The Bishop's Pawn (20 page)

“Did your uncle defy Tammany Hall?”

“He stayed clear of politics as far as he
could. He revered the law. And after we came to Toronto, he did,
despite his near-withdrawal from the society of his fellow man,
keep up with the affairs of the city that expelled him.”

“But how?”

“He had the newspapers from Buffalo and
Syracuse mailed to him every week. When I saw him reading them and
grumbling away, I took the opportunity to engage him in a
conversation which I felt was long overdue. He would not tell me
much, mind you – he just seemed too tired sometimes to move his
lips, though that brain of his never rested. But I do know that he
was appalled at the way Tammany members rigged elections,
bamboozled citizens with their high-flown, jingoistic rhetoric,
wrapped themselves in Jefferson’s cloak and, worst of all, abused
and corrupted the very laws they proclaimed sacred.”

“So, as far as you know, he managed to walk
through that minefield?”

“I think he did, mainly by taking on capital
cases like murder or attempted murder or armed robbery – and so on.
He avoided civil cases, in part I’m sure because he thought the
juries would be suborned by the influence of Tammany or their
political opponents.”

“But?”

“But when President Andrew Jackson, towards
the end of his second term, finally destroyed the United States
Bank at the behest of groups like Tammany and Loco-Foco,
states-first Democrats, the result was a run on all banks, the
collapse of paper money, and an instant economic depression.”

“I saw some of the consequences of that in
Detroit last January.”

“Ten thousand workers in New York City lost
their jobs. The Common Council turned down a request for rent
relief because the rents for city-owned tenements, which were
already thirty-five percent higher than in Brooklyn across the
river, helped line the pockets of those in office.”

“How did your uncle get involved?”

“A group of once-prosperous tradesmen came to
him with a tale of having been bilked out of their meagre savings
by the New York and Albany Fire Insurance Company. When the ‘great
fire’ of the previous year threatened to ruin the company, its
directors declared bankruptcy, pillaged its assets, and went to
Tammany Hall for protection. One of them, Silas Biddle, fled to
France, but the president, Paxen Wetmore, stayed put. As a former
sachem in Tammany – they use Indian names for all their offices and
parade up and down Broadway in Indian costumes – he felt himself
immune from prosecution.”

“And Dick took on the case?”

“He did. He knew the jury would be picked
from Tammany ward-heelers, but his clients had provided him with
incontrovertible evidence. That, in combination with his eloquence
and vigorous cross-examination of Wetmore, resulted in a hung
jury.”

“So Wetmore got off?”

“Yes. Even if convicted, he never would have
paid restitution. Uncle told me, as we chatted together in our
cottage last fall, that Tammany’s control of the city council and
the state legislature permitted it to pass laws that inevitably
absolved malefactors – after the fact. At worst, Wetmore would have
been allowed to flee the country.”

“So Dick did not really hurt Tammany?”

“Oh, but he did. He told me that his
cross-examination of Wetmore had been harrowing and effective.
Wetmore’s reputation was in tatters. He would stay out of jail, but
that was about all. You see, he was ambitious to run for state
senator as a Democrat.”

“And your uncle felt that Tammany might not
forgive a lawyer who had taken one of their sachems down?”

Brodie stared out at the brilliant blue
waters of Lake Oneida. “They never forgive – or forget.”

Could such a desire for revenge have extended
as far as an assassination in Toronto? It now seemed possible.

Marc felt he had to press on: “Do you think
that Tammany Hall was responsible for your having to leave New
York?”

“Yes, I do. But you have to believe me when I
tell you that Uncle refused to explain the nature of his so-called
‘disgrace’ or whether the decision to leave was voluntary or
coerced – then or at any time thereafter.”

“It’s clear that he never intended to tell
anyone,” Marc said sympathetically. “But your leaving
was
abrupt, was it not?”

“Yes. Celia and I were home on holiday when
Uncle arrived one afternoon and announced that we had to go. He
said a friend would see to the disposal of our property, but that
we ourselves had to leave before sunset. We were stunned. But we
trusted Uncle, and could not conceive of living without him. We
packed our bags. The only explanation he gave us was that what he
had decided was for our own good – to protect us.”

