Don Gutteridge - The Bishop's Pawn

“Is he dead?” Wilkie said.

Epp answered with a rasping, indrawn breath -part gasp, part snore.

“He’s drunk,” Cobb said, kicking at an emptywhiskey jug on the floor nearby. “Pissed to the gills.”

“Is that shit all over his hands?”

Cobb lifted Epp’s right hand into the dimlight. “That’s dried blood,” he said, “or I’ll eat Dora’s Sundayhat.”

Wilkie took a step back, as if he were tooclose to some deadly contamination. Cobb, however, took hold ofEpp’s greasy hair, pulled his head upright, then reached down to anarmpit and hauled him up far enough to expose his throat and mostof his torso. His wrinkled gray shirt was spattered with blood.

“I think we’ve found our assassin,” Cobbsaid.

“Jesus,” Wilkie said, “the bugger didn’t evenhave enough sense to take off these disgustin’ clothes.”

“Let’s you an’ me take him down to the CourtHouse, eh? Give the Sarge and the magistrate an Easter present.”Cobb was unable to suppress the elation he felt. Any criticism ofhim for disobeying orders or any suggestion that he haddeliberately undercut his associate, Marc, would dissolve quicklywhen the perpetrator was delivered with his guilt stamped upon himas clear as the brand on Cain’s brow.

“We can’t carry him all that way,” Wilkiesaid.

“Right. So I’ll stay here while you go downto the butcher’s an’ borrow his pony-cart. We’ll dump Epp in it,like the piece of garbage he is.”

“All right,” Wilkie said, happy to be out ofthis place with orders to follow.

“I’m gonna wait fer you outside,” Cobb said.“This hovel stinks, an’ Mr. Epp ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Just before trotting off, Wilkie said toCobb: “You figure he took what the Archdeacon said to heart?”

***

While they waited for Gussie French to return fromhis mission at the stationer’s shop, Marc and the others sipped attheir tea and nibbled muffins provided by the magistrate’sservant-cum-clerk. Points previously made concerning theinvestigation were re-made, with little fresh light being thrownupon it. All were grateful when they heard Gussie’s step outsidethe door.

“Well, sir, what did you learn?” Sturges saidto Gussie.

Looking aggrieved, as he did whenever he wasasked to perform any task other than the copy-work of which he wasinordinately proud, Gussie shuffled all the way into the room withthe murder-note in his hand. He squinted about at the luminariesgathered in the chamber, like a belligerent Uriah Heap, and said toSturges, “Burke says that anythin’ with an eagle holdin’ an ‘M’ iscalled – ”

He paused, glanced down at the word he hadscribbled on the palm of his left hand, and finished his sentence:“- is called Melton Bond, a paper made in New York City. He says hedon’t carry it an’ he don’t know of anybody in town who usesit.”

“Thanks, Gussie,” Sturges said. “You’ve donewell.”

Gussie nodded as if to say ‘I always do,’ andscuttled back to his copy-table in the police quarters below.

“I believe he has,” Marc said. “If thatscurrilous word was written on a kind of rag paper rarely found inthese parts, then we have at least something to look for when we’vegot our list of possible suspects narrowed down.”

“I’d have been happier if Burke had given usthe names of some locals who actually bought the stuff,” Thorpesaid.

“Finding a murderer is never that easy,”Sturges said.

“I’ve just thought of something,” Robertsaid. “It didn’t seem relevant until Gussie mentioned NewYork.”

All eyes turned to Baldwin, but it was Thorpewho said skeptically, “The paper could have been the victim’s ?”

“Not that,” Robert said. “But there are twogentlemen in town who might have brought such notepaper withthem.”

“Who?” Sturges said.

“Well, as I mentioned earlier, the LawSociety was planning to hear Dick’s request for permanent admissionto the Bar this coming week. My father, who is a Bencher, told methat several members had been trying to get information about whyDick was run out of New York two years ago – with a view todiscrediting him. People like Everett Stoneham were puttingenormous pressure on the Society. But apparently no-one in New Yorkwould commit to anything in writing, so an invitation was extendedto anyone who would come down here and testify in person.”

“And two of them did?” Withers said.

“Yes. Father told me last night that he hadreceived word from The American Hotel that two barristers from NewYork had checked in on Saturday evening. According to what themanager there told my father, they were very close-mouthed aboutwhy they were here, but father and I assumed that they were goingto give evidence, for or against Dick.”

“Are you implying that they might have comefor some darker purpose?” Thorpe said, ever shocked at anysuggestion of impropriety among the privileged classes.

“I don’t think so,” Robert said. “But they were here all day yesterday. They could have had avisitor.”

“Who might have come into possession of thatnotepaper and seen an opportunity to implicate the New Yorkers in acrime he himself was planning to commit,” Marc added.

“Whoa back a minute!” Sturges said. “We’reflyin’ kites without a tail here. Whaddya say we just put thesefellas on our list of people to talk to.”

“You’re right, of course,” Marc said, annoyedat having let his desperation show. “What we can get fromthese gentlemen, in the least, is some explanation – at long last -of what really happened to Dick back in New York.”

“Yes,” Robert agreed quickly. “And it’spossible that what did happen there has something to do with Dick’smurder here.”

Sturges, who was keen to get theinvestigation pointed towards the practical, said to Marc, “Whydon’t you start with these chaps, then.”

With that suggestion, the meeting was aboutto break up when Gussie French stumbled through the doorway,saucer-eyed and unable to blurt out his news.

“What is it, Gussie?” Sturges said. “Spit itout, man!”

“Cobb an’ Wilkie just come back – luggin’ afellow in Gandy Griffith’s butcher-cart!”

“What on earth are you babblin’ onabout?”

“They say they’ve caught the villain that didthe Yankee in!”

***

The police quarters consisted of two rooms on theground floor of the Court House, at the rear and close to thetunnel that connected it with the Jail next door. The smaller room,a cubicle really, was Wilfrid Sturges’ office, containing a table,two chairs and a filing cupboard. The larger one, no bigger thanthe modest-sized parlour of a peasant’s cottage, served asreception area, clerk’s office and interview room. It boastedGussie’s table and three ladder-backed chairs. Into it now werejammed the five gentlemen from the magistrate’s chambers, GussieFrench, Ewan Wilkie, Horatio Cobb, and the captured suspect. Wilkieand Cobb had carried Reuben Epp from the butcher’s cart into thereception room and arranged him so that he was sitting at Gussie’s“desk” with his head in his arms folded on the table’s surface.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?” MagistrateThorpe said, sensing he ought now to be in charge. “He looks damnnear dead!”

Cobb prodded Epp in the ribs with histruncheon. Epp emitted a soft moan, but did not otherwise respond.“He’s drunk a quart of whiskey, sir – after what he done, Ifigure.”

“If he’s said nothing, Cobb, then howdo you know he’s guilty?” Thorpe snapped, who felt that a signedconfession was the only sure evidence to bring into acourtroom.

Cobb put a hand on each of Epp’s shouldersand pulled him upright. The head lolled and settled on the chest.The eyes, oddly, were wide open, but glazed and unseeing. Whatcould now be observed clearly was the blood-soaked shirt andbrownish stains on the hands.