Desperate Acts Page 8

  “Well, now,” Sir Peregrine said into the stony silence, broken only by the rasping of Bottom’s breath, “that was not a bad beginning. We’ll work on it as we proceed. Perhaps you might try rehearsing with your good lady.”

  The reference to Crenshaw’s wife seemed to revive him a little, enough to let him eke out a nod of acknowledgement and unslump his shoulders.

  “So you wish me to read for Demetrius?” Brodie said in an effort to divert attention from the deflated factory-owner.

  “I do, young Langford, I do.”

  Brodie proceeded to read his assigned part. Dramatic readings and satiric skits had been part of his private-school experience in New York, and so he felt quite comfortable throughout, despite the watery blue gaze of the lordly director upon him.

  While Brodie’s vowels and cadence were nowhere near the diphthong-drawl of many New Yorkers, they nevertheless produced in Sir Peregrine’s multi-planed visage a sequence of startling winces that disrupted his chins, jowls and dimples. To the others at the table, such infelicities were a minor distraction from the sheer force of the presentation itself. Here was a voice – in addition to youthful good looks – that could deliver the volatile shifts of mood and pace required of the young lover in the play. When Brodie finished, his audience applauded, and the wincing director adroitly arranged a congratulatory smile.

  “But we still need someone to play Puck,” Dutton said when the applause was over.

  Sir Peregrine feigned a look of abashment. He may even have blushed, except that his permanently pink complexion made it impossible to tell. “It is a role I have always coveted,” he said, peering up from under his puffed eyelids, “but have never had the opportunity to play – as the more masterful roles of Prospero and Oberon have taken precedence. But Puck I shall be, fellow thespians, and a Puck that shall dazzle and daunt.”

  The image of the flabby and bejowled baronet, clad in elfin garb, gambolling and pirouetting about the stage and nimbly orchestrating the tangled mishaps of the various lovers could not be conjured by anyone at the table – however hard they might try. But the die had been cast – by their director, their chairman and the owner of a manorial residence that just happened to have a mini-theatre installed.

  “So, we have only to hear the ladies read?” Dutton said after a polite pause.

  “Exactly, my dear Dutton. A palpable hit!”

  And that, Sir Peregrine went on to inform them, would, if at all possible, take place tomorrow evening. He proposed to have the full cast come to Oakwood Manor for supper at six o’clock, to be followed by a read-through of the script – in role. Everyone was to study his assigned part – Crenshaw could inform Clementine of her role as Hermia and they might even rehearse en suite – and all were to come prepared for an evening of pleasure and purpose.

  This generous offer was received well, and turned out to have been perfectly timed, for Sir Peregrine had just thanked them for their cooperation when Gillian Budge appeared at his elbow with a tray of glasses and a decanter of sherry. They would now toast their achievement with a “goblet of Amontillado” before departing, a suggestion met with hearty murmurs of approval.

  However, at this moment, Brodie thought to check his pocket-watch for the time, and discovering it was almost nine-thirty, he made his excuses and headed for the cloakroom. In the excitement of the audition he had almost forgotten the bit of unpleasantness he had planned for the would-be blackmailer.

  ***

  Brodie grabbed his coat, hat and walking-stick, and took the stairs two at a time. The back door opened out onto a narrow strip between the public house and the adjacent building. Brodie swung to the right and found himself in the broader alley behind the tavern, one that stretched northward thirty yards until it met the east-west service lane. A gibbous moon hung in the south-eastern sky, lighting some sections of the alley brightly and casting sharply edged shadows elsewhere. Brodie found the ashcan mentioned in the extortion note without difficulty. Carefully he peered around in all directions, but could see or hear nothing untoward. Even the raucous chatter of the taproom did not carry back this far. Laying down his walking-stick for a moment, he placed the parcel he had brought along under the lid of the can on top of the clinkers, and replaced the lid. The parcel, tied with string, was stuffed with plain paper.

