Governing Passion Page 8

  “I see. Then it’s possible he surprised the thief and the thief picked up the nearest weapon and struck.”

  “Yes, that’s quite possible,” LeMieux said with some enthusiasm. “So you really think you can help me?”

  “I’m going to try,” Marc said, rising. “Even though I’m an Englishman.”

  ***

  Marc rode out to the scene of the crime with Campion, the architect. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he wanted to see the spot for himself and search the area for clues. Campion was very concerned about replacing his foreman and about the loss of two men from his complement of five. Of course, Denis Jardin, the fired brother could be brought back if he were still in town. Meanwhile, if, as Marc had informed Campion, the accused man was bruiting it about that he was being charged solely because he was French, then trouble could be looming when the flooring carpenters, French and English, came in next week. Marc and Campion arrived about two o’clock and went immediately to the Legislative Council chamber. The three remaining workmen were there, sitting on a pile of laths.

  “I know a fellow worker has been killed,” Campion said, “but the work must go on. Manson, you will act as foreman for the time being.”

  The men got up reluctantly, even the newly minted foreman. When they had begun their work attaching the laths to the studding, Campion went over to the far side of the room and pointed at the rough flooring. Marc saw the large, dark bloodstain.

  “So this is where it happened, eh?”

  “He was struck from behind, the coroner said. I was here when he did his initial examination. A single violent blow. Perhaps he had dozed off and didn’t hear anyone approaching.”

  “Then the killer was not likely the thief who’s been stealing the laths,” Marc said, looking around. “I take it Dunham has been out here for the past three nights?”

  “He has,” Campion said. “But the thief must have spotted him and kept away. Perhaps until last night.”

  “The laths are here, so it’s likely Dunham was hiding behind them. But if Dunham had fallen asleep, the thief would just take his booty and slip off undetected, wouldn’t he? No-one kills for a pile of laths if he doesn’t have to.”

  “I think you’re right. This was a deliberately planned murder.”

  “Where were the tools left?” Marc asked.

  “Over near the work on the far side of the room.”

  “So I assume the killer entered the door on this side, saw the sleeping watchman, slipped over and picked up a hammer, then came across silently and did the deed.”

  “And it doesn’t look as if he’s left anything around.”

  Marc spent several minutes making sure, but this side of the room was uncluttered, and the killer had left nothing but his victim behind.

  “I’d like to speak to the workman one by one,” Marc said, blowing on his hands. The room was heated by an improvised stove under the windows, but one had to be standing next to it to receive its benefits.

  “Fine with me,” Campion said.

  “I’ll talk to them over where it’s a little warmer,” Marc said.

  First up was Gregory Manson. He was a large, florid man who possibly drank too much.

  “I understand you felt cheated when you were passed over for the foreman’s job,” Marc began.

  “That’s true, sir. But I didn’t kill him. I was home at midnight, in my bed.”

  “And earlier you were at Bernie’s place drinking?”

  “And doin’ a little dice, we was. Marvin and me.”

  Marvin Leroy was the other English-speaking workman.

  “And Jacques LeMieux was there as well?”

  Manson frowned. “He come in later. He’d already been into the booze somewheres. Bernie lets the Frenchies in if they behave themselves. But they don’t usually come at all.”

  “You don’t socialize with your French comrades?”

  “You crazy! Them bunch of rebels and layabouts? We only work with them because we got no choice.”

  “And you heard LeMeiux make threats against Dunham?”

  “Yes. And I told the magistrate straight off when he come here this mornin’.”

  “What was the specific nature of these threats?”

  “What did he say, ya mean? It was in French and my French isn’t perfect. I can understand it mostly, but can’t speak it.”

  “So what did you hear, in French?”

  “He said he was gonna get even with that bastard Dunham if he lived to be a hundred. ‘I’ll get him, you’ll see!’ he kept sayin’ over and over. He was very drunk and slurrin’ his words, but they were clear enough.”

  “He did not use the word ‘kill’? – ‘tuer’?”

  Manson looked confused for a moment. “Not as such, no. But his meaning was obvious, wasn’t it?”

  Marc could hear the cross-examination in the trial to come. He had no doubt that he could get LeMieux acquitted, but the damage could already have been done. Robert and Louis were meeting two or three new potential members of the new Parliament each day and laying the groundwork for the upcoming alliance in the Assembly. Any perceived strains between French and English at this stage could prove detrimental to these delicate negotiations. LeMieux’s arrest on purely circumstantial evidence certainly lent itself to misinterpretation by the French.

  “Was it, though?” Marc said. “There are many ways to get even, aren’t there?”

  “Not when you hate a man as much as LeMieux did Dunham,” Manson said stubbornly.

  “He might have sabotaged the work project, eh?” Marc continued. “That might have got Dunham fired. Or perhaps he merely wished to give the fellow a good thrashing.”

  “With his hammer?”

  “Where were you after you left Bernie’s” Marc said abruptly.

  “Leroy and me walked back to Kingston about midnight. LeMieux was still in the dive. We went to our separate boarding-houses.”

  “Did your landlady or landlord hear you come in?”

