“But he could arrive home any minute. I always set a place for him.”
Cobb sat down on the opposite side of the table, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. “Is it all right here?”
“Oh, yes. You’ll have coffee while I eat.”
“That’s good of you, ma’am, but I don’t mind the servants’ quarters.”
“I need someone to talk to.”
“So you said last night. Why don’t you invite your friend to visit you?”
Christine’s face darkened. “Christina only comes when she feels like it. Sometimes I think she doesn’t even like me.”
“Well, you could go to her house perhaps. I’d be happy to escort you.”
“She doesn’t like anyone suddenly dropping in on her.”
Cobb wondered what kind of friend this could be.
“Anyway, I want to talk to you. You seemed so understanding last night when I told you how faithless my brother has been.”
“But your brother will have to marry sometime, won’t he?” Cobb said, pointing to what he thought was obvious.
“Of course he won’t!” she snapped. “He’s already got me, hasn’t he?”
“But he might want children, a regular family life.”
“You’re beginning to sound just like him.” Her pale blue eyes widened and a wild, almost desperate, look came into her expression.
At this point the conversation was saved by the arrival of Mrs. Baldridge with a cup of coffee on a tray. Beside it was an envelope.
“What’s that?” Christine said sharply.
Mrs. Baldridge replied hesitantly. “Well, Gulliver picked this up at the post office this afternoon, and seeing how letters seem to upset you so, he held onto it. I’ve already chastised him for it.”
“Leave it with me.”
“Couldn’t you wait till after you’ve eaten?”
“It’s from Christopher. I must read it right away.” She snatched the letter from the tray, tore it open, and began reading the letter, muttering under her breath as she did so.
“He’s not coming home! He’s not coming home!”
“Please, Christine, don’t upset yourself,” Mrs. Baldridge said. “He’ll be home as soon as he can. He’s an important man of the world now. We can’t have him all to ourselves.”
“And he mentions that harlot again!”
At this she rose up, spilling her soup, and hurled the letter to the floor. Her face went beet-red, twisted in pain and frustration. Her hands turned to fists as she leaned against the table. Suddenly her whole body began to tremble, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Mrs. Baldridge let out a little cry and reached out to catch her mistress as she collapsed in a faint.
Cobb was up instantly and at Mrs. Baldridge’s side.
“Is she havin’ a fit?” Cobb said, staring down into the girl’s face, now becalmed.
“It’s her headache. It often starts this way. I’ll carry her to her room.”
“Can you manage?”
“I have for twenty-some years.”
With that, the little woman carried the tall girl into the next room and through a far door, which led to Christine Pettigrew’s suite. Cobb ran ahead and opened the door.
“No-one’s allowed in but me,” Mrs. Baldridge said firmly, and swept inside. The door closed behind her.
‘What have I gotten myself into?’ was Cobb’s thought.
He turned and went back into the dining-room. His coffee was still there, still hot. He sat down and drank it. No sound came from Christine’s suite. Cobb noticed the letter on the floor. He picked it up. He remembered seeing several like it on a small secretary in the sewing-room last night. He decided to put this one with its fellows. There were four or five other letters in a neat pile on the desk. He placed this one on top. Then something made him browse through the others. They were all from Christopher in Kingston. They had come quite regularly. And, he assumed, each one had brought on the “headache.”
He went back into the dining-room and took up his post for the night. He thought that Miss Pettigrew would likely be sedated and unaware of any peeping Tom, should one happen to come.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Baldridge came out of the suite, and then did a strange thing. She reached in her apron pocket and pulled out a large key. She inserted it into a lock on the door, and turned it. She put the key back in her pocket and came into the dining-room.
“I’ll take these dishes downstairs,” she said. “You can stay where you are.”
Cobb sighed. Now he was taking orders from a lady’s maid.
Mrs. Baldridge reappeared and went to take up her own post outside Christine’s door. Out came the knitting. Cobb yawned. At ten o’clock, Mrs. Baldridge, without saying goodnight, got up and disappeared into her own quarters. Christine was all alone with her headache.
