The Information Man

5.

  George Weatherstaff was not, at the present, all that interested in the creation of another scandal. He was sitting at his office at home—his father had once called it the "study" and the noun had stuck, although it was really no more than a glorified library with a comfortable, saddle-leather armchair and a desk big enough for three large men. He had fanned before him a selection of handwritten notes and newspaper clippings that chronicled the three scandals that had dragged his name through the press since he was a lad of six years. That's when his father had been killed accidentally in the home, "with a revolver that just happened to go off," as the prosecuting attorney had piquantly put it. Following the inquest, involving the staff and his mother and his brother, his sister having been away at school at the time of the shooting, there'd been no consequential proof that anyone in the house had shot Mr. John Ambrose Weatherstaff. But his brother, who'd been in charge of the revolver, had never quite been the same man again.

  Thankful to be cleared of any impending charges, the oldest boy in the clan, Augustin "Gus" Weatherstaff, had gone off to the sea under a name and an age that were not his. Following four years of silence, postcards began to trickle in from ports around the world, the Orient, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Peru. Then letters, with Gus's tiny print often done in pencil rather than pen, "a pen being too top-notch and worthless on a ship," so Gus had written.

  Now, in the midst of the torment George was going through, he was expecting his brother to return any minute of any impending hour. According to the last letter, sent from Southampton, Gus was taking time away from the sea and getting homesick. Away for years, he hadn't even come back at Mother's unnatural death.

  Which was scandal number two. Their mother, kind and sweet, was a woman meant to be loved, meant to give love. For many years following John Ambrose Weatherstaff's death, Lillias had stifled those basic needs of loving and being loved. Then she met Wilkerson Peabody at a benefit—George could recall that it had been a benefit for an orphan and adoption program so urgent following the war—and Lillias Weatherstaff was swept off her feet and suddenly remarried.

  George hadn't liked Mr. Peabody, even from the beginning. But George, through years of hard work and following years of scandal, had learned to hide his dislike. He had to, being a man who'd once held politics and the men in politics as the height of proper and established society. His dislike for Mr. Peabody was so severe, and startled him so thoroughly, that he begged his mother to reconsider marrying him, and he'd set out to discover Mr. Peabody's background, first by himself, which was too involved for his busy schedule, and then with the help of the information man himself, Rex Malin. He considered Malin to be one of Toronto's greatest secrets. Though when it came to discovering dirt on Peabody, there he had rather failed, since Peabody was a clean and careful man with no blemishes on his character. No more than his, George Weatherstaff's, that much was certain.

  It didn't take long for Mr. Peabody to show that he was a man who'd hold his wife in place with ridicule, embarrassment, and, if necessary, physical violence. George's hatred doubled. He even wrote to his brother, hoping to find him at the port of his last postcard. No word came from Gus regarding the danger their mother was in.

  When she'd fallen down the stairs, broken her back, conked her head, and died two days later, George was shocked—and yet not shocked to find the police were eager to investigate. Peabody was held as a main suspected, and in a Toronto courtroom his tumultuous relationship with Mrs. Lillias Peabody was exploited and examined. Although there was a lack of evidence to convict Peabody of any murderous charge, he was fined and thrown in prison for a lesser crime involving a bar maid he'd harassed.

  Following the trial, when the case had closed and her body was no longer needed as evidence, George buried Lillias Weatherstaff next to his father. The tainted name of Peabody did not grace the headstone.

  And still Gus did not come home.

  Again on the verge of slipping into a scandal, George was anxious for the care and comfort his big brother might be able to provide. Gus, who'd been preened from a young age to be a lawyer of vast corporations, and, eventually, a man of Parliament, had certainly seemed brighter and more inclined to the wisdom that had so long evaded George. Even his letters, with its tiny, crooked scrawl, showed the infinite intelligence that George remembered of his brother—a man who'd given up everything to become a sailor, get away from the tragedy and accusations that'd plagued him since he was a youth. More than twenty-five years later, Gus would be over the age of forty, likely tanned and wrinkled from long exposure to the elements. Would the brothers reunite gladly, or would there be tension from memories, from George's missing girl?

