Don Gutteridge - Bloody Relations

“He let out a cry of anguish the likes I’ve never heard before in all my years in this business.”

Dora assured him that Sarah had come through the ordeal in good shape. She gave him a vial of laudanum and instructions how to administer it. She offered to take the corpse and see to its burial, but he said he would do so himself.

“It was such a beautiful child,” Dora said, giving the stew a motherly stir. “A boy it was, with the brightest orange hair you ever did see.”

It was Cobb’s turn to go unnaturally still. “What did this so-called husband look like?”

“Big fella. With a bushel and a half of hair, just like the babe’s.”

Cobb had no notion what Dora’s unexpected revelation might mean. But he knew the Major would want to hear it, and with less than two hours before he was scheduled to appear before His Lordship, Marc would want to know now. So it was that Cobb left one supper suspended without explanation and fatally disrupted another. He rushed into the Edwardses’ cottage without knocking and burst straight into the dining room.

“I got somethin’ to tell ya!” he cried, and his look alone prompted Marc to get up, push aside a charred dumpling, and lead Cobb onto the front porch.

“Let’s have it, then, old friend,” Marc said, alarmed at Cobb’s beet-red face and anguished breathing. “Take your time. The world isn’t about to end.”

As coherently as he could under the circumstances, Cobb relayed to Marc the gist of Dora’s tale.

Marc said nothing for half a minute, then, “Are you sure it was Sarah McConkey?”

“There ain’t a doubt. And who else could the father be besides Badger?”

Marc nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“To beard a lioness in her den!”

Trotting dutifully in his partner’s wake, Cobb was heard to mutter, “Not again!”

Marc’s mind churned all the way to Madame Renée’s, but he was not yet ready to share his thoughts with Cobb. They arrived to find the place shuttered and still.

“They’re gone off!” a voice called to them.

Cobb recognized the urchin loitering nearby: it was one of the lads who had tossed obloquy upon his nose the day before.

“All of ’em?”

“Yup. I seen ’em luggin’ their things up the road.”

Cobb threw him a penny. “I’m gonna ask fer a raise in pay,” he said to Marc.

“I think Mrs. Burgess is still in there,” Marc said.

“It sure looks deserted. They’ve scarpered, as Sarge likes to say. And why do ya figure the birds’ve flown the coop?”

Marc pounded on the door with his fist. “I know you’re in there, Mrs. Burgess. Open up, please. I must talk with you.”

Fearing his friend had slipped a gear, Cobb touched Marc on the shoulder. “I think ya oughta let it go, Major. We done our damnedest.”

Marc wriggled the door handle. The scarlet door swung open.

Mrs. Burgess was sitting in the near-dark in her customary easy chair. The air in the parlour was heavy and stale, but she appeared to take no notice of it, nor of Marc when he sat down across from her.

“Mrs. Burgess?”

She did not look up or reply, but her slumping posture and gray pallor told Marc that here was a woman on the verge of collapse.

“Please leave me alone.” The voice was hollow and without emotion despite the plea.

“I can’t do that,” Marc said. “There are important matters that you and I must discuss, however badly you feel.”

No response.

“Where are your girls?”

“Sarah’s dead.”

“I mean Carrie and Molly and Frieda.”

“I sent them away.”

“For good?”

“They’ll be fine.”

“You’re closing up shop?”

“Ruined,” she mumbled. “All ruined.”

“Cobb, would you bring Mrs. Burgess a glass of brandy from the sideboard?”

Cobb poured a generous glass from a decanter and brought it over. Marc put it into Mrs. Burgess’s hands, noticing how icy cold they were, and helped raise the glass towards her lips. To his relief she drank a mouthful, coughed, then drank another.

Cobb and Marc sat waiting. After what seemed an eternity and with a clock ticking nearby as a reminder of the eight o’clock deadline, Mrs. Burgess looked up and let them feast upon the devastation of her face.

“You loved Sarah,” Marc began. “So I need to know why you killed her.”

“Why do we do anything?” she replied.

“I’m going to describe what I think happened on Monday last, then I want you to tell me where I’m wrong, if I am. Do you understand?”

“I’m not deaf and dumb,” she said with an echo of her former aplomb.

“I’ll begin with events you may not know about. Out at the governor’s gala on Monday evening, one of your regular gentleman customers-”

“Callers.”

“Callers-got a young man drunk.”

“The pale gentleman.”

“Yes, who happened to be Lord Durham’s nephew.”

“A toff’s toff.”

Cobb ahemed loudly but was ignored.

“This so-called gentleman got young Handford Ellice drunk and drove him from Spadina to Hospital Street, then guided him here. Using the coded knock, he got you to open the door even though you were shutting down for the night. He pushed the lad inside and ran off. However, I’m certain that you knew who it was.”

Mrs. Burgess shook her head, discreet as ever.

“I accept your account of what happened next. As it was Sarah’s turn, she led the pathetic and near-comatose fellow into her room, where, in all probability, he fell deeply asleep without doing a thing he had paid for.”

“He paid for her time. The performance was up to him.”

Marc was encouraged that his comments provoked some of Mrs. Burgess’s familiar feistiness.

“Meanwhile, you and the girls went to your own bedrooms. When Molly fell asleep beside you, you got up-ostensibly to check on Sarah, if anybody asked-and padded into her chamber. As you expected, Sarah was slumbering and her gentleman caller snoring like an exhausted hog.”

“And?”

“And you slipped to the bedside, slid a hand under Sarah’s pillow, pulled out her dagger, and stabbed her once-viciously-in the throat.” Marc delivered these words with an emphatic hiss.

Mrs. Burgess’s response was almost plaintive: “Why would I want to kill dear, sweet Sarah?”

“That is a question I asked myself on Tuesday and in every hour since, but I found no answer convincing enough to accuse you or your girls of murder. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.”

Mrs. Burgess took another swallow of brandy. She was now watching Marc with a mixture of wariness and defiance.

“As Sarah’s lifeblood spouted from her body, you scuttled back to bed and lay down beside Molly. A little while later, probably while your heart was still pounding with the enormity of what you had done, the wretched Ellice-awakened but groggy with drink or worse-discovered the horror beside him, cried out, instinctively pulled the knife from Sarah’s throat, then fainted dead away. When you and Molly reached the room, you found Sarah dead and her caller unconscious with the knife in his hand.

“How convenient, eh? Here was a way out: fetch the police and put the blame on the pale gentleman with the murder weapon still in his grip. The lack of bloody footprints in the room was enough to give credence to your story. For the first time since your impulsive slaying of the girl, you began to hope there was a way to salvage the situation. By the time Cobb arrived, your natural intelligence had started functioning again. Your ruse worked and you were prepared to let the chips fall where they would.”

“But my business was ruined. Why would I destroy what I’d taken years to create?”