Desperate Acts (18 page)

“You left the meetin’ shortly after a quarter
to ten?” Cobb began.

“I don’t keep track of the time,
sir.
But I suspect my fellow club-members have already supplied you with
such details.”

“So you don’t really know?”

Crenshaw grimaced, but said nothing.

“Did you look out the window when you went
fer yer coat?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you see?”

“An alley, lit up by moonlight.”

“Anythin’ else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Cobb was losing patience. “I want ya to tell
me, Mr. Crenshaw, what you seen an’ heard there. Mr. Langford’s
life may depend on what you have to say.”

This stern reminder had an immediate effect.
“I’m sorry, constable. I’ve been distracted all evening. But I see
now the seriousness of your questions. Still, I’m afraid what I
have to tell you may do Langford more harm than good.”

Which might explain his initial reluctance,
Cobb thought. He braced himself.

“I saw two men in the alley. It was too dark
to see their faces. One was lying on the ground and the other was
crouched over him.”

“Doin’ what?”

“My impression was that there might have been
a punch-up between them – two fellows from the tavern with too much
drink in them. But the crouching one seemed concerned, the way his
hands were moving gently over the other one, who was knocked out, I
believe.”

“You didn’t think to go out an’ help?”

“Not really. I’m a respectable citizen and
member of Her Majesty’s colonial parliament. I do not go into
alleys where brawls are taking place.” His whole body
stiffened.

Cobb was neither surprised nor shocked. It
was exactly the sort of behaviour he expected from the gentle
classes and their hangers-on.

“But I could not swear – and would not – that
Brodie Langford was one of the men down there,” he said, as if to
undercut the callousness of his previous remark.

That wouldn’t matter, Cobb sighed to himself.
Brodie’s own statement not only put him there, it placed him in a
crouching position over Duggan, whom he had just punched.

“You didn’t see the fella run away,
then?”

“No. He was still hunched over the fallen man
when I headed for the stairs and carried on out to Front
Street.”

That was not what Cobb hoped to hear. “Thank
you, sir. That’s all,” he heard himself say.

Crenshaw left quickly. Cobb sat for several
minutes in a near stupor. He had failed to uncover the single piece
of evidence he needed to get Brodie released. No-one had seen the
lad strike once with his fist and leave. Cobb could not bring
himself to reassemble the pieces he
had
turned up. He’d let
Marc do that depressing work later.

By the time Cobb re-entered the “theatre” the
Shakespeareans had gathered once more around the long table. They
were studying their scripts, or pretending to.

“Constable,” Sir Peregrine said heartily from
his position at head of table, “we are about to start a second
read-through of our playlet. If you wish, you’re welcome to have a
cup of tea and a pastry in the dining-room. You must have had a
long day.”

What the hell, Cobb thought: I’m thirsty and
hungry. He nodded his thanks to the baronet, tipped his helmet at
the ladies, and walked slowly into the dining-room. He sat down at
the table, where he was plainly visible to Sir Peregrine, and
picked out an apple tart. A smartly dressed servant arrived to pour
him a cup of tea. The rich were certainly experts in pampering
themselves.

Sir Peregrine leaned forward, and his troupe
readied themselves for any directive aimed their way. But he
surprised them by saying, more to Lady Mad at his side than to the
others, “I believe we have solved the matter of who to cast as
Bottom.”

Lady Mad’s startlement spoke for them all.
“Whatever do you mean, Perry?” she said. Then she followed his
gaze, swallowed hard, and looked back at her husband in
disbelief.

“Well, just look at him. That red nose would
illuminate a pantry. And that exquisitely ugly face! He’s a natural
Bardolph or Dogberry. And what a belly! It looks as if he’s wrapped
a bolster ‘round his middle. All we’d have to do is pad out the
buttocks – pardon my French, ladies.”

By now everyone realized who the object of
his attention was, and as one they craned around to stare at Cobb,
who was bent over sipping his tea – unaware of their interest, and
astonishment.

Lady Mad, who was no doubt picturing herself
doing a love duet with the eccentrically shaped policeman, said,
when she had located her voice, “But you don’t even know if he can
read, and I’m
sure
he can’t act.”

“And he’s – he’s a common fellow,” Clemmy
Crenshaw bleated, nicely forgetting her own humble origins. “I
thought our play was meant for proper ladies and gentlemen.”

Murmurs of assent moved up and down the
table.

