Death in the Age of Steam

by Mel Bradshaw

“Please let me go,” she asked meekly. “Forget me. I am not the woman you married.”

  These simple words seemed to appal Crane. His eyes flickered uncertainly. He stepped towards her, and his voice, almost theatrical before, dropped to a hoarse whisper.

  “Hush! Don’t ever say that.”

  “Stay back,” Theresa cried. “Oh, why need I say anything at all? Just call me inconstant and let me go, and I swear I’ll never do anything to harm you.”

  “You’ve already hurt me a great deal,” Crane pronounced with a show of sorrow, and at his former volume. He turned away from her and stood mournfully contemplating the empty mantel shelf. “You left our conjugal home eight weeks ago without a word of warning,” he went on. “Can you tell me why?”

  Theresa judged it safer not to answer.

  “When I came all this way to Montreal, you would not see me.” Henry shot her a glance. “Why is that?”

  Theresa said nothing.

  “You have set your friend Isaac Harris snooping into my affairs.” Henry gestured towards her in some agitation while he played this trump, although his voice continued clear and even. “What reason can you give me?”

  So he knew. A foolish venture from the start. Not that she was about to utter a word in blame or praise of Isaac before this creature.

  “Your refusal to answer,” Crane observed, “does your understanding little credit.”

  Her resolve wavered. Maybe she should speak, she thought. Dumbness betokens illness. Theresa felt like a mouse lying with one paw held in a trap while the cat with all deliberation unsheathes its claws above her.

  “Why can you not bear me, Theresa?” His voice pushed at the walls of the room. Once again he stepped forward. “Why do you cringe at my approach? Have I ever so much as raised a hand against you?”

  The genteel parlour was shrinking as evening closed in, Henry’s provokingly smooth pink face growing larger and larger. No ravages of conscience there. His thin lips gleamed waxily, as if smeared with some anti-chapping salve.

  “Have I?”

  Theresa jumped at the emphatic repetition. Fear jolted her into speech.

  “Against me, never.”

  “Against whom then? Speak up.” Crane stepped closer.

  “You killed my father in his bed,” Theresa spoke up and said. “You killed his housekeeper Sibyl Martin.” The cut in Theresa’s finger had closed. To open a fresh and more alarming wound, she dragged her right hand roughly across the edge of the hole in the window and thrust her lacerated palm into Crane’s looming face.

  He recoiled at her touch as if stung by acid.

  “Why do you flinch, Henry? My family’s blood is already on you, and you’ll never get it off!”

  Crane all but tripped over his boots, then over the chair he had placed, as he backed quickly away. His eyes never left Theresa’s. His chin and nose bore red smudges. His hand went up as if to remove them, but could not be brought to touch them. Theresa pursued him to the door, which he flung open to reveal a stout, bearded gentleman with a medical bag.

  “Examine her, dress her wounds,” Crane commanded as he pushed past into the upstairs hall.

  “The man you killed was no such coward,” Theresa flung after him. She was a hair’s breadth from tears.

  The unsqueamish doctor took her right arm in both his thick hands, elevating her hand to slow the bleeding, and conducted her back into the room into the chair. Behind them the door closed again. Theresa turned at the sound and saw that Henry was not inside. They would bully her one at a time, she perceived. Choking sobs shook her.

  “Be still, Mrs. Crane,” said her new gaoler, “quite still. I am here to see that you are treated as your condition warrants, so if you’ll comport yourself like a rational woman . . .”

  For some time, she heard no more. She was now beside herself with grief and fear and rage. The checks imposed on her by one muscular man after another made her too frantic to marshal her thoughts. The accusations she had flung at Henry had stimulated in her the most corrosive memories and passions. It was too much. It had gone on too long. She knew she was not mad, but awareness of her husband’s villainy, George MacFarlane’s part in her family’s woe, her own galling remorse as regards Sibyl, Paul Taggart’s protracted death, the ague, the isolation and the strain of endless waiting had so torn at her nervous organization that she could not now collect herself for this inquiry into her sanity.