As Cobb drowsed, dreamt, and came awake, he remembered the dream he had had the previous night. And suddenly he knew what clue he had missed: the image of a laundry woman with a white bag over her shoulder on the night of the first murder. And he thought about the regularity of those letters, and a scarf left behind in an alley. And then a cold shiver came up his spine. He had a wild, fantastic thought. And suddenly, he had to know.
First he had to get the key. He went into a little hallway off the drawing-room and, following the snores he could hear, he soon found Mrs. Baldridge’s bedroom. The door was partially open. He gave it a push. No squeak. He slipped into the room, lit by moonlight from its sole window. Mrs. Baldridge was asleep on a cot in a far corner. Her apron was draped over a chair. Cobb tiptoed across to it. He hit a squeaky board, and stopped dead. The snoring hesitated, then resumed. Cobb reached the chair and felt about in the apron for the key. It was there.
He slipped back into the drawing-room and went up to the door of Christine’s suite. He realized the danger in what he was doing. If he disturbed Christine from her sleep, she might cry out before he could explain that he had heard a noise outside and was checking to see if she were all right. (He was praying she didn’t realize she was locked in.) If the hue and cry were raised, however, he would have no plausible way of explaining how he had come by the key. But he had to know.
He inserted the key and slowly turned it. He eased the door open and put his head inside. What he could see, with moonlight through the windows, was enough to let him know he was in an anteroom off the boudoir. There was a couch on the far side near a fireplace, but it was empty. He stepped into the room. The boudoir was to his right. He could see the small door leading to it. Fortunately it was open. He went over to it and peeked inside.
The room was small, containing just a vanity, a tall wardrobe and a curtained bed. The curtains were drawn back. No-one was sleeping there, though someone had been. Cobb decided to take a huge risk. Softly, he called out, “Miss Pettigrew? Are you here? Are you awake?”
No response. Not a breath of sound.
He went back into the bigger room and satisfied himself that it too was unoccupied. What was he to think? The outer door was locked from the outside. Christine could have had a key of course, but if she did, then why did Mrs. Baldridge bother to lock her in? Cobb knew he had dozed off a bit, but surely he would have heard the click of a lock. He went over to each of the windows and noted that neither had been opened that winter.
Where was she?
Then he remembered the tall wardrobe. She had to be in there. He went back into the boudoir and over to the wardrobe. It opened easily. It seemed full of dresses and other ladies’ garments. He pushed at them, expecting at any moment to hit something solid. Then he pushed too hard and stumbled into the cupboard. He pitched forward and hit his head on the far wall.
It swung open.
It was actually a door, set in what had once most likely been a window. He crawled through it – into a cold, dark room. There was just enough light for him to realize that he was in a milk shed, attached no doubt to the back of the stone house. Cobb shivered at the shock of cold air, but went ac
ross to an outside door and opened it. He was staring at the snow-covered kitchen garden. A narrow path led off to the right, packed hard by the tramp of servants. He couldn’t tell if anyone had come out here tonight. But he was now certain that someone had.
He went back inside. What to do? He made his decision. He went into the boudoir and sat down on the bed. He hoped he knew what he was doing.
***
He didn’t have to wait long. About half an hour later he heard the door to the milk shed bang shut. Then he heard the secret door to the wardrobe open. He stood up, just as a heavy laundry bag was flung onto the boudoir floor. Then Christine Pettigrew herself came through. She had a knife in her hand.
Cobb lunged for the knife, but he wasn’t fast enough. He knocked it aside, but it swung back in a sharp arc and sliced through Cobb’s shirt. He heard the girl grunt with the effort. With both hands he seized the arm wielding the knife. She strained to break free of his grip, and Cobb felt, and was amazed by, the strength in her. The girl’s rasping breath was in his ear. Finally Cobb brought the arm down on his knee, and heard the girl’s cry and the knife hitting the floor.
