“In addition to your substantivecontributions,” Robert said, “we’d like you to act as ourtranslator.”
To Marc’s puzzled response, Hincks said,“Robert and I both read French and I’ve become marginally adept atwriting it during my corresponding with Louis, but neither Robertnor I can speak it beyond everyday polite conversation.”
“And LaFontaine himself reads English, butclaims to speak it only haltingly.”
“And his associates?” Marc inquired.
“Two of them are apparently much the same,but the third is unilingual,” Robert said.
“With your assistance we hope to conduct thehard bargaining in French,” Hincks said. “And we’ll require yourextensive knowledge of that tongue if and when it comes to puttingour entente cordiale into writing.”
“How is Beth by the way?” Robertasked.
“As you know, she’s been laid low with thegrippe for a week, but claims she’s on the mend. I was late tonightbecause I wanted to make sure she was telling the truth before Ileft her.”
“When is the baby due?” Hincks said.
“Early in April. So, unless Beth has arelapse or the babe comes prematurely, I’m sure I’ll be able to getaway for the three days you’ll need me.”
Hincks and Robert could not hide theirrelief. “Thank you, Marc,” Robert said. “I’m not sure what we wouldhave done if you had been unable to say yes.”
Marc hesitated before saying, “You dounderstand that I must ask Beth about this, don’t you?”
Robert smiled broadly. “Naturally. Nothing isas important as the son of yours Beth is carrying — not evenresponsible government.”
***
Constable Horatio Cobb was not exactly inconference, nor was he, as he might have been, settled into thecozy confines of his Parliament Street cottage and thawing his toeson a warm fender. He was, rather, seated at his “desk” near therear portion of The Cock and Bull, thumbing a flagon of tepid aleand occasionally poking at the crumbs of his game pie with a bentfork. His day-patrol had ended more than an hour ago, but insteadof heading straight home through the blizzard, he had stopped athis favourite tavern for supper and refreshment. Missus Cobb hadgone up Yonge Street to Danby’s Crossing to attend a young womanabout to give birth to her first child. The lad who had fetched herjust after dawn had indicated that his aunt was in some distress,and Dora, bless her, had packed her carpetbag and informed herfamily that she would not be home until tomorrow, at best. WhileCobb was proud of Dora and her dedication to midwifery (evenboasting of her skills when she was well out of earshot), her tradewas often inconvenient and sometimes irritating.
His children, of course, had grown accustomedto her sudden absences, and fended well for themselves. Delia wasalmost fourteen, a passable cook, and a prize student at MissTyson’s Academy. Fabian, two years younger, was in his final yearat the common school, and showing signs of a scholarly bent. Howtheir father could manage to keep both of them in school muchlonger was a question that Cobb tried not to ask himself too often.But he had seen enough of the slavery of live-in maids and thebrutality of day-labour to wish much more for his own preciousones. With Dora’s uncertain income (payment in kind was the norm)and his policeman’s stipend, they lived much better than mostordinary citizens of the town, but a private ladies academy and agrammar school still seemed beyond their reach. Marc Edwards — theMajor, as Cobb had nicknamed his long-time friend and investigativecolleague — was covering Delia’s fees for this term, but that wasan arrangement Cobb was determined to end this spring.
These were some of the constable’s musings ashe sipped at his ale and watched the snow froth and seethe againstthe tavern windows. So preoccupied was he that Amos Coyle, the bigbarkeep, had to shake the table to get the policeman’sattention.
Cobb looked up, startled, and said, “Trouble,Amos?” He hadn’t noticed anything more raucous than the usualshouts and guffaws of the drinking crowd around him.
“Trouble brewing, Cobb. Over there at the farend of the bar.”
Cobb peered through the smoke-haze andshifting bodies. “That fella bangin’ his cup on the counter?”
“That’s the one. He’s so pissed he’d falldown if the bar wasn’t holdin’ him up.”
“Why not toss him inta a chair an’ let himsleep it off?”
“He’s gettin’ real belligerent. He threatenedme.”
Cobb stared up at the two-hundred-poundbarkeep. “I find that hard to believe, Amos.”
“He’s got a knife in his belt. An’ fire inhis belly. I figured you an’ me could each take an arm an’ usherhim inta the bracin’ air outside — before he can blink.”
“But if he can’t walk, he’ll freeze outthere.”
Coyle said coldly, “That’s his worry,ain’t it?”
“You know who he is?” The thought of draggingsome drunk all the way to his doorstep was not appealing. Cobb wasweary after a day of tramping through the winter streets, and histoes were just now beginning to thaw out.
“I do. He’s been in here stirrin’ things uptwo nights runnin’. His name’s Giles Harkness.”
“Never laid eyes on him till now, but I’veheard of him. He’s a stable hand out at Elmgrove, ain’t he?”
“Coachman, to hear him tell it. And accordin’to him, he shoulda been the butler, if ya can believe it.” Coylechuckled at the thought. “He’s been tellin’ everybody in town fertwo nights that his brother was the Macaulay butler till he diedthree months ago, an’ that he himself was passed over fer the job.As if muckin’ out manure was good trainin’ fer bein’ a butler!”
“Takin’ it hard, I’d say,” Cobb said as hewatched Giles Harkness lurch sideways and bang his whiskey-cup onthe bar so hard the chap slouched next to him jumped toattention.
“We better move now,” Coyle said.
Cobb and Coyle moved in tandem across theroom, clearing a path through the tipplers as they went. BeforeGiles Harkness could make one more lurch or bang his cup one moretime upon the counter, Cobb had him by the left elbow and Coyle bythe right. In a wink he was ferried thus to the door, which anadroit customer had conveniently opened. Cobb reached over andpulled the hunting-knife out of harm’s way, and then swung Harknessand his dead weight up and out into a snowdrift.
“I’ll have to take him to jail, I guess,”Cobb sighed.
The toothless fellow who had opened the doorpiped up and said, “He’s not stayin’ out at Elmgrove, Cobb. He’sbunked in up at the inn.”
“Mrs. Sturdy’s?”
“You got it.”
Cobb was relieved. Mrs. Sturdy operated asort of hostel for vagabonds and rough trade half a block north onYork Street. He slipped the knife into the pocket of his greatcoat,buttoned it, pulled up the collar, took his helmet from thegrateful barkeep, wrestled on his mittens, and then turned hisattention to the drunk. So fierce was the blizzard that a coat offresh snow had almost covered Harkness as he lay motionless in thedrift, except for the chattering of his teeth. As Cobb picked himup, the fellow went limp in his arms and, thankfully, seemedcontent to let himself be half-dragged and half-carried up YorkStreet.
There was a light in the lone window of theramshackle “inn.” Cobb hauled Harkness up onto the porch, felt aboard give way somewhere under the muffling snow, and pounded onthe door. He could hear someone stirring behind it.
At this point, Harkness opened his eyes andbegan tugging at Cobb’s ankle. Seeing the fellow’s lips moving in adesperate effort at speech, Cobb leaned down and tried to make outthe words.
They came in a sudden, slurred rush. “Theythink they seen the last of me, eh, but I ain’t that easy to getrid of. Not after the way I been treated. Who does he think heis?”
“Calm yerself, sir. There’s a warm bedwaitin’ fer ya inside.”
Someone was fidgeting with a chain behind thedoor.
“I’m gonna get even with the bugger. And Idon’t give a damn who knows it!”
“I’m sure you are. But it’ll haveta wait tillmornin’, won’t it?”