  He sighed, trembling as he did so. Where the devil had Lydia gone? He didn't like to pick up the evening paper and see that the police were still stumped in the case of the dead body of the mutilated young man. He didn't like to think of Lydia being out there in the city, alone, frightened, some murderer hunting her down like wild game. Was she all right? Why had she gone, and gone without telling him? If she hadn't wanted to be married to him, why hadn't she just said so? She was frank enough, able to tell him that without all the secret actions and daring escapes.

  He tried to be furious with her, but he was too afraid for her. She was so odd, really; so ethereal that she might've returned to the stardust that'd birthed her.

  He rapped his nails on the desk, staring at the candlestick phone. Was Malin ever going to get back to him? Was Lydia ever going to call him? Wasn't anyone?

  The doorbell croaked through the downstairs. Hearing it first, then an echo of it, George zipped from his seat and cranked open one of the study doors. He heard low voices, then the amicable chatter of housekeeper Mrs. Bowman. George swallowed, so sure that it was Gus who'd come, but, if that were the case, Mrs. Bowman wouldn't have shown the old Weatherstaff sailor into the guest parlor while she informed her master of his company. Gus wouldn't have desired the ceremony, being treated like someone who hadn't grown up in that house.

  George pulled the door in all the way, revealing himself in one big blast to unsuspecting Mrs. Bowman. "Who's come?"

  She clasped her hands together, pitying him. He'd wanted Gus—they all did, at least those of the staff that remembered him. "It's Mr. Malin, sir. Mr. Oswald Malin," she said, hoping to clarify.

  Oswald, Mr. Rex Malin's brother. "What the devil does he want?" He often asked this of Mrs. Bowman, and often received no answer. This was one of those exceptions.

  "To speak to you, sir, saying it was urgent." She had just enough time to hurry her short legs around Mr. Weatherstaff and open the parlor door for him. An intrinsic curtsey followed, though neither gentleman paid attention. She shut the door behind her, pausing a second to see if voices were raised, but they were dim as introductions and queries of health were passed. A ruse of courtesy used to keep the ears of hesitantly departing housekeepers from catching wind of true business.

  "Well, Mr. Malin," George slumped into a chair, set an ankle over the opposite knee, "what is it you wish to see me about?" He offered Mr. Malin a cigarette, but was waved aside. While Mr. Malin formed his purpose, George stuffed tobacco into his pipe and had it lit before Mr. Malin caused him to choke on the first puff.

  "We have reason to suspect that your affianced and the boy dead in the alley are somehow connected," offered Oswald, beating around the bush for no man. He never did, certainly not for George Weatherstaff. The man had been through so much that it seemed inhumane to make him wallow in fear and uncertainties longer than necessary. But there was a mean streak in Oswald that enjoyed, in a frivolous manner, seeing men as handsome and as rich as Mr. Weatherstaff writhe beneath the unaccountable foibles of life—just a little. The procurement of such moments rarefied the male object by bringing him to a level quite like the rest of them. "I'm aware that this is probably a great shock to you, and equally bewildering. I have no ability to tell you how, just yet, the two of them are connected, but I can
tell you that they were seen together at the Hamilton railway station around one-forty-five yesterday afternoon. Do you have any idea who he might be in relation to Ms. Botsaris?"

  Feebly, George confessed that he had no idea. "She hasn't brothers, sisters, nor cousins that I've ever heard her mention." But what had he been thinking? It occurred to him, and, aloud, he chastised himself. "I do not know her so very well."

  "Well, Mr. Weatherstaff, I think you will not be surprised to hear me say that the woman you are engaged to and the woman my brother and I are investigating are turning out to be two very different people. One and the same, as it seems, but very different. Now, if you'll forgive me for departing so swiftly from your company, and for bringing cumbersome facts to you—"

  "You can hardly be helped bringing facts to me, Mr. Malin," interposed a weary George.

