by David Hood
Baxter tried then couldn’t keep from asking. “You had been close?”
Squire rubbed his face with both hands. “My father was a strong man, he could do anything including never making me feel weak. He told me I could be whatever I imagined.”
“So he encouraged you in school?”
They were eye to eye now. Squire slowed his voice and watched for signs of understanding as he spoke. “He never hired a hand. He did the work I might have done on the farm. He was determined I would not be him.”
His head tilting back, his eyes narrowing, Baxter asked, “What if he had kept you on the farm…?”
“I would have become Jethro Tull, out of respect.” Squire had a mollifying look on his face but his voice was sincere.
“Who?”
Squire shook his head, seeming to admonish himself, then said quickly, “British farmer, invented the seed drill in the seventeenth century. I read about him in school.”
Baxter raised his eyebrows and searched his memory, then gave up. His tea had lost its warmth, he finished it anyway out of habit. “What do you suppose your father would think of you being a policeman?”
A group of boys crossed the street in the next block, wearing afterschool faces. Though their jibes and jokes were lost in the wind and distance, their fraternity was unmistakeable. Squire watched them for a moment or two, then came back to Baxter with a question of his own. “Wallace didn’t just know about my father. He was after you too. What was that bit about the medical school just before he threw us out?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Just noise, muddying the waters. Wallace isn’t a sinister mastermind. He’s just a rich degenerate with his hand in the wringer.”
Baxter leaned forward, the mud on his shoes suddenly important. Squire drew himself in, trying to create a little more room. “It’s not his hand in the wringer.” Squire decided after he had forced himself as far over as he could.
Without looking up, still fiddling at his feet, Baxter replied, “Appears the Pictou Academy didn’t polish all the edges off the stone.”
As Baxter sat back up and brushed his hands, Squire, wearing a half smile and a cocked eyebrow, said, “It didn’t teach me to ignore the obvious either.”
Having regained himself and glad for the young man’s good sense, he offered him a chance to put it to further use. “So what does your worldly wisdom expect to happen next?”
Squire looked out at the now empty street. “You put me on the telephone to Seabrook pretending I’m a reporter whose been talking to Sarah Riley. Now here we are like a pair of peeping toms waiting on Godiva. You expect Seabrook to run to Wallace or one of the others or them to come here. But how does that help us?”
In truth he wasn’t sure. “We could sit in my office and wait for the chief to give in to Wallace and the mayor.”
“So we’re desperate.” There was a tone in the voice. Was it resignation or realization? Baxter wasn’t sure. Either way he was not about to concede.
“I prefer cunning.”
The afternoon light remained low but hung on. Their pauses grew longer. Squire mentioned that a room had come vacant in his boarding house. Elizabeth Murray might take it. No matter how this case turned out, he would be glad for meeting her. Baxter remembered he had promised to visit his mother-in-law on Sunday. He had also pledged to go with a smile on his face. Of course, if matters forced him to put their visit off, well, he wouldn’t be disappointed. “No matter what I say she won’t believe her daughter and granddaughter are safe from murderers. She won’t come right out and say it’s my fault.” Baxter sulked, and they said nothing for what seemed a long while. Squire flagged down a peddler’s cart and got a couple of apples for their horse. As Squire was climbing back into the cab, Baxter was about to ask him what he might know about medical school. The thought was lost.
“There’s our man.”
Squire watched Seabrook take a great gulp of air and check the sky before moving slowly down the block. “He looks calm.”
“Half the city is seeing off the troops. What’s he doing here?” Baxter wanted to know. “Too late for lunch, too early for home.”
“Court?”
“No briefcase,” Baxter pointed out.
“Client?”
“Lawyers with an office like his have clients come to them.” Squire reached for the reins and was about to prod the horse when Baxter touched his arm. “Don’t move yet, wait until he gets to the corner.”
“He went straight,” Squire said with obvious urgency.
“Yes, Mr. Squire. Pull up to the end of the block.”
Squire did as he was told. That didn’t change the look on his face which said the end of the block wasn’t far enough. “He’s gone past Province House, we need to be closer. Look, he’s gone down Prince.”
