The Bishop's Pawn

by Don Gutteridge

  “If he’s said nothing, Cobb, then how do you know he’s guilty?” Thorpe snapped, who felt that a signed confession was the only sure evidence to bring into a courtroom.

  Cobb put a hand on each of Epp’s shoulders and pulled him upright. The head lolled and settled on the chest. The eyes, oddly, were wide open, but glazed and unseeing. What could now be observed clearly was the blood-soaked shirt and brownish stains on the hands.

  “That proof enough?” Cobb said into the stunned silence of the room.

  “How did you find him?” Marc said, trying not to look too surprised, and certainly pleased that Dick’s killer had been so quickly and tidily apprehended.

  “Dusty Carter spotted Mr. Epp runnin’ away from the alley just about seven-thirty. I sent Wilkie to check out Epp’s shack. I myself went up to St. James to see if he was at work – ”

  “You didn’t disturb anybody up there, I trust,” Thorpe said.

  “I talked with that uppity ever-rants at the vicarage,” Cobb said.

  “Not the Archdeacon!” Thorpe was aghast.

  “The other one, Hunger-for-it.” Cobb winked at Marc.

  “Why didn’t you just go into the church and look for Epp?” Sturges said, looking worried once again.

  “He’d been to work – earlier than usual,” Cobb said, taking in all the rapt faces around him. “An’ then he disappeared, in plenty of time to meet up with Mr. Dougherty an’ stab him.”

  “So you went on out to Epp’s place?” Marc prompted.

  “Where Wilkie was standin’ guard. We went in, found this wretch stinkin’ of whiskey an’ covered with blood. So we borrowed Gandy’s butcher-cart an’ hauled him in here.”

  “Excellent work, both of you,” Sturges said. He would speak to Cobb and Wilkie later about going off on their own. “You’ve saved us all a peck of trouble.”

  “And if the blackguard is feeling this much remorse,” Thorpe said, alluding to the whiskey-binge, “we should get a quick confession out of him.”

  “You don’t suppose he’s fakin’ bein’ asleep, do you?” Sturges said.

  Thorpe’s eyes lit up. “Let’s interrogate him right now and get it over with. I’ve got to go to Port Hope in a few minutes and won’t be back till six. French, go out to the pump and fetch a pail of cold water. We’ve all wasted enough time on this matter.”

  Gussie flinched, glared at his chief, found no comfort there, and headed out into the yard.

  “Don’t you think a confession can wait?” Robert said.

  “Seems to me we don’t really need one,” Sturges said.

  “That’s why you’re not a magistrate,” Thorpe said. Sturges wanted to say that that had more to do with accent than abilities, but didn’t.

  Gussie came back in, lugging a pail of icy water.

  “Pull his head back,” Thorpe barked at Cobb.

  “But I’ll get my table wet!” Gussie cried, horrified at what was coming. (He had been quick to remove all his papers and ink-jars to safety when Epp had first been brought in.)

  “Damn your table, man!” Thorpe thundered. “Now, Cobb, do as I asked.”

  Cobb took a handful of Epp’s greasy hair and pulled his head up. The eyes were even glassier, the lips slack, drool oozing down to the chin. Squeezing his own eyes shut, Gussie pitched a pail-full of water at the hapless prisoner – drenching him, Cobb and most of Wilkie. Epp blinked once. The lips trembled, and gave out a gurgle of sound – syllables perhaps but not yet words.

  “Aha!” Thorpe said. “He can speak.” He leaned across the table to stare down his victim just in time to receive the full force of Reuben Epp’s projectile vomit.

  ***

  Marc, Robert, Cobb and Sturges were back in the magistrate’s chamber. The accused was now safely ensconced in a cell of the adjoining jail, conscious but still babbling nonsense, like a holy roller. James Thorpe had been cleaned up and was on his way to Port Hope. A distraught Gussie French had been sent home to recuperate from shock, with orders to return by six o’clock, when the prisoner would be properly interrogated by the magistrate and his confession written out in legal form.

  “What did you want to see us about – out of the magistrate’s hearing?” Robert asked Marc when they had seated themselves.

