“That is a foolish question, even for you,”Burchill snapped. “Of course, I do. Half the worthies in this townuse U.S bills and specie. But I fail to – ”
“I’d like to have a look at yer notepaper, ifya don’t mind?”
“Have you lost all your marbles,Cobb?”
“There’s a link to the murder here, so I’dlike to see what kind you use.”
“Well, if it’ll speed you on your way, whynot?” With a not-too-patient shrug, the silversmith went over tohis desk and opened the central drawer. Cobb could hear a gentle,steady tapping from the back room.
“Here. It’s all the same. I’ve used it foryears. Ask any of my customers.”
Cobb leafed through a sheaf of unmarkedstationery. It was cheap stuff, purely serviceable. No gentlemanwould use it. But the real thing could easily be tucked awayanywhere here in the shop or in the back room or in the livingquarters overhead. “You do them engravin’s on yer pots an’ bowls?”he said.
“I do some and Matthew does some.”
“I see,” Cobb said, thinking that such atalent could readily translate into calligraphic work. But he wouldneed a warrant to search the premises and test out that theory, andthe magistrate would not give him one without more compellinggrounds than he now had.
At this point the bells jangled and awell-heeled gentleman entered.
“Ah, Mr. Throckmorton,” Burchill said with afailed effort at affability.
“I’ll just let myself out the back way,” Cobbsaid quickly, and before Burchill could stop him, he steppedthrough a flimsy door and found himself in the silversmith’srepair-shop. Where Matthew Burchill was hunched over a dentedtureen.
“Matthew?” Cobb said softly.
The lad had been concentrating so hard on hiswork that he had not heard Cobb come in. Now he looked up -startled, then vaguely fearful. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Cobb,” he saidtonelessly. “Does father know you’re here?”
“He does, Matthew. I’ve come to ask a fewquestions fer Dr. Withers an’ the inquest he’ll be holdin’ inta theverger’s suicide.” Cobb was pleased with this harmless fib, thoughhe wished he did not need to use it on a young man who, despite theabuse and confinement he habitually suffered, was still trying toview the world through innocent and unjaded eyes.
“I was sorry to hear about Mr. Dougherty andpoor Reuben Epp.” Matthew placed the damaged tureen tenderly on hisbench.
“Did you know him?”
“A little.”
“You talked to him when you went tochurch?’
“And the times he came to build the shelvesover there and fix up the shed out back.”
Cobb did his best not to show his surprise -and delight. “Recently?” he said.
“A month or so ago was the last time hehelped us out. But he didn’t talk much. I gather he had no familyat all.”
“Did your father pay him in cash?”
Matthew looked suddenly wary. “Father wouldnot tell me about that sort of thing.”
“Naturally.”
“I’ve got to get back to this repair,”Matthew said, uncertain whether he should be proud of the fact orembarrassed by it.
“Well, thanks. You been a help.”
As Matthew’s tap-tapping resumed, Cobb walkedback to the door that led to the retail section of the business. Hepaused and waited until he heard the doorbell jangle, then abruptlyre-entered the shop proper.
Burchill was alone. “I thought you’d gone!”he said sharply to Cobb. “If you’ve been keepin’ Matthew away fromhis work, I’ll complain to Wilfrid Sturges about it.”
“We got more important things to discuss,”Cobb said with quiet menace. “Like your lyin’ to me.”
Burchill placed his large hands on thecounter and leaned forward like a baited bear. “You say that againand I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life – constable or noconstable!”
“Reuben Epp was here a month ago, buildin’shelves. You an’ him were chummy as two doves. So don’t tell me youain’t been lyin’.”
Burchill glared at the door to theworkroom.
“I just asked the lad – an’ bein’ an honestson of his father, he told me the truth. You gonna beat him ferthat?”
“I don’t beat my son! I don’t have to!”
“So why did you not mention you was chummywith Epp?”
“I wasn’t chummy with him! He came and didhis work and went home or off to the bootlegger’s to squander hisearnings. We spoke not a dozen words the whole time. And Icertainly didn’t persuade him to murder Dougherty.”
“You paid him in cash?”
