Death in the Age of Steam

by Mel Bradshaw

  Harris looked first to his horse. Ears pitched forward, she was staring down into the old canal. There the boy whom the blankets had so vexed was acting as his own dog. Wet to the armpits, his shotgun held over his head, he floundered through the silted-up channel towards the remains of a brown mallard. She floated on her side, the blue speculum on her wing turned up to the clouding sky.

  “Just wait!” Nash cried. “I’ll break that gun over your backside.” He was so excited he could barely close the padlock on the warehouse door. “Shooting up Company property—blast this lock.”

  However he felt about his own children whom he had left in Indian country, it was hard to imagine that his sister’s pleased him better.

  “Mr. Nash,” said Harris, seizing perhaps his last chance to wring a living informant’s name from the former post manager, “can’t you tell me of anyone else who—”

  “Talk to Ingram. Climb out of there, my boy, or I open fire! Ingram that kept the light at Presque Isle.”

  Not another coherent word could Harris get from him before Nash’s thick, unsupple legs bore him away, the pistol from his waistband waving in his fist. There was no time to explain that French champagne had made Harvey Ingram unquestionable.

  Unknown to Harris at Lachine, his lawyer friend had that afternoon also been looking for witnesses to Crane’s boreal endeavours. Small took a cab from Rasco’s to the Jesuit College at Bleury and Dorchester streets. To the missionary, he reasoned, no corner of God’s earth is remote.

  On the pretext of preparing a biographical sketch of Mr. Henry Crane, he gained access to a white-haired priest of gentle disposition. Father Gouin consulted a journal he had started in 1849. From it he read aloud in clear, deliberate English translation from his native French. He read the first entry plus whatever passages touched, even glancingly, on Small’s theme.

  24 May 1849

  I arrived last week at Sault Ste. Marie, where our Jesuit predecessors first founded a mission in 1668. It is not properly speaking a sault (waterfall), but rather a set of rapids. In the space of half a mile, the level of the river joining Lakes Superior and Huron drops some twenty feet. The Indian canoes ride down this current with apparent ease and even stop to fish from it.

  I live on the right or American bank, there being as yet no church on the other. I shall, however, be crossing often, above the rough water or below. It is only in the past half decade that the Society of Jesus has been permitted back into Canada for the first time since the English Conquest of New France. There is much work to be done.

  The American settlement, with a summer population approaching one thousand, boasts a substantial fort, a fur trading post, two hotels, various shops and a horse-drawn railway for the portage of freight around the rapids. Two years ago, the state of Michigan became the first in the union to abolish capital punishment. I fear that, as news of this excessive leniency spreads, the Sault may become a mecca for cutthroats as it has for copper miners, though at present it is no rowdier than parts of Montreal.

  I eat some trout and more whitefish, which is slightly longer. Potatoes and pork, seasoned with cranberries, are also staples of my diet, for all of which I give thanks . . .

  15 June

  I have now made a number of crossings of the St. Mary’s River. The Canadian bank is thick with alder bushes and evergreens, beyond which are to be found a Hudson’s Bay Company post and practically no other amenities. The one stone house stands unoccupied. The settlement counts fewer than a dozen white residents and between one and two hundred Indians.

  Among the latter I make slow progress. They are under the impression that the religion of the Queen of England must be the best. The Protestants have furthermore profited from their head start by assiduously translating their Book of Common Prayer and other tracts into the Ojibway tongue.

  Notwithstanding the left bank’s general backwardness, I have made the acquaintance there of two enterprising young Englishmen. Both born like myself within sight of the St. Lawrence, they now operate a side-wheeler between points along the north shore of Lake Superior and are adding a screw-driven steamer to their armada. Both men are affable. The more gifted in a mechanical sense, Mr. Colin Ewing by name, is a Montrealer and a Catholic . . .

