The Bishop's Pawn (24 page)

B.

Well, the evening looked to be promising for
both of them. And equally hazardous.

NINETEEN

There was no trace of his mother in the Cleopatra who
dominated the gas-lit, proscenium stage of The Bowery Theatre for
almost three hours. Seated in their padded chairs under the arched
ceiling with its pale, subtly erotic frescoes and rendered indolent
by too much late-day brandy or the best burgundy that dollars could
buy, the prosperous patrons of America’s greatest city were
nonetheless transported to ancient Egypt and its amorous exploits.
Here was passion on the Roman scale of things, tempered and
domesticated by the Bard’s pentameter. The Queen of the Nile never
seemed to leave her barge. Her gilded and fiery presence projected
well beyond the loges and balconies, just as Shakespeare’s drama
itself was wafted out to lands and languages undreamt of in
Elizabeth’s England. And whenever she was absent, giving the stage
over to Edwin Forrest’s Antony, her soft-throated voice and
imperiously tall figure shimmered in the ghostly gaslight like an
afterimage. Marc had seen her do excerpts from
Antony and
Cleopatra
in Toronto, in fact had shared a small portion of the
stage with her. But here the vigorous and tragic rhythms of the
entire piece were played out scene by scene – in real and vivid
time. The final applause was thunderous and sustained through five
curtain calls.

Marc was about to push his way through the
crush of well-wishers towards the dressing-rooms behind the stage
when an usher came right up to him.

“Are you Mr. Edwards?”

Marc hesitated for a second before saying, “I
am.”

“Mrs. Thedford is expectin’ you in her
retiring-room. It’s got her name on the door. The man guardin’ it
will let you in.”

So somehow he had been spotted and
identified. Fair enough. She would have the ten minutes or so it
would take him to navigate through the crowd to prepare herself, as
he himself had been doing ever since he had left the Bar
Association, except for the three hours when Mary Ann Edwards,
a.k.a. Annemarie Thedford, had made him believe she was an Egyptian
love-goddess.

***

Mrs. Thedford was sitting in a silk kimono on
a satin-backed Queen Anne chair in her brightly lit room of state.
As Marc entered, several other well-dressed men and women were
being politely shooed out by her maid, who followed them out and
quietly closed the door behind her.

“Thea Clarkson spied you between the first
and second act,” Annemarie Thedford said as if that feat had been
inevitable. Thea had been with Annemarie’s travelling troupe in
Toronto in 1837, and knew Marc, though she was not privy to his
being her manager’s son. “I always knew you would come some day,
even though few of the many letters you promised ever arrived.” She
smiled to let him know that this latter remark was not meant as a
reproof.

“I thought it best to let a little water flow
under the bridge before crossing it,” Marc said, coming across the
room and taking her hand.

“I thought as much. But you are here now,
looking well. And you have had the advantage of seeing me this
evening at my best and at my worst.” She glanced down at her
kimono, which had been hastily thrown over her shift, and then ran
her fingers through her thick but untethered hair. Its fair
colouring – so like Marc’s – showed the effects of the dye used to
darken it for the play. Her face was still creamy with makeup
remover, and one of the artificial eyelashes drooped comically from
her right eyelid. But the blue eyes, an Edwards’ signature trait,
could not be Egyptianized, nor could her tall and regal bearing be
diminished by her being seated – and exhausted after a gruelling
performance.

“You are not in uniform, lieutenant.”

“That’s a very long story.”

She stifled a yawn, then reached for the
decanter of brandy on her dresser. “But the night is still young,”
she said.

***

For the next half-hour – while Annemarie Thedford
changed her clothes and performed various ablutions behind a
Chinese screen, and the hubbub in the hallway outside gradually
subsided – Marc and his mother caught up on each other’s news. Marc
gave her a carefully edited account of his experiences during the
rebellion in Quebec, a more elaborate (and cheerful) account of his
courtship and marriage (including Beth’s “condition”), and a
heartfelt explanation of his abandonment of the military in favour
of the law. In her turn she told him of the difficult months that
had followed her return to New York from Toronto in October of
1837, the gradual recovery of her spirits, and her determination to
make The Bowery Theatre and its company a success. While neither of
them spoke directly about the nightmarish incident in Toronto that
had brought them together and then threatened to tear them apart,
it hung between them nonetheless. Marc felt constrained to ask
after Tessa Guildersleeve, the young woman who had been his
mother’s protégé and, as it turned out, much more.

