Don Gutteridge - Bloody Relations

“But what will you do if I fail?”

“That’s just it, Mr. Edwards. I find myself on the horns of a terrible dilemma. How can I leave Handford here in a jail cell to await trial and certain conviction in the fall assizes, while I go off to Quebec to broker a just peace? And how could I ask my wife to leave her nephew in a strange country to hang alone for a crime he most assuredly did not commit? Even if I were cruel and heartless and felt no affection for Lady Durham, I could not work fruitfully in such stressful circumstances.”

“But you are supreme governor of all the provinces with absolute authority.”

Durham smiled grimly. “Believe me, my power has been well hedged by the cabinet, for which I am, despite much chaffing, very grateful. Moreover, if I did use my executive authority to unduly influence the legitimate efforts of the police and the independent courts, my enemies would have a free-for-all with my reputation and vaunted probity. Besides, is it not just that sort of arbitrary action I am here to bring an end to?”

Marc got up. “What you’re saying, Your Lordship, is that I must not fail.”

“Something like that.”

The fact that the future of the Canadas might be at stake was, mercifully, not revisited.

That afternoon, with a sense of urgency that they had only three days to absolve Handford Ellice of Sarah McConkey’s murder, Marc and Cobb walked briskly to Lot Street and peered across at the ramshackle suburb of Irishtown. The shanties themselves did not begin for thirty or forty yards beyond the northern edge of the street, where a ragged copse of alder and hawthorn provided an inadequate screen for them and their unfortunate inhabitants. It was certainly less intimidating in the daytime, Cobb thought, than in the dead of night. In a year or two the severed lots on the north side of Lot Street would be cleared, and legitimate houses or businesses built on them. What would happen then to the squatters on the bleak acres behind was a question no one in authority was willing to discuss in public.

“How do we get in?” Marc wondered aloud. He could see nothing resembling a road.

“At night the sailors, low-lifes, and men of proberty slink along here until a tracker or scout hails ’em.”

“And then?”

“They get led by the baton to some house of ill repute, dependin’ on which vice they’re interested in or can afford.”

“So that’s how young Ellice and the blackguard who led him this far found their way to Madame Renée’s?”

“Her real name’s Norah Burgess, though that wouldn’t do fer the con-see-urge of a fancy hooer-house,” Cobb said, starting across the street. “But Ellice wasn’t taken there in the usual way. That’s just one of the queer things about this business.”

They had reached a scraggly clutch of hawthorn trees, their bright pink blooms just beginning to shrivel and tarnish.

“As you said earlier,” Cobb continued, “one of them gents from the ball must’ve lured the silly fella from Spadina down to here. Then, accordin’ to the Burgess woman, the gent must’ve known the way to her place in the dark, ’cause he come right to her door, give the secret knock only her regulars know, shoved the lad inta the parlour, and skedaddled.”

Cobb pointed to a gap between two trees and, ducking to avoid the thorns, led Marc onto a narrow path that meandered through the scrub ahead of them.

Marc picked up the narrative. “My guess is that this gentleman did not want to be recognized last night-not even by the madam or one of her trackers. That suggests to me that we are investigating something more complex and sinister than a prank or a piece of mischief designed to embarrass Lord Durham before he begins his work here.”

“Well, we shouldn’t go jumpin’ to conclusives, Major.”

Marc smiled at being reminded of one of his own homilies, however mangled.

They were now out of the bush and into the shantytown proper. While Marc stared in disbelief-he had seen worse slums in London but did not expect to encounter such communities here-Cobb was again struck by how much less intimidating and how much sadder the place was in the revealing light of afternoon. They had come out onto a wide pathway that, while it curved about carelessly, was nevertheless a street of sorts-with makeshift huts and jerry-built shacks arrayed on either side, each with a flimsy and stinking outhouse tucked in behind. Where there was glass in a window, it was invariably broken. Most of the dwellings simply had gaps in the side walls to let air in and the stench out. A few were clad in oiled paper in faint hope of stemming the tide of blood-sucking mosquitoes in the night. Middens and festering garbage pits lay in squalid view between or in front of the hovels, where dogs, pigs, and rats contended for a meal.

Nonetheless, children, oblivious to the rags their unwashed little bodies were clothed in, sprinted along the roadway, kicking a ball or darting among the houses in the squealing pursuit-and-retreat of an age-old game of tag. One tilting, barn-board cabin sported a set of red-checked curtains that lifted and fell in the soft breeze. But any trees or shrubs that had once been native here had long since been hacked down and used for firewood. The city council had given up trying to discourage the poaching of hardwood from the university parkland to the north and west of Irishtown-the sheriff having more vital concerns since the Rebellion in December-so the sun blazed down upon the inhabitants here without interruption or pity. The squall of exhausted and overheated babies mingled with the happier shouts of the children outdoors. So far they had seen no adults but were certain that every step they took was observed.

“You lookin’ fer somebody?” A scruffy lad of twelve or thirteen had stepped out onto the path in front of them, not belligerent but wary.

“Madame Renée’s place,” Marc said.

“They don’t work in the daytime.” He was speaking to Marc but his gaze was fixed on Cobb’s truncheon.

“We wish to speak with Madame Renée.”

The boy looked puzzled.

“You’re one of her trackers, ain’t ya?” Cobb said. “Peter or Donald.”

“Who wants ta know?”

The scarlet of Cobb’s nose brightened alarmingly. “The police,” he barked.

Marc put out a restraining hand. “We’re here to find out who killed Sarah McConkey. Please show us where we need to go.” He held out a penny. “Is this your usual fee, Donald?”

“Peter,” the boy answered, and latched on to the penny before it dissolved. “Come with me.”

“You’ll spoil the little bugger,” Cobb chided, but he followed Marc and Peter without further comment.

After a left and a right turn, of sorts, they came upon the sturdy brick dwelling that Cobb had visited last night, a structure replete with screened windows, a chimney, and what appeared to be a cistern along the far west wall.

“Sarah was the nicest girl I ever met,” Peter said. “But we already know who stabbed her-some toff from the town.”

Bad news travels faster than good, Cobb thought.

“Do I just knock or do I need the secret code?” Marc said as one man to another.

Peter grinned, exposing a one-inch gap in the teeth of his upper jaw. “Lemme do it.”

He gave an intricate sequence of taps with the knocker on the scarlet door. It was almost a minute before it opened reluctantly, like an arthritic hand.

“But I been over all this last night,” said Norah Burgess, a.k.a. Madame Renée. “Can’t your man remember the colour of his hat?” She glared at Cobb, who was seated on one of the hard chairs across the room. Cobb glared back but said nothing.

“Constable Cobb has made a full report, in writing and again to me in person. I’d just like you to go over the events of last night, painful as they must be, in the hope that you might recall some detail or other you may have overlooked in the stress and turmoil of the situation.”