Desperate Acts (27 page)

“You’re sure about this?”

“I am. Don’t worry. There’s no way I’m going
to hurt Brodie’s case.”

Marc admired her loyalty and did not doubt
her courage, but she had never stood in a witness-box and faced the
civilized fury of a Kingsley Thornton interrogation.

***

As Celia had forewarned Marc, her brother was
uncharacteristically downcast. Under the terms of his release,
Brodie had to surrender to the court by four o’clock today, and
would remain in custody until the trial was over – and he was
either acquitted or found guilty. But Marc could not think of any
tactful way of introducing the topic of the second note. They were
alone in Brodie’s study, and after a brief exchange of
pleasantries, Marc began:

“Celia tells me there was a second note from
Duggan.”

Brodie blinked, then grinned sheepishly. “Oh,
that. I stupidly forgot to mention it in my statement, and then
when I did remember it later on, I figured it was foolhardy to
claim I’d merely forgotten it. But it was just a little reminder
from the blackguard before the gathering at The Sailor’s Arms. I
showed it to Celia.”

“And you didn’t say anything aloud when you
read it in the presence of your sister?”

Brodie said quietly, “She’s not going to be
put on the stand about that business, is she?”

“I’m afraid so. And she’s going to have to
face Kingsley Thornton. He’s been appointed prosecutor for the
Crown.”

Brodie flinched. “Christ, Marc, is there any
good news?”

“Celia will do fine as long as she only has
to tell the truth,” Marc said, and stared at Brodie.

“If they think she heard me say something
damning, they’ll be disappointed.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Besides, nobody knows about the second note
but you, Celia and me. Thornton may be cunning, but even he can’t
ask about something he’s not aware of.”

This was not quite the answer Marc was hoping
for, but he felt he shouldn’t press the issue any further. Instead
he said, “I do have more positive news.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Marc outlined
the strategy he had developed for Brodie’s defense. Without giving
the particulars of the three secrets he and Cobb had uncovered,
Marc explained that he could, with a lot of skill and some luck,
introduce three or four plausible, alternative theories of the
crime and its perpetrator. Brodie listened without
interruption.

When Marc had finished, he said, “You’ve
discovered motives for three of the five possibles, then? What
about Budge and Dutton?”

Marc told him about the “grudge” motive he
could, if necessary, ascribe to the barkeep, and intimated that
Dutton was the least likely suspect anyway.

“You’re not going to expose any of these
secrets in the courtroom, are you?’

“I don’t see the need to. Blackmail per se is
the motive, not its unsavoury detail. Besides which, I don’t have
enough hard evidence to proceed very far before being stopped in my
tracks by the judge or Thornton.”

“Still, you will be suggesting publicly that
one of these gentlemen is a murderer.”

“Yes. That’s essential to our prospects.”

“Could you leave Horace to the last?” Brodie
said, leaning forward with a most solemn look on his face. “What
good will it do if I get off and lose the respect of a man I think
of as a kind of father?”

“To be honest, I haven’t been able to decide
in what order I’ll recall the five possibles. Or indeed how many
I’ll need – or can get away with. But I do know how you feel about
Horace, and I’ll bear it in mind. I promise.”

“Thank you. He’s no killer, and I can’t
imagine what he’d have to hide from a blackmailer.” Brodie took a
deep breath and added, “Nor do I ever want to know.”

“Do you want me to drive up here this
afternoon and take you to the Court House?”

“Stan Petrie is going to do that,” Brodie
said, referring to his faithful manservant. Then he blushed
slightly. “We’re going to stop for ten minutes at Baldwin
House.”

“Good. You’ve put Diana off for too
long.”

“I know. And, besides, she threatened to
intercept me on the lawn in front of the jail if I didn’t show up
first at Robert’s place.”

At the door, Brodie said to Marc, “My life is
in your hands.” Then, when he saw the expression on Marc’s face, he
added, “They’re good hands.”

