Bloody Relations Page 9

  “His co-conspirator—the man behind the plan—is emboldened to implement a scheme he has been contemplating for some time. He will know all about the troubled nephew from his counterparts among the Tories in Quebec. He will know that the sexual scandals still clinging to Edward Wakefield and Thomas Turton will make Lord Durham vulnerable to any further disgrace of that sort. He helps get young Ellice drunk, lures him away from the gala, and leads him directly to that scarlet door. Badger is hiding nearby.

  “At the right moment—he’ll know the routine of the house—he sneaks in through the booby-hatch, as Miss Garnet called it. Perhaps he was meant merely to injure Sarah—it could have been any one of the girls, remember, as he couldn’t know whose turn it would be—but some fit of rage at Mrs. Burgess grips him as he slips the knife out from the hiding place he knows well, and he drives it into the helpless victim’s neck, killing her instantly.”

  Cobb did not offer a comment on this sustained peroration until they had turned south on Yonge Street. “I c’n follow all that, Major, but there’s just a coupla things I don’t see yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “How would some fancy-pants toff get to know and conspire with the likes of Michael Badger?”

  “Quite easily. We know that Ellice’s escort used the code when knocking to gain admittance. He was or had been a regular. As such, he may have had plenty of opportunity to get to know the bruiser of Madame Renée’s and sound him out about his plan to sabotage Lord Durham’s vital work here in the Canadas.”

  “That’s possible, Major, but a bit far-fletched fer my likin’.”

  “You’re willing to accept that it is pure coincidence that Handford Ellice has become the target of someone’s malice?”

  “Seems to me the girl Sarah was the target.”

  “Of course. But why put the knife in Ellice’s hand? Surely being found beside a prostitute with a dagger still in her throat would have been sufficient to implicate him.”

  “Though Ellice probably would’ve blamed one of the inmates or else skedaddled without anybody knowin’ who he was.”

  “Exactly. The frame-up had to be foolproof, didn’t it? He had to be found comatose with the bloody weapon in his hand. Somebody wanted Ellice to be charged, in the least, with felonious assault, and to be put in jail here to await trial. As he is likely to be very soon. See what a bind that puts His Lordship in? With that knife in his grip, Ellice could not claim to be a victim of circumstances, however sordid.”

  “I agree, but that just makes my second question all the harder to answer.”

  “I forgot you had another doubt.”

  “How did that knife get into the lad’s hand, the right hand that was next to the girl, without the true murderer gettin’ blood on himself and trackin’ it to the hatch or inta the ladies’ half of the house? Doc Withers told me the knife cut through the big vein in Sarah’s throat. He said the blood wouldn’t spurt, but kinda gush—like a pig’s throat when it’s first slit. If the killer pulled out the knife and then had to reach across the body in the dark to find the lad’s right hand, he’d get blood on him, wouldn’t he?”

  “True, but he could have pulled it out and edged around to the other side of the bed, as you did apparently, then reach over from that side to plant the knife.”

  “But you ferget, I had a lantern. There was only a stub of candle in the room. You figure the killer, with Ellice breathin’ there three feet away, is gonna go stumblin’ around in the dark—without gettin’ some blood on him or rousin’ the lad?”

  “I think you’re likely correct in that assumption. That’s a part of the mystery I can’t quite work out yet. But as soon as Ellice is recovered from his shock, he may be able to shed light on it.”

  “There’s another likelihood you gotta consider, Major.”

  “And what is that, pray tell?”

  “That Mr. Ellice did it himself.”

  • • •

  FOOT-WEARY AS HE WAS AFTER A night patrol, four hours’ restless sleep, and an emotionally charged interrogation, Cobb dutifully turned into the police quarters at the rear of the Court House on the corner of King and Church Streets. It was near suppertime and Gussie French was just about to tidy his desk when he looked up to see Cobb enter. He groaned.

  “Get yer quill quilled, Gussie,” Cobb said. “We got work to do.”

