Bloody Relations

FIFTEEN

Marc’s mind churned all the way to Madame Renée’s, but he was not yet ready to share his thoughts with Cobb. They arrived to find the place shuttered and still.

“They’re gone off!” a voice called to them.

Cobb recognized the urchin loitering nearby: it was one of the lads who had tossed obloquy upon his nose the day before.

“All of ’em?”

“Yup. I seen ’em luggin’ their things up the road.”

Cobb threw him a penny. “I’m gonna ask fer a raise in pay,” he said to Marc.

“I think Mrs. Burgess is still in there,” Marc said.

“It sure looks deserted. They’ve scarpered, as Sarge likes to say. And why do ya figure the birds’ve flown the coop?”

Marc pounded on the door with his fist. “I know you’re in there, Mrs. Burgess. Open up, please. I must talk with you.”

Fearing his friend had slipped a gear, Cobb touched Marc on the shoulder. “I think ya oughta let it go, Major. We done our damnedest.”

Marc wriggled the door handle. The scarlet door swung open.

Mrs. Burgess was sitting in the near-dark in her customary easy chair. The air in the parlour was heavy and stale, but she appeared to take no notice of it, nor of Marc when he sat down across from her.

“Mrs. Burgess?”

She did not look up or reply, but her slumping posture and gray pallor told Marc that here was a woman on the verge of collapse.

“Please leave me alone.” The voice was hollow and without emotion despite the plea.

“I can’t do that,” Marc said. “There are important matters that you and I must discuss, however badly you feel.”

No response.

“Where are your girls?”

“Sarah’s dead.”

“I mean Carrie and Molly and Frieda.”

“I sent them away.”

“For good?”

“They’ll be fine.”

“You’re closing up shop?”

“Ruined,” she mumbled. “All ruined.”

“Cobb, would you bring Mrs. Burgess a glass of brandy from the sideboard?”

Cobb poured a generous glass from a decanter and brought it over. Marc put it into Mrs. Burgess’s hands, noticing how icy cold they were, and helped raise the glass towards her lips. To his relief she drank a mouthful, coughed, then drank another.

Cobb and Marc sat waiting. After what seemed an eternity and with a clock ticking nearby as a reminder of the eight o’clock deadline, Mrs. Burgess looked up and let them feast upon the devastation of her face.

“You loved Sarah,” Marc began. “So I need to know why you killed her.”

“Why do we do anything?” she replied.

“I’m going to describe what I think happened on Monday last, then I want you to tell me where I’m wrong, if I am. Do you understand?”

“I’m not deaf and dumb,” she said with an echo of her former aplomb.

“I’ll begin with events you may not know about. Out at the governor’s gala on Monday evening, one of your regular gentleman customers-”

“Callers.”

“Callers-got a young man drunk.”

“The pale gentleman.”

“Yes, who happened to be Lord Durham’s nephew.”

“A toff’s toff.”

Cobb ahemed loudly but was ignored.

“This so-called gentleman got young Handford Ellice drunk and drove him from Spadina to Hospital Street, then guided him here. Using the coded knock, he got you to open the door even though you were shutting down for the night. He pushed the lad inside and ran off. However, I’m certain that you knew who it was.”

Mrs. Burgess shook her head, discreet as ever.

“I accept your account of what happened next. As it was Sarah’s turn, she led the pathetic and near-comatose fellow into her room, where, in all probability, he fell deeply asleep without doing a thing he had paid for.”

“He paid for her time. The performance was up to him.”

Marc was encouraged that his comments provoked some of Mrs. Burgess’s familiar feistiness.

“Meanwhile, you and the girls went to your own bedrooms. When Molly fell asleep beside you, you got up-ostensibly to check on Sarah, if anybody asked-and padded into her chamber. As you expected, Sarah was slumbering and her gentleman caller snoring like an exhausted hog.”

“And?”

“And you slipped to the bedside, slid a hand under Sarah’s pillow, pulled out her dagger, and stabbed her once-viciously-in the throat.” Marc delivered these words with an emphatic hiss.

Mrs. Burgess’s response was almost plaintive: “Why would I want to kill dear, sweet Sarah?”

“That is a question I asked myself on Tuesday and in every hour since, but I found no answer convincing enough to accuse you or your girls of murder. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.”

Mrs. Burgess took another swallow of brandy. She was now watching Marc with a mixture of wariness and defiance.

“As Sarah’s lifeblood spouted from her body, you scuttled back to bed and lay down beside Molly. A little while later, probably while your heart was still pounding with the enormity of what you had done, the wretched Ellice-awakened but groggy with drink or worse-discovered the horror beside him, cried out, instinctively pulled the knife from Sarah’s throat, then fainted dead away. When you and Molly reached the room, you found Sarah dead and her caller unconscious with the knife in his hand.

