The Bishop's Pawn (12 page)

“I suppose he could claim he was feeling ill,
went to St. James early to open the doors and do his morning
chores, then headed home – which would put him at the scene about
the right time.”

“Doesn’t Epp usually walk on the
street
?” Sturges said, looking at Cobb.

“That’s what I been told,” Cobb said.

“He could say that he just happened to spot
the body from King Street. After all, it was lying only a few yards
inside the alley. Then when he saw the blood all over himself, he
panicked and stumbled away up the alley and along the service lane
where the baker spotted him.”

“You plannin’ to be Epp’s defense lawyer?”
Cobb said peevishly.

Marc smiled, though every thought and image
of what had happened in that alley made him want to weep or rage.
“Not at all, old chum. I do believe, like you, that Epp did it. My
chief concern is that he will not, or will not be able to, give us
any kind of usable confession.”

“In which case,” Robert said, “we will be
wise to gather as much physical and circumstantial evidence as we
can.”

“Precisely. Wilf, I think you should send
Wilkie, Brown and Rossiter out to canvass the route Epp might have
taken to and from St. James this morning. We need witnesses not
only to track his every move, but someone who might have seen that
dirk on his person. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth pursuing. That
is, of course, if Thorpe can get nothing sensible from Epp this
evening.”

“What about the Melton notepaper?” Robert
said. “Where on earth would a simple fellow like Epp, living in a
shack, get hold of such expensive stationery?”

“That question has been niggling at me, too,”
Marc said.

“I can’t see Epp having cozy conferences with
those New York lawyers we were talking about earlier,” Robert
mused.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk with
them,” Marc said. “For Brodie and Celia’s sake, it might help for
them to know what actually did happen to dispossess them of their
country.”

“Those gentlemen may well decide to go
straight home when they hear of Dick’s death,” Robert said, then
added, “But I’ll be happy to look them up this afternoon, if you
like.”

“I just thought of somethin’,” Sturges said.
“Somethin’ the magistrate ain’t goin’ to like.”

“Are you thinking, as I am, that Epp may have
had access to the vicarage?” Marc said.

“I am. Those vicars are certainly fond of
fancy notepaper.”

“Let’s leave that barrel of oysters unopened,
shall we?”

“I agree,” Marc said. “Meanwhile, Cobb, you
and I will team up, as we have done in the past, and return to
Epp’s shack. I take it that you and Wilkie did not have time for a
thorough search of the place.”

“It was as dark as a tomb in the place,” Cobb
said, “an’ we wanted to get Epp in here as soon as we could – to
save you an’ the Chief wastin’ yer energies.” Cobb’s wry grin
acknowledged Marc’s attempt to minimize his failure to do a proper
search out there.

“Then we’ll take a lantern with us,” Marc
said.

***

In the event, they took two lanterns with them.
Despite Cobb’s forewarning, Marc was shocked at the shabby,
pitiable room in which Reuben Epp had lived for more than a decade.
On route, Cobb had filled Marc in on what was generally known about
the man. Epp had arrived in Toronto a decade ago (a year or so
after Cobb himself), brought here, it was said, from the eastern
part of the province by Quentin Hungerford at the behest of a
friend and subsequently approved by Strachan himself. He had been
taken on as verger, and while he was religious to a fault, he was
also a binge drinker. Cobb then mentioned how defensive the
Reverend Hungerford had seemed when Cobb had questioned him about
the verger’s actions this morning.

“So what’re we lookin’ for?” Cobb said amid
the shambles of the room.

“The torn part of the murder-note if we’re
lucky. It didn’t show up in the alley, so it might have been left
here. I don’t think we’re dealing with a sophisticated assassin.”
Though that would not do poor Dick any good.

But a thorough search of the trash and
detritus did not turn up a torn sheet of Melton Bond. “If it was
white, it’d sure show up in here,” Cobb muttered.

“Do you notice what we haven’t found?” Marc
said.

“Besides the bit of paper?”

“Yes. There is no paper of
any
kind in
the room. Even his stove’s been lit with wood shavings. No ink, no
pens. No religious pamphlets, no newspapers.”

“You ain’t suggestin’ – ”

“I am. It’s possible that Reuben Epp is
illiterate.”

