by Argyle, Ray
The next day, Richard Langley told Leonard about the trial transcript.
“It’s all there, word for word,” he said. “But we’re supposed to keep stuff like that confidential. If I let you see the transcript, you must never divulge how you got it.”
The Department of Justice filled several rooms on the second floor of the East Block. The chief clerk led Leonard to the smallest, a cramped room containing rows of filing cabinets separated by narrow aisles. “No one ever comes here but me. You shouldn’t be interrupted. The file you want is up there, on the top shelf. Put it back just the way you found it.”
Leonard took down a box marked Ta-Th and set it on the floor. There was one chair in the room and he moved it next to a window. He dragged over the box and from it selected a thick file on which had been written in large letters, “Queen v Cook Teets.” Nervous, fearful of being found in the room, but excited at the prospect of what the file might reveal, Leonard began to read.
The first page bore an imprint in fancy lettering of the Department of the Secretary of State, Deputy Minister of Justice. It was dated 22/23 November, 1884, file #13588. “A transcription or copy of the notes of Evidence in re Cook Teets a Convict under sentence of death.” Below, someone had written, “File away.”
Several notes were tucked into the bundle. One, addressed to Mr. Justice Armour on 22 November 1884, requested “as early as circumstances will permit, for the information of His Excellency the Governor General in Council, a copy of the notes of evidence.” Leonard knew that was government talk for the cabinet, Prime Minister Macdonald and his ministers, who had held Cook’s fate in their hands. Justice Armour, replying five days later from Osgoode Hall in Toronto, had sent a hand-written note advising he was enclosing fifty-two pages of typewritten script.
So this is what the cabinet would have made its decision on, Leonard thought. He began to read. He tried to see the words through the eyes of Sir Alexander Campbell, the justice minister at the time. He tried to imagine how he might have reacted to what he would have read. Would any of the other ministers, or even Prime Minister Macdonald, have read the transcript? Or would they have left it to Sir Alexander to say what he thought of it?
No matter, it began in straight enough fashion. Molly’s evidence, drawn from her by Alfred Frost, just as Leonard remembered it. Her cross-examination, the interjections by the judge, they were all there. Dr. Sproule’s testimony, his hand-written autopsy report, now typed up. The defence witnesses, Cook’s mother and sister, the thrust of what they had said. But look! Something’s missing. No mention of the summations by James Masson and Alfred Frost. Gone. Nothing of Justice Armour’s charge to the jury – the charge that even the Flesherton Advance admitted was “strongly against the prisoner.” Not a word of what Cook Teets had said after the jury’s verdict, when he pleaded for an hour that he was innocent.
Now Leonard understood it all. The cabinet had been given only half the picture. Nothing but “evidence” but where was the truth? Something to balance the faulty logic of the prosecutor? Or the biased interpretation of Justice Armour, one that led the jury straight to Cook’s guilt? All the wasted hours, all the petition signing, the letters from the Owen Sound lawyers, from Dr. Sproule, their own Member of Parliament, none of it meant anything.
The pages on his lap made Leonard seethe. He’d have something to tell John Thompson if he ever got to see him. He remembered his promise to Richard Langley; he could say nothing of this transcript. Leonard’s head began to hurt. At first, he barely noticed the noise from the other side of the room. The click of a door latch, the scrape of wood against floor. A footstep. Someone was coming. Alarmed now, Leonard froze in his chair. He saw the shadow of a man as he moved from aisle to aisle. He heard a groan. The man turned and faced Leonard. He stared at him, full in the face. The man’s lips twitched. He was short, but thick and heavy. Leonard recognized the new Minister of Justice. He’d seen a picture of John Thompson in the outer office. What was he doing here? Leonard felt ill. Suddenly, the man turned away. Leonard heard the noise of the scraping door. He was alone again with the Cook Teets file.
Leonard worried about how he would explain his presence in the file room. Research, he would say, research on the rule of law in Ontario. He couldn’t afford to stay in Ottawa much longer, and it bothered him that Richard Langley was in no rush to arrange an interview. Finally, after a week in the capital, on the morning of his next to last day, he received a message inviting him to present himself at the minister’s office at two o’clock. It was almost a year to the day since Cook had been convicted; two years since Rosannah had died.