  Then he moved quickly, as a frightened or nervous fellow might, back into the narrow gap between the buildings and walked noisily out onto Front Street, where he wheeled and strode eastward. At Peter Street he turned north and kept walking. Finding a convenient shadow to cover his next move, he squeezed between the walls of two brick shops and made his way back towards the head of the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms. When he reached it, he remained hidden in the ell of a chimney, from which vantage-point he could observe the rear of the tavern and the ashcan.

  It seemed an hour but was probably only ten minutes before he spotted movement – a dark figure materializing out of a shadowy lair not ten yards away from him. It moved stealthily towards the ashcan, glancing about frequently. When it reached the can, it opened the lid and lifted out the parcel. At this precise moment Brodie made his own move. Knowing that the blackmailer would be occupied for a few seconds in examining the contents of the parcel, Brodie loped soundlessly towards him (it was now apparent that the figure was a black-suited man). A split second before Brodie reached him, the fellow heard his footstep, and whirled around to face him.

  The man looked vaguely familiar. He was startled, but not frightened.

  “Who the hell are you!” Brodie shouted. “Spreading lies about my fiancée!” He grabbed the fellow by the coat-lapels, and began to shake him. “You thieving blackmailer! You bastard! Did you think I’d give money to the likes of you!” Brodie was taken aback by the strength and vehemence of this sudden, unplanned outburst.

  The blackmailer was not a large man, and Brodie had no difficulty in lifting him off the ground and rattling his bones. He made no sound except a kind of wheezing as he was being shaken. But the moonlight caught his bold black eyes fully, and they registered shock and a smouldering animal fury.

  “You’re coming with me to the police,” Brodie said.

  “You want them to know all about the baby girl in Montreal, do you?” the fellow hissed, making no effort to free himself from Brodie’s grip. “About the hooer you’re courtin’?”

  Brodie was stunned by both the venom and the incredible calm in the fellow’s voice. “God damn you!” he heard himself scream, and then before he could think further, he saw his right arm drop away and his hand forming a fist.

  Which is when the blackmailer drove his knee towards Brodie’s crotch. The blow was poorly aimed, however, and caught him on the thigh. But it lent an alarming amount of force to the punch that Brodie landed on the villain’s left cheek. He buckled under the impact, slid to the ground in a sitting position, then slumped onto his back and lay still – the half-opened parcel beside him.

  My God, I’ve killed him, was Brodie’s first thought. Ignoring the pain in the fingers of his right hand, he knelt down and put a trembling palm on the man’s chest. It was heaving steadily up and down: he had merely been knocked unconscious. Still, the fact that Brodie had, against all the principles he had been taught, struck a fellow human being in anger left him paralyzed, unable to think or act. For a minute, perhaps longer, he remained crouched over his victim, dazed and unseeing.

  Finally, he was able to stand up, and look around. Then he did a very foolish thing. He picked up his hat, and he ran.

  SIX

  Constable Cobb, to his surprise and not a little chagrin, found himself patrolling the south-east sector of the city on a Wednesday evening – during a week when it had been his turn to take the more relaxed day-shift. But last night Ewan Wilkie had, he claimed, spotted a burglar slipping out of the back window of a home on York Street, had given chase, tripped on a prowling tomcat, and turned his ankle. Both cat and burglar escaped unharmed. So it was that one of the part-time
constables had been called in to take Cobb’s regular day-shift, while the veteran Cobb replaced Wilkie. Fortunately, the first couple of hours this evening had been peaceful, and in one or two of the lulls Cobb had found time for a flagon of decent ale at The Cock and Bull.

  He was just ambling west along Wellington Street when he saw someone zigzagging along the side-path towards him. Some drunk, no doubt, beetling home before the wife’s curfew, or dander, was up. And young, too, by the slimness of figure and quickness of step. Cobb spread his feet and stood his ground. The fellow almost crashed chest-first into him before coming to an abrupt stop.

  “Jesus, what’re you doin’ out here like this, Brodie Langford?”

