Desperate Acts (35 page)

“You aren’t gonna reveal them secrets, are
you?”

“I don’t see why I’ll need to. However, they
will have to appear in Nestor’s statement, at least those he has
independent knowledge of.”

“He don’t know about Budge and Etta, does he?
But I wouldn’t want the world knowin’ about Diana’s baby or poor
Horace Fullarton.”

“I don’t either. Jurors are sworn to secrecy,
of course. Even so, I may not, if I’m persuasive enough, have to
enter Nestor’s affidavit as evidence, and I’m certainly hoping I’ll
not have to put him on the stand. My hope is to be able to use his
statement to persuade the judge to let me question the ‘possibles’
vigorously, and suggest that one of them was just as likely to have
committed the crime.”

“I see. An’ have you told Nestor you’re gonna
make his talk with you into an affidavit?”

“Not yet.”

“Does he know you might have to call him as a
witness?”

“I’m going to tell him tomorrow, when he’s
strong enough to accompany me to the magistrate.”

“What’s gonna stop him from takin’ off
again?”

Marc smiled. “Dora,” he said.

“So, who are you gonna call up first?”

“Budge, then Crenshaw. They’re the two prime
candidates. Then Shuttleworth, if I have to. I’ll play it by ear
from that point on.”

Beth sipped the last of her lukewarm tea. “It
still sounds brutal to me. I wish there was another way.”

“So do I, luv.”

“Oh, by the way, I almost forgot. A message
come fer you a while ago from Robert. He’s not goin’ up to Spadina
until noon tomorrow. He says he’ll be happy to see you at
nine-thirty in the mornin’.”

“Wonderful! I’ve now got something worth
running by him.”

“Impressin’ him, ya mean,” Beth said, and
smiled.

***

To Marc’s surprise, a maid emerged from the front
door of Baldwin House to intercept him and direct him next door to
Francis Hincks’ place.

“They’re waitin’ fer ya in the library,” she
said, and hurried back in, out of the cold Saturday sunshine.

Odd, Marc thought, their meeting over there.
And who were “they”? A few moments later, he was shown into the
Hincks’ library – a cozy, book-lined room, where, seated along one
side of a sturdy, oak table were Robert, Dr. Baldwin and Hincks
himself. The door closed discreetly behind him.

“Come on in, Marc,” Robert said. “Have a
seat. We’ve got something very important to discuss.”

Marc sat down, and noticed that the letter
outlining his defense strategy lay open on the table in front of
Robert.

“You received my note, then?” he said.

“I did,” Robert said. “Thanks for filling me
in. I realized you showed it to me in strictest confidence, but I
took the liberty of summarizing its contents for my father and
Francis. You may rest assured that no word of it will go beyond
these walls.”

Marc was puzzled – by the serious expression
on his friends’ faces and by this extraordinary move on Robert’s
part. Something
very strange
was going on.

“I just wondered if you had any pointers for
me when I launch this fusillade on Monday,” he said in a vain
attempt at levity.

“I know,” Robert said. “And it’s your
proposed defense that concerns us.”

“I see. You’re worried about the judge
stopping me in my tracks. But something happened last evening to
bolster the whole apparatus. An incredible bit of luck, really.
I’ve now got a witness who – ”

“It’s not that,” Robert said. “It’s the
strategy itself.”

Marc looked at Hincks and then at Dr.
Baldwin. “I don’t understand.”

“Let me try to explain,” Hincks said.
“Yesterday in the Assembly, our colleagues fought a raucous and
divisive rearguard action to save the Union Bill. As you know, the
principal clauses have already been carried, but the Tory
hard-liners are attempting to emasculate them by proposing a series
of amendments and, when they fail, a series of attachments and
provisos to be sent along with the bill itself to the Governor. If
even two or three of these are carried in the Assembly, they will
make the bill unsupportable for Poulett Thomson, as it will be
incompatible with the one already passed by the Legislative Council
and favoured by London.”

“Clement told me about the language
restriction and the tinkering with the franchise, and the business
about the capital,” Marc said, trying not to look completely at
sea. He couldn’t see what any of this had to do with Brodie
Langford.

