Minor Corruption (25 page)

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. You’re
confusin’ me.”

“Did you and Betsy read romances? Fairy
tales?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Edie had
pushed her lower up and over her upper one.

“Don’t young girls when they’re learning to
write, often practice penning letters, letters they have no
intention of sending to anyone?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Edie scowled at Marc, her
jaw set.

“Milord, I’d like Miss Barr declared a
hostile witness.”

The galleries were shocked. After all, Edie
was only sixteen and very blond and, surely, innocent.

“Granted,” said the judge. “Miss Barr, you
must
answer Mr. Edwards’ questions if you know the
answer.”

Edie hung her head, uncertain of what was to
come but braced for the worst.

“I suggest, Miss Barr,” Marc said with a
sharp edge to his voice, “that you and Betsy, as young girls will
do, sat together in your room and wrote many letters of this
nature, practising the epistolary lessons that Seamus Baldwin so
kindly offered to you girls. Isn’t that not so?”

Edie nodded gloomily.

“Please answer yes or no,” the judge
said.

“Yes,” Edie mumbled.

“And you two did read romance novels
generously supplied to you from the Baldwins’ extensive
library?”

“Yes.”

“And you talked about and fantasized a white
knight in shining armour who, like those in the fairy tales, would
come and rescue you from your daily toil?”

“Yes.”

“And I put it to you, Miss Barr, that you and
Betsy sat together and composed this letter, and that you did more
than read it over for errors. Is that not so?”

Edie began to tremble. “I did read it fer
spellin’!”

“But you also helped to write it, didn’t you?
You made suggestions as you went along?”

Edie hung her pretty head. “Yes,” she
breathed.

“You may even have had Uncle Seamus in mind,
eh? Not because
Betsy
was romantically attracted to him, but
because you yourself were! It was you who were in love with Uncle
Seamus, wasn’t it? And when he failed to return your love and
seemed to be grieving overly much at Betsy’s death, you gave this
letter to the police to spite him.”

“No! No! Stop!
Please
.”

The cry came not from the witness-box but
from the dock, and Uncle Seamus. The courtroom was stunned. The
judge looked up sternly, but did not have to speak. Uncle Seamus
had slumped into the arms of the deputy bailiff, all passion
spent.

Edie Barr burst into tears, devastating her
blond prettiness.

“Counsellor, that is enough,” cried the
judge. “You’ve overstepped your bounds. And you’ve made your
point.”

“No more questions, Milord.”

Cambridge glanced over at Marc, then peered
over at the jury. They did not look pleased with the defense
counsel’s performance, having been moved, like the spectators, by
Uncle Seamus’s heartfelt cry.

“I have no further questions of this
witness,” he said.

Behind him, Marc heard Robert whisper, “Marc,
you cannot keep doing it this way.”

“We’re almost there, Robert.”

But where was
there
?

***

Just as Marc was expecting the judge to adjourn the
court until the afternoon, when the defense would begin presenting
its case, Justice Powell called the two attorneys to the bench. It
was Neville Cambridge who spoke, however.

“Milord, some new evidence pertinent to the
Crown’s case has just been handed to me. I’d like to look it over
and make a decision as to whether to call another witness.”

“Is that witness available?”

“Yes, sir. It would be Dr. William
Baldwin.”

Marc paled. What on earth was Cambridge up
to? Was he calling Dr. Baldwin deliberately to blunt Marc’s
intention to use him as a character witness? But Cambridge could go
at him at leisure in his cross examination. Character testimony was
wide open. More importantly, what was this new evidence?

“I’d like to see this evidence,” Marc
said.

“Of course,” Cambridge said cheerfully. “But
only after I’ve assessed its probative value. Its precise use, I’m
afraid, will only be made clear when Dr. Baldwin responds to my
questions concerning it.”

“Then, as it may affect the presentation of
my case,” Marc said to the judge, “I’ll need extra time to
prepare.”

“If you do, sir, we’ll postpone defense
witnesses until tomorrow morning.”

With that, Marc was left to fret and stew
over the long, long lunch-hour.

