Chapter 24

THE TRANSCRIPT

November 5, 1885

Richard Langley fingered a letter opener on his desk and shifted a stack of files as Leonard took a seat. The chief clerk’s striped dark coat and white shirt, with its massive celluloid collar, gave him a stern countenance. He appeared to be about Leonard’s age, thirty-five at the most. He was cleanly shaved and Leonard suspected he was a man who fussed over his clothes and cared about the impression he made on visitors.

“The Minister’s in cabinet,” Richard Langley said. “There is much deliberation on matters related to the North West.”

“That’s just it,” Leonard said. “We’re very interested in Ontario to know the Minister’s views on the matter of Riel. Anything I write for my paper will be shared with other newspapers.”

“That would be good of you,” Richard Langley replied. “What to do about Riel is much on the minister’s mind. John Thompson has only recently taken on the justice portfolio. We have to schedule his time carefully. He resigned from the Supreme Court to run in a by-election in Nova Scotia. Successfully, thank God. Now he’s got a bit of stomach trouble – the doctors say it’s kidney stones – so it may take a few days to arrange something. But tell me about yourself and your paper. I’ve always wanted to get up there to the Queen’s Bush. Enjoy a bit of pheasant hunting.”

Richard Langley listened avidly to Leonard’s account of experiences at the Chronicle, at the Globe, and on the lake boats. These were fascinating new topics for the chief clerk. He compared Leonard’s adventures with his own life in England. “Rather tame compared to what you’ve seen,” he told Leonard. “A bit of fox hunting – dogs and all – and an occasional week of fly fishing in Scotland.” It was clear to Leonard that Richard Langley came from the upper class. Still, they shared a common love of nature. The two men talked for nearly an hour. By the end of it, Leonard felt he had a new friend in the making, despite their different backgrounds.

“Look, it’s four o’clock,” Richard Langley finally told Leonard. “This is Thursday, and the wives of the cabinet ministers will be arriving for their weekly tea. We senior staff usually join them. Come along as my guest.”

“I’ve no wish to intrude,” Leonard answered. He was surprised to be invited to such an exclusive gathering.

“Not an intrusion, a pleasure,” Richard Langley answered.

The room where Langley took Leonard was decorated with vases of fall flowers set on serving tables. A thick rug covered the floor and rich paneling embellished every wall. There was no need of a fire in the hearth. A large painting of General Wolfe, the conqueror of Quebec, hung over it, his bright red jacket a contrast to the heavy clouds behind him. Chairs set out along each wall filled up as the wives of cabinet ministers, led by Mrs. Thomas White, wife of the Indian Affairs minister, and Annie Thompson, the new Justice minister’s wife, came into the room. He dutifully bowed his head and offered his hand in response to the gloved hands of each of the ladies. Leonard thought them dowdy compared to the woman who sat a little apart, on a Queen Anne chair. She had on a fancy tea gown and Leonard suspected she wore no corset. Langley introduced her as Miss Janette Robertson. He added, under his breath, that she was the latest mistress of that old goat from Nova Scotia, Sir Leonard Tilley. Leonard watched as she daintily balanced a cup of Earl Grey tea with a saucer of tiny sandwiches. Miss Robertson smiled warmly, arched her eyebrows and told Leonard, “I do hope this will not be your only visit with us.”

After an hour spent circling the room and meeting other government people, Richard Langley nudged Leonard and suggested it was time to leave. On the way out Leonard caught snatches of whispers about “that handsome young man with Mr. Langley.”

“Staying in the city?” Langley asked Leonard. “Drop in and see me Monday afternoon.”

Leonard went to a branch of the Bank of Commerce on Saturday morning and drew fifty dollars from the two thousand dollar inheritance his father had left him. He slept late on Sunday and in the afternoon walked out to Rockcliffe Park where the best families of Ottawa had their mansions. He was at Richard Langley’s office at three o’clock on Monday. The occasion marked the first of what would become almost daily meetings between Leonard and the chief clerk. They took beer at the Russell Hotel. They had long discussions on the responsibilities of a citizen to help build his country.

“We’ve got to get in there and stir things up, especially in a new country like Canada,” Richard Langley said.

Leonard said he agreed wholeheartedly, and if his services were ever needed, he could be counted on. After a week, Leonard felt he had known the chief clerk for ages. He decided to tell Richard that if he ever got to interview John Thompson, he would ask about the trial of Cook Teets.

“In that case, I’ll have to brief the minister.”

Leonard spent fifteen minutes sketching the highlights of Cook Teets’s trial. He spoke of what he’d learned at the Toronto Medical School and his belief that the killer of Rosannah Leppard was still at large.

The next day, Richard Langley told Leonard about the trial transcript.

