Minor Corruption

by Don Gutteridge

  “But the girl – ”

  “Mrs. Cobb, wait for the question. You are not to do anything more than respond to queries put to you by counsel,” said the judge.

  “My apologies, Yer Lordship.”

  “Did you know to whom she was referring?”

  “No, I didn’t. I thought it might be one of the neighbourhood lads.”

  “So you didn’t know that Betsy worked up at Spadina and was in daily contact with a Mr. Seamus Baldwin?”

  “I ain’t ever been to Spadina, sir.”

  Marc winced. Cambridge was indeed slick and subtle. There was no way that Marc could object, but the prosecutor had managed to refocus the jury’s attention on the defendant and the “logical” inference about which particular Seamus was being alluded to. Dora was now turned over to Marc.

  “I’d like to go back to young Betsy’s last words. We heard earlier testimony that she did speak three words, and you have kindly given us the third one. It was ‘please’ set between the two ‘Seamuses,’ is that right?”

  “It is.”

  “Would you try and repeat the whole phrase as close as you can to the pace and rhythm of Betsy’s own voice?”

  “Milord!” Cambridge was up quickly, but without ruffling his silk gown. “What is the purpose of this bit of cheap theatrics?”

  “Mrs. Cobb was there, sir. It might be easier for her to demonstrate than to describe, don’t you think?” the judge said. “Go ahead, Mrs. Cobb.”

  “I’ll try. She was somewhat delirious, so her voice was slow and syrupy. She said ‘Seamus . . . please . . . Seamus’.”

  “Did that sound like an accusation to you? Or a confession?”

  Cambridge seethed – elegantly – but did not intervene.

  “No, sir. I thought it sounded more like she was pleadin’ with us. Perhaps to go and fetch Mr. Seamus.”

  Marc knew how dangerous this remark might prove to be, but he had to get the notion of a plea into the jury’s thinking. After all, he hoped, through Dr. Baldwin much later, to show that Uncle Seamus was Betsy’s tutor and confidant, not her seducer.

  “One final question, ma’am. How many Seamuses do you know?”

  “Milord – ”

  The judge held up his right hand.

  Dora paused to think. “Oh, at least six or seven. And most them is in Irishtown.”

  Several jurors tittered.

  “No more questions,” Marc said, and sat down, satisfied.

  The Crown then called two gentlemen from the better part of town to testify about an August soirée at Spadina: Mr. Samuel Leigh, a banker and onetime Tory member of the Legislature, followed by Mr. Ralph Broadhead, a jeweller and close friend of Bishop Strachan and other prominent persons of the Tory persuasion. The Baldwins, father and son, though passionately political, were not consumed by politics or personal power, nor did they limit their friends and acquaintances to members of a single party. They were likewise generous with invitations to their grand house, Spadina.

  So it happened that these gentlemen had attended a dinner and evening’s entertainment on that great estate in late August. And part of the entertainment had been a ventriloquist performance by Seamus Baldwin, in which he was costumed like a leprechaun and the live dummy on his lap was intended to be an Irish peasant girl, complete with ruffled skirt and low-cut peasant blouse. The only positive thing from Marc’s point of view during this otherwise devastating testimony, was that the dummy had been Edie Barr, not Betsy Thurgood. But much damage was done nevertheless. Both gentlemen were shocked at the spectacle. Seamus Baldwin had placed his right hand in the bun that formed the back of the girl’s hair as if it were a string on a dummy’s mouth, and while he tried unsuccessfully to keep his lips from moving, Edie’s lower jaw dropped and rose – dummy-like – and appeared to engage in a putatively comic dialogue with the leprechaun. The “dummy,” without corsets or stockings, was perched as plump as you please on the old fool’s lap.

  Marc chose to cross-examine only the first of these two witnesses.

  “Mr. Leigh, did you not laugh at the entertainment? Remember, sir, you are under oath.”

  The question caught Leigh by surprise, but he said grudgingly, “Once or twice. It would’ve been comical if it hadn’t been improper.”

  “Have you ever been to the theatre, sir?”

