The Bishop's Pawn (27 page)

Marc tried to stand up, but the pain in his
knee caused his leg to buckle, and he sat back down. “Then we have
lost,” he said.

“Not entirely,” Annemarie said very
quietly.

“What do you mean?” Brodie said.

“Before he left, your guardian gave me a
small sealed envelope. He said it contained one sheet of paper. On
it he had written down the names of the pedophiles he had gleaned
from his interviews with the boys. ‘Just the names,’ he said, ‘so
that whatever else happens, you will know who these dreadful men
are.’”

“Nothing else, then?” Marc asked, deflated
yet again.

“That’s what he said. But why don’t we look
for ourselves?”

Marc and Brodie were equally astonished.

“I’ve kept it here, in my desk, these past
months – unopened.”

As they watched her, doubting whether such a
list would be of any material value but unwilling to abandon hope,
she went over to a gleaming, rosewood davenport, opened its drawer,
and drew out a sealed, brown envelope. She broke the seal and
removed a single sheet of white paper. Slowly she gazed at what was
written there, nodding and sighing as she did.

“It’s a roll-call of the high and mighty,”
she said. “Some of these names are a shock – beyond belief.” The
paper now hung limply at her side. “I wish to God I had not looked
at this. Here, Marc, throw it in the fire. It will do none of us
any good: you might as well try to bring down the Governor’s
mansion or the White House.”

She let the paper drift to the floor. Brodie
moved quickly to her side and guided her to the nearest chair. The
events of the evening, and indeed the past two days, had taken
their toll on her.

Marc picked up the paper and walked over to
the embering fire in the marble-topped hearth.

“Please, son.”

Marc held it out towards a flickering blue
flame. As he did so, he could not help but notice one of the names
on the list. He stared at it, momentarily bewildered.

“Don’t punish yourself – ”

“It’s all right, mother.” He let the paper
fall into the fire. “I’ve seen enough.” But it wasn’t a sigh that
coloured this latter remark: it was a rising, unquenchable surge of
exhilaration.

“I think we’ve found our second assassin,” he
said. “To be certain, we’ll need to go back to Eliza’s place first
thing in the morning. And if I’m right, Brodie and I will be on the
first boat up the Hudson to the Erie Canal.”

TWENTY TWO

By seven-fifteen Wednesday evening the streets of
Toronto were completely dark, except for the modest glow from a few
dozen post-lamps along King and Front and the occasional, wobbly
glimmer of a carriage-lantern. The moon would not be up for hours,
and the meagre spillage of light from the homes, shops and taverns
was not bright enough to fire a cat’s eyes. A good time to be
settled safely in one’s parlour. A better time for thieves,
pub-brawlers and roustabouts.

Constable Cobb stood outside the police
quarters and impassively observed the elderly watchman place his
stool at the base of the lamp-post on the corner of Church and
King. Even after the formation of the municipal constabulary in
1835, the city fathers had kept four or five of the watchmen on the
payroll – to light the street-lamps and stand sentry at the major
intersections. For most of them, “standing sentry” meant finding a
comfortable doorway and snoozing the night away. Cobb walked along
to the lamp just lit. He noted with some illicit satisfaction that
the glow it cast did not disturb the shadows that covered the big
front doors of St. James a hundred feet away. And the rear door of
the vicarage was, as always, invisible; even a full moon would cast
no illumination in the dark alley leading up to it. Pleased with
himself, he returned to his regular patrol.

Having informed Dora of the particular
ingenuities of his plan (which apparently went unregarded by that
normally perceptive woman), Cobb did not have to return home when
his patrol duties ended around ten o’clock. Instead, he slipped
unnoticed into the shadows alongside the eastern wall of St. James
and sidestepped his way northward until he stumbled upon the little
stoop at the rear of the vicarage, striking his kneecap on its
sharp edge and uttering a muffled oath. He held his breath and
listened hard, but the excited rasping of his own breath and the
thumping of his heart was all he could hear. He decided that being
a sneak-thief was not as simple as it appeared: give him a noisy
tavern brawl any day.

