Act of Injustice

by Argyle, Ray

  The editorial rooms were on the second floor. Owen led Leonard up a back stairway into cloistered quarters where, from a corner office filled with a roll-top desk and four leather chairs jammed against a small table, John Ross Robertson directed the affairs of the paper. Owen knocked on the glass door and awaited a sign of recognition. When John Ross Robertson looked up Leonard saw a man with an intense gaze, clad in a dark coat set off by a Prince Albert collar and a striped tie. He had a short, neat beard. A gold watch was suspended between the pockets of his waistcoat. He nodded brusquely and Owen opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, sir, I’ve brought you this morning’s sketches. I thought they might suit the financial page, seeing as we print so much shipping news.”

  “You’re always going off on your own, young man. I want more church pictures.” He stopped to peer at what Owen had drawn. “I like these. Take them over to Mr. Lund in the engraving department. Tell him to run them Saturday. Huh, and who’s this you’ve got with you?”

  Owen introduced Leonard as the publisher of the Vandeleur Chronicle. He said they’d met while he was sketching at St. Andrew’s Church. Robertson stood and extended a hand.

  “Always glad to meet a fellow publisher,” he said, laughing at his little joke, as if it was amusing to put Leonard’s paper, which Robertson had never heard of, on the same level as the Evening Telegram.

  “Babington, you say? Ever worked in Toronto?”

  Leonard admitted he had. “Five years ago, but I left the Globe after Mr. Brown died.”

  “Now I remember,” Robertson said. “You’re the fellow they fired.” He looked closely at Babington, clearly intrigued that this man had surfaced so long after the scandal, showing up at the Telegram.

  “I had nothing to do with Mr. Brown’s death, but leaving Toronto seemed the best thing at the time. I went home to Grey County and when the Chronicle came up for sale I bought it.”

  “That shows you’ve spine, taking on a small paper. I like that. I never put stock in those rumours about your being connected with that drunkard Bennett. Typical of their high and mighty airs at the Globe. Crucify a man for no good reason. Now tell me about this Chronicle of yours.”

  Leonard said he’d expected that putting out a country weekly would be a humdrum affair. But something had happened in Vandeleur that had changed everything. It wasn’t just the terrible murder that had taken place, but that an innocent man, Leonard was convinced, had been hanged. He was doing everything he could to find whoever was guilty.

  “I’m convinced the jury railroaded Cook Teets,” Leonard said. “His wife, Rosannah, was given poison. Strychnine. But Teets was nowhere around. Couldn’t have done it. I knew both of them. I’ve been working on the case, trying to figure out exactly how Rosannah died. And who poisoned her.”

  “Admirable, I’m sure,” Robertson answered. “Unfortunately, it does Teets no good now to have you worrying your head about him. My advice is to leave that behind you. You’ve got perseverance, that’s obvious. That counts for a lot in this business. Perhaps I can find something for you at the Evening Telegram.”

  For the second time today Leonard had been told to put aside the cause that had become the focus of his life. It was not an idea he was ready to grasp.

  “That’s kind of you, sir, but I have things to do in Vandeleur.”

  “If you change your mind come and see me,” John Ross Robertson said.

  Leonard spent Saturday and Sunday at Mrs. Coles’s boarding house. On Monday morning, as he was preparing to pack his satchel and take a train north, there was a knock on the door.

  “Mr. Robertson would like you to come along to the Telegram,” a messenger boy told Leonard. “He needs you in the next half hour.”

  Close to an hour had passed by the time Leonard stood in John Ross Robertson’s office. The publisher, clearly agitated, wondered what had taken him so long. “I came directly that I got your message,” Leonard said.

  “Good, good,” Robertson answered, apparently mollified. “There’s been a terrible murder. Awful crime, woman beaten to death. Seems like your kind of story. If you hurry you can get there before they remove the body. Find out who’s done it and work up the whole thing in a major piece – maybe a series of articles.”

  Leonard stiffened as he listened to the publisher’s terse accounting of the crime. He had no wish to write about the gory death of a helpless woman, a task certain to plague him with memories of Rosannah’s fate.