“Then he couldna written out that awful
word.”

“Certainly not with the calligrapher’s touch
I’m sure was used.”

Cobb took a deep breath. “You’re not sayin’
that Epp isn’t our man?”

“Don’t look so worried. I do think he did it.
But it looks as if he may have had an accomplice.”

“Somebody he got to write that one ugly word
in red ink on some fancy paper?”

“He must have. Unless we entertain the
unlikely possibility that someone happened along, spotted Dick’s
mutilated body and decided to make matters even worse.”

“An’ that ain’t likely, is it? But if Epp did
get help writin’ the note, then that person was in on the murder,
wasn’t he?”

“Not necessarily. It’s not hard to imagine
Epp finding someone around St. James to write that damning word on
a handy sheet of paper. Epp would know a lot of the parishioners.
And many of them felt as strongly as the Archdeacon about Dick’s
supposed sins. Epp might have said that he intended to stick it up
on the door of Dick’s cottage to embarrass him. It wouldn’t be the
first time such nonsense has been perpetrated.”

“So this person may turn out to be as
surprised as anybody that his writin’ ended up on Mr. Dougherty’s
back?”

“That seems the most likely possibility to
me. It’s hard to picture a fellow like Epp conspiring with a person
who would otherwise treat him with disdain.”

“I hope it don’t turn out to involve one of
them vicars. We got enough on our plate as it is.”

“That would complicate matters, I agree. But
you have to admit that either vicar might have been motivated to
please the Archdeacon by assisting Epp in what was assumed to be a
nasty prank of some sort against the so-called ‘sodomite’.”

“Well, all this palaver may turn out to be
wasted on the air if Epp is ready to confess his
trans-aggressions
at six o’clock.”

Marc murmured assent, but was now busy
rummaging amongst the empty butter-boxes tossed in a far corner
near the stove. “What’s this?” he said to himself.

“What’ve you got there, major?”

Marc was holding a tin box in his hands.
“This was wedged partway under the floorboards behind the stove.
And it’s locked.”

“Ya want it open?” Cobb said. Marc nodded,
and Cobb gave the flimsy container a calculated rap against the
edge of the stove. It flew apart at the seams. But it was what flew
out that caught their attention.

“Dollar bills!” Cobb said, and one by one he
picked them off the floor and brought them up into the arc of light
from Marc’s lantern.

“U.S. paper money,” Marc said. He let Cobb
hold both lanterns while he examined the bills. “Five of them.
Ten-dollar denomination. Not part of the same batch, and
well-thumbed.”

“Now where in the world would a geezer like
Epp come up with this kinda cash?” Cobb said, not sure he wanted to
hear Marc’s reply.

“I don’t know,” Marc said, to Cobb’s evident
relief. “I could speculate, but I think I’ve done enough of that
for one day. Let’s take this back to the Chief and wait for the
magistrate to return from Port Hope. Only Reuben Epp can provide us
with the answers we need.”

“Let’s do that, major. All this
speck-u-latin’s
got me as muddled as a eunuch in a
hooer-house.”

***

Robert Baldwin found the manager of The American
Hotel in his office and most happy to be of service to a member of
one of Toronto’s first families, even if he were a notorious
Reformer.

“You’re referring to Mr. Joseph Brenner and
Mr. Lawrence Tallman, I presume,” he replied to Robert’s opening
question.

“That’s right.” Robert committed the names to
memory.

“They arrived on Saturday evening, took
breakfast here yesterday morning, then were not seen again until
dinner was served at six. Kept very much to themselves. Unusual,
wouldn’t you say, for a pair of American gentlemen here on some
sort of business? Unless it was a secret affair?”

“I have been told that these gentlemen were
in town to assist the Law Society in their deliberations this
week.”

The manager’s jaw dropped. “Oh, but that
won’t be possible now.”

“Why? Have they left?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, they have. They signed out
of here about ten o’clock this morning. Without notice. Headed for
the ten-thirty steamer to Burlington – so the cabbie told me when
he got back.”

Robert was taken aback by this news, but
managed to say, “Had word about Mr. Dougherty’s death reached here
before that?”

“Of course. It was all over the hotel by
nine-thirty or so. They say Nestor peck saw the whole thing: eye
plucked out, ‘sodomite’ written in blood on the fellow’s back – all
the grisly details.”