Satisfied that no-one inside had been alerted
to his presence, he clambered up onto the stoop and fumbled in the
pitch dark for the doorknob. As he took hold of it, it rattled like
a dinner-bell. When his hand stopped shaking, he gave the knob a
slow turn, heard a decisive click, and pushed inward. So, Missy
Prue had been as good as her word. She had made sure the door was
unlocked and unbarred.

He stepped into the dark hallway, then
reached around and, fumbling again, found the key still in the
lock. He gave it a turn and left it where it was. Although he
didn’t expect to have to use the door later, it represented an
escape route, should he need it. He left the bar unlatched for the
convenience of the thief, should the fellow choose this port of
entry. Groping his way down the covered and windowless walkway to
the church proper was not as straightforward as it ought to have
been. While Cobb assumed he was walking dead ahead towards the pale
rectangle at the far end, the frightful bumping that each of the
walls gave his shoulders and elbows suggested otherwise. After
several more ungainly manoeuvres through the vestry area, he
emerged at last into the vaulted chamber of the Lord.

He inched his way up the main aisle without
making a sound, as if the Holy Ghost were indeed present and
casting a sceptical eye on his movements, however noble their
purpose might be. Fortunately the moon was just beginning to rise
in the south-east, and so there was a wash of pale and
window-refracted light beginning to fill the vast void of the nave.
The Poor Box sat on its pillar beyond the last row of pews. And he
was pretty certain that it had not been emptied after the
christening ceremony earlier in the day.

Well, he had made it safely into the trap he
had devised. All he had to do now was find a convenient perch from
which to spring as soon as the miscreant got his fingers tucked
into the cookie-jar. He chose a pew a few feet away, which no
moonlight now reached nor ever would if his calculations were
correct. He sat down, swung his boots up onto the bench, and laid
his head on his helmet against the arm at the end of the pew.

Now all he had to do was wait.

***

Falling asleep had not been one of the ingenious
particulars of Cobb’s plan. He had taken a long nap after lunch and
had restricted his intake of ale to the minimum his duty and
conscience would allow. Nevertheless, he was in danger of drifting
off, and Dora was telling him so in no uncertain terms. He was in
the midst of a devastating retort when he realized that he had not
brought Dora along with him to St. James. If that were true, then
Dora was part of his dream, and if he were dreaming, then he was –
alas – asleep. With a gasp that shook the wart on the tip of his
nose, Cobb sat up and forced his eyelids upward.

The Poor Box sat on its pedestal, unravaged.
The only sound was the wind strumming the belfry. The moon had
crossed the southern sky and was now illuminating the windows in
the west wall, but very faintly. It must be near dawn. Damn! He had
slept the night away. With every limb protesting and a neck that
felt as if it had been stiffened with a hot poker, he got up and
hobbled over to the Poor Box. He tugged at the door. It was still
locked. If the robber
had
come in while the police slept, he
could have unlocked the box with his contraband key, removed the
cash, and relocked the confounded thing! And Cobb, keyless, could
not find out one way or the other. There was nothing to do now but
admit defeat and hightail it out the vicarage door before he
himself was discovered and accused of being the thief.

That’s when he heard a loud click – at the
big front door.

With his heart doing sit-ups, Cobb scuttled
back into the shadows. Just as he ducked low, one of the oaken
doors squealed open and a dark-clad figure slipped into the church.
Just then, a cloud must have blocked the fading moonlight, for the
chamber went gray and fuzzy before Cobb’s straining eyes. Though he
could not see the intruder, he could hear him padding along towards
the Poor Box. It was difficult to do so, but Cobb knew he had to
wait until that box was opened and the intruder’s intentions
crystal clear before he could pounce.

He did not have to wait long.

After several scraping and scratching noises,
a key could be heard clicking into place. The thief was breathing
as heavily as Cobb was, and even at a distance of four or five
yards, gave off a nauseous, and vaguely familiar, odour.

“Stand where you are, sir!” Cobb shouted as
he rose out of the darkness like an avenging angel. “I am the
law!”

This command was followed by the crash and
tinkle of spilled coins and the immediate retreat of the felon
towards the oaken door he had left slightly ajar. But Cobb, never
hobbled by his pot-belly, ran him down and felled him with a tackle
that a rugby forward might have envied. He heard the air wheeze out
of the villain’s body, and plunked himself down between the
fellow’s shoulder blades.

