Governing Passion (11 page)

“Of course, I will,” Marc said, “but I’m also
needed here to help out with Christopher Pettigrew and Henri
Thériault.”

“Well, we’re not expecting a reply from
Thériault for a day or two. That should give you a little time to
investigate further.”

“All right, then, that’s settled,” Marc
said.

“Thank you, Marc,” Louis said.

***

Marc had just finished supper when he was accosted
in the lobby by Christopher Pettigrew, looking distressed.

“Why, what’s the matter?” Marc asked.

“I just received another letter from my
sister,” he sighed. “She’s desperate to have me back in
Toronto.”

“Perhaps I could help you formulate a reply
to her,” Marc offered. “She will relent when she knows what a
pivotal role you’re playing in the negotiations for the success of
our alliance.”

“She’s most upset at my getting married, I
fear.”

“But you’ll be living at home.”

Pettigrew shook his head. “That may be worse
than not living at home. It’s my bride she seems to be anxious
about.”

“That’s perfectly natural. Your bride is
usurping her place, as it were.”

“But I’ve told her that Miss Todd is the
spitting image of her. Look, here is my fiancée’s portrait.” He
pulled out a locket, opened it and showed Marc the miniature of his
bride’s head and shoulders. She was a fair-haired beauty.

“That may not have been the wisest thing to
do,” Marc suggested tactfully.

“I know that now. It enraged Christine,”
Pettigrew said, then grabbed Marc by the shoulder. “Would you mind
looking at her latest letter and letting me know what you think?
I’m worried sick.”

And worried they did not want this young man,
this linchpin in their plans. “All right. I’d be happy to.”

“Come up to my room and I’ll show it to
you.”

They went up the stairs to Pettigrew’s room.
Christopher went to his desk and picked up a letter, which he
handed to Marc. Marc read:

Birch Grove

March 11, 1841

My Dearest brother:

I found your most recent letter unsatisfactory in
the extreme. What you offer me are not reasons but excuses. And
what is reason even, when love and devotion are at stake? You go on
and on about politics, about being absolutely required to stay on
in Kingston whilst there is some faint hope that Henri Thériault,
who sulks in his tent in Quebec like Achilles, may decide to heed
the calls for his presence in Kingston. Is there no-one else in all
that conglomeration of politicians and hangers-on who will suffice
except you?

I do not for one minute believe any such
thing. Indeed you are not staying away from me in the horrid stone
town because of Robert Baldwin and Louis LaFontaine. You cannot
fool me, who have shared your company and one half of your being
for twenty-five years. We were struck from the same ore, as close
as any two humans can hope to be. No, Christopher, I know you
better than you know yourself. You remain in Kingston and eschew
the company of your soul-mate and fraternal friend because of Miss
Todd. And it is in a futile attempt to save my feelings that you
concoct this sorry tale of being needed by the Reformers to act as
a go-between in their efforts to woo Thériault. But I know, without
your having to admit it directly or obliquely, that you have become
besotted with Martha Todd, and in doing so have automatically
estranged yourself from me. Even though the wedding is not until
April, you feel compelled to pay court to this interloper, this
fair creature who places her shallow beauty between the vows we
made together as children and have sworn to keep ever since. Is her
beauty so fragile that you feel you must ever be in its presence
lest it falter and fail?

Meanwhile, I am alone in the cold empty rooms
of the house we lit with the warmth of our companionship. I feel
like Ariadne on Naxos, abandoned and betrayed by the one sworn to
protect and love her always. And each letter from you does little
to propitiate and much to vex. So much so that I am sorry to report
that my headaches have once again begun to torment me, and I feel
that there is no-one but you and your immediate return to Toronto
that will give me a moment’s relief. If you cannot find it in your
heart to tell me the truth about your stay in Kingston, please do
not bother to write at all. I prefer to suffer in silence.

Your loving and devoted twin,

Christine

“You see, Marc,” Christopher said when Marc had
finished reading, “how she dismisses my role in politics here and
rants against my fiancée.”

“What are these headaches? Nervous
tension?”

“No, they’re serious setbacks she suffers.
She retreats to her room and won’t let anyone but her personal maid
come near her. I’m really afraid for her well-being.”