Richard Langley escorted him into a room with large windows and a high ceiling decorated with plaster cherubs. Rich wood paneling covered the walls and a marble mantle set off a large fireplace. A thick rug lay on the floor.
“Sir, may I present Leonard Babington,” Richard Langley said. “The journalist with many readers in Ontario.”
John Thompson grunted and motioned Leonard to a seat.
“You want to talk about Riel, I’m told,” he said. “That’s all the newspapermen care about. His Excellency might decide otherwise, but to me he’s a paltry hero. He’s struggled long and hard for the privilege of hanging. Once he’s in his grave, all this fuss will go quiet.” Thompson had apparently forgotten their meeting in the storage room. There’d be no need for the fancy excuses Leonard had invented. It was safe now to move on to another subject.
Leonard raised the case of Cook Teets. He described how a man had been convicted on a paucity of evidence. Petitions in support of the jury’s plea for clemency had been ignored. There was a strong suggestion an injustice had been done, and that the guilty party was still at large.
“It seems to me the justice system doesn’t always work that well,” Leonard said. “Teets was given no opportunity to tell his side of the story. The appeal procedure was so complicated that it left Teets’s lawyer with no way to continue the case.”
Leonard saw a look of pain cross over John Thompson’s face. He didn’t know whether it was in response to what he’d said, or to some other cause. In a moment, the face cleared.
“Some modification of procedures is warranted,” John Thompson conceded. “Canada is in need of a codified criminal law. I intend to bring that in. We are going to amplify the right of appeal. As for an accused testifying on his own behalf, I thank you for raisng an interesting point. I’ll ask the legal people to see if they can do something on that. Of course, we’ll have to permit the Crown to cross-examine.”
Leonard was surprised by how readily the Minister conceded the point. He wondered if he’d be as quick to agree to a review of Cook Teets’s trial.
“But I’ve no time now to look into a case where a man’s already dead.” The finality of what Leonard was hearing came as a shock.
“Perhaps after this Riel business …” the Minister added, pausing.
John Thompson never finished the sentence. Instead, he stood and squeezed his stomach, pressing his hands into his gut as blood drained from his face. He let out a feeble groan and fell forward onto his desk.
The next day, Leonard was told the Minister had suffered a severe attack of kidney stones. He wondered if he’d ever be allowed to complete his interview. He waited another week, but when Richard Langley still had no idea when John Thompson would be back, Leonard told him he could stay no longer in Ottawa.
“Quite understand, you’ve been more than patient,” the chief clerk said. “But look here, there’s something else. We’ve talked about the responsibility of British subjects to give their all to their country. Let’s talk about Canada. Sir John and his party are committed to keeping Canada British. None of this creeping Yankeeism that the Liberals promote. Where do you stand on that subject?”
Leonard wasn’t sure what to make of the question. Of course, he stood by the Union Jack, why it was only natural to see it hanging in the courtroom back in Owen Sound. “To the extent I’ve thought about it,”
he said, “of course we want to stay British.”
“Good, good, that’s what I wanted to hear. Now, I’ve been given certain political responsibilities. I’m to advise the government on suitable new candidates. Sir John feels it’s time for fresh blood. You must be well known in Grey County. There’ll be openings there in the next election. How would you feel about being a Member of Parliament?”
Leonard sucked in his breath. He’d never thought of such a thing. He liked what he’d seen of Ottawa. But become a politician? How would he go about getting elected? Wouldn’t people think it too grand an idea for a simple editor? Mind you, Dr. Sproule was just a country doctor, but of course everybody in the County knew and respected him.
“I’ve always had an interest in politics,” Leonard claimed. “My father campaigned for Dr. Sproule. So maybe it runs in the blood.”
“Think it over,” Richard Langley urged. “If you’re interested, I can put you in touch with some party people out there. Try the idea out on them. See how they react. Write me when you get back to Vandeleur.”