  “She may have. She’s a light sleeper.”

  “Dunham was killed sometime during the night according to what the coroner told Mr. Campion. That leaves plenty of time for you to walk back out to the site and do the deed yourself.”

  Manson laughed. “I didn’t have to, did I? Somebody did it for me.”

  ***

  Marvin Leroy was a small man with bright red hair and freckles, and a livid scar the size of an earthworm on his right cheek.

  He was nervous and did not make eye contact.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Mr. Leroy. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I had no reason to kill Mr. Dunham,” Leroy said quickly.

  “You liked the man?”

  Leroy hesitated, then said, “No, I didn’t care for him. He was a mean bugger. So I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  “You were in Bernie’s dive last night?”

  “I was. With Greg Manson.”

  “Did you hear Jacques LeMieux making threats against Dunham?”

  Again, some hesitation before the response. “I heard him mumbling to himself in French. But I don’t speak French at all. But he really sounded very angry.”

  So, Marc thought, it was only Manson’s testimony so far as to the threats made by LeMieux. LeMieux himself didn’t remember much. Marc would have to go to Bernie’s and try to sort this out. Without the threats, the magistrate, beyond motive, had only the hammer, and that was thin evidence indeed.

  “You didn’t hear the word ‘tuer’?”

  “No, sir. If I did it went over my head. Greg an’ me walked home.”

  “You went straight to your own boarding-house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your landlady or landlord hear you come in?”

  “My landlady usually does. I’m afraid I made quite a noise.”

  “I’ll check it out. I want all the addresses of you men before I leave this morning.”

  “I’ll help if I can.”


  “That’s all for now,” Marc said, releasing the man and wincing once again at the sight of that scar. Someone’s knife had sliced open that right cheek.

  ***

  Michel Jardin looked as if he had a permanent chip on his shoulder. He slouched over to Marc, resentment and irritation writ large in his face.

  “You were upset when Mr. Dunham fired your brother?” Marc began.

  “So what?”

  They were speaking in French but the contempt was clear in any language.

  “So it gives you a reason to dislike your foreman.”

  “I didn’t need a reason like that. I hated him after the first day on the job. He was a very cruel man.”

  “In what way?”

  “He looked down on us French. He gave us the dirtiest jobs. He chewed us out for no reason at all, always worrying that we weren’t working fast enough. Anything to lick the ass of his boss.”

  “He was anti-French?”

  “He was in the English militia in the rebellion. He burned barns and killed cattle and scared children.”

  “But he was only doing his duty, surely,” Marc said lamely, remembering his own compunction about barn-burning.

  “He was an animal. An English bastard.”

  Marc had been present for some of the reprisals taken after the rebellion in Lower Canada, and had known then, as now, how difficult it was going to be for the two races and cultures to live side by side, let alone unite in a single state.

  “Where were you last night, say, from nine o’clock onwards?”

  “You think I killed Dunham?”

  “Please answer the question.”

  Jardin looked across at Bert Campion supervising the work, as if his boss might relent and allow him to say no to Marc’s questions. But the architect had been adamant in ordering his men to cooperate with Marc.

  “I got home from work at eight o’clock. I had supper at my boarding-house. I went for a long walk around ten o’clock. When I got back everyone was asleep. No-one saw me until morning.”

  So, Jardin had no alibi, but also no real motive other than a general dislike of his foreman, a dislike shared by his colleagues.

  “You men all used your own tools?” Marc thought to ask.

  “Yes, we do. And our hammers are all different.”

  “Except that Jacques’ hammer has got blood and brains on it,” Marc said.

  “That means nothing,” Jardin said. “Anyone could have used it. You people are picking on us because we’re French!”

  “Was anything stolen last night?” Marc said, ignoring Jardin’s agitation.

  The question startled Jardin, but he recovered to say, “Yes, there was. Another bundle of laths.”

  So, the thief had been here. Still, it was difficult to believe he had done it. However, it would serve LeMieux’s lawyer well if a trial ever came about. (One of Marc’s ploys in the courtroom was to offer the jury alternative views of the crime.) And the way things were going, he himself might end up being that lawyer.

  Marc dismissed Jardin. He got the address of each worker from Campion, then joined the architect for the ride back to Kingston. Marc went immediately to Robert and Hincks. Louis joined them, and Marc briefed them on everything he had discovered so far.

  Robert was first to speak. “Marc, we’re going to have to settle this matter quickly. We need definite proof of LeMieux’s innocence or guilt. If the business hangs fire, up in the air, we could be in for trouble here with our negotiations. I’m going to go to Magistrate Wilson and get his permission for you to continue your investigation – officially – if you’re willing to do so.”

  “Of course, I will,” Marc said, “but I’m also needed here to help out with Christopher Pettigrew and Henri Thériault.”

  “Well, we’re not expecting a reply from Thériault for a day or two. That should give you a little time to investigate further.”

  “All right, then, that’s settled,” Marc said.

  “Thank you, Marc,” Louis said.

  ***

  Marc had just finished supper when he was accosted in the lobby by Christopher Pettigrew, looking distressed.