  Brodie stepped back, bent over, and gasped desperately for breath.

  “Somebody chasin’ you?”

  Brodie straightened up. His face was crimson and his eyes wild. “Is it you, Cobb?” he panted.

  “Last time I checked my trousers it was,” Cobb said, giving Brodie the once-over. “You ain’t drunk, are ya?”

  “You’ve got to help me, Cobb. Please.”

  Cobb glanced over Brodie’s shoulder, but could see no-one menacing behind him.

  “Then you better tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  “I have just assaulted a man. In the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms.”

  “What’d he do? Try an’ rob ya?”

  “I punched him hard on the cheek and he collapsed. Look at my knuckles. I may’ve broken them.”

  “Was he layin’ in wait there?”

  “No, no. He was trying to extort money from me. But I had no cause to strike him. I intended to haul him down to the police quarters and have him dealt with there. But I lost my temper, I – ”

  “An’ you decked him, eh? That’s pretty much what I’d’ve done, lad. No need to make a fuss about it. A villain’s a villain.”

  “But I might’ve killed him.”

  The young man was clearly distraught. “A tap on the cheekbone never killed nobody,” he said, helpfully, as a man of much experience in such matters.

  “Would you go back there with me, Cobb? I should never have run off. I don’t know why I did.”

  “Human nature, likely. I’ll go down there right now, but there’s no need fer you to come. Why don’t you go along to our quarters? The Sarge an’ Gussie, our clerk, are workin’ late tonight. You can tell the chief yer version of what happened, whilst I wake the bugger up an’ drag him back there as soon as I can.”

  “Yes. Yes. I think that’s for the best. Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me, lad. It’s been a borin’ night – till now.”

  ***

  As Brodie approached the new police quarters at the rear of the City Hall, he was relieved to see a light still on in the reception area. The ten-minute walk here had given him time to catch his breath and get a grip on his nerves. He also began to think clearly for the first time since he had grabbed the blackmailer by the lapels. It seemed that, inexplicably, the fellow had got wind of Diana’s indiscretion. He had, had he not, mentioned a baby girl in Montreal? Many people knew that Diana had come from Montreal to serve as governess to Robert Baldwin’s children. The reference to the baby girl could have been a lucky guess, but then if it had proved a wrong guess, the entire blackmail scheme would have collapsed. The villain, whoever he was, must know something. And if Cobb succeeded in hauling him before the law, would he blurt out what he did know, as he had threatened to? Would he be believed? That was a chilling thought, for it was not only a question of Diana’s suitability as a wife (he loved her and had already forgiven her everything) but of her general reputation. Bearing a child out of wedlock, although common enough, was damaging to women of the “better classes” or those in positions of trust, like tutors or governesses. Diana’s employer was a kind and a fair man, but at the moment – in the delicate political climate – he could not afford to have the slightest breath of scandal blow over his household. He would have no choice but to dismiss Diana. She was devoted to those children. She would be devastated. And that, of course, was the reason he had decided to confront the blackmailer and end the threat. But it now appeared he had made the situation worse.

  In addition to this anxiety, Brodie was extremely upset with himself for the intemperate nature of his outburst in the alley and the fact that, in striking the fellow in response to a mere verbal threat and an ineffectual knee in the thigh, he had broken the law – by using excessive force. He had been raised in a legal household. Both his father and the man who became his guardian were lawyers. Brodie had been taught to revere the law, and abhor violence. In one blind, passionate moment, he had violated both codes.

  He entered the police quarters to find the chief constable, Wilfrid Sturges, sitting at a table beside Augustus French, the police clerk. They were poring over a pile of official-looking papers.

  “Good grief, what brings a lusty lad like you in here on a Wednesday evenin’?” Sturges said to Brodie in his bluff, friendly manner.

  “It’s a long story,” Brodie said.

  “Well, then, let’s hear it, lad. Gussie here needs to give his nib-finger a rest, eh, Gussie?”

