Desperate Acts (13 page)

“You think Etta’s gonna quit?”

“The last one just left here one night last
summer and didn’t show up the next day. No goodbyes, no regrets, I
guess. But we’ve got to have help in here. Business is brisk until
the freeze-up on the lakes. We can use two girls if it comes to
that.”

“When’re you expectin’ him back?”

“By opening time – at one.”

“Tell him I’ll be seein’ him about then.”

“I thought it was Nestor or me you wanted to
question?”

“It is.”

“Well, let’s sit down, then.”

They found an upright table and sat down on
opposite sides. Gillian Budge was certainly a handsome woman of
some forty years, Cobb thought. She had the figure of a debutante
to complement her fair hair and rosy, freckled complexion. But few
people envied Tobias, her husband, for she had a wicked tongue and
was fearless in deploying it.

“You were in the upstairs room about
nine-thirty last night?”

“Yes. The fat Englishman with the flabby
fingers ordered me to arrive at his side with a tray of glasses and
a bottle of fancy wine at precisely nine-twenty-five.”

“They were windin’ up their confab?”

“Right. Five of them were seated around the
long table at the west end.”

“Only five?” Cobb thought it best not to
detail the circumstances that had brought him into that crowded
playroom last week.

“The other three went home after their food
and cigars – about half past eight.”

“Did you see any of the five leave – after
nine-thirty?”

“I did. After bringing them their nightcap
drinks – they wanted to toast something or other, I think – ”

“Bein’ rich an’
idle-izin’
,” Cobb
prompted.

His quip drew a guarded smile from Gillian.
“You’d think Shakespeare was God Almighty, wouldn’t you?”

“Who left first, then?”

“I was over at the lounge area cleaning up
the earlier mess – Etta’s job normally – and I noticed Mr.
Langford, a real young gentleman, nod to the others and head for
the cloakroom like he was in a hurry.”

“He didn’t stay to take a toast with the
others?”

“No. The rest of them clinked glasses and
seemed very jolly. This clinking went on for about ten minutes or
so, but I could see that the meeting was about to break up. I was
happy about that because I was really needed downstairs. Nestor was
helping with the bar – and breaking more glasses than he
filled.”

“Sounds like Nestor. So, did you stay up
there long enough to see anybody else leave?”

“I did. Mr. Dutton, that fuddy-duddy old
lawyer, got up, took his papers with him and went into the
cloakroom. I heard him stumble on the stairs going down.”

“They usually went out the back way?”

“Yes. They preferred the ordinary alley at
the side to the excitement of the bar.” She eyed him closely to see
if he picked up on the irony in her remark.

“
Hobble-son’s
choice fer a gentleman,”
Cobb said, deliberately distorting Mr. Hobson’s famous name. “So
this would be about a quarter to ten, then?”

“Roughly, yes.”

“Who went next?”

“Mr. Fullarton, the banker, and Mr. Crenshaw,
the trumped-up candle-maker, went and sat next to Sir Peregrine and
huddled over some leaflets they all had. They were muttering and he
was scratching at their papers with a pencil.”

“What then?”

“Mr. Fullarton got up and went into the
cloakroom.”

“How long would this be after Dutton
left?”

She paused to reflect, drawing the lids down
over her pretty eyes. “Couldn’t have been more than three or four
minutes.”

“I see. That would make it about ten minutes
to ten?”

“I can’t be absolutely sure, of course. At
that point I went downstairs.”

“Leavin’ Sir Shuttlecock an’ Crenshaw still
at the table?”

“As I was going downstairs I heard footsteps
heading for the cloakroom.”

“I see. Probably that was Crenshaw, eh?”

“Most likely. The Englishman was always the
last to leave. He had to fuss with his papers and such. I usually
go back up about a quarter past ten to bar the doors, but it was
later last night because you arrived a few minutes before that –
and the real fuss began.”

