Bloody Relations

by Don Gutteridge

  “This will likely be a waste of effort, Cobb,” Marc said, “but I want to see who’s here and how they react to one another. We may get a different perspective on Mrs. Burgess and the girls.”

  “Which ain’t exactly evidence,” Cobb muttered.

  “I want you to stay near the back of the hall and scrutinize every face. You never know who might decide to show up.”

  They entered the hall. To Marc’s surprise the main room of the former Mechanics’ Institute, austere even in the days when it was a hub of self-improvement, had been transformed into something not unlike a simple house of worship on a back concession. Benches formed rows of pews and great sprays of freshly cut roses adorned tables along the windowless walls. Below the front wall, with the mid-morning sun pouring through its single, tall, plain window, a makeshift platform and lectern had been arranged to provide an altar. A casket of gleaming hardwood, the kind normally reserved for those rich enough to purchase ostentation, sat before it, bedecked with sprigs of wildflower. Behind the lectern, fussing with his Bible and notes, stood the minister, a youthful-looking chap, meagre of stature but fired with holy purpose and the zeal to propagate it. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them, Marc thought gratefully.

  There were more than two dozen mourners. In the rear rows sat several families unmistakably of Irishtown: the women in touchingly inapt bonnets and drab hand-me-down dresses, the men in suit coats a size too large or small, the children scrubbed but otherwise unaltered. The second row from the front was occupied by women, housewives whose spouses couldn’t or wouldn’t come, tenants or neighbourhood acquaintances of Mrs. Burgess most likely. With a pang of guilt Marc realized that whatever its troubles and traumas, the ragtag and motley collective of Irishtown was still a community. Madame Renée’s was not, as he had first thought, an isolated bastion in a random and hostile terrain.

  The proof of such a conclusion lay before him as he observed the scene in the front row: Norah Burgess and Madame Charlotte stood embracing each other. Tears had excavated runnels in Charlotte’s pancake makeup, but Norah Burgess, her face unsullied by cosmetics, looked utterly devastated. She trembled as she clung to her rival, and the latter eased her onto the bench and held her till she steadied. On either side of the older women and filling the front row, their employees sat with quiet dignity, despite the almost comic effect of their efforts to temper their flamboyant working attire with black bits of shawl, scarf, or cowl.

  Marc took a seat in the back row. Cobb meanwhile perched on a dusty stove near the entrance and, satisfied that no grieving lover or drooling assassin had intruded upon the ceremony, proceeded to catnap. The Reverend Solomon Good, whose booming voice emerged almost miraculously from his narrow chest, began the service with a long and soulful prayer, of which Cobb caught only intermittent phrases concerning Mary Magdalene, casting the first stone, and the bounteous compassion of God’s only begotten son.

  Cobb was unaware how much of the service he had dozed through when an alien sound to his left brought him almost awake. It was the click of a door latch being opened and closed. It took him a half-minute to get his mind in gear and ten more seconds to come to the conclusion that someone had just joined the mourners.

  Although in the shadow of the far rear corner opposite Cobb, the figure was obviously tall, well built, and intent on remaining unobserved and unidentified. Despite the warmth of the day, it wore a loose-fitting coat and had covered its head and hair with a flowered scarf. It was peering around the room, looking for someone or something. The congregation by then was standing, and the hall was swelling with their voices raised in song and the hope of heaven.

  “Jesus!” Cobb hissed to himself, “it’s Badger!” He sprang forward but managed only to stumble and alert the target. By the time Cobb regained his footing, Badger was out the door. Cobb did not think to call out to Marc; he simply gave chase as he had done a hundred times before in the execution of his duties. Blinking in the sudden sunlight of John Street, he looked quickly up and down the road and spotted the culprit running awkwardly into the service lane that backed onto the houses and shops along Wellington Street to the south. In seconds Cobb was up to full speed, a pace that never failed to be underestimated by fleeing felons. He wheeled into the alleyway. Badger was only thirty yards ahead, weaving and stumbling among the half-dozen carts, assorted donkeys and their masters, and the usual flotsam of these much-travelled lanes.

