Desperate Acts Read online

  “That might explain how Duggan and Peck came up with the dirt they needed. Nestor’s been workin’ at The Sailor’s Arms since September, cleanin’ up an’ even helpin’ upstairs sometimes. He’s got the ear of a jackrabbit when it comes to scuttlebutt.” He glanced again at the list. “But we got one left over.”

  “‘TB’ – Tobias Budge.”

  Cobb whistled through the gaps in his teeth. “I wonder if he knew what Duggan was up to when he tossed him out last week?”

  “If he did, I doubt he would have tossed him out. Still, if Budge got to thinking things over, he could have guessed who was trying to blackmail him. And the question-mark here indicates perhaps that Budge, like Brodie, was a recent target.”

  Cobb sat back and tried to absorb the unexpected flow of information. And while Cobb polished off his ale in doing so, Marc stared out the window – thinking.

  “You know what we have, Cobb?”

  “A lot more’n we thought we would at breakfast.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You plannin’ on summin’ up, count-seller?”

  “I am, milord,” Marc smiled. “First, we’ve got a clear time-line. About nine-thirty Brodie leaves and sets the trap for Duggan. He circles about and, at nine-forty-five or so, he and Duggan meet, and exchange insults. Brodie knocks him unconscious, checks to make sure he’s breathing, then runs north up the alley and out to Peter Street, leaving his walking-stick where it had fallen. Sometime between nine-forty-five and nine-fifty-five, the four remaining members of the club leave independently, passing the cloakroom window and exiting no more than five yards from that ashcan – around the corner. In the wine-cellar for much of this time we have Tobias Budge, with a window of his own and an exit to the alley through the bay doors.”

  “Which means one of ‘em must’ve seen or heard somethin’.”

  “Oh, but I’m sure it was a lot more than that.”

  “You’re not imp-lyin’ that – ”

  “I am. We began the day hoping to identify one or more eye-witnesses who could exonerate Brodie. But these five potential witnesses are now murder suspects.”

  ***

  Cobb ordered another ale, and waited for the newly minted barrister to continue.

  “Let’s look at their behaviour in that light, then,” Marc said. “Dutton comes down first. I figure he’s a bit early to have seen the encounter from the window, but let’s say as he’s leaving the stairwell below, he hears Brodie shout as he surprises Duggan. Or perhaps he even hears Duggan rummaging in the ashcan and decides to peek around the corner.”

  “In time to see Brodie coming down the alley?”

  “Right. He hears enough to conclude that here is the man blackmailing him also. Perhaps he’s thinking of rushing out and assisting – but Brodie knocks Duggan out and runs.”

  “So Dutton decides to finish the job?”

  “If he did, he likely waited until the others had left.”

  “Then I must’ve got there a minute or two after the clubbin’. I know the fella was still bleedin’ when I arrived.”

  “Fullarton leaves next. He could have been at the window at the right moment to see the altercation, though he told me he didn’t.”

  “Killers’ve been known to lie.”

  “Crenshaw leaves next. And if the encounter occurred a minute or two later than we’re surmising, he too could have seen and heard it – and hid in the shadows until he could put an end to the vicious and prolonged blackmail.”

  “Sir Party-grin likely left too late to see anythin’ but Duggan lyin’ out cold on the ground.”

  “Unless he followed Crenshaw out sooner than Mrs. Budge claims. But I agree that he is the least likely suspect.”

  “Still, he may’ve spotted Duggan earlier on in the month but was afraid to do anythin’ violent about it. He hears Duggan groanin’ back there as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, goes back to take a look, spots the cane, recognizes the villain, an’ before he knows it he’s done him in.”

  Marc smiled. “You’re getting to be quite the hypothesizer, Constable Cobb.”

  “I’ll take that as a condiment, major. Still, we can’t ferget tapster Budge peekin’ outta that cellar window.”

  “I haven’t. And I wish I could go with you to help interrogate him, but I’ve got another important meeting.”

  “If he’s hidin’ anythin’, I’ll weasel it outta him.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Cobb drained his flagon. “I hate to say it, major, but we got a problem with these names.”

