He consulted town records, he hunted up Wrightsvillians strange to him, he spent long hours in the morgue of the Wrightsville Record and the reference room of the Carnegie Library on State Street. He hired a Driv-Ur-Self car at Homer Findlay’s garage down at Plum Street in Low Village and he made numerous trips — Slocum Township, Fyfield, Connhaven, even to little Fidelity, in whose dilapidated cemetery he had an old grave marker to hunt up. Once he flew to Maine.
Especially helpful was Francis “Spec” O’Bannon, who was still in Wrightsville running Malvina Prentiss’s Record (Malvina, the eternal Rosalind Russell, retired from newspaper publishing when she married O’Bannon but retained her maiden name!); O’Bannon kept the Record morgue copiously supplied with bourbon while Ellery was dug in there. And, of course, there was Chief of Police Dakin, who was beginning to look more like Abe Lincoln’s mummy than Abe Lincoln; and Hermione Wright, who had never looked more radiant; and Emmeline DuPré, the Town Crier, who practically bayed for an entire afternoon; and many others.
Ellery had two whole weeks of it, digging up the pieces, jig-sawing them; crosschecking the testimony, establishing the facts, integrating them with world events, and finally arranging them in roughly chronological order. At the end he had a picture of “the oldest Bendigo boy” and his brothers which, kaleidoscopic as it was, delineated them with photographic brutality.
Excerpts from E. Q.’s Notes
DR. PIERCE MINIKIN
(Dr. Pierce Minikin is 86, retired from practice. Semi-invalid, cared for by Miz Baker, old Phinny’s widow, since Phinny died and the Record lost the best pressman it ever will have. Dr. Pierce is great-uncle to F. Henry Minikin, but two branches not on speaking terms for over a generation. Dr. Minikin has very small income from some Low Village property. Still lives in Colonial Minikin house on Minikin Rd between Lincoln and Slocum Sts. In bad shape, needs painting, etc. Dated 1743, squeezed between Volunteer Fire Dept and Slocum Garage, backyard overlooks Van Horn Lumber Yard. Old fellow a tartar with frosty twinkle and sharp tongue. Physically feeble, mentally very alert. We had several wonderful visits.)
“King” Bendigo? My dear young fellow, I knew that great man when he was mud in his father’s eye. Brought all three Bendigo boys into the world. From what I’ve heard, I owe the world an apology...
His father? Well, I don’t suppose anybody remembers Bill Bendigo in Wrightsville except a few old hasbeens like me. I liked Bill fine. Of course he wasn’t respectable — didn’t come from a high-toned family, didn’t go to church, was a regular heller — but that didn’t cut any ice with me, I liked my men hard and my women patients to bear down, haha! Bill was hard. Hard drinker, hard feeder, hard boss — he was a building contractor, built that block of flats over on Congress Street near the Marshes they’re just getting round to tearing down — and a hard lover? Boys at the Hollis bar used to call him Wild Bill. There’s many a story I could tell you about...
Well, no, can’t say I do. No, not Italian, that’s on their mother’s side. Don’t know how they got the name Bendigo, except that Wild Bill’s people were Anglo-Saxon. Came over from England around 1850...
Big man, six foot three, a yard wide, and a pair of hands on him could bend a crowbar. Champion wrestler of the Green. The Green? That’s before it was named Memorial Park. Boys used to grapple there Saturday afternoons. Nobody ever pinned Bill Bendigo. They used to come from all over the County to try. Handsome devil, too, Bill was — blue-eyed, with dark curly hair and lots of it on his chest. If you didn’t know about the English, you’d have said Black Irish...
The lover part. Well, now, I didn’t know all Bill’s secrets! But when he fell in real love it was all the way. Worshipped the ground Dusolina walked on. Little Low Village girl from an Italian family. Can’t remember her maiden name to save my life. Yes, I do. Cantini, that’s what it was. Her father’d been a track walker for the railroad, killed by an express train in ’91. No, ’92. Left a big brood, and his wife was a religious fanatic. Dusolina — Bill called her Lena — fell just as hard in love as Bill, and they had to elope because Mrs. Cantini threatened to kill her if she married a Protestant. Dusolina did, anyway; they were married by Orrin Lloyd, he was Town Clerk before Amos Bluefield. Orrin Lloyd was the brother of Israel Lloyd, who owned the lumber yard then — grandfather of Frank Lloyd who owned the Record up to a few years ago... Where was I?
Yes. Well, I was the Bendigo family doctor and when Dusolina got pregnant I took care of her. She had a hard time, died a few days later. Child was a great big boy, weighed almost thirteen pounds, I recollect that clearly. That was Bill’s first son — your great man. Bill took little Dusolina’s death hard, the way he took everything. Didn’t blame me, thank the Lord — if he had, he’d have crippled me. He blamed the baby. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Said the baby was a natural-born killer! And Bill said there was only one name for a natural-born killer, and that was Cain, like in the Bible. And Cain was what he had me register the baby in the Town Hall records. Only child I ever delivered by that name. That was in 1897, young man, fifty-four years ago, and I remember it as if it were yesterday...
SARA HINCHLEY
(Of the Junction Hinchleys. Trained nurse. Miss Sara is arthritic, getting anile, lives in the Connhaven Home for the Aged, private institution, where I saw her. Supported by her nephew, Lyman Hinchley, the insurance broker of Wrightsville. Was Jessica Fox’s day nurse during J.F.’s fatal illness in 1932.)
That’s right, sir, Nellie Hinchley was my mother. She died in... in... I don’t remember. Except for my brother Will — that was my nephew Lyman’s father — and myself, none of my mother’s children lived. They all died in infancy, and she had seven. We were very poor, so my mother did wet-nursing, as they called it in those days. She always had a lot of milk, and after she lost one she would...
Dr. Minikin told you that? Well, of course, she wet-nursed so many, and I was just a girl... Oh, that one! Let’s see, now... Mr. Bendigo’s wife died delivering his first child... yes... and Mama wet-nursed the baby for a year. He had a queer name... I don’t remember... But she did use to say he was the hardest she ever nursed. He’d just about suck the life out of her. What was his name?... Cain? Cain... Well, maybe it was. I don’t remember things as good as I used to... I think Mama stopped when Mr. Bendigo got married again. Or was that with the Newbold child?...
ADELAIDE PEAGUE
(One of Cain’s earliest living grade-school teachers. Now 71, retired on pension, keeps house for Millard Peague, her first cousin, of the locksmith shop at Crosstown and Foaming. Brisk and very bright, with a jaw like a ploughshare.)
I most certainly do, Mr. Queen! I’m not one to bow and scrape and forget the way it used to be just because a pupil of mine becomes famous, although frankly I don’t know what he’s famous for except that if he’s anything like the way he was...
No, not the Pincy Road school that Elizabeth Schoonmaker taught. The one I taught in is still standing, though of course it’s not a school house any more, it’s the D.A.R. headquarters...
He was an impossible child. In those days we taught the first four grades in the same room. The boys were hellions, and if a teacher didn’t go about armed with a brass-edged ruler she didn’t last a term... Cain Bendigo was the worst, the worst. He was the ringleader in every bit of mischief, and some of the things he did I simply cannot repeat. I’ll bet he remembers me, though. Or his knuckles do...