Desperate Acts

By Don Gutteridge

In November 1839, the final debate on the future of Upper Canada (later Ontario) and Lower Canada (later Quebec) is taking place in the Assembly. Marc Edwards is writing pamphlets for Robert Baldwin and supporters of Lord Durham’s recommendations for the way they are to be governed. When a sleazy blackmailer preys on elite members of the Shakespeare Club, it skews the delicate negotiations calling for responsible government independence from the British and the union of the two provinces. Marc’s former deputy, Cobb, goes underground posing as a budding actor. Marc, now a barrister, must save a dear friend from the gallows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bev Editions
• Release date: Mar 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781927789476

Don Gutteridge

Don Gutteridge is the author of forty books: fiction, poetry and scholarly works. He taught high school for seven years and then joined the Faculty of Education at Western University in the Department of English Methods. He is now professor emeritus and lives in London, Ontario.

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Desperate Acts

A Marc Edwards Mystery

by

Don Gutteridge

ISBN:

Published by Bev Editions at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Don Gutteridge

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

About the Author

Other Books in the Marc Edwards Mystery Series

Excerpt From Desperate Acts

ONE

So, tell me about this Shakespeare Club, Marc Edwards said to Brodie Langford as they left Sherbourne Street and turned west onto Front. Why not simply take up with the amateur players who hang about Ogden Frank’s theatre?

Brodie grinned before answering – to let Marc know that he was aware of the deliberate naiveté of the remark. They had become fast friends over the preceding seven months, and enjoyed the kind of gentle teasing which that sort of bond encourages. We are as fine wine to plain vinegar, he said, squinting into the October sunset that bathed the broad lakeside avenue in shimmering waves of gold and vermilion. Our sole purpose is to read, discuss and otherwise venerate the Bard, and only the Bard.

I suspect the great man himself would feel more comfortable among a troupe of actors, however sweaty and thick-tongued, Marc said.

Very true. But we do occasionally stoop to acting out a scene or two – by way of illustration, of course.

Of course. You wouldn’t want to tear a scene to tatters, not with the likes of Sir Peregrine Shuttleworth keeping a close watch on the proceedings.

Brodie laughed. I find my membership in the club about as amusing as you do. And just as incongruous and unexpected. But, then, if you had told me a year ago that I would be where I am today, I would have called the asylum-keepers to come and get you.

You’ve come a long way in a short time, Marc said, his tone now as serious as it was full of admiration for this remarkable young man of nineteen years.

Orphaned at the age of thirteen and subsequently raised by his dead father’s law partner in New York City, Brodie Langford had, in the past two years, suffered an abrupt and scandal-ridden uprooting from his native land, followed by a constrained and circumscribed existence here in Toronto with his young sister and their beloved guardian, Dick Dougherty. Brodie had idolized Dougherty – in spite of the man’s questionable past in New York – and had felt more and more responsible as the health of his uncle had deteriorated under the strain of exile and ostracism. Even so, Brodie had managed to secure a position at the Commercial Bank, where he had impressed his skeptical superiors and thrived. Then, just when life had begun to offer him a glimmer of hope, he and Celia had been orphaned once again – in the most sordid and tragic circumstances.

You know, don’t you, Marc said, that I heartily approve of everything you’ve done since your Uncle’s death, the manner in which you’ve conducted yourself and the wise decisions you’ve made for you and your sister?

"Much of which has been the result of your avuncular advice," Brodie said, only half-teasing. Marc was not yet twenty-nine, and, while recently made a father, he was not quite ready to accept the more senior role of elderly advisor.

Well, you look every inch the gentleman tonight, Marc said. If a young man with a New York twang can ever pass for such in Her Majesty’s colonies.

Brodie was wearing a dark frock coat cut in the latest style and a matching top-hat that served not only as proof of his affluence and taste but also as a startling contrast to his blond hair, pale complexion and almost transparently blue eyes. In his right hand he swung a silver-tipped walking-stick with a handle carved like a wolf-s head, as if he disdained in the vigour and pride of his youth to have it touch the rotting sidewalk or assist his striding in any discernible manner.

I hope you don’t think me too forward or presumptuous in agreeing to take part in the club’s activities? Brodie said as they strolled past the City Hall, which faced Front Street at the foot of the market. It was Mr. Fullarton’s idea. He thinks it’s time for me to move out into society and make my mark.

