Cobb realized that the Chief was telling him that the future of the force as he envisioned it lay in this constable’s hands. He would be given charge of the case and, except that he would not be in plain clothes, he would be a de facto detective. The new breed. Moreover, as they both knew, not only would Cobb not have access to support and advice from Marc Edwards, Marc might well be pitted against him, as the Major’s personal loyalty to the Baldwins and his unwavering commitment to the Reform cause were never in doubt.
“So how do we go about gettin’ the true facts?” he said to the Chief.
“Get yerself out to the mill. Question all the hands. Someone must have seen a man with puffy white hair skulkin’ about the place. See if any of them young bucks at Whittle’s had anythin’ to do with young Betsy. If the rapist wasn’t Seamus Baldwin – and we gotta keep an open mind on this, despite the sincerity of Jake Broom – then it was one them mill-hands. For all we know, Broom might’ve been tricked by the light or simply panicked and thought he saw a puff of white hair. You’ll need to look over the scene real careful. Find out where everybody was just past noon on that day.”
“But that was two months ago!”
“Ah, but the day before there was a tornado that tore through the bush and a big wind that blew in windows and knocked down trees. They’ll remember, all right.”
“They’d better.”
“For the moment, though, there’s no need to go back to Spadina. If you feel you haveta go, it’d nice to have some further evidence to take with you.”
“I’ll need to quiz the servants about Uncle Seamus, as they call him. If Betsy and him were makin’ eyes at each other, they somebody would’ve seen it.”
“But will they tell us, eh? You’ll need all yer skills on this one, Cobb.”
And the constable’s notorious tact.
SEVEN
Cobb began right away. At the Chief’s suggestion he rented a horse and buggy from Frank’s livery, and headed up Brock Street to the Spadina road. Although Jake Broom had been warned not to say a word about his statement and had assured them that he had told no-one except the police about what he had seen, Sturges urged Cobb to try and reach the mill before the young mill-hand did. Cobb got lucky. A quarter-mile from the cut-off to the mill, he spotted Broom in the bush at the side of the road, taking a leak. He hurried on by. Ten minutes later he drew up in front of the mill office. A local farmer had just unloaded a wagonful of Indian corn, and roared past him in a flurry of hooves.
“Good day to you, too,” Cobb said, jumping down.
Seth Whittle, the miller, was standing in the office doorway. He stepped out to greet Cobb, a worried look on his face. “Young Broom ain’t in trouble, is he?” he said.
“Not at all, sir. He come to the police with information about an incident that took place here last August. My name’s Cobb, and I been asked to investigate.”
“I’m Seth Whittle.” He held out a large, calloused hand that seemed at odds with his otherwise plump, almost flabby, body. He was fair-skinned and sunburnt with thinning reddish hair.
“I’ll need to talk to you and then the rest of yer crew who were workin’ here last August the third.”
Whittle whistled through a gap in his teeth: “That’s some while back Only thing I remember about that time was a big wind, some say a tornado, that come blowin’ through here to damage one of the sluices on my weir.”
“Yer milldam?”
“Yup. And, now I recall, the very next mornin’ old Dennis Johns come in here drunk and tipped a whole load of wheat on the ground over there. Injured his horse in the bargain. Survived himself by landin’ on his thick skull.”
“Then it oughta be easy fer you to recollect some other things that day.”
“You said there’d been an incident?”
“Accordin’ to a sworn statement just made by Jake Broom to the police, Betsy Thurgood was raped in a stall in that there barn. Just after noon hour on August the third.”
“That ain’t possible.”
“Maybe so. But that’s what I been ordered to find out.”
“Nobody in my crew would’ve done somethin’ like that to little Betsy. She was our pet. We all adored her. We’re all still wearin’ black, as you can see.”
Cobb noted the black armband.
“Must’ve been some stranger hidin’ out there. But I still don’t think it could’ve happened here.”
“If you’d let me use yer office, I’d be much obliged.”
“Certainly.”
Whittle looked genuinely upset, but whether it was grief, guilt or fear Cobb could not tell.