“It’s all over, Christine,” he cried. “Give it up.”
Suddenly all the fight went out of her. She heaved a big sigh and collapsed in Cobb’s arms.
Her cry brought Mrs. Baldridge to the door.
“What are you doing to my precious?” she demanded.
“It’s what she’s done to me and others that matters,” Cobb said. “I’ve just captured the mad killer who’s been terrorizin’ the town!”
Mrs. Baldridge acted as if she had not heard.
“Put her on the couch. I’ll get the smelling salts.”
Cobb hauled the dead-weight of the girl over to the couch in the anteroom. He went back and picked up the knife. There was, thank God, no blood on it, his or anyone’ else’s. The hunt had been unsuccessful this night.
Mrs. Baldridge retuned, propped Christine up, and applied the smelling salts. The girl woke up drowsily.
“Hello, Nanny,” she whispered in a little-girl voice. “Oh, hello, Mr. Cobb. What are you all doing in my room?”
“I think Christina’s been for a visit,” Mrs. Baldridge said.
***
“Whenever Christine has one of her headaches, Christina is likely to appear,” Mrs. Baldridge explained. Christine was sitting up and merely looking bewildered. She apparently had little or no memory of what she had just been doing. “And Christina is not a very well balanced lady, so I lock the room at night.”
“Christina is sometimes very bad,” Christine said.
“So you know about Christina, then?” Cobb said.
“Oh, yes. We talk often, and Christina delights in telling me about her being naughty.”
“She sneaked out of the house?”
“Oh, yes. She had a secret door, didn’t she?”
“I didn’t know anything about a secret door,” Mrs. Baldridge said. “I had no idea she was sneaking out at night. I always found Christine in bed in the morning, with the headache gone.”
“Christina has been goin’ out to Devil’s Acre, hasn’t she?” Cobb said.
“That’s what she’s been telling me,” Christine said.
“And why did she do that?”
“It was all Christopher’s fault. That’s what Christina told me. He abandoned me, he was going to marry a witch!”
“But a witch that looked like you?”
Christine winced. “That’s what Christopher told me. Tall and blond, like I am and Christopher is.”
“So Christina convinced you to hate this woman in Kingston?”
“Christina said all would be well if only we could get rid of her.”
“So Christina plotted to do that, and she went looking for someone blond and attractive in Devil’s Acre.”
“She was a devil, wasn’t she? Where else would we find her?”
“But she lived in Kingston.”
“That’s what Christopher wished me to believe, but she’s been here in Devil’s Acre all along. He’s been keeping that secret from me, but Christina knows everything. She’s naughty, but she knows things for certain.”
“So Christina went looking for her?”
“And there she was. Christina told me about her. And how clever she was in doing what had to be done.”
“Christina thought up the idea of dressing up like a man? In yer brother’s clothes?”
“Oh, yes. Clever, isn’t she?”
“But what did Christina do?” Mrs. Baldridge said with a gasp.
“She killed three people by slitting their throats: Sally Butts, Sarie Hickson and Simon Whitemarsh,” Cobb said.
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Baldridge said, and reached for the smelling salts. She sat down in a chair opposite the couch that Christine was lying on.
“But the third time Christina killed your brother’s fiancée,” Cobb said to the girl, “it was really a man.”
“Christina was not pleased to read that in the newspaper.”
“Not completely clever, was she?”
“Oh, but she boasted to me how she outwitted the police every time.”
“She put on your brother’s boots and greatcoat and fur hat, didn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, but not here.”
“That was the really clever part, wasn’t it? She put these things in a big laundry bag and pretended she was a laundry woman, didn’t she?”
“And who would notice or remember a laundry woman walking towards or away from Devil’s Acre?”