  “Well, yes. Once or twice.”

  “Ever see a comedy or a French farce?”

  “One or two.”

  “Ever see actors, male and female, doing things on stage that you might in your own home consider a bit naughty or ‘improper’ even?”

  “Yes, but that was on a stage!”

  “Were Mr. Baldwin and Miss Barr in costume?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Were they on a platform in Dr. William Baldwin’s drawing-room?”

  “Well, yes, they were. Just a little one.”

  “Was each of them playing a role other than their own selves?”

  “Well, yes – ”

  “So what was improper, sir? You were being entertained, were you not? By a pair of costumed actors? Mr. Seamus Baldwin was not fondling the girl, was he? The girl did not look distressed, did she? Or as if she were being coerced?”

  Leigh had rocked back under this barrage, and Cambridge had just reached his feet when the witness mumbled, “No, sir. None of those things.”

  Sitting on the rear bench near the back doors next to the bailiff, Cobb felt the heat rise up through his collar. What on earth was Marc up to? Was he out to cut up every witness, every honest citizen who stepped up to the stand to do his duty? How far would his friend go to dismantle this airtight case?

  Marc’s rapid-fire examination of Samuel Leigh did much to blunt the subsequent testimony of Ralph Broadhead. So Marc declined to cross-examine.

  The last witness of the morning was Beth Edwards. She had watched several dramatic trials in the past two years, but she had never been on the witness-stand herself. She was nervous but did her best to appear calm. She had not been interviewed by Neville Cambridge, but she was anticipating the worst. Few people in the room did not know she was the wife of the defense attorney. If she had compelling testimony to offer the Crown, it would weigh mightily with the jury. Marc caught her eye, and she smiled grimly. Marc had studiously avoided discussing the possible questions she might be asked, as she was an official prosecution witness. Even so, she was better left to her own devices, which were considerable.

  “Mrs. Edwards, I believe you attended a birthday party at the beginning of September for Miss Eliza Baldwin out at Spadina?”

  “I did,” Beth said, certain now where this was going. She braced herself.

  “Did the defendant, Mr. Seamus Baldwin, make an appearance at that party?”

  “Yes.”

  “Describe the nature and course of that appearance for the members of the jury.”

  Beth hesitated.

  “Begin with his arrival, please, and go from there.”

  “Mr. Baldwin arrived doin’ a jig and playin’ an Irish fife. He was dressed like an elf or a leprechaun.”

  “This child-like behaviour was intended to entertain the children?”

  “Yes. And it did. They laughed and pranced around him.”

  “What else did he do to entertain them?”

  Marc suddenly realized that the reason Cambridge had not bothered to interview Beth was that someone else at that party had already filled in the details. But who? There were no outsiders that day. Surely not Fabian Cobb. But it could have been Edie. From Cobb’s report of his interview with her, Marc got the impression that she had a love-hate relationship with the old man. If he had, in his recent depression, not paid her sufficient attention, then she might have tattled to spite him. She came into St. James cathedral every Sunday with the family. There would be ample time for her to slip away and make a statement. He turned his attention back to the witness-stand, where Beth had started to answer Cambridge’s question.

  “
He played Blind Man’s Buff with the children at the party.”

  “And he was the blind man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else joined in the game?”

  “The two housemaids, Betsy Thurgood and Edie Barr.”

  Cambridge paused, glanced meaningfully at the jurors, and said, “And who invited them to join?”

  Beth sighed, but she had little choice: she would tell the truth, if she was compelled to. “They asked if they could join, and when Miss Partridge objected, Mr. Baldwin gave them permission. And they joined in.”

  “Mr Seamus Baldwin?” Cambridge said as if he were introducing that name for the first time.

  “Yes. He wanted them to enjoy themselves, too.” It was the best she could do.

  “In the course of this children’s game, the Blind Man tries to capture one of the participants, who taunt and tease him. Am I correct?”

  “You are. But whenever Mr. Baldwin came close to catching a child, he’d pretend to stumble and lose his hold. The children roared with laughter. They were having a wonderful time.”