  “Your reporters must be on it, Mr. Robertson. I was going home today. Why do you need me?”

  “I’ve been reading your stuff, Mr. Babington. Had your paper sent over from the Provincial Library. Anybody can put together bare facts. But you write with insight and understanding. You could give the Telegram something different.”

  Leonard had heard of Robertson’s persuasive powers. How, after the failure of his first publishing venture, he had raised a hundred thousand dollars to start the Evening Telegram. Leonard held back his answer. He needed time to choose his words.

  Impatient, Robertson babbled on.

  “There’s a lot of people in this city who grovel for a living in the gutter. Like fleas on a carcass. We see the consequences in crimes of this type. You can help the public understand the awful inevitability of it all. It’s your duty, a man of your talents.”

  If flattery didn’t work, a call to duty would, Leonard thought. He could see it now. He had no choice.

  “All right, but just this one story. Then I have to get back to Vandeleur.”

  “Good man. Mr. Holmes will put you on the payroll. Now get over to Dafoe Street, Number 150. Take this police pass.”

  Leonard found a uniformed policeman on duty in front of the house, one of a row filled with tenement flats on the street behind Thompson’s Silver-plate factory. Word of the crime had spread through the neighbourhood and the curious were parading in the road, careful to dodge puddles left by last night’s rainstorm while stepping over fresh dog dirt and manure.

  Leonard showed his press pass.

  “Second floor, Sir,” the policeman told Leonard. “We’ve had quite a few pressmen already. Chief Grassett’s come and gone. Inspector Archibald’s taken charge.”

  Voices guided Leonard to a flat at the end of a dark, grim hallway. The door was open. He tapped on the doorframe, stepped inside, and stopped suddenly.

  A kitchen opened off the entrance to the flat. Leonard saw a body on the floor, angled between the stove and a table. The long hair and clothes confirmed it was that of a woman. Her head rested on a bread pan where blood had trickled and had now congealed. She was of substantial size, and she had been badly beaten. An eye had been gouged out and her cheeks had been crushed. Splatters of blood covered one wall and Leonard could see a trail of blood along a hallway. Ashes were scattered over most of the kitchen floor. It looked as if someone had tried to clean up the mess.

  “Careful where you step,” a voice told Leonard. He retreated to the doorway and waited. In a moment, a large man wearing a heavy overcoat and a grey derby came out of the bedroom. A uniformed policeman followed him.

  “More press, I suppose,” Inspector Archibald said when Leonard proffered his pass. “You’ll want to know what’s happened.

  “The crime took place Saturday night,” the Inspector began. He sounded tired from repeating the story. “The neighbours heard noises but they figured it was just another drunken brawl. Goes on all the time in these places. We weren’t notified until Sunday evening. The man in the next flat, Robert Stirling, came by the police station. He said the occupant of this flat had invited him in. Drunk, the man was. Stirling saw what had happened, fled, and came straight to us.

  “This here’s Constable Rutherford, he caught the killer. Found him wandering on Chestnut Street just before daybreak. Drunk as a sot. Covered in blood. Brought him in for questioning. He’s in the Don Jail now. Name of Thomas Kane, a plasterer. He was plastered, all right.”

  “And the woman?” Leon
ard asked.

  “Mary Kane. Not his wife, but lived as man and wife. She was the widow of Kane’s brother.”

  Inspector Archibald pointed to the ashes strewn on the floor. A mop, wrapped in a piece of old carpet, lay on the floor in a corner.

  “We think the quarrel started in the bedroom. Kane, drunk, probably tried to force himself on the poor woman. She must have tried to get away. Blood all down the hallway. Kane caught up to her in the kitchen, beat her something awful.”

  The walls, floors and furniture were stained with Mary Kane’s blood. Her assailant must have tried to clean up the mess with the bit of carpet and the mop. The work of a drunk or a madman, likely both, Leonard thought.

  “What do you think of this?” Inspector Archibald asked. He held out a plasterer’s trowel, covered in blood.

  “This is what did her in. This and the hammer over here,” the Inspector said, pointing to a claw hammer that rested, covered in blood, on a kitchen counter.

