Minor Corruption (14 page)

He also gave some thought to the men he could
see sitting on the edge of the bench in the adjoining room. If
Broom’s account were even generally accurate, none of these men
would fit the description he gave of the rapist: the wild shock of
whitish hair, the impression of a short, wiry man of some years.
Clift was skinny and near six feet. The miller was fifty and fat.
Mullins was stocky with slicked-down red hair. And Thurgood, whom
he’d already met, had black curls and a young man’s physique.
Perhaps Broom himself did it. But then, why report it? No, Broom’s
account was credible and, if it came to pass, he would make a
credible witness in the box.

With these thoughts, Cobb took a deep breath
and called for Burton Thurgood.

If Thurgood were embarrassed by the empty
threats he had made the previous week, he had chosen not to show
it. Instead, as was his wont, he chose belligerence.

“I thought you people’d caved in to the
bigwigs!” he snarled as Cobb waved him to a chair. “So whaddya want
now
?”

“I want you to sit back in that chair and
listen while I tell you a story about what really happened to your
little girl.”

That got his attention, and with a grunt he
shut up and allowed Cobb to sketch in the details of the apparent
rape of his daughter in the barn a mere hundred yards from where
they sat.

“I told you that old bastard raped her!” he
shouted, rising halfway out of his seat. “But you wouldn’t listen
to me!”

Cobb had deliberately avoided mentioning Joe
Mullins’s sighting of Seamus Baldwin, but he realized of course
that Thurgood was fixated on the old man. Certainly the
circumstantial evidence surrounding the abortion payment was not
going to play out in Uncle Seamus’s favour.

“We don’t know who did that awful thing to
yer daughter, sir. That’s why I’m here.”

“Well, I do! And I’m goin’ up to Spadina to
take care of him myself, seein’ as how you’re doin’
bugger-all.”

“I’d advise against that, sir. Yer good wife
don’t need you in jail., does she?”

“What do you
expect
me to do? I was
her father!”

“Let me get to the truth.”

Thurgood’s rage seemed to have spent itself.
He sat down, leaned back, and simply scowled at Cobb.

“That’s better. Now I want you to walk me
through everythin’ that happened from the time Betsy arrived that
day.”

Grudgingly, Thurgood confirmed the previous
accounts, showing a reaction only when Cobb interrupted to inform
him of Sol Clift’s report of Betsy going to the barn to feed the
horses the treats she had brought them.

“I told her to go straight back! If only
she’d listened to me!”

Thurgood said that he and Whittle had indeed
left early to go up to the damaged weir. Like the miller, he had
seen or heard nothing unusual. Cobb noted once again that no-one
had heard screams or cries for help – not even Jake Broom at the
scene. Perhaps the rapist had gagged her or held his hand over her
mouth.

Cobb thanked Seth Whittle and released his
captive audience. Just as he did, Jake Broom came into the
office.

“You c’n tell ‘em everythin’ now,” Cobb said,
and walked out to leave these men an afternoon of ceaseless chatter
and speculation about the terrible events of August the third. He
only hoped that when Thurgood heard of Uncle Seamus’s presence in
the ravine, he would not do anything drastic. At any rate, it was
clear now that he himself must drive up to Spadina and beard the
old gent. With the growing evidence against him, Cobb concluded
that, in his current unstable state, the fellow would merely
confess and get the anguish and guilt over with. As the Chief had
implied, the police desperately needed an unequivocal result.

First, however, he would survey the terrain
to get a clear picture of it in his mind and to make sure that the
references to it by the mill-hands were accurate.

He turned north outside the mill-office.
Beyond the mill building itself, where the huge millstones were
already pounding and clashing, he spied the barn just to the right
and, indeed, about a hundred paces away. A well-worn path connected
it to the mill. Just above the barn lay a cluster of cedar trees
that acted as a screen between the barn and the millpond father
north. Cobb walked through the barn. A dozen stalls were occupied
by four horses, three cows, four calves and a black-and-white pony.
Near the rear of the barn, whose doors were wide open, to let a
breeze through, Cobb came across the vacant stall where the rape
must have occurred. If Broom had walked on by – again there
appeared to have been no cries to alert him – and then had turned
just here in the doorway, he would have spotted the outrage, almost
dead on, from about thirty-five feet (a little farther than Broom
had stated, but it was a small discrepancy). Still, it was close
enough for him to have determined the colour and pattern of Betsy’s
dress, get a glimpse of legs and buttocks moving up and down, and
note a whitish spray of hair, especially if – as now – the sun had
streaked in through cracks in the siding and added to the wash of
light from the open doorway.