“So Christina waited till she was inside Devil’s Acre, then put on a man’s coat, hat and boots over her woman’s clothes, old clothes like a laundry woman would wear. And a bit like the ones you’ve got on, Christine.” Cobb had an image of a tall, dark figure stalking its victim, silently except for the whirr of the knife, blood splashing on the white snow.
Christine looked puzzled. “Christina must have given me these. They’re not mine.”
“Then she prowled Devil’s Acre looking for the witch, didn’t she?” Cobb said.
“Even if she was seen she got only a nod from the passers-by. She had the knife ready, the one my daddy used for skinning rabbits.”
“What puzzled me the most,” Cobb said, “was tracking those bootprints to the edge of Devil’s Acre, at Jarvis or Church Street. They disappeared because Christina stopped there to put the men’s things into the laundry bag – and became the laundry woman again.”
“How clever is that, eh?”
Cobb remembered now that the tracks at the edge of Devil’s Acre had always looked as if the killer had shuffled about waiting for the coast to be clear. But now he knew the shuffling about was for the removal of the disguise. And that the laundry woman the watchman had seen after Sally Butts was killed was in fact the murderer.
“And Christina was clever enough to fake an attack on you,” Cobb said.
Christine smiled. “Oh, that was a good one, wasn’t it? I was very frightened, of course, when she told me I had to walk through Devil’s Acre. ‘But I’ll be nearby, won’t I?’ she said to me. And I knew I’d be safe. She told me when to scream and fall down.”
“She wanted the police to know, from your description, just what sort of man was doing the attackin’, didn’t she?”
“They’ll never suspect it’s a woman,’ she said, and laughed.
“She only made one mistake, though. She dropped her scarf in the alley. It had the letter ‘P’ on it for Pettigrew.”
“But there are a lot of ‘P’s in Toronto, aren’t there?”
“Tell me, though, why would Christina invite a policeman into your house?”
“Oh, but she didn’t. I did see a man at my window, and without Christopher here, I wanted protection. I just insisted and Christina had no say in the matter.”
“What put me onto your clever friend,” Cobb said, “was my sudden memory of the laundry woman and beginning to wonder what might have been in that bag
. Then I noticed that the letters from your brother were dated three days apart. I saw how you reacted to the letter at supper time, and I began to wonder if your headaches were brought on by the mention of Kingston and your brother leavin’ you. Then there was the letter ‘P’ on the scarf. I thought my idea was wild at the time, but all I needed to do was make sure that you were in your bed where you were supposed to be.”
“Oh, but I was, wasn’t I? It’s Christina who goes out and does those naughty deeds.”
“Ah, yes, Christina. Well, she’s in a lot of trouble, I’m afraid.” Cobb looked over at Mrs. Baldridge. “We’ll have to go to the magistrate,” he said.
Mrs. Baldridge, still in shock, replied quietly, “I’ll see that she’s ready to go.”
TWELVE
Marc and Christopher had an uneventful passage home to Kingston. Marc went immediately to Robert’s room, where he found Robert, Hincks and LaFontaine.
“I’ve got great news,” Marc said before he even greeted them.
“You’ve won Thériault over?” Robert said, his eyes widening.
“All the way,” Marc said. “Christopher was magnificent.” He had been magnificent, too, but was too modest to say so.
“He’s going to back the coalition?” Louis said.
“And try to persuade others to do the same,” Marc said. “I left a number of documents, in English and French, for his use with his peers.”
“I’d like to meet with him as soon as possible,” Louis said.
“That will not be difficult. He has expressed a desire to do so as soon as you’re free.”
“I’ll go to Chateauguay at once,” Louis said, as excited as he ever got.
“I’ll go with you,” Hincks said, “if you think I could be of any help.”
“Marc, this is wonderful news,” Robert said. “I really feel now as if we are on the path to responsible government. Oh, there will be setbacks and bumps along the road, but with a French-English Reform alliance in the Assembly, nothing can stop our steady march.” Robert had tears in his eyes. “There were times when I thought this day would never come. But it has. And I thank God – and my many friends – for it.”
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