***
Cobb and Ewan Wilkie had worked together in the Toronto constabulary for five years, ever since its inception, but career-wise had gone in separate directions. Wilkie had been content to plod along on his assigned patrol, putting forth only the effort required to avoid outright dismissal. He was steadfast enough when it came to supporting his colleagues in breaking up a tavern brawl, if his attention were sufficiently engaged, but couldn’t spot a thief if the fellow were fleeing a jewellery store masked and draped with gems. Cobb meanwhile had been fortunate enough to have been teamed up with Marc Edwards to help investigate and solve seven murders, during which experience he had learned to use his brains as much as his brawn. And at this moment, heading into Irishtown in quest of Elsie Trigger, he might require both.
Irishtown was a squatters’ “paradise” that sprawled unchecked above Queen Street in the north-central section of the city. Its entrance was hidden from respectable view by a screen of scrub trees and scraggly bushes, but Cobb knew it well. He also knew that, contrary to popular opinion, most of the denizens of Irishtown suffered from the crime of poverty, and did not break the law, in any serious way, any more than did their more fortunate counterparts in the visible sections of town. However, there were brothels and bootleggers’ dives and even opium dens scattered throughout the maze of shanties and shacks. And the warren of twisted alleys and hovels provided an effective, if temporary, refuge for thieves and swindlers. In addition, over the past year an influx of impoverished immigrants had swollen the populace and exacerbated the multitudinous sufferings and inconveniences. This in turn had led to a dramatic rise in petty crime in the city proper, and had increased tenfold the dangers of any outsider entering Irishtown – including, alas, police constables.
As they entered the main section of the place, Cobb suggested to Wilkie that it might be prudent for him to keep his truncheon out of sight instead of brandishing it in his right hand like a drum-major.
“We ain’t come to beat anybody up, Wilkie. And some of these folks are like dogs. They can smell fear. Just walk along beside me non-gallantly-like and we’ll be okay.”
Wilkie sheathed his weapon, but kept a wary eye on their rear, while squeezing his nostrils shut against the variegated stenches wafting up into the bright sunshine of the Indian summer day. “You know where we’re goin’?” he asked for the third time.
“No, but I’ll know when we get there,” Cobb said grumpily. The tale of Betsy Thurgood’s horrible and senseless death, as relayed to him at six o’clock this morning by an upset and fulminating Dora, had disturbed him mightily. He only hoped he could restrain himself when they caught up to Elsie. (“Remember, you’re goin’ to gather evidence, Cobb,” the Chief had warned him. “You’re an investigator. We’d like that knittin’ needle and, if she ain’t spent it on booze already, that five-pound note.”) Dora had not, as was her custom, speculated on who had fathered Betsy’s child.
After three left turns and two to the right, Wilkie was hopelessly lost. If Cobb was, he was not about to admit it. Suddenly Cobb stopped and made a sideways lunge into a stinking alley.
“Gotcha, ya little bum!” Cobb emerged with an eight-year-old ragamuffin dangling by the scruff – kicking and screaming. “If you stop that cat-er-bawlin’, you might make a penny or two,” Cobb said sternly as he dropped the lad into the dust of the path they were treading.
The boy shut up instantly, as if a hand had been clamped over his mouth. “How many pennies?” he croaked through a chest thick with a cold, or worse. His face was blotched and black, and something dripped out of one eye.
“Three if you can take me to the house of Mrs. Elsie Trigger.”
“What you want with the likes of her?”
“None of yer bees-wax. Here’s a penny, and you get the other two when we get there.”
The boy grabbed the penny and started to run, but quick as a cat Cobb had him by the shirt-collar again, and his scrawny legs thrashed uselessly in the air under them.
“Now then, walk. And you better know where you’re goin’!”
The boy was not frightened, but rather looked back up at Cobb with what might have been respect – admiration even.
At any rate, five minutes later all three were standing in front of a shack constructed entirely of ageing pieces of packing crate with a tarred roof and one oil-papered window. A crude door hung by a single leather hinge.
