Desperate Acts

by Don Gutteridge

  Sir Peregrine leaned forward, and his troupe readied themselves for any directive aimed their way. But he surprised them by saying, more to Lady Mad at his side than to the others, “I believe we have solved the matter of who to cast as Bottom.”

  Lady Mad’s startlement spoke for them all. “Whatever do you mean, Perry?” she said. Then she followed his gaze, swallowed hard, and looked back at her husband in disbelief.

  “Well, just look at him. That red nose would illuminate a pantry. And that exquisitely ugly face! He’s a natural Bardolph or Dogberry. And what a belly! It looks as if he’s wrapped a bolster ‘round his middle. All we’d have to do is pad out the buttocks – pardon my French, ladies.”

  By now everyone realized who the object of his attention was, and as one they craned around to stare at Cobb, who was bent over sipping his tea – unaware of their interest, and astonishment.

  Lady Mad, who was no doubt picturing herself doing a love duet with the eccentrically shaped policeman, said, when she had located her voice, “But you don’t even know if he can read, and I’m sure he can’t act.”

  “And he’s – he’s a common fellow,” Clemmy Crenshaw bleated, nicely forgetting her own humble origins. “I thought our play was meant for proper ladies and gentlemen.”

  Murmurs of assent moved up and down the table.

  “Ah, but I know a great deal more about Horatio Cobb than any of you might imagine,” smirked the presiding baronet. “You see, my niece Lizzie here attends Miss Tyson’s Academy, which, incredibly, Constable Cobb’s daughter Delia also attends. Lizzie, being an overly kind girl, has befriended Miss Cobb, who, sad to say, does a fair amount of boasting about her family and their meagre triumphs.”

  Lizzie blushed on cue and nodded her head in support of her uncle’s claims.

  “Mr. Cobb not only resembles one of the Bard’s mechanics, he was raised by a father who worshipped the Great Man and encouraged his two sons to do the same – going so far as to name them after Shakespearean characters. Delia and her brother recite and perform at home, I’m told, and their papa has been known to join them. And if this fellow can read and memorize, I can teach him to act!”

  Lady Mad, who was vaguely aware of these facts but had failed to associate them with the Bardolphian figure munching through his third tart in her dining-room, said with an ambiguous smile, “Well, then, Perry, go ahead and ask him. Perhaps we’ll find out if there’s anything really worthwhile under that handsome uniform.”

  Sir Peregrine stood up and motioned for Cobb to come back into the theatre.

  ***

  Clementine Crenshaw was sitting in her nightdress on the extreme edge of her canopied bed. “I seen you gawkin’ at Lady Madeleine, don’t think I didn’t,” she said to her husband, who was near the door and looking as if he were about to bolt. “You went an’ spoilt a perfectly wonderful evenin’.”

  Cyrus sighed, and came over to sit beside her. He was fully dressed except for his loosened tie and an absence of boots. She turned her back on him, but he reached up anyway and laid a hand on her slumped shoulder.

  “Everybody was starin’ at the lady, sweet. She wished to be stared at, and it would have been impolite not to have done so.”

  Clemmy choked back a sob. “But she was so beautiful an’ she made me – ”

  “Now don’t go gettin’ yourself all worked up. You know what happens to your nerves.”

  “It ain’t my nerves that’s hurt!” she snapped. All the heart had gone out of her ringlettes, which now drooped wherever they pleased. She had made a desultory attempt to remove her makeup, leaving her face streaked and blotched. Her large eyes were glazed with tears – and something else.

  “If I’d’ve known this play was goin’ to upset you so – ”

  “I ain’t upset! I’m not! We belong with them people, I know we do. But when I seen Lady Madeleine bat her lashes at you, an’ you – ” She couldn’t finish: a full-blown sob had arrived, and overwhelmed.

  Cyrus put both arms around her. “Of course we belong, of course we do. We’ve worked hard to get where we are, my sweet. And we’ve always done it together. And we’ll keep on doin’ it together. That’s a promise.” These words were crooned into Clemmy’s ear like a mantra or healing prayer. He rocked her slowly, and felt her body begin to relax.