  Leonard had seen enough. He thought of how Rosannah had died. He was glad she had not had to defend herself against a brutal physical assault. What could have brought this couple to such a violent end? He decided to tour the neighbourhood. He intended to give Mr. Robertson’s readers what he wanted them to have – some insight into the struggle for existence that went on in Toronto’s slums, and some understanding of how that struggle could result in terrible consequences.

  Two days later, after the Telegram’s reporters had hashed out the facts of the killing in half a dozen stories, Leonard’s special report appeared atop page five. It was the first page that was clear of classified ads:

  HER LAST HOURS

  Life of Despair for Penniless Widow Prison Cell a Refuge for Mary Kane

  Struck down in the night in her bedroom. Attacked by the man with whom she lived. Died in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Such was the sad demise of Mary Kane, her fate not dissimilar from that of others of Toronto’s poor, who die at the hands of drunken assailants, all too often either their husbands or another man known to them.

  Leonard’s story revealed that Mary Kane had suffered from a mental impairment of some kind. Her husband’s death had left her penniless and incapable of supporting herself. Leonard wrote of how even the able bodied were suffering in the hard times that gripped the city in the 1880s. Beggars besieged the homes of the well off, and on some nights hundreds of people sought refuge in the police stations. Leonard had learned that Mary had spent several nights in a jail cell last winter. Feeling sorry for her, Thomas Kane reluctantly assumed responsibility for Mary’s support. His drunken sprees grew increasingly frequent. He lost his job after repeatedly missing work. His frustration and anger vented itself in the explosive outburst that ended in Mary’s killing. There was no excuse for Kane’s actions. But it was time, Leonard’s article concluded, for the City of Toronto to come to the assistance of citizens in distress before they suffered the awful fate of Mary Kane. Warehousing the homeless and indigent in the city’s police cells must come to an end.

  A parade of distinguished citizens, singly and in pairs, made their way to John Ross Robertson’s office the next day. All were indignant that the Evening Telegram had stirred up sympathy for the shiftless, irresponsible, and drink-ridden denizens of the city’s most deplorable neighbourhoods. The guilt or innocence of Thomas Kane and the fate of Mary were lost in the outrage at the paper’s coddling of the craven, immoral poor. With the six o’clock edition ready to go to press, John Ross Robertson called Babington to his office.

  “You’ve stirred things up!” Robertson told him. “Well, it’s about time. I’ve wanted to do that ever since I started this paper, nine years ago. Now they’ll know what the Evening Telegram stands for. Mr. Babington, you’ve rendered a great service, not just to this newspaper, but to everyone in this city.”

  The praise made Leonard apprehensive. He knew some of the reporters were jealous of the free rein he’d been given. There’d been remarks passed in the newsroom. One leathery veteran of the court reporting ranks, Angus McIntosh, had spat on the floor in front of him when he’d come in that morning. Besides, Leonard planned to be back in Vandeleur before Christmas. What else did Robertson want from him?

  “You’ll stay to the end of the case,” Robertson said. “See the thing through, acquittal or hanging, whichever it is.”

  The idea of seeing the case to the finish had a certain appeal. Leonard had missed several issues of the Chronicle and he might as well wait for the New Year. “All right.” He acquiesced without argument.

  Leonard’s tiny room on Ann Street held space for only a cot and a night table, but he was comfortable. That night, he undressed and reached into his satchel for his papers. He took a blank sheet and wrote a letter to Richard Langley. He told him how honoured he had been by the chief clerk’s suggestion that he might consider standing for Parliament.

  “I am spending a few weeks in Toronto at the request of Mr. Robertson of the Evening Telegram,” he wrote, “but will be returning to Vandeleur in the New Year. The prospect of a political involvement I find most appealing. I believe I could make a contribution in that regard. If you have any instructions as to what I should do in preparation for having my name go before the leaders of the party, please write to me at my temporary Toronto address.” Leonard looked at the letter, and added a PS: “My interest in standing for a Grey County seat would be to support the government in bringing about much needed changes in the justice and legal system of Canada.” And solve the murder of Rosannah Leppard, he thought.