  “Stop that thief!” he hollered, but the command produced only curious stares or irreverent rejoinders as he pushed aside man and beast blocking the way. The creature in flight was the key to the investigation! He had to be captured here and now. With excitement surging through him, Cobb quickly gained on his prey. Now only fifteen yards behind, Cobb spotted the narrow alley leading south to Wellington between two brick buildings. Every instinct told him that Badger would veer into it. That meant a straight, unimpeded dash to the main street. With his superior speed, Cobb would have the bastard well before he reached safety. Suddenly a dog ran in front of Badger, who tripped, righted himself, and headed for the alley. At that moment a gust of wind blew the scarf away, and Cobb got a split-second glimpse of thick, light-coloured hair. Got you now, you murdering bugger, Cobb said to himself as he nimbly sidestepped the mange-ridden mongrel and cantered towards the alley.

  Which was precisely when his feet went out from under him and, in trying to prevent himself from landing on his back, he overcorrected and went skidding on his considerable belly for several yards, coming to a stop with his nose an inch from a brick wall.

  “Shit!” he cried aloud, just as he came to the conclusion that he was lying in the very stuff.

  Those spectators who had interrupted their business to take in the chase burst into mocking applause. Fuming and scarlet-nosed, Cobb resisted the temptation to instruct these scoffers in the awful solemnity of the law, picked himself up, and ran into the alley. Too late. Badger had reached Wellington Street. Winded and huffing, Cobb made it onto the thoroughfare. It was crowded with traffic, human and animal. Cobb looked left and right.

  Badger had disappeared.

  • • •

  WHILE THE ESCAPE OF MICHAEL BADGER was a blow to Marc and Cobb, at least it confirmed that he was still in the city. Constable Brown was dispatched to Government House with an official request from Chief Sturges that sufficient troops be deployed to surround the city limits. Constable Rossiter was put in charge of the deputized supernumeraries to scour the streets and alleys west of Yonge, and Constable Wilkie headed a similar squad to do the same east of Yonge. Cobb was ordered to go home and render himself less redolent.

  Marc was left at the station to fret and ponder what might have been. But not for long. Just before noon he decided that, while Badger was being run to ground, he would start shaking the tree among the whist players to see what might fall out. He headed straight for the home of the Reverend Temperance Finney.

  He got a cool reception. “My husband isn’t in,” Mrs. Finney told him at the door.

  “Please tell me, then, where he has gone. I am on urgent government business, a matter of life and death. I must see him as soon as possible.”

  “He doesn’t tell me where he goes,” was the curt reply, and the door closed in his face.

  It was while he stood on the road, angry and frustrated, that he recalled without conscious effort what it was he had overlooked even as he had made copious notes earlier in the day. The only uncorroborated account of the drive back to the city after the gala was that of the Hepburns. Apparently they had gone as a couple and returned as a couple, with only the dubious testimony of their stableman to back their story. What if, for reasons not yet clear, Mrs. Hepburn had lied and bribed her coachman to do the same? While the police, and perhaps even the Durhams, might be content to have the murder attributed solely to Michael Badger, Marc was determined to uncover any political conspiracy. If proven, its exposure would help Lord Durham’s cause by undermining the
extremist opposition to his proposals. Marc was not quite sure how he might go about the interrogation, but if he could just get the two Hepburns together in one room . . .

  He was sweating and excited by the time he had marched to Hospital Street and entered the Hepburn property. Striding up to the door, he gave a peremptory rap with the brass knocker. The time had come to drop the polite niceties. He had less than eight hours to solve the case and liberate the Durhams.

  It was Una who opened the door. She was dishevelled, hollow-eyed, and distracted, almost slatternly.

  “I wish to speak with Mr. Hepburn, please. Tell him it’s urgent.”

  Una nodded without speaking, turned and shuffled back towards a heavy interior door, leaving Marc a clear view of her movements. She eased it open and he heard her say something in a timid voice. A murmur of male commentary rose in the room behind Una’s figure blocking the doorway. “He says it’s urgent, sir.”

  “Damn it all, I told you never to interrupt me in here on Thursday afternoons!”

  “I’ll tell him you’re busy, then.”