  That’s why the doctor was here. Plainly, he had been listening at the door. Above it, she saw, the transom window was tilted open, so he must have heard nearly every word that passed between Crane and herself. Between the baron of steam and his lunatic wife. Even if the diagnosis had not been bought in advance, what other inference could be drawn? Ghastly moans issued from her throat.

  Finally, she understood the doctor to say, “Mrs. Crane, how did you come by these wounds?”

  The doctor had a kind Irish voice, she noticed as her hand was being turned and held to the light, the fingers gently straightened. She winced. She could feel the self-inflicted cuts but not explain them. A danger to herself. Even if she forced her tongue to utter human sounds, what could she say? That self-mutilation was her only defence against a public benefactor?

  The doctor had finished looking at her hand and was wrapping it in a clean linen bandage. Although he did well, she supposed, it tormented her to be so utterly in his power, scared her that he did with her what he would.

  “I must warn you,” he said in his considerate, methodical way, “that obstinate silence creates an unfavourable impression of your state of mind, most unfavourable. Not too tight, is it? Now, the examination I am to perform requires me to ask you certain questions. Try to answer, do.”

  Theresa stared at him helplessly.

  “For a start,” said the doctor, “what are your feelings towards your husband?”

  Bored and ill at ease in Montreal, Jasper Small one fine Tuesday night took a woman to his room. His quixotic friend Isaac Harris had been gone ten days exactly. Duty and inclination alike made Small Theresa’s interim protector, and he was keeping an eye out for her decidedly dangerous husband. That task, however, left many hours unoccupied.

  With no attempt at secrecy, Henry Crane had arrived from Canada West by the 8 p.m. steamer on Saturday, 30th August. This was the earliest he could have been expected following the conclusion of the Scarboro bones inquest. The jury there, Small read, had pronounced the bones those of Sibyl Martin, but had been unable to say at whose hands she had died or why her arm had been disguised as that of Theresa Crane.

  On his arrival in Montreal, Henry had taken a suite of rooms on Foundling Street for the space of a fortnight. Possibly he had arrived under the impression that Theresa was still with the Grey Nuns. In the three days since, he had written to but not seen her, nor yet—to the best of Small’s knowledge—called upon either church or state to restore her to him. Was he indifferent or simply playing a close game? He most definitely did have other business in town. The Herald had reported, and Small independently confirmed, that Henry Crane was spending much of his time with officials of Hugh Allan’s Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, to whom he was representing the advantages of steel-hulled vessels for carrying the mails between Canada and Britain.

  All very innocent, Small mused as he tied and retied his neckcloth. Good. Small wasn’t burning to do battle with his partner’s murderer, who had too much law on his side. Better to wait and see what Isaac turned up—and if it was nothing, as Small was realist enough to expect, then to pack Theresa off to foreign parts and trust William Sheridan’s patriotic ghost to understand. Small could wait. He thought of himself as a patient man.

  His face in the mirror looked anything but. A grimace of irritation compressed his lips and creased his forehead. Having dallied over bathing and dressing as long as possible, he was wondering how to get through the rest of the evening. So long as Theresa was not threatened, there was little for the lawyer to do but think about the quantity o
f hard work and soft flesh awaiting him in Toronto.

  Perhaps he would try a local sporting house, un bordel estcanadien. Why not? He left his room and started downstairs.

  In truth, Esther’s smooth contours represented but a fraction of her appeal. The smooth immodesty of her caresses and endearments expressed an imperviousness to feminine convention Small found as sublime as a sunset or a storm at sea. Precepts, slights and warnings had not tamed her. The cant phrase “fallen woman” simply did not do justice to the courtesan’s strength.

  The mauve-gowned imp who moments later approached Small in Rasco’s lobby—before he could get out the door—necessarily partook of that strength, for if she had borne herself in the slovenly, defeated manner of a common streetwalker, the hotel porters would promptly have put her out. There was vigour certainly in her small, square jaw, and her startling golden eyes impressed him with their predatory gleam. She said she had heard of Mr. Small’s courtroom skills. She had a matter of business to discuss, if they might go somewhere quite private. She called herself Nan Hogan.