***

Stan Petrie drove Marc down to Front Street and then
west to the parliament buildings between John and Simcoe. Marc
thanked him, and entered the foyer of the House of Assembly. The
afternoon debate was just underway as Marc made his way up to the
crowded gallery. He stood at the back and looked for signs of
Robert and Francis Hincks on the spectators’ benches below, but
could not see them. They were no doubt not too far away, shoring up
their unlikely coalition. But their efforts and stratagems were
paying dividends right here before Marc’s eyes. Before the hour was
out, the Speaker called for a division on the union clause of the
bill. The bells rang vigorously. The spectators buzzed – many
excited, some anxious. When the vote was taken ten minutes later,
the political union of Upper and Lower Canada was approved by
forty-four to eleven – a landslide. The opposition had
collapsed.

It was by no means finished, though, as Marc
and the Durhamites well knew. The hard-line Tories would try to win
back the support of the moderate conservatives, and mavericks like
Tiger Dunlop, on the question of the specific
terms
of the
union. If successful, they could emasculate the union principle
itself. Several of the terms to be debated now were emotional
powder-kegs. For example, the House, as committee-of-the-whole, was
set to discuss the number of seats each province would be allotted
in a bicameral Canadian Legislature. The bill as it stood called
for equal representation in both chambers, a proposal that favoured
Upper Canada with one hundred and fifty thousand fewer people than
Quebec. This advantage, however, was not enough for the Tory group.
To offer equality of opportunity to a race of backward people –
who, as recently as two years before, had taken up arms against the
Monarch and invited American freebooters to invade Her Sovereign
soil – was tantamount to sanctioning treason, was it not? And how
much of the current Upper Canadian debt was due to the rebellion
itself? And so on. These were irrational or misguided arguments in
Marc’s view, but they stirred passions and opened wounds only
partially healed. The outcome of this part of the debate was not a
foregone conclusion.

Marc left the Assembly a few minutes later
and walked along Front Street to Bay, where he poked his head in
the door of Baldwin House. Robert was not in, but Diana Ramsay,
looking radiant despite the worry in her face, greeted him in the
central hallway. The very sight of her should go far to boosting
Brodie’s sagging morale, he thought. After all, it was for her
honour that he had bearded Duggan in the first place, and it was
she who figured wholly in his vision of the future.

“How is he?” she asked Marc.

“Holding up well,” Marc said, taking her
gloved hand. “And he’ll be even better – soon.”

***

Beth was seated at the desk in the study, writing a
letter. Two other letters lay open beside her. She looked up,
smiled, then said quickly, “What’s happened?”

“Oh, a couple of surprises in the case,
that’s all. I’ll tell you about them, if you’ve got a moment.”

“Ya mean, if Maggie don’t wake up an’
surprise
us
?”

“Something like that.” Marc nodded towards
the half-composed letter. “Writing to the Iowans?”

“One to Winnifred, an’ one, later, to
Mary.”

Winnifred Goodall and Mary Hatch had been
neighbours of Beth when she and her first husband, Jesse Smallman,
had operated a farm near Cobourg. They and their husbands had been
caught up in the maelstrom and aftermath of the rebellion two years
before, victims of the hatred and thirst for vengeance it had
engendered throughout the province. It was said that as many as ten
thousand farmers and their families had pulled up stakes, sold
their land for a song, and moved to the far-off, nameless spaces
west of the Mississippi. The Goodalls and Hatches had been amongst
them, trekking to the Iowa territory and taking along with them
Aaron McCrae, Beth’s young, handicapped brother. Every time Marc
watched Beth read one of their many letters, he felt a rage build
up inside him – at the injustice and random cruelties that the
abortive revolt had wrought. He and Beth, like countless others,
had lost good friends, whom they would never see again. It could
not continue. Robert’s obsession with responsible government and a
secular state was directed aright. Upper Canada had to be made a
place where diligent and honest citizens could work, feel safe,
seek justice under the law, and be ruled by those they elected. And
that included Brodie and Celia Langford. Marc was not going to lose
one more friend – whatever he had to do.

“I could finish this letter while you finish
thinkin’,” Beth said wryly.

“Ah, sorry. Yes, I do have lots to tell
you.”

“Let’s go to the parlour, then. Charlene left
some coffee on the stove.”

But they never got to the parlour, the
coffee, or their talk. Charlene had just flung open the back door
and rushed through the kitchen towards them. Her hair was askew,
her sweater tied crookedly across her shoulders.

“What is it?” Marc said.