“This is it,” Cobb said. “Nobody could ferget it, could they?” He flipped two pennies into the dirt. The boy scooped them up and bolted. “Let’s go,” Cobb said, and kicked the door aside.
Elsie Trigger looked up, momentarily stunned, her mean grey eyes as round as saucers. “What the fuck do you want?” she yelled when her breath returned.
Seeing they had her penned inside, Cobb and Wilkie stopped and stood near the doorway, noting the particulars of the midwife’s “parlour.” The room was a shambles. Drawers had been turned out and tossed aside. Clothing and blankets lay rumpled in piles or draped crazily over the pathetic stick furniture. The air stank of grease and sweat and offal. Half a dozen whiskey jugs and bottles lay empty and discarded. Elsie herself, however, was attired in a scarlet dress of some silky, shiny fabric. A gem-embedded necklace graced her throat and the top of her meagre bosom. Her white hair had been drawn up into a bun and pinned with a gold clasp. She sported enough rouge, powder and mascara to frighten a witch.
And she was standing before a table stuffing clothes into the second of two large carpetbags.
“Goin’ somewheres, missus?” Cobb said with soft menace.
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s a lot to me, Elsie. And I think you know why we’re here. That little girl you butchered last night, she up and died an hour after you left her bleedin’ and alone.”
“She wasn’t bleedin’ when I left her! And it was all her idea to get rid of the babe. What was I to do? She waved five pounds at me!”
“You c’n tell yer sad tale to the magistrate. Which is where you’re goin’ right now.”
“You can’t arrest me. I know my rights!”
“Then why was you set to fly the coop, eh? Wilkie, you keep an eye on her and have a peek through them bags. You know what we’re lookin’ fer.”
“You won’t find nothin’ in there you shouldn’t!”
Cobb ignored her. “I’m gonna search the other room.” He pushed his way through a beaded curtain into Elsie’s “boudoir.” It was every bit as chaotic as the parlour. The woman had obviously been told of Betsy’s death and her purported role in it – by one crony or another – and had jammed all her portable valuables into a pair of her biggest carpetbags, preparatory to fleeing the city. He rummaged about for five minutes, but found nothing resembling a bloody knitting needle. He was about to give up when he heard Wilkie cry out once, and then begin to sneeze.
Cobb raced out into the parlour. Wilkie stood beside the table, plucking at his eyes with the fingers of both hands – in between a series of gargantuan sneezes.
“Where in hell is Mrs. Trigger?”
Wilkie sneezed with the vehemence of the seventh dwarf.
“How should I know,” he wailed. “I can’t see nothin’ but the pepper she threw at me!”
Cobb stumbled outside, his anger boiling up inside and leaving him breathless. He looked in both directions. The sorry excuse for a street was empty. The wily old bird had made good her escape – with both bags of goodies.
***
The funeral for Betsy Thurgood on Monday was a solemn affair, and drew more than the usual attention that the obsequies of a young servant would normally warrant, in large part due to the appearance of William and Robert Baldwin in St. James cathedral, along with their friends the Hincks and the Edwards. The other servants from Spadina were also in attendance. Miller Whittle had given his hands the day off and they too were out in force to support and give what comfort they could to the grief-stricken parents. The absence of Betsy’s brother and sister was
noted but not much remarked upon as they were assumed to have left not only their home but the city itself. That Seamus Baldwin was not present, however, did occasion a number of whispered remarks, not all of them kind. His fondness for young servants and children had already become the source of some speculation within the better class of citizen, and his apparently overweening grief wondered at.
Dora Cobb, sitting discreetly behind the pews of the mourners, was wondering at the restraint shown by Burton Thurgood in light of the wild charges he had laid at the Baldwins’ doorstep immediately following Betsy’s death. Robert and his father sat not twenty feet from the Thurgoods, but neither husband nor wife signalled the least animosity towards them, in word or gesture. The ceremony was sad and solemn and tearful, and otherwise wholly ordinary. Dora was beginning now to be certain that she had made the right decision in telling no-one, not even Cobb, of Thurgood’s accusation against Uncle Seamus. The claim had been the product of extreme shock and grief, nothing more.
