Don Gutteridge - Desperate Acts

“When you get me acquitted,” Brodie said toMarc as he was leaving, “Diana wishes us to announce ourengagement.” The look of boyish hope that Brodie gave him as hemade this remark cut Marc to the quick.

***

“He’s ready to talk alright,” Dora said to Marc andher husband as she led them towards the spare-room. “He ain’tstopped tellin’ me about the awful days he spent in some shack upin the bush, fendin’ off bedbugs an’ ants an’ eatin’ food unfit ferhumans, even of the lowly variety.”

“That’s good news, then,” Marc said. “You’vedone wonders for him – and us.”

“An’ he’s startin’ to eat us outta house an’home,” Dora carried on, as she usually did when she latched onto atopic of interest to her. “I give him a coupla cups of soup when hewoke up, an’ by noon he was onto ham an’ eggs. If he keeps this up,we’ll haveta hire us another rooster to keep the hens happy.”

Nestor now looked quite comical, sitting onthe bed swathed in one of Cobb’s generous nightshirts. His facialfeatures had returned to their customary shrivelled condition, andthe tiny, shifty eyes were once again restless and wary in theirbony sockets.

“I know what you fellas want,” Nestor said asMarc and Cobb pulled up stools and sat opposite him.

“An’ we’re gonna get it, ain’t we,Nestor?”

“What’s in it fer me?” Nestor said.

“Savin’ yer miserable, good-fer-nothin’ hide,that’s what’s in it, you ungrateful – ”

“It’s okay, Cobb,” Marc said. “I believe thatNestor’s going to cooperate fully with us, in view of the fact thathe himself might be liable to criminal prosecution unless he canconvince us of his innocence by telling us the absolute truth.”

Nestor tried defiance briefly, then said witha sigh of resignation, “I guess I ain’t got much choice, haveI?”

“Not really,” Marc said. “Tell us first ofall why you ran away.”

Nestor stifled a sob, reached up to touch awell-salved wasp-bite on his chin, and said, “It wasn’t ‘cause Iwas scared the police would think I killed Albert. I was reallyscared the killer would think I was Albert’s partner an’ comelookin’ fer me, too.”

“That makes sense,” Marc said. “The questionnow is: were you in fact your cousin’s associate?”

“No!” Nestor cried, now truly frightened. “Iain’t never been one to break the law! You know that, don’t ya,Cobb?”

“We all give way to temptation sooner orlater,” Cobb said sententiously.

“What were you, then?” Marc said. “Didyou know, for example, that Albert was a multiple blackmailer?”

Nestor stared down at the inflamed wounds onthe back of his hands, in a plea for sympathy perhaps, and withoutlooking up, said, “I didn’t know at first. Honest, Cobb. You gottabelieve me.”

Cobb said nothing.

“Albert give me money when he first come hereto help us rent the stone-cottage, an’ told me it was an instalmenton his legacy from some dead uncle in Montreal. Every once in awhile he’d come up with some cash, an’ I figured it was from thedead uncle. But most of the time he said he was broke, an’ cadgedmoney offa me .”

“Poor you,” Cobb said. “You never figuredthis skunk was bang-boozlin’ you?”

“When did you become suspicious of what hewas really up to?” Marc said.

“Well, he kept on pumpin’ me fer informationon certain people in town he was interested in. He said he had bigplans fer us to start a business with his legacy, an’ we needed tocultivate the right sorta folks. Albert, he could talk the earsoffa mule.”

“Which folks, for example?”

“Well, one night when we was well inta ourcups, we got to gabbin’ about the rich bitches an’ how they wasalways pretendin’ to be so good an’ proper, an’ before I know it,I’m talkin’ about the English lord who just moved here an’ how I’dheard a story from Itchy Quick about the shenanigans his wife gotup to. Itchy did some work fer the lord last summer, an’ spied thelady-lord in the petunia-patch doin’ what she shouldn’t, if ya knowwhat I mean.”

“We know what ya mean,” Cobb said.

“I didn’t plan on tellin’ him who thegentleman with her was, I ain’t inta that kind of gossip – ”

“Unless you can sell it to the police,” Cobbsaid.

“But he got it out of you anyway?” Marcsaid.

Nestor looked at Marc beseechingly. “God, butthat man had a way of wormin’ secrets outta me.”

“And this gentleman was Horace Fullarton, thebanker?” Marc said.

Nestor was startled, then wary. “You alreadyknow,” he said slowly.

“From our own sources,” Marc saidreassuringly. “Was there anyone else whose indiscretions you mayhave revealed to your cousin?”

“Well, Albert kept goin’ on about thislord-fella, an’ he got me good an’ drunk one night an’ I told him -though I don’t remember doin’ so – that I’d been in the newwhore-house in Irishtown deliverin’ some supplies fer the madam,an’ who should I spy there but his lordship.”

“Dressed as a woman,” Marc said.

“You got a crystal ball or somethin’?” Nestorsaid.

“Get on with it,” Cobb said, “or I’ll haveDora cut off yer ham an’ eggs.”

“Well, that is what I seen there. Icouldn’t believe my eyes. It was him alright. I’d seen him drivin’down King Street in his fancy buggy lots of times. But he had on alady’s dress and a wig an’ face-paint an’ slippers, an’ he wasdoin’ a jig an’ singin’ in a real high voice, like he’d beengelded.”

“But if you seen him an’ recognizedhim,” Cobb said, “lots of other people in that place would’ve,too?”

Nestor looked smug for a second – at thenaïveté of the question. “Nobody in a whore-house that caters togentlemen ever breathes a word of what goes on in there or who doeswhat to who.”

“So, your cousin had the goods on SirPeregrine and Horace Fullarton,” Marc said. “Did you never think toask what, if anything, he planned to do with this information?After all, it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing one would use toingratiate oneself with the rich and powerful. Moreover, you’veinsisted that he wormed it out of you.”

“I did begin to wonder. Especially when hegot to braggin’ one night that he’d dug up dirt on some otherpeople all by himself.”

“Did he say who?”

“Uh huh. He told me when he lived in Montrealhe had a lot of girl friends. One of ‘em was a maid to a Mrs.Ramsay.”

Marc and Cobb looked at each other, andbraced themselves.

“Albert said she told him in bed oneafternoon that Mrs. Ramsay had a baby girl that she was tellin’everybody was adopted from the country. But she knew fer a fact itwas a bastard child of Miss Ramsay, the sister-in-law, got with aFrench rebel who was killed in the war.”

Marc sighed. So, Duggan’s threat had beenreal after all. Servants always knew more than their mastersthought they did. But had Brodie known? If so, his motive for doingDuggan serious harm intensified. He hated the idea of having to askthe lad. But if Nestor did end up on the witness-stand, Marc had toknow every sordid bit of the truth.

“He said this maid also told him she’d seen aletter from Miss Ramsay, who was livin’ here in the city. In it shesaid she’d met a wonderful man, who was a banker an’ had a finehouse.”

“In other words, he was rich.”

“That’s what Albert said. He admitted he’dcome to Toronto hopin’ he might be able to use this secret to helphim start a new life.”

“He did, did he?” Cobb scoffed.

“But he didn’t tell me he was gonna shake himdown fer money! Honest!”

“Who else had he managed to set up forpossible extortion?” Marc said.