  20 August

  Colin Ewing has just paid me a call before setting off for Chicago. There he will supervise completion of the screw-driven Steadfast, so named to advertise her advantage over side-wheelers in rough water. Also, so Colin says, to characterize his partnership with Henry Crane, who seems to be the chief raiser of capital and finder of cargoes. I understand they met in Kingston, C.W. some three years ago. As far as the business goes, they have made each the other’s heir.

  For the next month I shall miss Colin’s visits. This son of the Church is a good match for me at chess, though a trifle prodigal with his pieces. I fear he is careless generally, for almost every time I see him he has some part of his anatomy bandaged. Last week, when I expressed an idle wish to have one of the skilled Ojibway canoeists conduct me down the rapids, Colin insisted on taking me himself. A rock punctured our craft, and we should have drowned but for the buoyancy of birchbark and his adroitness as a helmsman. I valued his company (on dry land) no less after, for he is generous and lively and has a quick, engineer’s mind.

  I encourage him to turn his talents to bringing his partner to the one true Faith. He promises to do Mr. Henry Crane that inestimable kindness, but I see no results yet. The two share a wooden house and an Ojibway servant.

  I have also urged Colin to marry now that he is in a position to support a family. He is without doubt handsome enough to turn the Chicago girls’ heads with his boyish, wind-swept looks, his fine black hair, and his ready smile . . .

  26 September

  Colin Ewing has conducted Steadfast on her maiden voyage up through Lakes Michigan and Huron to the Sault. Here for the past three days he and his partner have been feverishly tearing her apart. Since to steam up the rapids is quite out of the question, she must be reduced to pieces of a size to be hauled over the horse railway, and must then be reassembled on the shores of Lake Superior where Henry Crane has urgent and lucrative commissions waiting for her. Chess games will have to wait. My adversary has barely found the time to tell me that he has accomplished what I bid him and is engaged to be married after navigation closes in November. His excitement is contagious. God bless his ventures . . .

  9 October

  A fearful accident has occurred. Colin Ewing was brought to the presbytery this afternoon with deep burns to his face and upper body. From his distressed breathing, I infer the interior of his nose and mouth have been scalded as well, perhaps also his throat and lungs. I have tried to give him water. The lightest touch of the cup to his inflamed lips makes him yelp in pain. His features glow the brightest red and have been swelling alarmingly. His eyes are half-closed. I don’t believe he has the use of them in any case. Frequently he lapses into unconsciousness, which I can only count as a merciful dispensation of our all-loving Father.

  Not by my choice, Colin’s body as well as his soul are in my charge. We have but one doctor at the Sault, who, although a former blacksmith, understands nothing of burned flesh and in all emergencies prescribes calomel and jalap in various proportions, none of which meet the present case. Henry Crane, furthermore, chances to be away on business in Detroit, though expected back here any day.

  Colin is too sore to move in any case. I sent to the Canadian side for his own servant to attend him, and this respectable old squaw watches by his bedside as I write.

  It has been blowing hard all day. This evening such an autumn gale howls about our chimneys that I should hesitate to venture out of doors on land, let alone on the water. The mate of Steadfast who brought him ashore has given me some account of how Colin sustained his hurts.

  Bound to demonstrate his vessel’s seaworthiness, the co-owner insisted on steaming up lake this morning despite the weather. This, he said, would be her first “great blow.
” Not an hour from the Sault, a sound as of timber splitting was reported to the wheelhouse. Colin went below decks to investigate. It appeared the violent rolling had shifted or loosened the engine from its mounts. (I am no steamship expert and must paraphrase according to my understanding.) The failure of some of the ship’s wooden elements put intolerable strain on the copper tubing. While Colin was inspecting, the next great wave caused a pipe joint to separate. Escaping steam enveloped him. The crew subsequently managed to shut down and secure the engine. Sails were set, and Steadfast was returned to port without further mishap.

  The mate has put it about that his master cannot live more than a few days. I trust that he is mistaken, but must pray for composure in Colin’s presence for his condition is most pitiable . . .

  11 October

  Angry blisters consume Colin’s face. In contemplating the martyrdom of Father Brébeuf, burned by the Iroquois two centuries ago, I have never pictured heat-tormented flesh like this.

