“Even if it means I have to go up there tomorrow evening and tell her that her nephew is not only a murderer but a species of madman?”
“I think you have to consider it a possibility.”
Neither of them slept well that night.
TWELVE
Marc made his way along King Street to the police quarters at the rear of the Court House. There, referring to his notes and under the baleful watch of Gussie French-who resented any official document not transcribed by his own pen-he brought Chief Sturges up to date on the investigation. In turn, Sarge told him that the search for Badger would be intensified within the city. Ten supernumerary constables had been called in from the city and surrounding county, and a dozen snitches had been given cash advances to reinforce their loyalty to the Crown and its immediate objective. If Badger were still here, the chief vowed, he would be flushed from cover before sundown.
With this guarantee to buoy his spirits, Marc carried on to John Street and the Mechanics’ Institute. He found a modest crowd of mourners gathered for Sarah McConkey’s funeral and Cobb waiting for him in the stuffy vestibule.
“All the ladies are in there,” he said with mild reproach. “They decided they might as well get on with it.” It was clear that Cobb felt that his time and Marc’s would be better spent in the hunt for Badger.
“This will likely be a waste of effort, Cobb,” Marc said, “but I want to see who’s here and how they react to one another. We may get a different perspective on Mrs. Burgess and the girls.”
“Which ain’t exactly evidence,” Cobb muttered.
“I want you to stay near the back of the hall and scrutinize every face. You never know who might decide to show up.”
They entered the hall. To Marc’s surprise the main room of the former Mechanics’ Institute, austere even in the days when it was a hub of self-improvement, had been transformed into something not unlike a simple house of worship on a back concession. Benches formed rows of pews and great sprays of freshly cut roses adorned tables along the windowless walls. Below the front wall, with the mid-morning sun pouring through its single, tall, plain window, a makeshift platform and lectern had been arranged to provide an altar. A casket of gleaming hardwood, the kind normally reserved for those rich enough to purchase ostentation, sat before it, bedecked with sprigs of wildflower. Behind the lectern, fussing with his Bible and notes, stood the minister, a youthful-looking chap, meagre of stature but fired with holy purpose and the zeal to propagate it. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them, Marc thought gratefully.
There were more than two dozen mourners. In the rear rows sat several families unmistakably of Irishtown: the women in touchingly inapt bonnets and drab hand-me-down dresses, the men in suit coats a size too large or small, the children scrubbed but otherwise unaltered. The second row from the front was occupied by women, housewives whose spouses couldn’t or wouldn’t come, tenants or neighbourhood acquaintances of Mrs. Burgess most likely. With a pang of guilt Marc realized that whatever its troubles and traumas, the ragtag and motley collective of Irishtown was still a community. Madame Renée’s was not, as he had first thought, an isolated bastion in a random and hostile terrain.
The proof of such a conclusion lay before him as he observed the scene in the front row: Norah Burgess and Madame Charlotte stood embracing each other. Tears had excavated runnels in Charlotte’s pancake makeup, but Norah Burgess, her face unsullied by cosmetics, looked utterly devastated. She trembled as she clung to her rival, and the latter eased her onto the bench and held her till she steadied. On either side of the older women and filling the front row, their employees sat with quiet dignity, despite the almost comic effect of their efforts to temper their flamboyant working attire with black bits of shawl, scarf, or cowl.
Marc took a seat in the back row. Cobb meanwhile perched on a dusty stove near the entrance and, satisfied that no grieving lover or drooling assassin had intruded upon the ceremony, proceeded to catnap. The Reverend Solomon Good, whose booming voice emerged almost miraculously from his narrow chest, began the service with a long and soulful prayer, of which Cobb caught only intermittent phrases concerning Mary Magdalene, casting the first stone, and the bounteous compassion of God’s only begotten son.
Cobb was unaware how much of the service he had dozed through when an alien sound to his left brought him almost awake. It was the click of a door latch being opened and closed. It took him a half-minute to get his mind in gear and ten more seconds to come to the conclusion that someone had just joined the mourners.
Although in the shadow of the far rear corner opposite Cobb, the figure was obviously tall, well built, and intent on remaining unobserved and unidentified. Despite the warmth of the day, it wore a loose-fitting coat and had covered its head and hair with a flowered scarf. It was peering around the room, looking for someone or something. The congregation by then was standing, and the hall was swelling with their voices raised in song and the hope of heaven.
“Jesus!” Cobb hissed to himself, “it’s Badger!” He sprang forward but managed only to stumble and alert the target. By the time Cobb regained his footing, Badger was out the door. Cobb did not think to call out to Marc; he simply gave chase as he had done a hundred times before in the execution of his duties. Blinking in the sudden sunlight of John Street, he looked quickly up and down the road and spotted the culprit running awkwardly into the service lane that backed onto the houses and shops along Wellington Street to the south. In seconds Cobb was up to full speed, a pace that never failed to be underestimated by fleeing felons. He wheeled into the alleyway. Badger was only thirty yards ahead, weaving and stumbling among the half-dozen carts, assorted donkeys and their masters, and the usual flotsam of these much-travelled lanes.
“Stop that thief!” he hollered, but the command produced only curious stares or irreverent rejoinders as he pushed aside man and beast blocking the way. The creature in flight was the key to the investigation! He had to be captured here and now. With excitement surging through him, Cobb quickly gained on his prey. Now only fifteen yards behind, Cobb spotted the narrow alley leading south to Wellington between two brick buildings. Every instinct told him that Badger would veer into it. That meant a straight, unimpeded dash to the main street. With his superior speed, Cobb would have the bastard well before he reached safety. Suddenly a dog ran in front of Badger, who tripped, righted himself, and headed for the alley. At that moment a gust of wind blew the scarf away, and Cobb got a split-second glimpse of thick, light-coloured hair. Got you now, you murdering bugger, Cobb said to himself as he nimbly sidestepped the mange-ridden mongrel and cantered towards the alley.
Which was precisely when his feet went out from under him and, in trying to prevent himself from landing on his back, he overcorrected and went skidding on his considerable belly for several yards, coming to a stop with his nose an inch from a brick wall.
“Shit!” he cried aloud, just as he came to the conclusion that he was lying in the very stuff.
Those spectators who had interrupted their business to take in the chase burst into mocking applause. Fuming and scarlet-nosed, Cobb resisted the temptation to instruct these scoffers in the awful solemnity of the law, picked himself up, and ran into the alley. Too late. Badger had reached Wellington Street. Winded and huffing, Cobb made it onto the thoroughfare. It was crowded with traffic, human and animal. Cobb looked left and right.
Badger had disappeared.
While the escape of Michael Badger was a blow to Marc and Cobb, at least it confirmed that he was still in the city. Constable Brown was dispatched to Government House with an official request from Chief Sturges that sufficient troops be deployed to surround the city limits. Constable Rossiter was put in charge of the deputized supernumeraries to scour the streets and alleys west of Yonge, and Constable Wilkie headed a similar squad to do the same east of Yonge. Cobb was ordered to go home and render himself less redolent.