Marc was left at the station to fret and ponder what might have been. But not for long. Just before noon he decided that, while Badger was being run to ground, he would start shaking the tree among the whist players to see what might fall out. He headed straight for the home of the Reverend Temperance Finney.
He got a cool reception. “My husband isn’t in,” Mrs. Finney told him at the door.
“Please tell me, then, where he has gone. I am on urgent government business, a matter of life and death. I must see him as soon as possible.”
“He doesn’t tell me where he goes,” was the curt reply, and the door closed in his face.
It was while he stood on the road, angry and frustrated, that he recalled without conscious effort what it was he had overlooked even as he had made copious notes earlier in the day. The only uncorroborated account of the drive back to the city after the gala was that of the Hepburns. Apparently they had gone as a couple and returned as a couple, with only the dubious testimony of their stableman to back their story. What if, for reasons not yet clear, Mrs. Hepburn had lied and bribed her coachman to do the same? While the police, and perhaps even the Durhams, might be content to have the murder attributed solely to Michael Badger, Marc was determined to uncover any political conspiracy. If proven, its exposure would help Lord Durham’s cause by undermining the extremist opposition to his proposals. Marc was not quite sure how he might go about the interrogation, but if he could just get the two Hepburns together in one room. .
He was sweating and excited by the time he had marched to Hospital Street and entered the Hepburn property. Striding up to the door, he gave a peremptory rap with the brass knocker. The time had come to drop the polite niceties. He had less than eight hours to solve the case and liberate the Durhams.
It was Una who opened the door. She was dishevelled, hollow-eyed, and distracted, almost slatternly.
“I wish to speak with Mr. Hepburn, please. Tell him it’s urgent.”
Una nodded without speaking, turned and shuffled back towards a heavy interior door, leaving Marc a clear view of her movements. She eased it open and he heard her say something in a timid voice. A murmur of male commentary rose in the room behind Una’s figure blocking the doorway. “He says it’s urgent, sir.”
“Damn it all, I told you never to interrupt me in here on Thursday afternoons!”
“I’ll tell him you’re busy, then.”
“You do that.”
Una stepped back to reveal her red-faced master.
“And keep this bloody door closed! How many times do I have to tell you, Miss Badger!”
Una pushed the door shut but not before Marc caught sight of three men seated around a baize-covered table, littered with upturned playing cards: Finney, O’Driscoll, and Harris.
Looking abashed and worried, Una hustled back to Marc. “He’s with his whist club, sir. Come back at four.”
For the moment, Marc was oddly uninterested in the whist-loving chums. “Is Michael Badger your brother?” he asked.
“He is,” she said, and burst into tears.
Marc offered his arm and led Una outside. They found a stone bench in a shady part of the garden.
“Tell me about Michael,” Marc said gently.
“I’d like to. I’ve been going crazy since I saw him on Tuesday, and nobody to talk to, nobody to help.”
“You saw Michael on Tuesday?”
“He came here about ten in the morning. He looked terrible. I never seen him so bad.”
“What did he want?”
“Usually he comes for money, but he knew I had no more to give him. He said he was in real trouble and had to get out of town before the day ended. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but I guessed it had to do with his gambling.”
“He was in debt?”
“He always was. But there was something about him this time that seemed different. Even when he was on the run, and that was more than once, he always kept a bit of a twinkle in his eye. He would be scared, of course, but I knew him well and I knew he thought it was all a game-a dangerous game he was willing to play.”
“A born gambler.”
“Yes. But there was another side to him.”
“There usually is. But you say this time seemed different.”
“That’s right. He looked like he’d had the fright of his life. He told me he had to see Mr. Hepburn right away.”
Marc leaned forward. This was what he needed to hear, the connection between the paid assassin and his sponsor. “Michael knew Alasdair Hepburn?”
Una seemed momentarily puzzled. “Of course. He worked here quite often.”
“I see,” Marc said, and he did, his mind racing ahead.
“Michael did odd jobs around the town; he’s real handy with a hammer and saw. But lately he’s worked only for Mr. Hepburn. He helped plant the vegetable garden over there in April and May. But. . ”
She looked down, and despite her mannish figure and plain face, she was suddenly fragile and abashed. “He kept going back to that wicked place and that wicked woman in Irishtown.”
“So you knew about his being Madame Renée’s bruiser?”
“He couldn’t help himself. He had to go back there, whatever.”
After a pause, Marc said, “Getting back to Tuesday, then, tell me: did Michael see Mr. Hepburn?”
“No. Mr. Hepburn was at the bank. I told Michael that, and he was terrified and trembling. Then he told me to fetch pen and paper, and he wrote out a note, which he said I had to give to Mr. Hepburn when he came home for his luncheon at half past one. He swore me to absolute secrecy, saying his life depended on it. Then he left without another word.”
“Would he have left town, do you think?”
“Only if he had money. We got cousins in Port Sarnia. He’s run off there before. But a steamer costs money.” She brushed aside a tear and said, “I haven’t heard a word from him since Tuesday morning and there’s an awful rumour going ’round about him being wanted by the police.”
Marc waited until Una Badger stopped running her fingers through her already thoroughly ruffled hair. “So you heard about the funeral of Sarah McConkey?” he prompted.
“That harlot from Madame Renée’s? Yes. I heard that a girl from there had been killed. I thought that Michael. . ”
“Might still be in town and attend the funeral for one of the girls he must have known?”
She hung her head.
Marc noted the bright sun glancing through the leaves upon her thick auburn hair, and said, “And you went there in disguise this morning?”
“Yes. He wasn’t there.”
Marc resisted mentioning the chase and its misinterpreted results. The important point here and now was that Michael Badger might not be in the city after all. He was probably hundreds of miles away, heading for his cousins in Port Sarnia.
While Marc was contemplating the implications of this development, Una said, “He told me not to, but I peeked at the note.”
“The note he wrote for Mr. Hepburn?”
“Yes. I gave it to him right at one-thirty on Tuesday, but I read it first. I was beside myself with worry.”
“I’m glad you did. It may explain a lot of things and help me to find your brother.”
“You think so?”
“I do. So please, if you can, tell me precisely what it said.”
“Oh, that’s easy, sir. It was very short and I have no trouble reading my brother’s writing. It said, ‘Send help now, as arranged.’ ”
In deference to this caring and distraught woman, Marc checked his elation. But here was proof of a direct link between Hepburn and Badger. The “help” was no doubt of the financial kind, for homicidal services rendered. Even if Badger was as far away as Port Sarnia-where it would take a day by steamer or express rider to order his capture and at least another day to have him brought back-he now had enough evidence to secure a warrant. He and Sturges would interrogate Hepburn until he confessed, search his house for further clues, and with luck implicate the other three. Whist club indeed!