Act of Injustice

by Argyle, Ray

  “We know you had nothing to do with what happened to McIntosh,” the proprietor told Leonard. “He’d been acting crazy for months. But I was worried how you’d react. Thought it best to just let things play out, see how you handled the situation.”

  “You’ve been testing me,” Leonard challenged John Ross Robertson.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “But why?”

  “To satisfy myself you’re fit for a higher position.”

  “What higher position?”

  “In the service of the people – as a Member of Parliament.”

  “I had that idea once, but I’ve given up on it,’ Leonard said.

  “I know all about that. Richard Langley is an old friend of mine. Speaks very highly of you. Too bad they couldn’t use you in ‘87, but their loss has been the Telegram’s gain. Now, we’ve got to get ready for an election in 1891. It could be difficult, the Liberals have that young Frenchie, Wilfrid Laurier. He’ll have Quebec behind him. I’m tempted to run myself, but I’ve got my hands full here at the paper.”

  Leonard felt a flicker of excitement. He’d never gotten over having his hopes raised, and then dashed, that time he went to Ottawa. If he could get into the governent, he might be able to force a re-examination of Rosannah’s murder and Cook’s trial. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “Richard Langley is scouting out Liberal seats he thinks we could pick off. Grey South, that’s near where you’re from, has a Liberal member. Some doctor by the name of George Landerkin. From some little town, Hanover. Langley will be in Toronto tomorrow. He’d like you to go with him up to Grey County to get a feel for things on the ground. That’s if you’re interested. I told him it would be all right with me.”

  A return to politics was the last thing Leonard had expected. Richard Langley hadn’t forgotten him, after all. And the publisher was willing to free him from his work. Of course, he’d have to move back to Vandeleur Hall. He could see himself traipsing around the County, appealing for votes. With Langley’s backing, he’d no doubt have the support of influential Conservatives like Dr. Sproule and James Masson. And out of it all, he’d work for a better justice system that would put an end to the hanging of victims such as Cook Teets. Leonard was no lawyer, but for that very reason he could speak for the common man, let the powers in Ottawa know what the people wanted.

  Leonard told the publisher he would be very glad to accompany Langley to Grey County. If the party felt he would be a suitable candidate, and with Mr. Robertson’s backing, he would take it on.

  The arrival of Richard Langley at the Telegram was celebrated in Mr. Robertson’s office with sandwiches and tea. Leonard and the chief clerk were soon in deep discussion of the details of their coming foray. It seemed as if the past five years had vanished – everything that was happening fit into the picture Leonard had built in his mind when it had first been suggested that he get into politics. That night, Mr. Robertson hosted a dinner party attended by some of the leading men in the party. Only a few had brought their wives. There was much optimistic talk about the next election, in which it was assumed Leonard would play an important part.

  “I hope you didn’t think I was putting you off when I wrote that letter,” Langley told Leonard. “I promised we’d look for another opportunity. We’ve just had to wait for the right moment.”

  Two days later, after the chief clerk’s meetings with key party men in the three Toronto ridings, the two took the train north. They got off at Flesherton Station and went straight to Munshaw’s Hotel where they rented rooms. Leonard had decided not to go to Vandeleur Hall, or to say anything more to Langley about Rosannah’s murder. There’d be time for that later. Tomorrow, they would visit the Vandeleur Fall Fair. It would be a good chance for Leonard to meet people he hadn’t seen in years. He would let it be known he might stand for election in 1891.

  At the hotel, Aaron Munshaw gave Leonard a loud welcome and set the two up in the best corner rooms in the house. “It’s not every day that one of our finest comes home,” he said on hearing that Leonard might be taking up residence again at Vandeleur Hall. He insisted on providing scotch and ale on the house at supper, and passed in and out of the dining room every few minutes to check on the progress of their meal. The next morning, groggy and not a little hung over, Leonard and Langley got up in time to make their way to the Orange Hall where a crowd had gathered to watch the parade that would launch the Fall Fair. Assorted farmers drove their prize cattle down the Beaver Valley Road. Then came the marchers, a ragtag bunch of Orangemen supported by a few veterans of General Middleton’s Royal Canadian Dragoons, the men who had put down the Riel Rebellion. The march past brought lusty cheers at the reviewing stand where a special guest took the salute. He was Colonel Patrick Galloway, Adjutant-General of the Canadian Miltia. He had been lured to Vandeleur by promise of a wild turkey hunt.

