Minor Corruption (9 page)

“Auleen and me are on our own, ya see. My two
eldest’ve left home fer good. I don’t even know where they
are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry to say what I haveta say,
sir.” Thurgood now looked up fully for the first time. A kind of
cunning or determination had replaced the fawning posture. His
fingers gripped his cap but did not fiddle with it.

“Oh? Is something wrong?”

“’Fraid so. You see, when our Betsy lay
dyin’, her ma begged her to tell us who the fella was that got her
in the family way. Ya see, to our mind, that person was responsible
fer the horrible state she’d gotten into. We wanted to do her
justice, like.”

“And you were right to think so,” Robert
said, believing now that Thurgood, penniless, had come to him for
legal advice. “Betsy was a minor. Whoever corrupted her was guilty
of rape under the law. And morally, of course, he was also party to
her death at the hands of that terrible woman. Is there any way I
can help?”

“I hope so. That’s why I’m here.” He glanced
down, apparently abashed, but looked up quickly to catch Robert’s
response.

“You say your wife asked the girl for the
man’s name. I’m assuming she gave you some sort of answer.”

“That she did.” Thurgood cleared his throat
and stared at Robert. “She told us with her dyin’ breath it was Mr.
Seamus Baldwin.”

Robert rocked back in his chair, then stared
sternly at the mill-hand. “You must have misheard. That notion is
preposterous.”

Thurgood didn’t flinch. “I’d’ve thought so
too. But we gotta take a dyin’ person’s last words as gospel, don’t
we? You’re a lawyer. You know that.”

“But Mrs. Cobb testified that Betsy was
almost in a coma she was so delirious with pain and fever. And you
and Auleen were distraught. How can you be sure what she said or
what she heard?”

Thurgood almost smirked. “Like I said, you’re
the lawyer, ain’t ya!”

Against his better judgement, Robert bridled
at the insinuation. “I’m not playing a lawyer’s trick, sir. You
have just accused my uncle of seducing your daughter, getting her
pregnant, and indirectly causing her death. I’m asking you how you
can be sure of what you heard – plain and simple.”

A sly smile crept across Thurgood’s
weather-roughened features, worthy of the best defense attorney.
“We got a witness. An unimpeccable witness.”

Despite his growing anger, Robert now saw
what Thurgood had been leading him towards. “Mrs. Cobb was there,”
he said quietly.

“She was. And she heard the name. And she
discussed it with us.”

“But neither you, your wife nor Mrs. Cobb
mentioned this incredible fact at the inquest.”

“We wasn’t asked, was we? And I figure Mrs.
Cobb, bein’ friendly-like with you people, decided to let sleepin’
dogs lie. But she heard the name all right.”

“You’re probably right about her motive,
considering the absurdity of the claim. But there was no reason
why, if you actually put credence in poor Betsy’s words, you
yourself should not have informed the coroner, or the police. On
the other hand, without more evidence than the girl’s statement,
you had no chance of doing anything other than slandering a
respectable gentleman’s name.”

“You’re forgettin’ the five-pound note to pay
fer gettin’ rid of his babe. The likes of me never got within a
barge-pole of bills like that.”

“But Betsy took the lunch Mrs. Morrisey made
down to you at the mill every noon hour from Monday to Saturday,”
Robert said, his mood swinging between anger and pity for this
suffering, aggrieved father who was merely lashing out at the world
for its unalterable injustices. There was also a frisson of anxiety
pricking away somewhere inside him. “There were young mill-hands
all about.”

“She left it with me in the office – every
time! And went on her way!” Thurgood’s eyes widened and his face
grew redder. “She wasn’t the kind of girl to dally with lads or
lecherous mill-hands!”

“I know, I know, Mr. Thurgood. Try to calm
yourself. You’re upset. Your precious girl is dead. And you and I
know she was essentially a good girl. But someone got her pregnant,
by seduction or rape. She died an innocent. And I’d like to see
Elsie Trigger swing from a gibbet.. But I can assure you that my
Uncle Seamus was not a man to seduce young housemaids. And right
now he is too ill for me even to relay your preposterous claim to
him so that he might deny it. After which, of course, your case
will be closed.”