“Ah, but I know a great deal more about
Horatio Cobb than any of you might imagine,” smirked the presiding
baronet. “You see, my niece Lizzie here attends Miss Tyson’s
Academy, which, incredibly, Constable Cobb’s daughter Delia also
attends. Lizzie, being an overly kind girl, has befriended Miss
Cobb, who, sad to say, does a fair amount of boasting about her
family and their meagre triumphs.”

Lizzie blushed on cue and nodded her head in
support of her uncle’s claims.

“Mr. Cobb not only resembles one of the
Bard’s mechanics, he was raised by a father who worshipped the
Great Man and encouraged his two sons to do the same – going so far
as to name them after Shakespearean characters. Delia and her
brother recite and perform at home, I’m told, and their papa has
been known to join them. And if this fellow can read and memorize,
I
can teach him to act!”

Lady Mad, who was vaguely aware of these
facts but had failed to associate them with the Bardolphian figure
munching through his third tart in her dining-room, said with an
ambiguous smile, “Well, then, Perry, go ahead and ask him. Perhaps
we’ll find out if there’s anything really worthwhile under that
handsome uniform.”

Sir Peregrine stood up and motioned for Cobb
to come back into the theatre.

***

Clementine Crenshaw was sitting in her nightdress on
the extreme edge of her canopied bed. “I seen you gawkin’ at Lady
Madeleine, don’t think I didn’t,” she said to her husband, who was
near the door and looking as if he were about to bolt. “You went
an’ spoilt a perfectly wonderful evenin’.”

Cyrus sighed, and came over to sit beside
her. He was fully dressed except for his loosened tie and an
absence of boots. She turned her back on him, but he reached up
anyway and laid a hand on her slumped shoulder.

“Everybody was starin’ at the lady, sweet.
She wished to be stared at, and it would have been impolite not to
have done so.”

Clemmy choked back a sob. “But she was so
beautiful an’ she made me – ”

“Now don’t go gettin’ yourself all worked up.
You know what happens to your nerves.”

“It ain’t my nerves that’s hurt!” she
snapped. All the heart had gone out of her ringlettes, which now
drooped wherever they pleased. She had made a desultory attempt to
remove her makeup, leaving her face streaked and blotched. Her
large eyes were glazed with tears – and something else.

“If I’d’ve known this play was goin’ to upset
you so – ”

“I ain’t upset! I’m
not
! We belong
with them people, I know we do. But when I seen Lady Madeleine bat
her lashes at you, an’ you – ” She couldn’t finish: a full-blown
sob had arrived, and overwhelmed.

Cyrus put both arms around her. “Of course we
belong, of course we do. We’ve worked hard to get where we are, my
sweet. And we’ve always done it together. And we’ll keep on doin’
it together. That’s a promise.” These words were crooned into
Clemmy’s ear like a mantra or healing prayer. He rocked her slowly,
and felt her body begin to relax.

“Yeah, we’ve worked hard, ain’t we?” she said
in a voice low and slurred.

“I’ll get you some more of your medicine
now,” he said, releasing her cautiously. She sank back onto the
nearest pillow. He tried not to look at her splotched face, the
defeated tresses, and the sagging weight of her flesh beneath the
nightdress. At her vanity, he found the stoppered bottle he was
seeking and opened it. It was half empty. It had been full, he was
sure, before they had left for Oakwood Manor.

“Bring it to me, luv, please,” she murmured,
stretching out one hand with a supreme effort. When he reached her,
she seized the bottle, held it up to her lips and drank its
contents down.

“I’ll leave you now,” he said, leaning over
and kissing her on the forehead.

“Yes, yes,” she breathed, and lay back upon
the bed. “We worked damn hard, didn’t we? Nobody thought we’d make
it, but we did, didn’t we?” Her words began to run into one another
and she was no longer sure she was speaking them aloud. “My daddy
was a bootlegger, but we showed ‘em, didn’t we, luv? And after that
awful thing your papa did down there in the war, who would’ve
guessed – ”

But Cyrus Crenshaw, self-made man, had
already left the room and closed the door behind him.

After leaving Oakwood Manor, Cobb walked straight
down to Briar Cottage. He had already arranged for Gussie French to
come into the office early in the morning to prepare his account of
the witness-statements for the magistrate, but he wanted Marc to go
over them first, not with a view to altering them but rather to
afford Brodie’s lawyer the opportunity to develop some kind of
useful argument when they all met at the Court House at ten
o’clock. Marc was waiting for him, Beth and Maggie having gone to
bed. Charlene was next door, sitting with Etta Hogg, who was
running a high fever and required constant watching. The cottage
was eerily quiet.

