Minor Corruption (15 page)

“And he wasn’t above slippin’ ‘em pocket
money or a pound or two fer their graspin’ families,” Faye snapped
as she flung a handful of tea into a crockery pot. “Against the
express wishes of Dr. Baldwin.”

“Now, now, Faye. Them families is all dirt
poor. Seth Whittle may be an easygoing boss, but he pays a
pittance.”

When asked whether they had seen anything
untoward between Betsy and
any
male, they both shook their
heads. Cobb now mentioned that there had been an incident on August
the third. Mrs. Morrisey looked as if she readily understood what
kind of incident he was referring to. Faye looked merely
puzzled.

“Did you serve Mr. Seamus his luncheon on
that day?” Cobb said to Mrs. Morrisey. “I know it’s a while ago,
but it’d help if you could recollect.” He mentioned the tornado to
help her out.

“I usually do, and Faye here takes it up to
him.”

“I do recall,” the senior maid said, plunking
several tea-biscuits on a plate and still in her complaining mode.
“I took him up a hot meat pie and the glass of claret he ordered in
the mornin’, but he wasn’t in his room or anywhere else I could
find. A wasted effort all ‘round.”

Cobb was sure the old gent hadn’t been
anywhere near Spadina, but he felt obligated to test the waters for
an alibi. It looked like the only thing that might get him off the
hook.

“He probably went fishin’,” Mrs. Morrisey
said.

Cobb was beginning to get a more complete
picture of Uncle Seamus, but it was not necessarily a clear one.
The man had been a respectable lawyer for decades, had retired and
become depressed, had pulled up stakes and moved to Upper Canada,
where his childish proclivities were suddenly given full rein. On
one hand he played the fool and dallied with children, and
especially girls. On the other he played an avuncular role in the
lives of the two young housemaids. He was giddy and solemn by
turns. And his giddiness may have got him into serious trouble.

Cobb sipped his tea and nibbled his biscuit,
while Mrs. Morrisey talked about flowers and contraband sweets and
neighbourly doings. Cobb nodded politely, but he was thinking hard
all the while.

***

In the main hall Cobb ran into Dr. Baldwin, looking
wan and trembly after his recent bout with lumbago. “Cobb,” he
smiled in greeting. “How nice to see you again. I don’t think I
ever thanked you personally for the splendid work you did last
March out at Elmwood.”

Cobb and Marc Edwards had investigated a
murder that had entangled members of the Reform party and had come
close to compromising delicate political negotiations with Louis
LaFontaine and the
rouge
party of Quebec. Cobb’s ingenuity
had materially helped in resolving the case.

“No need to do that, sir. Just doin’ my
duty.”

“But doing it with imagination and
diligence.”

“Thank you. But I’m afraid I’ve come fer a
reason today that may be upsettin’ to the whole household.”

“Something to do with our dear Betsy?”

“’Fraid so. A man come to the police quarters
this mornin’ and swore he saw someone very like yer Uncle Seamus
assaultin’ Betsy Thurgood in Seth Whittle’s barn last August the
third about twelve-thirty in the afternoon.”

Whatever he was thinking, Dr. Baldwin, an
experienced barrister, did not let it show. He let his breath out
slowly, and then said, “That’s two months ago and a pretty precise
time and place, isn’t it? Why would a witness wait this long and
still be so certain? And you say he saw someone
like
my
brother?”

Lawyers, Cobb sighed: more concerned with
words than deeds. “It was the day after the tornado and the witness
was called away that very afternoon and just got back
yesterday.”

“I see. Well, the claim is either frivolous
or malicious. I’m certain that Seamus will be able to recall his
whereabouts. Everybody remembers the tornado and the fuss we had in
the days following. But if little Betsy was ravished by someone,
then you have my word as a gentleman that I will do everything
humanly possible to help you find the villain.”

“Well, sir, I’d like you to think back to
that Saturday yerself. Did you see Betsy after she come back from
deliverin’ her dad’s lunch after noon?”

Dr. Baldwin thought about the matter for half
a minute before replying: “Why, yes, I did. Because she seemed ill.
She’d only been with us a week as a permanent employee, and I was
very concerned she might have picked up something serious after her
arrival.”

“A cold or the grippe?”

