The Bishop's Pawn

by Don Gutteridge

  The peacefulness of the Sabbath, then, had been more than welcome. But this particular Monday morning, alas, did not promise to be a continuation of that Godly calm. For Cobb had undertaken to check on the Poor Box at St. James. He had suggested, of course, that it be emptied right after evensong, but Constance Hungerford had ridiculed the notion. How else were they to catch the thief except by providing him with a suitable incentive? She took matters further into her own hands by “suggesting” that Mavis McDowell be temporarily relieved of the burden of emptying the box – until the thief was safely behind bars. Cobb did not really have a lot of faith in the business of his planting the torn Halifax dollar for the feckless robber to spirit off to his lair, but he did remember to bring along the “matching” triangular portion. It appeared that Mrs. Hungerford wished the culprit to be her husband’s rival, David Chalmers. Wishful thinking, in Cobb’s opinion. Certainly the rivalry was real enough. Dora had gleefully recounted the prevailing gossip after attending the morning service yesterday, which had been taken by Quentin Hungerford, who – it being close to Easter – preached about the two thieves who had bracketed Christ on the cross. Would Chalmers retaliate at evensong? With a homily on Judas Iscariot?

  Cobb was about to sidle around to the rear of the vicarage when one of the big front doors of the church squealed open. It was Constance. “In this way, Cobb. Quickly!”

  Cobb’s heart sank. But he did as he was told. The church was unlit, with only a hazy daylight filtering through the mosaics on the windows. The Poor Box stood on its perch, its little door closed.

  “It ain’t been tampered with?” Cobb said, hopes rising.

  Constance stuck out her long-nailed, right forefinger and casually flicked open the door. “It’s been unlocked. By someone with a key.”

  “Why didn’t they lock it back up?”

  She stared at him as if he were witless. “And why would he bother? We were bound to find it empty, weren’t we?”

  “I see yer point.”

  “We never find less than five dollars in there. And as you can see for yourself, there isn’t a farthing left. Money intended for widows and orphans!”

  Cobb felt the lash of this latter remark as if he had somehow colluded in the outrage. “So I guess he took the dollar I planted in there.”

  “That would be a reasonable conclusion, wouldn’t it?”

  “Were these front doors locked?”

  “Quentin’s been doing that since Mr. Epp . . . left us. And my husband never shirks a duty, however menial.”

  “So the robber got in here through the vicarage an’ the walkway?”

  “Another unassailable deduction.”

  “Which means this is an inside job,” Cobb said. “Now I gotta talk with yer maids, Mrs. Hungerford. You do see that, don’t you?”

  She was suddenly all sweetness and light. “Certainly. But I hope you are not about to overlook the Reverend Chalmers. After all, my servants share the rear quarters with him. My own family never enter that area after the church is closed up at nine o’clock – unless invited. So we are down to three suspects, are we not?”

  “Looks that way,” Cobb said glumly.

  He trailed the vicar’s wife through the vestry and the covered walkway into the hall at the rear of the vicarage, trying not to step on her voluminous, rustling skirts.

  “Myrtle and Missy are occupied in my chambers at the moment,” she said as they drew to a halt. “They share these two rooms. Whilst they are busy elsewhere, why not take this opportunity to search for the stolen money?” she said, and pushed open the door in front of her. When Cobb hesitated, she added, “You do intend to search these premises thoroughly?”

  “Well, I thought I oughta talk to the ladies first.”

  Constance glared at him, and he could feel his nose reddening. “If one of my servants were involved – and I have no doubt that they were not – then the only place they could ‘stash the loot,’ as our crass newspapers would say, is here among their meagre possessions. I’ll stand in the doorway while you do your duty.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Cobb said, grinding his teeth.

  “And don’t go disturbing their effects!”

  Cobb went into the maids’ suite. He found himself standing in a small sitting-room just big enough for two padded chairs, a tattered carpet, a pot-bellied stove, and a commode. Gingham curtains on a narrow window and crocheted doilies on the arms of the chairs were the only signs of a feminine touch. Among the combs, scissors and bric-à-brac he found no coins or banknotes of any kind. For form’s sake he peered into the cupboard beneath and tipped the chamber pot up into the light. With a sigh – and Constance Hungerford’s stare still upon him – he eased back a curtain and entered the bedroom.