Next Cobb walked up to the millpond alongside
the race running swiftly down to the millwheel. At the milldam, or
weir as Whittle called it, he noticed where several newer-looking
logs had been inserted at the top of the sluice after the
windstorm. From here he looked back and could not see anything but
the barn roof behind the clump of cedars. North beyond the weir and
the millpond, Trout Creek vanished into thick bush.

Satisfied, he walked slowly back towards the
mill-office and his buggy. Suddenly he sped up. While he was not
looking forward to interrogating and perhaps arresting Seamus
Baldwin, he remembered that he ought to get to Spadina before an
enraged and avenging father did.

EIGHT

Cobb tethered his horse to a low tree on the east
side of Spadina. As he was about to walk around to the rear
entrance, he spotted Herb Morrisey, the gardener, digging in one of
the kitchen gardens. He hailed him, and Morrisey put his spade down
and ambled over.

“Good day, sir. I’m Constable Cobb. I need to
ask you a few questions. It’s about what happened to young Betsy
Thurgood.” Slyly, Cobb did not add that his business dealt with a
new and more serious charge.

Morrisey was a big man, ruddy-cheeked, with
an open, welcoming face. He frowned at Cobb’s latter remark. “Damn
shame that. Elsie Trigger shoulda been run outta this town years
ago.”

“We’ll catch her, don’t worry. But we’re now
tryin’ to find out who the father of her babe was. I been asked to
talk to the servants here.” Cobb was pleased at being able to tell
some of the truth without revealing all of it and spooking
Morrisey. Marc Edwards would have approved.

“Don’t see how I could help you there,”
Morrisey said, looking puzzled rather than concerned.

“Did you ever see anythin’ improper goin’ on
around here between Betsy and a man or lad?”

“You’re referrin’ to things romantic, I
reckon?” Morrisey gave him a wry, man-to-man smile.

“I am. I remember the Baldwins had a lot of
picnics up here last summer, and I been told Betsy helped serve at
most of ‘em. There’d be plenty of opportunity fer her to get
attracted to a young fella or one of the older guests.”

“That’s so. Dr. Baldwin is very generous to
people in the neighbourhood. Lots of folks, rich and poor, were
here in July and August. Kept all of us busy.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t see Betsy doin’ anythin’ she
shouldn’t have. Matter of fact, she was the shy one. It was her
friend Edie who was rambunctious – always drawin’ a rebuke from
Partridge.”

“I heard, though, that Betsy was seen sittin’
on Mr. Seamus’s lap, playin’ a dummy.”

Morrisey’s gaze narrowed, but nothing like
suspicion had set in – yet. “Ah that. Uncle Seamus, as we all call
him, was fond of his pranks and sideshows. He’s a good
ventriloquist and does his act with a live dummy. It’s quite funny.
But he does it with Edie. Betsy’s shy, and did it only once or
twice, to please Uncle. She wasn’t a flirt, Mr. Cobb.”

“Well, somebody did more’n flirt with her,
that’s fer sure.”

“And I’d strangle the bugger with my own
hands, I would.”

“This may seem strange,” Cobb said after a
pause, “but there was an incident that happened last August the
third – that’s the day after the tornado blew through the
area.”

“Yes, I recall the tornado. I was out here
clearin’ brush the next mornin’. And fer three days afterwards. But
what sort of incident?”

“Can’t tell you just yet, but what I need to
find out is whether you saw anyone leavin’ here and goin’ towards
the path that takes ya through the bush to Whittle’s mill.”

“The one over there past the cucumber
beds?”

Cobb nodded. “About the noon hour.”

“Well, I was nearby most of the day. I’m sure
the only person I would’ve seen was Betsy takin’ her father his
lunch. She come back, I think, later’n usual. Sick, I recollect,
‘cause she was in bed with the grippe fer a few days after. We were
worried about her.”

“You saw nobody else?”

“Come to think of it now, I probably saw
Uncle Seamus headin’ over to one of his fishin’ spots on Trout
Creek.”

“What time?”