“We’ve had a few defections from our
coalition,” Dr. Baldwin said. “Some of the moderate conservatives
who voted with us earlier seem to think that these attachments are
minor matters, and that perhaps they have gone further with us
Reformers than they really wished to.”

“And some friends of the Tories in high
places,” Hincks said, “have started a campaign of rumours that
Poulett Thomson has made a secret pact with the Durhamites to
institute responsible government as soon as the union is a
fait
accompli.
”

“The last desperate act of desperate men,”
Dr. Baldwin said.

“In short,” Robert said, “we’re going to have
to work day and night all weekend to keep the coalition from
collapsing on Monday or Tuesday – and undoing what has been
accomplished over the past six months. Our problem is further
complicated by the fact that the Whig government in London is
itself on the verge of disintegration. And it is they, as you know,
that devised and promoted the Union Bill. If they are thrown out of
office and replaced by the Tories, there will be no second chance
for us. Reconciliation and responsible government could be dead for
a generation or more.”

“You know I’ll help in any way I can,” Marc
said, but the pained expression in Robert’s eyes brought him up
short.

“It’s precisely your help we need,” Hincks
said, and turned to Robert. Dr. Baldwin fixed his gaze firmly on
the table.

“Your defense of Brodie on Monday is
constructed to enable you to accuse – with plausible motive and
demonstrable opportunity – four of Toronto’s notable citizens of
cold-blooded murder. To be effective, your strategy must depend on
surprise and a relentless, hostile interrogation. If you have, as
you now say, probative means to support your allegations and make
them seem reasonable to the jury, then you are likely to be
successful.”

“But I don’t – ”

“And if your
are
successful, the
actual murderer will still remain unidentified, won’t he?” Hincks
said. “Which will leave the whole province wondering which of your
star witnesses really did the deed – Sir Peregrine, Crenshaw,
Fullarton or Dutton? And even if Brodie is found guilty despite
your efforts, you’ll have sown enough doubt to ruin the lives of
these men for good.”

“I know,” Marc said. “That’s been a horrific
ethical dilemma for me – as a barrister and as a human being. It’s
come down to Brodie’s life or theirs.”

“But these are not ordinary citizens, Marc,”
Dr. Baldwin said solemnly, “and these are not ordinary times.”

“Shuttleworth is a pompous émigré, but he’s
become a favourite of Bishop Strachan, dining at the Palace and
tithing like a spendthrift,” Hincks said. “Crenshaw is a pathetic
social-climber, but he is also a Legislative Councillor. Fullarton
is an esteemed banker and usher at St. James, devoted to his
crippled wife. Dutton’s father was once an influential member of
the Family Compact, and he himself has weathered much tragedy in
his personal life.”

“I do realize all this – ”

“If these gentlemen are bullied and battered
in the witness-box on Monday morning and afternoon,” Dr. Baldwin
said, “even as the debate on the attachments is proceeding a few
blocks away, we may not be able to hold the moderates to our
cause.”

“What we fear,” Hincks said, equally solemn
now, “is that the moderate Tories will hear of four of their own
being accused of murder by an advocate who for better or worse has
been working hard-in-glove with Reformers and Durhamites for the
past six months.”

“And it is quite probable that they will
decide enough is enough,” Dr. Baldwin added, “and begin circling
the wagons. If so, then voting in favour of disabling attachments
to the bill will prove irresistible.”

“And we don’t need to tell you that the
future of the province hinges on the bill surviving intact,” Hincks
said.

Suddenly Marc was finding it difficult to
breathe.

Robert looked at his young friend and protégé
with a face that was as grave and stricken as it was every year on
the anniversary of his wife’s death. “I know what we are asking of
you, Marc. It pains me beyond measure. But I can find no other
option if the province we love is to be made a place for our
children to thrive in.”

“You’re asking me to – ”

“I am. I want you to consider abandoning your
proposed defense for Brodie.”

“But the lad’s innocent!”

“I know. And we desperately want to have him
acquitted,” Robert sighed. Much of the old melancholy had crept
back into his face. “What we are asking, Marc, is that you find
another way to save him.”

Marc’s lips went numb. He felt as if the
book-lined walls were about to collapse inward and crush him – like
the ramparts at Gaza.