  “I’m sure they were. There’s a little child in all of us. But at some point did Mr. Baldwin actually catch a participant?”

  “Yes. He caught Edie Barr, one of the housemaids.”

  “I see. No stumbling there, I take it?”

  Marc grimaced but kept quiet. Beth took the question as rhetorical and waited, apprehensively.

  “One variation of this game, as I understand it, is that when someone is captured, the children cry out, ‘Who is it? You’ve got to tell us who you’ve caught!’ Did that happen on this occasion?”

  “Yes. The children ordered him to name the person he’d captured.”

  “Describe, as precisely as you can recall, how he went about it.”

  “Well, first of all, I’m sure he knew who he’d caught. I was told he could actually see through the scarf he used for a mask. That was so he could pretend to stumble and stagger and play ignorant so he could entertain the children with his pratfalls. So as she stood stock still, he moved his hands up and down her figure, keeping them deliberately away from touching her. Again, the children howled at his exaggeratin’.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I think Edie lost her balance and then – fell against . . . Mr. Baldwin.”

  “Fell into his hands so that he was grasping her? Where?”

  Beth waited as long as she could before saying, “Around the hips.”

  “And how can you be sure it was Miss Barr who fell into those hands and not the hands that moved most improperly against her?”

  “I can’t. But it looked to me like she lost her balance. Like it was an accident.”

  “Did he remove his hands right away? Sort of jump back startled? After all, you say he could see everything that was happening through the scarf.”

  “No. He seemed surprised, but we couldn’t see his eyes. He just kind of held her for a moment, perhaps to stop her from tippin’ over. Then he went back to his pretend business.”

  “So whatever did happen, the result was improper, wouldn’t you say? A mature gentleman is running his hands up and down a sixteen-year-old’s female figure in a sort of obscene pantomime and the next thing you know, he’s got both hands on her haunches – ”

  “Milord!” Marc had sprung to his feet, eyes blazing.

  “Mr. Cambridge, that’s quite enough of that. The jury will ignore those latter remarks.”

  Not only had the jury heard the remarks, Cambridge had left the dramatic raising of his voice until the very last minute of the morning’s testimony. And it was doubly effective. Now, rebuked, he spoke in a very soft, almost seductive tone as he said to Beth, “Tell us, Mrs. Edwards, how you felt as you observed this incident. Not what you thought later, but what feeling ran through you as you witnessed these sexual intimacies.”

  Beth dropped her head, looking down and well away from Marc as she spoke the truth: “I felt a kind of revulsion, like I was about to be sick to my stomach.”

  ELEVEN

  Marc did his best to undo the damage that Beth’s testimony had wrought. All he could do was have her describe the joy the children found in Uncle Seamus’s antics and his obvious pleasure in it. He had her describe the old man’s gentlemanly demeanour upon their arrival and his courtesy on their leaving when he had fetched Beth’s shawl in the butler’s momentary absence. Beth looked shaken – surprised perhaps by her own sudden candour – but she kept her composure, as was her wont in trying circumstances. Thankfully, the court broke for the noon recess.

  In the chambers of Baldwin House the morning session was mulled over by Marc, Robert, Hincks and Dr. Baldwin. Beth joined Brodie and Diana Ramsay for luncheon, and planned to sit with them behind Marc in the afternoon session.

  “Well,” Hincks began, “Neville Cambridge has taken the Tory gloves off for this one.”

  “In his sly sort of way,” Robert said.

  “Imagine, calling those two old farts you had the misfortune to invite to Spadina last August,” Hincks said. “But your cross was brilliant, Marc.”

  “Thank you. But having my Beth come on right after didn’t help, did it?”

  “Cambridge knew you couldn’t bring yourself to make your own wife look foolish or mistaken.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Baldwin agreed. “And you were wise, Marc, not to go directly at her evidence. At least the jury left with images of happiness and courtesy in their heads.”

  “We’re just getting started,” Marc said. “We haven’t even got close to the rape charge.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Dr. Baldwin said. “They’re holding Seamus in a cell next door to the court. They’re being very solicitous, but I must go to him soon.”

