The Bishop's Pawn (23 page)

“That’ll be all, Myrtle.”

Myrtle vanished with alacrity.

Getting control of her anger with difficulty,
Constance turned back to Cobb. “Well, then, constable, it appears
as if Mr. Chalmers could not himself have removed the money.”

“Or stashed it in his own desk.”

“Then I submit that he has an
accomplice.”

My God, Cobb thought, not another conspiracy.
“How do ya figure that?”

“I
figure
it this way. Mr. Chalmers
knows that I suspect him of thievery. I have already accused him of
an earlier theft, the details of which you need know nothing. After
last week’s robbery here, he realized that if he were to deflect
suspicion, he would need an accomplice – and an alibi.”

“But who could he get to steal from the Poor
Box?”

“The town is crawling with cutthroats and
burglars. The Reverend Chalmers wastes much of his time amongst
such lowlife in hopes of bringing them to God. It would be simple
enough for him to bribe one of them and provide him with the
necessary keys.”

Cobb sighed. “And if Reverend Chalmers denies
all this? After all, we know he didn’t do the deed himself. Any
burglar could’ve jimmied those locks an’ planted the cash in the
reverend’s desk to make mischief.” Cobb tried not to smile as he
added, “Fer some reason we know nothin’ about.”

“That is patently absurd! It is you who are
being mischievous!”

“All I’m sayin’, ma’am, is that unless the
reverend was to confess, or unless we can find this accomplice
among the lowlife hereabouts, we ain’t got a case to make.”

Constance glared at him with such malice that
he thought he could hear the metal buttons on his coat sizzle. “How
will we know he really
was
in Streetsville if you don’t go
out there and interview this so-called brother?”

“You’re cluckin’ at straws,” Cobb said
meekly.

“You don’t seem to realize,
sir
, that
Dr. Strachan is about to be elevated to the position of bishop. If
there is evil in this establishment, then it must be exposed to the
light and purged, so that no taint of scandal or maladministration
touches that saintly man’s robes. David Chalmers has slipped the
snare, twice. But I am not one to give up.” She stood up. “Now I
expect you to report to me that you have interrogated the suspect
and checked his alibi. Good day to you.”

Any chance of it being a good day had long
since gone by the boards.

EIGHTEEN

David Chalmers himself appeared at the police
quarters later that afternoon. He looked haggard and hag-ridden,
which made Cobb even more impressed by his calm demeanour and
straightforward testimony. He seemed to regard Constance Hungerford
as a millstone sent by the Almighty to test his patience and
forbearance. Not only did he state that he had indeed visited his
sick brother in Streetsville, but added that Dr. Withers had
accompanied him, and both had spent the night there. When Cobb
pointed out, diffidently, that the marked money had been found in
his desk-drawer, Chalmers did not seem surprised. But when pressed
for some plausible explanation, he suggested that there were
certainly a few citizens in Irishtown and elsewhere among the
downtrodden in the city who resented his intrusions into their
life, and who might well have decided to implicate him in a crime.
Lots of people had seen him and Withers riding west along King
Street towards his brother’s home fifteen miles way: so the
opportunity was there.

“Still,” he said with a resigned smile, “I
think they would have kept most of the money, especially the
Halifax dollar.”

After thanking Chalmers and watching him
trudge off, Cobb had Gussie French compose a brief note to
Constance Hungerford: “Suspect cleared. Alibi vouched for by a
witness. No further leads.” He had it delivered. He hoped he would
not have to face that harridan again. Nevertheless,
some
body
had taken that money (with the connivance of the senior vicar’s
wife, no doubt), and it rankled that the culprit was still loose in
Cobb’s city.

***

If Cobb was hoping to come home at six o’clock to a
warm supper and a consoling wife, he was soon disappointed. Dora
was waiting for him at the door – never a good sign.

“Now you went an’ done it, Mister Cobb!”

“Done what? I ain’t put my big toe in here
since the sun come up!”

“I just got back from Beth’s place.”

“Has the babe come?”

“No, not that. Turned out to be false labour.
But it should be here real soon.”