“I see that.” Baxter pointed left. “Go down here and park in front of the Union Bank on Hollis Street, quickly, Mr. Squire.”
“We need to see where he’s going,” Squire complained as he worked the reins. The metal shoes scraped and shuddered on the cobblestones as the horse fought to pull them tightly round the corner.
Baxter was leaning back, his arms crossed. “I know where he’s going.”
The afternoon finally gave way to twilight, then to darkness. Lights came on behind curtains here and there. Overhead, stars came out, one by one. They took turns walking down the block to stay warm and not too much in one another’s thoughts. At all times there was at least one set of eyes on the thick oak doors of the Halifax Club. And as they waited and walked and watched, the parties gathered.
Just as Baxter knew he would, Seabrook turned off Prince onto Hollis, and made his way to the Club. Young men fight wars. If they are lucky they survive to profit from the next one. Seabrook’s marching days, if there had been any, were long behind him. He flowed casually as if he were on his way to a drink and a cigar before dinner. Taking time perhaps to ponder how this fight with the Boers might bring new business to his law firm. Had he bothered to look behind him he might have noticed that the same hansom cab parked across the street from his office when he left had come along with him. Had his curiosity been piqued, he would have recognized the passengers as policemen, and the larger one as the city’s chief inspector. And had that happened Baxter would have smiled and waved. If Seabrook did realize he was being watched, he never let on. He gave no indication of noticing anything at all and Baxter knew why. Seabrook was too busy being afraid.
Not long after Seabrook arrived, Samuel Lovett walked past the cab. He came from behind, walking on the west side of Hollis. The government was in session at Province House and Baxter assumed Lovett had just come from there. No doubt just having had the floor to thunder away on matters vital and important to the war effort. Being busy, and likely having only just received notice to be here, Lovett had had less time to worry. He was of medium build and height. There was nothing remarkable about him that Baxter could make out as he strode past, other than an elegant stovepipe hat that could have belonged to Lincoln. Lovett was no statesman, Baxter was sure of that, but his quickening pace gave Baxter reason to think perhaps Lovett was in a worried state of mind after all.
More men came and went through the great heavy doors. Some faces he recognized, others he couldn’t make out. He was sure one of the faces belonged to George Youngston. Baxter didn’t know where his money came from, only that Youngston had enough of it to belong to the colony’s elite. His was the only other face Martha thought she recognized from the pictures. She couldn’t be sure. Nor was it sure the killer was there at all. Before that thought could grow into crushing despair, a message in a bottle turned off Sackville into Hollis Street. The air had much dried out and the temperature fallen just a little further. All sound was perfect. The great spoked wheels came over the cobblestones softly, like dice rolling in the hand, background, along with the distant sounds of
the waterfront, to the clop, clop, clop of the hooves, louder and louder until the driver’s baritone called them to whooooa.
Baxter watched as the driver climbed down and opened the door. Wallace popped out as if by spring. He had traded in his riding kit for an evening suit. The driver held up the greatcoat Wallace handed to him. Once he’d slipped his arms in, Wallace stood for a few minutes delivering further instructions that Baxter couldn’t hear. The driver nodded. Wallace remained on the sidewalk until the carriage departed. Then he cleared his throat and pulled the door handle.
A block away, the two policemen waited. It did not take long for Squire’s increased impatience to begin to show. “What do you think is happening?”
“Wallace is calming the waters, assuring them he has us under control.”
“Arrogant f—”
“Mr. Squire, I was thinking more about what happened to your father. Yesterday after I left here,” he nodded out the window towards the Union Bank, “I bumped into Thomas Berrigan right there.” He pointed to the place in the street where the carriage had been moments before.
“Berrigan…?”
“One of our most hapless drunks. He’s been a mess in the street so long, I forget he has family.” Baxter’s voice trailed off as he tried to recall how old Thomas might be. Thirty-four or thirty-five? He looked fifty.
“Here in the city?”
“Who is in the city…?”