  “Several things,” Marc said. “First of all, even if Epp recovers his wits long enough to be usefully interrogated, there is no guarantee that he will automatically confess.”

  “But how else could he explain all that blood on him?” Cobb said, more miffed at Marc’s quibbling than concerned. They had their man. And Cobb had cornered him.

  “It is conceivable that he may claim he merely came across Dick’s body lying in the alley, tried to turn him over to help him or see if he were alive, and thus got the blood all over him.”

  “But what would he be doing in that alley at seven-thirty?” Robert said, playing prosecuting attorney, for which he got a grateful nod from Cobb.

  “I suppose he could claim he was feeling ill, went to St. James early to open the doors and do his morning chores, then headed home – which would put him at the scene about the right time.”

  “Doesn’t Epp usually walk on the street?” Sturges said, looking at Cobb.

  “That’s what I been told,” Cobb said.

  “He could say that he just happened to spot the body from King Street. After all, it was lying only a few yards inside the alley. Then when he saw the blood all over himself, he panicked and stumbled away up the alley and along the service lane where the baker spotted him.”

  “You plannin’ to be Epp’s defense lawyer?” Cobb said peevishly.

  Marc smiled, though every thought and image of what had happened in that alley made him want to weep or rage. “Not at all, old chum. I do believe, like you, that Epp did it. My chief concern is that he will not, or will not be able to, give us any kind of usable confession.”

  “In which case,” Robert said, “we will be wise to gather as much physical and circumstantial evidence as we can.”

  “Precisely. Wilf, I think you should send Wilkie, Brown and Rossiter out to canvass the route Epp might have taken to and from St. James this morning. We need witnesses not only to track his every move, but someone who might have seen that dirk on his person. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth pursuing. That is, of course, if Thorpe can get nothing sensible from Epp this evening.”

  “What about the Melton notepaper?” Robert said. “Where on earth would a simple fellow like Epp, living in a shack, get hold of such expensive stationery?”

  “That question has been niggling at me, too,” Marc said.

  “I can’t see Epp having cozy conferences with those New York lawyers we were talking about earlier,” Robert mused.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk with them,” Marc said. “For Brodie and Celia’s sake, it might help for them to know what actually did happen to dispossess them of their country.”

  “Those gentlemen may well decide to go straight home when they hear of Dick’s death,” Robert said, then added, “But I’ll be happy to look them up this afternoon, if you like.”

  “I just thought of somethin’,” Sturges said. “Somethin’ the magistrate ain’t goin’ to like.”

  “Are you thinking, as I am, that Epp may have had access to the vicarage?” Marc said.

  “I am. Those vicars are certainly fond of fancy notepaper.”

  “Let’s leave that barrel of oysters unopened, shall we?”

  “I agree,” Marc said. “Meanwhile, Cobb, you and I will team up, as we have done in the past, and return to Epp’s shack. I take it that you and Wilkie did not have time for a thorough search of the place.”

  “It was as dark as a tomb in the place,” Cobb said, “an’ we wanted to get Epp in here as soon as we could – to save you an’ the Chief wastin’ yer energies.” Cobb’s wry grin acknowledged Marc’s attempt to minimize his failure to do a proper search out there.

  “Then we’ll take a lantern with us,” Marc
said.

  ***

  In the event, they took two lanterns with them. Despite Cobb’s forewarning, Marc was shocked at the shabby, pitiable room in which Reuben Epp had lived for more than a decade. On route, Cobb had filled Marc in on what was generally known about the man. Epp had arrived in Toronto a decade ago (a year or so after Cobb himself), brought here, it was said, from the eastern part of the province by Quentin Hungerford at the behest of a friend and subsequently approved by Strachan himself. He had been taken on as verger, and while he was religious to a fault, he was also a binge drinker. Cobb then mentioned how defensive the Reverend Hungerford had seemed when Cobb had questioned him about the verger’s actions this morning.

  “So what’re we lookin’ for?” Cobb said amid the shambles of the room.

  “The torn part of the murder-note if we’re lucky. It didn’t show up in the alley, so it might have been left here. I don’t think we’re dealing with a sophisticated assassin.” Though that would not do poor Dick any good.