  “You do that.”

  Una stepped back to reveal her red-faced master.

  “And keep this bloody door closed! How many times do I have to tell you, Miss Badger!”

  Una pushed the door shut but not before Marc caught sight of three men seated around a baize-covered table, littered with upturned playing cards: Finney, O’Driscoll, and Harris.

  Looking abashed and worried, Una hustled back to Marc. “He’s with his whist club, sir. Come back at four.”

  For the moment, Marc was oddly uninterested in the whist-loving chums. “Is Michael Badger your brother?” he asked.

  “He is,” she said, and burst into tears.

  Marc offered his arm and led Una outside. They found a stone bench in a shady part of the garden.

  “Tell me about Michael,” Marc said gently.

  “I’d like to. I’ve been going crazy since I saw him on Tuesday, and nobody to talk to, nobody to help.”

  “You saw Michael on Tuesday?”

  “He came here about ten in the morning. He looked terrible. I never seen him so bad.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Usually he comes for money, but he knew I had no more to give him. He said he was in real trouble and had to get out of town before the day ended. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but I guessed it had to do with his gambling.”

  “He was in debt?”

  “He always was. But there was something about him this time that seemed different. Even when he was on the run, and that was more than once, he always kept a bit of a twinkle in his eye. He would be scared, of course, but I knew him well and I knew he thought it was all a game—a dangerous game he was willing to play.”

  “A born gambler.”

  “Yes. But there was another side to him.”

  “There usually is. But you say this time seemed different.”

  “That’s right. He looked like he’d had the fright of his life. He told me he had to see Mr. Hepburn right away.”

  Marc leaned forward. This was what he needed to hear, the connection between the paid assassin and his sponsor. “Michael knew Alasdair Hepburn?”

  Una seemed momentarily puzzled. “Of course. He worked here quite often.”

  “I see,” Marc said, and he did, his mind racing ahead.

  “Michael did odd jobs around the town; he’s real handy with a hammer and saw. But lately he’s worked only for Mr. Hepburn. He helped plant the vegetable garden over there in April and May. But . . . ”

  She looked down, and despite her mannish figure and plain face, she was suddenly fragile and abashed. “He kept going back to that wicked place and that wicked woman in Irishtown.”

  “So you knew about his being Madame Renée’s bruiser?”

  “He couldn’t help himself. He had to go back there, whatever.”

  After a pause, Marc said, “Getting back to Tuesday, then, tell me: did Michael see Mr. Hepburn?”

  “No. Mr. Hepburn was at the bank. I told Michael that, and he was terrified and trembling. Then he told me to fetch pen and paper, and he wrote out a note, which he said I had to give to Mr. Hepburn when he came home for his luncheon at half past one. He swore me to absolute secrecy, saying his life depended on it. Then he left without another word.”

  “Would he have left town, do you think?”

  “Only if he had money. We got cousins in Port Sarnia. He’s run off there before. But a steamer costs money.” She brushed aside a tear and said, “I haven’t heard a word from him since Tuesday morning and there’s an awful rumour going ’round about him being wanted by the police.”

  Marc waited until Una Badger stopped running her fingers through her already thoroughly ruffled hair. “So you heard about the funeral of Sarah McConkey?” he prompted.

  “That harlot from Madame Renée’s? Yes. I heard that a girl from there had been killed. I thought that Michael . . . ”

  “Might still be in town and attend the funeral for one of the girls he must have known?”

  She hung her head.

  Marc noted the bright sun glancing through the leaves upon her thick auburn hair, and said, “And you went there in disguise this morning?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t there.”

  Marc resisted mentioning the chase and its misinterpreted results. The important point here and now was that Michael Badger might not be in the city after all. He was probably hundreds of miles away, heading for his cousins in Port Sarnia.

  While Marc was contemplating the implications of this development, Una said, “He told me not to, but I peeked at the note.”

  “The note he wrote for Mr. Hepburn?”

  “Yes. I gave it to him right at one-thirty on Tuesday, but I read it first. I was beside myself with worry.”

  “I’m glad you did. It may explain a lot of things and help me to find your brother.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. So please, if you can, tell me precisely what it said.”