Next morning the inquest was held in one of the meeting rooms of the American Hotel. Only three witnesses were called: Thomas Thurgood, Auleen Thurgood and Dora Cobb.
Auleen was first, and despite several pauses in which she fought for control, she told her story in a straightforward manner. Early on Friday evening last, Betsy – home for a short stay to nurse her ailing mother – had complained of abdominal cramps. On close questioning by her father, the girl admitted that she may have become pregnant. Auleen said that she soon realized that the girl was still ignorant of the ways of men with women. Her father, looking as stern as she had ever seen him, demanded to know if any man had “interfered” with her, which had caused his daughter merely to weep and grow silent. It was Auleen who suggested that they fetch the midwife to speak with her, examine her, and try to determine just what had actually happened to her. The midwife in their area was Mrs. Elsie Trigger. Mr. Thurgood objected to her on the grounds that she had a growing reputation for drunkenness and incompetence. Tearfully but bravely, Auleen admitted she had prevailed, insisting that it was only to be an examination, not a full-scale childbirth. A neighbour lad was sent to bring Mrs. Trigger to them. An hour later, with Betsy feeling nauseous but no worse, the woman arrived, in the early stages of inebriation. She took Betsy into her bedroom and ordered the parents to stay out. Auleen could hear a prolonged conversation between Elsie and her daughter, but could make out none of the words. After fifteen minutes the conversation stopped. Mr. Thurgood had just returned from a brisk walk, to calm his nerves, when Mrs. Trigger emerged with a triumphant smile on her face.
“What, if anything, did she say to you?” the coroner asked.
Auleen gave out a brief sob, then looked up slowly. “She said, ‘Yer girl had a bun in the oven, but everythin’s okay now.’ She had a bloody knittin’ needle in one hand and a five-pound note in the other. We was stunned. And she was out the door off into the dark before we could blink.”
Their concern was Betsy, however, not the drunken midwife. They rushed in to find her bleeding and in serious pain. Auleen wanted to send for Dr. Smollett, but her husband refused. They compromised by sending another neighbourhood lad for Dora Cobb.
Burton Thurgood corroborated his wife’s account in every important aspect, though he was more forthright in his opinion of Mrs. Trigger and what she had done to his daughter. Several times he was made speechless by anger and grief. He described Mrs. Cobb’s arrival and, in general, her valiant attempt to save Betsy’s life. He had to be helped from the witness-box.
Dora’s testimony dealt exclusively with what she saw upon her arrival – an aborted foetus, internal bleeding and a raging fever – and her specific efforts to help the stricken girl. The coroner did not ask whether Betsy Thurgood had made any death-bed confessions or accusations, and Dora did not venture to mention them on her own. Dr. Withers then gave a summary of his autopsy findings.
In short order, the jury found that the victim had died at the hands of an incompetent and drunken abortionist. A province-wide warrant for her arrest would be issued in due course.
So, Dora thought, Thurgood had definitely thought better of dragging Seamus Baldwin’s name through the mud. If he had been going to do so, this inquest would have provided him with both the appropriate opportunity and a most public forum. And just as well, too. There was enough unavoidable grief in the world: folks didn’t need to manufacture it on their own.
On Tuesday afternoon Robert and his father put Uncle Seamus in a carriage and drove out to Spadina. Although the old gentleman was up and around, he remained melancholic and uncommunicative. He was like a court jester out of his humour, and hence all the more pitiable. That he would be no use in chambers for some time was obvious, but Robert hoped that a return to the familiar surroundings of Spadina, Mrs. Morissey’s cooking, and the constant care of the servants would conspire to re-ignite his spirits and, yes, even his pranksterism. Betsy’s absence might be the more noticeable out there, but she was gone from his life wherever he might go or be. He was taken straight to his room, where Faye Partridge and young Edie Barr found numerous excuses to visit in an attempt to cheer him up. Herb Morissey, the gardener, dropped by to boast about the summer-fat trout that were lying in wait for a well-tied fly.
On Wednesday morning Uncle Seamus came down for breakfast, made brief but courteous conversation with his brother and nephew, and expressed a desire to sit in the library and read. Robert sought out Edie Barr and asked her to fetch the domino set and take it into Uncle Seamus.