***
Cobb settled himself down behind the miller’s desk. He told Whittle to inform each of his men – Joe Mullins, Sol Clift and Burton Thurgood – that they were to be questioned one at a time. Whittle was not to forewarn them, and following his interrogation, each man was to remain in the office and keep quiet. Cobb didn’t want them fabricating a joint story. As instructed, Whittle returned from this task, looking very anxious. He sat down across from Cobb, obviously uncomfortable in the unfamiliar and less authoritative chair. Cobb silently congratulated himself.
“Let’s begin, sir, with you tellin’ me about this lunch-hour business.”
“Well, Betsy’d worked on special occasions up at Spadina since she was twelve. She’d become a favourite up there, and whenever she did work, Mrs. Morrisey, the cook, made Burton a special lunch and Betsy was allowed to bring it down here.”
“When did she start permanent up there?”
“About a week before the day we’re talkin’ about. Then she come here regular, every noon.”
“Okay. Now tell me what went on here – startin’ with Betsy’s arrival.”
Whittle tweaked his right ear nervously, as if it might jar his memory. “That’s a while ago, but I remember because of the spill and the fuss in the forenoon and the fact that Betsy didn’t bring her father’s food here fer three or four days after that. When she did come back, she just said she’d been sick. I never dreamed – ”
“Did she seem her usual self then?”
“Well now, as far as I could tell, yes. We always teased her a bit about workin’ fer the swells up at Spadina and she always had a shy little laugh.”
“On the third, a Saturday, who all was in this room havin’ their eats?”
“All of us. The usual bunch, that is: me, Burton, Sol, Joe and Jake. I recollect because it took all five of us to clean up old Dennis’s mess. I got blisters on my blisters that day.”
“How long did Betsy stay?”
“I couldn’t swear to it after all this time, but she never stayed more’n ten minutes. And she always arrived right on the strike of twelve. There’s a path through the woods from here all the way through to Spadina.”
“I see. And you lease this mill property from the Baldwins?”
“I do. They own all the land hereabouts. But I got a fifty-year lease. That’ll see me out.”
“And they own Trout Creek as well?”
A faint blush reddened Whittle’s cheeks between the freckles, and his round, friendly eyes narrowed slightly. “Every drop of water and blade of grass.”
“So let’s say, then, that Betsy arrives at noon and leaves at ten after twelve.” Cobb jotted the time down in his notebook. “Did you see her cross the road and head into the bush – direct?”
Whittle paused to think this over. “I don’t believe she did. But Sol Clift might be able to help you there. He made some remark about it, I think. But I can’t remember exactly.”
“So all five of you were here when she left, and you stayed to finish yer eats. How long did that take?”
“The men have an hour for their lunch. But about twelve-thirty that day, Burton Thurgood and me left to go upstream to repair the sluice at the weir.”
“That the tornado damaged?”
“That’s right. We’d started cuttin’ and fittin’ some new logs that mornin’, but had to st
op and help clean up the spilled grain.”
“So you was anxious to get back there?”
“We were.”
“How long were you there?”
“Oh, I couldn’t say fer sure. But there was two or three hours work there.”
“And you and Thurgood were together?”
“The whole time.”
Well, Cobb thought, that jibes with what Jake Broom swore to. When he got back to the office to report the rape to Whittle, the miller had already gone. But where was Betsy from twelve-ten to twelve-thirty? Already in the barn being assaulted?
“And you saw or heard nothin’ unusual while you was workin’ up there?”
Whittle thought about this. “No, nothin’.”
“Could you see the barn from the weir?”
“No, there’s a clump of trees between ‘em.”
“All right, thank you. Now please bring in Mr. Mullins.”
Joe Mullins was ushered in, and Whittle was banished to a bench in the storage room next door. Mullins was about twenty-five years of age, of medium build, fair-skinned but well-tanned – with dark red hair slicked down. He looked nervous but not frightened.
Cobb gave him a brief account of what might have happened in the barn on August the third, and noted the look of genuine horror that crept into his face.
“Not our Betsy? Not here?”
“We have reason to believe so, but I need to know where everybody was and what they were doin’ that noon hour and just after.”
The tornado, damaged weir and grain spill had a salutary effect on the young man’s memory. Cobb was pleased to see that he did not view himself as a suspect during the interrogation.
