The Bishop's Pawn (17 page)

“What can we do?” Brodie said. “We can’t let
them get away with murder.”

“Well, we sure can’t hop a whoopin’ crane an’
fly to New York,” Cobb said.

“I’ll go,” Brodie said, his pale blue eyes
flashing. “It’s my uncle who needs avenging.”

“But the roads are impassable,” Beth said
quietly. “It could take weeks. An’ what could you do there besides
accuse these men? They’d laugh in yer face.”

“I’ll – I’ll think of something when I get
there.”

“It is I who must go,” Marc said.

“Whaddya mean, major? We don’t know fer sure
these fellas are guilty of anythin’. There’s plenty of American
banknotes in this town, an’ Swampy was sure it was a five, not a
ten. Besides, we got some real suspects we need to talk to right
here.”

Marc was only half-listening to Cobb. “We
need to eliminate Brenner and Tallman, if they are not guilty. And
these men may also have information about why Dick was forced to
leave New York in disgrace.”

“I must go with you, then,” Brodie said.
“Celia and I deserve to know the truth that Uncle kept from us for
our own protection. But we are not children any more. And we have
decided to make our own way in this province. We need to clear
Uncle’s name and start our lives here free of suspicion and the
taint of moral corruption.”

“You’re right, Brodie,” Marc said. “I meant
that it is I who
ought
to go. But, of course, I can’t.” He
looked now at Beth and her “condition.”

Beth had been listening with growing interest
to the conversation. She touched Marc on the shoulder. “You must
not hold back on account of me,” she said.

“But I must be here for the birth of our
son.”

“Well, as I recall, you weren’t plannin’ on
helpin’ with the delivery, were you?” She smiled. “Don’t be
foolish, love. Dora is ten minutes away. Charlene is here day an’
night, an’ Jasper would like to be. Besides, I’ll ask our daughter
to wait a while. That shouldn’t be hard: women know how to
wait.”

Beth’s speech was met with various degrees of
silence. Finally, Cobb said, “But until the roads get better after
the spring rains let up, you can’t get very far on land. An’
there’s still enough ice on the lakes to keep the bigger boats in
dry dock. I don’t see how you can get to New York quickly, or at
all.”

“But we could,” Marc said, glancing at
Brodie. “The Erie Canal will be unfrozen all the way from Buffalo
to Albany by now. That’s the route that Brenner and Tallman were
taking.”

“But it could be dangerous there,” Cobb said.
“All them Yankees an’ you a stranger.”

“I was a Yankee once,” Beth said,
smiling.

“Well, I know many of the important
families,” Brodie said with mounting excitement. “I went to
boarding school with the sons.”

And Marc, though he didn’t plan on telling
Brodie just yet, had contacts of his own in New York. “If Brodie
and I left on the early morning steamer to Burlington – ice
permitting – we could cross over to Niagara and be in Buffalo
before noon. We can travel light and sleep on the deck of a barge
if we have to. From what I’ve been told, we might arrive on
Manhattan Island as early as Sunday evening.”

“But Sir Gorge’s might call fer the inquest a
week from next Monday. That’s about when our ten days’ll be up.”
Cobb said.

“I think he might be persuaded to extend the
deadline,” Brodie said, “when he knows what we’re up to.”

“What’s
really
bothering you, Cobb?”
Marc said.

Cobb gave his partner a sheepish grin.
“There’s still a lot of interviewin’ to be done here, major. You
ain’t expectin’ me to head up the case all by myself, are ya?”

“Why not?” Marc said. “You know what to do
and how to go about it. Just mix in a little tact, as Sir George
suggested.”

“It seems I already got too many tacks,” Cobb
said, still smarting from his encounter with the Reverend
Hungerford.

“Then it’s settled,” Marc said.

THIRTEEN

After a snowy January, the winter of 1839 had turned
unseasonably warm with frequent thaws, sleet storms and, finally in
early March, torrential rains. All this had made the roads
impassable, and a sudden return to cold weather in the middle of
the month had left the waterways dotted with ice-floes and more
than one ice-jam. However, several of the smaller, more
manoeuvrable steamers had begun venturing out into Lake Ontario,
and an irregular mail-packet now plied cautiously between Toronto
and Burlington. It was one of these latter that Marc and Broderick
Langford boarded at the Queen’s Wharf about eight o’clock of a
Thursday morning. Only Cobb stood by to wave them Godspeed. Other
goodbyes had been said at Briar Cottage, several of them
tearful.

