The Bishop's Pawn

by Don Gutteridge

  “They set him up,” Marc said. “Entrapped him to shut him up.”

  His mother nodded sadly.

  Dick was hauled down to the municipal court. Winship went through the motions of laying charges of buggery and rape against him, but he had barely begun when Alderman Nathaniel Bloodgood made a timely appearance. He had come directly from Tammany Hall with a proposal. Dick was to hand over all his notes and affidavits concerning the pedophiles at the Manhattan club, in return for which Dick would be given twelve hours to pack up his belongings and leave the state – with no charges laid and no report about his outrageous behaviour to the New York Bar.

  “It was Hobson’s choice, and Dick knew it. He went home, told his wards to get ready, retrieved the papers and took them straight to Winship and Bloodgood. Then he came here – to tell me what had happened and why he had to go.”

  “They didn’t give him a chance to fight back, did they?”

  “No. And as you know, Tammany subsequently spread vague rumours of the charge and Dick’s apparent flight – ruining his reputation here and abroad, and ensuring that he could never really return.”

  Marc shook his head. “But with the affidavits surrendered and destroyed, and the boys bought or frightened off, it’s hard to see how Dick would pose any threat to the powers-that-be here in New York. Whatever he might say – and he said nothing to anyone, not even Brodie – he had been thoroughly discredited in advance.”

  “But, you see, he didn’t surrender all of his papers.”

  Marc was stunned, not merely at this unexpected revelation but at the offhand way in which his mother conveyed it. “You have them?” he said, open-mouthed.

  She smiled, and there was a sorrowful kind of satisfaction in her eyes. “He kept back one affidavit and its background notes – of a fifth boy who lived alone and did not associate with the others. He gambled that Winship and Bloodgood would not find out about him. ‘These papers are my insurance policy,’ he told me that afternoon. He asked me not to read them, but to keep them in that safe over there in the wall beside the screen. If the justices ever attempted to revive the charges, even after his death, I would have some bargaining power here to save his reputation and protect his wards. You see, the rumours about his homosexuality were something he could live with – they were part of his being alive and successful in New York – but he lived in mortal fear that the trumped-up charge of his being found in bed with a mere boy would be publicly and irrefutably revealed. And in a sad way, I think he felt guilty about his own sexual deviancy.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “I understood, of course, even though I have never felt so myself.”

  “Is it possible that Winship or Bloodgood recently got wind of the missing affidavit, and were afraid that Dick, who had begun to come back to life in Toronto, might act on it?”

  “It’s a possibility, but a remote one. It takes an awful lot to truly frighten Tammany.”

  “I was shadowed by a tough-looking character for a few blocks this afternoon.”

  “It could mean little,” she said not too convincingly. “Tammany is suspicious of anyone whose business is not their own.”

  Marc was silent for a full minute, then said, “Will you show me the papers? There may be some names in them that will lead me to the persons here who are worried about my presence and purpose in the city.”

  “You could end up doing more harm than good, Marc. I loved Dick very much, and these papers are still his only insurance against the defamation of his life and character.”

  “I understand.”

  “But I am too tired to think about it right now. I have to go next door where the cast is dining and celebrating, and pretend to share their happiness. But please come to the play tomorrow night. I’ve got a small role only. I’ll have a supper prepared – bring Brodie if you like – and I’ll have an answer about the papers for you then.”

  Marc rose to go, but stopped when he heard the sound of a footfall, of someone stumbling perhaps, just outside the door. Marc rushed over and flung it open. A door slammed farther down the hall. When he reached it and jerked it open, he saw that it led to the wings. The theatre beyond was in semi-darkness. A janitor was haphazardly sweeping one of the aisles. That was all.

  “Did you see who it was?” Annemarie said when Marc returned.

  “No, but whoever it was, he was listening outside your door and in one hell of a hurry to get away.”

  “Then you must be very careful.”

  “If they suspect that you have any of Dick’s papers, then you must be careful, too.”

  They embraced for several long seconds at the door: mother and son.

  TWENTY

  In the darkened foyer at the front of the theatre, Marc was approached by a stagehand. “A lady outside asked me to find you an’ give you this,” he said, handing Marc a folded note.

  Marc moved under a wall-sconce and read:

  Marc darling:

  I spotted you ten rows ahead of me, and waited in the foyer, but you didn’t come out. I hope this missive reaches you. If so, please come for tea tomorrow morning at eleven – at the wine-shop on the corner of Park Place and Church.

  Love,

  Eliza

  ***

  It was well past midnight when the taxicab dropped Marc off in front of The Houston Hotel and he was let in by a grumpy porter. Still, Marc was surprised to find Brodie in their rooms, wide-awake and obviously eager to relay his news. And while Marc had discovered more than he wanted to know about the Manhattan Gentleman’s Club, he realized that the ugly details needed to be conveyed to Brodie slowly and tactfully – in the morning when his head was clear and he had had time to reflect further on his mother’s story.