EIGHTEEN

Marc was still numb when he crossed Front Street and
began drifting westward along the broad, grassy expanse that
paralleled the shoreline of the bay and permitted the town’s
worthiest ratepayers an uninterrupted view of blue water, bluer
sky, and the picturesque island-spit. Fishing boats with
big-bellied sails still plied the lake, and several had already
returned from an early-morning excursion to sell their catch to the
fishmongers, whose wooden stalls dotted the beach and whose cries
sang the virtues of perch or whitefish or, on a lucky day,
sturgeon. Marc did not hear them as he wandered among those who had
come down to the shore to buy their breakfast, take the “sea” air,
or simply appraise the scenery from one of the many benches or
tree-stumps set out for that purpose. Marc sat down on one of these
at the foot of York Street, and tried to think.

Robert’s proposal had been delivered in the
form of a request, but it was no such thing. To ask someone to
choose between saving the life of one man, innocent or not, at the
expense of the well-being of all those in the province who wished
their children and grandchildren to have a country worth living in
– was no choice at all. And Marc was not just any man; he was a
barrister. He was ethically bound to offer his client the best
defense possible – and that, with the assistance of Beth and Cobb,
he had been able to do. After consulting with Robert this morning,
his intention had been to go straight to the jail to bring Brodie
the good news that he now had every reasonable chance of being
acquitted, for his barrister had moved Heaven and Earth to produce
five suspects with motive and opportunity – and now they had
supporting evidence strong enough to convince a judge and jury. But
that defense, the only viable one, was no longer an option. Somehow
he would have to stand by and watch Brodie be convicted. Somehow he
would have to find the courage to look him in the eye
afterwards.

Marc knew it was too early to catch Cobb in
The Cock and Bull, so he remained seated on the bench and waited
for him to come down Bay Street along his regular day-patrol. He
didn’t have to wait long. Cobb spotted him first, and crossed Front
Street, dodging horse-carts, pack-mules and pedestrians heading
towards the Saturday market.

“Mornin’, major,” he said, coming up to the
bench. “Somebody die?”

Marc motioned for Cobb to sit beside him.
“No, but somebody we know is about to.”

From that cryptic remark, Marc went on to
tell Cobb exactly what had transpired in Francis Hincks’ library.
Cobb listened with increasingly large intakes of breath and rueful
shakes of the head.

“So all the diggin’ we done to help Brodie is
fer nothin’?” he said when Marc had finished.

“Yes. And I’ve got till Monday morning to
develop a new defense, and even if I manage to get my mind to work,
I don’t think it’s possible to come up with one.” He grabbed Cobb
by the shoulders, and shouted, “Goddammit, Cobb, it’s not right!
How can we live in a country that lets innocent young men go to the
gallows like lambs to the slaughter!”

“Jesus, major,
I
ain’t the
hangman!”

Marc stopped shaking his partner and dropped
his hands disconsolately to his side. “I’m sorry, old friend.
You’ve worked harder and risked more than any of us.”

“Risked the family jewels,” Cobb said.

Marc smiled weakly. “So you did.”

“I ain’t never seen you as low as this.
You’re givin’ me a fright. We ain’t done yet, are we? All we gotta
do is get that peahead, Peck, to remember who made the
death-threat. If you
know
who the killer is, you c’n call
him to the stand first an’ have a free run at him. You could even
call Nestor right off an’ scare the bejeezus outta the killer
before he gets up there. That way, we won’t be ruinin’ anybody who
don’t deserve to be ruined, an’ there’ll be enough evidence to back
you up – so it won’t look like a political hatchet-job.”

Marc’s smile broadened. “We’ll make a lawyer
out of you yet. And you’re perfectly correct in your thinking here.
The problem is getting Nestor to remember that name. He has every
reason to do so, but can’t. Still, we have to try.”

“We could put him on the rack!”

“And break the few bones he still has
intact?”

“There’s other ways, ya know. Up in Irishtown
there’s a fella that does magic tricks an’ the like at the
hooer-houses, an’ one of his tricks is to mesmerize customers an’
make them do things even sillier than the ones they usually do in
there. They tell me he can make people remember what they think
they’ve forgot.”