Bloody Relations

by Don Gutteridge

  “This wasn’t any normal mortal,” said Fabian, who had begun reading his grandfather’s Shakespeare and dazzling his classmates with unsolicited bursts of pentameter. “He was as big and ugly as Caliban!”

  “Now, Fabian—”

  “And there was a fiery halo ’round his head!”

  Cobb went suddenly still. “When you say big, you mean tall, eh?”

  “Tallest man I ever saw, honest.”

  “Jesus!” Cobb cried. “It’s him!”

  “Mister Cobb, watch yer—”

  But Cobb was already scrambling for the door. “Which way did he go?” he said to Fabian, who was on his heels.

  “Butch and me let out a yell and the creature turned and run off.”

  “But where?” Cobb gasped, tripping on the steps and teetering forward onto the stone walk.

  “Straight up King Street. We could see his halo bobbing away.”

  “Heading up King towards the river?”

  “And running like he had the devil up his backside!”

  Cobb was about to reprimand his son for using such an unsavoury image but instead found himself yelling, “Jesus Christ and Christendom!”

  Fabian began to laugh. He couldn’t help it: his father was hopping about in his stocking feet and pulling thistles out of their soles.

  Back in the parlour—fuming and mortified—Cobb informed Dora that the bogeyman was undoubtedly a fugitive he’d been tracking and, alas, was now heading for the Kingston Road and townships east. He began pulling his boots on over his swollen and prickled feet.

  “You’re not goin’ out again?” Dora said. “You’ll drop dead of exertion!”

  “I’ve gotta find Sarge and wake him up. We’re gonna need the troops to catch this bugger tonight.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Dora asked, alarmed. “We gonna have another rebellion?”

  Cobb stood up on his tender appendages. “We might be—Ow!”

  “You gonna shoot him, Dad?” Delia asked, wondrously scandalized.

  “I’d like to, luv.”

  Moments later, Constable Horatio Cobb was hurrying gingerly through the dark streets of his city, looking once more to his duty.

  EIGHT

  When Marc arrived home from Government House, he found Beth tucked up in bed, reading. Her father, a Congregational minister from Pennsylvania, had bequeathed her an impressive library of books, most of which she had read more than once. She looked up, smiled, then giggled.

  “Do I look that bad?” Marc said, sitting down beside her.

  “Not you,” she replied, leaning over to be kissed. “Mr. Pickwick.”

  “Ah, you’ve started in on Uncle Frederick’s collection, then?”

  “Mr. Dickens is a lot more amusing than Blackstone’s Commentaries or Phillips’ Evidence.”

  “Uncle Frederick sent those for my edification, not entertainment.”

  “This Dickens fella doesn’t have a lot of respect for barristers.”

  “Who does?”

  She waited till he had undressed and slipped in beside her before she asked, “Well, are you going tell me about it?”

  “Yes, but in the morning when my mind wakes up.”

  He reached over and placed a warm hand on her belly.

  She shook her head gently, but her smile seemed to say “soon.”

  • • •

  MARC SLIPPED OUT OF BED AND into his study before seven the next morning. He wanted to write down what he had learned at Government House while it was still fresh. Outside his window, bobolinks and meadowlarks warbled the fields and gardens awake. About eight o’clock Charlene tapped on the door and brought in tea and toast. A little later he heard the two women preparing breakfast in the kitchen, chatting amiably as they did so. How far such easy domesticity seemed from the sordid and sad scene at Madame Renée’s: a girl’s blood spilled wantonly and death sudden and undeserved.

  When Charlene tapped next, Marc assumed it was the call to breakfast proper. He was surprised when she announced that Constable Cobb had arrived. They had planned to meet at the police station at nine-thirty. He hurried out to the parlour, where Cobb stood fiddling with his truncheon and looking everywhere but at the women of the house.

  Without ceremony he announced, “I got some news, Major.”

