The food was tasty and the drink flowedfreely. A string trio played Handel, Mozart and Vivaldi, beforebreaking into an improvised jig. After which a flushed andexuberant Brodie stood on a hassock and, with his raven-hairedbeauty beside him, announced their engagement. Some time later,Mister Cobb was cheered to the echo when he donned a donkey’s head,waggled its ears and recited Robbie Burns’ “John Barleycorn,” hisdead father’s favourite poem. (The donkey’s head, alas, was allthat remained of the dismembered Shakespeare Club).
“It don’t take much fer a man to make an assof himself,” Dora was heard chuckling to Diana Ramsay near thepunch-bowl. “Girl, you don’t know what you’re lettin’ yerself infor.”
Marc and Beth had left before this and themore exotic performances that followed. Marc was exhausted: the upsand downs of the past week had left him emotionally drained. Hejust wanted to slip off home and tuck in beside his wife – withMaggie purring contentedly close by. Beth felt the same.
***
“So, while Cobb went off to fetch James Thorpe andWilf Sturges,” Marc was saying to Beth as they snuggled down underthe comforter, “I was left alone with Horace for over half an hour.He showed no resentment at the way he had been deceived andentrapped. And he sensed immediately that I was aware of hisinfidelity, and much more. But I assured him that no-one everneeded to know, if that’s what he wanted.”
“So he talked to you before he confessed tothe magistrate?”
“Yes. I think he was relieved to be caught.All along I’ve been convinced that his major concern was keepingBernice from finding out that he had been unfaithful. He told me hewas sure the news would kill her.”
“When did Duggan start threatenin’ him?” Bethsaid, more awake now than she had been an hour earlier.
“As early as September, soon after Dugganlearned of the adultery from his cousin. Fullarton had everythinghe valued in life to lose: his wife and his reputation as a loyalhusband, a trustworthy banker, and a proud usher at St. James. Hepaid up – every week. But by October, he told me, he had decided toconfront his tormentor. Twice he tried to do what Brodie did – liein wait for Duggan to pick up the parcel of banknotes. But bothtimes Duggan outfoxed him.”
“He must’ve become desperate,” Beth said. “Iwonder he could carry on with his life as if things were normal. Heeven joined that silly club.”
“I thought that too. I asked him about it,and he told me that his years as a banker and steward of otherpeople’s money had conditioned him to keep his emotions in checkand always present a calm face to the world. In fact, he felt thatuntil he somehow managed to put a stop to the blackmail, he deemedit imperative that he go out of his way to appear unperturbed.”
“But he must’ve been churnin’ inside?”
“I’m sure he was. So, after the secondfailure to entrap Duggan, he took one of the extortion-notes – thefellow, as Brodie learned, liked to continually torment his victimswith weekly reminders – and scribbled a death-threat on the back ofit. He tucked it into that week’s parcel along with the banknotes,and left it in the usual place. He swore to me that he neverintended to carry out his threat. He hoped it might be enough toscare the fellow off. Luckily for him, Duggan seems to havedestroyed the returned note after foolishly showing it to Nestor.Horace admitted that the existence of the note gave him so muchconcern that he went looking for it in the stone-cottage as soon ashe learned who Duggan was and where he lived. When he didn’t findit, he felt certain Nestor had taken it with him when he fled thecity.”
“So that’s why yer plan to trap him worked soquickly?”
“Yes. Horace thought, as I hoped he would,that twenty-five pounds and Nestor’s low standing in the communitywould be enough to keep the police from his door. He leapt at theopportunity as soon as he read Nestor’s note.”
“I’d like to feel sorry for the man, I reallywould – all those years livin’ with an ailin’ wife, an’ nochildren.”
“I’m afraid that’s what caused him to giveinto Madeleine Shuttleworth’s lethal charms – they had a brief andloveless affair last summer. Ironically, Bernice Fullarton may bewasting away, but she is not weak of heart or spirit. When I wentthere last night, her sister answered the door – she’d arrived onFriday for a long visit – and took me into Bernice’s room. Bernicewas stunned by what I had to say, tactful as I was, but I couldsense the steel in her will, and her determination to support herhusband, come what may.”
Beth, who was ever wiser than Marc in affairsof the heart, shocked him by saying, “I’m sure she won’t besurprised if she does happen to learn her husband give in totemptation like that. What might surprise her more would be thefact he’d waited so long an’ did it only once.”
“Maybe she’d already guessed, eh? Anyway, Iheard her tell her sister to arrange for some transportation toconvey her to the jail today.”
Beth nuzzled her husband’s chest, whileMaggie’s sweet breathing perfumed the room.
“Will they hang him?” Beth said.
“I doubt that very much. A good lawyer willtry and argue self-defense because in his statement Fullartonclaimed that Duggan struck him first, with Brodie’s walking-stick,and he reacted by seizing the weapon and striking out blindly.”
“Sounds like a lawyer’s statement tome.”
Marc smiled, quite accustomed as he was toBeth’s gentle, and very lovable, sarcasm. “Well, Cobb did tell mehe saw Fullarton limping when he first went up to Oakwood Manor. Anexperienced barrister could make much of that.”
“But not enough to get his client off?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“There’s the wee matter of that second blowto the back of Duggan’s skull, while he was lyin’ near-dead on theground, isn’t there?”
“I see I’m not the only lawyer in thishousehold.”
Beth drew her husband’s hand across thesmooth bevel of her abdomen.
“You said a minute ago,” Marc said beforetalk itself became redundant, “that you wanted to besympathetic.”
“I did, but I can’t.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, Horace was supposed to be Brodie’sfriend. Brodie was startin’ to think of him as he did Dick or hisown father before that. I can’t understand why the man would letBrodie suffer for weeks on end, and even go on trial fer a crime hehimself committed. You saw how distressed the lad was this mornin’when he found out how he came to be acquitted. Only the joy ofDiana’s bein’ there an’ lovin’ him kept him goin’ through theday.”
“I know what you’re saying, luv. Still, I gotthe distinct impression that Brodie is prepared to forgivehim.”
“Do you think he would’ve let Brodie go tothe gallows?”
“No, I don’t. He said as much to me. In fact,he said emphatically that the days since the murder were thehardest of his life, including the days after he got the news thatBernice was slowly dying of some wasting disease the doctors didn’teven have a name for. But for all his worry and fear and despairover the crime itself and the secret he’d killed to protect, inspite of the minute-by-minute stress of trying to put a normal faceupon the world – the one thing that did not concern him wasthe thought that Brodie would be convicted. He agonized overBrodie’s suffering, but felt he was young and strong enough tosurvive a trial.”
“A trial that was headin’ straight towardsfindin’ him guilty!”
“Ah, but even after the Crown had rested itswater-tight case on Friday, he assured me he remainedunconcerned.”