Solemn Vows (10 page)

The rouged eyelids dropped down for a respectful second. “Yes, I understand. As you see, our entire household has felt its effects. And while Langdon and I were not close in recent years—you know how families can drift apart even when they live cheek-by-jowl—we are grieving deeply for him and for my devastated sister-in-law.”

“Please convey my condolences to the family.”

“Thank you. You are an exceptionally sensitive young man.” Prudence opened her eyes wide and gave him a frank, ungrieving appraisal.

Marc cleared his throat. “Since I have you here now, ma’am—” and sober, he thought unkindly.

“Prudence, please.”

“—I was hoping you might give me your insight, as a family member, into Mr. Moncreiff’s personality or into any, ah, personal problems he may have been experiencing of late. You see, improper as it is to be probing thus while the family is still in shock, I need to discover a motive for the shooting. People don’t kill other people without a powerful reason to do so.”

“I understand. And, in fact, I have spent this morning considering what such a reason could be. Many years ago Langdon was a dashing young man, and I was pleased when he married Flora. But for the past ten years he has led what I can only describe as a dull and directionless existence. He has very few opinions and those he has are calculated to offend no one. He does not attend society balls or fêtes and, until Sir Francis begged him to become an Executive councillor or whatever they’re called, he had contributed nothing to the province except two daughters and a disheartened wife.”

Marc was not sure how to put his next question. “Was she bored enough to, to—”

“—find herself a more accommodating man?”

This time Marc blushed, and Prudence watched him redden and then pale—never taking her eyes off his face. She gave him a rueful smile. “It does happen, you know, even here a long ways from Sodom and Gomorrah. But
the answer is no. And I do know my sister-in-law in that regard.”

“Thank you for your candour, ma’am.” Marc rose. “I’m afraid I have several more urgent appointments this afternoon. Would you tell Mr. Maxwell that if it is convenient, I shall call back at four o’clock. You can send word to Mrs. Standish, my landlady.”

Prudence spread one hand across her bosom in either a gesture of modesty or an attempt to call attention to its generous curvature. “But I haven’t had a chance to ask that favour of you.”

“Oh, I am sorry. Please, there is plenty of time for that.” Marc remained standing.

Prudence got up and rustled across to him, but there was nothing predatory in her movement. In her face there was genuine concern: “I am positive that my daughter is illicitly consorting with one of the guardsmen up at Government House.”

“Are you suggesting that there have been improprieties?” Marc said, taken aback.

“I only suspect so. I can get nothing out of the girl except self-righteous denials, which of course merely deepens my suspicions.”

“Has she been seen with one of my men?”

“Not in any compromising situation, no. But she’s been hanging about with Angeline Hartley since that creature came here in January and—”

“Sir Francis’s ward? Surely you—”

“I don’t think anything, but I know she’s a wild thing, not yet out of her teens, she has the run of the governor’s open carriage, and the two girls have been seen riding up in College Park with unidentified officers.”

“Unchaperoned?”

“Well, not exactly. The governor’s elderly coachman and a groom are always with them, but that hardly counts. It’s the secret comings- and-goings that are the real problem. Like this trip to the King Street millinery today, and two or three such ‘stories’ every week. I’m positive Chastity is having clandestine meetings where she may be getting up to all sorts of shenanigans.”

“But if it is one of my officers, ma’am, and I have no inkling of any such affair to date, I am certain nothing improper would occur. Indeed, my officers, all of whom I know well, would be honourable and proud enough to present themselves to you and Mr. Maxwell before courting your handsome daughter.”

“And I am sure of that, too, Lieutenant. But Mr. Maxwell is very particular about who ought to be allowed to ‘court’ his daughter, as you so quaintly put it. Mr. Maxwell is very possessive of his possessions, and I am afraid that junior officers are not included on his roster of suitable suitors.” The look that Prudence now gave Marc suggested strongly that she, too, was deemed one of her husband’s possessions.

“Ah, I see. However honourable this suitor might be,
Miss Maxwell knows in advance that he would be discounted.”

“You have considerable knowledge of the ways of the world,” Prudence said and, she did not need to add, of women.

“What do you think that I could do to help you in this matter?”

“The first thing I need to know is who. I am willing to intercede on my daughter’s behalf with Ignatius, but only if I know who the young man is, and whether he’s worth the trouble it may bring down upon my head.”