  Gussie had not bothered to look up at the intruder. Nothing short of an earthquake under his chair could dissuade him from finishing a sentence once he had started it. He grunted an indeterminate response and speeded up his nib-finger, splattering ink in three directions.

  “You look like you stepped on a ghost’s petticoat,” Sturges said, pulling out a chair and motioning for Brodie to sit down opposite him. “Somethin’ happen out there? I thought this was the night of yer Shakespeare meetin’.”

  “Yes, sir. It was. But I damn near killed a man afterwards.”

  “How?”

  “I punched him – hard – on the left cheek.”

  Gussie’s quill pen stuttered, then moved on.

  “Then you better come into the office where we can talk about it undisturbed.”

  “Yes. Thank you. But I’d like Mr. French to come in with us.”

  “Gussie?”

  “I’d like to make a formal statement about what happened half an hour ago – a sort of confession.”

  “Jesus, Brodie. This sounds serious.”

  “I’m afraid it is, sir.”

  ***

  While Wilfrid Sturges listened and Gussie French took notes in his private shorthand, Brodie told his story. He began with the extortion note he had received the previous Wednesday evening, providing all the details except the specific nature of the blackmailer’s secret knowledge.

  “It was a vague and obviously wild threat against Miss Ramsay,” he said, fearing of course that more damning particulars could be revealed if the fellow was apprehended. “But I felt her honour was at stake.”

  “So you planned to confront the fellow and bring him to us?” Sturges said, trying to be helpful and still mystified as to why this upstanding young man was insisting on confessing to a common assault when it was likely that the victim had already come to and scarpered – happy to have escaped with a bruised cheek.

  “Yes. I prepared a parcel of fake banknotes.”

  “Did you keep the extortion note?”

  “No. I destroyed it.”

  “Ah. It might have been useful. Still . . . ”

  Brodie then recounted, move by move, what he had done after leaving the club, up to the moment when he had cornered the culprit and had begun to thrash him.

  “I meant to bring him here, sir. I really did. But he said something repugnant about Miss Ramsay and – ”

  “And you gave him what he deserved?”

  “I assaulted him. Viciously. He collapsed, unconscious.”

  “But he was breathin’?”

  “Yes. I made sure of that – before I . . . ran.”

  “An’ you only give ‘im the one knock on the cheek?”

  “Yes. That was enough. I don’t know why but I panicked and – ”

  “No need to take on so, lad. Ev
en if this chap makes a complaint – an’ there’s less chance of that than Gussie misspellin’ a word – it’s only a common assault charge, a misdemeanour.”

  “Even so, I’d like Mr. French to write up a statement for me to sign. The law is the law: I was raised to believe that.”

  True enough, Sturges thought with a sigh. But he had seen many a barrister – including Brodie’s guardian and idol, Richard Dougherty – give it a few twists and turns in a courtroom. “Well, son, if you insist. But why not wait to see if Cobb brings the bugger in here, an’ we can sort this all out in five minutes or less?”

  “I’d like to get my account on the record first,” Brodie said.

  “As you wish. Gussie, poise yer pen!”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later Gussie finished writing up a one-page statement. At the table in the main room, Brodie read it through and signed it. He had just handed it to Sturges to add his signature as witness when the front door opened and Cobb came in.

  He was alone.

  Looking relieved, Sturges said to him, “So the villain buggered off, did he?”

  “No, Sarge. I found him in the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms, just like Brodie said.” He glanced across at Brodie, seated beside Gussie.

  “Then where is he now?” Sturges said, catching the alarm in Cobb’s face.

  “Right where I found him.”

  “Out cold?”

  “No, sir. Dead as a doornail.”

  Brodie’s head shot up. “But I only hit him once on the cheek!”

  “That ain’t what killed him. His skull was crushed in. Somebody bashed him good an’ proper – with this.”

  From behind his right leg Cobb held up a silver-tipped walking-stick with a wolf’s-head knob. “It’s got his blood an’ brains all over it.”