Horace Fullarton was the manager of the Commercial Bank, Brodie’s superior, and very much the young man’s champion. In fact, Marc had heard elsewhere, Brodie was being groomed as Fullarton’s right-hand man. With the death of his guardian and the subsequent inheritance of both his father’s estate and his guardian’s (to be shared equally with Celia when she came of age next year), Brodie had become suddenly rich, with plenty of money to live sumptuously for the rest of his life – without working a single day. And although he was now wealthy and independent enough to move back to the United States (anywhere but New York, that is), he and Celia had decided to remain in the city their guardian had chosen for their exile after his ignominious banishment. And, more compellingly, Richard Dougherty, the uncle they had worshipped since childhood and who had become a second father to them, was buried here. Who else was there to place flowers upon his wide and lonesome grave?

Nonetheless, here or abroad, money was money, and oodles of it generally seduced its possessor into a life of leisure and moderate debauchery. But Brodie was American, not British. He saw himself becoming a man who would do something in the world. With his father’s charm and a mind keen for business, he had cared not that he had begun as a lowly bank clerk. He believed in his own abilities, and was Yankee enough to think that social class was something you chose. Nor did his unexpected wealth alter his determination to succeed on his own in the financial arena. (It had not yet occurred to him that he had the wherewithal to found his own bank.) His principal concession to wealth had been to move him and Celia out of their rented cottage on Bay Street into a two-storey brick residence on Sherbourne Street north, in a area where houses with spacious parkland about them were being constructed as quickly as the new middle-class itself. Their cook and butler, who had been Dougherty’s day-servants, followed them faithfully, and settled into the servants’ quarters of Harlem Place, as they had named their new home.

By rights, I should really be tagging along with you to Robert’s place, Brodie said as they crossed Yonge Street and paused to admire the play of sunlight and shadow on the perfectly still waters of Toronto Bay, framed by the island-spit that gave the city its splendid harbour. There were no houses of any kind on the south side of Front Street to block the view or suggest that the bustling capital was anything but comfortable with being a seaside port or otherwise concerned that its parliament buildings, its most prestigious domiciles and its commercial heart was thus visible and vulnerable. I must admit, Marc, that while I understand the significance of the current political debate – how could I not, knowing you and Robert as I do? – I am nevertheless unable to sustain a proper interest in it.

There are, of course, other reasons for a bright and not unhandsome fellow to visit Baldwin House with me, Marc said. Such an allusion to Brodie’s love life might have drawn a blush a few months ago, but the young man’s obvious success at winning over Diana Ramsay had left him immune to the older man’s teasing.

Diana has taken her charges out to Spadina for a few days – to enjoy the country air while this Indian summer lasts, Brodie said.

Miss Ramsay was governess to Robert Baldwin’s four motherless children. Robert shared one half of Baldwin House with his famous father, Dr. William Warren Baldwin, and ran his legal practice, Baldwin and Sullivan, from the other half. Spadina was their country residence. Robert was slowly becoming as well-known as his father, both of them heavily involved in promoting political and social change that the conservative clique who had ruled the province for thirty years labelled radical, subversive, and anti-British. Marc was headed for the Baldwins’ parlour for an evening meeting of half a dozen Reform-party stalwarts, during which a critical strategy for the fall session of the Legislative Assembly was to be hammered out.

Would I be foolish to suggest that you and Miss Ramsay are beginning to take each other seriously, despite the frightening discrepancy in your ages?

Brodie didn’t blush, but he gave Marc a mocking chuckle. She’s not yet twenty-three, hardly a candidate for spinsterhood. And I’ve been told I look a good deal more than nineteen.

"But it is getting serious?"

Yes. But I doubt you’ll be hearing the banns read any time soon. I have the means to support a wife, all right, but I am determined to do well at the bank – I feel I owe it, and Mr. Fullarton, a great deal. He had faith in me before I had faith in myself. I expect to devote the next two years at least to fulfilling the promise he has seen in me. Furthermore, Diana has become devoted to Robert’s children over the past year, and she is determined to remain their caregiver until the youngest, little Eliza, is of school age.

Despite the dictates of her heart?

They were approaching Bay Street, where Marc would turn north a few paces and find himself before the elegant, colonnaded residence of his friend and fellow barrister.

I admire her loyalty, and we are quite content to keep each other company, as we do now, for the foreseeable future, Brodie said with all the fearless certainty of youth. We understand each other completely, for in a way we are both orphans.

Marc stopped. I knew Miss Ramsay was here in Toronto on her own, but I was unaware she had no parents back in Montreal. As someone who had lost – and found – several parents, Marc was uncommonly interested in the subject.

She has an older brother and his family there. He raised her and made sure she was well educated, but both her mother and father died of cholera when she was nine or ten.

And like you, also, she is more or less exiled from her home city?

