarded smile from Gillian. “You’d think Shakespeare was God Almighty, wouldn’t you?”

  “Who left first, then?”

  “I was over at the lounge area cleaning up the earlier mess – Etta’s job normally – and I noticed Mr. Langford, a real young gentleman, nod to the others and head for the cloakroom like he was in a hurry.”

  “He didn’t stay to take a toast with the others?”

  “No. The rest of them clinked glasses and seemed very jolly. This clinking went on for about ten minutes or so, but I could see that the meeting was about to break up. I was happy about that because I was really needed downstairs. Nestor was helping with the bar – and breaking more glasses than he filled.”

  “Sounds like Nestor. So, did you stay up there long enough to see anybody else leave?”

  “I did. Mr. Dutton, that fuddy-duddy old lawyer, got up, took his papers with him and went into the cloakroom. I heard him stumble on the stairs going down.”

  “They usually went out the back way?”

  “Yes. They preferred the ordinary alley at the side to the excitement of the bar.” She eyed him closely to see if he picked up on the irony in her remark.

  “Hobble-son’s choice fer a gentleman,” Cobb said, deliberately distorting Mr. Hobson’s famous name. “So this would be about a quarter to ten, then?”

  “Roughly, yes.”

  “Who went next?”

  “Mr. Fullarton, the banker, and Mr. Crenshaw, the trumped-up candle-maker, went and sat next to Sir Peregrine and huddled over some leaflets they all had. They were muttering and he was scratching at their papers with a pencil.”

  “What then?”

  “Mr. Fullarton got up and went into the cloakroom.”

  “How long would this be after Dutton left?”

  She paused to reflect, drawing the lids down over her pretty eyes. “Couldn’t have been more than three or four minutes.”

  “I see. That would make it about ten minutes to ten?”

  “I can’t be absolutely sure, of course. At that point I went downstairs.”

  “Leavin’ Sir Shuttlecock an’ Crenshaw still at the table?”

  “As I was going downstairs I heard footsteps heading for the cloakroom.”

  “I see. Probably that was Crenshaw, eh?”

  “Most likely. The Englishman was always the last to leave. He had to fuss with his papers and such. I usually go back up about a quarter past ten to bar the doors, but it was later last night because you arrived a few minutes before that – and the real fuss began.”

  Cobb was excited. If Brodie’s account were accurate, any one of these Shakespeareans could have observed Brodie’s encounter in the alley through the window in the rear wall. Brodie estimated that his circling-back manoeuvre and his wait in the shadows had taken at least fifteen minutes. Which meant that he and Duggan had confronted one another between nine-forty-five and nine-fifty. If one of them noticed Brodie strike Duggan once and scamper northward up the alley – without his walking-stick – then the lad was home-free. The news of Brodie’s detention would soon be abroad, but Cobb knew enough about gentlemen to suspect that if one of them did observe a scuffle in a disreputable alley, he would pass by on the other side, and certainly would not dash to the police to entangle himself in the sordid affairs of the common folk. Perhaps, to be fair, Brodie had not been recognized, and a fracas in that alley at that hour of the evening would not be exceptional. Still, willing or not, these four gentlemen would have to be closely interrogated about those critical fifteen minutes.

  “Is there anything else?” Gillian said with a nice ambiguity into Cobb’s reverie.

  “Ah, yes. Do you know anythin’ at all about this Albert Duggan?”

  “I’ve already told you I didn’t know his name, but I did recognize him last night in the alley.”

  “He come in here often to drink, did he?”

  “Three or four times. But why don’t you get right to the point: you want to hear about Tobias throwing him out last week, don’t you?”

  Cobb flinched, but managed to say hopefully, “A troublemaker, then? Quick with his fists?”

  “Not up to then. More the sly, slinking type, I’d say. Anyways, he said something crude to Etta last Wednesday, and she nearly fainted. So Tobias, who likes to play the he-man when he can, picked him up and tossed him out.”

  “An’ that was that?”

  “Didn’t see him again till last night. I must say I wasn’t sorry to find him dead.”

  “Thanks, ma’am. You’ve been a big help.” Cobb rose to go.

  She smiled. “I’ll tell Tobias you’ll be back to see him at one.”

  At the door Cobb turned back to her and said, “I just remembered somethin’. When I come in here to fetch yer husband last night, he said he was too busy to help out.”

  “He’s been in an ornery mood of late,” she said. “Worse than usual. And we were run off our feet without Etta.”

  “Then he woulda been in this room all evenin’?”

  “Most of it, yes. But just before I had to go upstairs at nine-twenty-five, I sent him to the cellar to get a case of wine – some bigwig captain come in and demanded it for his crew.”

  “But he was back up here when you come down about a quarter to ten?”