  “Damn, it’s dusty here,” Leonard heard Colonel Galloway complain. The marchers had stirred up clouds of dust and Colonel Galloway beat at his pants with his riding crop in a vain attempt to keep his uniform clean.

  Tents and booths had been erected in a field across the road from the Orange Hall. Farmwives offered their best craft work and baked goods while children pranced around the pony rides. Leonard and Langley wandered among the exhibits. Leonard waved to old acquaintances and stopped to chat with past neighbours. Scarth Tackaberry was there with his wife and children. When he saw Leonard, he backed off and pushed the children toward the pony rides. He wouldn’t want to chance Rosannah’s name being raised in front of his wife, Leonard thought. Amanda Brodie motioned Leonard aside, eager to engage him in a private conversation. He was relieved when they were distracted by a sudden commotion in front of a nearby tent.

  “Gad, what a beastly little animal.” It was Richard Langley, holding his arm against his chest, blood on his sleeve. He had wandered off while Leonard had been talking to Amanda. “He’s bitten me, anybody got a tourniquet?” Young Tom Couey was pulling on the leash that restrained his pet fox, Red, from a second attack. “Get Dr. Sproule,” Leonard shouted. “And in the meantime get that fox out of here. He could be rabid, drooling the way he is.” A cry went up for the doctor, who was judging cattle in a field a hundred yards away. Fifteen minutes passed before Dr. Sproule arrived, collected his medical bag from the booth behind him, and bandaged Langley‘s arm.

  “A most unfortunate incident,” Dr. Sproule told Leonard. “I didn’t expect this kind of welcome for our guest. Glad to hear you’re considering jumping in, by the way. With Langley behind you, the party men in Grey County shouldn’t be hard to convince.” Encouraged as he was by these words, Leonard worried about the fox bite. There was to be a dinner that night in the community hall. Richard Langley was to introduce him as an up and coming journalist who was giving up his trade and returning home to serve the party. Leonard had prepared some remarks.

  “We’ll get you back to the hotel and let you rest up for tonight,” Leonard said. “A few hours in bed and you’ll be shipshape again.”

  When Leonard went to rouse Langley at five o’clock, he found a man who was confused about where he was and what he was doing. He drank two glasses of water and fell back on his pillow. It was obvious he was in no condition to attend the dinner. Leonard went downstairs, asked Aaron Munshaw to look in on his guest throughout the evening, and got into a buggy for the drive to Vandeleur.

  Leonard’s arrival alone at the dinner caused consternation among the party men who had come expecting to meet an important official from Ottawa, in Vandeleur on behalf of Sir John A. Macdonald. They had been told it was time to hatch plans for the next election.

  “Oh, it’s just you, Leonard, where’s that Langley fellow?” asked Emmett Cartwright. He had managed Dr. Sproule’s campaigns in Grey East and had looked forward to expanding his fiefdom to the adjoining riding of Grey South. Other men chatted among themselves while sipping whisky or beer. When dinner was announced, Dr. Sproule took the seat at t
he end of the table. He said grace, proposed a toast to Queen Victoria, and expressed regrets at the absence of Richard Langley. Leonard was growing more nervous by the moment. Without Langley present to endorse him, he wondered how he would convince these men he could carry the party flag against a well-regarded Liberal incumbent.

  Small talk dwindled after a serving of coffee and apple pie and Dr. Sproule tapped a knife against his cup to gain the attention of the dozen men in the room.

  “Gentlemen, we expected to meet a distinguished official of Sir John A’s government here tonight. I am truly sorry that a most unfortunate accident has deterred our guest, Mr. Richard Langley. As you know, he was the subject of an unprovoked attack by a fox at the Fair this afternoon. He is resting quietly tonight, at Munshaw’s Hotel.”

