Don Gutteridge - Minor Corruption

“It was his youngest child. She was almosteighteen.”

“Thus still a minor. And Mr. Baldwin wasfifty-nine or sixty?”

“Sixty, then.” Dr. Baldwin spoke in amonotone, the better perhaps not to hear the treachery his wordswere effecting.

“You say ‘paying court,’ but that covers amultitude of peccadilloes, sir. Please be specific. You are underoath.”

Dr. Baldwin cleared his throat but his wordscould barely be heard. “McCall caught them in bed together – in hisown house.”

Sensation one more time! For here was surelythe final nail in Seamus Baldwin’s coffin. The man had seduced aminor before in Ireland. And how many had preceded that offence? Ifthe man himself heard the accusation, he gave no sign.

As the judge banged his gavel in a fruitlessattempt to restore order, Marc thought for a moment that his hearthad stopped.

***

It was two-thirty in the afternoon when Cobb pulledhis buggy into Ogden Frank’s livery on Colborne Street at WestMarket Lane. He now had to do one of the few things he genuinelyfeared: hire and ride a horse. The oslter’s lad chuckled as hehelped Cobb wobble into the saddle of an elderly and sedate mare ofvarious brownish hues and a crooked star on her forehead.

“If ya speak soft-like, sir, she won’t buck -too hard.”

Cobb was beyond irony or humour. He twistedthe reins in his fists.

“How far ya goin’?”

“Thornhill,” Cobb said bumpily as the marestepped forward. Then he gritted his teeth and aimed the beast atYonge Street.

On Yonge Street Cobb pulled on the right reinand the horse kindly obeyed and turned north. Thornhill was ahamlet a dozen or so miles up Yonge Street. Not far. But renting abuggy had been out of the question, for the road above Gallows Hillwas rutted and near-impassable this time of year despite the recentstretch of Indian summer. And time was of the essence as the trialwould likely finish up in the morning or early tomorrow afternoon.If new evidence were unearthed, then it had to be made known beforethis evening. Hence this horse, a beast that was incompatible withall things Cobb. As a lad he had ridden old draught horses a fewtimes on his father’s farm near Woodstock, but he had never takento the activity as his brother Laertes had.

Above Queen, where the traffic and housesthinned out, he felt obliged to urge the mare beyond a walk. Butits teeth-jarring trot became unbearable by the time they reachedthe Bloor crossroad. The Red Lion Inn on his right looked awfullytempting, but he put one hand on his belly to stem its jigging andcarried on manfully. With Gallows Hill in sight, he tried spurringhis mount on to a gallop, but quickly lost one foot from itsstirrup and was damn near pitched into the mire of a pig-yardbeside the road. When he pulled back on the reins, the horsemagically reduced its speed to a leisurely canter, and to hissurprise he found that he could move his squat body in some sort ofrhythm to match the mare’s. So this was how it was done!

At Eglinton he passed through the toll-gatewith a cheery wave of his horseman’s unreined hand, glanced once atPaul Pry’s inn, and cantered on. A mile or so father on he swept bythe Golden Lion Inn, then Finch’s Inn – his thirst now monumental -and finally the Sickle and Sheaf. Only three or four miles to go,with bush now closed in on both sides, separating the partlycleared farms.

At five o’clock he cantered past theThornhill Hotel, yanked back on the reins, trot-jiggled back to theinn, and gingerly dismounted. When his feet hit the ground, hisknees buckled and he collapsed onto them, panting and parched.

“You look like ya could use a drink.”

It was the proprietor of the hotel, aproned,red-cheeked, and smiling.

***

Cobb finished his ale, nodded gratefully to theinnkeeper, and asked his first question: “I was told a SeymourKilbride lived here at the hotel. Is that so?”

“Well, no. He does work here on Saturdayswhen we’re busy. But he don’t live here.”

“You know where I can locate him?”

“In trouble, is he?”

“Not at all. He has important information weneed fer a trial goin’ on in Toronto.”

“We don’t pay no mind to the shenanigansgoin’ on down in Toronto. But, yeah, Seymour works a littlevegetable farm just east of town. You take this crossroad and ridefer about two miles. On yer right you’ll see a huge chestnut treebeside a pond. Follow the trail around it inta the bush about ahalf-mile. You can’t miss it.”

With his rump feeling as if it had riddenthrough Whittle’s grist-mill, Cobb made his way to the designatedtree and pond, and then moved carefully along a rugged bush-trailuntil he came to a log cabin, flanked by a chicken-coop and ahay-barn. The ruins of several summer and fall garden-patches wereplainly visible. It looked as if the new owners had plenty of workto occupy them for some time to come.

Cobb tethered the mare, went up to therickety door, and knocked. It was half a minute and several furtherknocks before the door was eased partway open.

“Yes?” The single word emanated from a youngman whose face was just visible in the shadows of the ill-litinterior. “Whaddya want?” Then when the fellow realized Cobb was apolice constable, he tried to slam the door shut. It jammed onCobb’s boot.

“I ain’t here to cause trouble,” Cobb said.“But I got some information you oughta hear about, and you got some I need to hear. You are Seymour Kilbride, ain’t ya?”

At the sound of his name, the young manpulled the door away from Cobb’s boot. “Sorry, sir, but we don’ttrust strangers much around here. I am Seymour Kilbride. What’ve yagot to tell me? I’ve done nothin’ wrong in Toronto ‘cause I ain’tset foot there fer months.”

“I’d like to come in.”

“I prefer to talk here.”

But Cobb was too quick for the lad. Hebrushed past him and entered the murky interior. Two women sat at adeal table, peeling potatoes. In the dim light afforded by a nearbywindow, Cobb could see that one was young and pretty. The other wasof indeterminate age. She might have been under thirty but life hadscrawled its stress and strain across a sunken face with pale,frightened eyes set deep in bruised sockets. Her auburn hair hungdown her back like frayed strands of hemp.

“And this must be Missus Kilbride,”Cobb said with a slight tip of his helmet towards the prettyone.

“That’s my Marion,” Kilbride said, lookingdismayed.

“So it is. And this young lady would be yersister – Lottie Thurgood.”

Marc felt dazed and disoriented as he stood up tocross-examine Dr. Baldwin. What could he do? Were there anymitigating circumstances? Any way of blunting the dagger pointed atUncle Seamus’s heart?

“You said McCall’s daughter was almosteighteen?” he began lamely.

“Yes,” Dr. Baldwin said with some semblanceof enthusiasm, “she was a month away from her majority. And theaffair was not sordid in the way Mr. Cambridge tried to imply.Susan McCall was a mature young woman in love. This was no tawdryseduction. My uncle swore to me that he loved her and immediatelyoffered to marry her, an offer she was keen to accept.”

“But Mr. McCall would not agree?” Marc wasstarting to get his second wind.

“No. He felt the difference in their ages wasinsupportable. He had tried to keep them apart all along, and whenthey succumbed to – to their mutual passion, he discovered them andthreatened to have the law on my uncle. It was then arranged forhim to retire quietly, and following his deep depression, furtherarrangements were made to have him join his family here inToronto.”

Well, it could have been worse, Marc thought.But not by much.

Cambridge went right back to work in hisrebuttal.