Squire glanced over, holding a hand in the air. “Oh yes,” Baxter continued. “Here in the city. Catherine Mosher was Catherine Berrigan. Victor was Thomas’s brother-in-law.” Baxter paused again, sifting his memory. “For years his older brother Patrick looked after Thomas. Catherine felt worse for Patrick than she did for Thomas. She had Victor arrange a job for Patrick with the railroad. I guess she thought that if Patrick were away, Thomas would have to look after himself. They would both be saved. A man from the railroad went to see Patrick, told him he could start the next day. He didn’t know it wasn’t Patrick who answered the door. Thomas lasted about a week.”
“Victor couldn’t patch things up?” Squire asked, now caught up in the saga.
“I guess not. I doubt Catherine ever forgave Thomas. He was already a degenerate, now a Judas.” Baxter was surprised that Grace should come to mind. Perhaps there were untold advantages to being an only child.
“And Patrick?”
“I’ve often wondered if Catherine told him.” The door to the Halifax Club opened and the conversation in the cab disappeared in a sudden inhale. A man tucked in his scarf and pulled on his gloves, then blurred into the darkness beyond the light over the door. “Did you see who that was?” Baxter whispered. The farther the man got, the more they leaned forward.
“No, but none of our men was wearing a red scarf, were they?” His question seemed rhetorical. Baxter hoped the young man was as confident as he sounded because he hadn’t taken note of the colour of anyone’s scarf.
“Right you are,” he replied, feeling a bit sheepish. Getting to the point of his story suddenly seemed more important. “As I was saying, part of me hopes Catherine never let on.”
“I don’t see you wanting to protect Thomas.”
“You’re right. On the other hand, if Patrick did know, then maybe he tried to use me to get even.”
If Squire had had any suspicions about Baxter’s eye for colour they seemed forgotten. He turned his shoulders to look and listen more directly. “Go on.”
“When I told you about arresting McNeally I left out some of the details. Two days before his arrest, Ellen Reardon was in the man’s hotel room.” Baxter refrained from comment on that point, beyond a look of disgust. “She saw the money he was carrying and told Thomas. Their plan to rob McNeally went awry, when Thomas showed up to the caper with a bottle. As usual Patrick found Thomas in a ditch. In his stupor Thomas spilled the beans. Before the would-be bandits could regroup, Patrick came to me.”
“You think he wanted revenge for Thomas ruining his chances with the railroad, maybe to see his brother go to jail?”
“He said he was trying to protect Thomas, and some innocent traveller. He still keeps an eye out. When I saw Thomas yesterday he was wearing a new hat, no doubt it came from Patrick.” Baxter straightened his back against the seat and folded his arms on his chest. At the time, as things turned out, Patrick’s motivation was unimportant. He wasn’t sure why it should suddenly matter now, why he had brought the whole thing up.
“They both seem like pitiful characters. What I don’t see is what they have got to do with me and my father.” The question came as a relief. Baxter had lost his train of thought and become mired in the sinking moral quicksand of upper street family dynamics. Who could tell what was in the hearts and minds of any of them. “Ah yes. Thomas could have made better of himself. You were about the same age when your father…My point, Mr. Squire, was to support your earlier attack on arrogance. Wallace and the rest of them are resting in luxury, being waited on hand and foot while they attempt to cover up a murder. Are they concerned at all with Victor’s children, who must grow up without a father? I think not.”
They fell into a silence. Baxter sulked and chastised himself for having made the simple complicated. Victor’s family deserved justice. His killer deserved prison. Children become adults. Drunkenness is immoral. Human pity is worthless. On the other side of the cab, Squire’s suffering was physical, fatigue brought on by a dwindling resistance to the cold. Finally he took a walk in search of some body heat.
The cab rocked on its springs, and the horse snorted and flapped its tail as Squire climbed back into his seat. He blew on his hands then cupped his ears. “They have been in there nearly two hours now.”
“Wallace will have insisted on a meal. Food calms. I’m sure it’s very good here.”
“They eat and grow fatter while we sit out here solving nothing and getting colder by the minute.” Squire blew on his hands again.