Cobb was excited. If Brodie’s account were
accurate, any one of these Shakespeareans could have observed
Brodie’s encounter in the alley through the window in the rear
wall. Brodie estimated that his circling-back manoeuvre and his
wait in the shadows had taken at least fifteen minutes. Which meant
that he and Duggan had confronted one another between
nine-forty-five and nine-fifty. If one of them noticed Brodie
strike Duggan once and scamper northward up the alley – without his
walking-stick – then the lad was home-free. The news of Brodie’s
detention would soon be abroad, but Cobb knew enough about
gentlemen to suspect that if one of them did observe a scuffle in a
disreputable alley, he would pass by on the other side, and
certainly would not dash to the police to entangle himself in the
sordid affairs of the common folk. Perhaps, to be fair, Brodie had
not been recognized, and a fracas in that alley at that hour of the
evening would not be exceptional. Still, willing or not, these four
gentlemen would have to be closely interrogated about those
critical fifteen minutes.

“Is there anything else?” Gillian said with a
nice ambiguity into Cobb’s reverie.

“Ah, yes. Do you know anythin’ at all about
this Albert Duggan?”

“I’ve already told you I didn’t know his
name, but I did recognize him last night in the alley.”

“He come in here often to drink, did he?”

“Three or four times. But why don’t you get
right to the point: you want to hear about Tobias throwing him out
last week, don’t you?”

Cobb flinched, but managed to say hopefully,
“A troublemaker, then? Quick with his fists?”

“Not up to then. More the sly, slinking type,
I’d say. Anyways, he said something crude to Etta last Wednesday,
and she nearly fainted. So Tobias, who likes to play the he-man
when he can, picked him up and tossed him out.”

“An’ that was that?”

“Didn’t see him again till last night. I must
say I wasn’t sorry to find him dead.”

“Thanks, ma’am. You’ve been a big help.” Cobb
rose to go.

She smiled. “I’ll tell Tobias you’ll be back
to see him at one.”

At the door Cobb turned back to her and said,
“I just remembered somethin’. When I come in here to fetch yer
husband last night, he said he was too busy to help out.”

“He’s been in an ornery mood of late,” she
said. “Worse than usual. And we were run off our feet without
Etta.”

“Then he woulda been in this room all
evenin’?”

“Most of it, yes. But just before I had to go
upstairs at nine-twenty-five, I sent him to the cellar to get a
case of wine – some bigwig captain come in and demanded it for his
crew.”

“But he was back up here when you come down
about a quarter to ten?”

“As a matter of fact, he wasn’t.” She seemed
surprised at this sudden recollection. “He doesn’t keep things
orderly in the cellar, so I guess he took some time finding the
wine he was looking for.”

“I come in here about ten after ten, I
believe – ”

“About that. And Tobias came up a few minutes
before that. That’s why he was running around like crazy. Nestor
hadn’t been a lot of help up here.”

Interesting, Cobb thought. Budge had been in
the cellar for almost half an hour – the critical half-hour.

“I’ll talk to him about it later,” Cobb said,
putting on his helmet and turning up the collar of his
greatcoat.

“It’ll be the high point of his day,” said
Gillian Budge.

***

Cobb walked around to the rear of The Sailor’s Arms
in the crisp sunshine, taking the broad alleyway on the east side
of the building. He stood near the spot where Duggan had been
clubbed to death. The victim’s blood had soaked into the dirt, but
the stain was still visible. Cobb looked up, and in the daylight he
saw that the window in the wall above was clean and wide. The
moonlight that had shone across the lower half of the corpse last
night upon his arrival would have spotlighted the two men as they
argued and grappled here about nine-forty-five. Someone up there
must have seen something.

What he hadn’t noticed last night was a
narrow window at the base of the rear wall near the east corner. He
went over to it now and crouched down. A shallow well allowed a
foot-high window to be recessed into the brick foundation, giving
some natural illumination to a room below ground. Cobb peered
through its dusty pane. Blurry but readily distinguishable was
Budge’s wine-cellar. Tobias himself had been down there searching
for a case of fancy booze about the time that Brodie said he struck
Duggan on the cheek. Glancing to his right, Cobb spotted something
equally interesting: a double-doored service bay, through which the
tavern’s beer-barrels and wine-casks could be funnelled to the
cellar. He went over, reached down, and tugged at one of the
handles. Locked, from the inside. Well, Cobb thought, here was a
very convenient way for someone in the cellar to gain the alley
without being observed. Yes, Tobias Budge would have to be
questioned vigorously. There was bad blood between him and Duggan,
perhaps more than even his sharp-eyed wife knew about.