  But a thorough search of the trash and detritus did not turn up a torn sheet of Melton Bond. “If it was white, it’d sure show up in here,” Cobb muttered.

  “Do you notice what we haven’t found?” Marc said.

  “Besides the bit of paper?”

  “Yes. There is no paper of any kind in the room. Even his stove’s been lit with wood shavings. No ink, no pens. No religious pamphlets, no newspapers.”

  “You ain’t suggestin’ – ”

  “I am. It’s possible that Reuben Epp is illiterate.”

  “Then he couldna written out that awful word.”

  “Certainly not with the calligrapher’s touch I’m sure was used.”

  Cobb took a deep breath. “You’re not sayin’ that Epp isn’t our man?”

  “Don’t look so worried. I do think he did it. But it looks as if he may have had an accomplice.”

  “Somebody he got to write that one ugly word in red ink on some fancy paper?”

  “He must have. Unless we entertain the unlikely possibility that someone happened along, spotted Dick’s mutilated body and decided to make matters even worse.”

  “An’ that ain’t likely, is it? But if Epp did get help writin’ the note, then that person was in on the murder, wasn’t he?”

  “Not necessarily. It’s not hard to imagine Epp finding someone around St. James to write that damning word on a handy sheet of paper. Epp would know a lot of the parishioners. And many of them felt as strongly as the Archdeacon about Dick’s supposed sins. Epp might have said that he intended to stick it up on the door of Dick’s cottage to embarrass him. It wouldn’t be the first time such nonsense has been perpetrated.”

  “So this person may turn out to be as surprised as anybody that his writin’ ended up on Mr. Dougherty’s back?”

  “That seems the most likely possibility to me. It’s hard to picture a fellow like Epp conspiring with a person who would otherwise treat him with disdain.”

  “I hope it don’t turn out to involve one of them vicars. We got enough on our plate as it is.”

  “That would complicate matters, I agree. But you have to admit that either vicar might have been motivated to please the Archdeacon by assisting Epp in what was assumed to be a nasty prank of some sort against the so-called ‘sodomite’.”

  “Well, all this palaver may turn out to be wasted on the air if Epp is ready to confess his trans-aggressions at six o’clock.”

  Marc murmured assent, but was now busy rummaging amongst the empty butter-boxes tossed in a far corner near the stove. “What’s this?” he said to himself.

  “What’ve you got there, major?”

  Marc was holding a tin box in his hands. “This was wedged partway under the floorboards behind the stove. And it’s locked.”

  “Ya want it open?” Cobb said. Marc nodded, and Cobb gave the flimsy container a calculated rap against the edge of the stove. It flew apart at the seams. But it was what flew out that caught their attention.

  “Dollar bills!” Cobb said, and one by one he picked them off the floor and brought them up into the arc of light from Marc’s lantern.

  “U.S. paper money,” Marc said. He let Cobb hold both lanterns while he examined the bills. “Five of them. Ten-dollar denomination. Not part of the same batch, and well-thumbed.”

  “Now where in the world would a geezer like Epp come up with this kinda cash?” Cobb said, not sure he wanted to hear Marc’s reply.

  “I don’t know,” Marc said, to Cobb’s evident relief. “I could speculate, but I think I’ve done enough of that for one day. Let’s take this back to the Chief and wait for the magistrate to return from Port Hope. Only Reuben Epp can provide us with the answers we need.”

  “Let’s do that, major. All this speck-u-latin’s got me as muddled as a eunuch in a hooer-house.”

  ***

  Robert Baldwin found the manager of The American Hotel in his office and most happy to be of service to a member of one of Toronto’s first families, even if he were a notorious Reformer.

  “You’re referring to Mr. Joseph Brenner and Mr. Lawrence Tallman, I presume,” he replied to Robert’s opening question.

  “That’s right.” Robert committed the names to memory.

  “They arrived on Saturday evening, took breakfast here yesterday morning, then were not seen again until dinner was served at six. Kept very much to themselves. Unusual, wouldn’t you say, for a pair of American gentlemen here on some sort of business? Unless it was a secret affair?”