“It’s Etta next door! She’s bleedin’ to
death!”

Beth grabbed Charlene’s arm to steady her.
“She’s cut herself?”

“Oh, no. She’s bleedin’ . . . you know . . .
down here.”

Beth looked relieved and Charlene mortified
as the girl aimed two fingers towards the lower half of her
apron.

“Jasper’s gone fer the doctor,” Charlene
said, “but Etta’s callin’ fer you.”

“I think we’ll need Dora as well,” Beth said.
“You run over to Parliament Street an’ fetch her, as fast as you
can, and
after
you put yer coat on. I’ll go over to Hogg’s
an’ see what I c’n do to help.”

“Her mom’s just wailin’ an’ pullin’ at her
hair.”

“Just go!” Beth said. “Please.”

Charlene disappeared back through the
kitchen.

“Yer
coat
, Charlene!”

Marc, who was beginning to feel like a third
thumb, said, “What about Maggie?”

“You’ll have to stay with her, luv. I’ll need
Charlene over there as soon as she gets back with Dora.”

Before Marc could say he’d be happy to do
that, Beth kissed him on the cheek and said, “Don’t worry, she’s
sound asleep.”

With that, she flew out the front door,
coatless.

Just as the door banged shut, Maggie Edwards
decided to wake up. Apparently she was not happy, and began to
communicate her discontent – loudly.

***

When Beth got back an hour and a half later, she
found Marc dozing in the rocking-chair beside an embering fire.
Maggie was asleep in his arms, teething on one of her father’s
forefingers. Beth lifted the baby gently from Marc’s grip, changed
her nappy, and tucked her into the cradle nearby.

“How’s Etta?” Marc said sleepily.

“She’s fine,” Beth said, slipping across to
Marc and kneeling down beside the rocking-chair. “She did lose some
blood, but Dora got it stopped quickly enough. She’s a wonder, that
woman, as you know.”

“And Dr. Pogue?”

“He arrived in time to feel Etta’s forehead
an’ leave his bill.”

“What was wrong with her?”

“Well,” Beth sighed, “a lot more than blood
come outta her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Etta had a miscarriage.”

“My God! But that’s not possible, is it? The
girl has no boy friends and – ”

“That wee blob – about two months old, Dora
said – wasn’t put in there by immaculate conception.”

Marc was, at last, fully awake – with his
antennae twitching. “Did she say who?” he said slowly.

“Yes, an’ you’ll never guess.”

“I think perhaps I can: Tobias Budge.”

“Been playin’ investigator, have you?” Beth
smiled. Then she frowned and added, “Her employer, eh, who was damn
quick to dismiss her as soon as he found out. What a
bastard
!”

Marc winced at the word – Beth rarely cursed
– but could not disagree with the sentiment it conveyed. “Gillian
Budge owns that tavern and the cottage they rent out around the
corner on Peter Street. If she finds out about the baby, she’ll
toss her mate into the nearest sinkhole, face-first.”

“It gets worse,” Beth said, getting up to
give the fire a poke. “The silly child says she’s in love with him,
an’ don’t want us to do anythin’ to hurt him.”

“How did she keep Jasper from taking a hammer
to the man?”

“It was Charlene. She grabbed him an’
shouted, ‘I don’t want you hanged, too!’”

“So, even Charlene thinks poor Brodie is a
candidate for the noose?”

Beth pulled up a chair next to Marc. “Does
this business have anythin’ to do with Brodie?” she said. “Like the
Crenshaw secret?”

“I believe it does. And it’s a positive
effect. As you’ll remember, Tobias Budge has been on our list of
suspects from the beginning – Cobb’s choice, I’m sure, as the
killer. But he did not appear to have a strong enough motive for
bludgeoning Duggan to death. It’s almost certain now that Duggan,
who cozied up to Etta at The Sailor’s Arms, was blackmailing Budge
over Etta’s pregnancy.”

“An’ holdin’ on to yer wife an’ yer
livelihood are powerful motives.”

“They are.”

“But what good does this really do fer
Brodie? You plannin’ to beat a confession outta the barkeep?”

“Much as I’d like to, no. But Cobb’s joining
the Shakespeareans up at Oakwood has produced other victims of
blackmail who could also have had reason to want Duggan dead.”