Minor Corruption (12 page)

“The real question may be: how unscrupulous
are those who would like to cripple our party before the next
election?”

Robert looked grim. “The alliance between us
and Louis LaFontaine wouldn’t survive a day if this were actually
to be brought forward. Even a verdict of innocent might not clear
the air. Is there anything we can do to stop this nonsense?”

“Nothing. Except wait and hope that Thurgood
thinks better of his threats.”

Robert was tempted to tell Marc about
Thurgood’s extortion attempt, but did not. Matters had not got out
of hand – yet.

***

A week went by and nothing more was heard from
Burton Thurgood. Whether he had actually approached Magistrate
Thorpe or tried, bless him, to obtain an interview with Humphrey
Cardiff, the Attorney-General, or any other Tory who would not walk
across the street to snub him, Marc did not know. But by the next
Tuesday, he felt confident enough to advise Robert to go ahead with
a shortened version of his political trek to London and the western
counties. Uncle Seamus was still up and down, but slowly recovering
and stable enough to leave in the hands of Dr. Baldwin (despite the
latter’s recent attack of lumbago). Reluctantly Robert agree to
depart, provided that an express messenger would be hired to seek
him out, should Uncle take a turn for the worse or, Heaven forfend,
Thurgood should find some support for his suit among the numerous
opponents of the Reform party.

Robert left on the Wednesday morning of the
third week in October. On Friday morning the bombshell burst.

***

Cobb had just stepped into police quarters to see
how Chief Sturges was doing (earlier that morning he had had to be
carried from his rented buggy to his office) when he encountered a
stocky young man loitering in the anteroom.

“Lookin’ fer someone?” Cobb said.

“I’d like to see the chief of police, if you
please, sir.” The fellow, who looked all of twenty, was
bare-cheeked and beardless, with round, innocent eyes. He wore a
workman’s cap and a smock. From the wheat-dust on his clothing,
Cobb took him for a mill-hand.

“The Chief ain’t too well this mornin’. Will
I do?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk, private
like?”

“You got a complaint to make?”

“I think so.” Despite his burly body and full
face, the lad spoke with a soft, diffident voice, as if speaking
too forcefully might a damage the furniture.

“We’ll go into the constables’ room,
then.”

Inside, where the corner stove was still warm
and the sun slanted in through the east window, Cobb sat the
visitor down at the square table and then sat opposite him.

“Well, son, let’s have it.”

The fellow cleared his throat. “My name’s
Jake Broom,” he began, almost apologetically. “I work out at
Whittle’s mill on Trout Creek.”

The hair on Cobb’s neck began to rise, and he
swallowed hard. Not more of this tomfoolery, he thought.

“At least I did until last August the
third.”

“You quit?”

“Not actually. I got word that my father was
dyin’ down in Port Talbot. I asked Mr. Whittle fer a few days leave
and he said all right, so I left the next mornin’.” He blushed and
added, “I just got back yesterday.”

“More than a few days, I’d say,” Cobb said,
glancing at the detritus on Broom’s sleeves.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Whittle’s taken me back even
though I was gone fer two months. I’m workin’ there again.”

“Sounds logical to me.” Cobb was relaxed
again. Whatever the complaint was, and it might be a while before
he heard it, it couldn’t have anything to do with Thurgood or poor
Betsy.

“My father didn’t die right off,” Broom
explained, obviously flustered. “He sort of wasted away. I stayed
on to help with the chores. They’ve got a farm, or had one.”

“I reckon yer complaint has somethin’ to do
with Toronto?” Cobb said helpfully.

“Yeah, it does. You see a little while after
I started in at the mill yesterday, I heard stories from the other
fellows, Joe Mullins and Sol Clift, about somethin’ terrible that
happened while I was away.”

Cobb swallowed hard – again. “I see.” And he
was beginning to.

“They told me what happened to Betsy
Thurgood.”

“We know all about that. There was an
inquest. We’re lookin’ fer Elsie Trigger, the woman who did Betsy
in.”

“I was shocked to hear of it. We all knew
Betsy. She brought her pa’s lunch around to him every day she
worked. Made special for him by Mrs. Morrisey up at Spadina.” His
round eyes watered. “There was always extra, and we got to sample
it.”

