Bloody Relations (29 page)

“So you killed the only person who might be able to implicate you while avenging yourself for his affair with Sarah.”

“Something like that.”

Norah Burgess moaned and tried to rise up in her chair, pushing with all her might on its arms but falling back with a resigned sigh. Still there was fire in her eyes and she emitted a dry, throaty, ragged laugh.

“But you got the only important point completely wrong,” she cried, with a scathing contempt that was aimed at herself as much as her inquisitor. “Yes, I liked Sarah and I treated her like a daughter. But I didn't love her. I loved him!”

•  •  •

NORAH BURGESS FINALLY AGREED TO ACCOMPANY
Cobb to the station and sign a deposition admitting that she had murdered Sarah McConkey and Michael Badger. When Marc had first proposed it, Norah had complained that she was too tired to move—or think or feel. In fact, during the course of their conversation, she had visibly shrunk into herself and was now as withered and bent as a crone.

“I just wanta curl up here and shrivel away,” she said.

“But innocent lives and reputations are at stake,” Marc said. “The police are declaring Michael Badger a murderer—a dead man who cannot confess or be tried, and who will appear to many to be an official scapegoat. Handford Ellice's reputation will be ruined by innuendo and gossip unless a public confession is forthcoming.”

“Why should I care about Ellice?”

“The future of the province and the Canadas may depend on Mr. Ellice's being disentangled from this affair. You better than anyone know he was a blameless bystander.”

“You mean that old Wakefield business?”

“Yes.” Not much had escaped Madame Renée.

“I'm too weary to walk,” she sighed, but her eyes indicated she would make the effort.

Cobb came back into the room from the other part of the house. He had a small pistol in his hand. “Ya got fifteen minutes to get to Government House.”

“Mr. Cobb here is going on ahead and will bring a cab up Lot Street; I'll help you to the buggy.”

“But you'll be late fer yer meetin'!” Cobb exclaimed.

“Send a message to Lord Durham that I'll be half an hour late. Let Sarge know that he should stay any declarations against Badger.”

“Okay, Major.” He grinned broadly. “You sure like to cut yer meat close to the bone.” Then he was gone.

Marc helped Norah to her feet.

“I'm all right now,” she said, pushing away his steadying arm. “I'll sign the necessary papers.” Clearly she was drawing on the last reserves of her strength. She had lost everything that mattered: her business, her surrogate daughter, the man she had loved. Somehow, she maintained her dignity.

She headed not for the scarlet door but her own quarters.

“It's this way, ma'am.”

“I'll need to get my bonnet,” she said. “We're going to town, aren't we?”

D
arkness was approaching when Marc arrived at Government House, almost an hour late for his appointment. He was shown immediately into the drawing room, where Lord and Lady Durham rose to greet him. If they were anxious, and surely they had reason to be, they were too well schooled in the social graces to let their manners slip. Lord Durham asked Marc if he would like a whiskey or a coffee, and Lady Durham inquired after the health of Mrs. Edwards. Durham then directed Marc to a chair, seated his wife nearby, and sat down himself. It was only then that Marc noticed, in a shadowy corner of the room, the presence of Handford Ellice. He was wrapped in a heavy robe even though the evening was warm.

“Mr. Ellice is feeling well enough to be party to our conversation, Marc, thanks to the ministrations of Mrs. Edwards and my lady.” Durham nodded to his wife and she smiled faintly in acknowledgement. “He is still too weak to join us in discussion, but we felt that he had a right to be here.”

“I agree,” Marc said. With the necessary courtesies observed, he added, “And the news is good. Cobb and I have found the murderer and secured a full confession.”

Ellice emitted a single, dry sob. Lady Durham's face remained as it had been, politely immobile; her gloved hands lay still and
prim in her lap, but without fuss or fanfare, two tears of relief made their way down her cheeks. Durham gave Marc a satisfied smile, one that seemed to say, I knew you would not let us down. Then he rose to approach Marc, his hand outstretched. Marc stood to accept Durham's grasp, firmly held for three or four seconds. The look of gratitude on the great reformer's face was all the reward Marc would ever need.

Although the Earl of Durham was reckoned one of the finest orators in the House of Lords, he was that rare exception among gifted speakers: he knew when and how to listen. For the next half-hour Marc retold that version of events he now believed to be true and incontrovertible regarding the deaths of Sarah McConkey and Michael Badger. The identity of the gentleman who had initiated the tragedy remained unknown, but the order and import of each subsequent event was relayed with tactful brevity. Occasionally Durham interrupted with a probing question or a call for more explicit elaboration, which Marc willingly supplied. Durham had asked him to discover and disclose the truth, and it was clear that His Lordship had been serious in that request.

Marc assured his listeners that Norah Burgess's confession would make no mention of the particular gentleman caller unfortunate enough to have been present at the scene, as it was not germane to the indictment. That is, Norah would have stabbed Sarah to death regardless of who lay asleep beside her: a scapegoat was a scapegoat. Everyone in the room knew that rumours would spread like the infectious disease they were, but that would happen anyway and the effect would be limited to those already inclined to believe the worst. The important point, for the Durhams and for the earl's mission, was that it would be the madam's confession that would fill the front pages of both the Tory and Reform press
in the week ahead. A lurid double murder would override political opportunism every time.

