Wishful Seeing (22 page)

She was about to run forward to see if she could help when she heard someone yell over the hysterical barking of the dog.

“Gotcha!”

“Let me up! Get me away from that beast!”

She kept the light on Thaddeus. He had a man pinned to the ground with a knee in the small of his back. He wrenched the man's arm behind him and pulled him to his feet.

“The dog's got somebody cornered,” he said. “Let's go see who it is. Hold the light up so I don't trip.”

To Martha's surprise, James Small was at the bottom of the garden, holding a poker.

“Digger, quiet!” Thaddeus said. The dog stopped barking, although he continued to watch his catch intently.

“And who do we have here, I wonder? Hold the light a little closer, Martha.” She thrust the lantern close to the man's face. It was Donald Dafoe.

“This man was trying to get into your house,” Small said looking at Martha with an earnest expression. “I got him, though. Don't worry, I won't let any harm come to you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Small,” Martha said, although she was certain that she was not the object of the incursion.

“And who are you?” Thaddeus said. He forced the man he was holding down to his knees beside Dafoe. “What are you doing in my garden the middle of the night?”

The man maintained a sullen silence.

A light appeared in the doorway of the house next door. James's father and two of the brothers hurried across to the manse garden.

“What is it, James?” his father asked.

“Caught this fellow trying to get into the manse. I saw him trying to jimmy open the back window.”

Mr. Small turned to the older of the boys standing beside him. “Go get the constable.”

“But before you do that,” Thaddeus said, “go to the Globe Hotel and tell Towns Ashby he'd better come quickly. Roust him out of bed if necessary.”

The boy looked puzzled, but Mr. Small's nod of the head sent him scurrying down the road.

Thaddeus took the lantern from Martha. “Please go and make sure Caroline is all right.”

Martha was reasonably sure that Caroline was fine, although she might be frightened by the attempted break-in. Digger was still growling in front of Dafoe, as sure a sign as anything that there was no threat inside the house.

“C'mon boy,” Martha said. The dog ignored her.

She shrugged and went back to the house, calling Caroline's name as she climbed the stairs. There was no answer. “Caroline? It's all right. You can come out. They caught the men who were trying to get in.”

Nothing. Martha changed her tactic. “Can you call Digger? He won't come in for me.”

There was the faint creak of a door opening, so faint that Martha had difficulty deciding where it was coming from. Then, at the end of the hall, she saw the door to the big linen cupboard open slightly.

“It's all right now.”

“Are they policemen?”

Martha once again felt a twinge of annoyance at Ashby. He had frightened Caroline badly when he said she might go to gaol.

“No, it's burglars. At least I think so. But Mr. Small and my grandfather caught them.”

“I'll come out when they're gone,” Caroline said firmly. She shut the door again.

Martha decided that Caroline was as safe in the linen cupboard as anywhere, so she returned to the garden. There was no sign of the constable yet, but she hadn't been standing there very long before Ashby came loping down the street. To her sudden consternation, she realized that she was wearing her nightgown and that her hair was a cascade of tangles down her back. She slowly backed up until she could slip into the shadow of the woodshed.

“You sent for the authorities?” Ashby asked Thaddeus when he reached the group at the back of the garden.

“Yes, but I thought you might like a word first.”

Ashby nodded. He hunkered down beside the two men. “Hello, Jack. Donald.”

The second intruder must be Jack Plews. Martha hadn't known who he was until then.

“Whatever the girl told you is a lie,” Dafoe said.

“Shut up, Donny,” Plews said. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said to Ashby.

“I haven't said anything yet,” Ashby pointed out. “But while we're on the subject, were you going to kill the girl, too? Or is it just the document you're after?”

Just then the Small brother returned with a constable in tow.

“You're a pair of fools,” Ashby said in a low voice. “Was all of this really worth a murder?”

“What's this then?” the constable asked, and Ashby stood up.

“It appears to be a case of attempted burglary or at the very least a break and enter,” Ashby said. “Fortunately, Mr. Small here realized someone was in the back garden and he very bravely rushed out to apprehend the culprits.”

