Death of a Patriot

by Don Gutteridge

  Sure enough, a few seconds later the heavy oak door was eased inward an inch, squealing on its hinges.

  “Mr. Dougherty?” Robert queried anxiously.

  “No,” came the reply, tiny and feminine.

  “Are you the maid?”

  After a pause, “No.”

  “We’d like to see Mr. Dougherty, the attorney,” Marc said. “Does he live here?”

  “Yes.” The door inched back yet again, exposing a swatch of blond hair and a single blue eye.

  “We’re here on urgent government business, miss,” Robert said. “We must see Mr. Dougherty right away. Would you kindly convey that message to him, and inform him that we represent Baldwin and Sullivan, attorneys-at-law.”

  “We don’t have visitors,” the voice said, with enough volume for its youth and vulnerability to register. Then came a second voice from the depths of the house.

  “For Christ’s sake, Celia, open the goddamn door and let Mr. Baldwin and his lackey in!”

  There was no hallway or vestibule. Marc and Robert stepped immediately into the parlour with their dripping overcoats and slush-covered boots. The frosted windows, curtained thickly, let in little light, but a smoky blaze in the hearth offered an uncertain glow in which they were able to make out the figure of the young woman pointing them towards a ponderous, horsehair, wingback chair beside the fender, and a pair of bare feet with wriggling toes resting upon a footstool next to it. A penumbra of cigar smoke rippled above the chair back like an agitated feather boa.

  The young woman—she could not have been more than eighteen—had the blondest hair Marc had ever seen, and her skin was so white as to be almost transparent. But when she turned to face the visitors and present them to the profane voice in the chair, her eyes, blue as cornflower steeped in sunlight, indicated that she was not albino. Her dress was little more than a cotton shift and clung to her woman’s silhouette like wet silk. She wore no stays or corsets. And her beauty left Marc momentarily stunned and unaccountably distressed.

  “I apologize for shouting, my dear. Now would you be kind enough to rustle up some coffee and edibles for our guests?” Even when it was not shouting, the voice—its progenitor still hidden behind the wing of the chair and its angled back—literally boomed, delivering its message with a tragedian’s trajectory.

  “Yes, Uncle,” the girl said, and fled.

  “Come in, gentlemen. We mustn’t keep the government from doing its business, eh?”

  Robert was glancing about in search of a place for his hat and coat.

  “Jesus, throw the goddamn thing on that stool over there and park your arse on that chair. I haven’t got all day to waste on William Baldwin’s best boy. I’ve got a nap to take!”

  • • •

  Doubtful Dick Dougherty was holding forth on the woeful inadequacies of the courts, the justices, and the Upper Canadian legal system in general, as if Marc and Robert were a two-man jury unsympathetic to the prosecution’s case. It is doubtful, however, whether either was much affected by his grandiloquence. They were still in shock and staring. Richard Dougherty had been born large and imposing, with a lumberjack’s bones and a wrestler’s physique, and had apparently set about, as one of his life’s tasks, to enlarge it. His black bottle-brush brows leapt straight out, their impertinence exaggerated by the contrast of his bald and gleaming pate. His ears, tufted and crenellated, flapped like a rooster’s wings in unsuccessful flight. His nose was gargantuan, fleshy and sagging, except for a pugnacious upturn at its very tip. His lips were protuberant and sensuous, made more so by their being set below a pair of bloated, rubicund cheeks and above an endless ripple of pale, pink chins. The latter did not so much hang as ooze over his collar, inundating it and the cravat beneath it.

  A plaid, food-stained waistcoat had attempted to contain the mountainous chest and belly and given up. Its extruded buttons lay dangling on errant thread, and hairy yolks of flesh pressed up and through, as if seeking air. The trousers, agape where they shouldn’t be, were supported not by his suspenders (one of which, cast adrift, dribbled forlornly down a leg) but by a kimono sash knotted at the left hip. In fact, the only thing diminutive about Counsellor Dougherty were his eyes, just visible deep in their pouches of flesh: tiny, green, piggish, and as tough as a pair of withered black-eyed peas.