“Of course,” Leonard answered. “But it seems you’ve rather quickly formed a good opinion of me. I’m not sure you know me well enough to recommend me for Parliament.”
“Let me worry about that. If it turns out you’ve character flaws I’ve not detected, our people up in the County will put me wise soon enough.”
A larger than usual number of passengers crowded the concourse of the Grand Trunk Railway station on the morning of November 17, 1885. Leonard bought a ticket for Toronto, making sure it would allow him a stopover in Cobourg where he hoped to meet with Justice Armour. He noticed the Toronto Mail was being hawked in the station and that people were lined up to buy it.
He paid two cents and unfurled the front page:
EXECUTION OF RIEL
The Rebel Chief Meets His Doom Stoically
As the train snaked through the shantytown outskirts of Ottawa on in its run south to Kingston where it would turn west and head along Lake Ontario toward Cobourg and Toronto, Leonard read the long report on Riel. The main story was from Regina, in the North West Territory. It covered almost all the front page and continued on to inside pages. “Riel met his fate bravely, and displayed more fortitude than had been thought possible.” He had died as stubbornly as Cook Teets, Leonard thought. Both had been powerless. Is that why they were unable to save themselves? What would old Wahbudick, the Indian chief Leonard had known in the forest of the Beaver Valley so many years ago, have made of it?
Leonard sighed and thought about his last conversation with Richard Langley. Was the man really serious about involving him in politics? The idea excited Leonard. He could imagine joining the Thursday tea sessions in the cabinet rooms as a Member of Parliament. He decided he had better put aside such thoughts, at least for now. He opened his satchel and withdrew a sheath filled with paper. The pages were covered with his scrawls, some in ink and some in pencil. He’d have time before the train reached Cobourg to read everything he’d written about Rosannah Leppard.
Chapter 25
A QUESTION OF JUSTICE
November 17, 1885
Leonard Babington ate a mutton sandwich and took water from his flask as the train steamed over the Great Cataraqui River on its approach to Kingston. He’d heard it was a sleepy town little known for industry or any purpose other than its Queen’s College, a place undistinguished for Presbyterian learning, and Fort Henry, from which no shot had ever been fired in anger. Twenty minutes later, the train eased to a stop at the Grand Trunk Railway station, a two-storey building of almost-white limestone blocks. Leonard poked through a shop while the train took on water. Back in his coach, he dropped his manuscript onto the seat beside him. His eye caught mention of Rosannah’s sister Elizabeth. He remembered how he had struggled with that passage from Roseannah’s Story:
You will want to know about Rosannah’s brothers and sisters and I will begin with her favourite, Elizabeth. She was just a year older than Rosannah, so close they were almost twins. Rosannah named one of her children after her. Elizabeth attended school for only a few years but all who knew her insisted she was well versed in reading and arithmetic. She possessed an independent mind and when she was only sixteen she traveled up to Collingwood to help Mrs. Wycliffe, who sorely needed assistance with her five young children. It was there that Elizabeth would become acquainted with William Wonch, the son of a farmer. They fell in love and were married in the Collingwood Methodist Church by the Rev. Edwin Clement. She declared herself a Presbyterian for the occasion. Elizabeth was nineteen and Will twenty-four.
Many young people in these modern times possess an indomitable urge to be away from their parents. So it was with Will as well as Elizabeth. He had relatives in the Barrie area and through a cousin he secured work at farms around Vespra, one of the outlying villages. It was not difficult for Will to gain a reputation as an industrious young man. The small house and acreage he rented on the Mill Road was one of the best kept habitations in the district. Elizabeth became known as a kind-hearted Irish woman and a good mother to her children, which eventually numbered four.
One day in July of this year, Elizabeth had words with Will when he arrived home. She’d smelled smoke during the day and had discovered a smouldering coat he’d left hanging on a hook. She’d found sparks in the lining. She doused them with a pail of water.
