The Bishop's Pawn (10 page)

“You ain’t forgot the eye, have you?” Sturges
said.

“Ah, yes. Never seen anything like it in all
my years as a physician.”

“We saw the like a few times in Spain,”
Sturges said. “Some poor bugger thought to be a spy by the dons
would have both eyes gouged out. They tried not to kill him.”

“At least the victim here did not know what
was being done to him,” Withers said. “The blow on the skull was
definitely first, and then, most probably, the stabbing. The
gouging out of the eye would appear to have been done as some kind
of ritual act. But I’ll leave that sort of speculation to the
police and the magistrate.”

“Thanks, Angus,” Sturges said. “What
we’ve
been doin’ meantime is tryin’ to figure out what
happened just before or just after the crime – since we know fer
sure that the stabbin’ took place close to seven-thirty. I sent
Cobb an’ Wilkie out to talk to the shopkeepers an’ regulars on that
block. We’re hopin’ that someone saw Dougherty so we can pin down
the time exactly or, if we’re lucky, find somebody who spotted the
killer comin’ or goin’.”

“And they’re still out there?” said the
magistrate, not uncritically.

Sturges reddened. “Maybe they decided to do
more’n one block,” he spluttered, having no other explanation for
Cobb’s uncharacteristic tardiness.

“Well, I may be able to help a little,”
Robert said. “I was standing in the bow window of our parlour when
I saw Dick go past. I remember remarking to the governess, Miss
Ramsay, that he was right on schedule. The time was ten minutes
past seven.” Robert also realized that that was the last image of
his friend alive he would ever hold: the oversize cloak, the fur
cap, the huge, loose-flapped boots, the determined amble of a man
set on recovering what he could of past triumphs and squandered
opportunities. “If only I had called him in, as I’ve done several
times this month. But I knew how dedicated he was to regaining his
mobility, and his self-respect. I didn’t want to disrupt his
regimen.”

There were several moments of awkward silence
before Marc said, “I heard that a note was found pinned to Dick’s
back by the murder weapon.”

“That’s right,” Sturges said. “An’ the knife
turns out to be a common type of dirk with no peculiar marks on it
that might’ve helped lead us to the killer.”

“Is that the note there?” Marc said, pointing
to the tea table beside the Chief.

“Yup. An’ just like Angus said earlier, this
disgustin’ word on it was written to look like it was done with
blood. But it’s only red ink. Here, have a look.”

Marc took the note. “Yes, I’d say a brush of
some sort, probably a calligrapher’s instrument, was used to
simulate blood and suggest a frenzied scrawl. But this word was
carefully inscribed here before the event.”

“How c’n you tell?” Sturges said.

“There is no spillover. Despite the
apparently ragged edge to the letters, they were neatly composed by
a steady hand. I’ve seen such work often in London shops. I’ve even
watched calligraphers at work.”

“Well, that’s odd, then,” Robert said. “It
doesn’t seem to fit with the frenzy of the attack and the
viciousness of that initial blow to the temple. The note seems to
have been purposefully penned and then carried to the scene with
calculated malice.”

“And the bottom third of this page has been
torn off, perhaps – again – to suggest frenzy at the scene,” Marc
said, holding up the sheet of paper to illustrate his point.

“Are you suggesting, Marc, that even the
frenzy of the knife attack was simulated?”

“That’s a possibility. Maybe we’re looking at
a cold-blooded assassination made to appear like a berserk assault
by some deranged grudge-holder or fanatic.”

Sturges gave a big sigh. “I wish you hadn’t
said that. I think we’ve all been tryin’ hard to avoid goin’
there.”

“Where?” said Magistrate Thorpe, who was
finding the discussion more puzzling than helpful.

“You weren’t at St. James yesterday?” Angus
said.

“I was in Brantford at my sister’s,” the
Magistrate said. “Why do you ask?”

Marc explained: “Archdeacon Strachan preached
a fiery sermon in which, among others, he condemned the dissolute
and unnatural acts of a Yankee lawyer, to use his own words,
practising his apostasy mere blocks from the Anglican altar.”

“I see,” said Thorpe, not yet seeing at all.
Then he said very slowly, “Are you suggesting that someone in the
congregation was incited to kill Dougherty because he was rumoured
to be a pederast?”