“The latter, I’d say. She was pale and shaky,
as I am now after my lumbago attack, and looked feverish. I ordered
her to bed and put Miss Partridge and Mrs. Morrisey in charge of
her recovery. It took three or four days, as I recall.”

But not, Cobb mused, to get over the
grippe.

“Thank you, sir. Right now, with yer
permission, I’d like to head upstairs to talk to Edie Barr.”

“Go right on up. She’s in her room, the one
she shared with Betsy. Meantime, I’ll have Seamus come to the
library, where you can speak with him in private. I’ll say nothing
to him to prejudice your interview. I only ask that you be tactful
and as gentle as you can. He’s very fragile.”

“I will, sir. And thank you.”

***

Cobb’s first impression of Edie Barr was that she
would have made a perfect Peaseblossom or Mustardseed in
Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
She was blond and
blue-eyed with milk-smooth skin and a little-girl figure just
burgeoning. The room she had shared with Betsy was spacious and
elaborate for a servants’ quarters. A patterned, hooked rug between
two cots led to an elderly vanity with a smoky mirror, upon which
sat a wooden jewellery box and several jars and brushes related to
female face-painting. Beyond the beds was a plain writing-table, an
inkstand and a bookcase groaning with books. Edie Barr had got up
from a padded rocking-chair to meet his knock, one of two such
chairs in the room.

“You’re a policeman!” she said, startled but
unafraid. There was an impudent pout to the lower lip that might
have been permanent and a saucy glint in the eyes that was both
taunting and invitational at the same time. Cobb could well imagine
this young thing perched on Uncle Seamus’s knee and flapping her
jaws in time with the ventriloquist’s risqué one-liners.

“I’m Constable Cobb. No need to be
frightened. I just wanta ask you a few questions about yer friend
Betsy.”

Edie did not look in the least frightened,
but at the mention of Betsy’s name, the impudent lip drooped and
sadness filled her face. “She was my best friend,” she said in a
faint but high, sweet voice. “My only friend.”

“I’m tryin’ to find out who did that awful
thing to her,” Cobb said in what he hoped was his most earnest,
sympathetic tone.

Edie looked startled. “But that was Mrs.
Trigger!”

“It was, and we’ll catch up to her soon. But
I’m talkin’ about the man who put her in the family way and may
have been the one who suggested she get rid of the babe.”

“Oh . . . I see. Betsy was just fifteen.”

“Right. So whoever interfered with her is
guilty of – ah . . . rape.” Cobb blushed in spite of a concerted
effort not to.

That grim and whispered word had no visible
effect on Edie.

“You want to know whether Betsy had any boy
friends?” she said evenly.

“Or anybody who fancied her and might’ve – ah
. . . forced himself upon her.”

“So she
was
ravished!” Edie gasped,
and sat back down in the rocker.

Cobb plunked himself down on the bed opposite
her and, while he hadn’t planned to, gave her an edited version of
the events that had occurred last August, emphasizing the tornado
to fix the date in her mind. She listened, open-mouthed.

Cobb finished and merely waited.

“It must’ve been one of the mill-hands,” she
said slowly. “Or one of their brothers. There’s scads of young
fellas back home.”

Cobb recalled hearing somewhere that the mill
families produced offspring who worked on some of the nearby farms.
A mill job was considered a plum. “No stranger was seen near the
place,” Cobb pointed out.

“Coulda been hidin’ in the stalls or the
mow.”

“We figure it was someone who knew Betsy
would be goin’ there.” He stared at Edie, the only effect of which
was to raise her lower lip to impudence.

“Betsy was crazy about horses. Anybody who
knew her, knew that.”

Cobb tried another tack. “Think back to that
day. Were you here when Betsy come back from takin’ lunch to her
father?”

“I always wait fer her in the kitchen because
she often snuck a treat outta the lunch Mrs. Morrisey made and
saved it fer me.” Her eyes welled with tears.

“How was she that day?”

“I recollect it ‘cause she was late and had
nothin’ for me. She didn’t look good. She said she was sick. She’d
also fallen down and scraped her knee. Mrs. Morrisey put her
straight to bed.”

Cobb nodded. The details of Betsy’s fatal
noon hour were fast being filled in by unimpeachable testimony and
corroborated evidence. Interviewing witnesses and feeding them only
the necessary information – techniques developed by the Major and
him – were certainly paying off.

“And she stayed in bed fer two or three
days?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get back to possible boy friends.”