“You’ve got to stop dropping your pipe in your pocket when it’s still lit,” I could imagine her saying. “You’ll burn us all up.” One could picture Will lifting the coat off the peg where Elizabeth had hung it. It wouldn’t have looked to him as if it had been on fire. After taking tea, Will went about his evening chores, feeding the pigs and attending to other small jobs. He’d have checked the coat again when he’d come back in. “Looks fine to me,” he might have said.
As Will later told the story, around ten o’clock, after Elizabeth had finally gotten the four children settled down, the two went to bed. He awoke to find their bedroom and the bed they were lying on a mass of flames, burning like fury. He would tell neighbours he had tried to get Elizabeth up but she was unconscious. He found flames bursting out of the bed. When he went to pull off the mattress, it fell apart and all the straw caught fire. There was nothing he could do but jump through the window. His hands and face were badly burned. The children were beyond rescue.
The next morning, neighbours found the remains of Elizabeth and the children in the cellar. Lillian was seven; little William, four; Peter, two; and the baby, just a few months old. They’d fallen there when the floor had collapsed. Farmers who lived nearby had seen the blaze but they’d thought it was logs or stumps burning. They’d paid no attention.
I heard of the deaths when the telegrapher at the railway station copied down a news report meant for a Toronto paper. He brought it to me a few nights later. Rosannah never knew of her sister’s death, of course; she’d been dead herself for going on a year and a half or more. What had happened to Rosannah must have been heart breaking to Elizabeth. Will would have felt guilty about his family’s fate, but I never got to ask him about that. I had to wonder how Molly would take the news. One daughter poisoned, another burned up. Four little children lost. She‘ll think the wrath of God is on her family, I figured. I don’t think Molly ever got over losing a second daughter that way.
The late afternoon luminescence of a fall day was settling over Cobourg when Leonard got off the train. If he hurried, there might still be time to catch Justice Armour in his chambers at Victoria Hall. By the time he reached the Kingston Road, gas lamps had been lit and his shadow kept pace with him on the walk to the Hall, home of both the courthouse and the town council. Inside, he found large double doors that opened onto a courtroom configured as a deep well, like a theatre pit. Pale light filtered through windows at either side. The well contained a prisoner’s box, a clerk’s table and two witness boxes. An elevated judge’s bench filled the end of the room.
“Just like Old Bailey,” he h
eard a voice beside him. “Only one of its kind in Canada. The Prince of Wales sat down there, the day he opened it, back in ‘sixty.”
“Not as a prisoner, I hope,” Leonard answered. He caught himself, realizing it was injudicious to make the Prince the subject of bantering remarks. “I’m here to see Judge Armour. I wonder if he’s still about?”
When Leonard reached the judge’s chambers on the second floor, Judge Armour’s clerk was putting on his coat. He had thin, dry lips that could have been painted on in chalk. Barely opening his mouth, he asked Leonard’s name and business, motioned him to a chair, and disappeared into another room. He was back in a moment, pointing inside. “You can go in,” he said, and left.
“Ah Babington, come in, I’m always glad to meet a newspaperman, though it’s late.” He peered more closely at Leonard, picking up the contours of his face revealed by the oil lamp on his desk.
“Oh,” he said as he realized who it was. “I remember you from the Cook Teets trial. A poor sod, that man.”
Justice Armour spoke affably of his time in Owen Sound. “A sad event, but a good place. Been in a lot worse. They expect a lot of a judge for six thousand dollars a year.”
Leonard figured he’d go just about anywhere for that amount of money. He said it was a lot more than he’d ever make as a newspaperman.
“But the responsibility,” Justice Armour replied. “You’ve not held people’s lives in your hands. At least I have my independence. Not like the politicians, always having to curry favour through corruption. Bribery, that’s all it is. I sometimes think bribery’s the cornerstone of party government in this country.”
Leonard wondered if the bribery of politicians had interfered in the rendering of justice. What Justice Armour was saying seemed remote from what went on in a courtroom. Did he mean government was founded on bribery? Surely not.
“I’d like to ask you about the Cook Teets trial,” Leonard said. “I’ve never understood why the jury convicted him. So little evidence. And why his sentence was never commuted. Some think there was reasonable doubt as to his guilt.”