  French slumped unhappily over his desk while Cobb dictated a summary of what he and Marc thought they had learned, minus any high-blown theories. To further irritate the clerk, Cobb pulled out his notebook and pretended to be reading from it. Cobb had long ago gauged the velocity of Gussie’s pen over paper to the second, and hence was able to dictate just fast enough to infuriate him without actually bringing the business to an ink-blotted halt. Cobb’s words reached the page in a barely legible scrawl.

  Cobb finished at last, snapped his blank notebook shut, then whirled and walked out, leaving the door open long enough to permit a platoon of flies easy entrance. Behind him he heard a series of slapping sounds, the clatter of falling objects, and a string of vituperative oaths. Cobb whistled all the way home.

  Cobb’s house was situated near the edge of town on Parliament Street just below King. From his back yard he could see the smokestacks of the brewery and distillery down by the Don River and watch the slow churning of the gigantic Dutch windmill on its promontory above the lake. Dora, bless her, kept a neat cottage inside and out. Cobb paused to admire the unknown flowering shrubs beside the front walk (“I don’t haveta know their names to like their looks,” he had argued on more than one occasion). He could hear his son, Fabian, hoeing in the vegetable garden out back. Fabian must be ten years old by now, or was it still nine? Feeling enervated but otherwise at peace with the warm spring evening and an honest day’s work behind him, Cobb entered his castle and called out for Dora.

  Delia popped her pretty blond head out of the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Where’s Missus Cobb?” he demanded, suddenly irritable.

  “Mom’s gone off on a call. I’ve got supper here whenever you’re ready.” Like her mother, eleven-year-old Delia had learned to ignore his mood if acknowledging it would inconvenience her. It was maddening.

  “Why must women do their whatchamacallems at suppertime? Yer mother’s place is here. In her home. Lookin’ after her children.”

  “It’s venison stew,” Delia warbled, and ducked back into the kitchen.

  Cobb realized that he wanted to unburden himself at the end of a day like the one he had just endured. But even if Dora had been home, he knew that he would have been allowed to do so only if she’d granted him special dispensation. For they had a code, strictly adhered to, never to burden the other with sad tales from their different but equally troublous professions—unless by mutual consent. While Cobb assented to this arrangement (he had been given little choice), he felt it to be inherently unfair, for he bridled and blushed and squirmed at any description of matters to do with female plumbing, while she could be quite unmoved by accounts of the fistfights and blasphemies of drunks.

  The aroma of venison stew seduced him into the kitchen.

  “How old are you, lass?” he asked Delia, who kept on humming.

  • • •

  MARC FARED BETTER AT BRIAR COTTAGE. He had sent Beth a brief note from Government House at noon explaining the assignment he had been given, so she was primed and eager to hear what had happened to young Handford Ellice. Since it was she who had encouraged Ellice to come out of his introverted shell to dance and to join the whist players in the card room, she now felt somewhat responsible for the subsequent tragic events. Over supper, Marc gave Beth chapter and verse. He did not have to censor his narrative, for Beth had seen more of this world and suffered for it than most men in the province. Nor would she thank him for any such misguided expurgation.

  When Marc had finished, he sat back, paused, and asked, “Well, what do you make of all this?”

  “What you mean is,
do I think the boy did it.”

  Marc smiled. “More or less. Lord Durham is certain he didn’t. And when I talked briefly with Ellice this morning, I found him confused and frightened. I think he was so drunk he can’t remember much, and even when the shock wears off, I doubt he’ll be of any help. His fear may come from the thought that he could have done it. Cobb mentioned that Ellice seemed to mumble ‘I didn’t mean to’ when first questioned, though he was so dazed that Cobb didn’t set much store by it.”

  “We can often blot out unpleasant memories,” Beth said. “For weeks after I found Jesse dead in the barn, I had no memory of that dreadful image. I knew he had gone, but I didn’t know how or where. Then it came to me, in bits and pieces, in my dreams. Finally I began to believe my dreams, in the daylight.”