“It’s all there, word for word,” he said. “But we’re supposed to keep stuff like that confidential. If I let you see the transcript, you must never divulge how you got it.”

The Department of Justice filled several rooms on the second floor of the East Block. The chief clerk led Leonard to the smallest, a cramped room containing rows of filing cabinets separated by narrow aisles. “No one ever comes here but me. You shouldn’t be interrupted. The file you want is up there, on the top shelf. Put it back just the way you found it.”

Leonard took down a box marked Ta-Th and set it on the floor. There was one chair in the room and he moved it next to a window. He dragged over the box and from it selected a thick file on which had been written in large letters, “Queen v Cook Teets.” Nervous, fearful of being found in the room, but excited at the prospect of what the file might reveal, Leonard began to read.

The first page bore an imprint in fancy lettering of the Department of the Secretary of State, Deputy Minister of Justice. It was dated 22/23 November, 1884, file #13588. “A transcription or copy of the notes of Evidence in re Cook Teets a Convict under sentence of death.” Below, someone had written, “File away.”

Several notes were tucked into the bundle. One, addressed to Mr. Justice Armour on 22 November 1884, requested “as early as circumstances will permit, for the information of His Excellency the Governor General in Council, a copy of the notes of evidence.” Leonard knew that was government talk for the cabinet, Prime Minister Macdonald and his ministers, who had held Cook’s fate in their hands. Justice Armour, replying five days later from Osgoode Hall in Toronto, had sent a hand-written note advising he was enclosing fifty-two pages of typewritten script.

So this is what the cabinet would have made its decision on, Leonard thought. He began to read. He tried to see the words through the eyes of Sir Alexander Campbell, the justice minister at the time. He tried to imagine how he might have reacted to what he would have read. Would any of the other ministers, or even Prime Minister Macdonald, have read the transcript? Or would they have left it to Sir Alexander to say what he thought of it?

No matter, it began in straight enough fashion. Molly’s evidence, drawn from her by Alfred Frost, just as Leonard remembered it. Her cross-examination, the interjections by the judge, they were all there. Dr. Sproule’s testimony, his hand-written autopsy report, now typed up. The defence witnesses, Cook’s mother and sister, the thrust of what they had said. But look! Something’s missing. No mention of the summations by James Masson and Alfred Frost. Gone. Nothing of Justice Armour’s charge to the jury – the charge that even the Flesherton Advance admitted was “strongly against the prisoner.” Not a word of what Cook Teets had said after the jury’s verdict, when he pleaded for an hour that he was innocent.

Now Leonard understood it all. The cabinet had been given only half the picture. Nothing but “evidence” but where was the truth? Something to balance the faulty logic of the prosecutor? Or the biased interpretation of Justice Armour, one that led the jury straight to Cook’s guilt? All the wasted hours, all the petition signing, the letters from the Owen Sound lawyers, from Dr. Sproule, their own Member of Parliament, none of it meant anything.

The pages on his lap made Leonard seethe. He’d have something to tell John Thompson if he ever got to see him. He remembered his promise to Richard Langley; he could say nothing of this transcript. Leonard’s head began to hurt. At first, he barely noticed the noise from the other side of the room. The click of a door latch, the scrape of wood against floor. A footstep. Someone was coming. Alarmed now, Leonard froze in his chair. He saw the shadow of a man as he moved from aisle to aisle. He heard a groan. The man turned and faced Leonard. He stared at him, full in the face. The man’s lips twitched. He was short, but thick and heavy. Leonard recognized the new Minister of Justice. He’d seen a picture of John Thompson in the outer office. What was he doing here? Leonard felt ill. Suddenly, the man turned away. Leonard heard the noise of the scraping door. He was alone again with the Cook Teets file.

Leonard worried about how he would explain his presence in the file room. Research, he would say, research on the rule of law in Ontario. He couldn’t afford to stay in Ottawa much longer, and it bothered him that Richard Langley was in no rush to arrange an interview. Finally, after a week in the capital, on the morning of his next to last day, he received a message inviting him to present himself at the minister’s office at two o’clock. It was almost a year to the day since Cook had been convicted; two years since Rosannah had died.

Richard Langley escorted him into a room with large windows and a high ceiling decorated with plaster cherubs. Rich wood paneling covered the walls and a marble mantle set off a large fireplace. A thick rug lay on the floor.

“Sir, may I present Leonard Babington,” Richard Langley said. “The journalist with many readers in Ontario.”

John Thompson grunted and motioned Leonard to a seat.

“You want to talk about Riel, I’m told,” he said. “That’s all the newspapermen care about. His Excellency might decide otherwise, but to me he’s a paltry hero. He’s struggled long and hard for the privilege of hanging. Once he’s in his grave, all this fuss will go quiet.” Thompson had apparently forgotten their meeting in the storage room. There’d be no need for the fancy excuses Leonard had invented. It was safe now to move on to another subject.

