“Yes, that’s correct.”
“I take it that Mrs. Howell didn’t offer any information about where her husband might be, and that the authorities are finding that omission a bit suspicious.”
“Apparently, he travels a great deal on business, so it isn’t unusual for him to be away.”
Ashby frowned as he reread his notes. “The dead man was subsequently identified as Paul Sherman, who had travelled to Cobourg on business and never returned home. So according to the prosecution, the Howells rented a boat, somehow encountered Paul Sherman, did him in, and rowed for home, at which point Mr. Howell skedaddled, leaving the missus to face the music.”
“I’m afraid that’s it in a nutshell,” Thaddeus said. This was hopeless. The evidence against Ellen Howell, as circumstantial as it might be, was sure to hang her. Why had he bothered dragging a lawyer all the way from Toronto for such a lost cause?
Ashby noticed Thaddeus’s gloomy face and smiled. “Don’t worry. I have to look at the facts of the case in the same way that the prosecution does. Then I have to see if I can find an alternative explanation.”
“Of course.” But Thaddeus had no hope that there might be one.
“I think there are a number of questions we need to ask. First of all, how many other people would have been out on the lake that afternoon?”
“Quite a few,” Thaddeus said. “There were all the barges and skiffs involved in the bridge construction, just for starters, and several small boats full of spectators watching the work. There might have been a few others, besides all the people on the passenger steamer, but I would think that Donald Dafoe, the man who found the body, had to be one of them.”
Ashby was astonished. “You were there that afternoon?”
“I just rode by. I was on my way from Sully to Gores Landing and stopped to watch them working on the bridge.”
Ashby scribbled this information into his notes. “Well, why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Thaddeus shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important.”
Ashby fixed him with a glare. “Everything is important. Every. Single. Thing. Cases sometimes hinge on the most minor of details. Did you happen to remark on anything else?”
Thaddeus hesitated, but just for a moment. This young barrister, was, after all, here to help Ellen Howell. “I saw a boat headed for shore. Whoever was in it might have been wearing something blue. I didn’t see where it made landfall. There was too much vegetation in the way.”
“And what time was this?”
Thaddeus had dined with the Gordons after the meeting in Sully, and had lingered on the shore watching the pile drivers for a time. “Maybe about three o’clock? But that’s a guess.”
Ashby scribbled on his papers again.
“I have a question,” Martha said. “How did Paul Sherman get to the island?”
Ashby beamed at her. “Excellent question! How indeed?”
“It’s just that … the man who rented the boat to the Howells has come forward, but no one has claimed any such thing for Paul Sherman. He wasn’t local … he’s from Burlington, so he wouldn’t have had a boat of his own readily available.”
“Precisely. And that’s one thing you can do for me, Mr. Lewis. Ask around. See if you can track down where Sherman might have got a boat.”
Thaddeus felt thoroughly trumped by his granddaughter. He had been fussing about what they knew and she had gone straight to a very salient point about what they didn’t.
“Would it be possible that he swam to the island?” Ashby asked.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Thaddeus replied. “It’s farther than it looks from shore. Most people can’t swim anyway, even the ones who live close to water.”
Ashby nodded. “Let’s set that aside as improbable for the moment then. It begs the question anyway — why was he there at all? What’s the connection between Sherman and Howell?”
“According to Mr. Sherman’s family, he was in Cobourg on business,” Martha said. “I don’t know what kind of business would have taken him to Spook Island.”
“And what exactly does Mr. Howell do that would have taken him there?” Ashby added. He beamed at Martha again, who ducked her head a little, but was smiling.
“All I know is that he travels on a regular basis,” Thaddeus said. So many questions, he thought. Questions that he himself should have been asking long since. He was beginning to think that he was losing his touch, had become suddenly lacking in that ability to connect seemingly unrelated information and circumstances into a picture that made a whole.
“But he was around enough to make himself unpopular with the neighbours?”
“No, not exactly. He wasn’t generally well liked, but I think it was because of his manner rather than any specific point of contention until he was blamed for sharp dealing in connection with the train station at Sully.”
“Ah yes, the land deal. Do you know any of the details?” Ashby’s pen was poised over the paper, ready to record them.
“It’s a one-hundred-acre parcel that was being farmed by a man named Jack Plews. He fell behind in the mortgage, at which point Mr. Howell bought him out. It was only after Howell gained control of the land that it was announced that the railway company wanted it for a station.”
“And who held the mortgage?”
“A local lawyer and a friend of Howell’s,” Thaddeus said, “D’Arcy Boulton, who also happens to be on the Board of Directors of the railway company.”
Ashby’s eyebrows shot up. “A Boulton? Oh my, my, my, this is getting interesting. I expect everyone assumes there was collusion?”
“What’s collusion?” Martha asked.
