Act of Injustice

by Argyle, Ray

  “Dr. Ellis, do you remember the last witness bringing two jars to you?”

  “Yes, he brought a large glass jar and a stone jar.”

  “Can you tell the jury what those jars contained?”

  Dr. Ellis said both jars bore Township seals that identified them as containing body parts from Rosannah Teets.

  “One held the stomach and parts of the liver and kidney,” he said. “The other contained part of the intestines.”

  “Did you make an analysis of those parts?”

  “I made an analysis of them all. I found a very small quantity of strychnine. A fraction of a grain, but quite sufficient to confirm a presence in the viscera.”

  “Did you find sufficient to have caused death?”

  “You never find all the strychnine because four fifths is absorbed in about half an hour and is scattered throughout the whole body. From the symptoms that have been described, I would say it was strychnine that killed her.”

  James Masson wanted to know how the analysis of Rosannah’s organs had been conducted. Dr. Ellis said he immersed them in a mix of sulphuric acid, alcohol, ether and ammonia. The process produced a yellow residue that turned out what he took to be strychnine when he tested it.

  “What test did you apply?”

  “I tested it on two frogs. It produced convulsions in both of them. Exactly the same convulsions known to be caused by strychnine.”

  Leonard held his breath as he watched Alfred Frost rise to his feet and prepare to speak.

  “Your Lordship, if I may be permitted, can the witness tell us what is in the bottle Constable Field removed from Cook Teets’s trunk?” He picked up the bottle from the table beside him and made to give it to Dr. Ellis.

  Judge Armour held up his hand, as if to signal the transfer should not take place.

  “Mr. Masson, do you have any objection to the witness answering this question?”

  “No objection, your Lordship.”

  “The witness may proceed.”

  Dr. Ellis held the bottle up to the light. He withdrew its cork and sniffed the contents. Carefully, he tilted the bottle so the crystals slid toward its open end. Bringing it to his mouth, he hesitated and looked directly at Alfred Frost. After a moment, he closed his eyes and touched his tongue against the crystals. Leonard heard gasps throughout the courtroom. When Dr. Ellis opened his eyes he replaced the cork and stared again at the prosecutor. The courtroom had fallen silent.

  “It has the taste and physical properties of strychnine. I have no doubt it is strychnine.”

  A tremor of excitement spread through the courtroom. Dr. Ellis had given dramatic evidence that Cook Teets had been in possession of strychnine. Leonard knew this was something the jury would remember. When the court rose for its midday break, he hurried to the washroom.

  Leonard relieved himself standing in front of the tin sheet that covered the wall above the urinal trough. The sound bounced off the tin, announcing his presence. As he buttoned up his pants and turned away, he saw Nelson Teets come into the room. He remembered seeing him the day before. He’d heard he was paying for Cook’s lawyer.

  “You’re Leonard Babington,” Nelson said. “You’ve been printing funny stories about Cook. You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Suppose you tell me,” Leonard replied.

  “You have no idea what Cook has had to put up with,” Nelson said. “And that girl Rosannah! Everybody around here has had her in bed. That priest really started something. I can vouch for that, personally.”

  What was Nelson saying? That he’d been a lover of Rosannah, too? Had he too resented her easy ways with men? A resentment that could have been a motivation for murder? If that were the case, why would Nelson Teets put himself under suspicion? Perhaps he meant to shift attention from his brother, even at the risk of implicating himself. Leonard knew only that Cook had both the means and the motivation to take Rosannah’s life.

  “You seem to know an awful lot about Rosannah Leppard,” Leonard said. He couldn’t bring himself to call her by her married name. “Are you sure you’re not just making assumptions? Because the girl had a poor reputation, that doesn’t mean everything that people say about her is true.”

  Leonard remembered a conversation he’d had with Rosannah a long time ago. It was something about men who called out to her and made rude remarks when they saw her in the village. He was sure she had mentioned Nelson Teets as one of the men who had badgered her. Perhaps there’d been more to her relationship with Nelson than she’d let on. If he felt so vindictive toward her now, it was likely he’d felt that way when Rosannah was alive.