  The room went silent as the full weight of the situation struck each man, and none more than Marc Edwards.

  ***

  The Crown surprised everyone but Marc in calling Auleen Thurgood to the stand. Marc had a pretty good idea why she had been included, and it was not to corroborate her husband’s testimony, for she was more likely to muddy it and blunt the effect it had already had.

  “Mrs. Thurgood, when Constable Cobb came to interview you after the inquest into your daughter’s death several weeks ago, he asked to look over your daughter’s room, did he not?”

  Auleen twisted a cotton hanky in her fingers and answered in a tiny, strained voice, “Yes, sir, he did. And I said he could.”

  “Milord, on that occasion Constable Cobb found a note in the girl’s room that pertains directly to this case. I’d like to enter it as exhibit A along with the constable’s signed attestation as to the circumstances in which it was found.”

  “So done,” said Mr. Justice Gavin Powell.

  “Now, Mrs. Thurgood,” Cambridge said in a tone as smooth as summer molasses, “would you kindly read the note aloud and then tell me in whose hand it has been penned.”

  In her shaky voice, Auleen read the note to the court:

  Dear Uncle:

  Thank you for the five pound note. It’s a

  lifesaver and you are an angel. I love you.

  XOXOX

  Betsy

  P.S. See you soon at Spadina.

  At the phrase “I love you” she let out a small sob, paused, gathered her strength, and finished reading.

  “In whose hand was this written, Mrs. Thurgood?” Cambridge prompted.

  “My Betsy’s. I’d know it anywheres.”

  There was an audible intake of breath among the jurors, and elsewhere.

  “Now let’s see if you can tell me to whom it was intended to be sent, but alas never was.”

  “That’s clear, ain’t it?” Auleen said, letting the tears flow through her words. “Mr. Seamus Baldwin – ”

  “Milord!”

  “The jury will ignore that remark,” the judge said.

  “It is addressed to ‘uncle,’ is it not?” Cambridge said gently, as if he were quizzing a shy schoolgirl.

  �
��Yes, it is.”

  “Does Betsy have an uncle?”

  “She did, but they all died.”

  “To what does the word ‘Spadina’ refer?”

  “To the Baldwins’ big house, Spadina.”

  “And is there someone up there commonly called ‘uncle’ by those who know him?”

  “There is. That’s what she called Mr. Seamus Baldwin: ‘Uncle Seamus’.”

  All eyes turned up to the dock. Uncle Seamus was slumped in the arms of the bailiff’s deputy, apparently unaware of the discussion of his nickname.

  “So we may assume that this is a note addressed to that gentleman, the defendant?”

  “That is for the jury to assume or not, Mr. Cambridge,” the judge said.

  “Indeed, sir. My apologies. Now, Mrs. Thurgood, the letter thanks the so-called ‘uncle’ at Spadina for lending Betsy five pounds. Did you know about this transaction?”

  “No, sir, we did not. And if we had, we’d’ve been very cross with Betsy and – ” She stopped to dab her eyes with the well-wrung hanky.

  “So this was a secret transaction?”

  Marc wanted to interrupt, but there was little use. Cambridge was going to get his way on the thank-you note. And gain a lot of ground in the process.

  “Did you in recent weeks, madam, ever see a five-pound note in your home?”

  “Yes, we did. Burton and me saw one waved at us by Mrs. Trigger when she come out of Betsy’s room after stickin’ her with a rusty needle!” Auleen’s voice, in rising with emotion, cracked and broke.

  Cambridge nodded in sympathy and, slyly, left well enough alone. That the jury would see the appropriate connections between Uncle Seamus, the banknote, its purpose and its reappearance was almost certain. He moved elsewhere.

  “‘I love you,’ Betsy says here. Did you know that your fifteen-year-old daughter was in love with a sixty-year-old gentleman?”

  Marc winced again. Cambridge’s cunning was impressive.

  “’Course not! We’d’ve put a stop to it if we had! We thought she’d be safe up at Spadina. Dr. Baldwin’s such a fine, religious gentleman, we never dreamed – ”