“A few shillings. When he was finished – andhe was a good carpenter – I walked up to Irishtown and paid off hisdebt to Swampy Sam.”
Well, Cobb thought, they may not have beenchums, but Epp was clearly in a position to be manipulated byBurchill. And he had lied, however he chose to rationalizethe matter. Cobb now recalled an item in the notes Marc had made onthe case: Burchill could have had a purely personal motive. If so,that possibility and his outright lie might be sufficient to get awarrant to turn this place over.
“I believe you had a personal reason ferkillin’ a man you already hated,” he said, staring straight atBurchill.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“The fact that young Matthew was secretlycourtin’ Mr. Dougherty’s ward, Celia, must’ve driven you near mad.”Cobb stepped back and waited for the effect of this bombshell.
He didn’t have to wait long. “What in hell doyou mean? My son never leaves this shop without my permission!”
“Well, he snuck out last Sunday while you wasin church. Celia Langford met him – alone – in a little shed up on- ”
“Jumpin’ Jesus! I’ll kill theson-of-a-bitch!”
Cobb thought Burchill’s eyes were going topop out of their sockets. His lips began to quiver and his beardshook like Jehovah’s in a righteous rage. Ignoring Cobb, he spunabout and lurched into the workroom with a thunderous slamming ofthe flimsy door.
Cobb waited. There was no immediate violence.Not even a raised voice. But the low murmuring was fraught withpaternal anger and filial shame. Cobb slipped out onto King Street.On the plus side, he had proven to himself that BartholomewBurchill did not have a personal motive for having Doughertymurdered. On the negative side, he had complicated young Matthew’salready complicated life and unthinkingly interfered with Celia’swell-being to boot.
Maybe there was something to thisbusiness of tact after all.
***
On Thursday morning Cobb hitched a ride up YongeStreet to Potters Field, beyond Lot Street at the city limits,where Reverend David Chalmers spoke a few simple words over thepine coffin of Reuben Epp who, until the double tragedy of Mondaylast, had served His Maker humbly and without complaint. More thantwo dozen people were there to witness the interment, having bravedthe rigours of a mud-slicked road with ruts as deep as agentleman’s boot. Whether all were there to mourn was a mootquestion, but Cobb could see no-one who didn’t belong. Nomysterious, long-lost relative stepped forward to claim kinshipwith the disgraced verger.
Later that day Cobb got around to checkingout Everett Stoneham’s alibi with the cousins he had claimed wouldback him up. And they did, cheerfully. Too cheerfully? Well, howcould one tell without the rack or a decent thumbscrew? Afterdictating his notes (kept in his head) to Gussie French, Cobb wentinto the Chief’s office and reported that he had run down all theleads they had developed and had thought might be productive, andhad drawn a blank. Unless Marc and Brodie came up with somethinguseful in New York City or unless Nestor Peck produced newinformation about Epp’s movements on Sunday afternoon and evening(he had not appeared at Evensong, Marc had been told by MyrtleWelsh), the search for an accomplice was headed for a dead-end.
“Maybe the bugger did it on his own,” Cobbmuttered to himself on the way out.
But he didn’t believe it.
FIFTEEN
It was late Sunday afternoon when the steamerConstitution approached Manhattan Island, urged on by theHudson River current and the first tug of the ebb-tide from the seabeyond. Marc and Brodie stood at the railing of the foredeck.Despite their fatigue and days spent without a decent wash, achange of clothes or palatable food, they were excited, taut withexpectation. The setting sun on their right was washing across thewide, rippling river and bathing the cityscape – which rose up fromthe island like a natural extension of its splendour – in a golden,gently purpling glow. By languid degrees through the low sea-mist,its form and detail materialized: wharves, piers, docking berths,and dozens of ships, boats and barges idling amongst them.Bright-sailed or funnelled, they rocked and sidled as complacent aswaterfowl in their element. Behind them, the silhouette of thecity’s buildings and churches stretched upward, as if to seize thelast radiance of the day. To Marc the scene was reminiscent of aTurner painting that he had seen in London years before – seducingthe viewer with its mysterious, form-dissolving luminosity.