  Leonard left Nelson Teets in the washroom and went out the side exit of the Court Building. Doubts about Cook’s guilt nagged at him. Alone now, watching fresh snowflakes fall to the ground, Leonard reached into a jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope. It contained his notes on the trial and material about Rosannah’s death. He found the clipping he was seeking. It was the article he had written shortly after Cook had married Rosannah. Leonard had filled it with invective. He was sure now it would have convinced some that Cook was capable of murder.

  Cook Teets’ Exploits! Shoots at Some Children and Draws His Revolver on a Fellow Imbiber

  Cook Teets is a blind man who has figured rather conspicuously in columns of The Chronicle. He is not one of those people who go around led by the hand or is the subject of such sentiments as “pity, pity the blind.”

  On Tuesday, Cook accompanied by his paramour, a lady who shall remain nameless, arrived home from an extended trip to Michigan. On the road leading to Vandeleur he involved himself in an incident that clearly showed the desperate character of the man. As he was passing a house some small boys offered up certain jocular remarks and tossed a few snowballs in his direction, there having been an early arrival of inclement weather in the district.

  Only one other person noticed this confrontation with the boys. According to this witness, the language emanating from the mouths of the boys was so insulting to Cook Teets, to say nothing of what feeling it might have engendered in his companion, that he drew his revolver and fired two shots in succession in their direction. Fortunately his aim was not good; nobody got hurt. The witness, who just happened to be passing by demanded of Teets what on earth was he doing.

  Cook Teets has had things too much “all to himself” for quite long enough. He must be made to understand that the people in this county will not tolerate such uncivilized and heathenish “cowboy” pranks.

  Leonard had no need to read the entire clipping; he remembered exactly what he had written. Nelson had said he didn’t know the half of it. There was only one person who could tell Leonard the truth – Cook Teets. He had to see him – right away.

  The entrance to the Owen Sound jail was at the north end of the County Court Building. Leonard asked to see the governor, John Miller, and was admitted to a small, dark office. A window looked out onto a courtyard covered with grass now white with frost. Beyond it, sheltered by twenty-five foot walls, was the two-storey limestone cellblock where Cook was being held. Miller was spooning soup from a bowl.

  “Babington of the Vandeleur Chronicle,” Leonard told him. “I need to talk to Cook Teets. Appreciate if I can see him before the afternoon sitting.”

  “I’ve read your paper. Always glad to oblige the press. If he’s willing, I’ve no objection. You’ve got an hour and a half. Maybe he’ll confess!” Miller shouted to the guard who had shown Leonard in. “Tell Teets he has a visitor.”

  Chapter 16

  THE VISITOR

  Noon, November 4, 1884

  Cook Teets lifted the cup of cold broth he found in his cell when he was brought back from the courtroom for the noon break. A layer of grease had formed on the offal that floated in the mix. It coated the roof of his mouth when he tried to swallow. He spat the mess onto the stone floor; he had no appetite and his eye was hurting again. Cook heard footsteps in the stairwell leading to the narrow landing outside his cell
.

  “Visitor for you, Cook,” the guard said. He stood at the cell door. “It’s Mr. Babington, the reporter. Says he wants to interview you.”

  Cook shifted uneasily on the cot that hung from an iron frame bolted to the wall. It held a thin mattress of padded straw covered by two grey blankets. The cell was more comfortable than the tiny cubicle where he’d spent his first six months. His lawyer had complained to Governor Miller that it was inhumane to hold a man not yet convicted of any crime in a cell just three feet wide. His new space, atop the second floor of the jail, held a table that served as a combination washstand and resting place for his lunch dish. A toilet pail was lodged on the floor beside it.