  “So you think there’s a chance that young Ellice might eventually recover any images or actions he is now repressing?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I’ve got to locate Badger. He might hold the answers to all my questions. In the meantime, though, I need to find an explanation for how the knife got into Ellice’s hand.”

  “Cobb’ll find Badger if he’s still in the city.”

  “God, I hope so. We’ve only got until Thursday night to identify the killer. Lord and Lady Durham leave on a steamer for Kingston at noon on Friday.”

  “Will you interview Handford again tonight?”

  “If Lord Durham permits it, yes.”

  “I’ll wait up for you.”

  Charlene then joined them, and the talk turned domestic. Marc had decided to wait until morning to write up the notes he liked to make as an aide-mémoire.

  “So, did you two ladies spend the day recuperating after the excitements of yesterday?” Marc said, winking at Charlene.

  “Actually,” Beth said, “we walked down to King Street and had a long look at the shops.”

  “You’re going to sell them, then?”

  Beth had inherited adjoining shops on King near Bay from her former father-in-law, Joshua Smallman, who had run a dry-goods store in one of them. There Beth and Aunt Catherine had launched their millinery and dress shop.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. Mr. Ormsby next door came out when he saw us and told me he was pulling out next month and moving to Brantford to live with his daughter.”

  “So both shops will be empty?”

  “Yes.”

  Beth was anticipating a further response, but Marc merely yawned.

  “You’d better have a nap before you go up to see His Lordship,” Beth said.

  “You’ll wake me up at seven-thirty?”

  “I will. Now go.”

  At the bedroom door Beth placed a hand on Marc’s shoulder and said quietly, “You don’t suppose Lord Durham wants you to find a scapegoat for this murder, do you?”

  “His Lordship is a man of honour,” Marc said, a touch too emphatically. “He’s no Tory, darling.”

  “But he is a lord, isn’t he?”

  SEVEN

  It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when Marc walked down the tree-lined lane that led to Government House. Just as the chimney pots of the great house came into view, an open carriage drawn by two stout horses clattered past him. He recognized fleetingly the familiar profiles of John Strachan, the rector of St. James; Sir Allan MacNab, hero of the Yonge Street rout and the burning of the Caroline; and Ogle Gowan, grand master of the Loyal Orange Lodge. The Tory contingent had been having their say before the Queen’s envoy, no doubt, pressing for the preservation of their accumulated entitlements. No one waved.

  When the orderly showed Marc into the office, Lord Durham was slumped in his chair behind the desk, around which were arrayed half a dozen ladder-backed chairs, now empty. Durham looked ill. For a second Marc was alarmed, but as soon as His Lordship recognized his new visitor, he pulled himself to his full height, smiled, and said with genuine warmth, “Ah, Mr. Edwards. I am happy to see your face. Do sit down.”

  Marc wasn’t sure whether it was his arrival or the Family Compact’s departure that prompted the shift in mood, but he welcomed it. Fatigued as they both must be after a long night and a troubling day, they had matters to discuss that transcended personal weariness or private pain.

  “Thank you, sir,” Marc said, taking a seat across from the earl.

  “Please, tell me everything you’ve discovered, in your own way. I’ll just listen.”

  “I will do that, sir. But first I must ask after the health of young Mr. Ellice.”

  Durham frowned. “He’s been sedated most of the day. Dosed with laudanum. He’s been more or less in a delirium since you left him, spouting a lot of nonsense. Lady Durham feels he may be going mad.”

  “Good God. What sort of nonsense?”

  “Well, most of it’s gibberish, but Lady Durham has heard him say several times that he’s stabbed Mrs. Edwards and he’s desperately sorry.”

  “Beth?”

  “Yes, your wife, who was so kind to him last evening. You do know how pleased and hopeful we were when we saw him dancing and when he left our side later to join the gentlemen in the card room. If some monarchs are said to have the common touch, then surely Mrs. Edwards has the noble version of that talent.”

  “She has a way with people.”

  “But then this nightmare dashed our hopes. Lady Durham is distraught, and I rely upon her for support and advice. While I don’t profess to be close to Handford—he’s been uncommunicative all his life—my firstborn son, as you may know, died tragically young. And I have since lost two of my daughters. So I know what it is to be a parent or guardian and lose someone precious and irreplaceable.”