“How convenient, eh? Here was a way out: fetch the police and put the blame on the pale gentleman with the murder weapon still in his grip. The lack of bloody footprints in the room was enough to give credence to your story. For the first time since your impulsive slaying of the girl, you began to hope there was a way to salvage the situation. By the time Cobb arrived, your natural intelligence had started functioning again. Your ruse worked and you were prepared to let the chips fall where they would.”

“But my business was ruined. Why would I destroy what I’d taken years to create?”

Norah Burgess, it seemed, had decided to play out this game to the end, as if the sport of it was all that was left to her.

“That’s what kept me from pursuing you or your girls. I observed you here and at the funeral service. The affection that obviously bound you all, extending even to your competitor in the profession, were not faked for public consumption. They were real and deep. I was sincerely touched by them, as I was by Sarah’s undeserved death.”

“You had no business coming to the service.”

“What you didn’t know until Monday morning, and what Cobb didn’t learn until an hour ago, was that Sarah and Michael Badger were lovers. The child that you and your girls eagerly anticipated throughout Sarah’s pregnancy was fathered not by some randy employer or anonymous sailor up at Madame Charlotte’s, but by Badger himself.”

Norah’s gaze hardened.

“I’ve been reminded that betrayal can be the motive for murder among friends and lovers, or parents and children-turning love into searing hate in an instant. And here was a classic example. Sarah had become, by your own admission, a surrogate daughter. The girls pampered her like a younger and still innocent sister. As you intimated to Cobb, you harboured hopes that it was not too late to rehabilitate Sarah, to save her from the awful business that was your only choice after a failed marriage. I suspect you had too much schooling or were too independent a spirit to become a housekeeper or governess under the thumb of some doltish squire.”

“I never found one who wasn’t.”

“But all the while, Sarah was leading a clandestine life of her own. I’m not sure how much of their relationship Badger revealed to you on Monday morning, to spite you after you refused to advance him any more money, but it was enough. In this house, they had given no sign of their liaison, and that must have taken much skill and subterfuge. They met when they could in a stable at the back of a property on Hospital Street. Badger may not have told you that they had met and become lovers just days after Sarah’s arrival at the Reverend Finney’s home last September. I imagine Badger was doing some work for Finney at the time. However, their shenanigans were seen or suspected by Mrs. Finney, who had Sarah abruptly dismissed. Days later, Sarah was found destitute on Lot Street and conscripted by the opportunistic Madame Charlotte.”

“Some lover.”

“Oh, I think Michael was hopelessly in love with the sweet and alluring Sarah. But according to his sister, he often had to leave town in a hurry when his gambling pals came looking for their money. Usually he fled to Port Sarnia, where he’d hole up until he’d scavenged sufficient funds to buy his way back to safety. That’s undoubtedly where he was when Sarah got thrown out. She didn’t know where he was and he had no inkling that she was pregnant-and alone.”

“Like we all are, in the end.”

“He must have been frantic when he got back. But she had disappeared off the face of the earth. Then, in the market for a bruiser, you somehow got a lead on this giant of a fellow and invited him to take the job. Imagine his surprise when he arrives for work and discovers Sarah, big with a child she assures him is his, and safe and sound in a gentlemen’s brothel.”

Cobb indicated the brandy bottle to Norah, but she shook her head.

“I can guess what a pleasant winter you all must have passed in this very parlour or in the cozy kitchen in your own quarters. Yours is a hard business, and though I suspect you are a kind person at heart, you had steeled yourself first to survive and ultimately to thrive. Suddenly you have in your midst a young woman who seems to have had little trouble attracting and holding the attention of all those around her: sweet yet earthy, compliant, genuinely affectionate, and yet coldly deceiving when necessary. Then arrives a gentle bear of a man, a bruiser who plays topsy-turvy with obstreperous clients, who makes everybody laugh, and who, incredibly, does not lust after your girls or rouse barbs of jealousy among them. The only blot on this happy landscape is Sarah’s loss of the child in early April.”

“We would’ve kept it.”

“I don’t doubt it. But at least the calamity happened away from here. You only learned of it a few days later when Sarah returned with her tale about the stillbirth.”

Norah’s eyes widened, bleary but suddenly alert.