“It means they put their heads together and hatched a shady deal,” Ashby replied. “I don’t know for sure if the deal has anything to do with the murder, but it certainly makes an interesting starting point, doesn’t it?” He tapped the table with his pen for a moment. “So, here’s what we need to do. Mr. Lewis, I need you to find out what this Mr. Plews was doing on the afternoon of the murder, and where Paul Sherman obtained the boat that took him to Spook Island. I’ll interview Mrs. Howell tomorrow to see if she can shed any light on her husband’s business enterprises. And I’ll stand a couple of rounds at the Globe and see if liquor loosens some tongues.”
Thaddeus was glad to see that Martha wrinkled her nose in distaste at this ploy, but he had to admit that it was probably a sound strategy on Ashby’s part. The Globe Hotel was a favourite haunt of Cobourg’s business community. More deals were made there, they said, than in any office in the town. As a Methodist minister, Thaddeus would find it difficult to access those circles and he certainly would never “stand a round or two” of drinks. Ashby must have deep pockets indeed, if he could afford to drink at the Globe.
“What can I do?” Martha asked.
“It would be useful to know what the community is saying about the case. Often someone lets slip a key piece of information without realizing it. Have you heard anything at the market, or at teas or parties, or anywhere really?”
Martha knitted her brows while she thought about this. Finally she said, “I don’t attend parties, and I don’t like gossip. But I can’t help but overhear what people are saying while I’m running errands. Generally, they seem to think Mr. Howell is guilty, and that Mrs. Howell just happened to be there.”
“I would suspect that’s probably true; however, it won’t make any difference in terms of how the prosecution proceeds.”
“What do you mean?” Martha asked. Thaddeus was just as anxious to hear the answer.
“The law is quite clear. If two or more people form a common criminal purpose, they are all guilty of every crime committed by any one of them in the execution of that purpose. That is what my opposing counsel will assert — that the Howells were engaged in a criminal act that somehow went awry, and that, the
refore, Mrs. Howell is as guilty as her husband.”
“Even if she didn’t actually do anything?” Martha asked.
“Even so,” Ashby said. “It’s only if one of them committed a crime foreign to the common purpose that the other would be innocent of it.”
Thaddeus was puzzled. “But what was the common criminal purpose? Nobody knows what any of them were doing on the island.”
“And that is what I will attempt to show in court,” Ashby responded, “that the Howells had no criminal purpose, and that, therefore, Mrs. Howell’s culpability is divorced from her husband’s.”
“But only if she didn’t do anything,” Martha pointed out. “We don’t know that for certain.”
“Precisely!” Ashby said and gave her another approving look. Thaddeus was taken aback. He had assumed that Ellen Howell was innocent and that this fresh-faced young man would somehow prove that fact to the court. He hadn’t considered any other possibility. He was jumping to conclusions again, only in reverse, he realized. He had a long history of believing in the guilt of people he didn’t like. Now he was believing in the innocence of one he did.
“What happens if you discover that she’s guilty after all?” he asked quietly.
“It makes no difference. We’ll give her a grand defence anyway,” Ashby said with a wave of the hand. When Thaddeus looked dubious, he went on. “You have to understand my role here, Mr. Lewis. It doesn’t matter if she’s guilty or not, my job is to provide the best defence I possibly can, within the framework of the law as it is written.”
Thaddeus thought that it mattered a great deal, at least to him. But he wasn’t about to argue with a lawyer. Not even a newly qualified one.
“I don’t suppose there’s any question of arranging bail for her?” he asked.
“We’d have to ask a superior court judge for it, and that would take some time. And some money. Unless you can persuade someone to post bail for her, I expect she’s stuck where she is. I’ll make some inquiries, though. And make sure she’s being properly treated, that sort of thing. Oh, and Mr. Lewis, you might also stop by the Howell farm if you could and have a look around.”
“Wouldn’t it have been searched already? When they arrested Mrs. Howell?” Martha asked.
“Yes, it would have. And I don’t really expect to find much of anything, but you never know. They might have missed something. And they didn’t have your grandfather to do the searching. From what I hear, he has a habit of finding things that other people can’t.”
Ashby started stacking the papers he had strewn over the table. “For now, keep your ear to the ground,” he said, “and write down anything you hear, no matter how unimportant it might seem. And keep mum about anything you find. I don’t know what the prosecution has up its sleeve, and I don’t want to tip them off.”
“Don’t they have to tell you about whatever evidence they have?” Thaddeus asked.
“No, they don’t. But I don’t have to tell them anything either.” He turned to Martha. “Do you suppose you could track any relevant articles that appear in the newspapers regarding the case, so we have as complete a history as possible? And if you can find any back copies, you could save those as well. I need to return to Toronto tomorrow, so I won’t be on hand to do it myself.”
“Of course,” she replied. But after all her talk about not wanting anyone underfoot, Thaddeus thought she looked a little disappointed that Towns Ashby was leaving Cobourg so soon.