“If your demeanour means anything,” Marc
said, “the news is not good.”

“I may’ve done the lad in,” Cobb sighed.

***

As was his custom, Marc sat silently and listened to
Cobb go over in minute detail his interviews with Tobias Budge, Sir
Peregrine Shuttleworth, Andrew Dutton, Horace Fullarton and Cyrus
Crenshaw. Later, after Cobb left, Marc would make copious notes on
the case and, as soon as he could thereafter, run them past Beth
for her comments and insights.

“So you can see, major,” Cobb finished up,
“them stories all seem to fit with the times Gillian Budge give me
this mornin’ – if they’re all tellin’ the truth, which ain’t
likely.”

“One of them isn’t, that’s for sure.”

“Well, we oughta remember that Fullarton’s
already lied to you when he told you he didn’t see anythin’ in the
alley through the coatroom window.”

“True. But of all the club members he is
closest to Brodie. I’m inclined to believe he thought it best for
Brodie if he said nothing to me. After all, when I informed him of
the arrest and impending charge, he did not know of Brodie’s own
signed statement or that Brodie’s walking-stick was the murder
weapon.”

Cobb looked skeptical, but all he said was,
“So you still figure it was one of them swells who done it?”

“One of them, or Tobias Budge,
has
to
be the killer. I don’t for a second believe somebody unknown to us
just happened to wander into that alley and club Duggan to
death.”

“But I can’t find even a tiny disagreement in
these statements. Can you?”

“Not yet. But taken together, as you’ve
summarized them, they do spell trouble for Brodie tomorrow
morning.”

Cobb sighed. “I was hopin’ I was wrong about
that.”

“The magistrate is sure to see things
this
way,” Marc said, and Cobb settled back for a lawyerly
summing up. “Dutton leaves about nine-forty or so and claims to
have seen or heard nothing. Fullarton leaves about nine-forty-five
and hears the first part of the altercation between Duggan and
Brodie. Minutes later, Crenshaw says he saw a man leaning over an
unconscious body. Budge, rummaging about the cellar, also observes
some sort of struggle and then, some minutes later, sees a stick
beating down on the prone victim. Shuttleworth leaves last, just in
time to spot a youthful, slim figure hot-footing it up the
alley.”

“But none of ‘em will swear it was Brodie
they saw,” Cobb suggested.

“True. But Brodie’s own statement appears to
confirm the sequence of events in these witness-accounts, except
that Brodie conveniently omits reference to the clubbing that
followed the punch.”

“Jesus,” Cobb hissed. “It’s worse’n I
thought. I wish I’d never gone up there. If only one of them’d seen
Brodie throw his punch an’ skedaddle – ”

“Perhaps one of them did, and isn’t saying,
for obvious reasons. And you had no choice in the matter, did you?”
Marc smiled. “You’ve become a first-class interrogator, and I’m
proud of you.”

“Fat lot of good it’s done,” Cobb said,
trying not to be too pleased with the compliment.

“You’ve done
your
job, Cobb, now it’s
up to me to do mine.”

“But you can’t go to Thorpe in the mornin’
an’ claim them
Shake-spear-carriers
all had good reason to
want to kill a fella they didn’t know the name of till last
night.”

“True. Until we can
prove
they had a
motive, like ruthless and continuing blackmail, I can’t even hint
at such a possibility.”

“But even with all the statements jibin’, you
figure it has to be one of them?”

“Certainly. Dutton could have heard the
argument if he had decided to go back there, then hung about long
enough to figure out who Duggan was, and made his move.”

Cobb grinned. He too had thought of that.

“Similarly, Fullarton admits he heard the
exchange down there. If he deduced Duggan’s identity and role, all
he had to do was step into the shadows and wait for his chance.
Likewise, Crenshaw could have seen Brodie crouched over Duggan and,
instead of leaving, he goes out to help. But Brodie has already
started to run. It’s also possible, Cobb, that Duggan came to – for
Crenshaw or any of the others – and stupidly assumed he’d been
discovered by another one of his victims. A quick exchange of
views, a threat perhaps, and a deadly response with a handy weapon.
You see, even Shuttleworth could have come across Duggan in this
manner.”