  The two women shared one bed. Most of the rest of the room was taken up by a bulky “highboy,” with six deep drawers, and a clothes-rack upon which were draped a half-dozen frocks, uniforms and related items of apparel. Cobb sighed, and went to work. Ten minutes later – after scrabbling through bins of frilly, lacy, frothy garments (with calloused hands and eyes squeezed shut) and patting down several silky, slippery dresses that might as well have been occupied by their owners – Cobb emerged to say, “As you thought, ma’am: nothin’.”

  “That leaves only one other place, doesn’t it?” Constance said with only a modest attempt to modulate her glee.

  “You want me to search a minister’s rooms?” Cobb said, aghast.

  “I do. Mr. Chalmers is not there. I checked.”

  Cobb couldn’t see any other option, short of a court-martial, so he lumbered down to Chalmers’ suite at the end of the hall, next to the rear entrance and across from the covered walkway to the church. He knocked discreetly.

  “He’s not there, Cobb. And none of these inside doors can be locked.”

  Cobb opened Chalmers’ door slowly.

  “For Heaven’s sake, man, go on! The Holy Ghost’s not in there!”

  Cobb went in. All was quiet. No Chalmers, no ghosts. Still, Cobb felt vaguely disrespectful as he pawed through the drawers of the vicar’s desk. In the top drawer he found a compact, leather-bound, gilt-trimmed Bible. He felt like a thief himself, and a sneak-thief at that, as he riffled its pages. On the fly-leaf he noted the inscription: “To David Chalmers, mae ye fare well in the sight of the Lord, from Rev. J. Strachan, Cornwall, U.C., 1811.” He dropped the book-prize. Beside it, where it fell, lay a silver locket, sprung open. It contained the miniature portrait of a young woman with ringlets and eyes as green as her brother’s. The crippled sister in Windsor, Cobb thought with a guilty shudder, the one referred to in Marc’s notes. He eased the top drawer closed and slid open the one below it.

  In it he spotted a small calfskin purse, its drawstrings well tightened. He picked it out and dropped it on the desktop. It clanked. Cobb’s breathing quickened. He poured the contents out: a variety of English and American coins, and a single dollar bill.

  “That’s the one, isn’t it?” Constance stood in the doorway, her eyes as round as communion wafers.

  ***

  Cobb and Constance were sitting in the senior vicar’s study. They were alone.

  “I fail to see how there can be any other explanation,” Constance was saying. “The Poor Box was locked and full last night. This morning the box is found unlocked and the money removed. Myrtle assures me that the back door was locked and barred at ten o’clock, after which she and Missy went to sleep, and heard nothing till morning. The Halifax dollar you planted in the box is found in the Reverend Chalmers’ desk-drawer, with the rest of the cash. Mr. Chalmers has a key for the Poor Box.”

  “I agree, ma’am, that it looks bad. But keys are an easy thing to get copied. A good robber’s even got skeleton keys that’ll get him into pert near anythin’.”

  “So you are telling me that some thief came into the church, robbed the Poor Box, slipped back in here through the walkway and, because he’s a good Christian, deposited his booty in Mr. Chalm
ers’ desk-drawer?”

  “No need to get scar-castic, ma’am.”

  At this point in the lop-sided exchange of views, Myrtle Welsh appeared in the doorway, broom in hand. “Oh, I’m sorry – ”

  “No, no, Myrtle, do come in.”

  Myrtle took one cautious step inside.

  “Did the Reverend Chalmers happen to tell you when he would be back this morning?” Constance said to her sweetly.

  Myrtle looked surprised. “But haven’t you heard, ma’am?”

  “Heard what?”

  Myrtle trembled slightly, but replied, “The young reverend left right after the morning service yesterday.”

  “Left?” The word was spat out.

  “He got a message that his older brother was took sick out in Streetsville. Reverend Hungerford told him to go there straight away. So he took the roan mare an’ rode off. We expect him back this afternoon.”