  Once these blisters are lanced, I still hope my patient may mend. His chest and shoulders are in somewhat better condition, having benefited from the protection of his clothing.

  To give him strength, I have forced sugar and water down his throat, though it took all my courage to do so. I believe he recognizes my voice. It is a blessing his fiancée cannot see what has become of his good looks, which even if he live are gone forever. He has not mentioned her, though this evening he did manage to speak. He asked if Henry had returned. I said no. He seemed perplexed, then asked the date and the weather, which, in the two days since the storm, has been calm. His perplexity only increased, but he did not speak again . . .

  13 October

  I yesterday completed the ghastly task of releasing the fluid from Colin’s blisters. His condition does not improve. I should like to give him laudanum for his pain, but have nothing except brandy, which is too fiery for him to swallow. Prayer must suffice . . .

  16 October

  It is a week since Colin’s accident, and his Calvary continues. His sweat soaks his bed linen. His pulse is weak and rapid. I must now assume his end is near, for I would not have him pass from this life without the consolations and sacraments of our Faith. I judged him unfit to make a confession, but gave him extreme unction. While I was touching the consecrated oil to his ruined eyes, and asking the Lord’s forgiveness for his sins of sight, I thought he wished to speak. Afterwards, supposing he had meant to ask again about his partner, I told him, “Not yet, perhaps tomorrow.”

  24 October

  Henry Crane arrived two days after Colin’s death, which I had not the heart to describe here. As soon as the surviving partner heard the heavy news, he came to me to express both his gratitude for my care of his friend and his sincere regret that he had been kept away so much longer than anticipated. In the five days since his return, he has had Steadfast repaired and reinforced. He will not sail her, however, for he is winding up his affairs at Sault Ste. Marie and intends to move south, away from a place with painful associations and towards new opportunities . . .

  10 November

  When Colin Ewing died, I considered it my first duty to write to the woman he was engaged to marry. I have just received her gracious reply. By it I learn that, on disposing of the partnership’s assets, Henry Crane sent her a portion of the proceeds. So brief was her acquaintance with Colin Ewing that a major share of her grief must be for the lost opportunity to know him better. This noble gift, she writes, helps her to do so, for like my letter it shows her what friendship Colin was capable of inspiring. I have also received a most welcome sum from Henry Crane for the work of the mission.

  Someone has tried to put it about that Mr. Crane’s delay in returning was deliberate and that he did not wish to face his disfigured and dying partner, but the rumour-monger is a heathenish lighthouse keeper, who supplements his income by selling liquor to the Indians, and no Catholic or Protestant on either bank of the river believes him . . .

  William Sheridan had encouraged Small to learn shorthand from the moment they first worked together. All that Father Gouin read Small gratefully took down and made reading it in turn to Harris the first item of business when the two met at supper.

  Harris practically gaped in amazement. He felt himself in the presence of the Small of Sheridan and Small, a Small serene yet tireless in a good cause. Yesterday’s idler seemed a shadow dispelled by the reignited flame of self-respect.

  Were Small’s discoveries useful? For the moment, wonder precluded deliberation—wonder at Small’s exertions and increasingly at the story he was unfolding. By the end of that story, Harris felt his heart simultaneously go out to Colin Ewing in his long, raw torment and shrink back from the wide, wind-flailed region that had taken Ewing from city comforts forever.

  “A Montrealer,” Harris mused aloud—as if this detail threw the spartan amenities at the Sault into more meaningful contrast with the prosperous city he could glimpse over the white table linen, between the silver epergnes, and through the plate glass of Rasco’s dining room.

  “Son of a widowed rope and rigging manufacturer of St. Sacrement Street,” Small briskly replied. “I paid the father a call. He never approved of his son’s mid-continental steam ventures, has never met Crane or the fiancée and has nothing to add to or subtract from Father Gouin’s account.”

  “Admirable, Jasper—and admirably thorough.” Harris began to think practically. “At least we can rule out any thought of Ewing’s having been murdered.”