  “As a matter of fact, he wasn’t.” She seemed surprised at this sudden recollection. “He doesn’t keep things orderly in the cellar, so I guess he took some time finding the wine he was looking for.”

  “I come in here about ten after ten, I believe – ”

  “About that. And Tobias came up a few minutes before that. That’s why he was running around like crazy. Nestor hadn’t been a lot of help up here.”

  Interesting, Cobb thought. Budge had been in the cellar for almost half an hour – the critical half-hour.

  “I’ll talk to him about it later,” Cobb said, putting on his helmet and turning up the collar of his greatcoat.

  “It’ll be the high point of his day,” said Gillian Budge.

  ***

  Cobb walked around to the rear of The Sailor’s Arms in the crisp sunshine, taking the broad alleyway on the east side of the building. He stood near the
spot where Duggan had been clubbed to death. The victim’s blood had soaked into the dirt, but the stain was still visible. Cobb looked up, and in the daylight he saw that the window in the wall above was clean and wide. The moonlight that had shone across the lower half of the corpse last night upon his arrival would have spotlighted the two men as they argued and grappled here about nine-forty-five. Someone up there must have seen something.

  What he hadn’t noticed last night was a narrow window at the base of the rear wall near the east corner. He went over to it now and crouched down. A shallow well allowed a foot-high window to be recessed into the brick foundation, giving some natural illumination to a room below ground. Cobb peered through its dusty pane. Blurry but readily distinguishable was Budge’s wine-cellar. Tobias himself had been down there searching for a case of fancy booze about the time that Brodie said he struck Duggan on the cheek. Glancing to his right, Cobb spotted something equally interesting: a double-doored service bay, through which the tavern’s beer-barrels and wine-casks could be funnelled to the cellar. He went over, reached down, and tugged at one of the handles. Locked, from the inside. Well, Cobb thought, here was a very convenient way for someone in the cellar to gain the alley without being observed. Yes, Tobias Budge would have to be questioned vigorously. There was bad blood between him and Duggan, perhaps more than even his sharp-eyed wife knew about.

  Humming to himself, Cobb went around the western corner of the building to inspect the door at the foot of the stairs, the exit-point of these tavern-shy gents. He gave the door a push. As he expected, it was barred. But anyone leaving by this route, though he would have turned left and walked down the narrow gap between the tavern and the building next door towards Front Street, would surely have heard voices in the alley behind. If so, would he not have been curious enough to have a peek? Or would he have panicked and dashed for the street?

  Cobb himself walked out to Front Street. He pulled out his pocket-watch. It was time to head up to Nestor’s place. He was not concerned about locating his long-time snitch. Whenever Nestor was frightened or upset (an almost daily occurrence), he headed straight for whatever hovel he occupied and drank himself into a stupor. The main problem would be getting him conscious enough to talk straight. Certainly he was the only person who might be able to provide the police with information about this mysterious blackmailing cousin.

  ***

  Marc was waiting for him outside the chicken hatchery. Cobb took ten minutes to fill him in on his interview with Gillian Budge. While he occasionally scribbled notes – to please the chief and his clerk – Cobb had a prodigious memory for anything he heard or saw. His children, Fabian and Delia, had the gift as well, memorizing great swatches of poetry and reciting it to him and Dora on long winter evenings.

  “Well, Cobb, you’ve turned up a lot of useful information in a short time. Surely we’ll be able to find one witness out of that bunch to help Brodie’s cause.”

  “I’m puttin’ my money on Budge the elder.”

  “While I was at Robert’s, Horace Fullarton arrived. I had sent word to him on Brodie’s behalf. He was extremely upset at the news, as you can imagine. He has already volunteered to act as a character witness, should Brodie be charged.”

  “Did he see anythin’ last night?”

  “He says not. But I couldn’t really interrogate him in the middle of a political strategy meeting.”

  “I see. Well, let’s give Nestor a friendly kick in the ribs an’ see if he knows more’n his own name.”

  They approached the crumbling stone-cottage. No smoke curled out of its gap-toothed chimney. Cobb pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  “Jesus, major. What a dump!”

  Marc stepped up beside Cobb. The main room was a shambles, though it soon became clear that that was its customary, everyday condition. And the effect of the litter and detritus was not improved by the murky, sallow light let in by the oil-paper window-panes. Two small, doorless chambers adjoined the big one.

  “Let’s wake the ugly bugger up,” Cobb said, not unkindly. He went into the nearest bedroom. “Ain’t in here,” he said. “This looks like Duggan’s room. It’s too tidy fer Nestor.”

  Marc was standing in the other doorway. “No-one’s in here either.”

  “Damn. He must’ve gone out fer more booze.” Cobb kicked over an empty whiskey-jug beside the three-legged kitchen table.

  “I think he’s gone farther than that,” Marc said. “The commode has been emptied and the drawers tossed on the floor.”