  “Contrary to the views of the hoi polloi, the American experiment was not launched over the tawdry business of tea and import duties and rep by pop. No, gentlemen, our magnificent Constitution was a direct and necessary response to the inescapable corruptions that follow upon the executive appointment of judges to posts they can only be persuaded to vacate upon death and, even then, reluctantly.” At this witticism, he paused to flick the ashes of his cigar upon the only unblemished spot on his waistcoat and laughed—something between a chuckle and a whinny.

  Neither Marc nor Robert seized the opportunity to stem the monologue’s tide, for they were still trying to take in the fascinating anomalies of the émigré’s household. On three sides of Dougherty’s chair, as far as his reach or whim would permit, was the same dissolute disorder that characterized his person and clothing. Scattered about within this self-imposed perimeter were dozens of books, tossed on their backs, pages aflutter, ripped apart where they had struck stone or iron, scorched by the adjacent fire, thumbed, and bookmarked. Helter-skelter among them were cigar butts, coils of pipe ash, mouldy bread crusts, rotting apple cores, a broken wine goblet, and several discarded (and overused) handkerchiefs. However, beyond this personally supervised hemisphere of chaos, the room was as neat as a royal chamber. The chairs on which the guests sat opposite their host were clean and comfortable. Oriental throw rugs and polished tables, a sideboard with gleaming crystal decanters, framed portraits and certificates on the walls, and dust-free china figurines on the mantel—all suggested a tidy and industrious hand at work. Celia’s, most likely.

  As if privy to Marc’s thoughts, the young woman appeared with a tray. While Dougherty followed her every move with a darting eye, Celia—unaccustomed, it seemed, to the protocol of distinguished callers—managed to pour their coffee with a minimum of spillage and only a single, prolonged blush. She did not offer her uncle any; he flicked a finger and sent her scurrying to stir the fire, which had begun to flag. As she bent over to do so, the flimsy shift rode up upon her calves, and just before Marc succeeded in averting his eyes, he was certain he caught Dougherty leering at her. When he looked back, Celia had taken a white cloth out of the pocket of her dress and was wiping the sweat from her uncle’s forehead and hairless dome with slow, tender strokes.

  “Be sure and tell Brodie to say good-bye before he goes off, will you?” Dougherty said to her.

  “Yes, Uncle. You know he always does,” she said, and left.

  “Miss Langford and her brother are not my niece and nephew,” he said to his guests. “They’re the children of my late, lamented law partner. As they had no one else, I brought them with me.”

  Robert cleared his throat. “I’m sure you suspect that we have not come here today to pay you a belated social call or exchange views on constitutional practice, as edifying as that would no doubt prove.”

  Dougherty may have smiled, but it was hard to be sure because his lips were continuously in motion, as if they were forever about to formulate a phrase or were just finishing one, while his eyes were correspondingly still, sequestered in flesh, and watchful. “I would say the question has already moved beyond suspicion,” he said. “My bones tell me not only that it is close to nap time, but that you gentlemen are here to discuss the sham legal proceedings concocted by Sir George and shamelessly agreed to by your ‘independent’ judiciary.”

  Robert blinked but did not falter. “My father and I are concerned that Caleb Coltrane get a fair trial.”

  Marc was wondering how Dougherty, who had not been espied in the open air since his arrival two years before, knew so much about the local scene, particularly as he saw no sign of discarded newspapers among th
e detritus.

  “That’s noble of you, Mr. Baldwin, but a fair trial implies an impartially empanelled jury, a disinterested judge, and appropriate legal counsel.”

  “I am here, sir, to guarantee the first two.”

  This time Dougherty was genuinely amused. He gave out with his horse laugh, initiating a rippling of chins and a spray of spittle. “And you’d like me to guarantee the third?”

  “Can you think of anyone more qualified?” Robert said. “And partial to the accused and his cause?”

  “The latter point is, as you ought to know, irrelevant. As barristers, we are sworn to pursue the law, not causes or clients with causes, however laudable.”