  Small didn’t unreservedly believe a word she said, but she piqued his curiosity as nothing lately had, and he doubted that she could do him any serious harm. She might do him good, one way or another.

  He could comfortably have taken on extra work, but it was in the end he who employed Nan. As soon as they were alone, she threw herself in his arms. Small enjoyed the novel feel of a woman who was all bone and sinew, with no need of stays, the novel taste of tobacco on female lips. She tried first to exchange her favours for information regarding how Sibyl Martin had died. Small regretfully declined. By midnight Nan, wearing nothing but Small’s white shirt and black morning coat, lay sprawled across his bed having her vulva licked and nuzzled to her audible satisfaction, and it had been agreed that for a further consideration she was to infiltrate Crane’s Montreal establishment and report back on his doings.

  “You had better put on an apron to attract his notice,” Small advised as she arrayed herself in her own violet finery. “Crane is keen on women in service.”

  “I’ll be an active and useful boy,” she retorted, cracking her knuckles. “Whether through his landlady or through his secretary, I’ll wheedle my way into a position. Depend upon it.”

  “As you wish, Master Hogan, but might I have my pocketbook back with the rest of my clothes? Much obliged.” Small counted the bills inside and, finding all present, tucked one into her bodice. “Here’s something on account.”

  In subsequent days, Small refrained from setting great store by a bargain concluded under such circumstances. He naturally did not mention it to Theresa. For more than a week, he saw nothing more of Nan.

  Then on Thursday, 11th September, as he was sipping his dessert wine in Rasco’s emptying dining room, a waiter intimated that a lad calling himself N.H. was waiting for Mr. Small at the desk with a supposedly urgent message. Small found Nan trousered, covered in dust, and fidgeting impatiently with an inkpot. To the desk clerk’s relief, Small sent the monkey to the stables.

  “Engaged him to exercise a horse,” Small explained with an amused shake of the head, “and he presents himself in the middle of the night. Suppose I had better see him all the same.”

  The clerk commented sympathetically on the fecklessness of youth and lapsed into bored silence. Once satisfied that he was of no greater interest to anyone else in sight, Small ambled off, his show of indifference facilitated by the cushion of Sauternes on which he continued to float.

  In truth, he expected no emergency. To see Nan again made his wine-thinned blood sparkle with remembered delight. To see her for the first time in boyish disguise—her hair bundled up under a worn and dented shako, the nape of her neck bare—spiced memory with novelty and made delight fresh. Might Nan’s excitement not reciprocally derive from seeing him? Small liked the way she rushed towards him as soon as he entered the stable yard.

  “She’s in Crane’s hands,” Nan began in a quick, husky whisper. “He means to have her seen by a medico and locked up as a madwoman.”

  “Locked up where?” Small said coolly, but floating no longer. “When?”

  “Grey Nuns, the lunatics’ wing. A living tomb, from what I hear. Now she’s in a flash boarding house across the street, but she goes to the other after dark.” The words leaped from her narrow mouth. Her breathing was accelerated, her yellow eyes unusually round and steady.

  “It’s dark now.” Small tilted his watch face towards the gas lamp in the deserted stable yard. “Five to eight. Has she gone already?”

  “Not likely. They were cooking her supper ten minutes ago when I left.”

  Nan was credible enough so far, thought Small, and so agitated that she must have had a hand in the capture. When she lied, it would be to minimize her rôle. Small would want to believe her.

  “How did you get away?” he said.

  “My job was done, wasn’t it?” An edge came into Nan’s voice. “I was set to watch the priest’s house.”

  “And kidnap Mrs. Crane from there?” Small couldn’t imagine that Henry Crane, a killer careful of appearances, would have ordered an action this reckless.

  “From the lane behind, and not for my own pleasure either.”

  “You might have told me beforehand. No—never mind.” Small knew she would say something about being watched every minute, and he didn’t want to lose time hearing it. Having a problem to solve made him calmly practical, but he was distressed too that a woman he had enjoyed should have helped deliver Theresa to Crane, albeit for the purpose of bringing himself to the captive’s aid. None of this should have happened.