  “I know. You and I are sure who these initials refer to and why, but we can’t go before James Thorpe with such flimsy evidence as a set of initials and suggest that four pillars of the community and the proprietor of a public house are blackmail victims and murder suspects – certainly not in this political climate. And one of them, Crenshaw, is a Legislative Councillor.”

  “We could put Budge forward as a suspect based on his run-in with Duggan.”

  “Possibly. Though that alone isn’t likely to get Brodie released. What we need is some solid witness testimony from the other four to establish that Brodie left the scene before the bludgeoning – even if one of them is the actual killer.”

  “True, but I don’t look forward to trackin’ down them Shakespeare gents between now an’ ten o’clock tomorrow mornin’.”

  “You won’t have to. Brodie told me on the way to the Court House this morning that the very four you need to interview are going to be at Oakwood Manor this evening – for an early supper and a dramatic reading of the play they’re planning to put on in a few weeks.”

  “Lemme guess: Shakes-beard?”

  “Yes. Brodie had a part in it, and he wanted me to tell Horace Fullarton that he couldn’t be there and that he felt he must withdraw, regardless of the outcome of our investigation.”

  “So you want me to head out there about seven o’clock?”

  “You could interview all of them in an hour or less. That way, we’ll have a full report to make to the magistrate in the morning – with enough evidence, I hope, to ensure Brodie’s release.”

  “Well, that’s what I’ll do, then.” Cobb grinned gleefully: “I’ll be as welcome out there as a polecat at a tea party.”

  EIGHT

  As Gillian Budge had forewarned, Tobias Budge was in a very ornery mood. Which suited Cobb just fine.

  “What about it? Can’t a tavern-keeper spend fifteen minutes in his own wine-cellar?” Budge snarled across the bar at the constable who had so rudely interrupted his preparations for opening-time.

  “It’s the par-tick-ulars that interest me,” Cobb said, his nostrils flaring eagerly as Budge carried on with bleeding a fresh keg of ale from Enoch Turner’s brewery. “Yer good wife tells me she saw you go down there just as she was takin’ a tray of drinks to the gents upstairs – a little before nine-thirty.”

  “She did, did she?”

  “I got no reason not to believe her.”

  Budge scowled, bending his thick black brows into a pair of fearsome vees and repositioning the various platelets of his face. “Some ponce of a sea-captain come in here shortly before that an’ demanded half a dozen bottles of chateau something or other for his crew, who’d trailed in behind him. I told him we didn’t have any, but herself has to go an’ give the game away.”

  “She ordered you to go down there and dig out a case?” Cobb prompted with some delight.

  Budge’s hairy-knuckled hands gripped the edge of the bar as if they were itching to rip it away and use it as a club on Cobb’s noggin. “So I went downstairs an’ she went up, leavin’ that dolt Peck in charge of the bar.”

  “Because Etta was off sick again.”

  “Etta ain’t got nothin’ to do with this!”

  “So you must’ve been in a hurry?”

  “It’s dark down there at the best of times. I rummaged about with a lantern, but couldn’t find the French booze anywheres. By now the commotion above me
’s gettin’ wild, so I pop my head out the taproom door, settle everybody down, an’ holler at Peck. I hear Mrs. Budge comin’ back from upstairs, so I figure she’ll take over the bar an’ keep Nestor from gettin’ injured.”

  “Mrs. Budge reckons she come back down about a quarter to ten.”

  “Sounds about right. Anyways, I’m back lookin’ for the wine an’ cursin’ that captain, when I happen to glance out the little window at the back.”

  Cobb tensed. “The one that looks out onto the alley?”

  “Yeah. And I see two pair of trousers with legs attached – you c’n see nothin’ above the waist from where I was – an’ from the way they were scufflin’ together, I figured I was seein’ a couple of drunks pushin’ an’ shovin’ each other.”

  “You must’ve heard somethin’, bein’ that close.”

  “Loud voices, mad as hell – but that’s the way drunks are, ain’t they?”

  “You didn’t think to try an’ stop them?”

  “Never crossed my mind. We get a dozen dust-ups around here every week.”

  “So you went back upstairs?”

