Free Minor Corruption by Don Gutteridge Page B

where
Robert was waiting. He was clutching his cap as if Chalmers had
threatened to steal it. His smock was dusty white from his work in
the grist mill. Robert motioned him to a chair, but the man
hesitated, uncertain.
    “Go ahead and sit, Mr. Thurgood. It’s a
leather chair. It can be dusted readily.”
    “Thank you, sir.” He sat down gingerly on the
edge of the seat, cap in hand, dipped his chin to his chest, and
peered up from under his thick brows. Robert could see the chaff or
flour-specks in his heavy black curls. This submissive posture
seemed to Robert to be out of character for the Burton Thurgood he
had heard about over the years. While neither tall nor burly, he
gave the appearance of coiled strength, of muscle ready to be put
to whatever use demanded of it. His employer, Seth Whittle, often
described him as surly, “with a chip on his shoulder as big as a
mill-wheel,” and swore he kept him on only because he was a
tireless worker who complained only after the job was done. And it
was always done right.
    Robert simply waited for the fellow to
begin.
    With only the tips of his eyes showing and
his cap twisting in his fingers, Thurgood said, “I’ll get straight
to the point, sir. I know yer time is valuable, and Mr. Whittle
only give me thirty minutes to walk up here and back.”
    “No need to hurry,” Robert said politely. He
had enormous sympathy for the man, having himself suffered the
sudden death of a beloved one, his Elizabeth, and ever after
revisiting that horror whenever he attended the funeral of another
or looked into the grief on another’s face. Nor had he any
inclination to play the country squire.
    “I wanta thank you and yer dad fer the extra
money. That was awful kind.”
    “We thought a great deal of your daughter.
Our whole household is in mourning. We will miss her very
much.”
    “Auleen and me are on our own, ya see. My two
eldest’ve left home fer good. I don’t even know where they
are.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “And I’m sorry to say what I haveta say,
sir.” Thurgood now looked up fully for the first time. A kind of
cunning or determination had replaced the fawning posture. His
fingers gripped his cap but did not fiddle with it.
    “Oh? Is something wrong?”
    “’Fraid so. You see, when our Betsy lay
dyin’, her ma begged her to tell us who the fella was that got her
in the family way. Ya see, to our mind, that person was responsible
fer the horrible state she’d gotten into. We wanted to do her
justice, like.”
    “And you were right to think so,” Robert
said, believing now that Thurgood, penniless, had come to him for
legal advice. “Betsy was a minor. Whoever corrupted her was guilty
of rape under the law. And morally, of course, he was also party to
her death at the hands of that terrible woman. Is there any way I
can help?”
    “I hope so. That’s why I’m here.” He glanced
down, apparently abashed, but looked up quickly to catch Robert’s
response.
    “You say your wife asked the girl for the
man’s name. I’m assuming she gave you some sort of answer.”
    “That she did.” Thurgood cleared his throat
and stared at Robert. “She told us with her dyin’ breath it was Mr.
Seamus Baldwin.”
    Robert rocked back in his chair, then stared
sternly at the mill-hand. “You must have misheard. That notion is
preposterous.”
    Thurgood didn’t flinch. “I’d’ve thought so
too. But we gotta take a dyin’ person’s last words as gospel, don’t
we? You’re a lawyer. You know that.”
    “But Mrs. Cobb testified that Betsy was
almost in a coma she was so delirious with pain and fever. And you
and Auleen were distraught. How can you be sure what she said or
what she heard?”
    Thurgood almost smirked. “Like I said, you’re
the lawyer, ain’t ya!”
    Against his better judgement, Robert bridled
at the insinuation. “I’m not playing a lawyer’s trick, sir. You
have just accused my uncle of seducing your daughter, getting her
pregnant, and