  “I have been told that these gentlemen were in town to assist the Law Society in their deliberations this week.”

  The manager’s jaw dropped. “Oh, but that won’t be possible now.”

  “Why? Have they left?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, they have. They signed out of here about ten o’clock this morning. Without notice. Headed for the ten-thirty steamer to Burlington – so the cabbie told me when he got back.”

  Robert was taken aback by this news, but managed to say, “Had word about Mr. Dougherty’s death reached here before that?”

  “Of course. It was all over the hotel by nine-thirty or so. They say Nestor peck saw the whole thing: eye plucked out, ‘sodomite’ written in blood on the fellow’s back – all the grisly details.”

  Now what did all this mean? Robert thought. It looked now as if the New Yorkers were guilty of something. But what? He was glad he was an attorney and not an investigator.

  TEN

  After delivering the U.S. banknotes to Sturges at the Court House, Marc returned home, emotionally exhausted. He had had to force his mind to work while grief and anger contended within him. Everything now hinged upon the interrogation of the accused. If the tentacles of this crime and its commission reached into the politicized salons of the gentry or up into the cloistered chambers of the Anglican Church, so be it. The full extent of those involved in the unspeakable slaughter of a flawed but brilliant man must be ruthlessly exposed. The Archdeacon’s prompt – if that is what it turned out to be – must not be downplayed or explained away. Epp had most assuredly been the would-be bishop’s pawn: the poisoned atmosphere of St. James had, one way or another, contributed to Dick’s death.

  Marc wanted to pour all these thoughts and feelings upon Beth, but he found himself unexpectedly in a parlour full of females at Briar Cottage. Surrounding and comforting Celia Langford were Beth, Dora Cobb, Jasper’s mother from next door, and Charlene. Brodie was out consulting the undertaker about the funeral.

  Some minutes later, alone with Beth in the kitchen, Marc began to summarize the day’s events.

  “You don’t haveta talk now,” Beth said, interrupting him, but she could see he had to.

  When he had finished his sad summary, she said quietly, “You need to rest. There’s nothin’ you can do till Thorpe gets back.”

  Marc smiled his gratitude, then said, “How are the youngsters holding up?”

  “Dr. Withers come by an’ give Celia some laudanum. She j
ust woke up a little while ago. She’s feelin’ dreadful about her uncle, but she’s also feelin’ guilty – and, as I know from experience, that’s not a healthy combination.”

  “Guilty about what?”

  “She confessed to me that she’s been in love with a young man named Matthew Burchill fer the past month. She kept it secret from Dick – ”

  “Because the lad’s father despises him,” Marc sighed.

  “You saw that letter in the Gazette, then? Well, it seems the young man kept the affair from his parent, too, so the lovers’ve been meetin’ in secret. An’ Celia now feels she neglected her uncle and, in a way, betrayed his trust.”

  Marc nodded. “She’s a bright and strong young woman. She survived the uprooting from New York and over a year in the solitary confinement of Dick’s cottage. We’ll help her through this.”

  “Dora, as usual, has been wonderful.”

  “I wonder, now, if Bartholomew Burchill could have discovered his son’s relationship with Celia?”

  “You don’t think he had anythin’ to do with the murder, do you?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to think, love.”

  “Why don’t you have a nap, then, before you go back to the Court House. I’ll shoo some of the ladies outta the parlour.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all afternoon.” Marc turned in the doorway. “How are those leg-cramps of yours?”

  “Dora took care of them, too.”

  ***

  Reuben Epp was to be interrogated in Magistrate Thorpe’s chamber. Thorpe had ordered the jailer, Calvin Strangway, to have the accused sober, cleaned up, and hand-delivered there at six o’clock. Epp’s bloody shirt was to be removed and kept as evidence. If requested, Sturges, Cobb and Marc were to assist him in the straightforward business of extracting a confession from the wretched creature. Thorpe reluctantly agreed to let Robert Baldwin sit in, as long as he was content to observe. When all were assembled some minutes before six, Gussie French was dispatched to inform Strangway that the magistrate was ready to proceed immediately.