  “Yeah, we’ve worked hard, ain’t we?” she said in a voice low and slurred.

  “I’ll get you some more of your medicine now,” he said, releasing her cautiously. She sank back onto the nearest pillow. He tried not to look at her splotched face, the defeated tresses, and the sagging weight of her flesh beneath the nightdress. At her vanity, he found the stoppered bottle he was seeking and opened it. It was half empty. It had been full, he was sure, before they had left for Oakwood Manor.

  “Bring it to me, luv, please,” she murmured, stretching out one hand with a supreme effort. When he reached her, she seized the bottle, held it up to her lips and drank its contents down.

  “I’ll leave you now,” he said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead.

  “Yes, yes,” she breathed, and lay back upon the bed. “We worked damn hard, didn’t we? Nobody thought we’d make it, but we did, didn’t we?” Her words began to run into one another and she was no longer sure she was speaking them aloud. “My daddy was a bootlegger, but we showed ‘em, didn’t we, luv? And after that awful thing your papa did down there in the war, who would’ve guessed – ”

  But Cyrus Crenshaw, self-made man, had already left the room and closed the door behind him.

  TEN

  After leaving Oakwood Manor, Cobb walked straight down to Briar Cottage. He had already arranged for Gussie French to come into the office early in the morning to prepare his account of the witness-statements for the magistrate, but he wanted Marc to go over them first, not with a view to altering them but rather to afford Brodie’s lawyer the opportunity to develop some kind of useful argument when they all met at the Court House at ten o’clock. Marc was waiting for him, Beth and Maggie having gone to bed. Charlene was next door, sitting with Etta Hogg, who was running a high fever and required constant watching. The cottage was eerily quiet.

  “If your demeanour means anything,” Marc said, “the news is not good.”

  “I may’ve done the lad in,” Cobb sighed.

  ***

  As was his custom, Marc sat silently and listened to Cobb go over in minute detail his interviews with Tobias Budge, Sir Peregrine Shuttleworth, Andrew Dutton, Horace Fullarton and Cyrus Crenshaw. Later, after Cobb left, Marc would make copious notes on the case and, as soon as he could thereafter, run them past Beth for her comments and insights.

  “So you can see, major,” Cobb finished up, “them stories all seem to fit with the times Gillian Budge give me this mornin’ – if they’re all tellin’ the truth, which ain’t likely.”

  “One of them isn’t, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, we oughta remember that Fullarton’s already lied to you when he told you he didn’t see anythin’ in the alley through the coatroom window.”

  “True. But of all the club members he is closest to Brodie. I’m inclined to believe he thought it best for Brodie if he said nothing to me. After all, when I informed him of the arrest and impending charge, he did not know of Brodie’s own signed statement or that Brodie’s walking-stick was the murder weapon.”

  Cobb looked skeptical, but all he said was, “So you still figure it was one of them swells who done it?”

  “One of them, or Tobias Budge, has to be the killer. I don’t for a second believe somebody unknown to us just happened to wander into that alley and club Duggan to death.”

  “But I can’t find even a tiny disagreement in these statements. Can you?”

  “Not yet. But taken together, as you’ve summarized them, they do spell trouble for Brodie tomorrow morning.”

  Cobb sighed. “I was hopin’ I was wrong about that.”

  “The magistrate is sure to see things this w
ay,” Marc said, and Cobb settled back for a lawyerly summing up. “Dutton leaves about nine-forty or so and claims to have seen or heard nothing. Fullarton leaves about nine-forty-five and hears the first part of the altercation between Duggan and Brodie. Minutes later, Crenshaw says he saw a man leaning over an unconscious body. Budge, rummaging about the cellar, also observes some sort of struggle and then, some minutes later, sees a stick beating down on the prone victim. Shuttleworth leaves last, just in time to spot a youthful, slim figure hot-footing it up the alley.”

  “But none of ‘em will swear it was Brodie they saw,” Cobb suggested.

  “True. But Brodie’s own statement appears to confirm the sequence of events in these witness-accounts, except that Brodie conveniently omits reference to the clubbing that followed the punch.”