“Got ya at last, you thievin’ bastard!
Robbin’ money meant fer widows an’ orphans. I oughta beat ya
senseless right here in the site of the Lord!”

“I ain’t done nothin’, Cobb! I swear ta
God!”

Cobb froze. “Jesus Murphy, it can’t be!”

He got up, grasped the villain by the collar,
and dragged him across the flagstones towards the nearest window,
where a revived moon cast a pale lozenge of light. Cobb dropped his
bundle onto the floor and rolled it over with the toe of his right
boot.

“What the fuck are
you
doin’ robbin’
churches?” he cried, beside himself with anger and chagrin.

Nestor Peck, master snitch, blinked and
stared up at Cobb. His entire body was quaking, but he managed to
say, in a pitiable whine, “I ain’t taken a penny, Cobb. Not a
farthin’. This ain’t what it looks like – honest to God!”

“Don’t you go
blast-feemin’
the Lord,”
Cobb said. “You wouldn’t know honesty if ya stepped in it!”

Nester looked even worse than usual. His eyes
were like a pair of badly poached, bloodshot eggs, and his
near-toothless mouth had begun to shrivel inward like a scarecrow’s
knitted lips. It was obvious that he was terrified.

“Ya gotta believe me, Mr. Cobb. I ain’t no
robber. I wouldn’t take food outta the mouths of orphans. I was one
myself!”

“I know. Yer ma an’ pa took one gander at
you
an’ poisoned each other.” Cobb was disappointed at
himself for letting his anger get the better of him, but of all the
possibilities he had imagined regarding these thefts, this was not
among them. And with Nester in prison, his steadiest source of
information from the underworld would be cut off.

“She asked me to do it!” Nester was
snivelling at Cobb’s feet. “What could I do? I
had
to say
yes.”

Cobb reached down, grabbed an elbow, and
slowly raised Nestor to his feet. Nestor immediately threw both
hands in front of his face to ward off the blows he expected.

“
Who
asked you to do this?” Cobb said
so quietly that Nestor almost missed the change in tone – and
purpose.

“The lady up at the vicarage. It was all her
idea, I just – ”

“Mrs.
Hungerford
? The vicar’s
wife?”

“That’s the one. I’ll swear to it on a hunert
Bibles – ”

“Stop yer whinin’, man, an’ tell me what
happened. All of it –
now
!”

Nestor took a coughing fit, which oddly
seemed to settle his nerves, for he looked Cobb square in the eye
and said, “A couple weeks ago I was over here helpin’ Reuben fix up
the broken boards on the front porch. The missus corners me
afterwards an’ tells me she’s got an important job fer me. She says
it’s gonna seem strange, but I’m to ask no questions about it, an’
the bishop – that’s what she calls him – is the one that wants it
done. Well, right off, I’m gettin’ nervous, an’ when she tells me
she wants me to take the money outta the Poor Box an’ give it to
her, I start to panic. But she says it’s all about catchin’ a
real
thief, an’ the bishop is anxious to do that, an’ she
promises me five dollars if I do things right. But I ain’t no
robber, I say, an’ she says she’ll give me the key to the front
door and another one fer the little box, so it ain’t really
robbery. All I gotta do is slip past the watchman, come in here in
the middle of the night, take out the money an’ bring it around to
her first thing in the mornin’ – when nobody’s lookin’ – out behind
the stables.”

Cobb absorbed all this before saying, “So you
come in here a week ago Sunday, the day before Mr. Dougherty got
stabbed?”

“I was supposed to. But I get cold feet. So
the old girl sends a lad to fetch me, an’ she’s furious. She tells
me the box ain’t been emptied yet because of all the fuss over the
murder, and I’m to do the job that night. She promises me I c’n be
the new verger – soon as the bishop is made inta a bishop an’ her
husband becomes the rector. So I say I’ll do it.”

“So you come in here that Monday night?”

“No. I didn’t get up enough nerve till the
Wednesday. But I was so scared I knocked the box off its pole. The
missus was very upset with me ‘cause I was supposed to sneak the
money out real careful.”

“What about last Sunday?”