Cobb unbuttoned Alfred’s expensive overcoatand sat down on the edge of the chair.
“Much better. Now tell Mother Jiggins allabout your long lost cousin.”
Cobb gave her the full version of hismuch-practised cover-story. She listened with more than casualinterest, throwing in a helpful “tut” or “hmn” from time totime.
“So you’ve tried half a dozen places alongthe way and nobody’s seen or heard a thing?” she said when Cobb satback to catch his breath.
“That’s right, but I now have reason to thinkhe might’ve got as far as The Cobourg Hotel or at least to The PineKnot here.”
Bessie’s eyebrows furrowed. “I remember everysoul who gets on and off Weller’s coach. The horses are changedhere, so the stopover lasts long enough for the folks to enjoy theluxuries of my establishment.”
“I’m countin’ on that. Mr. Martin in Cobourgtold me he saw a man who might’ve been my cousin Graves arrive tocatch the Toronto-bound stage on Thursday mornin’ a week ago. Hesaid the fella come in a cutter driven by yer man Brutus, so Ifigure he might’ve stayed here overnight fer some reason. Do yourecollect any of this?”
“I find a glass of claret improves thememory,” Bessie said, glancing at the bottle on the table. “Ifyou’ll take that coat all the way off, I’ll pour us a tumbler andbethink myself.”
“I guess it won’t hurt to stay fer a bit,”Cobb said as his stomach grumbled.
Bessie stood to fill both goblets and handedone to Cobb, now coatless and looking sharp in Alfred’s best suit.She sat down again. “Cheers!” she said, raising her glass.
“Cheers,” Cobb replied, took a mouthful ofthe surprisingly smooth claret, and then simply waited.
Bessie wiped her lips with a handkerchief shewithdrew delicately from her cleavage, and responded at last toCobb’s query. “A week ago Tuesday the stage from Kingston got hereabout five o’clock in the afternoon. On it was a Mr. Bracken and askinny gent all bundled up like an Eskimo. They came inside to takerefreshment, and I could see the skinny gent was looking peakèd. Hetook a little tea but it didn’t do him any good because he puked onmy blue rug and fainted dead away. We got him to my best room, theone right across the hall beside the stairs, and I detected a highfever. The coach and Mr. Bracken had to go on without him — afterthey brought his suitcases in here. He moaned and groaned, poordevil, all the next day, sweating with the fever. But it finallybroke on Wednesday evening about nine o’clock. Cass and I got somesoup into him, but he kept saying he had to get to Toronto becausehe had a job waiting for him.”
“Then it must have been my cousin! He was dueat Elmgrove estate last week.”
Bessie gave Cobb a self-satisfied smile,having spun her tale in such a way as to delay its climax as longas possible. “Indeed it was. He told us then that his name wasGraves Chilton and he’d come all the way from England. He insistedhe was well enough to travel and begged us to ferry him intoCobourg in time to catch the Thursday-morning stage before it leftthe hotel. Finally, we gave in, and Brutus drove him and hisbaggage there early the next morning.”
“An’ he had a real English accent?”
“He did.” She took another swig of herclaret.
“This is gonna sound odd, Bessie,” Cobb saidslowly, “but was my cousin bald-headed?”
Bessie chortled at that. “Not odd at all. Abilliard ball’s got more bristles than that fellow had. I could’veused his skull as a looking-glass on my vanity! Ask Brutus or Cass- they couldn’t help staring at it!”
At last, Cobb thought exultantly, theincontrovertible evidence he had been seeking all day. But hisexultation was brief. If Brutus had delivered the real GravesChilton to The Cobourg Hotel a week ago Thursday and the impostorhad shown up at Port Hope fifteen miles to the west, then somethinghad happened between Cobourg and Port Hope. Had Chilton, under someruse, been lured off the coach. How could that happen in front ofthe other passengers who had got on at Cobourg? Perhaps the haplessEnglishman had passed by some hut or cabin that the stage used asan emergency stop, and here the ambush and exchange had occurred.He wouldn’t be able to interview the coach-driver until lateMonday, but there was one quicker way to get information about thatjourney. Seth Martin had told him that several local passengers hadgot on with Chilton at the hotel. And one of them, he remembered,was a girl with a club foot. Nine days had passed since then, sothe odds were good that she or her relatives were now back inCobourg. He could seek them out and, with luck, discover exactlywhen and where Graves the bald had been turned into Graves thehairy.
“I can’t stay fer supper,” Cobb said bravely,getting to his feet. “If my cousin Graves got as far as Cobourglast week, then he’s gotta be somewhere in Cobourg or Port Hope. Ineed to go back there right away.” Even so, he realized he wouldhave only an hour or so left in the evening to locate and questionthose passengers who had travelled with the real Chilton fromCobourg.
“What can you do there tonight that youcouldn’t do in the morning?” Bessie asked, keeping her blue-eyedgaze locked onto Cobb.
“I’m sorry, really, I am, but — ”
Cobb’s apology was cut short by a sharp bangfrom the direction of the kitchen. A door was being roughly slammedby the sound of it.
“That’ll be Brutus at the side door,” Bessiesaid, launching herself upright. “He’s finished with your horse,most likely.”
Brutus Glatt came to the archway and brushedaside the beaded curtains. What Cobb saw was a huge bear of a manwith an ungainly, large head, ape-like brows, deep-set eyes with aferal glint in them, and enough facial hair to carpet GravesChilton’s pate twice over.
“What is it?” Bessie said to him softly.Apparently she was accustomed to his arriving thus,unannounced.
A gargling noise, spittled and repulsive,erupted from his thick lips, and his hands began to jerk andspasm.
“He says your horse is knackered, Cobb. He’sfed him and bedded him down for the night.” She smiled at Brutus,and he backed out of the archway and shambled off towards thekitchen.
“He don’t talk?” Cobb said, puzzled.
“Got no tongue, poor devil,” Bessie saidsolemnly. “But he gets his meaning across just the same.” Shegrinned at Cobb and added, “And I think you ought to follow yourhorse’s example, don’t you?”
Cobb heaved a big sigh, as much in relief asresignation. Perhaps Bessie Jiggins was right. He was certainlyexhausted and hungry. He could be back in Cobourg by daybreak, andstart his inquiries there refreshed and mentally alert.
“All right, then, Mr. Cobb from Toronto, I’llget Cass to serve us our supper, and have Brutus bring in yourgrip, if he hasn’t already done so.”
As if on cue, Cassandra poked her headthrough the curtains of the archway. “You ready fer supper,ma’am?”
“I am, dearie. Why don’t you grab a bite ofyour own in the kitchen, and then go on out to the taproom and tellthose bumpkins to drink up and go on home to pester theirlong-suffering wives.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cass said meekly, andvanished.
Bessie winked at Cobb, and chuckled. “Ifthey’re still able to pester anybody.”
Cobb managed two helpings of chicken and dumplings,and made no protest when a second bottle of claret appeared on thetable as if by magic. He was pleasantly drowsy, and considered justclosing his eyes and spending the night in the comfortable chair isthis cosy chamber — with this warm, motherly woman somewhere athand and on watch.
“I like a man with character in his face,”she was saying as she leaned across the table — with a generousrippling of cleavage — to refill his goblet. “You can have yourfancy gentlemen with their pasty cheeks and button noses and weakchins. Give me a man with a Roman beak like yours, purple as apeony and proud as punch; with eyebrows you want to rub yourselfagainst; with a chin that won’t take no for an answer! A man ofsubstance and girth, eh?” As she enumerated Cobb’s peerlessfeatures, her amorous blue gaze — enhanced by five glasses ofclaret — lingered lovingly on each.