“Strachan called him a sodomite, an’ that’s
what’s written on the note there,” Sturges said.

“But such rumours have been flying about here
for over a year,” Thorpe said. “Just last week the local Baptist
preacher attacked homosexuals in a sermon that scorched the pews,
I’m told.”

“And there was that slanderous letter in the
Gazette
last week,” Withers added.

“All true,” Marc said. “Dick had many
enemies, few of whom he had met and none of whom he had harmed. But
I think we need to inform the magistrate of Reverend Strachan’s
final bit of imagery.”

“There was more?”

“I’m afraid so. The good pastor stared out at
his flock with a blazing countenance and roared, ‘If thine eye
offend thee, pluck it out!’”

“My God!” Thorpe said, looking aghast and,
for the first time, acutely aware of the sudden and perilous turn
of events. It was now conceivable that the murder of an American
émigré, whom few men of importance knew or cared about, was
threatening to reach up into the fragile corridors of power –
ecclesiastical corridors to be sure, but in the delicate state of
the state at this moment in history, church and government were
hopelessly enlinked. “It looks, then, as if the killer was not only
intent on doing away with Dougherty, but was trying to tie the
crime in to the Archdeacon’s sermon.”

“There can be little doubt that some kind of
connection exists,” Marc said. “What the intention of the killer
was and whether the connection was meant as a positive or negative
sign, we won’t know until we find him.”

“You’re sayin’ that the killer might’ve
thought he was doin’ the Archdeacon a favour?” Sturges said. “Sort
of carryin’ out his command an’ makin’ sure with the note an’ the
gouged eye that everybody in town would see it?”

“I’m just raising possibilities,” Marc
said.

“There were over a thousand people in St.
James yesterday,” Withers said.

“Then we’ll have to narrow our search down a
little,” Robert said. “Who would have an immediate motive –
assuming that the villain was prompted by more than a fiery sermon?
I can’t see the Archdeacon’s remarks being anything other than a
catalyst or a goad.”

When no-one else spoke, Marc said, “We could
start with people like Bartholomew Burchill, the silversmith. That
letter he wrote to the
Gazette
bristled with personal
animosity. And I saw Burchill in his pew yesterday.”

“And I suppose, while we’re speculating, that
we must not overlook the ethical dilemma of the Benchers of the Law
Society,” Robert said. “They were scheduled to meet later this week
to decide whether Dick’s temporary license to practise would be
made permanent or revoked. More than one of them will be secretly
pleased at his fortuitous demise.”

“In that regard,” Marc said excitedly, “I
must tell you that when Dick and I were leaving the Assembly on
Saturday evening, Everett Stoneham, a privy councillor, stopped us,
and poured invective on Dick. He said that Dick would become a
member of the Bar over his dead body. I took it at the time as a
serious threat of some sort, even though Dick didn’t.”

“Those two will have to be interviewed,
then,” Sturges said, nodding at Marc, to whom he had already
informally assigned responsibility for leading the
investigation.

“Stoneham was particularly incensed at Dick’s
putting up a barrister’s shingle on his cottage, even though he was
legally permitted to do so,” Marc said.

“But the fellow hasn’t had a client since the
McNair trial in January,” Thorpe said.

“That’s what we all thought,” Marc said.
“Stoneham did, too. He was enraged because he assumed that Dick had
put up the sign merely to irritate his detractors. In Stoneham’s
view, it must have seemed like a bit of Yankee bravura.”

“You’re saying that Dick
had
taken a
client,” Robert said, unable to hide his surprise.

“He confessed to me that he had done so,
after the Stoneham incident. I was appalled, given the delicacy of
the situation he was in.”

“Who was the client?” Thorpe asked.

“It gets worse,” Marc sighed. “It was the
Reverend David Chalmers.”

That stopped the discussion for a long,
anxious moment. Taking a deep breath, Marc proceeded to outline the
nature of the case that Dick had taken on, and what he had done to
assist Chalmers in clearing his name of the stigma of embezzlement
and restoring his chances of promotion when Strachan was
elevated.

“You mean to say,” Thorpe said when Marc had
finished, “that Dougherty wrote a letter to John Strachan, the
second most powerful man in the province after the governor,
threatening a libel suit and demanding that Chalmers be kept on at
St. James?”

“He did just that.”

“With what results?”

