Don Gutteridge - Bloody Relations

“But I put it to you that her claim that you two rode home together in the same manner is not true!”

“Is that so? Are you now about to tell me that it was the anonymous ‘jewel thief’ you described to Mrs. Hepburn with such fanciful mendacity who joined us on the way back?”

Marc winced but was able to play his trump card: “Not at all. It was Handford Ellice you brought here to the city, Lady Durham’s nephew.”

The brow lifted again. “You are referring to the shy young man whom we invited to join us at whist in Baldwin’s card room?”

“Don’t play the naif with me, sir. You are perfectly aware whose ego you flattered and whom you plied with drink for two hours before midnight.”

“To be truthful, and I presume that’s what you wish of me, the lad was too shy to introduce himself, but yes, one of the attendants indicated who he was sometime after he’d sat down at our table.”

“Are you denying that you and your accomplices took young Ellice off to the drinks table at regular intervals, until he was thoroughly drunk?”

“This lad, though diffident, was old enough to insist on his right to drink whiskey. We accompanied him in order to limit his consumption, not increase it.”

“The result was the same, either way. By midnight he was inebriated and ostensibly slipped away to his chamber to sleep it off.”

“Ostensibly?” Hepburn lit a tinder stick and applied it to the end of his cigar.

“Someone in your group suggested to Ellice that a ride to town and its potential pleasures awaited him at the stables, should he so wish to take advantage of it.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“We have testimony from several servants and grooms that place Ellice in a fancy barouche some minutes past midnight, when many of the older guests were departing.”

“There were many such vehicles there when Mrs. Hepburn and I left about that time.” The cigar end reddened and Hepburn took a soothing puff.

“But I am certain that it was your carriage that contained Ellice.”

“Which implies that both my wife and I are lying.”

“Yes.”

Hepburn appeared not to take offence at this unseemly imputation, but his eyes did narrow perceptibly. “And what are we supposed to have done with the lad? Dumped him onto Front Street in the middle of the night in a strange city?”

“Nothing of the kind. You dropped Mrs. Hepburn off here, then you and Ellice walked up to Lot Street, one block north, and entered Irishtown.”

Hepburn guffawed, choking on his cigar. “You’re jesting! Go into that den of thieves and cutthroats after midnight on my own?”

“You were well known in there, sir, and I have learned in the past two days that your status as one of Madame Renée’s regulars would have given you immunity and right of passage. I suspect there may have been a system of passwords in addition to coded knocks on a scarlet door.”

“You have a vivid imagination, I’ll say that for you.”

“You knocked on that door, pushed Ellice in, and left before you were recognized-knowing that the lad’s ready money and harmless demeanour would get him serviced by one or another of the girls.”

“I trust that you’re not suggesting that the purchase of the favours of a female is a crime? If so, then few gentlemen in this town or any other would escape hanging.”

Hepburn’s feigned amusement was almost credible.

“The crime, if you like, was to have Lord Durham’s nephew found in a sleazy brothel, in the certain knowledge that any sort of scandal among the earl’s entourage would surely scupper his mission and lead to his immediate recall.”

“But who would know of this indiscretion besides the man who directed him there?” Hepburn seemed to be toying with his accuser, as if Marc were an impecunious client begging for a loan he knew would be refused.

“What would Ellice do when he woke up in Irishtown?” Marc replied. “He wouldn’t even know what city he was in! By morning, Lady Durham would be in a panic and forced to raise the hue and cry for her missing nephew-who might have been kidnapped or murdered, for all she knew. In these times any such calamity is possible. The chances of keeping the sordid business quiet were slim indeed.”

“So the perpetrator of this so-called crime must have had a political motive?”

“Exactly. For instance, a Tory banker and charter member of the Family Compact, whose fortunes are threatened by the continuing instability and the failure of the royal authority to calm the uppity natives.”

“And if young Ellice had managed to crawl back to the city, hire himself a gig, and drive to Spadina undetected, then what?”

Was the man actually enjoying this game?

“That possibility was anticipated and forestalled.”

“Indeed. Sure you won’t have a cigar? Or a chair?”

“Because of that necessity the whole scheme went awry.” Marc found himself pacing back and forth across the room like a Crown counsel, feeling just a bit foolish as he fired his barbs both obliquely and directly at the witness in his baize box.

“It did?”

“I suggest, sir, that you paid Michael Badger, a former employee who subsequently worked as a bruiser in Madame Renée’s brothel, to sneak into the house in the middle of the night and create some kind of disturbance, something that would be certain to expose young Ellice publicly by involving the police.”

“How very clever.”

“Too clever by half, however. For what you didn’t know was that Badger bore a grudge against the madam and her business, and in a sudden rage stabbed the prostitute to death and fled.”

That remark got the banker’s full attention. He removed the cigar from his lips and watched it slowly descend in his fingers to the table. “Ellice was found beside the murdered girl?”

“You know damn well he was!” Marc stopped and leaned on the baize cover with both hands. “You’ve already admitted knowing about the stabbing of Sarah McConkey, and since it was you who led Ellice to her, how could you not connect the two events?”

Hepburn looked genuinely shocked. Marc was pleased that he had finally pricked that maddening façade. “But Matilda only told me that some harlot had been stabbed in Irishtown. Even the rumour mill has been starved for details.”

“Well, sir, now you know. Your conniving plot to embarrass Lord Durham resulted in the vicious murder of an innocent girl, however fallen we may think she was. You paid the assassin to enter the premises. You seduced the young man and led him to that door. In my book that makes you an accessory to murder. You are as guilty as Badger. What is more, I think you’ve known since Tuesday morning exactly what must have happened.”

“You’re certain it was Ellice there?”

Marc suddenly realized that Ellice’s secret was now out. But then if the killers were not exposed by eight o’clock, all would be lost anyway. He plunged ahead. “There is more.”

“How could there be?”

“We found Michael Badger’s body an hour ago in a ditch at the end of Jarvis Street-where you left it after shooting him point-blank in the heart.” While Marc didn’t believe this, he felt justified in using it for its shock value.

Hepburn’s jaw dropped. “Now, young man, this has gone far enough. I’ve humoured you because I’ve nothing better to do with the remainder of the afternoon. But Michael Badger was an employee of mine, and my housekeeper’s only brother. In fact, he was like a son to me-Matilda and I have no children of our own-and I am shocked and grieved to hear of his death. I thought he had got safely out of town and away from his creditors.” He started to get up. “I must tell Mrs. Hepburn immediately. Does Una know?”