The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (19 page)

 

 

“I’m not sure who
was on duty. We’ve
had some staffing problems, with
people working irregular shifts, and old people transferred
out, with new
recruits coming in. I’m
sorry, I really can’t help you,” the desk sergeant declared.

 

 

“What do we do
now?” Adrian asked,
rubbing his tired eyes as despair set in.

 

 

“Beard the lion in
his den. We have
to go see Frederick Randall, and find out what he’s done with
Emer and the
baby,” Bishop Bailleargeon said angrily.

 

 

But when the Bishop
and Adrian
finally managed to secure an interview with him at his home,
Frederick
naturally told them he had no idea what they were talking
about.

 

 

“I hardly knew the
woman, and
certainly didn’t approve of her. I
wouldn’t allow her or her bastard to sully my house,”
Frederick declared
arrogantly.

 

 

The Bishop
challenged him, “You were
seen by witnesses in the company of four police constables,
forcibly removing
Emer and Mrs. Everett, the doctor’s housekeeper, from Dr.
Lovell's house. You
yourself were seen carrying the infant. I don’t care how long it
takes, but I will find other
witnesses to
testify to this.”

 

 

“A pack of lies. I was in the office
the whole day,
dictating letters. Just
ask my
office manager Reeves. He’ll tell you,” Frederick said smugly.
  “And now, if
you have no further
business with me, I’ll thank you to leave.”

 

 

“We’re leaving now,
but this won’t
be the last you’ll hear from us, Mr. Randall,” Adrian hissed,
before storming
out of the office, with the Bishop following on behind.

 

 

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

 

Later that evening,
as Adrian and
the Bishop sipped sherry in the doctor's parlour, the younger
of the two men
wondered aloud, “What are we going to tell Dalton when he gets
back? We have no
real proof that it was
Frederick, except Sissy’s word.”

 

 

“Sissy’s word is
good enough for
me. She knows
Frederick
Randall. She saw
him on the night
he tried to bribe Emer.
But I do
take your point. We
need more
proof. We will
put out posters
asking if anyone witnessed the abductions. Someone must have seen
something from
one of the windows
above the street, or have been walking past at the time that
the women and baby
were all taken away.”

 

 

“If they were
really police
constables, not hired kidnappers, then there must be some
other way of finding
them. We will
just have to talk to
everyone around the police stations, courts, and jails in the
area. A
red-haired crippled woman and an old
housekeeper in a grey uniform and white apron are bound to
stick in someone’s
memory. We just
have to find the
right person, and hope he or she isn’t too scared to talk.”

 

 

An offer of a
reward was put out for
information pertaining to either of the two women, and a
description of baby
William, with a further reward offer, was circulated as well.

 

 

All of Emer’s
friends waited
anxiously for several days, until they got their first lead in
the form of a
steamer-captain, who sent a message to Adrian’s house asking
if he could be met
down on the docks the following morning.

 

 

Once Adrian, Joe,
and the Bishop met
him, the captain revealed that he had taken the body of the
old lady out to
Grosse Ile to be buried upon the orders of a gentleman from
the magistrate’s
court.

 

 

He had been told
that the old woman
had been a common prisoner who had died in jail, and needed a
hasty burial. The
description of the man matched that
of Frederick Randall, and the dead woman sounded like Mrs.
Everett to a tee.

 

 

“I remember her all
right, poor
soul, because to tell to the truth, she wasn’t quite dead yet. I
protested that a
doctor ought to be
called for the creature, but the man simply doubled his offer
of money and
marched off.

 

 

"I didn’t know what
else to do
with the lady, only take it with me. I had to get back to the
island. I had my
schedule to keep and figured that at least there would be a
doctor in one of
the tents to have a look at her. I
tried to help her, but there was little I could do. She was in a
very bad way already.

 

 

"By the time I got
to Grosse
Ile, she was dead, so I left her on the beach with the other
corpses, and kept the
money. I hope
I’m not going to get
into trouble with the law over this, but the man was from the
court. He looked
official, and I did my best to help to poor woman. I didn’t kill
her, I swear.”

 

 

Adrian asked, “This
gentleman, what
did he look like exactly?”

 

 

“Tallish, though
portly around the
middle, silver hair, blue eyes just like a wolf’s. Odd, he was, if
you ask me. Not quite
right in the head,”
the steamer captain revealed.

 

 

“Have you ever seen
him before or
since?” the
Bishop queried.

 

 

“Now that you
mention it, he’s one
of the ship owners around these parts, and the name is like
Rand, Randall,
that’s it. Has a
son who was meant
to have got married last month, only he went mad too, by all
accounts.” He
shook his head and spat to avert evil.

 

 

“You didn’t see him
the day before
around the docks, did you?” Joe asked, recollecting what Sissy
had told them
about the direction Frederick’s carriage had taken.

 

 

“Now that you
mention it, I seem to
remember him being there, only he had a baby with him. Could it be
the
same man?”

 

 

“That’s right! What was he doing
at the docks? What
did the do with the baby?” Joe asked excitedly.

 

 

“I saw him talking
to some of the
Irish immigrants on the launch heading down to Toronto. He must have
given
the baby to one of
them, because when I saw him strolling away in that direction,
towards those
warehouses, and into town, he wasn’t carrying it anymore,” the
steamer captain
answered carefully.

 

 

Joe swore roundly,
but Adrian
breathed a sigh of relief.
The
news wasn’t good, but it was a start.

 

 

“You’ve been a big
help, sir.  Can
I have your name and address
in case I have to contact you again? And if you remember
anything else, can you
write a letter or call in at my house or the Bishop’s to
discuss the matter
further?”