“He taught you how to play, didn’t he, Edie?” Robert said to her in the hall.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. Edie, her flawless, pale skin still blotched from periodic bouts of weeping, had taken Betsy’s death as hard as any of the servants. The girls had been close in age, and had shared a room since Betsy had come on steady near the end of July. But Edie was putting on a brave face and, of course, she was fond of Uncle Seamus and dreaded seeing him so depressed. “I now beat him quite regularly,” she said. “But I’ll let him win this mornin’.”
“I’ve never seen you two together for more than five minutes,” Robert said, “without one or the other caught in a fit of laughing.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“I have to go back to the city for an important meeting, but Dr. Baldwin will be in residence for the rest of the week. Go to him directly whenever you want help or advice in caring for my uncle.”
“I will, sir.” And Edie went off to fetch the dominoes.
Robert was just about to ask Chalmers for his hat and coat when the butler emerged from the vestibule with a pained expression on his usually imperturbable countenance. “What is it, Chalmers?”
“A person at the front door, sir, who insists on seeing Dr. Baldwin.”
“Did he give a name?”
“I’m afraid he did, sir. It’s Mr. Thurgood. From the mill. In his work clothes.”
Betsy’s father. Robert had not spoken to him except to offer his condolences at the funeral service. Betsy’s monthly salary and a bonus had been hand-delivered by John Burge, the Baldwins’ stableman and driver. The fellow must have come to thank Dr. Baldwin for his kindness.
“I’ll see him, Chalmers. Show him into the little den.”
Burton Thurgood was shown into the den, where Robert was waiting. He was clutching his cap as if Chalmers had threatened to steal it. His smock was dusty white from his work in the grist mill. Robert motioned him to a chair, but the man hesitated, uncertain.
“Go ahead and sit, Mr. Thurgood. It’s a leather chair. It can be dusted readily.”
“Thank you, sir.” He sat down gingerly on the edge of the seat, cap in hand, dipped his chin to his chest, and peered up from under his thick brows. Robert could see the chaff or flour-specks in his heavy black curls. This submissive posture seemed to Robert to be out of character for the Burton Thurgood he had heard about over the years. While neither tall nor burly, he gave the appearance of coiled strength, of muscle r
eady to be put to whatever use demanded of it. His employer, Seth Whittle, often described him as surly, “with a chip on his shoulder as big as a mill-wheel,” and swore he kept him on only because he was a tireless worker who complained only after the job was done. And it was always done right.
Robert simply waited for the fellow to begin.
With only the tips of his eyes showing and his cap twisting in his fingers, Thurgood said, “I’ll get straight to the point, sir. I know yer time is valuable, and Mr. Whittle only give me thirty minutes to walk up here and back.”
“No need to hurry,” Robert said politely. He had enormous sympathy for the man, having himself suffered the sudden death of a beloved one, his Elizabeth, and ever after revisiting that horror whenever he attended the funeral of another or looked into the grief on another’s face. Nor had he any inclination to play the country squire.
“I wanta thank you and yer dad fer the extra money. That was awful kind.”
“We thought a great deal of your daughter. Our whole household is in mourning. We will miss her very much.”
“Auleen and me are on our own, ya see. My two eldest’ve left home fer good. I don’t even know where they are.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry to say what I haveta say, sir.” Thurgood now looked up fully for the first time. A kind of cunning or determination had replaced the fawning posture. His fingers gripped his cap but did not fiddle with it.
“Oh? Is something wrong?”
“’Fraid so. You see, when our Betsy lay dyin’, her ma begged her to tell us who the fella was that got her in the family way. Ya see, to our mind, that person was responsible fer the horrible state she’d gotten into. We wanted to do her justice, like.”
“And you were right to think so,” Robert said, believing now that Thurgood, penniless, had come to him for legal advice. “Betsy was a minor. Whoever corrupted her was guilty of rape under the law. And morally, of course, he was also party to her death at the hands of that terrible woman. Is there any way I can help?”
Minor Corruption Page 6
