Minor Corruption (10 page)

“Either way, that don’t sound too good, does
it? The girl’s with child and she don’t call fer her mom or dad but
fer Uncle Seamus.”

“She was dyin’, not birthin’. And she’d
probably grown fond of the old gent, eh?”

“Not too fond, I hope.”

“Besides, Baldwin ain’t the only Seamus in
the county. We can’t go accusin’ a man of a
hyena’s
crime
just because a girl called out his Christian name?”

“That right. And that’s why the Chief’s sent
me out to see if there is anythin’ that looks like real
evidence.”

“If we c’n believe the Thurgoods, there was a
five-pound note passed from the girl to Mrs. Trigger.”

“Who’s skedadelled off to Buffalo or Detroit
with it, and with the murder weapon.”

“So what’re you gonna do?”

“I’m goin’ out to Trout Creek. Thurgood’ll be
at work. I want to catch Auleen Thurgood by herself. The Major
always says it’s best to question suspects alone and separate. You
never know when or where their stories won’t match.”

“What about Seamus Baldwin?”

“I’ll go see him – dependin’ on what I find
at the Thurgoods.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“I know. I ain’t lookin’ forward to it. The
Baldwins are bigwigs. And they’re all good friends of the
Edwards.”

“And they been good to us, too. Invitin’
Fabian out there fer the birthday party and the like.”

“Don’t make it worse, Missus Cobb. You
remember what Fabian told us about the old gent’s antics after he
come home – foolin’ about like a clown with the children and makin’
goo-goo eyes at the little girls.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! I’ve seen you cavortin’
about in yer Shakespearean costumes playin’ the jester with the
neighbourhood kids.”

Cobb grunted and rose to go. “I hope there’s
nothin’ to all this,” he said.

***

Once again in the morning Edie Barr was ordered into
the library to play dominoes with Uncle Seamus. He had had a
promising evening, sitting with Robert and Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin in
the parlour and appearing to follow the conversation even if he
were not contributing to it. But the night had seen a relapse into
nightmare, wakefulness, and crying jags – and a lot of concerned
care on the part of the servants. He had refused breakfast, but at
the mention of Edie and dominoes in the library, he had agreed to
come downstairs. Robert waited outside until he heard the exchange
of giggles and guffaws. Then he tapped gently on the door. He was
not looking forward to what lay ahead.

***

At the Chief’s suggestion, Cobb rented a buggy and
drove up Brock Street to the Spadina road. There were now several
taxicabs in Toronto, but they were notoriously unreliable, and
could usually not be persuaded (without a suitable bribe) to go
beyond the city limits. So only twenty minutes had passed before he
turned onto the rugged bush-path that led to Whittle’s mill. The
road improved as he approached the mill itself, its huge wheel
turning ponderously in the race that ran down from the mill-pond
and Trout Creek. He passed a small partially cleared farm on his
left, crossed a rickety log bridge over the creek, and soon came to
a clutch of log shanties set willy nilly along a rutted path. Dora
had told him that the Thurgoods occupied the first one.

Auleen Thurgood must have heard the horse and
buggy approach, for she popped her head out the front door, spotted
the stranger in uniform, and ducked back inside, slamming the
door.

Cobb tethered the horse and walked up to the
house.

“Let me in, Mrs. Thurgood. I’m Constable
Cobb, and I just wanta ask you a question or two: there’s nothin’
to be scared of.”

Ten minutes later Cobb was sitting with a mug
of tea at the kitchen table, and Auleen Thurgood had finally
stopped fluttering about like a lop-sided butterfly. She sat
opposite him, thin-faced and large-eyed, with her fingers
clenched.

“You want know more about what happened last
Friday?”

“I don’t need to go over what you told the
coroner, ma’am. I know how painful that must’ve been. But yer
husband’s made a serious charge against Mr. Seamus Baldwin.”

“I know, he told me. I begged him to leave
things be, but he never listens to me – or anybody else. He’ll get
us all ruined.”

“Only if he ain’t tellin’ the truth. Which is
why I’m here. I need you to tell me what happened in the minute or
so before yer daughter . . . uh, passed on.”