“So everybody up there knew Betsy?”

Jake Bloom blushed. “Only to say hello, and
tease her a bit. She never stayed. Her pa was real strict with her.
And us.”

“Naturally,” Cobb said nicely, but he was
growing weary of this meandering tale. “Have you or haven’t you got
somethin’ to tell us that pertains to the matter?”

“In a roundabout way, I do.”

“Then spill it, son. I ain’t got all day and
my left foot’s asleep.”

Broom would not be hurried. Whatever he was
leading to it appeared to be too terrible to tell outright. “I went
home last night a very worried man. You see, I saw somethin’ a
while ago, somethin’ I should have reported right away, but word of
my dad’s illness came that same day and I had no choice but to go
to him and I couldn’t be absolutely sure of what I’d seen or if it
was important or – ”

“Okay, slow down now. Just tell me, slow and
careful, what you saw and let me be the judge of what’s important
or not important.”

Broom paused to catch his breath and brush an
earlier tear off his cheek. “All right. What I saw happened at the
beginning of last August, Saturday the third. I remember because I
heard about my dad late that afternoon and the day before we had
that little tornado go through the township, remember?”

Cobb nodded, confused himself now. This could
not involve Betsy, surely, and yet the long lead-up to the climax
of the tale pointed in that direction.

“It was just after lunch time. Betsy brought
her pa’s lunch, as usual. And left. The lunch broke up early, as
some of us had special things to do. One of Mr. Whittle’s horses
had been poorly that mornin’ and my extra job was to take care of
the animals, so I went out to the barn, which is a hundred yards or
so from the mill. I saw to the horse, who was fine, and was headin’
out the back way when I passed an empty stall. At least it shoulda
been empty.”

“But it wasn’t?”

“No.” Broom blushed again, the redness
exaggerated by his beardless, plump cheeks. “There was two people
in it.”

Cobb waited while Broom gathered more breath
and tried to find a voice that would bear the burden of his
words.

“A man and a woman. A girl.”

Cobb braced himself. “Go on. Please.”

“They were goin’ at it. You know, like a –
”

“Man and a woman?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“You could see all this?”

“Plain as day, though I was at the doorway,
lookin’ back. I was maybe twenty feet away and there wasn’t a lot
of light. But I could see plain enough.”

“And you recognized this couple?”

“I knew the girl was Betsy. I could only see
her legs, up in the air, sort of wavin’ about and her thin little
arms.” More tears threatened to halt this grim account.

“Take yer time. Try a deep breath.” Cobb
himself was finding it harder to breathe.

“I’m okay. I gotta tell this. I knew it was
Betsy ‘cause her blue gingham dress, the one she’d had on when she
come into the office earlier, was draped over the side of the
stall. And I could see bits of her yellow apron down in the
straw.”

So, Cobb thought vaguely, the girl had been
raped, literally. Two months ago.

“But you couldn’t see who the man was, I take
it?”

“Not right on. All I could see was his legs
and his rear end. He was bareback and his trousers were around his
ankles and hidden in the straw.”

“So you couldn’t tell what they were like?
Their colour or kind?”

“No.”

“But?” Cobb said, knowing there was more, and
dreading it.

“But what I did see, as his head came up and
down, up and down, was his great bushel of whitish hair, fluffed up
and stickin’ out like a stook of oats.”

Cobb could restrain himself no longer. “What
did you do? Shout out? Run forward to scare him off? You didn’t
just stand there, did ya, and try to figure out which of yer mates
had big white hair?”

Broom dropped his eyes. He was trembling. “I
run,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Jesus, a little girl is gettin’ raped by
some old guy right in front of you, and you
run
?”

Broom looked up, as bewildered perhaps as he
had been on that August afternoon. “I ran to get help. I didn’t run
away. I should’ve shouted, but I was afraid he’d get up and – ”

“Run after you?”

“Yes, I’m ashamed to say. But I did run
across to the mill office to fetch Mr. Whittle, but he wasn’t in
the office. I remembered then that he and Burton’d gone down to fix
the sluice in the weir. Joe and Sol must’ve been in the mill, but
they wouldn’t have heard a horn blowin’ next to them.”

“So what did you do?”

“I ran back to the barn.”

“And?”