  Cobb then sketched out for Marc the events up at the Tinker’s Dam and the almost certain sighting of the red-headed giant thereafter. Chief Constable Sturges had trotted up to Government House, roused Sir George Arthur from a warm bed, and persuaded him to dispatch a mounted troop to the Kingston Road in search of Badger.

  Marc seemed more interested in the Tinker’s Dam than in the imminent capture of their key witness. “That was very good work up there last night,” he said. “You know, of course, what it means?”

  “Yeah, we didn’t catch the bugger.” Cobb blushed, then glanced towards the kitchen where the two women had discreetly retired.

  “It means two things. First, Badger turns out to be a reckless gambler in trouble with the toughs of the town, who was facing a deadline for repayment of his debts to them, which in turn means that Mrs. Burgess’s account of him and his recent behaviour has been essentially substantiated. So far we haven’t caught her or her girls in a single lie. For instance, I learned from Lord Durham last evening that the timeline of their story jibes with what Wakefield discovered at Spadina.”

  Marc brought Cobb up to speed on that subject.

  “You mentioned two things,” Cobb reminded Marc.

  “The second is that we now have a chronological account of the entire evening, from the moment Ellice entered the whist game until you found him with a bloody dagger in his hand sometime after two in the morning.”

  “And?” Cobb seemed more bemused by all this than impressed.

  “We have ipso facto both the perpetrator of the deed, Badger, and his motives, money and revenge, along with a fair idea of who might have supplied him the blood money and escorted Ellice to the brothel: one or more of the whist players. And we can easily infer what their motive was.”

  “And you’re gonna see these gents at ten o’clock?”

  “Precisely.”

  They agreed to meet at the Cock and Bull at one. Cobb turned to go.

  “What are you going to do this morning?” Marc asked at the door.

  “I’m gonna dig up my snitches and put the word out on this Badger fella, in case he tries to sneak back into town. But with that head o’ hair and that size, he won’t be able to find a hidey-hole anywheres in this county.”

  Cobb neglected to mention that he had other investigative plans of his own. The Major wasn’t the only one who could concoct a theory.

  • • •

  MARC SAT DOWN TO A HEARTY English breakfast. While Charlene was clearing up, Marc and Beth sat in the parlour discussing his visit to Government House the previous night. When he had completed his summary and followed up with his conspiracy theory, Beth nodded politely, then remarked, “I’m worried about that poor young man.”

  “We all are, darling. That’s why we’re desperate to find the real killer.”

  “He sounds like he’s about to lose his mind.”

  “I think Lord Durham feels the same.”

  “Then it won’t matter much who killed Sarah McConkey, will it?”

  “No, but—”

  “I feel I’m partly to blame for what happened. If I hadn’t got him to dance and start feeling comfortable with himself, he never would’ve gone into that card room and—”

  “Beth, you must not blame yourself for this tragedy. Not in the least way. Handford Ellice is a grown man. He made the decision to go with a stranger to look for a woman.”

  Beth let the admonition pass. “You said he’s hallucinating about stabbing me?”

  “Yes, that’s what His Lordship told me. More exactly, he said that his nephew repeatedly fantasized pulling the knife out of your neck.”

  Beth thought about that, then said, “I think they’
re pouring too much laudanum into the boy. He’s got to come back to reality, not escape it by being drugged silly.”

  “You may be right, but—”

  “He needs to see me, in the flesh and alive.”

  “You’re not thinking of going up there!”

  “No, I’m not thinking about it at all. I’ve made up my mind to go.”

  After much further debate with no change in outcome, Marc agreed to prepare the way for Beth to visit Handford Ellice that afternoon on condition that she not try to tell Dr. Withers how to practise medicine. He took her nod for consent.

  • • •

  THE COLLOQUY WITH THE EARL OF Durham, Her Majesty’s High Commissioner to British North America, took place in a comfortable meeting room in the east wing of Government House. Padded chairs surrounded a rectangular table of polished oak. A warm breeze billowed the curtains on the mullioned windows open now to the benevolent weather. Lord Durham sat at one end of the table, resplendent in his formal morning clothes and smiling at his guests, though a tightness at the edges of the mouth betrayed the tension he was feeling. The Tory gentlemen sat in pairs along either side, looking a bit nervous in the presence of such power and privilege but nonetheless confident in their cause and its ultimate preponderance. At the other end sat Robert Baldwin, son of Dr. William Baldwin of Spadina, and still a Reformer, if a somewhat tarnished one after his ambiguous role in the Rebellion. His expression was unreadable.