Auleen’s lower lip began to quiver, but she
took a deep breath and said bravely, “After Mrs. Trigger walked
outta here floutin’ her five pounds, we run inta Betsy’s room and
right away we saw what she’d done . . . what the two of ‘em had
cooked up together. But Betsy was just a child, so she didn’t know
what she was doin’, it was that dreadful – ”

“Yes, yes,” Cobb said. “And we’ll catch up
with her. It’s what happened after Mrs. Cobb arrived that I need to
know about.”

“And a wonderful woman yer wife is, sir. She
done all she could fer Betsy, but the . . . the thing’d come outta
her before she got here, and the fever was already terrible. We got
hot water and cold cloths, but we could all see she was slippin’
away from us . . .”

Cobb pulled a clean handkerchief from his
pocket and waited until Auleen had finished sobbing into it. “Take
yer time, missus.”

“I thought I was all cried out, but I was
wrong.”

“I take it you or yer husband had asked Betsy
who the father of her babe was when she first hinted she was
pregnant?”

“We did, but she said nothin’. Then later
when she was wild with the fever I asked her again. And this time
she answered. She said it was Seamus.”

“Seamus
Baldwin
?”

Auleen looked puzzled for a moment, then
said, “No. Just Seamus. But she said it twice. She said, ‘Seamus .
. .please . . . Seamus.’ We all heard it.”

“I know you did. Mrs. Cobb told me the same.
But you see, it could’ve been
any
Seamus. And I’m worried
about the word ‘please.’ Sounds more like she was
callin
’
fer him.”

“’Cause he was her lover!” Auleen cried.
“’Cause he seduced her! A child! A girl’s who’s only had her
monthlies since last March!”

Cobb squirmed at such bold woman-talk, but
said kindly enough, “Please, calm down, ma’am. I’m here to get at
the truth, not to doubt yer word.”

“What about the five pounds? No mill-hand
ever saw a note like that. The only people within three miles of
here that could’ve had that kinda money are the Baldwins. And
Betsy’s worked up at Spadina for over two months.”

Cobb nodded as if he agreed, then said, “Any
of them mill-hands named Seamus?”

“I thought you was lookin’ into the charge
Burton made against Seamus
Baldwin
?” she cried, defiant.
Then she put her head onto the table and wept.

“I take it there aren’t?” he said softly.

She shook her head without raising it.

“Mind if I take a peek at Betsy’s room?”

Auleen nodded miserably. Cobb got up and
entered the cramped cubicle that had served as the dead girl’s only
private space. The bloodied pallet had been removed entirely,
leaving only a home-made night-stand as the sole piece of
furniture. Two crude drawers had been fashioned and attached to the
underside of an apple-box. A shard of broken mirror lay on its top,
the girl’s pathetic looking-glass. In the first drawer he found
several pairs of cotton underwear and two strips of cloth that were
probably used for her menstrual periods. Cobb blushed at the
thought, and was about to shut the drawer without further search
when he heard the rustle of paper underneath the cloths. Slowly he
drew into the dim light a half-sheet of writing paper. Cobb went to
the oil-papered window and was just able to make out the pencil
scrawl:

Dear Uncle:

Thank you for the five-pound note. It’s

a lifesaver and you are an angel. I love you.

XOXOX

Betsy

p.s. See you at Spadina

Oh dear, Cobb thought. This complicates things. On
the face of it, this letter was a thank-you note that Betsy meant
to give to Uncle Seamus for his generosity. But the “uncle,” in
conjunction with “Spadina” and her death-bed cry of “Seamus,”
pointed towards only one person who would answer to all three
references. And it sure looked as if there had been a five-pound
note, one that had passed from benefactor to pregnant girl to
abortionist. Cobb had no choice now. He would have to interview
Seamus Baldwin. He returned to the night-table and opened the
second drawer: there could be more. But there wasn’t. In it he
found a rabbit’s foot, a sling-shot, several marbles and half a
dozen Indian arrowheads. An odd collection, he thought, for a
girl.

He went back into the kitchen, where Auleen
was sitting upright with a mug of tea clasped in all ten
fingers.

“I’m goin’ to talk to yer husband, ma’am, but
first I need to go over to Spadina. I got reason to believe Seamus
Baldwin may be mixed up in this unhappy business. It’s way too
soon, though, to conclude he was a seducer and a rapist.”