“And I’m sure it was,” Marc replied. But
protection from what? Was it merely the heinous nature of Dick’s
“transgression” that might compromise his wards and their future,
or was it the possibility that any attempt on his part to defend
his reputation might prompt Tammany Hall to put their very lives in
jeopardy?

“But I do need to know what he did,” Brodie
said, looking directly at Marc. “Whatever it turns out to be.”

It was the next day, when they were back on
the canal proper, that Marc said to Brodie, “You are aware, aren’t
you, of the nature of the charges levelled against your uncle by
the rumour-mongers and bigots of Toronto?”

Brodie nodded, but said nothing.

“Is it conceivable that the fact that your
father and uncle lived so closely together in that house for so
many years, and accompanied you and Celia on outings and holidays –
could that behaviour have given rise to rumours and false
accusations, which your uncle’s enemies were able to exploit to
bring him down?”

At first Brodie did not answer. Finally he
said, “All I know for sure is that Celia and I had two fathers.
Both of them adored us. In all the years I lived with them, I never
saw anything I shouldn’t have.” Then he added, “Love can’t be
counted a sin, can it?”

“If it is,” Marc said, “we’re all lost.”

SIXTEEN

“Now that I’ve told you
my
life story,” Brodie
said once they were safely aboard the
Constitution
at
Albany, “it’s time for a little reciprocity.”

So Marc told him a few details of his own
unusual upbringing on Jabez Edwards’ estate in Kent, his abortive
fling with the law at the Inns of Court in London, his subsequent
stint at the Royal Military School in Sandhurst, and some of his
exploits since his arrival in Toronto in May of 1835. Brodie
naturally seized upon Marc’s involvement in putting down the
rebellion in Quebec, though the strange account of how Marc
accidentally found his real mother in Toronto was equally
compelling.

“She now lives in New York,” Marc said. “I’m
hoping we’ll have time to pay her a visit.”

“So you do have a contact in the city?”

“More than one,” Marc smiled. “A young woman
whose hand I once thought to ask in marriage is also there: Eliza
Dewart-Smythe.”

“Ah, I see. And will I get to meet her,
too?”

“Not likely. She and her uncle operate a
wine-importing business. Eliza and Uncle Sebastian moved to New
York two years ago to set up an American branch of the family
enterprise. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“So what is the plan, Marc? Do we seek out
some of the families I know of through my days at prep school, or
do we go directly for the jugular?”

“First thing tomorrow morning, we show up on
the doorstep of Brenner and Tallman.”

“I suspect they’ll be in for quite a
surprise.”

“That’s my hope,” Marc smiled.

***

There was still a quarter-hour of sunlight left when
Marc and Brodie found themselves in a taxicab rumbling up Catherine
Street from the wharf where the
Constitution
had docked.
Brodie had given the driver, a surly fellow with a strange accent,
explicit instructions regarding their route. When Catherine Street
ended at the Bowery, they wheeled east onto Chatham and then Park
Row, which took them past the magnificent City Hall and its
spacious grounds. Reaching Broadway, they swung north, passed City
Hall again, and then trotted down what had to be one of the great
thoroughfares in the world. Churches with soaring steeples and
Gothic pretensions, four-storied public buildings, colonnaded and
balconied hotels, majestic theatres, and innumerable shops with
glass windows thick with the baubles and bric-à-brac prized by the
prosperous. They crossed another broad avenue, Canal Street, and
two blocks later turned east again.

“That’s where we used to live,” Brodie cried.
“That gabled place – on the corner of Broome and Mercer.”

Marc sat back and let Brodie have the next
few minutes to himself. He realized what kind of mixed and
conflictive feelings that this intelligent young man must be
experiencing at his return to the place that would always – to some
degree – be home. He sincerely hoped that whatever indiscretion
Dick had been guilty of, it was one that Brodie could bear to face.
At the same time, Marc was pretty sure that it was connected to
Dick’s death. Unmasking those who had used Reuben Epp as their pawn
was certain to expose an aspect of Dougherty that no-one who
admired him was eager to see.

