“So I was told. What I need to know is wherehe is now.”
“He never told me where he and Marian weregoin’. He doesn’t want anybody to know.”
“Didn’t get along with Papa, I hear.”
“That’s right. Tim just wants to be leftalone.”
“I can’t imagine he’d not tell his bestfriend where he’d got to.”
“Well, he didn’t.” The Getty lad glanced downjust enough for Cobb to be sure he was lying.
“Son – ”
“Will. The name’s Will Getty.”
“Will, a man’s life depends on me findin’ TimBurton before tonight. If he’s anywhere near Toronto, you’ve gottatell me.”
“But he made me promise. I can’t let him getinto any trouble.”
“He’s not in any trouble, son. You have myword on that. But he has information in a life-and-death trial nowgoin’ on in the city. Without his help an innocent man’ll perish inprison.”
Will Getty hesitated but, in the end, he gavein.
***
“What do you make of that paragraph, Dr. Baldwin?”Neville Cambridge said with disingenuous relish.
“Sounds like rumour-mongering to me,” Dr.Baldwin said forcefully, but the unease showed plainly in his eyes.“The Irish have been known to indulge from time to time.”
A slight ripple of laughter went through thejury. They were hanging now on every word, every nuance. Herebefore them was one of the first citizens of the colony, agentleman among gentlemen, on a witness-stand defending as best hecould his reprobate Irish brother.
“That may well be, doctor, but I believe youknow otherwise.” Cambridge stared hard at Dr. Baldwin, holding himgaze for gaze.
“I don’t know what you are implying,sir.”
“I’m not implying anything other thanthis: tell this court exactly how much you know about why and howSeamus Baldwin came to leave his law firm in Cork, Ireland. Andremember, you have sworn an oath before God to tell the truth.”
Dr. Baldwin bridled. “I know what an oathbefore my God is, sir.” Then he paused and looked slowly up at hisbrother slumped against the bailiff’s man in the dock. A greatsadness overwhelmed him. He dropped his gaze, struggling with somedeep, insurgent emotion. “The truth is this. I’ve had it fromSeamus’s law partners in correspondence and from Seamushimself.”
The courtroom was silent. A crow cawed in thedistance.
“John McCall, the senior partner, discoveredthat Seamus was paying court to his daughter.”
“And how old was the daughter?”
“It was his youngest child. She was almosteighteen.”
“Thus still a minor. And Mr. Baldwin wasfifty-nine or sixty?”
“Sixty, then.” Dr. Baldwin spoke in amonotone, the better perhaps not to hear the treachery his wordswere effecting.
“You say ‘paying court,’ but that covers amultitude of peccadilloes, sir. Please be specific. You are underoath.”
Dr. Baldwin cleared his throat but his wordscould barely be heard. “McCall caught them in bed together – in hisown house.”
Sensation one more time! For here was surelythe final nail in Seamus Baldwin’s coffin. The man had seduced aminor before in Ireland. And how many had preceded that offence? Ifthe man himself heard the accusation, he gave no sign.
As the judge banged his gavel in a fruitlessattempt to restore order, Marc thought for a moment that his hearthad stopped.
***
It was two-thirty in the afternoon when Cobb pulledhis buggy into Ogden Frank’s livery on Colborne Street at WestMarket Lane. He now had to do one of the few things he genuinelyfeared: hire and ride a horse. The oslter’s lad chuckled as hehelped Cobb wobble into the saddle of an elderly and sedate mare ofvarious brownish hues and a crooked star on her forehead.
“If ya speak soft-like, sir, she won’t buck -too hard.”
Cobb was beyond irony or humour. He twistedthe reins in his fists.
“How far ya goin’?”
“Thornhill,” Cobb said bumpily as the marestepped forward. Then he gritted his teeth and aimed the beast atYonge Street.
On Yonge Street Cobb pulled on the right reinand the horse kindly obeyed and turned north. Thornhill was ahamlet a dozen or so miles up Yonge Street. Not far. But renting abuggy had been out of the question, for the road above Gallows Hillwas rutted and near-impassable this time of year despite the recentstretch of Indian summer. And time was of the essence as the trialwould likely finish up in the morning or early tomorrow afternoon.If new evidence were unearthed, then it had to be made known beforethis evening. Hence this horse, a beast that was incompatible withall things Cobb. As a lad he had ridden old draught horses a fewtimes on his father’s farm near Woodstock, but he had never takento the activity as his brother Laertes had.
Above Queen, where the traffic and housesthinned out, he felt obliged to urge the mare beyond a walk. Butits teeth-jarring trot became unbearable by the time they reachedthe Bloor crossroad. The Red Lion Inn on his right looked awfullytempting, but he put one hand on his belly to stem its jigging andcarried on manfully. With Gallows Hill in sight, he tried spurringhis mount on to a gallop, but quickly lost one foot from itsstirrup and was damn near pitched into the mire of a pig-yardbeside the road. When he pulled back on the reins, the horsemagically reduced its speed to a leisurely canter, and to hissurprise he found that he could move his squat body in some sort ofrhythm to match the mare’s. So this was how it was done!
At Eglinton he passed through the toll-gatewith a cheery wave of his horseman’s unreined hand, glanced once atPaul Pry’s inn, and cantered on. A mile or so father on he swept bythe Golden Lion Inn, then Finch’s Inn – his thirst now monumental -and finally the Sickle and Sheaf. Only three or four miles to go,with bush now closed in on both sides, separating the partlycleared farms.
At five o’clock he cantered past theThornhill Hotel, yanked back on the reins, trot-jiggled back to theinn, and gingerly dismounted. When his feet hit the ground, hisknees buckled and he collapsed onto them, panting and parched.
“You look like ya could use a drink.”
It was the proprietor of the hotel, aproned,red-cheeked, and smiling.
***
Cobb finished his ale, nodded gratefully to theinnkeeper, and asked his first question: “I was told a SeymourKilbride lived here at the hotel. Is that so?”
“Well, no. He does work here on Saturdayswhen we’re busy. But he don’t live here.”
“You know where I can locate him?”
“In trouble, is he?”
“Not at all. He has important information weneed fer a trial goin’ on in Toronto.”
“We don’t pay no mind to the shenanigansgoin’ on down in Toronto. But, yeah, Seymour works a littlevegetable farm just east of town. You take this crossroad and ridefer about two miles. On yer right you’ll see a huge chestnut treebeside a pond. Follow the trail around it inta the bush about ahalf-mile. You can’t miss it.”
With his rump feeling as if it had riddenthrough Whittle’s grist-mill, Cobb made his way to the designatedtree and pond, and then moved carefully along a rugged bush-trailuntil he came to a log cabin, flanked by a chicken-coop and ahay-barn. The ruins of several summer and fall garden-patches wereplainly visible. It looked as if the new owners had plenty of workto occupy them for some time to come.
Cobb tethered the mare, went up to therickety door, and knocked. It was half a minute and several furtherknocks before the door was eased partway open.
“Yes?” The single word emanated from a youngman whose face was just visible in the shadows of the ill-litinterior. “Whaddya want?” Then when the fellow realized Cobb was apolice constable, he tried to slam the door shut. It jammed onCobb’s boot.
“I ain’t here to cause trouble,” Cobb said.“But I got some information you oughta hear about, and you got someI need to hear. You are Seymour Kilbride, ain’t ya?”
At the sound of his name, the young manpulled the door away from Cobb’s boot. “Sorry, sir, but we don’ttrust strangers much around here. I am Seymour Kilbride. What’ve yagot to tell me? I’ve done nothin’ wrong in Toronto ‘cause I ain’tset foot there fer months.”