Read Online Desperate Acts by Don Gutteridge - Free Book Online Page B

been killed while defending the local church
from English firebrands. Diana’s brother, with whom she lived,
arranged for her to go off to a cousin’s farm near Chambly,
purportedly as governess to a nearby wealthy family. The baby girl
was born there in April of 1838, and after nursing it for two
months, Diana left it in the care of her cousins and returned to
her brother’s house. Her brother’s plan was to have the infant
brought to him as a foundling a month or so later, and adopted. He
and his wife had one child of their own, a ten-year-old son, but
longed for a daughter. Soon after the baby arrived and the
elaborate deception was played out, Robert Baldwin’s request for a
governess came by letter, and the decision was made to send Diana
to Toronto – for the best.
    “But we will bring the baby into our family as soon as we’re married,” Brodie had said gallantly.
    Astonished that any young man would even
consider her a suitable bride in the circumstances, Diana was
driven to weeping, something she had determined not to do. But
Brodie himself had been the ward of a man who had been the victim
of sustained scandalmongering, here and in New York, and, of
course, he was very much in love. “Oh, Brodie, you are such a dear,
dear man. But we can’t.”
    “What do you mean? Who will ever know?”
    “My brother and sister-in-law have been
raising little Sarah now for almost a year-and-a-half. She is their child. I could never ask them to give her up.”
    And though they had returned to the matter
several times since, Diana had remained adamant. However, while
each of them knew that they must wait some time before announcing
an engagement, its certainty was no longer in doubt.
    Now this. Had someone actually got wind of
Diana’s secret? Surely not. It had to be a desperate and feckless
attempt at extortion.
    “What will you do?” Celia said, handing the
note back to Brodie.
    “This!” Brodie tore the letter to shreds.
    “Good. And that’ll be the end of it?” Celia
smiled uncertainly.
    “I promise. Don’t I always take care of
everything?”
    But the end of it, Brodie had already
decided, would take place next Wednesday evening at nine-thirty in
the alley behind The Sailor’s Arms.
    ***
    Nestor Peck was weaving his way along Wellington
Street, pleasantly inebriated, a state he prized above all others.
Added to his sense of well-being was the fact that for the first
time in years he had a fine wool coat to wrap around his shrunken
torso and a silk scarf to keep his wrinkled throat warm. A stiff
breeze had come up from the west just as he had left The Cock and
Bull, but the stars were still shining and the three-quarter moon
was gliding apace and lighting his homeward path, as if he had
ordered up such luxuries himself. It was near midnight when he
approached the stone-cottage beside the chicken hatchery. It was
the first genuine house he had occupied since he had drifted into
Toronto a decade ago. Not that it would be considered so by the
town’s finer folk, for although it had once been a sturdy farm
cottage with quarry-stone walls and a timbered roof, it had been
abandoned long before the city had reached out and encircled it. In
the interim, its roof had rotted out in three places (now patched,
thank you) and the glass in its windows disintegrated (now neatly
covered with oiled paper). Leather hinges now held the decrepit
door almost vertical and a welcome-mat had been placed on the step
by the proud new lessee (the hatchery-man having claimed
ownership).
    Nestor stumbled over his welcome-mat and fell
against the door. It sprung open, propelling him into the main room
just in time to see his cousin sweep something off the table into
his lap and make a haphazard effort to snuff the nearby candle.
    “Oh, hullo, Nestor,” Albert Duggan grinned.
“I thought you were out for the night. You give me a start.”
    “Sorry, Bert. Had one too many at the Cock
and – ”
    A pound-note fluttered out of