Smith’s letters went unacknowledged. Then, just as he despaired of ever seeing justice done, R.B. Bennett was thrust into office and soon had to contend with tin and tarpaper shacks springing up everywhere and with farmers who called their necessarily horse-drawn Model-Ts “Bennett buggies”. When thousands of the unemployed marched on Ottawa, Bennett was convinced that the country was teetering on the edge of a revolution. Unable to supply bread, he provided a circus. The Gurskys were arrested in Montreal, charged with the evasion of customs duty and excise tax. Prominent photographs of their mountainside mansions began to appear in newspapers. Reporters revived interest in the unsolved murder of Willy McGraw.
The government put together an intimidating flotilla of lawyers to prosecute the case, the captain on the bridge Stuart MacIntyre of Morgan, MacIntyre and Maclean. Bert Smith proceeded to MacIntyre’s office directly after his train from the west arrived at Windsor Station. MacIntyre heard him out and then met with his colleagues, his disappointment self-evident. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the guy’s not physically blessed, but an obvious nonentity who practically foams at the mouth at the mention of Bernard Gursky and is also out to get Bouchard, a member in good standing of both the St. Denis Club and the St. Jean Baptiste Society. Putting him on the stand is going to be risky.”
The Gurskys also assembled a formidable legal team, shrewdly comprised of one lawyer, Bernard Langlois, who was a French-Canadian, and another, Arthur Benchley, with impeccable Westmount connections, their tactics orchestrated by Moti Singerman, who would never question a witness himself.
The trial, presided over by Judge Gaston Leclerc, the former chief bagman for the Quebec Liberal Party, got off to a promising start, so far as the Gurskys were concerned. MacIntyre, opening for the Crown, charged that the Gurskys had conspired to violate the statutes of a friendly country, smuggling liquor over the longest undefended border in the world. Langlois countered that it would be incredible for the courts of the province of Quebec to administer the laws of the United States. “If the prosecution wishes to charge the Gursky brothers with smuggling, let them prove it.”
But in order for the Crown to make their case it was essential for them to have bank documentation proving that millions of dollars had passed between Ajax Shipping, the Gursky-owned company in Newfoundland, and Gibraltar, a Gursky family trust. However, the RCMP raid on McTavish headquarters had been too late, the account books having been lost in a fire the day before.
Things took a turn for the worse once Solomon moved into the witness stand. Pressed about his activities as an alleged bootlegger, he asked MacIntyre, “When you invited people to dinner at your seaside cottage on the Cape, during Prohibition, did you usually serve your guests carrot juice or cocktails?”
“What possible concern is that of yours?”
“I’d like to know what I missed—if anything.”
Had Solomon ever met with Al Capone? Yes. Longy Zwillman? Yes. Moe Dalitz? Yes again. “But,” Solomon said, “I have also met with Joan Miró and George Bernard Shaw, but I am neither a painter nor a writer. I have talked with your brother in Ottawa more than once and I am not a bigot.”
Judge Leclerc cautioned Solomon, not for the first time. MacIntyre, sorting through papers, feigning confusion, asked, “Can you tell me if the name Willy McGraw means anything to you?”
Before Arthur Benchley could protest that the question was irrelevant, Solomon replied, “He was a friend of mine.”
That night a distraught Mr. Bernard, dismissing his chauffeur, took to the wheel of his Cadillac and drove out to Ste.-Adèle. Judge Leclerc was waiting for him there, having reluctantly agreed to open his country place, Pickwick Corner, the grounds landscaped and the interior decorated to honour his somewhat skewed notion of a country squire’s cottage in the Cotswolds. True, the walled rose garden had been a failure, the rhododendrons had also yielded to frost, but there was a wishing well. Each spring, a host of golden daffodils. And the beautifully sculpted yews bordering his croquet lawn clearly showed the hand, according to one visitor, of a master choreographer.
Mr. Bernard joined Judge Leclerc in the living room, the fireplace wall adorned with paintings of the fox hunt, another wall lined with a grouping of backlit pewter plates and jugs. Both men sat in leather armchairs, Judge Leclerc filling his pipe with a fragrant mixture of tobacco imported from Fribourg and Treyer, in the Haymarket, his briar acquired from Inderwick’s. “Bernard,” Judge Leclerc said, smoothing his hairbrush moustache, tugging at his ascot, “we’ve jolly well got to give them something.”
“How come Jules Omer Bouchard, making maybe five grand a year, owns a big house in Hull and another in Florida and an estate in the Gaspé, eighteen-year-old nieces coming out of the woodwork everywhere, if he isn’t accepting bribes?”
“Jules is for it, anyway, the poor bloke, but that won’t be nearly enough.”
Mr. Bernard unlocked his attaché case.
“And that won’t do it, either.”
“Look here, you little prick, I go to jail, so do you.”
“By Jove, are you threatening me?”
“Sure I am.”
“Stu MacIntyre’s keen for blood. If he wins this case he can choose between being the next minister of justice or a seat on the Supreme Court.”
“What could he have against me?”
“Not you. Solomon. He tried to pick up Diana Morgan in that hotel he bought down here and he’s been after her ever since, his intent undoubtedly priapic.”
“I don’t know about that, but he’s got nooky on the brain that one. I’ll tell him to stop. Consider it done.”
“That young lady is a thoroughbred. She’s a granddaughter of Sir Russell Morgan and a niece of Stu MacIntyre’s. I hope to succeed MacIntyre as Master of the Ste.-Adèle Hunt Club. I would be the first French-Canadian to be so honoured. Fancy that.” Judge Leclerc brought out a decanter of port and two large snifters. “Did Solomon order McGraw killed?”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“My own brother.”
“We’ve bloody well got to feed them something.”
“Callaghan?”
“Not enough.”
“My own flesh and blood.”
“I understand.”
“What could I get? Worst case.”
“A heavy fine.”
“I can handle that.”
“And possibly ten years in prison.”
The next morning Bert Smith was called to the witness stand, realizing a dream that had sustained him night after night for years, gnashing his teeth in bed, raging, waking in a sweaty tangle of sheets. In his mind’s eye, given his day in court, Smith smote the Gurskys as David had Goliath, not with five smooth stones but with the truth. Then, the governor-general intervened on his behalf, reinstating him in customs and excise, the new chief investigating officer, seated in Bouchard’s chair. But now, stepping up to be sworn in at last, dizzy, his throat dry, he was mortified to hear the squeak of the new shoes he had purchased for the occasion. His shirt collar choked, but he didn’t dare loosen his tie. Although he had been to the toilet twice already his bladder was fit to burst. His stomach rumbled and he feared he might soil himself right there. Desperately trying to summon up MacIntyre’s detailed instructions, instead he could only recall their lunch together at Delmo’s, Smith, terrified of being caught out in a gaffe, waiting for the distinguished lawyer to order, mumbling, ”I’ll have the same, thank you, sir,” to the waiter. Then disgracing himself, realizing too late that he was buttering his bread with the fish knife, his embarrassment compounded when MacIntyre magnanimously followed suit.