  “No. I knew the missus’d be livid – she’s forever tellin’ me to get all the stuff down there put in some order – so I went over to the other side an’ kept lookin’.”

  “That would account fer the fact that yer missus thought you didn’t come up till almost ten o’clock.”

  “She has too damn many thoughts, that woman.”

  “An’ you found the wine?”

  “No. I was gettin’ set to come up empty-handed when I glance over at the window again – curious, I guess, about the drunks. I damn near dropped the lantern.”

  Cobb braced himself.

  “I see a big stick – like somebody’s cane or shillelagh – comin’ up an’ down an’ thumpin’ on somebody’s bones.”

  Cobb felt his breathing tighten. “That’s all you could see? An’ no sounds?”

  “None. I figured one of them drunks was takin’ a terrible beatin’.”

  “Surely you tried to help?”

  “What’d you take me for? I run to the bay-doors an’ tried to push ‘em open. But they jam sometimes, so I give a loud whoop an’ scuttle about lookin’ fer my crowbar, which I can’t find.”

  “And?”

  “And I see the beatin’s stopped. The guy usin’ the cane must’ve gone.”

  “But you’ve still got an injured man in yer alley.”

  “I keep on lookin’ fer the crowbar, but I can’t find it. I go back to the bay-doors an’ pound on ‘em. I decide I better go up an’ face the music over the wine – and as soon as I get a chance, I’ll deke out to the alley an’ check on the drunk.”

  “Mighty decent of ya.”

  “When I get up here, a dozen sailors are yellin’ fer drink, Mrs. Budge is screamin’ at me an’ Nestor, an’ then you come sailin’ in with the news about a body in the alley.”

  “An’ you refused to come with me to have a look,” Cobb said sharply. He gave the barkeep such a fierce stare he forced him to look down at his hands spread upon the bar.

  Finally Budge raised his eyes and said with a defiant whine, “I reckoned I’d spent the whole night bein’ bossed about by my wife an’ shouted at by ignorant sailors an’ looked down on by sea-captains, an’ that body out there’s now police business, so I say ‘fuck it!’ – I’ll let Missus Budge take care of somethin’ fer a change!”

  “And it didn’t occur to you somewheres in yer thick skull that you oughta come an’ tell me what you saw?”

  “But I just told ya, I didn’t see anythin’ that’d be of use to the police!”

  Cobb nodded towards the freshly tapped keg. Budge frowned, but turned around and filled a flagon with ale – with an inch-and-a-half head. He slid it over to Cobb, who dropped a coin on the counter. Cobb took a hearty sip, leaving the foam to highlight his upper lip.

  “I hear you an’ the dead fella got into a fracas here last week,” Cobb said after another noisy sip.

  Budge’s black gaze narrowed. “So what? He got frisky with Etta, so I grabbed him by the throat, give him a good shakin’, an’ tossed him out – fer good. Somethin’ I’ve done to a hundred customers since we opened up here.”

  “I’m sure you have. But yer missus said you were particularly upset because of somethin’ Duggan said to Etta,” Cobb said, stretching the truth just a bit.

  “She thinks every woman under forty is out to tumble me,” Budge said, and for the first time flashed his carefully manicured bartender’s smile at Cobb, as if to say ‘I can’t help it, can I, if I’m too handsome for my own good?’

  “Duggan was seen in here before that week.”

  “I suppose so, but I didn’t know him from Adam.”

  “Didn’t know he was Nestor’s cousin an’ housemate?”

  Cobb thought he detected a flicker of anxiety in Budge’s face.

  “Not until now. I never seen them together in here. Nestor worked mainly in the mornings, doin’ some of the heavy work.”

  “An’ this Duggan never made eyes at Etta before last week?”

  “Just what the hell are you drivin’ at, Cobb?”

  “I’m thinkin’ that maybe you had a grudge against Duggan an’ when you heard that argument in the alley, you recognized Duggan’s voice an’ somethin’ snapped inside – you were already mad at yer wife an’ feelin’ grumpy an’ put-upon – an’ you pushed up them basement doors, stepped into the alley an’ found Duggan alone and unconscious with a cane lyin’ handy beside him – ”

  “Get out!” Budge bellowed, and if he had not been so big and bulky might have vaulted over the bar to get at Cobb. “Get out of here before I take a cane an’ beat you to death!”

