Don Gutteridge - Governing Passion

Marvin Leroy’s boarding-house was justanother block away on Queen Street. There Marc found the landlord,James Muir, at home but not very helpful. He had been away fromhome last night, and his wife, who had been there, had just nowgone off for a visit to her sister and wouldn’t be back untiltomorrow at the earliest. Marc said he would call back.

He wasn’t overly concerned because, of thethree co-workers, only Leroy did not have a strong personal motivefor murder. He may not have liked Dunham, but he hadn’t beensingled out like the Quebecers and didn’t fancy the foreman’s job.But Marc would come back and check all the same. He was positiveone of the three was the killer. He just had to find a way todiscover which one.

***

First thing in the morning Marc drove out to thebuilding site. He wanted to confront Manson and Leroy about theirmutual lie. Bert Campion, the architect, met him at the doorway tothe Legislative Council chamber. The workmen were up on thescaffolding.

“I’d like to talk to Manson and Leroy,” Marksaid.

“I’ll fetch Manson down for you,” Campionsaid, moving into the room under reconstruction. “But first I’vegot something to show you.”

He held out his hand, opened it palm up, andrevealed a tin button.

“What’s this?” Marc said, curious butpuzzled.

“I found this after you left yesterday, overthere near where the body was.”

Marc cursed himself silently for havingmissed it himself when he had examined the crime scene. “Is itimportant?” he said.

“Yes, I believe so. You see, we haven’t beenworking on that side of the room so far, and so there’s no reasonfor a button — an overalls button — to have fallen off in thatarea.”

“I see. You think it might have been rippedoff, perhaps by Dunham himself?”

“It’s possible.”

“Any idea whose it might be?”

“Yes, I do. I noticed that Gregory Manson hadthe bib of his overalls tied up with a piece of string. I asked himif he had lost a button. And he had to say yes, didn’t he?”

”Well, then, I’d better speak to him first,eh?”

“I’ll get him.”

Campion called to Manson to come down fromthe scaffolding. Manson obeyed, and gave Marc a sharp look.

“Mr. Edwards wishes to talk to you again,Manson. I want you to cooperate fully.”

Manson muttered agreement, and Marc took himto one side.

“You and Marvin Leroy did not walk home fromBernie’s on the night of the murder, did you?”

“Of course we did. We always did.”

“Perhaps. But not that night. Leroy stayed tofinish his dice game, didn’t he?”

Manson looked down. “He may have. It’s hardto remember because we’re in that dive every nightpractically.”

“Bernie swears he did. And you, sir, did notgo straight home, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Campion found this button — youroveralls button — over there near the body. It fell off of you whenyou confronted Earl Dunham sometime after midnight. Is that notso?”

Manson looked down and then up, defiance onhis face. “What if I did? That doesn’t mean I killed him, doesit?”

“What were you doing out here at thathour?”

“All right, all right, I’ll tell you. I hadone too many to drink at Bernie’s. I started to feel sorry formyself, not being made foreman. But I was angry at Dunham morebecause of the way he fired Denis Jardin. Denis, even though he wasa Frenchie, was the best lath-man we had. We’re runnin’ way behindon this construction, and we need Denis. So I went out there. Iknew Dunham would be on guard-duty, he was always suckin’ up toCampion. I went there to try and persuade him to rehire Denis.”

“And you had a confrontation?”

“I couldn’t make him see reason. We were overon the other side of the room, near the piles of laths where he washidin’, and he just kept shoutin’ at me to mind my own business.Then he grabbed me — that’s when the button must’ve popped off — and pushed me away. I stormed out.. I was mad as a hatter, butDunham was certainly alive when I left him. Alive and cursin’me.”

“You didn’t, in your anger, pick up a hammerand strike him?”

“I did not! Besides, there were no toolslyin’ about over there.”

Dunham had been struck on the back of thehead, according to the coroner’s report, whose contents had beensummarized for Marc by the magistrate. That meant someone hadsneaked up behind the victim and caught him unawares. Mason couldhardly have raced over to where the tools were, picked up a hammer,and then raced back to strike Dunham on the back of the head. But,of course, he could have waited and returned later to do the job bystealth.

“I’ll have to inform the magistrate of thesefindings,” Marc said. But the magistrate already had his man,Jacques LeMieux, who had a powerful motive, had been heard making athreat against the victim, who had no alibi, and whose tool hadbeen the murder weapon. The best Marc could hope for would be touse Manson’s actions in court as pointing to an alternativescenario. “That’ll be all for now,” Marc said, dismissingManson.

Leroy quickly admitted he had not left thedive with Manson. “I was winnin’ too much at dice to leave.”

“How long after did you leave Bernie’s?”

“Could have been an hour. Have you checkedwith my landlady? She always hears me come in.”

“She’s away at the moment. But I shall check,don’t worry.”

“I went straight home from Bernie’s.”

“But if you don’t know what time you left,what difference will her testimony make? You could have left afterhalf an hour and had plenty of time to murder Dunham and get home,say, by one-thirty.”

“But I didn’t. I went straight home.”

Marc let Leroy go back to his work. Without astrong motive, it was hard to see that he — in a good mood afterwinning at dice — would have gone out to the site and committedmurder. But he was still on the list, especially if his landladydidn’t hear him come in.

Marc thanked Campion and drove back toKingston, straight to the magistrate.

***

In the foyer of the hotel Marc was met by RobertBaldwin, who looked excited.

“What is it?” Marc said.

“We’ve just received a letter from HenriThériault, in response to Christopher Pettigrew’s letter. Come oninto the meeting room. Everybody’s there.”

Marc followed Robert into the nearby room,where, seated around the table were Hincks, LaFontaine, GillesGagnon and young Pettigrew.

“You’re just in time, Marc,” Hincks said.“I’ve got a letter here. It’s in French, so why don’t you read andtranslate it for us?”

Marc nodded to the others and sat down. Therewas an air of expectancy in the room, for the cohesion ofLaFontaine’s nationalist group might well be tied up in thisresponse. Certainly the fact that Thériault, isolated on hisfamily’s farm in Chateauguay, had replied at all was a positivesign. Marc took the letter and read one sentence at a time,translating as he went.

Dear Christopher:

It was good to hear from you again after such a longabsence, and to know that you are well and proposing to marry. MayI offer my congratulations. I know also, from our conversationsduring the time I spent hiding out in your Montreal home almostfour years ago, that you were a passionate believer in the Reformcause in your province. I have of course heard, and heard much,about your champion, Robert Baldwin, and I have been kept informedof the attempts by Louis LaFontaine to forge an alliance of theleft with him. While I admire Mr. LaFontaine, I, like many of mycontemporaries, are puzzled by his consistent denunciation of theterms of the union and his readiness to embrace the Britishparliamentary form of government. Was it not this very form ofcolonial rule that prompted even the English farmers of UpperCanada to take up arms?