During Robert’s heated reply, Thurgood had
grown eerily calm. His own reply was delivered with cold menace.
“There’s no need for you to disturb Mr. Baldwin. I didn’t come here
to upset yer family. But I think you oughta sit and listen to why I
did come.”

All of Robert’s sympathy died instantly. He
was pretty certain of what was to come. “Go ahead,” he said
icily.

“Ya see, I got no kids left at home. Tim run
off to get married last summer. And we ain’t seen hide nor hair of
Loretta since she left years ago. We was countin’ on Betsy bein’
the prop and comfort of our old age. Here she was but fifteen and
earnin’ five shillin’s a week. We figure she would’ve worked
another four or five years before gettin’ married and providin’ us
with grandsons. Now we got nothin’. No kids and no money.”

Robert sighed and tried to remain calm. “So
you expect Dr. Baldwin to keep on paying Betsy’s monthly wage for
the next four or five years, in exchange for which you will promise
not to blacken my uncle’s name all over Toronto and beyond?”

“I ain’t made any threats!” Thurgood cried,
giving his cap a sharp tug. “I’m not a blackmailer. I’ve just come
to talk to you man to man. And to get some justice fer my dear dead
girl.” All the implied threat had vanished from his voice and
manner, replaced immediately by a pitiable abjection and several
hard-won tears. “I’m only a poor mill-hand.” Once again the eyes
dropped and the cap twitched.

“So, in your view we would merely be
exchanging courtesies. A clever ploy, I must say, to avoid outright
extortion. But there is a threat in it, sir, and I do not acquiesce
to threat. I will arrange for a suitable one-time gift of
twenty-five dollars because I did care for your daughter and
respected her character, and because, despite your churlish and
foolhardy behaviour in coming here with this nonsense today, I
still feel deeply sorry for you and your wife. Now please leave,
and do not return.”

“Oh, I’ll leave all right. But you mistake me
if you think I came here just fer money. My girl was murdered – by
two
people, a man and a woman. And I want justice. I hunger
fer it.” Thurgood was standing now, and outrage had stripped him of
both cunning and fear.

“And I do also,” Robert said. “I am an
officer of the court, and when the time is right, I intend to
convey your charge to my uncle. I do not wish him to hear of it
first from any other source. And I swear to you now, if by any
chance he should
not
deny it, I will personally convey him
to the police myself.”

“Then you better do it soon, mister, because
I’m gonna go to the police station as soon as I can get leave from
the mill. I’ll make Mrs. Cobb admit what she heard. We’ll see
whether I got any evidence or not!”

“Do what you have to, Thurgood, but please
leave my house. I’ll send you the money later today.”

At the front door, Thurgood turned and raised
his fist. “I’ll take yer blood-money, sir, but it won’t change my
mind. We’ll soon see, won’t we, whether the poor c’n get justice in
this province!” And with that, he left.

Robert took several deep breaths. He felt the
ironies of the situation bitterly. Justice for the ordinary man had
been the theme of his life. His heart ached for people like the
Thurgoods and the blows that Fate had dealt them, yet he despised
the low cunning they often of necessity resorted to. He knew Uncle
Seamus was not guilty of raping a young woman he had loved like a
granddaughter. Still, he would have to be informed of the situation
as soon as possible.

From the library came a ripple of girlish
laughter and a guffaw bigger than most sneezes. Edie Barr had
already begun working miracles with Uncle Seamus.

But would they last?

FIVE

Cobb was in the constables’ room dictating notes to
Gussie French, the clerk, about a pair of thieves he and Wilkie had
caught drunk and disoriented in a dry goods store early Thursday
morning. He was just getting started, and beginning to enjoy
Gussie’s increasing anxiety as his pen failed to keep up with the
pace of dictating, when he and Gussie’s pen were interrupted by a
clump of heavy feet in the reception area. This impoliteness was
followed closely by a grunted demand of some sort and then the
Chief’s voice inviting the intruder into his office. Ten minutes
later, Cobb was just finishing his report when he heard the outer
door slam. He poked his head out. Chief Sturges was standing in the
doorway of his office, and when he spied Cobb, he said:

“Cobb, I think you’d better come in and hear
the story that rude fellow had to tell.”

Cobb trailed him inside. Sturges eased his
gouty foot onto a padded stool and motioned for Cobb to sit
down.

“Long story, is it, sir?”