“Betsy left at her usual time. Just before half-past, the boss and Burton left to fix the weir. I left about five minutes later to go fer a stroll and a smoke.”
“What direction did you go in?”
“Not towards the barn, which is just north of here. I always go southwards down to the ravine where the creek makes a big turn. It’s peaceful down there. And there’s a trout pool – a good one, though we’re forbidden to angle. The Baldwins keep the trout fer themselves.”
There was no real resentment in Mullins’ remark, just an acknowledgement of how things are. “So you just had a smoke?”
“My pipe, yes.”
“Did you see or hear anythin’ unusual?”
After a brief pause, Mullins said, “Not really. Old Seamus Baldwin was down there, but he often is. He’s a keen angler.”
Cobb almost swallowed his tongue. Uncle Seamus was here on that day! Not a hundred yards from the barn. When he could get his thoughts aligned again, Cobb said, “And he was fishin’?”
“Come to think of it, he wasn’t. He was just walkin’ up and down. He didn’t see me as I’d finished my pipe and gone to rest fer a bit in the grass. Then I went back up to the mill and started work fer the afternoon – about five to one or so.”
Cobb thanked him and waved him to the storeroom. Looking both worried and chagrined, Whittle obediently went back into the mill and called for Sol Clift.
Clift was a tall, gangly chap of some thirty years, nearly bald, and so thin he was almost skeletal, except for the bands of muscle built up after some dozen years in a grist-mill. He had big puppy eyes that stared at you without blinking. Cobb thought he might be a little on the “slow” side. When Cobb filled him in on why he was here, the shock of the apparent rape registered sharply in his face, and the big eyes watered.
“Not our little Betsy?” he breathed.
“It looks so, lad. Now you can help me catch the bugger that did it by answering my questions carefully.”
Sol corroborated much of what Whittle and Mullins had reported, adding that Jake Broom had left about ten minutes before one o’clock to see to the sick horse, and then he himself had gone back into the mill.
“How far away would you say the barn was from here?” Cobb asked him.
“Oh, about a hundred yards or so. You could get there from here in a minute or two.”
“Now one last thing. Mr. Whittle mentioned that you might have seen which way Betsy went when she left here.”
Clift dabbed at his eyes. “I was sittin’ over there, where I always do. I like to look out the window. That day Betsy didn’t go straight across the road as she was supposed to.” He hung his head.
“Where would she go?”
He peered up, abashed. “I seen her go past the window. She smiled at me and put a finger to her lips.” The pain of that memory was etched on his face.
“Headin’ north?”
“Yeah. Up towards the barn.”
Cobb’s heart skipped a beat. “The barn?”
“She liked to look at the horses. And the Shetland pony Mr. Whittle keeps as a pet. She brung them apples and carrots. I promised her I’d never tell on her ‘cause her father wouldn’t like her not goin’ straight back to Spadina. But it won’t matter now, will it?”
“No, it won’t. But it may help me catch the culprit.”
Cobb struggled to keep his excitement in check. His fingers trembled as he jotted down the key times and movements: he did not want to rely exclusively on his prodigious memory. So far he had reliable and corroborated testimony that Betsy Thurgood had in fact been in that barn, possibly from twelve-fifteen until the rape occurred. If Jake Broom left the mill office a few minutes before one – say, ten to the hour – then he would have reached the barn and observed the rape-in-progress just before one. Seamus Baldwin, who was looking more and more like the guilty party, was spotted by Joe Mullins lurking a few minutes away near Trout Creek shortly after the half-hour. Then Mullins drifted away, giving Baldwin enough time to slip up through the bush to the barn and discover Betsy feeding the horses. As her confidant at Spadina, he might know of her passion for the animals and expect to find her near them. The rape might well have begun about twelve-fifty or so and been near completion when Jake Broom came upon it. Cobb took a few minutes to complete his notes.