Humming to himself, Cobb went around the
western corner of the building to inspect the door at the foot of
the stairs, the exit-point of these tavern-shy gents. He gave the
door a push. As he expected, it was barred. But anyone leaving by
this route, though he would have turned left and walked down the
narrow gap between the tavern and the building next door towards
Front Street, would surely have heard voices in the alley behind.
If so, would he not have been curious enough to have a peek? Or
would he have panicked and dashed for the street?

Cobb himself walked out to Front Street. He
pulled out his pocket-watch. It was time to head up to Nestor’s
place. He was not concerned about locating his long-time snitch.
Whenever Nestor was frightened or upset (an almost daily
occurrence), he headed straight for whatever hovel he occupied and
drank himself into a stupor. The main problem would be getting him
conscious enough to talk straight. Certainly he was the only person
who might be able to provide the police with information about this
mysterious blackmailing cousin.

***

Marc was waiting for him outside the chicken
hatchery. Cobb took ten minutes to fill him in on his interview
with Gillian Budge. While he occasionally scribbled notes – to
please the chief and his clerk – Cobb had a prodigious memory for
anything he heard or saw. His children, Fabian and Delia, had the
gift as well, memorizing great swatches of poetry and reciting it
to him and Dora on long winter evenings.

“Well, Cobb, you’ve turned up a lot of useful
information in a short time. Surely we’ll be able to find one
witness out of that bunch to help Brodie’s cause.”

“I’m puttin’ my money on Budge the
elder.”

“While I was at Robert’s, Horace Fullarton
arrived. I had sent word to him on Brodie’s behalf. He was
extremely upset at the news, as you can imagine. He has already
volunteered to act as a character witness, should Brodie be
charged.”

“Did he see anythin’ last night?”

“He says not. But I couldn’t really
interrogate him in the middle of a political strategy meeting.”

“I see. Well, let’s give Nestor a friendly
kick in the ribs an’ see if he knows more’n his own name.”

They approached the crumbling stone-cottage.
No smoke curled out of its gap-toothed chimney. Cobb pushed the
door open and stepped inside.

“Jesus, major. What a dump!”

Marc stepped up beside Cobb. The main room
was a shambles, though it soon became clear that that was its
customary, everyday condition. And the effect of the litter and
detritus was not improved by the murky, sallow light let in by the
oil-paper window-panes. Two small, doorless chambers adjoined the
big one.

“Let’s wake the ugly bugger up,” Cobb said,
not unkindly. He went into the nearest bedroom. “Ain’t in here,” he
said. “This looks like Duggan’s room. It’s too tidy fer
Nestor.”

Marc was standing in the other doorway.
“No-one’s in here either.”

“Damn. He must’ve gone out fer more booze.”
Cobb kicked over an empty whiskey-jug beside the three-legged
kitchen table.

“I think he’s gone farther than that,” Marc
said. “The commode has been emptied and the drawers tossed on the
floor.”

It was then that Cobb spied the sheet of
paper on the table. He picked it up and stood close to the nearest
window. “The bugger’s flown the coop,” he muttered. “Take a look at
this.”

Marc did so, and read:

Cob

I had to get out of towen. Yoo poleec wil

blame me for Berts deth. See he gets a

desent funeral

Yor frend

Nestor

“I know he’s frightened at what happened,” Marc
said, “but I don’t believe he’ll have gone far.”

“I hope not. But what if Duggan really did
have money – like Nestor was tellin’ me last week? Maybe Nestor
beetled home last night, dug it out an’ took off fer Kingston or
Montreal?”

“Well, let’s give this hovel a thorough
going-over,” Marc said. “There’re plenty of niches and mouse-holes
for hiding contraband in.”

“Good idea. And I see you brung the
lantern.”

***

Twenty minutes later, soiled and disgusted, they
abandoned the search. Duggan, it seemed, fancied himself a
gentleman and had several coats and vests to be examined, but
nothing useful was turned up. No cash was found anywhere. One
envelope had been retrieved from a drawer in Duggan’s commode, but
there was no letter inside.