Don Gutteridge - The Bishop's Pawn

“I’ll start with the legal profession.”

“What will you do with your evening ?You could come to the Manhattan Club, I suppose,” Brodie saiddutifully.

Marc smiled and finished his cider. A beggar,skin and bone and pop-eyed, lurched against Brodie and rightedhimself clumsily on the vendor’s cart.

“Get yer filthy paws offa my vee-hicle!” thevendor snarled.

“Here,” Marc said, flipping a shilling athim, “give this gentleman a potato and all the cider he candrink.”

The vendor caught the coin, glowered at Marc,but did as he was bid. A coin was true specie, whatever itsorigin.

“You’ll recall that your uncle left twothousand dollars to The Bowery Theatre in his will,” Marc said whenthey were moving again.

“That’s right. He loved the theatre, as Itold you, especially that one.”

“My mother, Annemarie Thedford, is theprincipal shareholder of that establishment.”

Brodie stopped. His eyes grew wide.

“You think Uncle might have known Mrs.Thedford?”

“I do. And I intend to find out for sure thisevening.”

Cobb generally looked forward to Mondays. Sunday wasthe Lord’s day, and even those long since evicted from His Presencepaid lip-service to the Sabbath rituals. Most taverns closed(though bootleggers here and there in their hidey-holes thrived),which meant there were no brawls to break up and few domesticdisputes to umpire. Shops were shuttered and the Market untended,leaving the streets deserted except for promenading family groups.Some of this serenity, spiritual or otherwise, carried over intoMonday, when the workday began sluggishly, and even the shopkeepersand tradesmen did not bother to open up until almost noon.

This past Saturday, with no fresh breaks inthe Dougherty case, Cobb had been back on his regular patrol. Itmight have been the tension building everywhere as the great debateover the province’s future heated up – in the legislature whereMowbray McDowell was said to have delivered another mesmerizingspeech or in the public houses where speech was cheap and loud andno less partisan – or it might have been just the fickleness of theweather (it had snowed briefly on Friday), but the last Saturday inMarch had been a humdinger for the police. Cobb had been called toa house on Frederick Street where it was reported that a husbandwas threatening his wife and children with a carving knife. By thetime he and Wilkie arrived, the fellow, drunk as a skunk, had beenlocked out of his home by his adroit spouse, and was foundhammering on the door with the butt-end of the knife. Theconstables managed to collar and disarm him – while being cursedand spat upon – but just as they began to subdue him, the womanstepped out onto the porch and levelled him with one blow of herskillet. They didn’t know which one to charge.

The peacefulness of the Sabbath, then, hadbeen more than welcome. But this particular Monday morning, alas,did not promise to be a continuation of that Godly calm. For Cobbhad undertaken to check on the Poor Box at St. James. He hadsuggested, of course, that it be emptied right after evensong, butConstance Hungerford had ridiculed the notion. How else were theyto catch the thief except by providing him with a suitableincentive? She took matters further into her own hands by“suggesting” that Mavis McDowell be temporarily relieved of theburden of emptying the box – until the thief was safely behindbars. Cobb did not really have a lot of faith in the business ofhis planting the torn Halifax dollar for the feckless robber tospirit off to his lair, but he did remember to bring along the“matching” triangular portion. It appeared that Mrs. Hungerfordwished the culprit to be her husband’s rival, David Chalmers.Wishful thinking, in Cobb’s opinion. Certainly the rivalry was realenough. Dora had gleefully recounted the prevailing gossip afterattending the morning service yesterday, which had been taken byQuentin Hungerford, who – it being close to Easter – preached aboutthe two thieves who had bracketed Christ on the cross. WouldChalmers retaliate at evensong? With a homily on JudasIscariot?

Cobb was about to sidle around to the rear ofthe vicarage when one of the big front doors of the church squealedopen. It was Constance. “In this way, Cobb. Quickly!”

Cobb’s heart sank. But he did as he was told.The church was unlit, with only a hazy daylight filtering throughthe mosaics on the windows. The Poor Box stood on its perch, itslittle door closed.

“It ain’t been tampered with?” Cobb said,hopes rising.

Constance stuck out her long-nailed, rightforefinger and casually flicked open the door. “It’s been unlocked.By someone with a key. ”

“Why didn’t they lock it back up?”

She stared at him as if he were witless. “Andwhy would he bother? We were bound to find it empty, weren’twe?”

“I see yer point.”

“We never find less than five dollars inthere. And as you can see for yourself, there isn’t a farthingleft. Money intended for widows and orphans !”

Cobb felt the lash of this latter remark asif he had somehow colluded in the outrage. “So I guess he took thedollar I planted in there.”

“That would be a reasonable conclusion,wouldn’t it?”

“Were these front doors locked?”

“Quentin’s been doing that since Mr. Epp . .. left us. And my husband never shirks a duty, however menial.”

“So the robber got in here through thevicarage an’ the walkway?”

“Another unassailable deduction.”

“Which means this is an inside job,” Cobbsaid. “Now I gotta talk with yer maids, Mrs. Hungerford. Youdo see that, don’t you?”

She was suddenly all sweetness and light.“Certainly. But I hope you are not about to overlook the ReverendChalmers. After all, my servants share the rear quarters with him.My own family never enter that area after the church is closed upat nine o’clock – unless invited. So we are down to three suspects,are we not?”

“Looks that way,” Cobb said glumly.

He trailed the vicar’s wife through thevestry and the covered walkway into the hall at the rear of thevicarage, trying not to step on her voluminous, rustlingskirts.

“Myrtle and Missy are occupied in my chambersat the moment,” she said as they drew to a halt. “They share thesetwo rooms. Whilst they are busy elsewhere, why not take thisopportunity to search for the stolen money?” she said, and pushedopen the door in front of her. When Cobb hesitated, she added, “You do intend to search these premises thoroughly?”

“Well, I thought I oughta talk to theladies first.”

Constance glared at him, and he could feelhis nose reddening. “If one of my servants were involved – and Ihave no doubt that they were not – then the only place theycould ‘stash the loot,’ as our crass newspapers would say, is hereamong their meagre possessions. I’ll stand in the doorway while youdo your duty.”

“If that’s what you want,” Cobb said,grinding his teeth.

“And don’t go disturbing their effects!”

Cobb went into the maids’ suite. He foundhimself standing in a small sitting-room just big enough for twopadded chairs, a tattered carpet, a pot-bellied stove, and acommode. Gingham curtains on a narrow window and crocheted doilieson the arms of the chairs were the only signs of a feminine touch.Among the combs, scissors and bric-à-brac he found no coinsor banknotes of any kind. For form’s sake he peered into thecupboard beneath and tipped the chamber pot up into the light. Witha sigh – and Constance Hungerford’s stare still upon him – he easedback a curtain and entered the bedroom.

The two women shared one bed. Most of therest of the room was taken up by a bulky “highboy,” with six deepdrawers, and a clothes-rack upon which were draped a half-dozenfrocks, uniforms and related items of apparel. Cobb sighed, andwent to work. Ten minutes later – after scrabbling through bins offrilly, lacy, frothy garments (with calloused hands and eyessqueezed shut) and patting down several silky, slippery dressesthat might as well have been occupied by their owners – Cobbemerged to say, “As you thought, ma’am: nothin’.”