  “But you must see, sir,” Marc said, “that a court-appointed and, shall we say, less than enthusiastic local attorney would not only be detrimental to Coltrane’s defense but would be perceived as—”

  “—a typical British ploy to guarantee the wretch’s conviction?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Perceived by whom? By my compatriots in the United States, eh? With the risk of more border raids and discomfort for Sir George and his merry men.”

  Robert looked down. “I must confess that that motive is the one animating the governor and the chief justice.” Then he looked up and said with passion, “But it is not my motive, sir, nor my father’s. You must realize that not every citizen of this province is a Tory, nor is every man loyal to the Crown a fawning Jacobite. I belong to a party that has promoted responsible government for this colony for more than a dozen years. We have high hopes that, if the madness of these border raids can be curtailed, Lord Durham’s recommendations will be instituted, reforms that will give us a substantial measure of autonomy and personal liberty.”

  “Lord Durham is no Tallyrand,” Dougherty said, “but he has some acceptable notions that a more thorough reading of the Federalist Papers would sharpen and improve.”

  “What I’m saying, sir, is that a genuinely fair trial for Coltrane would best serve everybody’s interests. An end to these suicidal raids would enhance the Reform group’s efforts to introduce responsible government. Coltrane would get a first-class defense. Neither Sir George nor Justice Robinson could, or could be seen to, manipulate the process or predict the outcome.”

  “And me?” Dougherty suppressed a yawn, but his attention was fierce.

  It was Marc who replied. “You win admittance to the Upper Canadian bar and an opportunity to show the world, here and back home, that you still have what it takes.”

  “You’re telling me that John Beverley Robinson, who was born with a poker up his arse, is going to bend down and buss my big toe after I waddle into Lawyers’ Hall?” The green eyes ignited, and suddenly those were the only features of his outrageous face worthy of notice.

  Robert held that gaze in his own. “I am. In fact, the way has already been cleared.” (That the man would likely be disbarred the day after Coltrane hanged need not be mentioned.)

  Unfortunately, Broderick Langford chose this moment to enter the room from the kitchen, taking two tentative steps and pausing to stare at the interlopers. They stared back.

  Noting their amazement, Dougherty laughed again. “Come on in, Brodie, and meet these gentlemen of the law.”

  Dougherty’s “nephew” was a near copy of his sister. He too was alabaster blond, with curls only slightly shorter than Celia’s, startling blue eyes, and almost bleached skin. He was of slight build and impeccably dressed. A youthful intelligence shone in his eyes. He shook hands with the visitors, touched Dougherty fondly on the shoulder, and went back to the inner door. “I’ll be at the bank until about eight.”

  They heard a far door open and close.

  “Brodie labours at the Commercial Bank. He’s doing well.”

  The room fell silent. The pouches above Dougherty’s eyes met those below them. He was sweating. The littered expanse of his waistcoat rose and sighed.

  “Have you read The Republic, Mr. Baldwin?”

  “I have. Some time ago.”

  “In the original Greek?”

  “I’m afraid my school Greek didn’t take me that far.”

  “No one remotely interested in political constitutions can ignore that great treatise. And there aren’t enough words in our paltry lexicon to capture its logical niceties. The Athenians were born to articulate law. We eschew them at our peril.”

  “And what about the Euthyphro?” Marc said quietly.

  The slit in the eye pouches widened slightly. “You are referring, of course, to Euthyphro’s boast to Socrates that one must prosecute a murder, even if the accused be one’s own father.”

  Marc smiled. “I am. And would not the same ethic apply, obversely, to the need of the accused, however heinous he may be, for a proper defense?”

  Dougherty was now looking directly at them—first one, then the other—as he might scrutinize and appraise witnesses on the stand. Seemingly satisfied with whatever he discerned, he spoke.

  “I have decided to be Mr. Coltrane’s defense attorney,” he said without emphasis. “I am fully aware of the risks and unpredictable consequences. If I lose, I may be seen in the country to the south of us as a turncoat and dupe of a detested monarchy. I care not about that. I have burned all those bridges—or, rather, they have been burned for me and the water under them poisoned. Nor do I give a fig for the petty and intractable political squabbling you’ve all got yourselves into. I disdained it in New York, which no doubt contributed to my squalid downfall. But I was nonetheless devoted to the spirit and letter of Jefferson’s liberative words, and to the law itself.”