“Yes, it was stillborn, whatever taunts Badger may have tossed at you Monday morning. After her return, I’ll wager you tried to talk her out of joining the business. But little Sarah was very persuasive. What is more, you didn’t know that she had a powerful incentive to earn money, which she soon did by becoming a favourite with your customers. She and Badger were planning to leave the country and start a new life in the United States. They were also likely scheming to leave behind her lover’s gambling debts and the advanced wages he owed to you.”

“It’s only money.”

“Maybe so, but the heat was being turned up on Badger. After a binge of gambling on the weekend, he and Sarah had to leave soon if they were ever going to leave at all. He came looking for her that morning, most likely to suggest that she secretly withdraw all her savings and meet him at some prearranged spot. Instead, he found the girls in the city at the ceremonies and you here alone. Ever the charming improviser, he decided to see if he could wheedle a final chunk of cash from his best and most gullible source.”

Norah flinched.

“But you turned on him, fed up with his errant ways, his lies, and his truancy. You gave him his walking papers. Badger had been amusing, but he was expendable. However, the gentle giant surprised you and probably himself. Again, unbeknownst to you, I’m certain that he had been offered a bribe a day or two before Lord Durham’s arrival to help with a prank some Tory gentlemen thought to play on His Lordship and Mr. Ellice. His role, I have reason to believe, was to steal a key to your hatch and slip in here at two or three in the morning and cause a disturbance-perhaps give whoever was sleeping beside Ellice a punch or two or else a nightmarish scare-enough to expose the earl’s nephew as a found-in in a brothel.”

“Michael wouldn’t have touched any of the girls.”

“You’re right, but he was perfectly capable of tricking his sponsor out of the bribe money, or perhaps he planned to sneak Sarah out with him. Whatever his thinking, he did take the key. It was found when we discovered his body in a ditch this afternoon.”

Marc watched her for a reaction but saw none.

“He had been lying there since the middle of the night when you shot him dead.”

Cobb tipped sideways on his chair. Norah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her lower lip was trembling, and he realized that she was nearing exhaustion and a possible breakdown. He would have to hurry.

“But back to Sarah. When Michael turned on you Monday morning, scared and excited and a bit desperate to carry out his bold plan to elope with Sarah and a suitable grubstake, he used the best weapon he had: the truth that Sarah and he were lovers, that they had been deceiving you for months and had made fools of you and your girls. Without giving away their exact plan, he told you-foolishly, imprudently-that Sarah was preparing to leave you for him. You were angry with him, of course, and hurt, and you justifiably gave him the boot and threatened him with bodily harm should he be caught again anywhere in Irishtown. That put Badger in a real bind. He could head up to Front Street to look for Sarah among the thousands of well-wishers, while avoiding Burly Bettman and his thugs, hoping she could get to the bank quickly and they could immediately flee. As it turned out, he also needed to see Mr. Hepburn to retrieve his own savings. Both moves were fraught with danger. What to do? I’m guessing but am pretty sure that he decided to risk everything on a last throw of the dice. I believe he decided to accept the bribe he had up to that point been resisting-he did like you and your girls-sneak in here early Tuesday morning, take Sarah out with him, get his earnings from Hepburn and Sarah’s from the bank, and take off for the border. That meant lying low for the rest of the day, trusting that Sarah would be able to sweet-talk her way out of any jeopardy he might have placed her in by his unwise outburst. Who knows but it might have worked. Desperation will drive any man to recklessness and love will double the quotient.”

“You know nothing about love.”

“Imagine, though, his anguish when, lurking somewhere in the vicinity Tuesday morning, he learns Sarah has been murdered. All his hopes are crushed at once. Then he discovers he is a fugitive from the law as well as the dicers. Nowhere is he safe. Somehow he manages to find refuge for another day or two. He gets his own savings from Hepburn on Tuesday afternoon, using a prearranged protocol. Then he heads for cover. Why doesn’t he leave town? Well, there are troops everywhere in the townships. Roads are being watched. There is also Sarah’s funeral on Thursday. And perhaps he has his own suspicions of who killed his beloved.”

Cobb glanced over at the clock. It was past seven. They had less than an hour.

“While you were angry with Badger, you at least had the satisfaction of dismissing him. Moreover, you knew men well, and it must have occurred to you that Badger could easily have been exaggerating in order to hurt you for spurning his facile charm. Then Sarah comes home from the ceremonies on the wharf and, when you finally get her alone, you confront her with Badger’s claims. Or perhaps you let them sit festering while you watch Sarah for signs. You have made yourself the master of the poker face and the ready-made smile. Sarah is worried, of course, because Badger was truant on the weekend and she knows his weaknesses. Whatever happened, by evening matters on the surface appeared normal. A few regulars come and go. You close up. And then Handford Ellice arrives.”