  A few days before Christmas, Leonard found himself in the courtroom where Thomas Kane was on trial before Judge Street. The trial began with Kane’s lawyer, an ambitious young solicitor bearing the name of James A. Macdonald – no relation to the Prime Minister, he told anyone who asked – making peremptory challenges to every man called to jury duty. “We must know you are unbiased and not affected in any sense by anything you may have heard or have read in the press about this case,” he told each prospect. It was only after Sheriff Mowat had picked a dozen more men from the courtroom that a jury was finally impanelled.

  The witnesses were clear and convincing about what they’d seen. Robert Stirling testified to Thomas Kane having called him to his flat where he found Mary Kane dead. Constable Rutherford described his arrest of Kane on Chesnut street, drunken and bloody. Inspector Archibald testified to finding the murder weapons, the trowel and the hammer, in the kitchen. The jury took twenty minutes to find Kane guilty, adding a recommendation for mercy. He was sentenced to hang on February 12, 1886.

  That night, Leonard was again the centre of attention as Mrs. Coles’s boarders sat down for supper. He took turns with Owen Staples, who had spent the day sketching scenes in the courtroom, in telling stories of the trial. Owen’s drawings were being engraved as they ate, ready for tomorrow’s paper. Leonard was asked to compare the Kane trial with the trial of Cook Teets in the death of Rosannah Leppard. “There’s no comparison,” he said. “Nobody saw Kane do Mary in, but the condition of his rooms and the man’s state of mind at the time of his arrest left the jury no choice but to convict.”

  The day of Kane’s hanging dawned cloudless and cold. Between the trial and the hanging, Leonard had a free rein to roam the city as he wished, picking up story ideas as he spoke with merchants, workers, police constables, and men of the cloth. He arrived at the Don Jail early, just as he had been among the first at the Owen Sound jail the morning Cook Teets was hanged. Leonard was surprised to see two priests going into the jail. Up to now, Leonard knew, Kane had been attended by Protestant ministers.

  “He changed his mind and asked for Catholic clergy,” a guard told Leonard. “Said he was really a Catholic. He’d only pretended to be a Protestant. Thought that way he was more likely to be shown mercy. Didn’t help much, did it?”

  There were rumours among the reporters that some new type of hanging device was to be used. The governor of the Don Jail, Mr. Green, had refused comment. Leo
nard had been asking questions of lawyers he’d met, but it was James A. Macdonald who finally confirmed the speculation. “I know who’s going to do it, and how,” he told Leonard. “John Radclive will do the job. He was an apprentice to England’s hangman. Thinks Canada’s the place to try out his new ideas.” But no matter how hard Leonard pressed, Macdonald would reveal nothing of the manner in which Thomas Kane would meet his fate behind the high wall of the Don Jail.

  When Leonard and the other witnesses, mostly newspapermen and medical students were admitted to the yard, they saw an astonishing sight. Instead of the usual gallows, a weird collection of timbers had been assembled. Two upright beams, set seven or eight feet apart, rose some fourteen feet above the ground. On them sat a crossbar from which hung the rope, its noose dangling about five feet off the ground. It swayed in the breeze. A heavy weight, attached by a slender cord, hung a few inches below the crossbar.

  Leonard looked at his watch. At precisely twelve minutes past eight a side door opened and Sheriff Mowat emerged, followed by Governor Green. Behind them came two priests, a pair of policemen, the jail surgeon, and the coroner. Between the policemen, Thomas Kane walked in a steady pace. He wore a brown suit and a black wool cap and his arms were fastened to his sides. Lagging behind the death march came the hangman. A black mask covered his face. He had on a soft felt hat and a brown rubber coat.

  Kane was led to the swaying rope. The hangman fixed the noose around his neck. In a quick movement, using a hammer and chisel, he cut the cord holding back the weight that hung from the crossbar. As it descended, Kane’s body shot into the air, doing a pirouette before it settled back to dangle a few feet above the ground. Leonard felt his heart thud. He thought Kane had died instantly but then he saw the doomed man lift his right hand, as if in a final parting wave. A doctor stepped forward to check Kane’s pulse. He pronounced him dead.