  So he smiled noncommittally at Brodie and said, “I thought you young ‘swells’ didn’t eat supper until one A.M.”

  “We started early ” Brodie said. He paused theatrically: “And ended rather abruptly.” He turned so that the lamplight revealed the welt on his left cheek.

  “You’ve been assaulted!”

  “Yes, but it was nothing serious,” Brodie said, grinning.

  “Then you must tell me what happened – precisely.”

  Nothing short of an earthquake could have stopped the young man from telling what had happened to him at the Manhattan Club.

  He and Carleton Buckmaster had been joined by two other former schoolmates, both of them older than Brodie and Carleton. They had spent the hours before midnight participating in the various pleasures of the house. They had gambled, at cards and at dice, and lost more than they could afford (the Buckmaster credit, however, seemed inexhaustible). They had drunk freely and smoked assiduously. They had embarrassed themselves in the billiards room. Finally, Carleton suggested they move to the brothel, where the two older chaps soon found a pair of soul-mates and disappeared, leaving Brodie and Carelton to join the sing-along around the piano and take turns blushing at the mock advances of the girls.

  “You weren’t tempted?” Marc teased, wondering where this tale was heading.

  “A little, I admit. But the image of Miss Ramsay kept me honest.”

  When the older pair returned from their fleshly entanglements, the group decided to have a bit of supper and depart. Afraid that his evening would be wasted, Brodie had left them in order to engage one of the older members in conversation. Seeing Carleton nod to him that they were about to leave, Brodie asked the elderly gentleman if there were anyone other than these girls available ‘for a young man with special tastes.’ The old fellow had not seemed in the least startled by the question, but his answer proved arresting: “We ain’t been mixed up in any of that nonsense since the incident a year ago last fall.”

  “I’ve learned a bit more about that incident myself,” Marc said, but the import of his remark did nothing to stall Brodie’s determined narrative.

  “Anyway, we left right after that, so I couldn’t pursue the matter further, though I’m sure it’s important somehow. But it’s what happe
ned outside that’s most interesting.”

  “Where you were assaulted?”

  “Marvin and Todd and Carleton stopped on the verandah to light their cigars, and I deked around to the side of house to take a leak. I’d just finished when two hulking creatures stepped out of the shadows. I caught a fist on this cheek and went down before I could blink. I lay there senseless and unable to call for help. I braced myself for more blows. But they didn’t come.”

  “Your friends arrived?”

  “Not yet, no. The biggest fellow leaned down and said to me in a horrible whisper, ‘We been askt to bring you a message, Mr. Langford. Get outta town tomorrow, an’ don’t come back.’ If there was more I didn’t get to hear it because my chums came running around the corner, and the goons took off.”

  “Well, there’s no doubt that you and I have stirred up a hornet’s nest. And the queen bees are on to our game, alas. I think that we had better stay together for the rest of our time here. I’ll have to take you along to Eliza’s with me tomorrow morning.”

  “The beauty you courted back in Toronto?”

  Marc smiled. “I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”

  ***

  Although many different emotions registered in Brodie’s face as Marc retold the story of what had actually happened to his guardian on that fateful day fifteen months ago, his principal response was relief. To Brodie, the man who had loved Dennis Langford and helped raise his son and daughter, who had read them fantastic tales and epic poems, who had suffered with them through their childhood illnesses – such a man could never have caused bodily harm to any fellow human. And Brodie’s boyish faith had now been shown to have been justified.

  While they ate a late breakfast and mulled over the events of the previous evening, Marc called the porter to their table and asked him to have a taxicab brought to the door at ten-thirty. They would drive, together, to Eliza’s place. Brodie was curious about this mysterious lady from Marc’s past, so Marc obliged him by recounting, in a bowdlerized version, the tale of their brief but passionate relationship in the winter and spring of 1836. He had not seen or heard from her since she and her Uncle Sebastian had left Toronto abruptly in June of that year for New York City, where they were to set up a branch of the family’s business: importing and exporting wines. Eliza Dewart-Smythe was as intelligent, knowledgeable and commercially astute as she was beautiful.

  “And just how serious were you about this paragon?” Brodie asked as he drained his coffee and peered over the rim at Marc.

  “Well, I did propose to her once.”

  “And she turned you down?”

  “She threw me over for life in the big city.”

  ***

  For Constable Cobb, Tuesday was going to be a day not much better than Monday had been. In mid-morning, he had left his headquarters at The Crooked Anchor and walked over to Briar Cottage to take a gander at Beth’s babe, which had arrived, as usual, in the middle of the night – disrupting his sleep as Dora rolled thoughtlessly over him in her haste to heed Charlene’s call for the midwife. But when he reached the front stoop, he was nearly swept away by the din of excited and very female voices from inside. Every woman within three blocks must have congregated to offer their assistance, show solidarity in their common cause, and gather fodder for subsequent social discourse. He could hear Dora’s authoritative bellow above the other hen-babble, and that more than anything precipitated his immediate flight. (When he had suggested at breakfast that he’d like to inspect the new arrival, a sleepy-eyed Dora had snorted, “You better wait a while, that blazin’ beak of yours might scare the wee thing out of a year’s growth!”)