Marc had sat with Cobb the previous evening
and gone over plans for the continuing investigation in Toronto.
Cobb had taken home all of Marc’s notes to date just in case he
needed to refer to them. Now he stood on the wharf watching his
breath balloon in the crisp, clear air, and realized that he was
truly on his own as investigator. Marc insisted that he and Brodie
would be back in ten days, but North America wasn’t England: any
sort of travel here was hazardous and wholly unpredictable.
Moreover, no-one knew what kind of troubles Dick Dougherty had been
embroiled in back in New York City or what manner of enemy he may
have made. If one of them
had
plotted to assassinate Dick,
using poor Epp as his pawn, would he not do the same to anyone bent
on exposing him? Beth had not seemed alarmed about this
possibility, however, telling Cobb that “He come back from the
wars, didn’t he?”

The ship’s whistle startled Cobb out of his
reverie, and he watched the wood-burning side-wheeler until it
disappeared around the island-spit that protected the harbour. Then
he walked slowly back up to Front Street.

***

Wilfrid Sturges was not happy when Cobb conveyed the
news to him. It was his opinion that Marc was more concerned with
rehabilitating Dougherty’s reputation than he was in catching an
accomplice to murder. Cobb didn’t disagree. Being a practical man,
however, Sturges allowed as they would have to “make do.” Cobb was
to combine his regular patrol duties (self-directed and
idiosyncratic anyway) with judiciously timed interrogation of the
suspects whom he and Marc had targeted. Cobb was relieved that
Sturges had lost none of his enthusiasm for continuing the case,
despite the risks. He was also pretty certain that the royal
summons to the Archdeacon’s “palace” on Sunday had as much to do
with his chief’s determination as the pursuit of justice.

An hour later, Cobb was ushered into the
study of Everett Stoneham, Executive Councillor and lifetime member
of the ruling Family Compact. Cobb noted the book-lined walls and
felt the carpet caressing his boots. He was never intimidated by
books and those possessing them, however, even though he himself
read little. His father, who had just died in February, had owned a
small but cherished library, had worshipped Shakespeare, and had
paid homage to the Bard by naming his sons Laertes and Horatio (or
Larry and Harry as the boys preferred to call themselves).

Stoneham waited a good thirty seconds before
he removed his spectacles with a bored gesture and turned partway
around in his chair to acknowledge the visitor. He stared at Cobb’s
muddy boots before scanning the rest of him – upwards.

“What do the police want with me?” he said,
but there was no hint of concern in his face.

“I’m lookin’ into Mr. Dougherty’s death,”
Cobb said.

“Shouldn’t you be out on your patrol
preventing
murder?”

“We’ve caught one of the villains, sir, but
the other one’s still abroad.”

“You mean that there’s another madman like
Reuben Epp running loose in the city?” Stoneham feigned shock
nicely, as he had done innumerable times when he had sat in the
Assembly.

“Not exactly, sir. We got reason to think Epp
was helped to carry out the crime, by someone who wanted Mr.
Dougherty out of his hair but didn’t wanta do the deed
himself.”

Stoneham now looked genuinely appalled. “Are
you accusing
me
of such a crime?”

So much for tact, Cobb thought. It was hard
to see how tact could be managed with these bigwigs. “No, sir. Of
course not.”

“Then why in blazes are you here?”

Good question – alas. “Well, sir, we was told
you threatened Mr. Dougherty at the Legislature last Saturd’y
evenin’. An’ my chief just needs to make sure you
weren’t
in
any way involved – ”

Stoneham was in the process of turning three
shades of crimson when Cobb said quickly, “Ya see, we don’t want
people spreadin’ nasty rumours about you, now do we?” He was
pleased with this tactful ploy.

Stoneham’s dudgeon began to subside somewhat,
and his cheeks faded from crimson to a not-unpleasant pink. “Well,
I
was
rather loud in my denunciation of the degenerate that
night. But all I intended to do was to let him know that he had no
chance of being admitted to the Bar, and that his putting out his
shingle was an act of outrageous presumption.”