Broom hung his head again. “Nobody was there.
The stall was empty. I looked behind the barn but I couldn’t see a
soul.”

“Surely you reported what you saw to Mr.
Whittle?” Cobb asked, but he already knew the answer.

“I was gonna do that. But then I wondered if
he would believe me. I went into the stall, but they’d left nothin’
behind. And if I was wrong about the man I figured I saw on top of
Betsy, then I’d be in deep trouble. I live with Joe Mullins’s
family, and I thought I’d tell Mr. Mullins that night when I got
home, and take his advice. But when I got home, word was waitin’
about my father dyin’. After that I couldn’t think of anythin’
else. Joe went to see Mr. Whittle fer me, and I left for Port
Talbot early the next mornin’.”

“You know who that rapist was even though you
never saw his face?”

“As certain as I can be. I saw that it was a
short man, from the thin legs and buttocks, and probably old. But
I’d know that big sheaf of white hair anywhere. I saw it at a
picnic we had up at Spadina in July.”

Cobb knew what was coming but that didn’t
ease of force of it.

“It was Seamus Baldwin. He raped Betsy
Thurgood.”

***

They were in Wilfrid Sturges’ office – Cobb, Broom
and the Chief. Cobb summarized what Broom had told him in order to
save the young man from further stress. Sturges listened with
growing concern and then outright anxiety, for he too saw where the
story was going to end.

“And you’ll swear to all this, son?” was his
initial response. “In a statement written and signed?”

“It is my duty, sir.”

“Indeed it is. But you realize that you’re
accusin’ a gentleman from a prominent family of a horrific
crime?”

“I do.”

“And that your eye-witness testimony, delayed
over two months, is based on identification through a man’s
hair?”

“And his size, sir.”

“A man you yourself saw on only one
occasion?”

“Yes, sir. But it was at a picnic. And Seamus
Baldwin entertained us with a ventriloquist’s act. His hair is
almost pure white and it’s like a big puffball. I’ve never seen
anythin’ else like it.”

And, although no-one in the room was saying
so, there was now corroborating evidence of Seamus’s possible
involvement in the aborting of a two-month-old foetus – and the
girl’s subsequent death. And what could be interpreted as a
love-note. Broom had no doubt heard the entire (and embellished)
story from Thurgood himself.

“All right, then. I’ll ask you to go into the
clerk’s room and dictate your statement to Mr. French. Please
include every detail. Cobb will read it over with you and when
you’re satisfied, you can sign it.”

“And then what?” It was a genuine question.
Broom was no avenging father, which made his declarations all the
more compelling, and credible.

“Your statement will give us leave to carry
out a thorough investigation of the incident last August the
third,” Sturges said. “If a charge of rape against Mr. Seamus
Baldwin is warranted, it will be brought – forthwith.”

Cobb took Broom to Gussie French, and
returned. Sturges was readjusting his foot on the stool. “Goddamn
gout,” he muttered. “And now
this.
”

“Where
do
we go, Sarge?”

Sturges wriggled his foot, grimaced and said,
“We investigate. Or
you
do. Very, very carefully. We’re
walkin’ on eggs here.”

“Havin’ a Baldwin accused of seduction and
rape is bad enough, eh, but havin’ it happen right now is even
worse.”

“It’s a political nightmare fer us. Mr.
Humphrey Cardiff, our Attorney-General, is a High Tory. Once he
gets a whiff of this kinda charge against one of the Reform family,
he’ll be like a he-hound on a she-hound’s arse.”

“And we bobbies might be the she-hound.”

“We’ll get pressure from both sides,” Sturges
sighed. “So you’ll have to be scrupulous in yer investigation. If
the stupid old fart turns out to be chargeable, then the evidence
you gather will have to stand up in court and be seen to be nothin’
but the unvarnished truth. Remember, the Baldwins are lawyers, and
they’ve got Marc Edwards in house.”

“We’ll need a lot more than that puff of
white hair, then, won’t we?”

“We will. We can’t proceed on flimsy or
circumstantial evidence. If we do, the Reformers will accuse us of
a witch-hunt.”

“But if we can’t charge him, the Tories will
claim we caved in to Reform pressure. ‘Cause I must admit right
off, there sure is a lot of
circular-stantial
stuff layin’
about.”