  In one corner of the room, well away from the table, sat Charles Buller and Marc Edwards, pens poised. The only person in the room requiring an introduction was Marc. And Lord Durham proceeded to do that as the first order of business, having noted the puzzled and not unsuspicious glances of his Tory guests.

  “I have asked one of your own to take notes and prepare minutes of our meeting in addition to my own secretary, Mr. Buller. This is Mr. Marc Edwards, formerly Lieutenant Edwards of the 23rd Regiment of Foot, now a permanent resident of the city and”—he paused until all eyes had returned to him and added—“a heroic combatant at St. Denis.”

  While Marc was continually embarrassed by such references, he understood precisely why the wily earl had mentioned it. The Tory gentlemen—or whist players, as Marc thought of them—visibly relaxed and thereafter paid no attention to him.

  Lord Durham opened the dialogue.

  “Let me begin, gentlemen, by saying that there is not much about the conflicting political positions in Upper Canada that I do not know at secondhand. I have read every Report on Grievances, every written submission made to Parliament over the past three years, and a number of critical dispatches shown to me by the colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg. I have spoken at length with that distinguished gentleman and with his successor-designate, Lord John Russell. I have brought with me Edward Wakefield, the public servant who knows more about the colonies and colonial policy than any other man in England, in order to benefit from his advice. But there is no substitute for firsthand experience, for being able to listen to the very people whose lives are entangled in the issues and who reside in the disputed terrain, as it were.”

  There was a murmur of assent here, and Marc noticed the whist players lean forward perceptibly, abandoning the detached air they had been feigning.

  “However, what I need most at this point in my odyssey of reconciliation and reconstruction is not so much a reiteration of long-entrenched views and positions—though I promise to attend to these if you feel you have a particularly cogent or fresh perspective on them—as to hear your response to the proposals which I have been formulating as potential solutions to the province’s difficulties and the political stalemate it finds itself in.”

  “I don’t know about your proposals, sir,” said the Reverend Finney, suddenly raising his voice as if he had begun his complaint in mid-paragraph, “but I wish to comment on the regrettable acts which you’ve already committed and which can’t be undone.”

  “Of course. Such heartfelt comments may be valuable,” Durham replied diplomatically, “in assisting me to mend my ways in the future. What decisions are you referring to?”

  “The surprisingly lenient treatment of the French rebels for one.”

  “You mean the fact that I didn’t hang them one and all?”

  “Hanging’s too good for them. They’re convicted murderers. They torched houses and barns. They bankrupted honest English citizens!”

  “That is true.”

  “Up here we did our duty, we strung up Matthews and Lount as soon as we decently could: an eye for an eye. And I’ll tell you, sir, the sight of them two blackguards dangling from a gibbet beside the Court House soon put a stop to any further shenanigans.”

  “Let me try and explain, then.” Durham looked at the other Tories, who were bobbing their chins in support of Finney. Robert Baldwin sat expressionless, like the good barrister he was. “The first thing I felt obliged to do—”

  “Was dismiss the duly appointed Executive Council!” broke in Patrick O’Driscoll. “Do you realize what sort of precedent that may have set?”

  “I did, and I do, sir. But I believe I was responding to the previous point, which usually takes precedence.”

  “I hope, Your Lordship, that you will not take umbrage at the strength of our expression here this morning, for we have been bottling up our opinions and views for some months. The tone may be somewhat vehement, but its tenor is notwithstanding solemn and important.” The voice of reason belonged to Alasdair Hepburn, banker.

  “Vehemence and passion are not unwelcome here. I have been accused of those vices myself inside and outside of the Privy Council. So, to return to my original point. My first obligation in regard to the hundreds of rebels jailed without benefit of habeas corpus was to sort out the wheat from the chaff.”