  “Well, sir, I intend to find the real killer. That will be a start in helping Mr. Ellice recover. Perhaps then he could be sent home to recuperate.”

  “You are right, of course. But I was hoping, as you may be, that Handford could provide us with material assistance in the investigation. Yet so far he seems to have confused Mrs. Edwards with this . . . ”

  “Sarah McConkey, the murdered girl.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid he thinks not only that he may have committed murder, but also that he has destroyed a woman who befriended him.”

  “Be assured, sir, that I lend no credence to what Mr. Ellice may say in a delirium or as a result of delayed shock.”

  “Your discretion is appreciated. Now, please tell me what you’ve discovered at the crime scene.”

  For the next twenty minutes Marc talked and Durham listened. Marc recounted what he assumed to be the established facts in the case, avoiding all speculation and theorizing. He told Durham that it appeared Ellice had been deliberately lured away from Spadina about midnight, probably by one of the whist players, driven to Lot Street, escorted to Madame Renée’s, taken to bed by Sarah McConkey, and subsequently discovered asleep beside her bloody corpse with the murder weapon in his hand. Marc then reviewed the interrogation of the four women, the revelation of the escape hatch and the missing key, and the madam’s dismissal of Michael Badger.

  When Marc had finished, Durham sat back wearily and asked, “How far can we trust anything these prostitutes say?”

  “I believe we have to be skeptical of anything they tell us. The denizens of Irishtown don’t exactly revere authority of any kind. What Cobb and I have endeavoured to do is to look for inconsistencies and to tally their claims against those incontrovertible facts we do know. For instance, none of the victim’s blood left the bedroom except for that on the bare feet of your nephew. Cobb himself saw the dagger in the young man’s hand, with no evidence that anyone else had entered the room after the stabbing to stage a false scene. It’s conceivable that all four women were in on it together, but we have found no plausible motive yet for such an assumption, nor do we have a rational explanation for how they might have managed it.”

  “I see.”

  “So it is important in that regard to verify the timeline. We need to know for sure when Mr. Ellice left Spadina and, if poss
ible, whom he left with.”

  Durham smiled. “I can help you there. As I mentioned this morning, I ordered Wakefield to question the servants carefully about what they observed last evening. Mr. Wakefield is both persuasive and thorough.”

  Marc’s heart leapt. “He found out who lured Mr. Ellice away?”

  “Not quite. But here is what he believes to be a reliable account of what happened. It was about ten-thirty when Handford left us to try his luck at whist. He was observed to join one of the tables and keep to it for the remainder of the evening. One of the four gentlemen already there would give up his seat for fifteen minutes or so—putting in a token appearance with his wife in the ballroom, no doubt—then return and take the seat of another, who left in turn, and so on.”

  “I think I know the four gentlemen in question,” Marc said, to Durham’s surprise.

  “You do?”

  Marc named the foursome that he and Owen had observed from their vantage-point in the smoker: the Reverend Temperance Finney, Alasdair Hepburn, Patrick O’Driscoll, and Samuel Harris.

  “Precisely. And you know these gentlemen?”

  “Good Tories all,” Marc said. “Finney is a fire-and-brimstone Methodist, Hepburn runs the Commercial Bank, O’Driscoll is second-in-command of the Orange Lodge, and Samuel Harris is a wealthy landowner in town and an importer of dry goods.”

  “You suspect there may have been some skullduggery in that card room?”

  “It’s possible. Though I think that whatever happened there was partly improvised. But before I bore you with my theories, please tell me more of what actually happened.”

  “Several times Handford accompanied one or another of the gentlemen to the bar for a drink before Handford was sent back to rejoin the whist. All this was apparently convivial. Nonetheless, one of the servants was alarmed at Handford’s state of inebriation and went looking for my valet. He couldn’t find him, and when he returned to his post, Handford was gone—to his quarters, the man assumed.”