***

Horatio Cobb was still steaming. He had had a
near-sleepless night as his conscience fought with his indignation
for supremacy. To make matters worse, he had had to sit through the
morning session and watch Marc Edwards further dismantle the
Crown’s case. The Chief had ordered Cobb to attend the entire
trial, feeling that Cobb as a future detective ought to sit and
observe what happened to evidence when barristers got hold of it.
It was not a pretty sight. The only positive thing to come out of
the morning, though, was the fact that Marc had gone too far, had
been hoist on his own petard.

Still, Marc’s accusation in the wig-room
rankled, not so much the charge that he was driven by ambition
(because he simply was not) but the claim that he had not done his
job properly. After a night of arguing with himself, he had started
to accept, grudgingly, the possibility that he had indeed begun his
investigation with a prime suspect in mind and had set out merely
to prove or disprove that assumption. What if he had ignored Jake
Broom and started with the opposite notion: that someone other than
Uncle Seamus had committed the rape? Would he still not have
eliminated the six-foot Sol Clift, the slicked-down redhead, Joe
Mullins, and of course Jake Broom himself who was not stupid enough
to get himself hanged by going to the police and accusing a
prominent gentleman of a crime no-one had reported.

Nonetheless, at noon, he returned to the
Chief’s office – Sturges was home ill – and sat there for half an
hour going over all his interviews and the testimony he had, as was
his custom, automatically memorized. When the solution came it
struck him like a tornado on a house of straw. He shouted, “I’ve
got it!” so loudly that Gussie French’s pen jabbed into the
document he was writing on and its ink spurted up onto his
chin.

Cobb was now sure how the crime had been
committed. And he knew what he had to do – quickly.

***

At three o’clock the Crown called Dr. William
Baldwin as its final witness. At Baldwin House there had been much
discussion and more speculation about what the Crown was up to. Dr.
Baldwin, perhaps the city’s most illustrious and beloved citizen,
seemed as puzzled as anyone else. And, Marc noticed, there lurked
in him some uncharacteristic unease, anxiety even.

Dr. Baldwin was sworn in. If it was possible
for the onlookers to be any more riveted than they had heretofore
been, it was now.

Cambridge began by waving a sheet of paper in
the air. “Milord, I have here a letter which I would like to enter
into evidence as Exhibit C.”

The clerk brought the letter to the judge,
who had already read it. He nodded and it was returned to
Cambridge. Marc, too, had read it a few minutes before, and could
not yet see its relevance. But he was certainly worried.

“This letter,” Cambridge continued, “is dated
a month ago and is addressed to Bishop Strachan of this city. It
lay unopened for over a week, having got lost among the Bishop’s
many papers. It was read by the Bishop only this morning. He has
kindly attested to these facts.”

“Carry on, then,” said the judge.

“The letter was written by one D’Arcy Boylan,
a prominent barrister in the City of Cork, Ireland.”

The Baldwin clan, including of course Uncle
Seamus, were from the Cork region of Ireland. Marc held his
breath.

“It is addressed to Bishop Strachan. I would
ask the witness to read aloud only that part I have marked with a
pencil.”

The letter was taken to Dr. Baldwin. The look
of concern on his face had deepened. He read:

Some disturbing news, Bishop. The story about
Seamus Baldwin

retiring because of a nervous breakdown turns
out not to be true.

It seems the fellow was entangled in some
sort of scandal that

was hushed up by his law partners. I shall
keep probing for the

details, which you might find useful in the
future.

Dr. Baldwin finished and stared hard at the
prosecutor. But the letter was quivering in his hand.

***

Cobb walked up to Frederick Street and knocked at
the door of Wilfrid Sturges’ house. His wife showed Cobb through to
the little den, where the stricken man lay suffering. However, what
Cobb had to tell roused him considerably. He readily approved
Cobb’s absenting himself from the trial and gave him
carte
blanche
to carry out the further investigation he had sketched
out for his mightily impressed chief.

Cobb rented a buggy from Frank’s livery and
drove straight up to Whittle’s mill. Neither the miller nor any of
his crew had been in the courtroom this morning, so Cobb was
certain they would all have returned to work. He found Whittle in
his office. He came right to the point.

“Sir, did you ever employ Tim Thurgood,
Burton’s son?”