When Marc had finished, Lady Durham said, “That poor girl.”

And her husband remarked, “That poor woman.”

•  •  •

LORD DURHAM WALKED MARC TOWARDS THE
foyer. He declined the earl's offer of a carriage ride home: a stroll in the tender air of a summer's night would be sustenance for the soul.

“I'm still certain that there was a conspiracy against you,” Marc said, as they neared the front doors. “But I am unable to prove it.”

“Don't worry, Marc. It won't be the last such plot, here or at home.”

They stood together for a long moment on the verandah, as if neither wished to take their leave.

“Whether you had been successful or not,” Durham said at last, “I'd decided that you deserved something valuable for your dedicated efforts.”

“But I couldn't possibly—”

“It's not that kind of gift,” Durham said with a twinkle. “Earlier today, one of the delegations I entertained included the Baldwins, father and son.”

“Our hosts of Monday evening.”

“And prominent citizens here in the city.” Durham smiled enigmatically. “I've learned, from sources I won't reveal, that you spent two years in the Inns of Court before distinguishing yourself in the army, and that you have recently contemplated studying for the bar.”

“Your sources are impeccable, sir.”

“That being so, I have extracted a promise from Dr. Baldwin and his son that, should you require a firm in which to apprentice, theirs would welcome you unconditionally.”

“Thank you, Your Lordship. I am honoured by your thoughtfulness.”

“The honour is all on your side and the thanks on mine.”

They shook hands, and Lord Durham walked quietly back towards his quarters. Marc nodded to the sleepy corporal on duty and headed down the steps. On the pathway, in a pool of light from one of the bay windows, stood Horatio Cobb.

“Good Lord, Cobb, I thought you would be home and safe in Dora's arms by now.”

“I figured you should hear what's happened down at the station,” Cobb said with a sigh that was both frustrated and resigned.

Marc's blood went cold. “You did get the confession, didn't you?”

“Oh, yeah. That part went along fine. The magistrate was handy, which ain't always the case. He come right down with his own clerk and I helped the old girl give all the details pretty much like you did back in Irishtown. It took purty near an hour.”

“And she signed it in the presence of Magistrate Thorpe?”

“He read it back to her and she signed it.”

“Good. That's all that really matters, eh?”

“If you say so, Major.”

Marc stared at his associate. “What else?”

“Well, the jailer comes in to take Mrs. Burgess to the cells through the tunnel, and there's been a whole lot of fussin' and fiddlin' with the papers in that little room of ours—there's Sarge and me and Thorpe and the clerk—so we're not keepin' a close eye on the missus—”

“You didn't let her escape . . . ”

Cobb was instantly offended and showed it. “ 'Course not,” he growled. “But somehow when none of us was lookin', she managed to pull a little medicine bottle outta her floppy bonnet.”

Marc immediately recalled that Norah had fidgeted with
something in her dress pocket throughout the interrogation in her parlour. Fearing she would be searched at the station, she must have concealed the vial in the hat he had foolishly allowed her to fetch from her private quarters.

“She starts to cough somethin' terrible,” Cobb continued, having to relive yet another nightmarish image, “and then she turns blue.”

“She poisoned herself? Right there in the station?”

“Whatever she done, she's now dead.”

Marc didn't know whether to be angry at his own ineptitude or at the incompetence of the authorities at the station. Possibly he was more relieved. The thought of such a woman dangling from a gibbet in the Court House square was not one he wished to entertain. Then it occurred to him that she had probably been sitting in that bleak parlour for hours, fingering the deadly vial and trying to work up the courage to take her own life. She had deliberately sent the girls away with all their earnings and, no doubt, her own savings as well. She had killed the man she had secretly loved and who had, in her mind, callously betrayed her. She had seen to it that Sarah, whose unplanned death she must have bitterly regretted, was given a proper funeral and did not die unmourned. She had closed the shutters on her life's achievement. All that was needed was a final dose of courage to commit the ultimate act of a free will. Marc and Cobb had arrived not a moment too soon. Much later and they might have found her dead—and her crimes unprovable. Marc shuddered now, realizing what a close call it had been.

“I heard her last words,” Cobb said solemnly.

“You did?”

“They was whispered, mind you, but I was leanin' over 'cause I could see she wanted to say somethin' to me.”

Marc waited.

“She said, ‘Tell Lord Durham I wish him well.' ”

Fort St. Louis

Quebec City

September 3, 1838

Dear Marc:

As you have no doubt heard by now, I have decided to cut short my mission here in British North America. The knives have been out for me back home since the end of July. While I expect the Tories to slip the blade in whenever they smell an opportunity to do so, the failure of my own party to support the decisions I have had to make given the gravity of the circumstances has left me feeling abandoned by those I counted as friends. My ordinance permitting the ringleaders of the Quebec revolt to serve their sentences in Bermuda was essential to my plan for a conciliated settlement to that unhappy affair, but its being declared ultra vires by Lord Melbourne—at the instigation of Lord Brougham—in a pathetic and futile attempt to prop up his own government has dashed all my hopes. Moreover, if I were to acquiesce meekly to the prime minister's whim, I would lose any
credibility I have managed to achieve in the four months since my arrival. Hence, I shall wind up matters soon and depart for England in late October or early November.