“Would you believe it, Marc, she ran off and
got married – to some puffed-up state senator.” The tone was light,
but Marc caught the pain under it.

She came out from behind the screen, attired
in a handsome dress that accentuated her figure and regal
demeanour. Her hair was brushed and, as it dried out, radiant. She
motioned Marc to a chair and drew hers up close. She stared into
his eyes as if any thought of releasing their blue gaze might
betray a doubt in their reality, in the unwarranted love they were
pouring into her own. Against the odds, and logic, and all that was
just, the young man seated before her was her flesh and blood, and
he had forgiven all.

When at last Marc looked away, she said
softly, “I want to know everything about Dick.”

***

News of Dick Dougherty’s murder had hit New York that
very morning, just one week after it had happened, and had spread
rapidly among those who might be thought to have an interest in it
beyond the lurid details. Marc told his mother of the trial in
January during which he had come to know Doubtful Dick, and of
their subsequent friendship. Briefly he outlined his reasons for
coming here, and recounted his meeting with Brenner and Tallman.
She listened without comment, her face registering shock, grief and
anger.

“So I came here not only to interrogate
Brenner and Tallman but to talk to you about the man who bequeathed
your theatre two thousand dollars. I was certain that such a
bequest indicated much more than an interest in plays and
playhouses. You and Dick had to be friends.”

“We were,” she said, not bothering to brush
away the tears staining her face-powder. “Like brother and sister.
He came backstage after one of my performances. We talked for
hours, and we never stopped talking until the day they drove him
away – like a common felon.”

“That’s the day I want to know about,” Marc
said, taking her hands in both of his, “if you can bear to talk
about it. I’m positive that someone or other here in New York
actually planned and incited Dick’s murder. I need to understand
the motive and who might be associated with it. And young Brodie
needs to know for his own sake.”

She smiled. “I only met Brodie and Celia
once, shortly after Dick moved into their house on Broome Street.
Dick kept his life carefully compartmentalized. I saw him in the
evenings only, before or after a performance. I have a suite of
rooms in the hotel next door, and we would sit up in the wee hours
discussing all manner of things. That we were thought to be a
couple scandalized his legal associates and amused us –
vastly.”

The wry smile she gave him prompted him to
say, “Dennis Langford and Dick Dougherty were lovers, then?”

“Yes, but they were so much more than that,”
she replied almost wistfully. “Dick and Dennis were parents to
Brodie and Celia – devoted, protective, proud as punch.”

“Was this . . . ah, relationship . . . widely
known?”

“They were very discreet. There were
whispers, of course, but Dick’s flamboyant success in the courtroom
here and the absolute privacy of his family life kept the whispers
from growing into something ugly and dangerous.”

“But someone, who had a reason to envy or
begrudge Dick’s success, found out? And ruined him?”

She gave Marc a grim little smile. “If it had
been only that, Dick would have stayed and fought it out – and won.
After all, Dennis was dead, and there was never a question of
anyone else. Even with Tammany Hall set against him he would have
prevailed. No, it wasn’t that; it was something much, much
worse.”

With a shudder, Marc recalled the “story” he
had heard at Brenner and Tallman’s that morning. He braced
himself.

***

As it happened, Annemarie Thedford was the only
person in New York or elsewhere who knew the whole story. Dick came
to her in November of 1837, shortly after her return from Upper
Canada, and confided to her that he had taken the most important
case of his illustrious career. But it would not be fought out in a
courtroom, at least not yet. It seemed that, against his better
judgement, he had allowed himself to be taken to the Manhattan
Gentleman’s Club by a long-time colleague with whom he had just
concluded a complicated civil suit. When the colleague suggested
that they celebrate further by taking advantage of the attached
brothel, Dick had firmly declined. “Ah, but I’m not talking about
young
women
,” was the reply. Dick had registered his shock,
and disbelief. “Come and have a peek, Dick. It won’t hurt to look.”
Still sceptical and thinking that his colleague was more drunk than
he appeared, Dick followed him into the back section of the
rambling house. A series of discreet and coded knocks opened doors
that finally led them to a shuttered, dimly lit parlour. Dick had a
brief impression of naked males – of various ages and body-shapes –
draped across or wriggling in over-padded chairs and sofas. Moments
later, a horrified cry cut through the heavy, malodorous air of the
room. It came from one of the adjacent cubicles, out of which
staggered a slim, pale-skinned male, who, properly attired, might
have passed for a gentleman. He was covered in blood.