  A window set high in one wall cast a narrow shaft of light into Cook’s small world. He was barely aware of the difference between night and day. His head ached from the fever of the flu that had sent sweat and chills through his body for a week. His eyes watered and his nose ran. One eye, especially, hurt and he held his handkerchief against it to catch tears that oozed onto his cheek. His stomach ached. He wondered whether he would have the strength to endure another afternoon of testimony. Now this man Babington was standing at his cell door, no doubt planning to write more vile stuff that would turn the public still further against him.

  “If you’re going to write more lies I don’t think I want to talk to you,” Cook told Leonard Babington.

  “I’m not here to write lies,” Leonard said. “I’m only interested in the truth.”

  Cook calculated his chances with Babington. He knew all about him and Rosannah. She’d told him how Leonard had tried to make a lady of her, and how she had resisted his efforts to get her off patent medicines. He was forever after her to take an interest in good literature. She’d called him “the professor.”

  Cook struggled to his feet. He stood at his cell door, leaning on its bars. “I’m not sure I should tell you anything,” he said. “But if you want to know the truth you’ll have to let me start at the beginning.”

  “Once we got to Vandeleur,” Cook began, “my father started making furniture. I got to be a master craftsman. We did pretty well, and I was able to put aside most of what my father paid me. I remember when my bank account had five hundred dollars. I was really proud.”

  “How did people treat you?”

  Cook gripped the bars with his hands. He told Leonard people taunted him as he went about the countryside. “That blind fool should stay at home,” he heard neighbours say. Children were especially hurtful. “Suck my teats, Teets,” boys would shout. They’d take turns trying to trip him, often succeeding. Some threw stones at him.

  “They say you went to the school for the blind. How did you find it?”

  Cook remembered when he first heard that an Institution for the Blind had opened in Brantford. He was forty-four then. “I made up my mind right away I wanted to go there. I was determined to learn anything to make me more normal. They took a dozen of us grown men. I slept in a dormitory with about four-dozen other boys and men. We were segregated from the girls.

  “The principal was Mr. Hunter. He said us men were there as a special favour. Officially, he represented the Department of Prisons. That’s where the school gets its money. He told me that because of my lack of sight, I might find it difficult to learn what they were teaching, but that I had to do my best. What a laugh.”

  “What did you say when he told you that?”

  “I told him I knew how to make furniture. I offered to teach others to work with wood. He told me that wouldn’t be necessary. He said they had programs that would make good workers of the kids. Weaving baskets, if you can believe it.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  “They had these dogs, German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers. They were being trained as guide dogs. I wanted to learn how to handle them, to give commands and get the knack of following their lead.”

  Cook said that once he got to be pretty good with the dogs, he decided to go back to Vandeleur. “I think they were glad to see me go. They let me take one of the dogs. I chose Cromwell, and I’ve had him ever since.”

  “That gave you a lot more freedom,” Leonard said.

  “It sure did. I started going to Munshaw’s Hotel, I became a regular in the saloon there. That was where I met Ann Jane Sargent. I married her. I think her parents were willing to overlook me being blind on account of I had a bit of money.”

  “But that didn’t work out, did it?”

  “I guess I relied too much on her to do little things for me – bring me my clothes, clean up after me, and open doors wherever we went. We’d been married only a few months when she began to sleep in her own bed. That was when we started quarreling.”

  “It must have been hard for both of you.”

  Cook said his wife complained that he couldn’t do anything for himself. “It never entered my head that she would leave me. My mother said I was too much trouble for a wife.”

  Cook moved away from his cell door and sat down on his cot.

  “I don’t understand why these things happen to me,” he said. “First I’m blind, and then my wife leaves me, now I’ve lost Rosannah and I’m charged with her murder. I wish somebody could explain why God has done this to me.”

  There was nothing Leonard could say about that. Instead, he said he’d like to hear how Cook and Rosannah came to get married. “Molly Leppard testified that you hired her to keep house for you and your mother.”

  Cook remembered his mother was cool to Rosannah from the day he had hired her. Rosannah was a good housekeeper, he told Leonard. “She put in a nice garden and used to come back to the barn where I was looking after the animals. She was amazed I was able to care for the livestock. I told her I could make out shapes, and of course I knew my way around there pretty well.”