  ***

  Cobb was still shaking two blocks distant from The Sailor’s Arms. He had left – slowly and deliberately, he was sure – but only because he had asked all the questions he needed to, and one or two he shouldn’t have. His principal regret, though, was leaving his ale unfinished. His shaking was due mostly to his anger at himself for pushing Budge further than he had intended and letting his personal dislike of the barkeep get the better of him. As he walked towards The Cock and Bull for his luncheon, he thought back on the interview and had to admit that Budge’s account jibed with the time-line Marc had laid out. The argument between Duggan and Brodie must have taken place somewhere between nine-forty-five and nine-fifty, as they had assumed. And if Budge was telling the truth – a big ‘if’ in Cobb’s mind – then Duggan was clubbed to death minutes after Brodie fled. And that suggested that someone had been watching the initial tussle between the two men and had moved in immediately to dispatch Duggan with Brodie’s walking-stick. It was too bad they couldn’t use the blackmail business as a motive for any of the five people who seemed to have an opportunity to commit the murder. But without Nestor to corroborate the suspicions raised by Duggan’s list, Cobb had to agree with Marc that that angle could not be used to help dissuade the magistrate from charging Brodie tomorrow morning.

  Cobb spent the afternoon in various watering-holes tracking down his lesser snitches and bribing them to keep a sharp lookout for any signs of Nestor Peck. Nestor was the chum of another snitch, Itchy Quick, who hung out at The Crooked Anchor on Bay Street at Wellington. Quick was a two-hundred pound sloth of a man whose shambling manoeuvres were unrelated to his surname. His nickname, however, was apt, as he suffered from scrofula, and spent much of his limited energy scratching and itching. But Itchy had not been seen at his favourite tavern or anywhere else, it turned out. Were his disappearance and Nestor’s mere coincidence? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.

  At five o’clock, dispirited and groggy, Cobb went home to the comforts of his wife and family. He hoped that his surprise visit to Oakwood Manor after supper would prove more productive than his afternoon had been.

  ***

  Before going on to his meeting at Baldwin House, Marc took a few minutes to visit Brodie in jail. Calvin Strangwa
y, a humane jailer, had given Brodie a large cell with a southern exposure and a good-sized window. Celia and Diana had already been there, bringing extra bedding and food. Marc was able to reassure Brodie that the several ongoing lines of investigation should, in the least, turn up enough evidence to throw doubt on the case and see him released in the morning. Marc was not as confident as he let on, but he felt constrained to cheer up the young man, who looked glum and uncharacteristically fearful.

  At Baldwin House, Marc joined Francis Hincks in Robert’s chamber for a high-level consultation. With just over two weeks till the Legislature opened (the Governor had just sent out the call), Robert wanted to assess their progress. Poulett Thomson had been meeting with the Tories, Orangemen and moderate conservatives whenever they became available – wining, dining, and otherwise plumping their vulnerable egos. He had taken great pains to give the appearance of shunning the Reformers, while meeting in secret with them and their envoys.

  “So, where do we stand, vote-wise?” Hincks said, getting right to the point.

  “We appear to have seven or eight of the moderates onside,” Robert said with his customary caution. “Enough for a comfortable majority on the main question. They’ll vote as a block.”

  “What about amendments?” Hincks said. “The Tories will certainly try to emasculate the union by tacking on a dozen crippling amendments.”

  “Uncertain, I’m afraid, because we don’t yet know what they might be – though we can guess.”

  “We’ll have to play them day by day, then, as the debate progresses.”

  “Which is why we need all the help we can get once the Legislature opens. Our men in the Assembly don’t have your silver tongue, Francis. We’ll need to prompt them daily and feed His Excellency his lines if he is to keep the pressure on.” Robert looked at Marc.

  “Which puts me in somewhat of a bind,” Marc said. “It’s just possible that Brodie will be charged with a serious offence.”

  “I know,” Robert said. “And if he is, I want you to devote all your time and energies to defending him. We’ll get along without you as best we can.”