  “Jesus,” Cobb hissed. “It’s worse’n I thought. I wish I’d never gone up there. If only one of them’d seen Brodie throw his punch an’ skedaddle – ”

  “Perhaps one of them did, and isn’t saying, for obvious reasons. And you had no choice in the matter, did you?” Marc smiled. “You’ve become a first-class interrogator, and I’m proud of you.”

  “Fat lot of good it’s done,” Cobb said, trying not to be too pleased with the compliment.

  “You’ve done your job, Cobb, now it’s up to me to do mine.”

  “But you can’t go to Thorpe in the mornin’ an’ claim them Shake-spear-carriers all had good reason to want to kill a fella they didn’t know the name of till last night.”

  “True. Until we can prove they had a motive, like ruthless and continuing blackmail, I can’t even hint at such a possibility.”

  “But even with all the statements jibin’, you figure it has to be one of them?”

  “Certainly. Dutton could have heard the argument if he had decided to go back there, then hung about long enough to figure out who Duggan was, and made his move.”

  Cobb grinned. He too had thought of that.

  “Similarly, Fullarton admits he heard the exchange down there. If he deduced Duggan’s identity and role, all he had to do was step into the shadows and wait for his chance. Likewise, Crenshaw could have seen Brodie crouched over Duggan and, instead of leaving, he goes out to help. But Brodie has already started to run. It’s also possible, Cobb, that Duggan came to – for Crenshaw or any of the others – and stupidly assumed he’d been discovered by another one of his victims. A quick exchange of views, a threat perhaps, and a deadly response with a handy weapon. You see, even Shuttleworth could have come across Duggan in this manner.”

  Cobb was impressed. “What about Budge?”

  “Well, he was the only person who could have seen and heard everything. In his cellar, I’ll bet he could hear the club members exiting down the stairs right over his head. He’d know when the coast was clear. Moreover, as we surmised from Duggan’s list, Budge was likely a recent target and may have already guessed who his blackmailer was.”

  “An’ he had a handy exit to boot.”

  “But, as you say, I can’t propose these possibilities without a demonstrable motive. And if we were to be wrong, even about one of those men whose initials appear on Duggan’s list, the consequences of a false accusation would be cruel and unjust.”

  “But Budge’s got his own separate motive, ain’t he – besides the blackmail? Duggan insulted one of his barmaids.”

  “Right. And Budge may be all I’ve got to defend Brodie with in the morning.”

  At the door, Cobb said, “You wouldn’t believe what that barren-ette fella did.”

  “Lampooned your Roman nose?”

  “Tried to make an ass outta me.”

  Cobb told Marc about Sir Peregrine’s request that he join the acting troupe and read for the part of Bottom the weaver.

  Marc chuckled, despite his weariness. “And what did you tell him?”

  “Whadda you think?” Cobb grinned.

  ***

  It was a sober group who met in James Thorpe’s chamber at ten o’clock Friday morning. Cobb’s “notes” had been transferred to paper by Gussie French and delivered to the magistrate by nine. Thorpe and Alf McGonigle, a crown attorney involved in the current assizes, perused them carefully and, because the Attorney-General himself was in the building, had been able to confer with him just before ten. When they got back from his office, they found Sturges, Cobb, Marc and Brodie already seated – awaiting the verdict. Except for McGonigle, everyone in the room knew everyone else.

  With nothing more than a nod of greeting to those sitting opposite him, Thorpe began: “Alf and I have gone over these witness-statements recorded by Constable Cobb, and matched them scrupulously with Mr. Langford’s own sworn account of events in the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms. We have also conferred with the Attorney-General. And unless there is material evidence forthcoming that would contradict these testaments, the Crown will lay a charge of murder – cold-blooded, brutal murder – upon Broderick Langford.”

  Brodie flinched but made no other response. Marc had had fifteen minutes to prepare the lad for this eventuality.

  “We haven’t found anything further,” Sturges said.

  “But there is one other possibility in this case,” Marc said, and he was sure he saw relief in Thorpe’s face. McGonigle remained impassive.

  Marc then broached the plausible theory that Tobias Budge, known to have a temper and known to have had a public contretemps with Duggan, took advantage of a situation he was in a perfect position to observe and assess: by killing Duggan and letting Brodie take the blame.