  So Cobb had then made the rounds of the other taverns he regularly patronized, in hopes of meeting up with one of his snitches who might have information to sell regarding Reuben Epp or for that matter anything useful about the poor-box thefts at St. James. Except for the solace of a few flagons of ale and a fish pie at lunch, however, the effort had proved fruitless. Even his snitches had gone to ground. He did manage to get some satisfaction later on when he upbraided a drover for whipping his ailing horse in front of Smallman’s and a dozen appalled ladies. And, O lucky day, the fellow had had the impertinence to backtalk a minion of the law and then take a swing at his helmet. After which, to the cheers of the nearby chatelaines and the approval of the beast, he had deployed the horsewhip on the villain’s backside.

  It was sometime in the middle of the afternoon when the idea struck him: if he couldn’t resolve the mystery of who had aided and abetted Reuben Epp, then by God he would find out what was going on at St. James. That the Poor Box had been rifled – twice – was one fact. That someone had deliberately, in the night, done the rifling was another. And that Constance herself was up to no good was a safe assumption. Dora had told him at breakfast, before the jibe at his nose, that tomorrow afternoon there was to be a christening held at St. James and presided over by the bishop-in-waiting. The unfortunate infant was the scion of one of Toronto’s wealthiest families (“That’s all we need,” he’d said to Dora, “another little Family Compacter.”) That combination, of Dr. Strachan and conspicuous wealth, was sure to draw three or four hundred well-wishers to the ceremony. Constance Hungerford and Mavis McDowell would doubtlessly have their Poor Box within easy reach. If the thief were to follow his customary pattern, he would strike sometime late Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning. And this time Cobb intended to be ready.

  Later that afternoon, when he spotted Missy Prue sweeping the stoop at the rear entrance to the vicarage, he sidled up to her. And while she batted her eyelashes at him, he put his proposal to her. Yes, she would gladly help him catch the thief who had so upset the missus. And yes, she would tell no-one. It would be their secret. Cobb left, whistling. The major – on a wild-goose chase in New York and unaware of the babe just born – would be proud of his apprentice’s deductive powers, his cold logic, and his low cunning. Cobb was certain that, by Thursday morning, at least one of the mysteries would be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

  TWENTY ONE

  “We’re going to take the scenic route,” Marc said to Brodie as they got into the cab in front of The Houston Hotel. “The cabbie is puzzled, but he’s put my bizarre instructions down to the eccentricities of a foreigner.”

  Instead of heading up to Broadway and moving straight down to Park Place, they turned west, and soon found themselves zigzagging through the Greenwich area. In broad daylight the devastation of the great fire was even more apparent than it had been early Sunday evening: everywhere they bore witness to charred walls, tangled timbers, makeshift shanties and dilapidated tents. The consequences of the economic collapse that had followed the great fire could be seen in the shambling and starved figures of men on every street corner, who stared at the passing carriage with hollow and malevolent eyes. Brodie wondered why they had come this way, but said nothing.

  Ten minutes later they emerged onto Hudson, a wide thoroughfare, and followed it until it ended at Read Street, where they swung east again and came out onto Broadway. They passed the City Hall and its pleasant park and arrived, at last, at Park Place, where they turned east again. Brodie could no longer hold his peace.

  “Why on earth have we been zigzagging all over town?”

  “I wanted to be certain that the cab with the spotted horse was truly shadowing us.”

  “What cab?”

  “The one that just carried on down Broadway – as if he wasn’t on our tail.”

  “They – whoever they are – want to make certain we do leave town?”

  Marc nodded.

  A block farther up they halted in front of a handsome brick building and the business it housed: ADAMS and DEWART-SMYTHE: Imported Wines and Spirits.

  Eliza was waiting for them in the retail shop at the front of the establishment. Marc heard Brodie’s intake of breath, and smiled. Eliza’s dark beauty had changed little, except perhaps to have matured slightly in her favour. The bold black
eyes and ebony ringlettes, in stark contrast to her milky complexion, would make the heart of a misogynist stutter.

  “It is really you,” Eliza said, holding out her hand for the ritual kiss and making no effort to quell her excitement. “And who is the stunning young man you have brought with you?”

  Marc introduced Brodie, who stammered out a greeting but had no idea what to do with the lady’s hand or the bow he had initiated but forgot to complete.

  “How is Uncle Sebastian?” Marc said.

  “The old dear is up in Boston making us richer,” Eliza said with an irreverent smile aimed at Brodie.

  “Leaving you to mind the store,” Marc said.

  “No need to worry, Marc, darling. You brought your own chaperone.”

  Brodie tried to suppress a blush, making it worse.

  “Ah, but I’m now a well-married man,” Marc said lightly.