 

 

The bearded man
nodded, relieved now
that he was sure he was not going to get into any trouble
after all. “Aye, I’ll
do that, surely. I
hope you find
the baby, and I’m sorry if the old woman was a friend of
yours.”

 

 

The three men then
strolled down the
docks, asking others who worked there if they had seen
anything similar on the
day that Emer and William had disappeared.

 

 

Two other dock
workers concurred
with the steamer captain that Mr. Frederick Randall had in
fact been there, and
had spoken to an old woman.

 

 

“Gave her five
pounds and a baby,
and a pillowcase, I think it was,” they both said.

 

 

Each had been
questioned separately,
one by Joe, the other by Adrian, so Emer's friends were sure
the tale had to be
true.

 

 

Adrian took down
their names and
addresses, and gave them his card so they could keep in touch.

 

 

“It's awful to
think of what
Frederick has done with poor William," Adrian said to his two
companions
as they rode back to his house in the carriage, "but at least
he didn't
drown him in the river as we feared."

 

 

"Praise God." The
Bishop
crossed himself.

 

 

"It's bad news, but
we have to
feel pleased at our success this morning. These are the first real
clues we’ve had in days. Now we have several
people who can all
identify Frederick as the man responsible for the
disappearance of the child,
and possibly even the death of poor Mrs. Everett," the doctor
said,
shaking his head in wonder at all that Dalton's father had
done to harm
everyone his son had ever cared about."

 

 

“But it doesn’t
really help us, for
we are no closer to finding Emer than we were before, and the
good Lord only
knows who that woman was that now has the poor innocent child. For
all we know,
she might have thrown
William overboard and kept the five pounds all for herself,"
Joe worried
aloud.

 

 

"We just have to
pray that that
is not the case. She would be a most desperate woman to have
harmed a tiny babe
like that. But there are a great number of illnesses a child
can succumb to in
infancy, as well you know."

 

 

"Aye, indeed. So
please pray
all the harder for him, Bishop, and let's just keep on
looking," Joe
urged.

 

 

"What worries me
more than
anything is what on earth are we going to tell Dalton?" Adrian
admitted,
chewing his lower lip. "He’s
been
through so much already."

 

 

"Indeed. Can you imagine how
he is going to take
it when he finds out that not only is Emer gone again, but
that his own father
kidnapped her. Even worse, that he tool his son and gave him
away to an utter
stranger who has now vanished into thin air?” the Bishop
sighed.

 

 

Adrian sighed. “I
don’t know,
exactly, but I have a pretty good idea. He will be completely
distraught, and we will have to
break it to him as
gently as we can."

 

 

"But in the
meantime, let’s not
give up hope," Joe urged.
"We can post a reward in all the towns along the river,
right the
way down to Toronto, and even beyond. We have to find baby William
before it’s too late. Emer
and Dalton will
never forgive us if something happens to their child.”

 

 

“If it hasn’t
already,” the Bishop
observed gloomily.

 

 

“Now, let’s not
think like
that. William is
alive," Joe
insisted. "Not even Frederick Randall would be so cruel as to
drown it
like an unwanted pup."

 

 

"I agree. At least
he gave it
to a woman, along with some money. He could have disposed of it the
way he did poor Mrs.
Everett,” Adrian
pointed out.

 

 

“Perhaps I should
go to Toronto
myself, look for the child, and try to break the news to
Dalton in person,” the
Bishop suggested.

 

 

Adrian thought over
the suggestion
for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m not sure there’s any
need. It's a long
journey, and Dalton should be back in a day or two. At any rate,
perhaps we will find them
both soon. Besides,
what will you say to Dalton
even if you do find him?”

 

 

“I’m not sure
exactly, but I think
he’s just going to have to be told the whole truth. You’ve all kept
silent about everything
you knew about
Frederick’s interference in order to protect Dalton, but God
only knows where
Emer is, or the baby. They
could both be in the gravest danger. Frederick has already
harmed so many people,
as has Madeliene Lyndon, that it is about time they were
exposed.”

 

 

Adrian gaped. “You
don’t really
think that this has anything to do with her, do you?”

 

 

The Bishop rubbed
his hands
together, folded them, and sighed. “I can’t be sure. But she
was the one who
burnt down the orphanage to get rid of Emer and her child as
possible rivals
for Dalton’s love. Generous
though
her restitution was, the authorities have been suspicious
about the fire. Perhaps
they arrested Emer for that at
Frederick’s instigation."

 

 

"If they arrested
her, then
where is she, sir?" Joe asked. "The police seem to know
nothing, and
they can't all be lying."

 

 

"I'm not sure
what's going on,
but I promise, I am going to start asking around in the
Attorney General’s
office as soon as I drop you both off in town. If Emer was
arrested and
imprisoned, there must be a record of it somewhere that we
haven’t been
shown. Maybe if
I am sufficiently
persuasive, the Attorney General, an old friend of mine from
school, and
completely incorruptible, will give me some help.”

 

 

Adrian smiled. “If
he’s
incorruptible, then why should he help?”

 

 

“I think he will be
sympathetic to
Emer’s plight when I explain all the circumstances, and will
do all he can to
help find Emer and William.
But I
think we're going to have to hold nothing back, private though
Emer’s affairs
would normally be. We
need a
logical reason for why Madeliene would have started the fire,
and why Frederick
would be so hostile to her that he would run the risk of
kidnapping her and his
own grandchild in broad daylight."

 

 

Both of his
companions nodded.

 

 

“And I don’t see
how we can get Emer
or the child back, without exposing Frederick. So I'm afraid
everyone is going to have
to be willing to
testify in court as to what they know about the
Pegasus
, Emer, Dalton,
Grosse Ile, everything,”
the Bishop maintained.

 

 

“Are you suggesting
we take
Frederick to court?” Adrian
asked,
aghast at the very idea.