  “But according to the constable’s report, Budge denies ever entering the alley,” Thorpe said reasonably.

  “That is true, sir,” Marc said. “All I’m suggesting is that such a possibility deserves further investigation and that, pending such an investigation, Mr. Langford should be released under habeas corpus. He can always be re-detained later.”

  “You’re suggesting that a mere dust-up in a pub, a near-daily occurrence in a place like The Sailor’s Arms, is a more powerful motive than attempted blackmail?” McGonigle said. “A motive freely admitted by Mr. Langford?”

  “Given Budge’s temperament and – ”

  “I’m sorry, Marc,” Thorpe said. “It’s not enough. I’m ruling that Mr. Langford be bound over for trial.”

  Into the silence that ensued, Marc said, “But the fall docket is full. Are you ruling that Brodie be kept incarcerated until the spring assizes?”

  Thorpe cleared his throat. “Not quite. I just learned upstairs that the defendant in a manslaughter trial slated for November the eighth has died of his injuries. We are willing to take the Langford case to court at that time.”

  “But that’s only two weeks away,” Marc said. “Hardly enough time for me to prepare a defense.”

  “It’s either then or the spring.”

  “With the prisoner released on bail-bond until that time?”

  “The Attorney-General has suggested a five-thousand-dollar bond – and confinement to Mr. Langford’s house and grounds.”

  Marc sighed, trying desperately to keep the poker face of a good barrister.

  “These are more than reasonable terms,” McGonigle pointed out. “What does the accused think?”

  Marc knew perfectly well what Brodie was thinking. Five months under virtual house-arrest would mean an irreparable interruption in his career at the Commercial Bank under Horace Fullarton. Moreover, Brodie would feel obligated to break off his relationship with Diana Ramsay, whatever she herself might feel. Finally, those five months would give the rumour-mill time to rework the scandals that had plagued Brodie’s guardian here and back in New York. The Langford name would be indelibly stained: he and Celia would have to pull up stakes yet again – assuming of course that he was, even then, acquitted. Over against all this was the possibility that with five months at their disposal they could conceivably track down Nestor and discover the real murderer. But Marc did not get to put this countervailing argument to hi
s client.

  “I’ll take my chances in November,” Brodie said to McGonigle, but he was looking at Marc.

  ***

  Outside, in the cool sunshine, Sturges and Cobb walked slowly away from the Court House.

  “You know what this means?” Sturges said.

  “Brodie’s screwed,” Cobb said.

  “It means that McGonigle feels he has all the evidence he needs to convict the lad.”

  “Thanks to me.”

  “An’ that means any more investigatin’ is out of the question.”

  “I figured as much. But at least Brodie can post bond an’ live at home – avoidin’ new-ammonia in that dungeon.”

  “I want you to start back on yer patrol first thing in the mornin’.”

  Cobb nodded. It looked as if Marc were on his own this time. The major would have to play lawyer and investigator – with two weeks to go before the trial was to begin. Well, Cobb thought, maybe he himself would get lucky on his night-patrol next week and bump into the burglars. He could use the ten-dollar reward. Meanwhile, he would keep after his snitches to sniff out the hiding-hole of Mr. Nestor Peck. It was the least he could do.

  ***

  “Why’d you tell the lord ‘no’, Dad?”

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Delia was more incredulous than her brother, but not by much.

  Cobb had mentioned to Dora in passing that he had been offered the role of Bottom by Sir Peregrine Shuttleworth, and had refused – tactfully, he claimed. That both his children were within earshot he had not known until they accosted him in the parlour a little later, just as he was preparing his pipe and settling down for an after-supper rest.

  “I might’ve gotten to be a fairy, like Peaseblossom,” Delia said, half-teasing, half-serious. At thirteen, and a junior pupil at Miss Tyson’s Academy, she was no longer Cobb’s little girl. Lanky, coltish in her movements, and inching towards womanhood, she had become, at times, strangely shy or seized by sudden tantrums. Just now, though, she seemed more like her former, carefree, cheeky self – the one Cobb adored, and indulged.