  “As if that’s possible in that den of iniquity,” somebody called out. The men all laughed. Dr. Sproule continued, tapping his cup again for order. “I understand it had been Mr. Langley’s intention to speak on behalf of Leonard Babington, who has evinced an interest in standing on behalf of our party in Grey South.” He went on to recall Leonard’s presence at the Cook Teets trial, and his spirited campaign in the Vandeleur Chronicle (“a now defunct journal”) in support of clemency for the condemned man. “I show no favour for whoever the party might wish as our standard-bearer in our neighbour riding, but I am glad to ask Leonard to say a few words in his own behalf.”

  For a moment, Leonard felt an intruder in his own hometown. He looked at the men around the table. Two of them, he recalled, had been advertisers in the Chronicle. Others he had vague memory of from his teaching days. He knew he was in unchartered waters, and he thought of his time on the lake boats when he knew he could rely on the captain to make port safely. This was different. None of the men here tonight looked especially friendly, and they were not going to hear the glowing recommendation he had counted on from Richard Langley. Still, he was determined to deliver his message of needful reform.

  When he got to his feet, Leonard found he had forgotten the words he had carefully rehearsed. He had to say something, so he began with a tribute to Richard Langley. “I too am sorry Mr. Langley cannot be with us, because it is he who has encouraged me to offer myself in the cause of our party. I met Mr. Langley when I went to Ottawa to make further investigations into the death of Rosannah Leppard.” Hardly had he got those words out, than Leonard realized he had made a mistake. The men here did not want to hear about Rosannah or Cook Teets. They did not wish to entertain thoughts on how the justice system could be improved. They were interested, as Langley had hinted to him more than once, in better prices for their crops, how they might secure a government contract, or have the Owen Sound harbour deepened so bigger ships could bring in more cargo, at lower cost.

  Having raised the Teets trial, Leonard felt compelled to state his thoughts on the changes in criminal law that he would support as a Member of Parliament. A man must be allowed to testify on his own behalf – something that had been denied Cook Teets. Judges need to remind juors they should acquit if the Crown has not proven the guilt of an accused beyond a reasonable doubt. As he spoke he remembered other things he had planned to talk about – the appeal to British loyalty against Liberal annexationism, the benefits of Sir John’s National Policy, and the need to bring more settlers into Grey County. Murmurs of approval went around the table as he touched on these topics. He spoke of the dilemma of the village of Hanover – the hometown of the Liberal MP – split, as it was, half in Grey County and half in Bruce County. “Roads on one side are gravel, the other dirt. Our Liberal friend seems content to remain mired in the muck.” Laughter. A bit of humour would help win these fellows over, Langley had told Leonard. He spoke hurriedly, wanting the ordeal to be done. He paid his respects to Dr. Sproule, and assured the men he would keep their best interests at heart in all matters concerning the party and the government. Richard Langley would be up and about in a few days, he was sure, and he looked forward to meeting privately with every man present. There was a flurry of applause when he sat down.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to carry it off,” Leonard said later to Dr. Sproule. “You were fine, considering it was your first speech,” the doctor told him. He left unsaid whether he thought Leonard had won the approval of the men at the dinner.

  The next day, Richard Langley and Leonard took the train back to Toronto. Leonard understood that the chief clerk didn’t feel up to going about the countryside while recovering from a fox bite. Leonard wanted to stay on, thinking he would look up Scarth Tackaberry and others who might, at long last, reveal more of what they knew about Rosannah’s death. Dr. Sproule discouraged Leonard’s remaining in Grey County. He told him that without Langley at his side, it would be difficult to gain the support of the party’s influential men. “You’re better off waiting until you can get back up here together.”

  Chapter 30

  THE CITY EDITOR

  September 24, 1890

  When Leonard and Richard Langley arrived at Toronto’s Union Station, they found it crowded with passengers bidding farewell to their friends while others rushed to retrieve their baggage. Leonard hurried to put Langley aboard the overnight train to Ottawa. They agreed to make another effort to get his candidacy off the ground – the election was still at least a year away. Leonard felt spent, exhausted by the trip and upset at what had happened to Langley. The next morning, John Ross Robertson lifted Leonard’s spirits when he welcomed him back to the Telegram. “Don’t give up hope yet,” he said. “Langley’s an influential man and with him behind you, you have a good chance.”