  Sounds are so important to a blind person, Cook reminded Leonard. He used to tell Rosannah that sounds made pictures in his head. He would listen for the wind to get an idea of what kind of day it would be. And smells. Every place smelled a little different. The furniture shed of maple and sawdust. His bedroom smelled of the feathers in the pillows.

  “We used to talk about all kinds of things,” Cook said. “About what it would be like to live in the city, or how the Negroes were doing over at Priceville. We had good, intelligent discussions. And we talked about you sometimes, Leonard.”

  Cook remembered the time Rosannah told him most men had treated her as if she knew nothing, while Leonard was always trying to get her interested in things she couldn’t fathom and didn’t care about. She wasn’t sure which was worse. She called him The Professor. Cook saw no point in telling Leonard.

  Rosannah wanted to marry someone she felt equal to, Cook said. “She found it easy to feel that way with me. She said I needed someone like her to be my eyes. I used to tell her I thought she was wonderful. I wasn’t lying. We were getting pretty chummy together. You know what I mean.”

  Cook thought of how it had been with Rosannah that time in the barn. It was as if they were in a world of bliss, freed of all their problems. His blindness was of no account, and he had a woman in his arms.

  Cook paced once around his cell. He didn’t want to tell Leonard what had actually happened. That his mother had caught them together, making love. “Is this what I’m paying you for?” his mother had asked Rosannah. Cook felt lost when Rosannah had to leave. That was when he made up his mind to ask her to marry him.

  When Cook and Rosannah told her parents they were going to get married, he remembered he was surprised at how quickly her father agreed. Even Rosannah’s mother seemed to go along without too much protest, provided a priest married them. But the more he thought about Molly’s insistence on a Catholic wedding, the more nervous he became. He’d have to learn Catholic rites, and it would take some time to arrange the wedding.

  “I said to Rosie,” – and here he used his pet name for her – “are you really sure we need to have a Catholic wedding? What difference does it make as long as we
’re married? Let’s go down to Toronto where nobody’s ever heard of us. I told her I knew of a minister who’ll marry us.”

  Because Rosannah needed new clothes, Cook remembered, he had taken her to Eliza Carson, the dressmaker. They needed a marriage license and for this they went to Mr. Purdy, the postmaster in Eugenia. It was safe to see him because he knew nothing of each of them having already been married. Mr. Purdy also sold life insurance. He charged Cook eleven dollars for the first year’s premium for a policy on Rosannah’s life. Mr. Purdy sent Rosannah to a doctor in Meaford for a medical examination. Cook recalled that the long drive took most of the day but the examination lasted only a few minutes.

  “Rosannah passed the exam just fine, but the doctor said she was pregnant. Well, I wasn’t surprised!”

  Leonard interrupted Cook to ask why he had not purchased life insurance on himself.

  “I’d thought about it, but I wasn’t sure I could pass the medical. My stomach had been bothering me a lot. One of my eyes hurt so much it drove me crazy. Dr. Griffin gave me morphine, he told me there was no law against it. He charged me ten dollars for a bag of morphine crystals. I used to pour out a few crystals onto the kitchen table, and mash them up with my fingertips. Then I’d wet my fingers and put the powder on my tongue. It was bitter, but it stopped the pain. I decided not to bother about insurance.”

  The trip to Toronto went off smoothly, Cook told Leonard. They’d said nothing to his mother or Rosannah’s parents. He’d called for her in a hansom before dawn, in time to catch the morning train to Toronto. That afternoon they walked from Union Station to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Simcoe Street. The Rev. Macdonnell had preached at the school for the blind, and he remembered Cook. He married them in the manse, with the minister’s brother and a woman from the church as witnesses. Cook gave Rosannah a wedding ring he’d bought in Meaford.

  “The minister warned Rosannah that her people would say she’s not married and that she’d be living in sin. Rosannah said she didn’t care. She said she was a Methodist now.”