  “Why, what’s the matter?” Marc asked.

  “I just received another letter from my sister,” he sighed. “She’s desperate to have me back in Toronto.”

  “Perhaps I could help you formulate a reply to her,” Marc offered. “She will relent when she knows what a pivotal role you’re playing in the negotiations for the success of our alliance.”

  “She’s most upset at my getting married, I fear.”

  “But you’ll be living at home.”

  Pettigrew shook his head. “That may be worse than not living at home. It’s my bride she seems to be anxious about.”

  “That’s perfectly natural. Your bride is usurping her place, as it were.”

  “But I’ve told her that Miss Todd is the spitting image of her. Look, here is my fiancée’s portrait.” He pulled out a locket, opened it and showed Marc the miniature of his bride’s head and shoulders. She was a fair-haired beauty.

  “That may not have been the wisest thing to do,” Marc suggested tactfully.

  “I know that now. It enraged Christine,” Pettigrew said, then grabbed Marc by the shoulder. “Would you mind looking at her latest letter and letting me know what you think? I’m worried sick.”

  And worried they did not want this young man, this linchpin in their plans. “All right. I’d be happy to.”

  “Come up to my room and I’ll show it to you.”

  They went up the stairs to Pettigrew’s room. Christopher went to his desk and picked up a letter, which he handed to Marc. Marc read:

  Birch Grove

  March 11, 1841

  My Dearest brother:

  I found your most recent letter unsatisfactory in the extreme. What you offer me are not reasons but excuses. And what is reason even, when love and devotion are at stake? You go on and on about politics, about being absolutely required to stay on in Kingston whilst there is some faint hope that Henri Thériault, who sulks in his tent in Quebec like Achilles, may decide to heed the calls for his presence in Kingston. Is there no-one else in all that conglomeration of politicians and hangers-on who will suffice except you?

  I do not for one minute believe any such thing. Indeed you are not staying away from me in the horrid stone town because of Robert Baldwin and Louis LaFontaine. You cannot fool me, who have shared your company and one half of your being for twenty-five years. We were struck from the same ore, as close as any two humans can hope to be. No, Christopher, I know you better than you know yourself. You remain in Kingston and eschew the company of your soul-mate and fraternal friend because of Miss Todd. And it is in a futile attempt to save my feelings that you concoct this sorry tale of being needed by the Reformers to act as a go-between in their efforts to woo Thériault. But I know, without your having to admit it directly or obliquely, that you have become besotted with Martha Todd, and in doing so have automatically estranged yourself from me. Even though the wedding is not until April, you feel compelled to pay court to this interloper, this fair creature who places her shallow beauty between the vows we made together as children and have sworn to keep ever since. Is her beauty so fragile that you feel you must ever be in its presence lest it falter and fail?

  Meanwhile, I am alone in the cold empty rooms of the house we lit with the warmth of our companionship. I feel like Ariadne on Naxos, abandoned and betrayed by the one sworn to protect and love her always. And each letter from you does little to propitiate and much to vex. So much so that I am sorry to report that my headaches have once again begun to torment me, and I feel that there is no-one but you and your immediate return to Toronto that will give me a moment’s relief. If you cannot find it in your heart to tell me the truth about your stay in Kingston, please do not bother to write at all. I prefer to suffer in silence.

  Your loving and devoted twin,

  Christine

  �
�You see, Marc,” Christopher said when Marc had finished reading, “how she dismisses my role in politics here and rants against my fiancée.”

  “What are these headaches? Nervous tension?”

  “No, they’re serious setbacks she suffers. She retreats to her room and won’t let anyone but her personal maid come near her. I’m really afraid for her well-being.”

  “Well, the letter is extremely literate and quite rational, despite its sentiment. I’d say she is pulling out all the stops to get you back in Toronto.”

  “You think I should not give in to her?”

  “It’s not for me to say, but I really doubt if her health is in jeopardy. Try writing her a very personal letter. Recall your happy memories. Make the point that you are needed here, but that it is only a matter of three or four weeks before you’ll be back. I think she is just looking for reassurance. If you can’t be present, then work on reassuring her by every other means. If you like, I’ll add a brief note on the work here. It may carry more weight.”

  “Thank you. That is good advice.”

  “I hope it works,” Marc said. “We need you here.”

  And clear-headed if the alliance was to succeed.

  SEVEN

  “It ain’t fair,” Cobb was saying to Dora after supper. He felt so put upon and irritated that he had broken a cardinal rule of the Cobb household: not to talk shop. Cobb was not to burden Dora with the tawdry details of his daily patrols and she was not to burden him with accounts of childbirth and its after effects in her role of midwife to the eastern half of town. “I was only on the job fer a few days. And I was gettin’ close, I was.”

  “Life ain’t fair,” Dora said, as if that truism settled the matter.

  “It has to be one of the gentlemen at Madame LaFrances’s. But I been told not to bother the good madam again.”

  “You’re a fine patrolman, Mister Cobb. You always was. And who knows, you might catch the killer tonight.”

  Cobb nodded. “The first two crimes were three days apart, weren’t they?”

  “You’re sure it’s the same person?”