“But she didn’t have a one!” Edie cried, and
there was just enough personal pride in the remark that she didn’t
have to add “like me.”

“Not interested in romance?”

“If she was, she never showed it. She like
readin’ an’ writin’ and connin’ poems.”

“But did you see anyone fancyin’
her
,
somebody here on a visit, maybe? Plenty of gentlemen come in and
outta this big house.”

“None that I seen.”

Cobb leaned forward. “Do you recall, on that
August day, seein’ Mr. Seamus Baldwin about the place?”

The question caught her off-guard, as it was
meant to. She recovered quickly. “’Course I did. He lives
here.”

Cobb could hear the wheels turning in Edie’s
pretty head. “I mean at mid-day,” he said.

“He told me he was gonna catch a big
trout.”

“Down below the mill?”

She looked suddenly wary, sensing perhaps
what Cobb might be leading her towards. “I don’t know nothin’ about
fishin’ or where he goes, except he went off almost every day in
the summer.”

Cobb was pleased with these responses. Before
interviewing Uncle Seamus himself, he felt he needed objective
evidence of the old gent’s having gone to the Trout Creek ravine
south of the mill. If he then tried to deny it, Cobb could rightly
claim he had several witnesses – a gardener and two housemaids –
who saw him leave the house. This in turn would strengthen Joe
Mullins’ claim of having seen the old man in that ravine – without
a fishing pole. If Uncle Seamus tried to say he had gone to the
other favoured spot, above the weir, Cobb had statements from the
miller and Thurgood that they were working on the weir and would
have seen anyone headed up that way to fish.

“Don’t fret, lass, you’ve been very helpful.”
Cobb got up to leave, but spied a wooden box partway under Betsy’s
cot. “What’s this?”

“Oh, them’s Betsy’s things. I packed ‘em up,
but her dad hasn’t come fer them yet.”

“Mind if I take a peek?”

“Go ahead,” she said. “I was just gonna tell
you about them anyways.”

Which probably meant that if there had been
anything untoward in the box, Edie had already removed it. He
pulled the box out and sat it beside him on the bed. All it
contained were a few pathetic undergarments, a yellow hair ribbon,
an apron with the Baldwin crest on it, and a book of poems. Cobb
opened the book of poetry. It was inscribed: “To dear wee Betsy,
love, from your Uncle Seamus.” He was pondering the significance of
this when a letter fell out onto the floor.

Edie gave a little cry of “oh” and tried to
look surprised.

Cobb ignored her and read:

Dear sweetest one:

I know how impossible it is to love one so

far above one’s station. I know also the pain of
watching you

close up every day of my life. I see your beautiful,
manly face,

your shining hair and your glinting eye as you walk
ever so

elegantly down the stairs each morning. I follow you
through the

day with my heart aflutter and my breathing stinted.
I swoon at

the sound of your voice, as pure as poetry, as
lilting as an Irish

tenor’s. Your laugh turns me giddy and one glance
from your

sea-blue eyes is enough ambrosia to carry me through
an entire

week. O my precious and unattainable knight!

Your faithful admirer

Betsy

Cobb stared up at Edie. “You left this here on
purpose, didn’t you?”

Edie blushed, then looked coy. “So, I did. I
thought I ought to destroy it, but that wouldn’t’ve been right,
would it?”

“No, I suppose not. But this is girlish
drivel, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know: I didn’t write it. But I
told you that Betsy was shy and a bit secretive.”

“You’re sayin’ she might’ve secretly been in
love with Uncle Seamus? The ‘precious knight’ in this letter? Puppy
love, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

Edie gave Cobb a scornful glance. “If she was
in love it was certainly hopeless. He never saw anythin’ in her,
that’s fer sure.”

And yet, Cobb thought, she had deliberately
left the letter – unsent obviously – where he could find it. What
kind of game was she playing at? It had already been suggested to
him that of all the housemaids it was Edie Uncle Seamus was
attracted to. But could much of the teasing and byplay have been
initiated and encouraged by Edie herself? Was
she
in love
with Uncle Seamus? And had he spurned her? Or merely kept their
relationship on a proper plane, which would have amounted to the
same thing? Surely she wouldn’t want to see him accused of rape.
But she might want to cause him some embarrassment as a form of
petty revenge. The ways of women continued to be mysterious to
Cobb.