“Did you see who it was?” Annemarie said whenMarc returned.
“No, but whoever it was, he was listeningoutside your door and in one hell of a hurry to get away.”
“Then you must be very careful.”
“If they suspect that you have any ofDick’s papers, then you must be careful, too.”
They embraced for several long seconds at thedoor: mother and son.
TWENTY
In the darkened foyer at the front of thetheatre, Marc was approached by a stagehand. “A lady outside askedme to find you an’ give you this,” he said, handing Marc a foldednote.
Marc moved under a wall-sconce and read:
Marc darling:
I spotted you ten rows ahead of me, and waited inthe foyer, but you didn’t come out. I hope this missive reachesyou. If so, please come for tea tomorrow morning at eleven – at thewine-shop on the corner of Park Place and Church.
Love,
Eliza
***
It was well past midnight when the taxicab droppedMarc off in front of The Houston Hotel and he was let in by agrumpy porter. Still, Marc was surprised to find Brodie in theirrooms, wide-awake and obviously eager to relay his news. And whileMarc had discovered more than he wanted to know about the ManhattanGentleman’s Club, he realized that the ugly details needed to beconveyed to Brodie slowly and tactfully – in the morning when hishead was clear and he had had time to reflect further on hismother’s story.
So he smiled noncommittally at Brodie andsaid, “I thought you young ‘swells’ didn’t eat supper until oneA.M.”
“We started early ” Brodie said. He pausedtheatrically: “And ended rather abruptly.” He turned so that thelamplight revealed the welt on his left cheek.
“You’ve been assaulted!”
“Yes, but it was nothing serious,” Brodiesaid, grinning.
“Then you must tell me what happened -precisely.”
Nothing short of an earthquake could havestopped the young man from telling what had happened to him at theManhattan Club.
He and Carleton Buckmaster had been joined bytwo other former schoolmates, both of them older than Brodie andCarleton. They had spent the hours before midnight participating inthe various pleasures of the house. They had gambled, at cards andat dice, and lost more than they could afford (the Buckmastercredit, however, seemed inexhaustible). They had drunk freely andsmoked assiduously. They had embarrassed themselves in thebilliards room. Finally, Carleton suggested they move to thebrothel, where the two older chaps soon found a pair of soul-matesand disappeared, leaving Brodie and Carelton to join the sing-alongaround the piano and take turns blushing at the mock advances ofthe girls.
“You weren’t tempted?” Marc teased, wonderingwhere this tale was heading.
“A little, I admit. But the image of MissRamsay kept me honest.”
When the older pair returned from theirfleshly entanglements, the group decided to have a bit of supperand depart. Afraid that his evening would be wasted, Brodie hadleft them in order to engage one of the older members inconversation. Seeing Carleton nod to him that they were about toleave, Brodie asked the elderly gentleman if there were anyoneother than these girls available ‘for a young man with specialtastes.’ The old fellow had not seemed in the least startled by thequestion, but his answer proved arresting: “We ain’t been mixed upin any of that nonsense since the incident a year ago lastfall.”
“I’ve learned a bit more about that incidentmyself,” Marc said, but the import of his remark did nothing tostall Brodie’s determined narrative.
“Anyway, we left right after that, so Icouldn’t pursue the matter further, though I’m sure it’s importantsomehow. But it’s what happened outside that’s mostinteresting.”
“Where you were assaulted?”
“Marvin and Todd and Carleton stopped on theverandah to light their cigars, and I deked around to the side ofhouse to take a leak. I’d just finished when two hulking creaturesstepped out of the shadows. I caught a fist on this cheek and wentdown before I could blink. I lay there senseless and unable to callfor help. I braced myself for more blows. But they didn’tcome.”
“Your friends arrived?”
“Not yet, no. The biggest fellow leaned downand said to me in a horrible whisper, ‘We been askt to bring you amessage, Mr. Langford. Get outta town tomorrow, an’ don’t comeback.’ If there was more I didn’t get to hear it because my chumscame running around the corner, and the goons took off.”
“Well, there’s no doubt that you and I havestirred up a hornet’s nest. And the queen bees are on to our game,alas. I think that we had better stay together for the rest of ourtime here. I’ll have to take you along to Eliza’s with me tomorrowmorning.”
“The beauty you courted back in Toronto?”
Marc smiled. “I’ll tell you everything in themorning.”
***
Although many different emotions registered inBrodie’s face as Marc retold the story of what had actuallyhappened to his guardian on that fateful day fifteen months ago,his principal response was relief. To Brodie, the man who had lovedDennis Langford and helped raise his son and daughter, who had readthem fantastic tales and epic poems, who had suffered with themthrough their childhood illnesses – such a man could never havecaused bodily harm to any fellow human. And Brodie’s boyish faithhad now been shown to have been justified.
While they ate a late breakfast and mulledover the events of the previous evening, Marc called the porter totheir table and asked him to have a taxicab brought to the door atten-thirty. They would drive, together, to Eliza’s place. Brodiewas curious about this mysterious lady from Marc’s past, so Marcobliged him by recounting, in a bowdlerized version, the tale oftheir brief but passionate relationship in the winter and spring of1836. He had not seen or heard from her since she and her UncleSebastian had left Toronto abruptly in June of that year for NewYork City, where they were to set up a branch of the family’sbusiness: importing and exporting wines. Eliza Dewart-Smythe was asintelligent, knowledgeable and commercially astute as she wasbeautiful.
“And just how serious were you about thisparagon?” Brodie asked as he drained his coffee and peered over therim at Marc.
“Well, I did propose to her once.”
“And she turned you down?”
“She threw me over for life in the bigcity.”
***
For Constable Cobb, Tuesday was going to be a day notmuch better than Monday had been. In mid-morning, he had left hisheadquarters at The Crooked Anchor and walked over to Briar Cottageto take a gander at Beth’s babe, which had arrived, as usual, inthe middle of the night – disrupting his sleep as Dora rolledthoughtlessly over him in her haste to heed Charlene’s call for themidwife. But when he reached the front stoop, he was nearly sweptaway by the din of excited and very female voices from inside.Every woman within three blocks must have congregated to offertheir assistance, show solidarity in their common cause, and gatherfodder for subsequent social discourse. He could hear Dora’sauthoritative bellow above the other hen-babble, and that more thananything precipitated his immediate flight. (When he had suggestedat breakfast that he’d like to inspect the new arrival, asleepy-eyed Dora had snorted, “You better wait a while, thatblazin’ beak of yours might scare the wee thing out of a year’sgrowth!”)
So Cobb had then made the rounds of the othertaverns he regularly patronized, in hopes of meeting up with one ofhis snitches who might have information to sell regarding ReubenEpp or for that matter anything useful about the poor-box thefts atSt. James. Except for the solace of a few flagons of ale and a fishpie at lunch, however, the effort had proved fruitless. Even hissnitches had gone to ground. He did manage to get some satisfactionlater on when he upbraided a drover for whipping his ailing horsein front of Smallman’s and a dozen appalled ladies. And, Olucky day, the fellow had had the impertinence to backtalk a minionof the law and then take a swing at his helmet. After which, to thecheers of the nearby chatelaines and the approval of the beast, hehad deployed the horsewhip on the villain’s backside.