While Squire was gone, Baxter had removed the heavy candle from the cab’s lantern. There were some matches in the pocket on his door. The candle burned between his feet. He nudged it over and Squire hovered above the flame. “Haven’t you been paying attention? Youngston hasn’t come out, so it looks as though we have another confirmed suspect or witness. We know there is enough fear in the group to call a meeting. We can’t find Sarah Riley. What we know now at least is that they haven’t found her either.”
“How can you be so sure?” Squire had opened his coat. The candle was now burning in a tent. Baxter expected Squire to catch fire any second.
“If they knew where she was before you called, Seabrook would have hung up and gone back to work. If she had been located in the time since, Wallace would be there, not here.”
Squire lowered a tent flap so Baxter could see his face. “Unless one of his henchmen found Sarah three days ago when she left Martha’s and he’s just playing with all of us.”
Baxter reached round the tent to warm one hand then the other. “Wallace was mixed up in that bank robbery three years ago. This time, it’s murder. McNeally, Sarah Riley, Charles Clarke, a crowd of nervous gentlemen. Wallace doesn’t dare play at anything.”
“Then why not drop in on them, stir things up even more?”
“Here with the king in their castle, the knights are brave. We need them alone with their doubts.”
“That takes time.” Squire sat back, hugging himself, holding in what heat he had managed to collect.
Baxter drew the candle back a little closer. “The funeral will raise emotions.”
“Confidence is an emotion. So is patience.”
Baxter let out a long breath, which he would likely soon be able to see. The young man’s cynicism was not unwarranted but it wasn’t helping. The colder he got, the less help he would be. Baxter hoped his thicker frame could fend off the chill a little longer. There might be a horse blanket in the
cab’s trunk. His mind made up, he said, “I will stay here until this meeting ends, just in case anything should happen. You go back to the station, check with Mackay. If there is any news on Miss Riley, come get me. Otherwise go home. Maybe someone needs help moving in.”
Squire remained still. Baxter knew he wasn’t staying, just drawing up the energy to go. He looked arthritic pulling himself out of the cab. Baxter couldn’t deny that his work had taken a toll over the years. So far he could honestly say it hadn’t weakened him physically. Long johns had been a great help. Squire’s steps faded quickly. Baxter waited a little longer then got out to stretch his legs and look in the trunk. He was in luck.
The blanket was musty but thick enough to keep out the night air. The carriage returned without a sound. If voices had stayed low, it could have left unnoticed. Brandy was to blame. Lovett was congratulating Wallace on a fine coach and an even finer meal. He was listing hard to port. Seabrook was standing close, to see Lovett didn’t overturn. Baxter lowered the hood of his blanket poncho, the cold air helping to wake him. In his dream someone had been speaking without a tongue. Was it a woman? He couldn’t tell what was being said, only that the message was urgent. He rubbed his face, closed his eyes tight, then opened them. The coach, its driver, and the four men in the street were still there. This was real. He leaned forward, struggling to see and hear.
Wallace was speaking now, in low tones. The hens bobbed in silent rhythm. Then Lovett squawked again, “We need more than calm, what we need…” Wallace held up a hand to call for order and Seabrook put his arm around Lovett, patting him on the back and pulling him and his great top hat up straight. There were a few more murmurings, then nods in agreement, and parting gestures. Seabrook guided Lovett round the corner up Prince. He would likely be left to sleep it off in the lawyer’s office. Youngston took Wallace’s hand. He didn’t accept his offer of a ride. The last thread pulled loose and walked south on Hollis. The coach driver remained stone-faced, ready with the door. Just before stepping in Wallace looked north, drawn perhaps by a flickering gas light or the groan of a hull slipping against a wharf. The sky was high and clear, the street still and empty for the next three blocks, except for a cab in front of the Union Bank, which was as closed up and dark as the buildings leaning against it. The horse seemed to be asleep. There was no steam rising from the heap of dung behind it. The cab had been parked for some time. Wallace turned his shoulders, square to the cab now, searching its interior.