In spite of the annoyance he had demonstrated at Ashby's arrival, Small basked in the praise.

“Was anything taken?” the constable wanted to know.

“I'm not sure,” Thaddeus said. “We were reluctant to search them ourselves. Far better to wait until your arrival, we figured.”

“Quite right,” the constable agreed.

“I don't think they even got inside,” Small said. Martha could see that he was puzzled. “One of them was trying to force a window when I saw him.”

“Right, turn out their pockets then.”

There wasn't much. A few coins, a key, a handkerchief, and then the constable pulled a clip of banknotes from the breast pocket of Dafoe's coat. As he leafed through them, a piece of paper fell to the ground.

Ashby picked it up and held it to the light of the lantern. “It's a steamer ticket,” he said. “Return passage, Burlington to Cobourg. Well, well, well.” He handed it to the constable. “You'd better document this along with the rest of Mr. Dafoe's belongings. Do it carefully, mind.”

And then Martha understood why her grandfather claimed not to know if anything was taken, and why he had sent for Ashby. He wanted the constable to search Dafoe and Plews, and he wanted Ashby to be witness to it. There would be no disputing in a court of law the fact of anything found in their possession. By the same token, there could be no carelessness on the part of the constable when it came to writing down the particulars. It would all be in black and white, and in the hands of the police. It may have been a lucky guess that either man would have anything that would tie him to Paul Sherman, but Thaddeus hadn't been taking any chances.

The constable led the men away, with two of the Small boys as escorts. Digger waited until they were around the corner and out of sight before he stopped growling, then ran to the back door and scratched to be let in.

“Move the kettle over onto the stove, would you Martha?” Thaddeus said. “We all need to warm up.” Then he turned to Small. “I can't thank you enough, James. It's a good thing you were so vigilant; otherwise the thieves might have been successful.”

It was clear to Martha that Small had no idea of the import of his actions, and that as far as he was concerned he had merely interrupted a theft in progress. He drew himself up with a great deal of satisfaction, however. “I'm happy I could be of assistance,” he said. “My first thought, of course, was for Martha's safety.”

“Good man,” Thaddeus said.

Even in the dark, Martha was quite sure she could see a smirk on Ashby's face.

“Well, good night now,” Thaddeus said. “Again, thank you.” He turned to follow Martha into the house.

“I'll be with you in a moment, Thaddeus,” Ashby said. “I'll walk Mr. Small to his door.”

Digger ran up the stairs as soon as he was let in. Martha threw a couple of pieces of wood into the belly of the stove and pulled the kettle over to heat before she followed him.

The dog was pawing at the door of the linen cupboard. “You can come out now, Caroline,” Martha called. “It's all right.” And then she rushed into her room to slip into her dress and give her hair a brush before she had to face Ashby again. The dog had disappeared by the time she was ready, but she heard a couple of muffled thumps from inside the cupboard. She walked over to it.

“It's me,” she said, and opened the door. Caroline had jammed herself under one of the shelves and pulled Digger into her lap. “Everything's all right now. The men have gone. If you want, come down to the kitchen and get a cup of tea before you go back to bed.”

And then she realized how clearly she could hear her grandfather as he fussed with the teapot and rummaged around for cups. The back door opened and Ashby came in.

“So were they after the agreement or the girl?” she heard Thaddeus ask him.

“My guess is the girl,” Ashby said. “Or both.”

Every word they said could be heard distinctly. Martha looked down at the floor of the hall. There was a cast iron register covering the hole cut through to let the heat from downstairs rise and warm the bedrooms. She ran into the room where Caroline slept. There was another one under the chair that sat in the corner. The room was directly over the dining room. Caroline had been able to hear them all the time they'd sat there discussing the case.

She went back to the cupboard.

“What girl are they talking about?” Caroline asked.

“You.”

“I thought they were robbers.”

“They were.”

“Were they looking for the piece of paper?”