“Well, the letter is extremely literate and
quite rational, despite its sentiment. I’d say she is pulling out
all the stops to get you back in Toronto.”

“You think I should not give in to her?”

“It’s not for me to say, but I really doubt
if her health is in jeopardy. Try writing her a very personal
letter. Recall your happy memories. Make the point that you are
needed here, but that it is only a matter of three or four weeks
before you’ll be back. I think she is just looking for reassurance.
If you can’t be present, then work on reassuring her by every other
means. If you like, I’ll add a brief note on the work here. It may
carry more weight.”

“Thank you. That is good advice.”

“I hope it works,” Marc said. “We need you
here.”

And clear-headed if the alliance was to
succeed.

SEVEN

“It ain’t fair,” Cobb was saying to Dora after
supper. He felt so put upon and irritated that he had broken a
cardinal rule of the Cobb household: not to talk shop. Cobb was not
to burden Dora with the tawdry details of his daily patrols and she
was not to burden him with accounts of childbirth and its after
effects in her role of midwife to the eastern half of town. “I was
only on the job fer a few days. And I was gettin’ close, I
was.”

“Life ain’t fair,” Dora said, as if that
truism settled the matter.

“It has to be one of the gentlemen at Madame
LaFrances’s. But I been told not to bother the good madam
again.”

“You’re a fine patrolman, Mister Cobb. You
always was. And who knows, you might catch the killer tonight.”

Cobb nodded. “The first two crimes were three
days apart, weren’t they?”

“You’re sure it’s the same person?”

“Positive. I got a gentleman’s glove and a
gentleman’s scarf found near each crime scene, a pair of
gentleman’s boots makin’ clear signs in the snow, and a fistful of
gentlemen at the brothel two blocks away. That’s enough fer
me.”

“There are other brothels.”

“But Madame LaFrance’s is the only one
caterin’ to real gentlemen.”

“How long is Bagshaw gonna keep you on
night-patrol?”

“I’m afraid it might be till we catch the
killer.”

“Well, it sure is a nuisance havin’ you
around here all day tryin’ to sleep.”

“I’ll be sure and tell Bagshaw about yer
objection.”

***

Cobb met Wilkie and Rossiter, his fellow patrolmen,
at the cathedral entrance to Devil’s Acre at eight o’clock that
night. A light snow was falling on the gravestones in the
cathedral’s cemetery, and Cobb shuddered under his turned-up
collar. Cobb told the others that he would take the west side of
the maze, and suggested, as they had done the previous night, that
Wilkie do the north-east and Rossiter the south-east. Cobb was not
looking forward to the night’s work. He felt that no murderer,
however mad, would come out knowing that his territory was being
policed by three constables. And their presence was well known to
residents and visitors alike. The word had spread quickly, and on
more than one occasion an angry resident had left his business
establishment to complain that his customers, respectable citizens
all, were being frightened off by the police presence. Madame
LaFrance had come out onto her stoop and shooed Wilkie away (he was
dozing on the lower step).

“We gotta tramp around here till sun-up,”
Cobb said to his associates. “And it’s cold enough tonight that
we’ll have to keep movin’ or freeze to death.”

With that advice Cobb walked into Devil’s
acre and swung west. After two previous nights of wandering around
not knowing where he was, Cobb felt that he had finally figured out
the lay of the land. But if you didn’t stay alert, you could soon
find yourself coming up against a dead end or re-entering an alley
you had just come out of. The snow made it even more difficult to
see the shape of buildings or the far end of an alley, and Cobb
realized that the killer would be able to carry out his crime and
escape notice, despite the police. Throat-slashing was a silent
business and the snow would camouflage a getaway.

Cobb had been meandering for about an hour –
his feet were already cold – when he thought he saw a shadow up
ahead, moving stealthily across in front of him. He ran towards it
and skidded to a stop at the end of the alley. He looked left. He
saw nothing. Without warning something heavy and grappling slammed
into him and knocked him over. He rolled to one side, expecting at
any second to feel a knife-blade at his throat.

“Gotcha!” Wilkie cried, pouncing on Cobb as
he lay helpless on the ground.

“Fer Christ’s sake, it’s me you’ve caught.
Get off!”