“What, then?”

“Celia Langford was there. She had a letter
in her hand.”

Oh, oh. Cobb was pretty sure what was coming
his way. “It wasn’t up to me, luv. I
had
to question the old
miser. It was my
duty
.”

Dora pretended he had not spoken, as she
usually did in these circumstances. “It was a letter from Matthew
Burchill.”

“That
tie-rant
of a father’s gone an’
forbid the lad ta see her,” Cobb got in quickly before something
worse could be uttered.

“That’s the least of it, I’m afraid.” Dora
looked pained, but – strangely – not angry.

“If he’s hurt the lad, I’ll have him in
irons!”

“There’s no need to get yer nose in a knot.
Matthew’s fine. He told Celia his father’d found out from talkin’
to
you
that they’d been seein’ each other in secret.”

“It was my
duty.
”

“Quit whinin’ an’ listen, will ya? Matthew
said his father had threatened to disinherit him an’ toss him inta
the street instantly unless he quit courtin’ her.”

“Well, that kinda threat usually ups the
temper-churn
of any courtin’,” Cobb observed.

“Thanks fer the folk wisdom, Mister Cobb. But
what the little turd told her was that his love had cooled right
down, that he’d seen the light an’ pledged to follow his father’s
plans fer his life. He begged her to be a proper Christian an’
forgive him.”

Cobb gulped. “Maybe the old man helped him
write the letter.”

Dora snorted. “He sent back her
locket
, the one he promised to keep next to his heart
forever – with another messenger.”

“So I guess she’s in a bad way?”

“Tryin’ to be brave, fer Beth’s sake. But
she’s had two blows in a week. I managed to talk her into stayin’
with Beth an’ Charlene fer a while.”

“So, I gotta take the blame fer this, do
I?”

Cobb tried to look as pitiable and put-upon
as possible.

“You do. But don’t worry. She’ll get over
him. Them two together woulda been a
disaster.
”

With appropriate humility and impeccable
timing, Cobb said, “What’s fer supper?”

***

Marc spent a frustrating Monday afternoon cooling his
heels in the reception room of the New York Bar Association. When
he made the mistake of mentioning that he wished to speak to
someone on the executive about Richard Dougherty, the secretary’s
face became an impenetrable mask of polite resistance. While not
refusing Marc’s request outright, the fellow made only token
gestures to intercede on his behalf, smiling stiffly after each
sally into the inner offices and suggesting that it would only be a
matter of another quarter-hour or so. By five o’clock, Marc got the
message. He took his leave.

Once outside and breathing fresh air again,
Marc decided to walk the two blocks along Bayard Street to the
Bowery. As he turned north on this grand and fabled avenue, laid
out by the pioneering Dutch almost two hundred years before, he
spotted what he was looking for.

The Bowery Theatre sat in the middle of the
block on the east side, wedged in between a row of sturdy,
three-storey brick-structures – housing shops and apartments – and
the New York Theatre Hotel, a handsome stuccoed block with
blue-shuttered windows. Neither of these bordering buildings
prepared the newcomer for the grandeur and symmetry of the theatre
itself, though their rough-hewn utility did much to emphasize its
visual delights. Set back a few paces from the paved sidewalk by a
wide flight of stone steps, the entrance was guarded and
embellished by four soaring, fluted columns. As the eye rose with
them, they culminated in elaborate, floral capitals, which
themselves were framed by a pair of pilasters that served to
separate the theatre’s elegant artfulness from the pedestrian
practicality of its neighbours. Twelve feet above the colonnaded
porch and stretched across the entire façade lay a broad balcony
with intricate, wrought-iron railings, where patrons could stroll
between acts and gaze out upon the wonders of their city. Above the
castellated wall around the roof, the Stars and Stripes flapped
contentedly in the afternoon breeze.

My mother has done well, was Marc’s
thought.

He went up to the notice-board set beside one
of the four, pillared lamp-posts, and looked at the playbill.

TONIGHT!

Mrs. Annemarie Thedford

– New York’s Most Celebrated Actress –

in

Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra

with Edwin Forrest

America’s Finest Tragedian as Antony

etc.