  A sudden and unexpected animation seized his wayward features, sending askew earlobe, jowl, nostril, eyebrow, cheek pouch, and dewlap. “Only the law with its crisp, incorruptible language is worthy of our passion and our humility. All else is ‘writ in water,’ as the poet said.”

  “You won’t regret this, sir,” Robert said.

  “Indeed, I may, Mr. Baldwin. That is the whole point of risk. But be forewarned. I am taking this brief with a single objective in mind.”

  “You’re not serious,” Marc said, before he could help himself.

  “I am. I fully intend to see that the wicked Mr. Coltrane is acquitted.”

  • • •

  Outside on the snowy walk, Robert sucked in the cleansing, wintry air and said to Marc, “It looks as if any or all of the stories about the man’s demise could be true.”

  “I was not impressed by the way he had that young woman dressed or the manner in which he ogled her. I hope that’s all he does.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a distasteful mien. But, oh, the mind inside that repellent body!”

  “Whatever happened in New York was a tragedy of sorts, don’t you think?”

  “What I’m thinking is that we may have crossed some moral or ethical divide here. Are we being merely expedient? And does the end justify the means?”

  “Well, he may do his damnedest to keep the major from the noose, but it’ll take more than a New York lawyer to get Coltrane off. The Crown has a dozen witnesses to his atrocities. And his claim to military status will hold no water in the Court of Queen’s Bench.”

  “True. And the more vigorously Dougherty argues, the more he serves Sir George’s purpose to have both a proper trial and an outcome favourable to Her Majesty.”

  As they turned into the British-American Coffee House for tea and scones, Marc asked, “By the way, how did Dougherty get the nickname of Doubtful Dick? Was it a question of reliability as his vices began to affect his performance?”

  Robert stopped. “Lord, no. He got that moniker in mid-career, an ironic and somewhat barbed tribute from his peers, but a tribute nonetheless.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, whenever he went to trial in New York, the result was, in fact, never in doubt. Dougherty has yet to lose a capital case.”

  SEVEN

  The next morning found Marc strolling
in leisurely fashion westward along Front Street. It was out of his way, but he had plenty of time to get to his ten o’clock appointment at Chepstow, and besides, he never missed an opportunity to view the bay in wintertime. Lake Ontario was iced over as far as the eye could travel, and only a fringe of evergreens and other skeletal trees suggested the presence of the peninsula and nearby islands between him and the distant shore. The snowdrifts that rippled the near distance, the island woods, and the white plain beyond created the comfortable illusion of a unified groundswell upon a solid, unbroken foundation. A few yards offshore near the Queen’s Wharf, Marc could see a gang of youths on skates, playing some age-old game of tag on a rectangular area they had cleared of snow. He even imagined a son of his own doing the same someday.

  By now the memory of this morning’s brief exchange of views over Beth’s going in to work a full day had begun to fade. (She had merely pointed out that with the gala coming up on the weekend and Dolly nearly useless in the shop, she had no choice in the matter.) However, passing by Somerset House, where the Twelfth Night extravaganza was to take place, brought their argument back to him. When Marc had suggested that the baby’s intermittent kicking during the night was an obvious protest against rough treatment received at Smallman’s, he knew he had gone too far. He had conceded defeat but less than graciously, he regretted. As he turned north up Peter Street, he was thankful to direct all his thoughts towards the difficult task ahead.

  None of the habitual protesters had chosen Chepstow as their target that morning, and Marc was able to approach the front door unimpeded. He passed a pair of uniformed sentries and pulled the bell rope. As he waited, he quickly reviewed the salient points in his planned approach to Caleb Coltrane. As Marc saw it, he had two trump cards to play. First, he could claim justifiably that he had helped secure for the major the services of a skilled New York lawyer. Second, he would reveal to him the sobering truth that the young man he had challenged to a duel and landed in jail was the enemy soldier who had saved him from bleeding to death four weeks earlier. The rest would have to be improvised, and Marc trusted his own ability to read character and manage personalities in shifting circumstances. It had not let him down thus far—well, not very often anyway.