“What’re you doin’ pokin’ about in this
business now?” Whittle said, his natural cheerfulness disrupted by
this unexpected visit from the police.

“That’s fer me to decide, sir. Please answer
my question.”

“That’s easy. He never worked here.”

“Where did he work, then?”

“At Getty’s farm. It’s just up the road. You
passed it on your way here. But he ain’t there now. He run off to
get married.”

“I see. And he never come back here to
visit?”

“I don’t like tellin’ tales outta school,”
Whittle said, indicating that he never missed a chance to do just
that, “but father and son didn’t see eye to eye. It’s common,
alas.”

“Thanks fer yer time.”

At the door, Cobb turned and said, “How’s the
fishin’ up at the trout pool there above yer dam?”

Whittle looked puzzled but replied happily
enough. “Tryin’ to catch me out, are ya?” he laughed.

“Catchin’ you out at what?”

“Poachin’, of course.”

“Ya mean ya can’t use them two great trout
pools no more?”

“Not since the old uncle come last summer. I
been forbidden on pain of losin’ my lease.”

“I always thought the Baldwins were
easygoing?”

“Oh, they are. But that uncle loves his
anglin’ and he prefers to angle alone.”

“Well, Whittle, that uncle may not be around
much longer, eh?”

Whittle gave a wary chuckle and watched Cobb
head for his buggy. Cobb had got what he had come for, and more. He
headed off now to find the Getty farm. He found it exactly where
Whittle had directed him. A young fellow was repairing a
snake-fence on the driveway into the farm. Cobb hailed him.

“What can I do for you, constable?” The lad
had a kind, generous face but looked wary just the same.

“You was a good friend of young Tim Thurgood,
I hear,” Cobb said, stretching the truth a little.

“We were mates, yes. But Tim’s married now
and nobody’s seen him since.”

“So I was told. What I need to know is where
he is now.”

“He never told me where he and Marian were
goin’. He doesn’t want anybody to know.”

“Didn’t get along with Papa, I hear.”

“That’s right. Tim just wants to be left
alone.”

“I can’t imagine he’d not tell his best
friend where he’d got to.”

“Well, he didn’t.” The Getty lad glanced down
just enough for Cobb to be sure he was lying.

“Son – ”

“Will. The name’s Will Getty.”

“Will, a man’s life depends on me findin’ Tim
Burton before tonight. If he’s anywhere near Toronto, you’ve gotta
tell me.”

“But he made me promise. I can’t let him get
into any trouble.”

“He’s not in any trouble, son. You have my
word on that. But he has information in a life-and-death trial now
goin’ on in the city. Without his help an innocent man’ll perish in
prison.”

Will Getty hesitated but, in the end, he gave
in.

***

“What do you make of that paragraph, Dr. Baldwin?”
Neville Cambridge said with disingenuous relish.

“Sounds like rumour-mongering to me,” Dr.
Baldwin said forcefully, but the unease showed plainly in his eyes.
“The Irish have been known to indulge from time to time.”

A slight ripple of laughter went through the
jury. They were hanging now on every word, every nuance. Here
before them was one of the first citizens of the colony, a
gentleman among gentlemen, on a witness-stand defending as best he
could his reprobate Irish brother.

“That may well be, doctor, but I believe you
know otherwise.” Cambridge stared hard at Dr. Baldwin, holding him
gaze for gaze.

“I don’t know what you are implying,
sir.”

“I’m not
implying
anything other than
this: tell this court exactly how much you know about why and how
Seamus Baldwin came to leave his law firm in Cork, Ireland. And
remember, you have sworn an oath before God to tell the truth.”

Dr. Baldwin bridled. “I know what an oath
before my God is, sir.” Then he paused and looked slowly up at his
brother slumped against the bailiff’s man in the dock. A great
sadness overwhelmed him. He dropped his gaze, struggling with some
deep, insurgent emotion. “The truth is this. I’ve had it from
Seamus’s law partners in correspondence and from Seamus
himself.”

The courtroom was silent. A crow cawed in the
distance.

“John McCall, the senior partner, discovered
that Seamus was paying court to his daughter.”