II
As he rode north the next day, Thaddeus reflected that in some respects he was grateful that the excitement over The Great Debate had died down as quickly as it had. As he predicted, attendance at meetings had fallen off by half, allowing him to revert to the more leisurely pace of his original schedule. He would have plenty of time to make the inquiries Ashby had requested of him, without missing or being late for any meetings. No one had ever complained in the past, but Thaddeus was aware that, at times, he had been sailing close to the wind in terms of the amount of time he spent doing other things when he was supposed to be ministering. This time, he judged, he could give his full attention to the class meetings he had arranged, stop by the Howell farm for a good look around, and still reach Sully in time to preside at that evening’s women’s meeting and ask some questions about boats.
It was easier now to focus his flocks on their prayers, too, and that saved time. Immediately following Ellen Howell’s committal, all the talk had been of the evidence that had been presented, but now, with no new information to feed the rumour mill, people turned their attention to other matters. Other than the usual discussions regarding successful births and impending marriages, the conversation was dominated by the slow but steady progress of the rail line and the spectacle of the trestles that stretched four abreast out into Rice Lake.
Thaddeus was particularly pleased to note that news of Townsend Ashby’s involvement was not yet common knowledge. The young barrister would be far more likely to pry loose the information he was seeking if no one knew why precisely he was asking. Liquor was a befuddlement that loosened men’s tongues, but not if they were too watchful in the first place.
Thaddeus was bemused by Ashby, and not a little impressed. This might be the young barrister’s first criminal case, but he had seemed well-prepared, with a number of relevant points to investigate and an engaging manner that would serve him well in a courtroom. Whether or not all this would be enough to win the case remained to be seen. He was astute enough — he had certainly zeroed in on Thaddeus’s reasons for retaining him in the first place — but he was circumspect enough not to comment on them. “So you have no particular interest in the woman?” he’d asked. Thaddeus was sure Ashby had noticed his discomfort. He must have wondered.
And in all honesty, if Thaddeus looked at the situation from an outsider’s point of view, it must seem very strange that he had gone to so much trouble for a woman who wasn’t even a member of his church. But no, he decided, the fact that she professed another faith was irrelevant. It was the injustice of an accused having a poor defence that bothered him, that was all. And the fact that she had apparently been abandoned by her spouse, a man who might well have been treating her roughly. His stomach churned whenever he thought of the bruise he had seen on her arm.
He had forgotten to mention the bruise to Ashby. The young lawyer claimed that every detail was important, that even the smallest thing could tip the balance either way. Thaddeus would have to start writing things down. He was just so rattled by this case that his memory was becoming faulty, and he was losing his ability to concentrate on the bigger picture.
Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly realized that he had already reached the general vicinity of the Howell farm. He wasn’t sure exactly where the laneway might be, but as luck would have it, an old farmer driving a hay wagon trundled toward him as he was stopped, puzzling, in the middle of the road.
“You look lost,” the farmer said.
“Not lost, precisely. I’m looking for something. You don’t happen to know which is the Howell farm, do you?”
“Why do you want to know?” the man asked. “Here to gawk? Or to steal?” Then he took a closer look at Thaddeus. “Oh, you’re the preacher. You’re the one who talked down the Baptist.”
“That’s right,” Thaddeus said. There were advantages to being quasi-famous. “I’ve just come from Cobourg. I spoke with Mrs. Howell. I thought perhaps I should check on her house.”
“Good idea,” the man rumbled. “You never know who’s about, or what they might take when nobody’s looking. Not like the old days when you could leave a cabin for weeks and no one would touch a thing. Other than the coons, of course. They’re always a problem. And the mice.”
“Do you know where I might find the laneway?”
The man gestured in the direction from which he had just come. “On up a ways. You’ll see a big oak tree and a broken- down fence. J
ust follow the track. It’s a long way in, though, and no guarantee you’ll find anybody when you get there. The girl won’t talk to anybody. Skedaddles as soon as you get close.”
For a moment Thaddeus failed to understand what the old man was talking about and thought perhaps he was a little senile. Then he remembered Ellen Howell’s daughter. He could have kicked himself for not thinking of her long before this, but he had seen her only once, the day she had accompanied her mother to The Great Debate. Had she really been left alone on such a remote farmstead while her mother languished in a cold cell? Surely someone had offered to take her in, or at the very least dropped in on her now and then to make sure she was all right.
And how very odd that her mother hadn’t asked after her well-being. Ellen Howell hadn’t mentioned her daughter at all.
Thaddeus thanked the man and continued down the road. He rounded a bend and found, just as described, a gigantic oak and a section of rail fence that was in rather desperate need of repair. Leland Gordon had said that Major Howell wasn’t much of a farmer. If the state of his fences was any indication, he certainly wasn’t interested in keeping livestock, at any rate.
The winding lane was crowded on both sides with lilac, sumac, and weed maple, all of it smothered with wild grape. No one had bothered to slash the intrusive growth back from the edges of the path in a long time. It would not be many years before it choked the laneway entirely. As he advanced a little farther, the lane widened out a bit and the fences had been shored up on either side to enclose several cleared fields. Leland Gordon’s work, no doubt. Beyond this, it didn’t look like anyone had paid any attention at all to the state of the holding.
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