“Long and upsetting, I’m afraid. I just had
Burton Thurgood in here. He’s a mill-hand from up Trout Creek way,
the one whose daughter died.”

“Whittle’s mill, ya mean? The one on the
Baldwin property? Dora told me about that business.”

“He leases the land from Dr. Baldwin.”

“This have to do with the Baldwins,
then?”

“It looks that way,” Sturges sighed.

“But if it’s about the daughter, we’ve
already had an inquest. Dora give me chapter and verse.”

“It is about the girl. And the inquest may
not be the last of it.” He went on to repeat to Cobb the tale that
Thurgood had told him and the charge he was making.

“Jesus Murphy,” Cobb whistled. “Old Seamus
Baldwin, you say? That’s pretty hard to swallow, ain’t it?”

“I agree. But he’s usin’ yer Dora as his
chief witness. Did she say anythin’ about any death-bed claim made
by the poor girl out there last Friday night?”

Cobb shook his head. “No, she didn’t. But
that’s not unusual. We have a sort of pact not to gabble on or
complain about each other’s work. But she
has
complained
bitterly about that quack, Mrs. Trigger, and she did go on about
what the old bird might’ve done to kill Betsy Thurgood, but she
said she only had the parents’ word on that score.”

“And Trigger’s hat, which she testified she
found in their kitchen. Enough to get a warrant out fer Trigger’s
arrest. But I was at the inquest, and no mention was made by
anybody of Seamus Baldwin bein’ accused of bein’ the babe’s father.
And, of course, bein’ guilty of seduction and rape of a minor.”

“What did Thurgood have to say about
that?”

“He said he thought tellin’ the police was
the right way to go.”

Cobb sighed. “Betsy wouldna been the first
housemaid put in the family way by a
lecher-roused
lord of
the manor. Usually them matters is hushed up and taken care of by
the swells themselves.”

“Not when the girl dies horribly and accuses
the perpetrator before witnesses.”

“You want me to talk to Dora?”

“I do, Cobb. And mister and missus as well.
Thurgood’s got a big chip on his shoulder. He more or less claimed
we wouldn’t take his charge seriously because the accused was a
bigwig Baldwin. I assured him it would be looked into by my top
investigator, with a written report he would be allowed to read –
if he can.”

“Top investigator?”

“That’s right, Cobb. Remember, I’m goin’ to
the Council next month with that proposal we talked about. I want
you to get off yer patrol. I’ll have Sweeney cover for you. Take
all the time you need.”

“You want me in my Sunday suit?”

Sturges laughed. “Not yet. Not yet.”

***

Cobb found Dora in the parlour with her feet up and
a cup of tea in her hand.

“What’re ya doin’ home now, Mr. Cobb?” she
greeted him, as if he were some burglar who forgot it was
daylight.

“Good mornin’ to you, too.”

She spied the serious look on his face, and
said, “What is it?”

And he told her.

“I was just surprised he never said anythin’
about Seamus Baldwin at the inquest,” was Dora’s initial response
to Cobb’s account of Thurgood’s visit.

“But
you
didn’t either,” Cobb said
cautiously.

“Nobody asked,” she snapped. “And I had my
doubts about the business anyway. Why smear a man’s character when
you don’t have to?”

“It’s yer doubts I come to talk to you about.
The Sarge has asked me to investigate the charge.”

“So I’m bein’
in-terror-grated
, am
I?”

“You are.”

Dora smiled as best she could. The grim
events of Friday evening still weighed heavily upon her. “Shoot,
then.”

“First off, did young Betsy call out the
gent’s name when her mother asked her who the father of the babe
was?”

Dora paused, and choosing her words
carefully, she said, “Auleen did ask that question. But the girl
was fevered and delirious. She’d been mutterin’ and murmurin’ in
her fever all along, mostly gibberish as far as I could make
out.”

“But the name Seamus did come out?”

“It did. Right after Auleen’s question. But I
was nearest to the poor thing. Her tone was much closer to beggin’
than accusin’. I think she wanted someone to fetch Seamus, or Uncle
Seamus as everybody out there calls him.”

“If he was her lover, though, she could’ve
been askin’ fer him, eh?”

“It’s possible, but it sounded more like a
child callin’ out fer an adult to come an’ comfort her.”