Not quite, though I see what you mean. Robert, you remember, was passing through Montreal in 1836 on his way home from Ireland. Charles Ramsay’s father had been an acquaintance of Dr. Baldwin, and Robert looked the family up when he arrived there in December of that year. He was much impressed with Diana, who made it known she was looking for a position as governess or tutor. So, when the children’s regular governess resigned to get married a year ago last July, Robert wrote immediately to Charles. Who, it seems, was more than delighted to let his sister go off on her own to the wilds of Upper Canada.

And the rest is history, eh? Marc smiled.

Brodie gave his elaborately knobbed walking-stick a drum major’s twirl. Well, I’ll leave you and Robert to solve the problems of state. I’m off to The Sailor’s Arms to see if I can prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar by his faithless followers. Or something like that.

I’d keep an eye on Cassius, if I were you.

***

Marc walked slowly up the east side of Bay Street. It was not yet a quarter of eight. He was early, as he often was, and reluctant to abandon the warm and unseasonable sunshine flooding Front Street behind him. In the steep shadow of Bay Street, the autumn air was chill, with the foretaste of winter in it. The Baldwins’ manservant answered his knock and showed him into the parlour. Taking his coat and hat, he assured him that Dr. and Mr. Baldwin would be along in a few minutes. Marc sat down before the fire, as comfortable in this room as he was in his own home.

Which was where his thoughts now mutinously drifted, despite the importance of the evening’s agenda to the very future of the province. For Briar Cottage was the place where he felt most himself – after a youth spent and misspent in an aborted career as solicitor, followed by a boring (and then a bloody) stint in the 24th Regiment of Foot – interspersed with occasional, free-lance investigations into serious crimes. Much of this most recent sense of belonging was due to Beth, the love of his life, and the hourly presence of Maggie, their six-month-old daughter. Having expected to be presented with a son, Marc had thought that it might be quite a while before he took to Maggie. But the period of estrangement had lasted only the length of time it had taken the newborn, asleep in his arms, to open her eyes and say hello with them. Beth was now back at work, supervising the operation of her King Street business, Smallman’s – a millinery shop and adjacent dressmaking establishment. Three mornings a week she and the baby, accompanied by their servant Charlene, drove down to the shop and stayed there until mid-afternoon. Maggie was the principal attraction among the seamstresses in the dressmaking section of the enterprise, and appeared none the worse for the ordeal.

This domestic harmony had been doubly welcomed, for the past few months had been among the most frantic and anxious of Marc’s life since his harrowing experiences during the uprising of ‘37. On the personal side, his long-time friend, Major Owen Jenkin, had retired from the army and come to Toronto to attend Maggie’s christening and to look for a place to live – as close to the Edwards as possible. But three days after the ceremony, he had had a heart attack while out walking with Marc, and had died in his arms. On the public side, while studying for his bar exams and apprenticing law under the tutelage of Robert Baldwin, Marc had had to make increasingly more time to compose leaflets, pamphlets and broadsides for Robert and his Durhamites, the self-appointed group of politicians and their associates who were trying to rouse the populace in support of the recommendations of Lord Durham’s Report. The hard-line conservatives and Tories, with their fists on the levers of power, were dead-set against them. With rallies and counter-rallies, fulminating editorials from either side of the press, veiled threats, and outright intimidation, it had been both an exhausting and an exhilarating summer.

Somehow Marc had managed to deal with his grief and squeeze out enough hours to prepare for his final exams – and still reserve a few precious moments each day to watch Maggie try out yet another variant of her brand-new smile and, later, to hold both of his lady-loves close to him in the warm, breathing darkness of their mutual room. Last month he had been called to the Bar, and was now a full-fledged barrister. Surely his adoptive father, Uncle Jabez, would have sat up in his English grave and smiled at the sight. Both had been proven right. Marc had known at twenty that his reckless and adventurous spirit would find no satisfaction in a stuffy solicitor’s office, shuffling paper, as Uncle Jabez had done for two decades. So he had abandoned the Inns of Court for the Royal Military School at Sandhurst. Which decision had brought him here to this outpost of empire – to war, love, marriage and, fortuitously, to police work. The latter had rekindled his interest in the law, not that of a clerk’s cubicle but the grand theatre of the criminal courtroom. Brodie’s guardian, Dick Dougherty, had been one of its finest practitioners, a model and an inspiration for Marc. So, the adopted son of Jabez Edwards of Kent, England was at last a lawyer, here in the capital of Upper Canada!