“Couldn’t really say. Usually he went in the
mornin’ or later in the afternoon. I just don’t remember the time
that day.”

“Did he have his fishin’ pole?”

“I guess so. Why else would he go that
way?”

Why indeed, Cobb thought. “Where are them
fishin’ spots, by the way?”

“There’s two of ‘em. One is in the bush above
the milldam. The other’s in a little ravine just below the
mill-buildin’.”

“Did Uncle Seamus go there often?”

“Three or four times a week, I reckon. He’s a
fanatical angler. Caused a bit of a ruckus when he first come
because nobody in Spadina had bothered fishin’ fer trout until he
arrived.”

“What sort of ruckus?”

“Seems like Seth Whittle liked to do the same
thing. Dr. Baldwin, he never cared that the fella was poachin’. But
Uncle Seamus liked to be alone down there, so the doctor told the
miller to stop anglin’ fer a while.”

“And the miller wasn’t pleased?”

“Not in the least. He kicked up a terrible
fuss and the Baldwins had to threaten to break his lease unless he
quit. That did the trick.”

“I bet it would.”

Cobb thanked Morrisey and headed up to the
back porch. Through the netting he could see Mrs. Morrisey in the
summer kitchen. He rapped and walked in. The cook, a plump, amiable
woman with eyes as dark as blueberries, was sitting on a bench
peeling potatoes. Beside her, doing likewise, was Miss Partridge,
the middle-aged housemaid. Cobb was not displeased to see them
together, but he still wasn’t sure how he could approach the
subject of Uncle Seamus and the case for rape that was inexorably
building against him.

“Well, if it ain’t Mr. Cobb,” said Mrs.
Morrisey with a big smile. “What brings a Toronto bobby way out
here on such a fine day?”

“Business, I’m afraid, Mrs. Morrisey. The sad
business of Betsy’s death.”

“I thought that’d been all settled at the
inquest.”

“We’re lookin’ fer Elsie Trigger all right,
but we’re also hopin’ to locate the father of the babe. Betsy was
under age.”

“Then you oughta go lookin’ at the mill-hands
and them families that live beside the Thurgoods. There’s half a
dozen fellas coulda done it to her before she come here at the end
of July. Aren’t I right, Faye?”

Faye Partridge nodded. “She was safe once she
got
here
, but God knows what the wee dear thing had to put
up with over there.”

“I been over there,” Cobb said, “but not as
far as the mill-houses.” He was hoping against hope, however, that
he would
have
to look there after his mission here turned
out to be without merit.

“Well, then, I’ll give you a cup of tea and a
biscuit before you go all that way.”

“That’s kind of you, ma’am, but there is one
or two questions I’d like to ask before I go.”

“Go ahead. Faye, put the kettle on,
please.”

Faye got up, complaining about her bad hip,
and limped over to the stove. She had to stir the ashes to get the
fire going, complaining yet again.

“I gotta ask this question, Mrs. Morrisey, so
please don’t take offence. If we’re gonna find out who the father
is, we may haveta do it by elimination, as the culprit ain’t likely
to fall on my boots and confess.”

“You’re referrin’ to the men in this
household?” she said shrewdly.

“Not necessarily.”

“That’s poppycock!” Faye Partridge hollered
over from the stove. “Nobody in this house would harm a hair on
that girl’s head.”

“The constable ain’t sayin’ that, Faye. Are
ya?”

“No, ma’am. But we know servants see and hear
things other people don’t think they do. You have lots of visitors
here. And it’s pretty well all over town that Mr. Seamus Baldwin’s
been seen teasin’ and flirtin’ with the children – and the
housemaids.”

“He ain’t ever flirted with me!” cried Miss
Partridge, and her thin, homely face indicated that her denial may
have been equally a complaint.

“Course not, sweet,” Mrs Morrisey soothed.
“And there was nothin’ improper about the way he teased and had fun
with Betsy and Edie.”

“It was mainly with that Edie, though!” Miss
Partridge slammed the kettle down on one of the stove-lids. “The
little minx.”

“Uncle Seamus is like a big kid much of the
time,” Mrs. Morrisey said. “He’s goin’ through his second
childhood, in my opinion. But he’s also like an elderly uncle to
the girls. He helps them with their readin’ an’ writin’ – Dr.
Baldwin always insists his staff get on with their schoolin’ here –
and Uncle Seamus and Betsy read books together.”