Wilkie rolled away. “I heard somethin’ comin’
up behind me,” he said, breathless, “and so I ducked aside until
you went by. I was sure you was the killer.”

“Well, I ain’t, and you’re patrollin’
my
territory!”

“It’s so easy to get turned around in here.
I’m – I’m sorry.”

“And you’ve gone and got me all covered with
snow,” Cobb complained. “My balls are already frozen solid.”

“Maybe that madam would let us warm our toes
fer a bit.”

Cobb brushed the snow off his greatcoat and
trousers. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said tonight,” he
said.

They made their way, after missing several
turns, to the brothel, and Cobb gave the coded knock. Madame
LaFrance answered.

“We was wonderin’ if we could warm ourselves
by yer fire,” Cobb said.

“You might as well,” Madame said with a sigh.
“You’ve scared off most of my customers. I guess they’ll not come
back till you fellas have caught the killer. I might as well be of
some help.”

“Thank you,” Cobb said.

They entered the parlour and made their way
to the roaring fire. The room was empty, of customers and
girls.

“We’ll just stay a minute,” Cobb said. “Until
our toes thaw out.”

“Can I get you something warm to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Just then Bartholomew Pugh and Gardiner
Clough came down the stairs and stopped when they spotted the
constables. They turned and went back up the way they had come.

“I guess they ain’t worried about killers,”
Wilkie observed.

“That’s because one of them might
be
a
killer,” Cobb said. To Madame LaFrance, seated at the piano, he
said, “Is the other one here as well?”

“Sir Galahad?”

“That’s the one.”

“He left just a few minutes ago.”

“Then I guess we better get back out there,”
Cobb said to Wilkie. “I don’t trust any of these so-called
gentlemen.”

He and Wilkie headed out into the
still-falling snow. Cobb went directly west, along the route that
both Pugh and Sally Butts had taken several nights ago. Wilkie
turned south. Ten minutes later, Cobb was just enjoying the return
of feeling in his feet when he heard Wilkie cry out.

“Where are you, Wilkie?” he called.

After a brief pause in which there was
nothing but silence, Wilkie blew on his whistle (Chief Cyril
Bagshaw had insisted that all his patrolmen be equipped with
whistles to be able to alert fellow constables of their whereabouts
when needed). Cobb moved in the direction of the sound, but there
was, of course, no direct route. But Wilkie, bless him, continued
to blow. He’s discovered the killer, was Cobb’s first thought. And
could be in danger himself.

Cobb finally rounded a corner and saw Wilkie
standing in the middle of an alley with the whistle stuck in his
teeth. The snow had stopped, and he was clearly visible. So was the
bulk of the body lying at his feet.

Cobb raced up to Wilkie who was still blowing
on the whistle.

“I’m here, Wilkie. You can stop that
now!”

Wilkie, as pale as the snow around him,
pointed at the ground. “I found her,” he stammered. “Another
one.”

Cobb knelt beside the body. Fresh blood was
still leaking into the snow, from a slashed throat. “You’re right.
It’s another woman. And just killed.”

Cobb stood up and glanced farther up the
alley. There, among the competing ones, were the bootprints he
expected to see. “He can’t have gotten far,” he said. “Go and
inform the Chief and the coroner. I’m going after the bastard.”

He set out on the trail of the bootprints,
fresh and stark in the snow, their star-pattern winking up at him
like a taunt. The trail zigzagged several times, but eventually led
to an alley that opened onto Jarvis Street to the south-east. Again
as Cobb arrived there, he saw evidence of a shuffling about, as if
the killer were waiting for the all-clear on Jarvis before stepping
out. But this time, with fresh snow, the trail ought to have kept
going. However, just as Cobb was about to move onto the street, a
squall of snow erupted in his face. He saw a shadow flit into an
alley or side-street to the north, but a gust of wind blew snow up
into his face and he could see nothing. Not even the boot tracks
that were, like everything else, swallowed up in the maelstrom. He
walked a block north, but the trail, if there was one, had gone
cold. Cobb cursed the snow, and headed back to Devil’s Acre,
retracing his own prints before they too were obliterated. He came
again to the body. Wilkie was gone but Rossiter had come up to
assist.