Don Gutteridge - Minor Corruption

“Yes.”

“In a barn, the sun comes slanting throughcracks in the barn-board, doesn’t it? And all sorts of strangebeams and pools of light result, don’t they?”

“I guess so.” Broom was looking more and morebewildered. What had seemed so straightforward to his mind wasbeing twisted and made to look otherwise. More and more his repliesseemed to be coming from an automaton.

“Are you certain, then, that you were notactually seeing a halo effect around the man’s head? The lightdazzling off his hair and making it look large and whitish,whatever colour and however bushy it might have been?”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I swear.”

“Or consider this, sir. You men all work inthe mill. You grind grist into flour and you put the flour intobags and barrels. Do you not in the course of your work becomecovered in wheat chaff and flour?”

“Of course we do. I don’t see – ”

“Would not anyone, whatever colour theirhair, who worked in that mill look as if he had a spray of whitishhair, especially in a dark stall sprinkled with confusing halos oflight?”

Cambridge was on his tiptoes. “Milord. Mr.Edwards is putting words into the witness’s mouth and then dashingoff on flights of fancy.”

“Try to restrain yourself, Mr. Edwards.”

“Yes, Milord,” he said humbly, but he hadalready milked his flight of fancy. “Now I wish to turn to a moreserious aspect of your testimony, Mr. Broom.”

The witness flinched, and Marc held his gazewith as fierce as stare as he could muster. He could feel the ghostof his mentor, Doubtful Dick Dougherty, hovering near. “If this wasa rape, as you claim, why did you turn and run away?”

Jake Broom fought back tears as he said, “Itold Mr. Cambridge. I figured it best to get help. I reckonedthey’d still be in the office a while yet.”

“I suggest, sir, that you were either adespicable coward or that what you saw was not rape but twostrangers having intercourse in a manner that shocked and disgustedyou!”

“It wasn’t like that! It wasn’t!”

“You staggered back to the office, which youknew perfectly well was empty, and sat there trying to hold yourlunch down. You did not tell Mr. Whittle because there was nothingto tell!” Marc glared at Broom. “ You never went back to thatstall, did you ?”

“Milord, counsel is harrowing thewitness.”

“Mr. Edwards, Mr. Broom is not ahostile witness. Let him answer one question at a time, and pleaserefrain from embroidering.”

“I did go back there,” Broom mumbled. “And Iwas ashamed I didn’t try to help poor Betsy.” Tears welled up andfilled both large, innocent eyes. “When I heard she died like shedid, I almost died myself. It was her, I know it!”

Marc stood back. Something was amiss here. Atruant thought suddenly entered his head. He peered down as ifconsulting his notes. Broom was trying desperately not to sob.

“Mr. Broom do you have a reputation formaking up stories?”

Broom was stunned. Even his quiet weeping wasstinted. “I don’t know what you mean?”

“Remember, sir, you are under oath.”

“Milord, this is highly irregular. Counsel isfishing.”

“It speaks to the witness’s credibility,” thejudge said. “Mr. Edwards, I’m giving you some latitude with thiscritical witness, but I do have boundaries. Answer the question asbest you can, Mr. Broom.”

Broom said almost inaudibly, “I’ve alwaysliked to make up stories. I even write them down.”

“Very much like Betsy Thurgood?”

A moment of pure terror flashed throughBroom’s eyes, then vanished. “When I first come to the township, Igot a job at Whittle’s mill. Mr. Whittle asked me if I was relatedto Jimmy Broom, a notorious drunk and reprobate. I told himno.”

“But you were related?”

“I was his son.” Broom’s voice was now closeto a whisper. “Later on, Mr. Whittle found out. By then he liked meand I showed him I could work. But he always took what I said witha grain of salt.”

“You tended to exaggerate things? Make themsound more colourful?”

Broom’s jaw reached his chest.“Sometimes.”

“What I’m wondering, sir, is why the juryshould believe you today?”

Broom looked up, anguished. “Because I saw myBetsy gettin’ raped by Mr. Baldwin and I was too much a coward tosave her!”

This passionate outburst had the effect ofinstantly galvanizing sympathy for the young man, who had beenlosing ground in the past ten minutes. There was genuine anguish inthe face, and conviction. But Marc was no longer worried: Broom hadunwittingly given away something of vital importance.

“You and Betsy were romantically involved,weren’t you?” he said quietly when the hubbub in the room hadsubsided.

His outburst seemed to have taken all thestuffing out of Broom. He slumped forward onto his hands againstthe railing. After a long pause, while the galleries and counselwaited, transfixed, he said, “Just once.”

“How can you be in love just once?”

“It was six months ago. We went for a walk.In the spring. Down by the creek. We . . . kissed.”

“You both liked stories and flights of fancy,didn’t you?”

“Yes. But she was terrified her father wouldfind out. I was fond of her, but she forbade me to see her aloneany more. I never approached her in that way again. Even when shebrung Burton’s lunch to the mill, I didn’t tease her the way theother fellas did.”

“Milord, this testimony is goingnowhere.”

“I agree, Mr. Cambridge. Mr. Edwards, get tosome point or move on.”

“The point is this,” Marc said, standing onhis toes and trying his best to teeter the way he had seen DoubtfulDick do it. “Mr. Broom, you have admitted you like to make upstories. You have admitted you were in love with Betsy Thurgood. Isuggest you have fabricated the entire story of the rape in thestall. I submit that you yearned for your forbidden love, that youknew Betsy would be alone in the barn, that you accosted her, andwhen she resisted you, you forced yourself upon her. Terrified andashamed, the girl went back to Spadina and kept quiet. Meanwhile,Mr. Broom, you went blithely home that evening, and the nextmorning fled to Port Talbot, where your father is likely alive andthriving. Having learned by letter that Betsy did not tell on you,you returned here two months later. I submit, sir, that you raped Betsy Thurgood.!”

There was sensation everywhere in thecourtroom. The judge banged his gavel and had to threaten to clearthe room to regain a semblance of order. Marc sat down amid theclamour, shaking but satisfied. He had done his duty. That was allhe could say for himself.

When Neville Cambridge was finally able toreconfigure his aplomb, he said to the pale and trembling witness,“Let us now, Mr. Broom, return from flights of fancy to reality. Iwant you to go back and tell the jury the plain and simple truth. Ipromise not to interrupt you, badger you, or put words into yourmouth.”

Slowly but with increasing confidence, Broomwas able to retell his original story. But the doubts that Marc hadsown hung heavily over his every word. Cambridge had one trump cardleft, however.

“If you had done the deed yourself, sir, tellme: would you have returned to Toronto and, finding no charges hadbeen laid against you, would you have gone to the police andreported an incident that everybody had forgotten?”

The answer was obvious: to the jury andeveryone else in the chamber.

At this point the judge adjourned the trialuntil Wednesday morning.

***

When Marc stepped into the wig-room, the smallenrobing area for attorneys, he was surprised to see Cobb sittingon one of the stools, his helmet at his feet. His face was rigidwith anger, the dark eyes ablaze on either side of the alarminglyscarlet nostrils.