  "I'll take myself away from you swiftly, and allow you ample time to consider what I've said, and to look back over your history with Ms. Botsaris. Perhaps you'll discover incongruent patterns—and perhaps you'll wish to jab me with your fist for making untoward suggestions."

  "I rather doubt that."

  Oswald's faint smiled appreciated the chivalry, as well as the concession that it might've grazed George Weatherstaff's mind to hit the harbinger, but that he was too gentlemanly, and likely too heartbroken, to do so. "Then I wish you a pleasant evening, as pleasant as it can be under the circumstances. I'm off to tell the other Mr. Malin what I've discovered on my adventure today."

  "You haven't told him yet?"

  "Afraid I haven't. Came straight to you from the station. I thought you'd be waiting here, poised on tenterhooks, for it's unlike Rex to telephone a client with information, whether or not he has found any, until the next day."

  "That's odd of him, but, thinking of the other work I've had him do for me, it's very true," George said, hardly aware of reacting at all. His mind was clouded. Lydia knew the dead boy, did she? And where was Gus, why hadn't he come home yet? Along with Mrs. Bowman, George showed Mr. Malin to the door. "Goodnight, Mr. Malin, and I thank you for coming directly to me with this information."

  "Use it wisely." Oswald, perhaps not the great sketch artist of character that Rex was, understood that the Weatherstaff household faced ample distraction, and it was more than the disappearance of Ms. Botsaris. That he had forced George Weatherstaff to reconsider the design and history of Ms. Botsaris, Oswald was not in doubt. That it had come as a surprise, well, there rested a modicum of tangible doubt. Perhaps it was the widespread misfortunes that had plagued Weatherstaff since his sixth year of life, and perhaps it was an intuition that told him that his beautiful affianced had malefic and unusual intents. Perhaps it was none of the above. Perhaps George had really been blinded by love. What a fool he was, then, worthy of pity, if such a thing proved true. In the old-fashioned way, Oswald tipped his hat to Mr. Weatherstaff, smiled without a trace of smugness or pity, and turned on his heel to find his brother.

  George shut the door, winded in his lungs, fuzzy in his head. He asked Mrs. Bowman to follow him to the study, and asked if she wouldn't mind pouring him a drink from a secret stash hidden behind the first volume of Edward Gibbon's magnum opus. With a kind and almost maternal complacency, Mrs. Bowman complied. He drained a shot of scotch and dropped into his chair. It squeaked, rolled back several centimeters, before he rolled it ahead, and again it squeaked while his mind tripped through the teases Mr. Malin had left behind.

  "I want to know the moment my brother's arrived, Mrs. Bowman," he said, hoping to dismiss her. "And turn off that blasted light on your way out." He felt he'd hurt her. "Please," he added, mellowing his curmudgeonliness.

  "Yes, sir," she replied, thankful that she had a master sympathetic enough to amend his moments of meanness. She turned out the light, shut the door, and took up post by one of the windows next to the front door. If a car stopped, she'd be the first to know.

  George had no idea what to think of Oswald Malin's interpretation of recently acquired facts. What did Lydia—his beautiful Lydia—know of a dead man in an alley? She couldn't know anything. It was nonsense.

  But he bent his elbow, set his forehead to it, and wept over the stinging memories of a child who'd been too absorbed in scandals, who'd had his life ruined by the rapacity of journalists and nonstop adversity. He didn't want another.

  Although he'd always suspected that there was something too secretive about Lydia. Marrying a foreigner brought plenty of whispers among this rich friends—his friends that he began to see were snobs, elitists, drawn by bloodlines and money, like they were a fine equine breed.