He also gave some thought to the men he could see sitting on the edge of the bench in the adjoining room. If Broom’s account were even generally accurate, none of these men would fit the description he gave of the rapist: the wild shock of whitish hair, the impression of a short, wiry man of some years. Clift was skinny and near six feet. The miller was fifty and fat. Mullins was stocky with slicked-down red hair. And Thurgood, whom he’d already met, had black curls and a young man’s physique. Perhaps Broom himself did it. But then, why report it? No, Broom’s account was credible and, if it came to pass, he would make a credible witness in the box.
With these thoughts, Cobb took a deep breath and called for Burton Thurgood.
If Thurgood were embarrassed by the empty threats he had made the previous week, he had chosen not to show it. Instead, as was his wont, he chose belligerence.
“I thought you people’d caved in to the bigwigs!” he snarled as Cobb waved him to a chair. “So whaddya want now?”
“I want you to sit back in that chair and listen while I tell you a story about what really happened to your little girl.”
That got his attention, and with a grunt he shut up and allowed Cobb to sketch in the details of the apparent rape of his daughter in the barn a mere hundred yards from where they sat.
“I told you that old bastard raped her!” he shouted, rising halfway out of his seat. “But you wouldn’t listen to me!”
Cobb had deliberately avoided mentioning Joe Mullins’s sighting of Seamus Baldwin, but he realized of course that Thurgood was fixated on the old man. Certainly the circumstantial evidence surrounding the abortion payment was not going to play out in Uncle Seamus’s favour.
“We don’t know who did that awful thing to yer daughter, sir. That’s why I’m here.”
“Well, I do! And I’m goin’ up to Spadina to take care of him myself, seein’ as how you’re doin’ bugger-all.”
“I’d advise against that, sir. Yer good wife don’t need you in j
ail., does she?”
“What do you expect me to do? I was her father!”
“Let me get to the truth.”
Thurgood’s rage seemed to have spent itself. He sat down, leaned back, and simply scowled at Cobb.
“That’s better. Now I want you to walk me through everythin’ that happened from the time Betsy arrived that day.”
Grudgingly, Thurgood confirmed the previous accounts, showing a reaction only when Cobb interrupted to inform him of Sol Clift’s report of Betsy going to the barn to feed the horses the treats she had brought them.
“I told her to go straight back! If only she’d listened to me!”
Thurgood said that he and Whittle had indeed left early to go up to the damaged weir. Like the miller, he had seen or heard nothing unusual. Cobb noted once again that no-one had heard screams or cries for help – not even Jake Broom at the scene. Perhaps the rapist had gagged her or held his hand over her mouth.
Cobb thanked Seth Whittle and released his captive audience. Just as he did, Jake Broom came into the office.
“You c’n tell ‘em everythin’ now,” Cobb said, and walked out to leave these men an afternoon of ceaseless chatter and speculation about the terrible events of August the third. He only hoped that when Thurgood heard of Uncle Seamus’s presence in the ravine, he would not do anything drastic. At any rate, it was clear now that he himself must drive up to Spadina and beard the old gent. With the growing evidence against him, Cobb concluded that, in his current unstable state, the fellow would merely confess and get the anguish and guilt over with. As the Chief had implied, the police desperately needed an unequivocal result.
First, however, he would survey the terrain to get a clear picture of it in his mind and to make sure that the references to it by the mill-hands were accurate.
He turned north outside the mill-office. Beyond the mill building itself, where the huge millstones were already pounding and clashing, he spied the barn just to the right and, indeed, about a hundred paces away. A well-worn path connected it to the mill. Just above the barn lay a cluster of cedar trees that acted as a screen between the barn and the millpond father north. Cobb walked through the barn. A dozen stalls were occupied by four horses, three cows, four calves and a black-and-white pony. Near the rear of the barn, whose doors were wide open, to let a breeze through, Cobb came across the vacant stall where the rape must have occurred. If Broom had walked on by – again there appeared to have been no cries to alert him – and then had turned just here in the doorway, he would have spotted the outrage, almost dead on, from about thirty-five feet (a little farther than Broom had stated, but it was a small discrepancy). Still, it was close enough for him to have determined the colour and pattern of Betsy’s dress, get a glimpse of legs and buttocks moving up and down, and note a whitish spray of hair, especially if – as now – the sun had streaked in through cracks in the siding and added to the wash of light from the open doorway.
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