Robert Baldwin had immediately offered Marc a position in his own firm, but he had not yet accepted (though he had indicated he would be ready to fill in there, should the need arise). Marc felt, for the time being at least, that he wanted to be free to move his life and his talents wherever they would do the most good. And right now, assisting the Durhamites in their struggle for responsible government was paramount. Nor did anyone know how long the struggle might take or in what directions it might lead. A bloody rebellion had been fought over the issue already, and Marc had more compelling reasons now than ever to make sure that another one wouldn’t be necessary.

And just yesterday morning, Beth had whispered to him the news that she was once again pregnant.

Ah, Marc, you’ve arrived early, Robert Baldwin said, coming into the room with his father. What a surprise.

***

Brodie continued along Front Street at a leisurely pace. While he was looking forward to his evening at the Shakespeare Club – his third such evening since he had been persuaded to join by his supervisor, Horace Fullarton – he never hurried this pleasurable stroll eastward along Toronto’s bayside avenue. Looking left, one’s sensibility was stroked by the subtle, natural tints of the water, the gently treed island, the silts and sands of the shoreline, and the vast skies that seemed to hold them all in place purely for the benefit of those observing their wonders. Then, glancing right, the eye took in the architectural niceties of the city’s most expensive and ostentatious residences – Somerset House and the Bishop’s Palace being the most prominent of many. Farther along at John Street stood the twin parliament buildings, where during the upcoming sessions the fate of the colony would be decided. Nearing Peter Street, Brodie picked up his pace. On the far corner, facing the bay, sat The Sailor’s Arms, site of the weekly meeting of the Shakespeare Club.

At first glance The Sailor’s Arms did not appear to be the sort of place where a group of gentlemen would gather to venerate the Bard and confirm their own worthiness, while sipping brandy, sniffing snuff and nibbling sweetmeats. The primary purpose of this public house was signaled by its location: a hundred yards from the Queen’s Wharf. Its half-dozen second-floor bedchambers attracted officers and sailors from the many passenger-ships, mail-packets and freighters – men seeking overnight accommodation and a noisy, well-lubricated taproom. But at the back of the building, occupying the entire rear half of the upper storey, was a single, commodious room – eminently suited to lodge meetings, folk dancing, or any event where ample space, a generous hearth, and continuous catering from below were prized.

Some members of the Shakespeare Club, affronted by the raucous, boozy atmosphere of the tavern, preferred to enter the clubroom via the stairs at the rear of the building, although to do so they had to step perilously close to the flotsam and stench of the alley back there. But Brodie, by far the youngest member of the idolators, did not mind passing through the taproom. In his youthful exuberance, he enjoyed tossing the barmaid or her husband a genuine Yankee smile, inhaling the masculine smoke of the seafaring patrons and then, with a wink and a nod, stepping into the narrow stairwell used by the staff to appease the needs of the gentlemen in the clubroom above. (Last week, they had been waited upon by Etta Hogg, the young sister of Jasper Hogg, who lived next door to Marc and Beth and who was courting Charlene Huggan, their servant. Brodie hoped Etta would be on duty again tonight. Her fragile, freckled beauty – so different from Diana’s dark and sensuous allure – stirred in him feelings both erotic and protective.)

With this latter thought uppermost in his mind, he walked into the taproom, and was confronted by the usual din of argumentative male voices raised ever higher in self-defeating waves. But just as the door clicked closed behind him, the din stopped, as if some invisible choir conductor had given the signal for silence. So abrupt was the cessation of noise that Brodie assumed his entrance had somehow triggered the event, and he braced himself for the onslaught of stares that must soon be trained upon him. But not one of the three-dozen patrons jammed into the room was paying the slightest bit of attention to him. They were all transfixed by a scene unfolding at the far end of the bar – in front of the stairwell to the meeting-room above.

Tobias Budge, proprietor of The Sailor’s Arms, had both of his hairy-knuckled hands around the coat-collar of a skinny fellow, who was struggling helplessly in the barkeep’s fierce grip, though it was apparent the victim was trying harder to maintain his dignity than he was attempting to escape. Budge was alternately jerking him up off the floor until his feet flailed at the air and dropping him slack-kneed upon its stone surface.

"You’ve got a helluva nerve stickin’ yer ugly beak back in my pub, mister. But I’m a tolerant kind of guy, eh? Until you start pesterin’ the hired help. Nobody, especially the likes of you, interferes with my maids an’ lives to brag about it!"

The skinny fellow did not respond to his assailant’s charge. Instead, he peered over at the mesmerized audience with a smug smirk on his face, which seemed to convey the notion that it was the victim who was more likely to come out of this contretemps triumphant. The shaking and bobbing he was suffering, however, was making it difficult for him to portray himself as the eventual victor. As was the red welt on his cheek where, Brodie concluded, Budge had slapped him (producing the sound that had rendered the pub’s patrons speechless).