Curtain at Seven O’Clock

Well, the evening promised to be more productive than
the afternoon had been.

Marc decided to walk the dozen blocks back to
The Houston Hotel. The sight of his mother’s name in bold letters
in front of the theatre she now owned had stirred up memories,
images and conversations that required his earnest attention. He
felt that he must rework them – cautiously, tenderly – before he
came face to face with her once again. In the almost twenty-nine
years of his life, he had known her company for less than a week,
had not even known
of
her until they had met, by chance and
in difficult circumstances, eighteen months before in Toronto. But
she was his mother. The babe that Beth was carrying would be her
grandson. With a guilty start he realized that Beth might have
given birth already – without him.

It was thoughts like this, and the mixed
emotions they raised, that caused Marc to become careless as he
sauntered along the Bowery, oblivious to its attractions and the
throng of New Yorkers about him. It was only when he turned onto
Houston Street that he noticed a fellow with a battered top-hat
turn the corner with him – and remembered that the selfsame top-hat
had popped up once or twice before when he had paused to gaze
disinterestedly into the display window of a shop. To confirm his
suspicions, Marc strode across the street, sidestepping a
determined pig and an irritated mule, and walked straight into a
tobacconist’s.

Once inside, he wheeled and peered back out
through the soot-smeared glass. Top-hat paused on the sidewalk
opposite the shop, and stared uncertainly in Marc’s direction.
After a minute or so, the fellow bent down to adjust his bootstrap.
Marc purchased a cigar, stuck it unlit between his teeth, and
re-entered the street. He did not look at top-hat, but turned and
marched briskly ahead.

At Broadway, the intersection was crowded
with shoppers, tradesmen, beggars, carts, and stray beasts of
dubious pedigree. Marc stepped into the noisy, shifting mêlée. On
reaching the opposite walk, he slipped into the shadows of the
nearest doorway. Moments later, top-hat emerged, kicking at a
mange-ridden cur that was nipping at his left pant-cuff. Once
across the street, he began searching among the crowd for his
quarry. He took a few steps in each direction, straining to see
what he could amongst the constant movement of men and beasts. At
last, he shook his head, removed his hat to reveal a hairless
skull, wiped the sweat from it with a grimy handkerchief, replaced
the hat, then turned and strode back up Broadway.

While the fellow was no gentleman – his coat
had been well-used and badly cut, his boots cracked and unpolished
– and certainly was not a barrister, Marc was in little doubt that
someone from the New York Bar Association had set him loose. Was
that the reason Marc had been kept there so long? To give top-hat’s
handlers time to find and instruct their henchman? But what motive
could they have? If Dick
did
have knowledge that someone of
importance in New York wanted kept secret, Dick was now dead. If
that same person or persons had
arranged
for his
assassination, then they would already know of their success. If
not, word of Dick’s death had surely reached the city via Brenner
and Tallman or bush telegraph. Did these people think that one of
Dick’s known Toronto associates, like himself or Brodie, was privy
to that dangerous knowledge? Or were they just super-cautious about
anyone – especially an outsider – seeking information about Dick
and the “scandal”?

Marc now realized that he might have been
wiser to have waylaid top-hat and got some answers to these
questions. But he had had to be sure that he was indeed being
followed. And if top-hat were a mere henchman or hired tough, what
would he know anyway? Still, he would be careful when he left the
hotel after supper. The Houston’s manager had appeared friendly
enough, but Marc and Brodie had registered under their own names.
Just how far did the long and hostile arm of the Tammany Society
reach here on home turf? How safe would Brodie be if he were
exposed as Dick’s ward?

There was no way to warn Brodie of this new
danger, however: at the hotel, a sealed message was handed to Marc
by the porter.

Marc:

I have spent the afternoon reminiscing with Carleton
Buckmaster, my closest friend at prep school. He fancies himself
quite a ‘swell’ and has agreed to take me – incognito – to the
Manhattan Club tonight. He has contacted several of his chums to
make up our party. I’ll report to you sometime in the wee
hours.