“Dick didn’t say. I assume if he had heard
from the Archdeacon he would have told me.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to talk to
Chalmers,” Sturges said glumly. The notion of interviewing the
great man in his palace was, surely, out of the question.

Robert hesitated before adding, “And I
presume we have to entertain the possibility that there was a
direct connection between the Archdeacon’s receiving that
inflammatory letter and the personal attack he appended to his
Sunday sermon.”

“For Christ’s sake, gentlemen,” Thorpe
exclaimed, “we’ve got to keep John Strachan’s name out of this! He
has already booked passage to Britain, where he is certain to be
given a mitre, and where he will join Chief Justice Robinson in
lobbying the Whig government on the nonsense in Durham’s
Report.
And we have just spent a year fending off half a
dozen Yankee-inspired invasions and hanging their misguided
leaders. I want Dougherty’s killer caught, but not at the expense
of destabilizing the province.”

While the pricking of Strachan’s balloon
would not have dismayed Robert or Marc, they nonetheless
appreciated the gravity of the situation.

“Well, sir, if Dick’s letter stirred the
Archdeacon to retaliate, it hardly involves him in the murder in
any direct way,” Marc pointed out. “We’ll proceed in our
investigation with the utmost tact.”

“Speaking again of motives,” Robert said,
“since it is common knowledge that John Strachan is a
bishop-in-waiting, then his lucrative position as Rector of York
County will be open some time in the coming months. Half the people
at St. James yesterday had their eyes on the two vicars, wondering
which one Strachan was likely to appoint.”

Thorpe glared at Baldwin. “You’re not
implying that Hungerford or Chalmers, men of the cloth, would
commit murder merely to ingratiate himself with the
bishop-in-waiting?”

Robert smiled. “Just tossing up
possibilities.”

“The rivalry between those two is known to be
intense,” Marc said. “Witness the dubious accusation that Constance
Hungerford brought against Chalmers for embezzlement. I’m not
agreeing with Robert that we ought to consider the vicars as prime
suspects, but I am afraid that there is a chain of events here that
will need tactful probing.”

“Well, for your sake, as well as the
province’s, I hope to God the killer turns out to be some religious
zealot run amok,” Thorpe said.

“I do, too,” Marc said.

“Nobody’s mentioned the
bottom
part of
the note,” Robert said. “Was it found at the crime scene?”

“No,” Sturges said. “That’s why I didn’t
mention it. But if we’re lucky, we’ll find it somewhere about the
murderer’s lair, an’ then we can match it to the bigger piece.”

Robert nodded, then turned to see Marc
standing by the window, where he was holding the “bigger piece” up
to the sunlight. “What’re you up to?” he said.

“I’m checking for the watermark,” Marc said.
“This is very expensive rag paper.”

“Good idea,” Sturges said, feeling a little
more relieved that the man he admired above all others as an
investigator was on the job – and personally motivated.

“Ah . . . it’s quite clear. It’s an eagle
holding an ‘M’ in its talons,” Marc said. “Ring any bells?”

“Never heard of it,” Thorpe said.

Nor had any of the others.

“Then that’s to our advantage,” Marc said.
“If it’s a rare breed, then we have a better chance of tracing its
owner.”

“Phineas Burke is the only chap in town who’d
sell anythin’ that unusual. Or he’d know who might,” Sturges said.
Things were looking up.

“His shop is just across the street from
here,” Robert said.

“Then I’ll ask my clerk Gussie to trot over
there right now and ask Phineas about the name of the paper an’
whether anybody he knows uses the stuff.”

“It’s the best lead we have at the moment,”
Robert said.

Sturges got up to step down into his office
below and send Augustus French on his errand. “I wonder where in
hell Cobb got to?” he was heard to mutter as he closed the door
behind him.

NINE

Cobb hurried up Church Street to Hospital Street,
where he turned west and headed towards the far end of the city. He
wanted to avoid King Street and any chance of running into the
Chief or to Marc Edwards en route to the crime scene. Besides, the
tannery was on Brock Street almost as far north as Lot where it
wandered off into Spadina Road. Even walking briskly, it was twenty
minutes or more before he reached his destination. The tannery yard
was crowded with men and mules, but he attracted little attention
as he slipped past the main building and nearby outhouses, waded
through a muddy field, and came up to a dilapidated shanty. Wilkie
poked his head around a far corner.