  “What was Mrs. Crane doing in the lane?” he asked.

  “She didn’t confide,” Nan retorted. “Guess she wearied of being shut up, which is what she’ll be now, poor wretch. I had never set eyes on the lady, and when I did, the last thing I wanted was to lay an ungentle hand upon her.”

  “Was she injured in the abduction?” Small’s voice became stern enough to suggest that all future friendliness between them depended on the answer to this question.

  “No more than winded, and for certain not by me.” Nan laid her boyish, grimy right hand against the left side of her flattened chest. “Rough-and-tumble has never been my game, I swear, and kidnap never would have been either except so that I could tell you where they took her.”

  She sounded as if she truly wanted Small to think well of her—think of her, that is, as a peaceable whore and cutpurse.

  “Were you followed here?” he asked.

  “Me? Never!” This slur on her elusive stealth offended Nan worst of all. “You waste precious minutes doubting me,” she chided. “The question is what will you do?”

  “Aha. Her husband sent you to ask me that.”

  “Sweet Jasper, no! You know why his missus left him, and I don’t, but I’m sure she had her reason. The man is all for show. Henry Crane is never as pure as he pretends, with his scented soap and his ‘can’t smoke here.’ I wouldn’t spy for him for love or money.”

  Small thought he believed her. “You’re working for the police then.”

  “I was curious is all.”

  Small didn’t believe that. “The first thing you ever asked me, remember, was about a serving woman’s death—no affair of mine, but one that greatly interests a certain Inspector John Vandervoort.”

  “I admit nothing.” Nan dropped her eyes and kicked a pebble against the wooden gate into St. Claude Street. “Still, as to police, I know a good Montreal constable if you need one.”

  The clock on the Bonsecours Market was striking eight. Theresa’s supper might now be ready. If, as seemed likely, she were too upset to eat, she would perhaps be delivered to the convent immediately. Small continued to deliberate.

  “Tell me, Nan. Were there two doctors to examine Mrs. Crane or just the one?”

  “One is all was mentioned. What does she know that her husband has to muzzle her?”

  “Let’s find your constable
,” said Small, stepping towards the gate.

  “I’ll have my money first.”

  “You’ll have it soon,” he promised. “Come on.”

  A single medical certificate, he was thinking, plus a close relative’s statement would suffice in an emergency to get a patient confined—but if either document proved defective, Crane would have no backstop and Theresa would go free. Under those circumstances, the presence of a uniformed official would deter any extra-legal interference with her.

  “Come on yourself,” said Nan, tugging at his sleeve to quicken his gait. “If they get her walled up in the nuns’ asylum, she won’t walk out again so easy. Mr. Isaac Harris will have your hide for it, he’s that wild about the lady, and all my pains in coming here will go for nothing!”

  This unexpected mention of Harris stopped Small in his tracks with a new idea. Isaac was due back any day, any evening.

  “Get your policeman to the Grey Nuns’ front gate right away,” the lawyer instructed. “I’ll meet him there.”

  Before the doctor had finished examining Theresa, she was able to repeat her accusations against Henry but not marshal in any cogent or coherent form the particulars that would give them plausibility. If only she still had her letter to Isaac. It was all set down there. She tried to think, but was distracted by the fact of her captivity, by her need to speak convincingly, and by her simultaneous conviction that speech was feather-weak to derail her settled fate. Should she even be fighting a finding of lunacy? It might be the sole condition under which Henry would let her live.

  As she once more lost the thread of her narrative and fell silent, the doctor leaned forward, tenderly stroking his coal-black beard.

  “Would you like to be revenged on your husband?” he asked in tones no less tender. It sounded like an invitation.

  “All I’ve ever wanted is to be free of him,” said Theresa, confident for once she was making the point she intended. “Let his Maker be his judge.”

  The doctor took Theresa to a room where a supper table was laid and left her there. The only cutlery was a spoon. She ate in the same utilitarian spirit as she had lunched that last Sunday at Queen Street East. Each laborious mouthful fortified her against an uncertain future. She tasted only to satisfy herself she was not being drugged or poisoned.