Norah Burgess was beginning to flag. Only her dark, discerning eyes seemed still to be alive and sentient.

“I cannot believe you intended to murder a young woman you had grown to love and dream a future for. All day you brooded silently about whether she had really betrayed your trust and, if so, whether Badger was a passing fancy and whether, once he was gone, things would be as they had been. I think you entered her room intending to check on her well-being as you usually would. But the sight of her there naked beside an inebriated scion of someone rich and famous and lucky by birth-something caused you to snap. Possibly you knew deep down that Sarah was already lost to you. You grabbed the dagger and killed her before she could offer up another excuse for her betrayal. Love turned to loathing in a blink. And in a blink the deed was done.”

“It’s seven-thirty, Major.”

“But I’m still not sure why you had to shoot Badger. Unless you concluded that he might finger you for the murder or, worse, take personal revenge on you or your girls. Perhaps you waited for two days, hoping to hear that one of his cronies had slit his throat. When that didn’t happen, and the troops were called out to hunt him down, you decided to act. No doubt you keep a lady’s pistol somewhere in here to protect yourself in extremis. You took it and somehow lured Badger to a rendezvous off Jarvis Street. You approached him as a friend and shot him through the heart.”

“Please, no more.”

“You’re ready to confess your crimes?”

With great effort she raised her face high enough to look Marc directly in the eye. “You got most of it right.” She sighed. “Michael never got in here Monday night. I was awake the whole time. There was only me.” A fierce but momentary look of anger seized her. “But he did have that key. When you found it was missing on Tuesday morning, I knew for sure what it was those two had been up to.”

“How did you get in touch with Badger when nobody else could-not the gamblers, the police, or his own sister?”

“He used to hide out in a duck blind along the marsh above the end of Jarvis. I sent Peter there with a note. The boy had no idea what he was delivering and, of course, Michael would spot him coming a mile off.”

That would account for the straw and grass on Badger’s clothing. “But he got the message?”

“Yes. I told him I had nothing to do with Sarah’s death and that I’d tell him exactly how she died. Then I offered him money. That he could never resist.”

“So you killed the only person who might be able to implicate you while avenging yourself for his affair with Sarah.”

“Something like that.”

Norah Burgess moaned and tried to rise up in her chair, pushing with all her might on its arms but falling back with a resigned sigh. Still there was fire in her eyes and she emitted a dry, throaty, ragged laugh.

“But you got the only important point completely wrong,” she cried, with a scathing contempt that was aimed at herself as much as her inquisitor. “Yes, I liked Sarah and I treated her like a daughter. But I didn’t love her. I loved him!”

Norah Burgess finally agreed to accompany Cobb to the station and sign a deposition admitting that she had murdered Sarah McConkey and Michael Badger. When Marc had first proposed it, Norah had complained that she was too tired to move-or think or feel. In fact, during the course of their conversation, she had visibly shrunk into herself and was now as withered and bent as a crone.

“I just wanta curl up here and shrivel away,” she said.

“But innocent lives and reputations are at stake,” Marc said. “The police are declaring Michael Badger a murderer-a dead man who cannot confess or be tried, and who will appear to many to be an official scapegoat. Handford Ellice’s reputation will be ruined by innuendo and gossip unless a public confession is forthcoming.”

“Why should I care about Ellice?”

“The future of the province and the Canadas may depend on Mr. Ellice’s being disentangled from this affair. You better than anyone know he was a blameless bystander.”

“You mean that old Wakefield business?”

“Yes.” Not much had escaped Madame Renée.

“I’m too weary to walk,” she sighed, but her eyes indicated she would make the effort.

Cobb came back into the room from the other part of the house. He had a small pistol in his hand. “Ya got fifteen minutes to get to Government House.”

“Mr. Cobb here is going on ahead and will bring a cab up Lot Street; I’ll help you to the buggy.”

“But you’ll be late fer yer meetin’!” Cobb exclaimed.

“Send a message to Lord Durham that I’ll be half an hour late. Let Sarge know that he should stay any declarations against Badger.”

“Okay, Major.” He grinned broadly. “You sure like to cut yer meat close to the bone.” Then he was gone.

Marc helped Norah to her feet.

“I’m all right now,” she said, pushing away his steadying arm. “I’ll sign the necessary papers.” Clearly she was drawing on the last reserves of her strength. She had lost everything that mattered: her business, her surrogate daughter, the man she had loved. Somehow, she maintained her dignity.

She headed not for the scarlet door but her own quarters.

“It’s this way, ma’am.”

“I’ll need to get my bonnet,” she said. “We’re going to town, aren’t we?”