“Then I will make inquiries and let you know the moment I have found anything out.”

“Thank you so much.”

Prudence held out her hand and, as Marc took it to give it a mannerly kiss, she squeezed his fingers hard. By the time he looked up in surprise, however, she had turned her face away. At that moment Jacques put his head in the doorway and said, “The master will see you now in his study.”

“I
CAN
’
T BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD WASTE
a bullet on dear old Monkee, let alone pay someone else to do the job.” The Honourable Ignatius Maxwell, receiver general of Upper Canada and man of substance, sat in a thronelike leather chair opposite Marc before a flower- filled bay window overlooking York Street. He spoke with the deep voice and easy
authority that comes from long years of unchallenged privilege, and every once in a while he took a puff on his cigar, which otherwise he used as a rhetorical prop. He was ruggedly handsome, despite the paunch beneath his silk blouse, with a crop of studiously unkempt reddish-blond hair and a pair of wispy mutton chops that framed his face like pale parentheses. His unoccupied hand rested in the pocket of his moleskin smoking jacket, cut in the latest London style.

“It appears, however, that someone did just that,” Marc said, marvelling at how quickly the governor had begun spreading the news of a possible hired gun.

“So I’ve been told up at Government House. Some Yankee republican by the sound of it.” He flapped at the air with his cigar. “Still, it makes no sense. Even if one of the Clear Grit radicals was mad enough and rich enough to arrange such an assassination in the midst of an election, why would they shoot a harmless codger like Monkee?”

“That’s what the governor has asked me to find out. Was Councillor Moncreiff indeed harmless? A threat to no one?”

“The man had no political ambitions. I’m sure that you already know that the governor selected Monkee for the council after the disgraceful resignation of those radicals and traitors back in March precisely because, as a nominal Tory but one notorious for holding no fixed opinions, he would be a threat to no cause whatsoever. Nor for that matter would he be of any service to one. He was simply a body to fill up a chair and not open his mouth except to say ‘Thank you.’”

“Is that not perhaps being a little too harsh?”

“Harsh, maybe, but true nonetheless. Monkee himself was delighted. That’s the whole sad truth of this business. For the first time in years he looked forward to getting out and about. He volunteered to accompany us up to Danby’s Crossing.” Maxwell stared at his cigar as if he expected it to provide him with an explanation of the inexplicable.

“Then I feel that we must examine the possibility that your brother- in-law was murdered for some personal reason. And since I cannot yet see any connection between him and the man we suspect of actually pulling the trigger, I am forced to explore the hypothesis that someone with a personal grudge did the hiring of the assassin.”

Maxwell gave Marc a look of pure contempt, and merely harrumphed. Marc waited patiently. “No one held a grudge against Mr. Moncreiff, unless it was Flora, and she blamed only herself for having been attracted to his good looks when she was old enough to have known better.”

“Did he have financial difficulties?”

“No, he did not. He was still living comfortably on the money his father made for him and invested wisely back home.”

“Then that leaves the, ah, personal aspect.”

Contempt flashed again in Maxwell’s eye: “Did he have a bit on the side, you mean? Like, for example, the wife of a jealous husband, who, finding he could not compete with our dashing Monkee, paid a mercenary to vanquish his rival?”

“I take your point.”

“It is possible, of course, that he had a doxy of sorts he visited on each second Tuesday of the month—lots of men in this town do—but such women do not have jealous husbands or lovers. They’re bad for business.”

“I agree.”

Marc thanked Maxwell and rose to go. Jacques appeared at the door to show him out. When Marc looked back he saw the receiver general with the cigar clamped tight in his teeth and both hands gripping the arms of the chair—their knuckles white.

M
ARC WALKED UP
Y
ORK
S
TREET
to King, passing several of the substantial homes of those who had prospered in a province that had doubled its population over a decade and in a city where fortunes could still be made in ways never dreamt of in the mother country. A recent dry spell after a rainy spring had left the town’s roads passable, especially those sections that had been well gravelled, but here and there puddles of watery mud—courtesy of a weekend shower—awaited the unwary walker. Drays and country wagons heading home from the Market Square in Old Town jostled for right-of-way, and weary teamsters urged their horses on with a lick and a heeya! Shoeless youngsters hooted and shrieked with laughter, their spirits undulled by a long day of labour (or its avoidance). Jauntily dressed chatelaines and
ladies-in-training strolled along the intermittent boardwalk, holding their skirts above the muddy swirl, their bonnets fluttering in the late-afternoon breeze.