Other cries and shrieks – of horror, fear,
command – soon filled the parlour, which had become within seconds
sheer bedlam. Flight seemed to be the primary response, as clothes
were flung over limbs and boots, and fleeing grandees tripped over
one another and cursed, and tripped again. Dick’s colleague
vanished. Dick himself walked across to the cubicle and drew back
the crushed-velvet curtain. In the glow of a single candle, he saw
the naked, and very still, body on the bed, cooling in its own
blood. Around its neck was a spiked dog’s collar. It had somehow
become twisted, in the contortions of lust, and one of its metal
protrusions had imbedded itself in the victim’s throat, puncturing
the jugular. Dick went over to the bed and peered at the face in
its rictus of death. It was a boy. He could not have been more than
thirteen.

“What did Dick do?” Marc asked his
mother.

Before he could do anything, she said, one of
the toughs employed by the club manhandled him out of the parlour
and pushed him into the street. There was nothing to do but go
home. The door of the club was slammed behind him. “Now, before you
condemn him, Marc, you must understand the politics of this
city.”

“Brodie has given me an introductory
lesson.”

Dick had realized that the crime, for that it
was several times over, would be hushed up. The victim was
undoubtedly some homeless urchin recruited for the vile purposes of
that brothel. No-one would report him missing. Dick had recognized
several of the faces in there, and knew that they would come under
the protection of Tammany Hall. If he himself went to the police,
he would be the sole witness to the crime. Nor could he identify
the fellow he had seen fleeing the death-chamber. Moreover, with
the whispers about town regarding his own eccentric sexuality, he
would quickly be discredited and, if push came to shove, more than
likely incriminated. Nevertheless, he did send an anonymous note to
one of the police justices. After which he heard no more about the
event.

However, Dick had other plans for the
pedophile section of the Manhattan Club. He had one of his firm’s
“operatives” watch the club and obtain information about the youths
seen frequenting the area or coming out of the house itself. It
took more than a month, but Dick was able to locate four of the
boy-whores, all of them under the age of fourteen. He visited the
hovels they lived in, gained their confidence, and eventually got
them to sign affidavits in return for a promise to stake them to a
new and better life outside the city. Whether the lads fully
comprehended what they were doing was a moot question. Dick’s
purpose in gathering evidence – dates, times, preferred sexual
acts, names, the exchange of money – was to take it to the
attorney-general in Albany, a Federalist with no love for Tammany
Hall, in an effort to have the operation shut down. He realized
that he could not have the perpetrators prosecuted, but he was
certain that the probity of the evidence and the threat of its
exposure would be enough to frighten the “invulnerable” members of
the club and its executive.

“But something went wrong,” Marc said.

“Yes. And nothing went right for him
thereafter.”

While Dick was trying to work out just how he
should approach the attorney-general, events overtook him. One of
his informants must have alerted the higher-ups, for Dick got an
urgent message that Barney Wright wanted to see him. Barney was a
fourteen-year-old catamite who had run away from his home upstate
and taken to prostitution to survive in the city. He was also
Dick’s most reliable witness. Barney lived in two rooms at the rear
of a ramshackle tenement in the gritty Five Points district. When
Dick arrived, he discovered a very nervous youngster who was having
second thoughts about what he had signed his name to. Dick calmed
him down, reassured him that he would personally escort the lad
back to his parents and help him rebuild his life with them. They
then shared a pot of tea and some biscuits. Minutes later, Dick
began to feel very drowsy, and that was his last thought before he
woke up to a pounding in his head and a louder pounding at the
door. It burst open to reveal Thurlow Winship, the corrupt police
justice, flanked by two burly constables. Dick himself was naked.
His clothes were neatly arranged on a nearby chair. Barney Wright
lay beside him on the bed, equally naked and not nearly as
terrified as he should have been.