Don Gutteridge - Desperate Acts

“Wasps,” Marc said. He was kneeling in frontof Nestor and looking closely at his right arm. “He must havestepped on a nest of them. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Cobb knelt down beside his long-time snitch.“Hey, Nestor. It’s me, Cobb. You know me?”

While the babble-moaning did not pause,Nestor’s gaze brushed across Cobb’s distinctive features, and henodded.

“He ain’t loony,” Cobb said. “’Least nomore’n usual. He’s just in agony.”

Again Nestor nodded.

“And he sure as hell didn’t run off toBuffalo with Duggan’s loot!”

“We gotta do somethin’,” Itchysaid.

“I suggest we get him to a doctor as soon aswe can,” Marc said.

“I got a better idea,” Cobb said. “Let’s gethim to my missus.”

***

While Marc remained with Itchy and poor Nestor, Cobb- reinforced by several of Marc’s pound notes – directed the cabhastily down to Baldwin House. There, the family’s four-seater wascommandeered, and then driven by the Baldwin’s own driver back upBerkeley Street. As Nestor shrieked piteously every time he wastouched anywhere close to one of his three-dozen wasp-stings, Marc,Cobb, Itchy and the driver had to pick him up by the palms of hishands and soles of his feet and ferry him to the vehicle coveredonly by a red flannel sheet. Once inside, they kept Nestorsuspended between the facing seats – his babbling now punctuated byperiodic sobs – until they reached the Cobb cottage on ParliamentStreet just above King.

Young Fabian Cobb, who was playing outside,spotted the carriage a block away, and by the time it reached thehouse, Dora and Delia had joined him on the stoop. Once again, ashe had done so many times in the past three years, Marc watched inawe and admiration as Dora Cobb dealt with a medical emergency.Nestor was pitched, buttocks-first, onto Dora’s upturned palms,whereupon she wheeled her two hundred and some pounds about andwaddle-trotted the patient into the cottage, his scrawny limbsthrashing helplessly under the sheet. Marc thanked the driver, andfollowed Cobb into the house. Itchy, much relieved, decided heneeded a drink in town, but promised to come by first thing in themorning to check on his pal.

Fortunately, Dora had been preparing a bathfor the children, and so two huge pots of water were alreadyboiling on the stove in the kitchen. Still holding Nestor aloft bythe buttocks, Dora issued a series of commands to Delia, Fabian andher husband – initiating a well-practised sequence of actions. Thegleaming copper bathtub was pulled out from behind its screen intothe middle of the room. The boiling water was poured into it, andquickly tempered by buckets of cold water transferred from the wellout back. Delia was ordered to the nearby medicine cupboard, andreturned to the tub with a vial in each hand. Dora was panting nowunder the strain of her squirming burden, who sensed that somethingmore unpleasant than three-dozen wasp-bites was about to happen.Still, she hung on grimly, and gave her daughter preciseinstructions about the dosages she wanted applied to the bath.Seconds later, the bath-water began to bubble and dance, and apungent aroma suffused the room.

“Pull off that rag!” Dora said to herhusband.

“But he’s buck-naked!” Cobb said, glancing atDelia.

“That little pickle of his wouldn’t make anun blush!” Dora said, “so do as you’re told, Mister Cobb.”

Cobb flipped the flannel sheet up and awayfrom Nestor’s ravaged body, and the gasp from the children was notinduced by his wizened male nakedness. With the dexterity of ajuggler, Dora tossed Nestor into the air and, just as he was aboutto splash into the foamy, aromatic mixture, she seized both elbowsas they flew by, steadied his flight-path, and eased him down asgently as a baby into its bath.

Nestor let out a howl that would haverivalled King Lear’s over the corpse of Cordelia, and sustained itfor twice as long. While everyone else winced and fell back, Dorahung onto those two slippery elbows like a pair of forceps. Overand over, she dunked his body up and down in the medicinalconcoction calculated to cleanse, purge, and heal – never onceletting Nestor’s inflamed sores touch the metal of the tub.

“Help! Help! I’m bein’ drownded!”

“Well,” Cobb said to Marc, “she’s got himtalkin’.”

Just then, at a signal from Dora, Fabian heldup a soft, muslin sheet. Dora hauled Nestor up and out of the bath,set him on his feet, and wrapped him in the sheet as tenderly asshe would a newborn in its blanket.

“You got the cot set up?” she said to Delia,who nodded.

“Fabian, you bring them salves in, an’ lotsof dressin’s.”

Nestor was led off to Dora’s sewing-room,which doubled as a spare bedroom or patient’s recovery-room whennecessary.

“She’s gonna apply some poultices,” Cobbsaid. “She’s real good at that.”

“She’s real good at a lot of things,” Marcsaid.

Cobb beamed, happy to take reasonable creditfor his wife’s accomplishments.

***

Twenty minutes later, while Marc and Cobb were stillmulling over Marc’s afternoon in court, Dora came back into thekitchen.

“When can we talk to him?” Cobb said,realizing, as surely as Marc did, that, given the effectiveness ofKingsley Thornton’s efforts so far, Nestor might possessinformation that could blow the Crown’s case apart.

“The poultices’ll start to work right away.The swellin’ in his face is already on its way down. I give him asleepin’ potion with a good dose of laudanum in it. He oughta sleepfer a week.”

“Don’t say that, missus! We gotta find outwhat he knows about Duggan.”

“He ain’t eaten in days. When he wakes up inthe mornin’, I’ll start spoon-feedin’ him. If you’re lucky, hecould be sensible by the afternoon or evenin’.”

“Damn!”

“You’ve done wonders for him and for us,Dora,” Marc said. “I’ll stop by after the morning session in courtand check on his progress.”

Dora grinned. “Nice to be appreciated,” shesaid and, glancing at Cobb, added, “by a gentleman.”

***

On the stoop, under a cold but clear November sky,Marc said to Cobb, “Thanks for all this. It could be the breakwe’ve been waiting for.”

“But Thornton’ll be finished by noon-hourtomorrow, won’t he?”

“It’s my defense that matters. And that won’tbegin until Monday.” Marc was about to leave when a new thoughtstruck him. “Say, you’ve been on the day-patrol this week, haven’tyou? That means you left your post at six tonight to pursue Itchyand Nestor?”

“That I did, major. I figured that therebusiness was more important than helpin’ drunks weave their wayhome to their gripe-ful wives or shooin’ stray mutts outtaalleys.”

“I suppose the day-patrol is a lot morepleasant than night-duty.”

“Usually is.”

“Why ‘usually’?”

“You ain’t gonna believe this, but Wilkie,who’s been takin’ my night-shift, caught the burglar we beenhuntin’ fer a month or more.”

Marc laughed, though he could see Cobb hadfound no humour in the improbability. “The culprit must havetripped over him, eh?”

“You got that exactly right,” Cobb sighed.“Wilkie was sound asleep under three blankets near the garden-shedbehind a mansion on York Street when the burglar, luggin’ agunnysack full of loot, trips an’ falls on top of him. This is justenough dis-turbulence to jar Wilkie awake. He opens his eyesan’ sees this fella with a black mask on his face, scrabblin’around amongst the silver candlesticks an’ snuffoxes. An’ real slowit begins to dawn on Wilkie that this guy ain’t the butler comeinto the garden to polish the family inheritlooms at four inthe mornin’. So he gives him a friendly rap on the noggin with histruncheon.”