  “And why was I not informed of this unorthodox arrangement?”

  Myrtle blinked. “But you was visitin’ your aunt all day. You hadn’t come home by the time Missy an’ me went to bed.”

  Constance’s bosom heaved alarmingly, like a Diva’s before a death-aria. Her face went as purple as her husband’s vestments.

  “D-d-didn’t the reverend himself tell you, ma’am?”

  “He did not!”

  And the senior vicar would no doubt regret the oversight, even though he too had been abed when his wife had arrived home from a day in the country and rousted the stableboy out of a deep sleep.

  “That’ll be all, Myrtle.”

  Myrtle vanished with alacrity.

  Getting control of her anger with difficulty, Constance turned back to Cobb. “Well, then, constable, it appears as if Mr. Chalmers could not himself have removed the money.”

  “Or stashed it in his own desk.”

  “Then I submit that he has an accomplice.”

  My God, Cobb thought, not another conspiracy. “How do ya figure that?”

  “I figure it this way. Mr. Chalmers knows that I suspect him of thievery. I have already accused him of an earlier theft, the details of which you need know nothing. After last week’s robbery here, he realized that if he were to deflect suspicion, he would need an accomplice – and an alibi.”

  “But who could he get to steal from the Poor Box?”

  “The town is crawling with cutthroats and burglars. The Reverend Chalmers wastes much of his time amongst such lowlife in hopes of bringing them to God. It would be simple enough for him to bribe one of them and provide him with the necessary keys.”

  Cobb sighed. “And if Reverend Chalmers denies all this? After all, we know he didn’t do the deed himself. Any burglar could’ve jimmied those locks an’ planted the cash in the reverend’s desk to make mischief.” Cobb tried not to smile as he added, “Fer some reason we know nothin’ about.”

  “That is patently absurd! It is you who are being mischievous!”

  “All I’m sayin’, ma’am, is that unless the reverend was to confess, or unless we can find this accomplice among the lowlife hereabouts, we ain’t got a case to make.”

  Constance glared at him with such malice that he thought he could hear the metal buttons on his coat sizzle. “How will we know he really was in Streetsville if you don’t go out there and interview this so-called brother?”

  “You’re cluckin’ at straws,” Cobb said meekly.

  “You don’t seem to realize, sir, that Dr. Strachan is about to be elevated to the position of bishop. If there is evil in this establishment, then it must be exposed to the light and purged, so that no taint of scandal or maladministration touches that saintly man’s robes. David Chalmers has slipped the snare, twice. But I am not one to give up.” She stood up. “Now I expect you to report to me that you have interrogated the suspect and checked his alibi. Good day to you.”

  Any chance of it being a good day had long since gone by the boards.

  EIGHTEEN

  David Chalmers himself appeared at the police quarters later that afternoon. He looked haggard and hag-ridden, which made Cobb even more impressed by his calm demeanour and straightforward testimony. He seemed to regard Constance Hungerford as a millstone sent by the Almighty to test his patience and forbearance. Not only did he state that he had indeed visited his sick brother in Streetsville, but added that Dr. Withers had accompanied him, and both had spent the night there. When Cobb pointed out, diffidently, that the marked money had been found in his desk-drawer, Chalmers did not seem surprised. But when pressed for some plausible explanation, he suggested that there were certainly a few citizens in Irishtown and elsewhere among the downtrodden in the city who resented his intrusions into their life, and who might well have decided to implicate him in a crime. Lots of people had seen him and Withers riding west along King Street towards his brother’s home fifteen miles way: so the opportunity was there.

  “Still,” he said with a resigned smile, “I think they would have kept most of the money, especially the Halifax dollar.”

  After thanking Chalmers and watching him trudge off, Cobb had Gussie French compose a brief note to Constance Hungerford: “Suspect cleared. Alibi vouched for by a witness. No further leads.” He had it delivered. He hoped he would not have to face that harridan again. Nevertheless, somebody had taken that money (with the connivance of the senior vicar’s wife, no doubt), and it rankled that the culprit was still loose in Cobb’s city.