The carriage continued on down Broome Street
to Hudson Street, where they took several more abrupt turns.

“This is the Greenwich area,” Brodie
said.

What they saw on either side of them was made
even more disturbing by the ghostly, gray haze of the dying day.
Here before them, in the charred remains of tenements and workers’
homes, were the visible effects of the “great fire.” On a Sunday
evening, with church bells tolling in the air all around them,
these streets seemed to be possessed by the wandering and the lost.
Men and women draped in rags drifted along the broken walkways,
while others poked at nearby mounds of rubble for anything they
could sell or pawn. Filthy children, bone-thin and hobbled by
rickets, romped about them with the random glee of children
everywhere – oblivious for a few fleeting moments of their hunger
or those horrors that might lie ahead. A block farther up, the
tenements unscarred by fire looked as forlorn and uninhabitable as
they did in central London.

“Has it always been like this?” Marc
said.

“Not really. This was a boomtown once.
Workers flocked here to help build ships or man the factories or
construct the houses required to meet the needs of three hundred
thousand people.”

“So the bank panic and the subsequent fire
have done this?”

“Yes. But the Council did their share as
well. They had refused to build a safe water supply or keep the
streets properly paved, and the fire brigades they enlisted were
busy undercutting their rivals. So, when the fire struck, the
inferno it unleashed had to be fought with buckets.”

“But the wealth that must have been generated
– ”

“Siphoned off by Tammany, and when they got
kicked out, by the Whigs.”

“Will the city be revived?”

Brodie smiled. “Oh, yes. America is an idea
that cannot be stopped – by others or by its own folly.”

The cab pulled up in front of a small,
discreet hotel, The Houston.

“We’re here,” Brodie said.

***

Brenner and Tallman, Attorneys-at-Law
, was
located on Mulberry Street, not far from the infamous Five Points
district. Here the three-storey brick edifices of Broadway and its
cross-streets gave way to single-storey frame-and-brick buildings
set haphazardly along the poorly-paved and narrow street. Most were
shops and businesses – not all of them of a legitimate or savoury
character. Saloons, liquor outlets, and pawnbrokers were wedged in
amongst greengrocers, dubious eateries, and ramshackle cottages
where gaudily draped “ladies” rocked listlessly after a busy
night’s trade. At Cross Street, Marc was nearly bowled over by an
absconding pig and the urchins pursuing it. The roadway and
boardwalks were teeming with ordinary, bustling, hustling New
Yorkers. Hawkers, barrow-men, carters, early-morning shoppers,
liberated children, spooked horses, loose chickens – the din of
their cries shook the foul, urban air and proclaimed to any
doubting stranger:
we are here and here we are!

“This is an odd place to hang out a lawyer’s
shingle,” Marc said as they stepped onto the wooden stoop before
Brenner and Tallman.

“Close to your clientele,” Brodie said,
tugging the bell-pull.

They were immediately shown into the inner
chamber by a stout secretary with an eye for a paying customer.
Both lawyers, sharing a single office with twin desks facing each
other, rose as one to greet them. They were smiling.

“I am Joseph Brenner,” said the taller,
clean-shaven fellow, “and this is my partner, Lawrence Tallman. How
may we be of service?”

“Good morning,” Marc said. “I am Marcus
Edwards and this is – ”

“Little Brodie Langford,” Tallman said,
turning his pleasant, open, moustachioed face to his partner in
surprise.

“My word, so it is,” Brenner said, beaming.
“We haven’t laid eyes on you, young man, since you went off to that
dreadful prep school.”

Brodie hesitated, scrutinizing the lawyers.
Then he put out his hand. “I am he, sirs. But I’m afraid – ”

“Oh, you have no reason to remember us,”
Brenner said. “We mostly saw you and Celia running about in the
yard outside. But your dad and uncle weren’t shy when it came to
boasting about you.” Suddenly the smile on his face faded.

“Please, excuse us,” Tallman said, motioning
for the visitors to sit down. “We were so happy to see you that we
forgot . . .” He stared at the blotting instrument on his desk.

“Larry is trying to say how sorry we were to
hear about what happened to Dick,” Brenner said. “We were in
Toronto when it happened.”