  A few days after Langley’s return to Ottawa, Dr. Sproule made an unannounced visit to the Telegram. The MP was on his way to the capital for a new session of Parliament. Dr. Sproule said he wanted to discuss how, if Leonard were the Conservative candidate, he would finance his campaign.

  This was the first time Leonard had heard a mention of money. “I really haven’t given that any thought,” he declared.

  “Perhaps it’s time you did,” Dr. Sproule told him. He tapped his coat pocket, indicating the location of his wallet. “We’ll need a couple of thousand dollars, at least,” he said. “Votes in the next election will be worth five dollars a head, or a bottle of Scotch. Depending on whether our blighters are prone to enjoy a drink.”

  Leonard was a little stunned. Did Dr. Sproule mean the party bought votes at election time? “We all do it,” the answer came back. “I know the party has more subtle methods of encouraging supporters in Toronto, but in Grey County we’re still stuck in the old ways. I’ll leave it with you, think it over and let us know how you can contribute to the needful.”

  A month passed. The eleven o’clock edition had gone to press when Tom White brought Leonard a telegraph dispatch from the paper’s Ottawa correspondent.

  “The capital is saddened today by the death of an official in the department of Justice, Mr. Richard Langley, brought on by the bite of a rabid fox while visiting a country fair …”

  Leonard read the words on the telegraph paper. “Oh, Christ,” he said as he handed the sheet back to Tom. Leonard feared his prospects of a life in politics had come crashing down again. He had little chance of gaining the Conservative nomination in Grey South without support from the top.

  The envelope that arrived on Leonard’s desk a few days later bore the return address of Dr. Thomas Sproule. Leonard eagerly torn it open. The note inside was written in an elegant, flowing script. The words were blunt and to the point. The Conservative committee would be putting up John Blyth, the member of the legislature for the provincial riding, for the federal seat in the 1891 election. “A good Conservative and a farmer, and in a position to raise his share of the campaign fund.” Sproule’s note added: “That should help us swing over the farmers who think Macdonald’s National Policy has put them at the mercy of the manufacturing interests.” And swing me out of politics for good, Leonard thought.

  For the first time, Leonard had
to admit he had desperately hoped to enter the new world that would open up to him as a politician. It was more than a desire to meet women like Janette Robertson, the paramour of Sir Leonard Tilley. He’d become tired of writing what he thought of as routine stories about the denizens of the Toronto police cells. As an MP, he’d be in a position to do something about Rosannah’s murder. Leonard wondered if this latest failure was a sign there were certain things that were simply beyond him. Like Rosannah’s death, and the possibility that he might never find out who had murdered her.

  The noise in front of the Evening Telegram building began as newsboys gathered outside the pressroom to await the eleven o’clock edition. A dozen women were shouting suffragette slogans. Their signs demanded “Votes for Women in all Elections.” A city council that prided itself as progressive allowed women to vote for Toronto’s school trustees and councilors, but women had no say in provincial or Dominion elections. Leonard had just returned from his court beat when Black Jack Robinson accosted him. The Telegram editor was upset that no one was making notes of the demonstration occurring under their noses. “Leonard, see if you can find out what’s going on down there.”

  When he got to the street, Leonard Babington was surprised to see Dr. Ann, as he affectionately remembered her, the anatomist he’d met at the Toronto School of Medicine. She was holding a banner bearing the words, “Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association.”

  “What’s this all about?” he asked. “Why are you parading here?”

  Dr. Ann Stowe-Gullen smiled at Leonard’s question. “You know very well, Mr. Babington. It’s those dreadful editorials your paper has been printing. Have a little respect for women, please. We’re just as able to understand politics as any man.”

  Leonard spent an hour with the women. As they walked up Bay Street, he reminded Dr. Ann of the times he’d gone to the Medical School to quiz her about Rosannah’s death. Workers on their lunch breaks gathered at street corners, some hurling catcalls and others politely doffing their hats as the women went by. Leonard returned to the editorial room with enough notes to write a long article about “the newest dilemma to face Toronto men – the women’s vote.” He knew that John Ross Robertson detested the idea of votes for women, but Leonard enjoyed preparing the story. He thought about what he would have said if he’d been a candidate in Grey County. He secretly liked the idea, but wasn’t sure he would have been brave enough to suppprt the suffragette cause.