“Dreams are like that. But, see, you’re starting to be able to talk about it.”
“Yes, I am, aren’t I? And I haven’t st-stuttered once.” He laughed, and Beth joined him.
She put the spoon in his right hand, dipped it into the soup, and guided it to his mouth. “You spoke yesterday with my husband.”
“Mr. Edwards, yes.” His face darkened and Beth was afraid she had gone too far. But he continued without further prompting. “After the dance I played cards with some kind gentlemen. I got very drunk. I don’t re-remember anything else except c-coming to that place. This girl, I thought she was you. I felt sick and ashamed. D-d-don’t remember. . ”
“Please don’t think about it anymore, Mr. Ellice. It wasn’t me and you’re safe in the governor’s bed.”
“Very. . tired.” He closed his eyes and drifted towards sleep.
Beth waited. His breathing was regular. The dream had not returned. Yet.
Lady Durham left her post, came across the room, and whispered a thank-you to Beth. “I think he’s on his way back,” she said. “He did not stammer until he got to the part about what happened in the brothel. That’s a positive sign.”
“Please send for me, day or night, if you think I can be of help.”
“Yes, I will.”
Outside the room in the hallway, Lady Durham looked suddenly distracted, as if she were indecisive about her next step.
“Are you all right, Your Ladyship?”
“Yes, yes. It’s my husband who suffers from migraine and neuralgia. He often has to disappear into a dark room for days on end. I’m terribly afraid the stress of Handford’s situation will trigger another of those dreadful bouts.”
“Mr. Edwards will find the killer.”
“I’m sure he will,” Lady Durham said vaguely. Then, unexpectedly, she gripped Beth’s arm tightly. Her gaze held, for the merest fraction of a second, a glint of pure terror.
“Come into my sitting room, Mrs. Edwards. There is something I think you need to know about Handford.”
ELEVEN
Marc rode through the mid-afternoon sunshine on the lieutenant-governor’s second-best horse along the ill-named “trunk road” that would take him to Streetsville. Three years ago he had travelled this same route as part of a foraging expedition led by Major Owen Jenkin, who had since become his friend and avuncular adviser. Little had changed. The hardwoods flourished on either flank of the corduroy thoroughfare, still threatening to overwhelm the preternatural intrusion of road-making humans. Buttercups and violets foamed in rainbowed wavelets along the verges and native birds tumbled and sang in the liberating breeze. For a while Marc was able to forget the urgency of his journey and simply enjoy a landscape he was increasingly comfortable to call home.
But the brutal death of Sarah McConkey was never far from his thoughts. His hopes for the afternoon’s inquiry had been dashed. Apparently none of the whist-playing enemies of responsible government had ferried Ellice to Madame Renée’s, if the wives were to be believed. And, alas, he could see no reason why they should dissemble unless they, and the friends accompanying them, were part of a vast conspiracy. If so-and the likelihood was remote-then it would take more than a day to unravel, and a day was all the time he had left to save Handford Ellice. Moreover, the wives would certainly tell their husbands, and more than a few neighbours, about his afternoon visit and the so-called stolen jewels, thus alerting those gentlemen and half the Family Compact-putting them all on their guard. There would be little merit now in trying to interrogate anyone else using the same cover story (pilfered pearls and a missing snuffbox?) and a serious risk of having them circle the oligarchic wagons. Either the authorities had to capture Badger, or Marc himself must unearth something useful at the McConkey farm.
This deflating conclusion was mercifully interrupted by the thud of approaching horses’ hooves a short distance ahead. Marc drew his mount to one side and waited to see who was pounding towards him around the next bend in the road. The flash of scarlet and green and the familiar rattle of swinging sabres told him it was a mounted troop. Half a dozen subalterns were soon bearing down on him at full gallop. When the leading officer saw Marc, he raised a hand and the squad pulled up around him. Marc recognized several of the men and smiled a greeting.
“You look smaller without your tunic, sir,” Ensign Beddoes said with a grin, “if that’s possible.”
Marc exchanged pleasantries with the officers he knew, then asked Beddoes, “Are you fellows part of the search for Michael Badger?”
“We are,” Beddoes confirmed. “We’ve been beating the bushes in three townships for most of the day and haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”
“Folks out here, as far as I can determine, are suffering an outbreak of blindness,” said the officer beside him. “They don’t seem to know whether the sun’s come up or not.”
“A six-footer with an orange mane ought to be hard to miss,” Marc said.
“There’s another troop scouring the area north of the city and a third doing the same east of it,” Beddoes said. “What’s this fellow done anyway, buggered His Lordship?”
“You could say that,” Marc replied.
After being given faulty directions and getting lost for half an hour, Marc finally entered a public house on the outskirts of the village of Streetsville and risked a game pie and a glass of wine. The tapster then directed him to the McConkey farm, about a quarter of a mile off the main road. He rode up to the half-log cabin, relieved to see smoke coming from the crude chimney and cows drifting barnward to be milked.
Mr. McConkey, who opened the door with undue caution, turned out to be no surprise. He was a lean-muscled, stern-faced farmer with intimidating black eyebrows. He glowered at the intruder, said nothing, and waited, the half-open door wedged against his sturdy left boot.
“Good evening. Am I addressing Mr. Orrin McConkey?”
“Who wants ta know?” The voice was gravel and spit.
“I’m Marc Edwards. I’ve just ridden out here from Government House in Toronto-”
“We don’t have any truck with people from the city.”
“I’m here representing Governor Durham, sir. I have been sent by His Lordship to bring you some very bad news. May I come in?”
“Is it about Sarah?” a shrivelled female voice came from somewhere in the room beyond.
“Go back to yer business, Hilda. This has nothin’-”
“Yes, it is about Sarah,” Marc said loudly.
“I take it you’re speakin’ about the girl who used to be my daughter?” McConkey’s expression darkened, but whether with anger or some more vulnerable emotion was impossible to tell.
“What’s happened to Sarah?” A wizened woman, aged beyond her years, poked her bonneted face around her husband’s shoulder.
“Please, let me come in,” Marc said.
“If you must,” McConkey said, opening the door. “Hilda, you go and finish makin’ my supper. Any news about Sarah oughta be given to me first.”
Hilda McConkey looked stricken but turned dutifully and scuttled away to a curtained-off kitchen area. Marc noticed that no hair fluttered from under the bonnet.
“I won’t ask ya to sit down, Mr. Edwards. I got a meal to eat and cows waitin’ to be milked. Out here in the country we have real work to do.”
“Very well,” Marc said, taking in the neat, clean, well-tended sitting room. On a polished hardwood table, the Bible took pride of place, and embroidered religious homilies decorated all four walls. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your daughter is dead.”
This dreadful revelation had no effect on McConkey. He merely stared malevolently at Marc as if waiting for the next sentence.
“She was murdered early yesterday morning-”
The rattling of pans in the kitchen stopped abruptly.
“In a house of harlotry,” McConkey snarled. “I already know that.”
“How could you?”
“Our pastor was in the city this mornin’. That evil woman had the gall to approach him about takin’ the funeral service.”