  “Easy there,” Small cautioned. “Ewing’s marriage would have disinherited Crane. Conscience money paid to the cheated bride still left Crane profiting from his partner’s death.”

  “There’s motive, I’ll grant,” said Harris. “However, the accident as your missionary describes it would have been too difficult to arrange. How could Crane guarantee that on the next rough voyage Ewing and no one else would be mortally injured, or that the loosened engine would not puncture the hull and drown all on board? Ewing might not even have been of the party.”

  “Bound to have been, Isaac. He was waiting to test his ship in a ‘great blow.’”

  “But,” Harris objected, “would Crane have risked sinking the principal asset he wished to acquire? Insurance rarely matches what a ship can be sold for, and when it does fraud will not go unsuspected.”

  “The Roman emperor Nero,” Small slyly observed, “launched his mother in a disintegrating boat.”

  “Not in order to inherit the boat! No—I’m sorry, but I still have to think Crane’s first murder victim was your partner, not his.”

  “I don’t pretend we have grounds yet for an indictment,” Small conceded, “but suppose Crane did avoid Ewing after the scalding, stayed away on purpose. What but guilt would have made him do that?”

  “Squeamishness,” said Harris. “To be blunt, he hates squashed things. I believe that’s why, when he must face what he kills, his preferred method is suffocation.”

  Small refolded and pocketed his notes with equanimity.

  “I feel rather queasy myself,” he said, “surveying the carcasses of these quail. Let’s have them bring us some cherries in brandy, and you can tell me what you unearthed this afternoon.”

  “Very little, I’m afraid, except perhaps the name of Father Gwynne’s rumour-monger.”

  “Gouin,” Small corrected. “Rhymes with soin—care—and loin—far. Yes?”

  “Harvey Ingram,” said Harris. “The same Harvey Ingram who until his recent death by drink kept the Gibraltar Light in Toronto.”

  Small raised his eyebrows, but held his reply until the waiter had effected the change of cover.

  “Two years ago, Isaac, the individual you mention wanted our firm to defend him against an accusation of blackmail, arising from some transaction on a yacht between a prominent educator and his grand-niece, which transaction Ingram happened to observe through his spyglass in the course of his lightkeeping duties. In the end he said we meant to overcharge him—a fantastic not
ion. He intimated he had his own way of dealing with the case, which certainly never reached the courts.”

  “A blackmailer,” said Harris. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Arriving at Police Station No. 1 with Vandervoort, Ingram had looked the sprucer of the two in worn but sound grey breeches of a military cut, and then had shown quite convincing confusion about the Reciprocity Treaty and its provisions. He had appeared to be too fond of his bottle to be truly cunning—and so it turned out. He had, though, been considerably more devious than Harris supposed.

  “Before today, nothing tied him to Crane,” Small unanswerably replied.

  “All right, Jasper.” Harris experienced another moment like the one at noon in the coach—the moment when out of the fog looms a shape, or when the accumulating points in a plane first indicate a geometric figure. He hastened to sketch it. “Suppose Crane does have a guilty secret, dating from 1849. Not simply a delay in returning. I can’t see that that would be worth much in blackmail. Ingram found this darker secret out and used it to siphon shillings from Crane’s pocket into his own. Shillings at first, later guineas. The more success Crane enjoyed over the years, the dearer would have been Ingram’s silence.”

  “I even wonder,” Small mused, “if Crane might not have had a hand in securing Ingram’s appointment in Toronto. It seemed an odd choice. I mean to say, Ingram had done lightkeeping work all right, but until three years ago he had been doing it in Michigan.”

  “Quite possibly Crane did get him the job,” Harris concurred. “By ’53, Crane would have had the ear of some politicians. In prosperity, Crane could afford not to quibble, but then he suffered reverses. The unabated need to pay blackmail would have reduced him all the sooner to accepting MacFarlane’s help on MacFarlane’s terms, and led ultimately to the two murders we know of.”