  “Oh, that’s easy, sir. It was very short and I have no trouble reading my brother’s writing. It said, ‘Send help now, as arranged.’ ”

  In deference to this caring and distraught woman, Marc checked his elation. But here was proof of a direct link between Hepburn and Badger. The “help” was no doubt of the financial kind, for homicidal services rendered. Even if Badger was as far away as Port Sarnia—where it would take a day by steamer or express rider to order his capture and at least another day to have him brought back—he now had enough evidence to secure a warrant. He and Sturges would interrogate Hepburn until he confessed, search his house for further clues, and with luck implicate the other three. Whist club indeed!

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you find Michael, won’t you?”

  “Yes. I’ll come and tell you myself.”

  “There’s a good, sweet side to Michael, you know. We grew up in a decent family and went to a proper school.”

  But it hadn’t kept him from becoming a gambler and a cold-blooded killer.

  • • •

  MARC’S INSTINCT WAS TO BARGE INTO the card game at Hepburn’s and wreak havoc. But reason soon prevailed. His first duty was to inform Chief Sturges that Cobb’s sighting and pursuit of their quarry had been misguided. Then he would ask Sarge to go up to Government House to convince Sir George to dispatch a party to Port Sarnia to check out the Badger cousins. At the same time, the hunt for the villain would have to be broadened again to include the surrounding townships. Marc was also concerned about the rumour mill, which Una Badger had alluded to. While those involved in the manhunt had been told that Badger was wanted for killing a woman and that Lord Durham himself had taken a special, but unspecified, interest in the matter, such a facile and patently incomplete explanation had fuelled local speculation. Even now such rumours could be doing Durham as much harm as the truth about Ellice’s involvement might.

  Chief Sturges took the news about Ba
dger with stolid resignation, a legacy of his Cockney upbringing and long service in Wellington’s army and Robert Peel’s London constabulary. While not commenting one way or the other on Marc’s claims regarding Hepburn, he readily agreed to send Gussie upstairs to fetch Magistrate Thorpe. Grumbling about having his mid-day meal disrupted and about a “lot of bloody fuss over a common hooer,” Gussie trotted off to the adjoining chambers. The chief then left for Government House.

  Marc sat down at Gussie French’s table and, pulling rank, consumed the clerk’s bread and cheese. Moments later, Magistrate Thorpe came in, shook hands with Marc, and sat down opposite him. Gussie was left cooling his heels in a hallway.

  In as concise terms as he could manage, Marc outlined his theory of the murder. Michael Badger, in debt to the dicers up at the Tinker’s Dam and fearing for his safety, arrived on Monday morning at Madame Renée’s to tap his favourite source for cash in order to preserve his knees and perhaps his life. As it turned out, most of Irishtown, including Mrs. Burgess’s girls, were at the Queen’s Wharf welcoming His Lordship to the city. Luckily he found Madame at home, alone. When Mrs. Burgess refused to give him a farthing, the desperate Badger somehow got word to Alasdair Hepburn that a plot, which the latter had hatched in anticipation of the earl’s arrival and to which Badger had been till now an unwilling party, was suddenly operative. Hepburn, in possible collusion with other Tory sympathizers—Marc did not yet name them—got young Handford Ellice drunk and possibly drugged, and drove him to Irishtown after the gala. From there he was dropped off at Madame Renée’s. The plan was for Badger, who had stolen a key for the hatch, to slip into the brothel when the house was quiet and the couple were fast asleep, and cause some kind of mayhem in order to have Ellice found in a low-life stew—producing a sex scandal to discredit Lord Durham and his already morally tainted entourage. Initially in the plot purely for money, Badger agreed to carry out his part, but once inside that room, his rage against Mrs. Burgess and his abnormal fear overwhelmed him. He stabbed Sarah McConkey with the dagger he knew lay under her pillow. Perhaps horrified at his own actions, Badger went to Hepburn on Tuesday morning looking for his blood money and, finding him out, and afraid or forbidden to go to Hepburn’s bank, he left a secret note, which Una Badger fortuitously read and whose incriminating contents she could attest to.