Turning east on fashionable King Street, Marc passed a dozen or more elegant shops (by Toronto standards), several with multi-paned bow windows displaying wares tailored to the taste of the discriminating lady or gentleman. (Marc, of course, had seen the originals of these makeshift establishments in the metropolis at the centre of the Empire itself.) He touched his cap to several young women with whom he had danced at various official functions, but if they had not first smiled broadly (or coyly) at him, he would have been hard-pressed to recall their faces or names. Two of them, recent debutantes he thought, giggled and clutched their brand-new hats—purchased, he assumed, from the millinery shop near King and Yonge, the one Chastity Maxwell was supposed to be visiting.

Out of curiosity Marc paused to look down the street towards the shop and was rewarded with the sight of Angeline Hartley, the governor’s wayward ward, emerging from its front door. She moved smartly towards a barouche, with its hood down, where the governor’s elderly coachman and a groom stood waiting with impassive rigidity. The latter helped her climb in and open her parasol. Chastity did not follow. Angeline was alone. The carriage lurched and sped away westward towards Government House.

Marc continued eastwards, and as he passed the alley just
beyond the millinery and the dry- goods store attached to it, he glimpsed, at the far end where it met the tradesman’s lane running behind the shops, a blur of taffeta and military red. Chastity and her illicit beau? Perhaps he should ask a few questions around Government House and the garrison on Mrs. Maxwell’s behalf, Marc thought. Ignatius Maxwell was reputed to have a quick temper and, as his good woman had remarked, he guarded his possessions jealously.

As he crossed Yonge, barely avoiding an errant donkey-cart, it occurred to Marc that Colin Willoughby had come home very late in the evening several times in the past couple of weeks, yet in the morning he had not seemed hungover, or inclined to talk about the previous night’s exploits. Was it possible, then, that Colin had fallen in love? Perhaps, but he was still given to brooding, and even before the disturbing events at Danby’s Crossing, Marc had caught him glancing coldly at him for no apparent reason. If Colin was smitten by Chastity Maxwell, he may have chosen dangerously, though it was conceivable that the receiver general excluded pedigreed lieutenants from his caste of unsuitables.

As he neared Church Street, Marc noted the imposing two- storey brick jail. Beside it, but set back about fifty feet from the street and encircled by green lawns, sat the matching court house. (Whether the single design had been chosen by the city fathers for reasons of frugality or a desire to make a public statement about justice in the colony was an
open question.) Several carriages drawn by matched teams had pulled up in front of the court house and were busily discharging or collecting dark- suited barristers and solicitors—the backbone and principal prop of the ruling Family Compact. Somewhere nearby, in one of the many offices attached to the jail itself, Marc assumed, would be the modest quarters of the Toronto constabulary, and he wondered vaguely why he had been told to meet the constable with the arresting name of Horatio Cobb in a tavern. Had the man’s father read
Hamlet
, or had he been an admirer of Admiral Nelson, Marc wondered.

Turning south on Church Street, he was soon at number fourteen, the building that had housed the infamous newspaper, the
Colonial Advocate
, for many years, and was now home to the even more presumptuous
Constitution
, both of them conceived and produced by the provincial firebrand, William Lyon Mackenzie.

Three times this diminutive Scot with the orange wig had been thrown out of the Legislative Assembly, only to be re- elected immediately by the faithful constituents of York County. The frustrated scions of the Family Compact had dumped the
Colonial Advocate
’s type into Toronto Bay, but had still failed to stop its weekly invective. As soon as the aldermen and councillors of the new City of Toronto had been elected in 1834, they had chosen Mackenzie as their first mayor. He was, by general admission, the de facto leader of the Reform group on the political left, if not always
its preferred choice as standard- bearer. He had helped write the Seventh Report on Grievances and had spent a year in England lobbying for the many reforms it recommended. He had come back in fighting trim to sit again in the Reform-dominated Assembly—recently dissolved by Head—and founded an even more radical organ.