  It was then that Cobb spied the sheet of paper on the table. He picked it up and stood close to the nearest window. “The bugger’s flown the coop,” he muttered. “Take a look at this.”

  Marc did so, and read:

  Cob

  I had to get out of towen. Yoo poleec wil

  blame me for Berts deth. See he gets a

  desent funeral

  Yor frend

  Nestor

  “I know he’s frightened at what happened,” Marc said, “but I don’t believe he’ll have gone far.”

  “I hope not. But what if Duggan really did have money – like Nestor was tellin’ me last week? Maybe Nestor beetled home last night, dug it out an’ took off fer Kingston or Montreal?”

  “Well, let’s give this hovel a thorough going-over,” Marc said. “There’re plenty of niches and mouse-holes for hiding contraband in.”

  “Good idea. And I see you brung the lantern.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, soiled and disgusted, they abandoned the search. Duggan, it seemed, fancied himself a gentleman and had several coats and vests to be examined, but nothing useful was turned up. No cash was found anywhere. One envelope had been retrieved from a drawer in Duggan’s commode, but there was no letter inside.

  “It’s addressed to Albert Duggan, Ass-choir of Toronto,” Cobb snarled. “Somebody outta town knew he was here, eh?”

  “Let me have a closer look,” Marc said.

  “Nothing inside, major.”

  “Not a letter, no. But see, here, how the flap has been cut after the seal was broken?”

  “What about it?”

  “I believe it’s meant to assist one in turning the envelope inside out.” Marc demonstrated his theory.

  There on the underside of a front flap, unobservable under ordinary circumstances, was a rectangle of scribbles: letters and numbers by the look of it.

  “We may have found what we we’ve been searching for,” Marc said.

  Cobb leaned over, squinting in the dim light. “Not another code?” he sighed, recalling an earlier investigation.

  “I don’t know. But let’s go some place where we can examine this properly and determine its significance.”

  “How about a window-seat at The Cock and Bull?”

  ***

  “Still looks like hen-scratchin’ to me,” Cobb said, handing Duggan’s inside-out envelope back across the table and taking a long pull on his ale.

  “I’m not so sure,” Marc said. He had scrutinized the note – if that’s what it was – for several minutes before sliding it across to Cobb. “The lettering is deliberately miniature but very precise.” He looked at it again.

  PS - £10 – T10 – IT

  AD - £2 – W93 – SH

  HF - £3 – Th10 – CB

  CC - £5 – F10 – T

  TB - £2 – S93 – PB?

  BL - £5 – W93? – SA?

  “Let’s start with the assumption that Duggan was not merely a blackmailer but a multiple blackmailer,” Marc said.

  “Alright. Then what?”

  “At the bottom of what is obviously a list of some kind, we find the initials BL.”

  “Brodie Langford!”

  “Has to be. And next to it a notation for five pounds, the exact sum that Brodie was to bring to the alley and leave in the ashcan.”

  Cobb took back the note. “An’ the ‘W’ refers to Wednesday. But what in hell’s ‘93’?”

&n
bsp; “Nine-thirty. The time of the deposit. I believe the exact time was important because, as he did with Brodie, Duggan hid nearby until the coast was clear, then moved out to seize his prize and scuttle off.”

  “So you figure none of these poor devils knew who had got the goods on ‘em?”

  “Probably not. They appear to have paid for his anonymous silence.”

  “An’ the last letters here could be the place?”

  “‘SA’ for Sailor’s Arms, in Brodie’s case. We’d have to guess at the others, but with Duggan dead, it hardly matters.”

  “What about the question-mark here at the end?”

  “A good guess would be that Duggan had just targeted Brodie and was setting him up for an initial payout.”

  Cobb shook his head. “But cash like that every week? There’s five other names here! Duggan must’ve been rollin’ in it!”

  “And he’s been here since late summer, remember.”

  “But how would a deadbeat like Duggan, livin’ with the likes of Nestor Peck, ever get enough dirt on these rich gents to wangle that kinda money outta them?”

  “You’ve always maintained Nestor was the best snitch in the city.”

  “I reckon it’s possible. No wonder Nestor took off. He must’ve been up to his gums in this business, though he sure put on a good poor-man’s act last week in this very room.”

  “You think he’s got the proceeds of Duggan’s crime?”

  “You bet I do. An’ the toothless bugger’s probably all the way to Buffalo by now, lookin’ to buy a set of wooden teeth.”

  “How about our trying to figure out who the others on this list are?”

  Cobb studied the list for a minute, then smiled up at Marc, who was smiling back.

  “Has to be the Shakespeareans, don’t it?”

  “Yes. There’s no way it couldn’t be when each set of initials matches five of the members: Brodie Langford, Andrew Dutton, Horace Fullarton, Cyrus Crenshaw and Peregrine Shuttleworth.”