Now what did all
this
mean? Robert
thought. It looked now as if the New Yorkers were guilty of
some
thing. But what? He was glad he was an attorney and not
an investigator.

TEN

After delivering the U.S. banknotes to Sturges at the
Court House, Marc returned home, emotionally exhausted. He had had
to force his mind to work while grief and anger contended within
him. Everything now hinged upon the interrogation of the accused.
If the tentacles of this crime and its commission reached into the
politicized salons of the gentry or up into the cloistered chambers
of the Anglican Church, so be it. The full extent of those involved
in the unspeakable slaughter of a flawed but brilliant man must be
ruthlessly exposed. The Archdeacon’s prompt – if that is what it
turned out to be – must not be downplayed or explained away. Epp
had most assuredly been the would-be bishop’s pawn: the poisoned
atmosphere of St. James had, one way or another, contributed to
Dick’s death.

Marc wanted to pour all these thoughts and
feelings upon Beth, but he found himself unexpectedly in a parlour
full of females at Briar Cottage. Surrounding and comforting Celia
Langford were Beth, Dora Cobb, Jasper’s mother from next door, and
Charlene. Brodie was out consulting the undertaker about the
funeral.

Some minutes later, alone with Beth in the
kitchen, Marc began to summarize the day’s events.

“You don’t haveta talk now,” Beth said,
interrupting him, but she could see he had to.

When he had finished his sad summary, she
said quietly, “You need to rest. There’s nothin’ you can do till
Thorpe gets back.”

Marc smiled his gratitude, then said, “How
are the youngsters holding up?”

“Dr. Withers come by an’ give Celia some
laudanum. She just woke up a little while ago. She’s feelin’
dreadful about her uncle, but she’s also feelin’ guilty – and, as I
know from experience, that’s not a healthy combination.”

“Guilty about what?”

“She confessed to me that she’s been in love
with a young man named Matthew Burchill fer the past month. She
kept it secret from Dick – ”

“Because the lad’s father despises him,” Marc
sighed.

“You saw that letter in the
Gazette
,
then? Well, it seems the young man kept the affair from
his
parent, too, so the lovers’ve been meetin’ in secret. An’ Celia now
feels she neglected her uncle and, in a way, betrayed his
trust.”

Marc nodded. “She’s a bright and strong young
woman. She survived the uprooting from New York and over a year in
the solitary confinement of Dick’s cottage. We’ll help her through
this.”

“Dora, as usual, has been wonderful.”

“I wonder, now, if Bartholomew Burchill could
have discovered his son’s relationship with Celia?”

“You don’t think he had anythin’ to do with
the murder, do you?”

“I honestly don’t know what to think,
love.”

“Why don’t you have a nap, then, before you
go back to the Court House. I’ll shoo some of the ladies outta the
parlour.”

“Best offer I’ve had all afternoon.” Marc
turned in the doorway. “How are those leg-cramps of yours?”

“Dora took care of them, too.”

***

Reuben Epp was to be interrogated in Magistrate
Thorpe’s chamber. Thorpe had ordered the jailer, Calvin Strangway,
to have the accused sober, cleaned up, and hand-delivered there at
six o’clock. Epp’s bloody shirt was to be removed and kept as
evidence. If requested, Sturges, Cobb and Marc were to assist him
in the straightforward business of extracting a confession from the
wretched creature. Thorpe reluctantly agreed to let Robert Baldwin
sit in, as long as he was content to observe. When all were
assembled some minutes before six, Gussie French was dispatched to
inform Strangway that the magistrate was ready to proceed
immediately.

While they were waiting, Robert mentioned the
odd and unexplained departure of Tallman and Brenner.

“Good riddance, I say,” was Thorpe’s
response. “I don’t see how they could have helped us with our
inquiries – except to blacken Dougherty’s name even more.”

Cobb cleared his throat. “Well, sir, we did
find American banknotes out at Epp’s shack, remember, an’ that
fancy paper was from – ”

“I’ve
read
your report, Cobb. But all
of that nonsense will be explained by Epp when we get him in here.
There’s nothing like a heartfelt confession to smooth the way in
court and ensure a proper hanging.”