“I just want us to be left alone,” she said,
setting her tea aside, “but if that man did do it, I’d like to see
him punished.”

“So would I, ma’am.”

At the door he turned and said, “I found a
bunch of things in Betsy’s room that looked more like the keepsakes
of a lad than a lass.”

Auleen smiled wanly. “Oh, them things belong
to my son Tim. He and Betsy shared that room when they were both
children. Tim’s only four years older.”

“But he don’t live here any more?”

“He run off and got married at the end of
July.”

“And you had an older girl?”

Auleen’s eyes narrowed. “We did. Lottie. She
was a wild one. Seven years older’n Tim. She run away years
ago.”

“So Betsy was yer last?”

Auleen nodded. “There’s nobody now but me and
Burton. We’re all alone.”

***

A few rods back from the road, Cobb noticed someone
working at the weir that served the mill. He tethered the horse and
walked towards the figure, who stopped hammering at some lower
section of the little dam and watched him approach.

“You Burton Thurgood?”

“I am. And you must be one of the bobbies.”
Thurgood stepped up onto a platform.

“I want to talk to you about the charge you
made against Seamus Baldwin,.” Cobb said evenly. “I’ve been asked
to investigate and make a report.”

“Then why ain’t you over at Spadina doin’ yer
job? I already told yer chief what happened Friday night and what I
heard.”

“I need to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Soon as I do, I plan on headin’ over to talk to Mr. Baldwin.”

Thurgood, whose expression veered as close to
a sneer as he dared, said, “I’ll believe it when I see it. I don’t
really expect them swells to admit anythin’ to the likes of
you.”

Cobb bristled, but kept his temper. “Maybe
so. But I still need to hear what you got to say – fer my
report.”

Thurgood grunted, and while Cobb took out his
notebook and pretended to scribble in it, Thurgood gave Cobb an
account of what happened that was not materially different from
that of his wife’s, except in the pugnacity of its tone. Cobb had
deliberately neglected to tell him he had already heard it from
Auleen. The jibing of the two accounts confirmed the need for him
to continue on to Spadina, as unpleasant as that might prove to
be.

Cobb thanked Thurgood and turned to
leave.

“Yer chief told me to come in and check on
that report at seven o’clock this evenin’,” Thurgood said
pointedly. “I’ll be there.”

I’ll try not to be
, Cobb thought. And
headed for his buggy.

***

“It’s good to hear you laugh again, Uncle,” Robert
said.

“That lass makes me do it, even when it
hurts,” Uncle Seamus said, absent-mindedly putting the dominoes
back in their box.

“It’s a sad time for all of us. Father and I
loved Betsy like one of our own.”

“You have other children.”

“And without them I’d never have survived
Elizabeth’s death in ‘thirty-six. I trust you’ll lean on us and on
Edie and the other servants to help you over this hurdle.”

“She was so young. And full of promise. She
needed someone to talk to. As I did.”

Robert was pleased to hear his uncle talking
of his loss. It was the first direct reference he had made to it
since Betsy’s death.

“I’ll have Miss Partridge see that Edie’s
duties are lightened for a while so she can help cheer you up
whenever you wish to have her do so.”

“She’s a pretty little thing with a wicked
sense of fun, but she’s not Betsy. Thank you, though, for that
thought. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful to you or William. I know
you’re doing all you can to help. Perhaps in a week or two I’ll
feel up to chambers again.”

“Whenever you say.”

“And I know you’re needed in many other parts
of the province.”

“I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re going
to be all right.”

“Your dad and Chalmers can look after my
physical and spiritual needs. Please, go ahead and arrange your
trip to London as you planned.”

“Do you wish to stay here and read, or do you
want me to have Chalmers fetch Edie back?”

Uncle Seamus, having played the role so often
and for so long, had evolved a jester’s face: when it smiled every
crevice and plane smiled in concert with his vivid blue eyes; but
when it frowned, every wrinkle and rosy patch sagged in sympathy.
At this moment, his smile was struggling to maintain itself. “Have
Edie come back in. I promised to let her win.”

Robert had put off the inevitable long
enough. “I will, Uncle,” he said “but there is something I must
tell you, even though it may upset you.”