“Yes.”

Caroline thought for a few long moments, and Martha was sure she would remain silent as she had before, but she evidently reached some decision for she turned and reached to the back of the cupboard to pull out the leather satchel she had rescued from the cave-in.

They went down the stairs to the kitchen. The men were sitting at the table waiting for the tea to steep.

Both her grandfather and Ashby looked odd, Martha thought. They had each dressed in a hurry, pulling their trousers on over their nightclothes and stuffing their feet into boots. Their hair was tousled, their necks exposed, their suspenders showing. They both needed a shave. Their appearance made the scene strangely intimate, cozy, as if they all belonged in the kitchen together.

Caroline walked to Thaddeus, not Ashby, and handed him the satchel.

He opened it and pulled out a bundle of banknotes and bonds and one sheet of very yellow paper. He scanned it quickly, then handed it to Ashby.

“It's exactly as we thought,” he said. “An agreement between a surveyor named Sherman and a provisioner named Palmer. And just as we suspected, the document is a forgery.”

“How can you tell?” Ashby said.

“By what it says there at the top. Cobourg, March 23rd, 1796.”

“So?”

“It wasn't called Cobourg in 1796. It wasn't even a town. Back then it was all just little settlements, a few houses here and there, clustered together. And they all had different names — Hardscrabble, Amherst, Hamilton. It wasn't until after the war sometime that it all became Cobourg.” He shrugged. “It was one of those cases where somebody royal got married and the town fathers chose the name in honour of the event. Apparently they didn't spell it correctly, but nobody has ever bothered to correct it.”

“So whoever cooked up the document didn't know the history?”

“But surely one of the Plews or Palmers or Dafoes would have known that,” Martha said.

“I'm guessing they never actually saw it,” Ashby said. “Howell just told them he had it and they could go ahead with the lawsuit.” He turned to Caroline. “It was you on the island with your father, wasn't it?”

“Yes. Mama is no good in a boat because of her leg.”

“The dead man came to your house, didn't he?”

She nodded. “He wanted the piece of paper. He yelled at Mama and hurt her. Then we saw him later on the hill and in the village. Papa said we needed to move everything out of the cave because he was getting too close. He said we should go to one of the islands and see if there was a good hiding place there.”

“And then what happened?” Thaddeus said it so softly that Martha could scarcely hear him.

“The man followed us there. He shouted at Papa and tried to take the leather bag. Some papers fell out and Papa shouted back at him. Then he tried to hit Papa, so I threw a rock at him.” A tear spilled over her cheek. “It didn't stop him, so I ran at him and tried to push him over, but I couldn't. And then all of sudden he fell over on top of me and I got blood all over my dress and Papa said to run.”

She stopped, and then in a confidence so fragile that Martha scarcely dared to breathe, she whispered, “I thought I killed him.”

“That's what your mother thought, too, isn't it?” Thaddeus said. “That's why she pretended that the blue dress was still hers.”

Caroline nodded. “When Papa came back he said no, the man had been shot, but by then it was too late. Mama was already in gaol.”

And it wouldn't have mattered at that point, Martha realized. Ellen Howell had been charged with murder as an accessory to her husband. The charges against her wouldn't be dropped even if her husband came forward. He would be charged with murder, too, and any explanation he offered would only implicate Caroline and lay him open to charges of forgery. And he must have wondered, the whole time he was cowering in the cave, how long he could hide from the Palmer clan.

“One of the men who tried to break in tonight is the man who found the dead body,” Ashby said. “Do you remember him from the trial, Caroline?”

“Yes. He kept looking at me.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“He thinks you did. That's why he was trying to get into the house tonight.”

Caroline picked at her nails with her head downcast.

“Tell me, Caroline,” Ashby said. “This is really, really important. Did your Papa have a gun with him?”

She wiped her eyes with the table napkin and blew her nose into it, then shook her head. “No. He was really scared. And after he came back he said that we had to hide in the cave whenever anybody came because Mr. Plews's whole family was mad at him.”