  “A murderer is a murderer!” Finney huffed.

  “There was murder and arson on both sides. The situation demanded that I distinguish the political and military leaders of the revolt from those who were low-level participants in what was, after all, a civil strife, and from those who merely sympathized and hoped. This was done on the basis of forensic evidence and proper judicial procedure, which are, along with habeas corpus, the cornerstones of British freedom and social order.”

  Baldwin nodded.

  “Once I was certain that men like Papineau and Nelson were indeed the instigators and leaders of the uprising, I put them on trial and saw them properly convicted.”

  “Then slapped their behinds and told them to be good little boys!” Finney blustered.

  “I banished them for life, by special ordinance, and exiled them to Bermuda. The punishment, however it may be viewed, has proven to be as practicable as I had hoped. Moderates among the English faction and the new leaders emerging from the French community—like Louis LaFontaine—have supported my decision. It was clear and harsh enough to be seen as punitive and efficacious, and yet not so draconian as to be perceived as vindictive.”

  “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” Baldwin murmured, and got several rude looks for his pains.

  “With that legal issue resolved and the regular courts restored,” Durham continued, “I could then, and only then, proceed to political matters.”

  “By sacking the entire legitimate council and appointing your own Special Council to rule as you liked!” O’Driscoll charged again.

  “Under the terms of my commission,” Durham said quietly, “I can more or less rule as I like, without benefit of any council. However, that has not been the route I have taken, as your presence here this morning illustrates.”

  Samuel Harris now spoke for the first time. “Let me congratulate Your Lordship on the speed with which you released the impounded monies back into circulation. It’s all very well to babble on about politics, but a country’s well-being is primarily dependent upon its economic health and its mercantile ingenuity.”

  “Well said,” Hepburn added for good measure.

  “That is true, sir, and as a lifelong Whig I am
a proponent of open trade and low tariffs and a minimum of political supervision of the economy. But my reading of your troubles is that it is the political deadlock that has stultified economic growth: race against race in Quebec and Tory against Reformer here in Upper Canada.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong!” O’Driscoll cried, his black eyes burning. “For ten years now it’s been loyalist against traitor, monarchist against republican, men of means and respectability against upstarts and Yankee infiltrators and all those Papists we’ve let in to pollute our soil!”

  Hepburn cleared his throat. “Please, Mr. O’Driscoll, remember that this is not about religion but about loyalties and probity.”

  Harris, who had reddened, glared at O’Driscoll.

  “I’m sorry, Sam, but I’m just so Goddamned angry—”

  “And so are many hundreds of others,” Durham soothed. “I have been sent here to help assuage that anger, to provide some framework within which the native intelligence of all concerned citizens can be encouraged to flourish and henceforth produce local decisions by democratic means.”

  “But even as we speak,” Harris said in his modest dry-goods voice, “members of the Hunters’ Lodges in New York and Ohio are denouncing us and gathering forces to invade and ‘liberate’ us. And as long as they do so, normal cross-border trade will remain at a standstill.”

  “And thousands of farmers are fleeing to Iowa,” Baldwin countered, “honest men who have been branded traitors and hounded out of the province, selling their farms for a song—”

  “And withdrawing their savings from my bank,” Hepburn added with a wry glance at Baldwin, as if to assure him that the banking community was not behind the exodus. Then he turned to Lord Durham. “But you already know all of this. We would be most interested in hearing what solutions you are contemplating in order to comment on them from our various perspectives.”

  Marc thought that the bank business must have thrived heretofore, for Alasdair Hepburn had obviously spent much time at a well-stocked trencher with vintage wines and Portuguese sherry to wash it down. His face, once handsome, was bloated and shot through with tiny, throbbing veins. He thought also that Hepburn, like the others, was being somewhat disingenuous, for the outlines of Durham’s “solution” were widely rumoured and already being debated in the local press. Still, Durham himself had made no public pronouncements on the subject.