  ***

  If Cobb was hoping to come home at six o’clock to a warm supper and a consoling wife, he was soon disappointed. Dora was waiting for him at the door – never a good sign.

  “Now you went an’ done it, Mister Cobb!”

  “Done what? I ain’t put my big toe in here since the sun come up!”

  “I just got back from Beth’s place.”

  “Has the babe come?”

  “No, not that. Turned out to be false labour. But it should be here real soon.”

  “What, then?”

  “Celia Langford was there. She had a letter in her hand.”

  Oh, oh. Cobb was pretty sure what was coming his way. “It wasn’t up to me, luv. I had to question the old miser. It was my duty.”

  Dora pretended he had not spoken, as she usually did in these circumstances. “It was a letter from Matthew Burchill.”

  “That tie-rant of a father’s gone an’ forbid the lad ta see her,” Cobb got in quickly before something worse could be uttered.

  “That’s the least of it, I’m afraid.” Dora looked pained, but – strangely – not angry.

  “If he’s hurt the lad, I’ll have him in irons!”

  “There’s no need to get yer nose in a knot. Matthew’s fine. He told Celia his father’d found out from talkin’ to you that they’d been seein’ each other in secret.”

  “It was my duty.”

  “Quit whinin’ an’ listen, will ya? Matthew said his father had threatened to disinherit him an’ toss him inta the street instantly unless he quit courtin’ her.”

  “Well, that kinda threat usually ups the temper-churn of any courtin’,” Cobb observed.

  “Thanks fer the folk wisdom, Mister Cobb. But what the little turd told her was that his love had cooled right down, that he’d seen the light an’ pledged to follow his father’s plans fer his life. He begged her to be a proper Christian an’ forgive him.”

  Cobb gulped. “Maybe the old man helped him write the letter.”

  Dora snorted. “He sent back her locket, the one he promised to keep next to his heart forever – with another messenger.”

  “So I guess she’s in a bad way?”

  “Tryin’ to be brave, fer Beth’s sake. But she’s had two blows in a week. I managed to talk her into stayin’ with Beth an’ Charlene fer a while.”

  “So, I gotta take the blame fer this, do I?”

  Cobb tried to look as pitiable and put-upon as possible.

  “You do. But don’t worry. She’ll get over him. Them two together woulda b
een a disaster.”

  With appropriate humility and impeccable timing, Cobb said, “What’s fer supper?”

  ***

  Marc spent a frustrating Monday afternoon cooling his heels in the reception room of the New York Bar Association. When he made the mistake of mentioning that he wished to speak to someone on the executive about Richard Dougherty, the secretary’s face became an impenetrable mask of polite resistance. While not refusing Marc’s request outright, the fellow made only token gestures to intercede on his behalf, smiling stiffly after each sally into the inner offices and suggesting that it would only be a matter of another quarter-hour or so. By five o’clock, Marc got the message. He took his leave.

  Once outside and breathing fresh air again, Marc decided to walk the two blocks along Bayard Street to the Bowery. As he turned north on this grand and fabled avenue, laid out by the pioneering Dutch almost two hundred years before, he spotted what he was looking for.

  The Bowery Theatre sat in the middle of the block on the east side, wedged in between a row of sturdy, three-storey brick-structures – housing shops and apartments – and the New York Theatre Hotel, a handsome stuccoed block with blue-shuttered windows. Neither of these bordering buildings prepared the newcomer for the grandeur and symmetry of the theatre itself, though their rough-hewn utility did much to emphasize its visual delights. Set back a few paces from the paved sidewalk by a wide flight of stone steps, the entrance was guarded and embellished by four soaring, fluted columns. As the eye rose with them, they culminated in elaborate, floral capitals, which themselves were framed by a pair of pilasters that served to separate the theatre’s elegant artfulness from the pedestrian practicality of its neighbours. Twelve feet above the colonnaded porch and stretched across the entire façade lay a broad balcony with intricate, wrought-iron railings, where patrons could stroll between acts and gaze out upon the wonders of their city. Above the castellated wall around the roof, the Stars and Stripes flapped contentedly in the afternoon breeze.