You’d better let me down, Budge, I’m warning you! This threat came out somewhere between a snarl and a whine, and drew a derisive response from those observing the fun. "I was merely talking to the girl. Ask her!"

The girl, Brodie now noticed, was cowering behind the combatants and clutching the arm of Gillian Budge, a fiery sprite of a woman with eyes as sharp as cut-glass – whom no-one, obstreperous drunk or overly amorous sailor, dared cross. As Brodie feared, the girl in question was Etta Hogg. He had a sudden urge to step up and slap the impudent villain on the other cheek, although it wasn’t clear whether Etta was cringing from any ill-treatment given her or simply reacting to the violence of her employer’s response to it. Budge’s wife was standing stock-still, staring at her husband’s back with a look that seemed only partially approving.

"I don’t need to ask her! You grabbed her hand when she was tryin’ to get away from yer stink, an’ that’s all I needed to see. Now get the hell out of here an’ don’t ever come back!"

Perhaps I would if you had enough sense to let me down!

This witty riposte drew sympathetic laughter from the hard-drinking sailors. Seeing no humour in the remark, however, Budge thrust the fellow down so suddenly that his knees buckled and his rump hit the floor with a comical thud.

"How’s that now? Down far enough?"

The skinny fellow gave the onlookers a lop-sided grin (made necessary by his swollen left cheek) and tried manfully not to grimace as he tottered to his feet. He did not move immediately towards the door, however, despite the glowering presence of the barkeep a foot behind him, fists clenched. Rather, he brushed himself off with meticulous care, obviously proud of his black morning-coat (one size too large for the thin but muscular body), his frilled blouse and knotted tie. He straightened the latter with slow precision, then glanced about for his top-hat and cloak (on a nearby chair, miraculously upright). He plunked the hat over his rigidly parted, coal-black hair, rolled his enormous black eyes at his audience in a gesture meant to mock the futility of Budge’s crude intervention, pointed the elaborate curvature of his nose towards Brodie and the door, and walked serenely out into the October evening. But not before he swivelled his head around and called back, You may live to regret this, Budge. If I let you!

The taproom was rocked by spontaneous cheering.

***

Are you all right? Brodie said to Etta.

I think so, Etta said, releasing her grip on Gillian Budge’s arm and offering Brodie a less than reassuring smile. At this moment, though, she looked more embarrassed than frightened.

She’s perfectly fine, Mr. Langford, as you can plainly see, Gillian said sharply. And if my husband hadn’t acted like a gorilla, she’d be a damn sight finer!

But, luv, I’d already given that slimy snake fair warnin’ –

Have you forgot it’s me that gives out the warnings in this establishment? Gillian said in a way that was itself a kind of warning.

Tobias Budge’s thick brows arched upward as if they’d been poked with a pitchfork. For a second something rebellious smouldered in the pits of his eyes, but it was promptly extinguished by the hair-trigger smile he routinely manufactured for his customers, which he now turned fully upon them. I seem to have frightened the ladies, he grinned. And all that excitement must’ve made you fellas thirsty. Who’s fer a flagon of ale – on the house?

The roar of approval from his clientele drowned out the rebuke that his wife hurled his way, and, moments later, Etta, Gillian and Brodie found themselves swept back towards the stairwell as the crush of parched sailors and their companions pushed up against the bar in quest of free beer.

Are you up to looking after us tonight? Brodie asked Etta above the din. You’ve had quite a shock.

I’m fine, Mr. Langford, the girl said, glancing sideways at Gillian with a slight tremble of her lower lip. Mr. Budge always helps me out. She peered hopefully over at the hubbub around the bar, but as big and burly as the barkeep was, he could not be seen.

"I’ll be assisting you tonight, Etta dear, Gillian said in a voice that managed to be both soothing and just a touch menacing. And you, young sir, should be getting up to your meeting. I can hear Sir Peregrine’s foghorn already."

Yes. Thank you. You’re right, Brodie said, momentarily nonplussed. He bowed to the women, as he had seen Marc do so many times, then turned and entered the nearby stairwell. He paused on the third step to glance back. Etta wasn’t staring after him. She was looking towards the bar.

***

By the time Albert Duggan reached the corner of Peter and Wellington, he was whistling. He had turned a near-disaster and lethal humiliation back there into something approaching a triumph. But he was not surprised. He had always had boundless faith in his own abilities, though a callous world had not yet seen fit to crown