  He'd loved Lydia. Did, in fact, love her still. Only—that boyish fancy, that utter devotion, had begun to fade. It was difficult to worship an object as catchable as a moonbeam. He may as well be in love with a fairy maiden from a children's story. At least then there'd been no journalists around to report about it for the society column. "Mr. Weatherstaff and Lydia Fairy Maid were among the guests and Mrs. Hayes' Saturday afternoon garden party. Mr. Weatherstaff wore a light gray flannel suit, and Ms. Lydia Fairy Maid—soon to be Mrs. Weatherstaff Fairy Maid—wore a mauve chiffon over a faint green silk sheath, strung with pearls and diamonds like dewdrops."

  That was as nonsensical as Lydia Botsaris knowing the dead young man in the alley.

  But could she know him, and could she be in trouble? Why wouldn't she come to him, her powerful and influential and rich fiancé? Perhaps there were problems in the world not solved by manmade materials. If such things existed, then his money and his influence were useless.

  He tore a circle around the room, hands in his pockets, thoughts going around and around as often as he did. What should he do? What could he do? He was tired of waiting for scandals to come to him. And he didn't want to be a part of one ever again.

  Then he couldn't marry Lydia. He just couldn't.

  But he could help her, if she wanted it.

  Too beguiled by his own problems, and gorging on an inner monologue, he didn't hear Mrs. Bowman's knock, only heard her announce:

  "Here's Mr. Weatherstaff, sir."

  George looked up at the same moment his brother found him across the room. Mrs. Bowman lingered long enough to see the Weatherstaff boys embrace after years of separation, and brought out her handkerchief to dry her eyes as she shut the door on them.

  George had his hair played with, mussed, pressed, and his mustache pulled at the ends. Gus's hair was clean, slicked down, and his face beardless. When they'd calmed, Gus ran a hand over his chin.

  "Makes me look ten years younger, that thing being gone. Had so much gray in it! You wouldn't have known me if I hadn't stopped in Ottawa on my way further inland."

  "I think I would've known you." George said it solemnly. Poised on the idea that his brother had come, he knew everything would be all right. Rejuvenated by hope, George hugged Gus again, clinging longer this time. "I'm very glad you're here. I've got myself into another jam, I think."

  Paternally, Gus patted the back of his little brother's head. "That sounds like you, Georgie. Guess it must be about that girl you said you were going to marry. I heard about it in the Ottawa paper."

  "I'm not so sure that I can marry her, after all. And now there's this body—and Mr. Malin thinks that the body's connected to Lydia—only I can't see how—I can't see how at all!"

  Gus held his brother's pale and moon-like face between his tough and scarred hands. He jostled George a little, like he remembered Father doing to him when a particularly important piece of information or a fleeting sentiment was passed along. "Looks like I came back just in time. You're a mess. And I'm going to get you out of it, even if it means I have to get myself wrapped up in another Weatherstaff misadventure. I don't mind so much."

  Then something sharp took over the softened glaze across his eyes, and, for a moment, Gus grimaced and teetered on feet not entirely used to land.

  "Malin? Who is this Malin?"

  George scanned Gus
for an interpretation of the name. "Well, it was Oswald Malin that visited a half an hour ago. But he's been working with his brother, and the two of them together have been trying to find Lydia."

  "The brother to Oswald Malin, what's his name?"

  George, for good reason, hesitated. He didn't think it was possible that Gus Weatherstaff would know the information man. "Mr. Rex Malin."

  But Gus Weatherstaff did know Mr. Rex Malin. "I thought that's what you'd say." He licked his cracked lips, eyes falling to the room's distant corners, to faraway memories. His look leapt back to George's. "It's more than coincidental that I should come home at this time. You needed me. Let me get changed, wash up a bit, and then you must take me to see Mr. Malin immediately."

  "Good heavens, Gus. Why?"

  "Don't know if I can tell you right now. It's got me all messed up in my head."

  "Can't it wait till tomorrow?"

  "Nothing this important can wait till tomorrow."

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