“That’s what we been told,” Cobb soothed.

“By that turncoat Edwards, no doubt!” Some of
the flush returned to Stoneham’s cheeks.

“But you have to admit, sir, that the phrase
‘over my dead body’ has an unfortunate ring to it.”

“Damn that meddling fool!”

“If I may say so, sir, you seem to have a
rather sharp temper.”

Stoneham started to respond angrily but
stopped himself as he realized his response was about to prove the
impudent constable’s point. And as a superb debater in his Assembly
days, he did not relish the thought of being out-argued by an
illiterate. “Only when the object of my temper is deserving of such
sharpness,” he said with practiced aplomb.

“Well, sir, I’m sure we can cross you off our
list quickly if you’ll just answer one or two questions.”

Stoneham now looked bemused. “Only if they do
not border on impertinence.”

“Of course, sir. Did you know Reuben
Epp?”

“Everyone who has a pew in St. James knows
Reuben Epp. The man’s been verger there for donkey’s years.”

“Did you ever chat with him?”

“Never. The fellow knew his place. I spoke
not a single word to him – ever. And he did not dare approach me or
my family.”

“Were you with your family after church on
Sunday?”

Again Stoneham’s cheeks bulged crimson, but
he gathered himself and said, “I was here all day. My wife’s
cousins were visiting and we were together the entire time. You may
believe me or check with them if you doubt the word of a
gentleman.”

Cobb considered the word of a gentleman to be
not much more reliable than that of a horse-thief, but he said,
“That won’t be necessary, sir. Thank you for yer time.”

At the door Stoneham said, “But I was right,
wasn’t I? Doubtful Dick didn’t make it to the Bar. And it was over
his
dead body.”

***

Back on the street, Cobb remembered that he had
neglected to ask Stoneham what brand of notepaper he used and
whether he kept American money about the household. He did,
however, get the names of the visiting cousins from the maid before
he left. And she herself had declared that the card-playing (on the
Sabbath!) had gone on till midnight. So it didn’t look as if
Stoneham was a prize suspect. That temper of his was more suited to
a sudden lashing-out than to elaborate conspiracy. Still, Marc was
assuming that Epp was motivated by the Archdeacon’s sermon and that
his accomplice had subsequently taken advantage of the verger’s
rage to set the deadly train of events in motion. But Cobb thought
it was possible that any conspiracy might have pre-dated the Sunday
sermon. If so, then knowing Epp’s whereabouts on that day, or the
accomplice’s, was useless. Stoneham and Epp could have plotted the
whole thing weeks before.

Cobb had planned to drop in to Bartholomew
Burchill’s shop after lunch, but was delayed when he was called to
the Market to assist Rossiter and Wilkie. Two wagons had collided
on West Market Lane, and the drivers had decided to settle the
question of blame through single combat. Several bystanders chose a
favourite and joined the dispute. It took the three constables more
than an hour to subdue the battered gladiators, untangle the
harnesses, calm down the horses, and haul five people off to jail.
Cobb then had to calm
himself
down at The Cock and Bull.

He was just returning to police quarters to
dictate the report of his interview with Stoneham to Gussie French
when he was accosted on the boulevard of the Court House by an
imposing, and extremely vexed, woman.

“Are you Constable Cobb?” she cried, coming
right up to him and placing her own elongated nose next to Cobb’s
blemished snout.

“I am, madam, though the wife calls me other
things from time to time.”

“Well, then, come with me, sir.”

“Where to?”

“I’ve come to report a crime! A dastardly
crime!”

“Well, then, we need to go inside – ”

“We need to examine the scene of the crime.
Follow me.”

“C’n I have yer name, ma’am?”

“Well, if you must. I am Mavis McDowell.” She
uttered her name as if it were her most precious possession and one
she suffered to be admired only by those personally selected to do
so.

“You been robbed, or molested?” Cobb
said.

“Of course not! No-one would dare harm the
wife of Mowbray McDowell!”

Cobb had to think for a moment before saying,
“Ah . . . the fella that give the fancy speech on Saturd’y.”

But his hesitation had been noticed: “You did
not recognize the name, did you?”

“Well, ma’am, it took a minute but – ”