Leonard raised the case of Cook Teets. He described how a man had been convicted on a paucity of evidence. Petitions in support of the jury’s plea for clemency had been ignored. There was a strong suggestion an injustice had been done, and that the guilty party was still at large.

“It seems to me the justice system doesn’t always work that well,” Leonard said. “Teets was given no opportunity to tell his side of the story. The appeal procedure was so complicated that it left Teets’s lawyer with no way to continue the case.”

Leonard saw a look of pain cross over John Thompson’s face. He didn’t know whether it was in response to what he’d said, or to some other cause. In a moment, the face cleared.

“Some modification of procedures is warranted,” John Thompson conceded. “Canada is in need of a codified criminal law. I intend to bring that in. We are going to amplify the right of appeal. As for an accused testifying on his own behalf, I thank you for raisng an interesting point. I’ll ask the legal people to see if they can do something on that. Of course, we’ll have to permit the Crown to cross-examine.”

Leonard was surprised by how readily the Minister conceded the point. He wondered if he’d be as quick to agree to a review of Cook Teets’s trial.

“But I’ve no time now to look into a case where a man’s already dead.” The finality of what Leonard was hearing came as a shock.

“Perhaps after this Riel business …” the Minister added, pausing.

John Thompson never finished the sentence. Instead, he stood and squeezed his stomach, pressing his hands into his gut as blood drained from his face. He let out a feeble groan and fell forward onto his desk.

The next day, Leonard was told the Minister had suffered a severe attack of kidney stones. He wondered if he’d ever be allowed to complete his interview. He waited another week, but when Richard Langley still had no idea when John Thompson would be back, Leonard told him he could stay no longer in Ottawa.

“Quite understand, you’ve been more than patient,” the chief clerk said. “But look here, there’s something else. We’ve talked about the responsibility of British subjects to give their all to their country. Let’s talk about Canada. Sir John and his party are committed to keeping Canada British. None of this creeping Yankeeism that the Liberals promote. Where do you stand on that subject?”

Leonard wasn’t sure what to make of the question. Of course, he stood by the Union Jack, why it was only natural to see it hanging in the courtroom back in Owen Sound. “To the extent I’ve thought about it,” he said, “of course we want to stay British.”

“Good, good, that’s what I wanted to hear. Now, I’ve been given certain political responsibilities. I’m to advise the government on suitable new candidates. Sir John feels it’s time for fresh blood. You must be well known in Grey County. There’ll be openings there in the next election. How would you feel about being a Member of Parliament?”

Leonard sucked in his breath. He’d never thought of such a thing. He liked what he’d seen of Ottawa. But become a politician? How would he go about getting elected? Wouldn’t people think it too grand an idea for a simple editor? Mind you, Dr. Sproule was just a country doctor, but of course everybody in the County knew and respected him.

“I’ve always had an interest in politics,” Leonard claimed. “My father campaigned for Dr. Sproule. So maybe it runs in the blood.”

“Think it over,” Richard Langley urged. “If you’re interested, I can put you in touch with some party people out there. Try the idea out on them. See how they react. Write me when you get back to Vandeleur.”

“Of course,” Leonard answered. “But it seems you’ve rather quickly formed a good opinion of me. I’m not sure you know me well enough to recommend me for Parliament.”

“Let me worry about that. If it turns out you’ve character flaws I’ve not detected, our people up in the County will put me wise soon enough.”

A larger than usual number of passengers crowded the concourse of the Grand Trunk Railway station on the morning of November 17, 1885. Leonard bought a ticket for Toronto, making sure it would allow him a stopover in Cobourg where he hoped to meet with Justice Armour. He noticed the Toronto Mail was being hawked in the station and that people were lined up to buy it.

He paid two cents and unfurled the front page:

EXECUTION OF RIEL
The Rebel Chief Meets His Doom Stoically

As the train snaked through the shantytown outskirts of Ottawa on in its run south to Kingston where it would turn west and head along Lake Ontario toward Cobourg and Toronto, Leonard read the long report on Riel. The main story was from Regina, in the North West Territory. It covered almost all the front page and continued on to inside pages. “Riel met his fate bravely, and displayed more fortitude than had been thought possible.” He had died as stubbornly as Cook Teets, Leonard thought. Both had been powerless. Is that why they were unable to save themselves? What would old Wahbudick, the Indian chief Leonard had known in the forest of the Beaver Valley so many years ago, have made of it?

Leonard sighed and thought about his last conversation with Richard Langley. Was the man really serious about involving him in politics? The idea excited Leonard. He could imagine joining the Thursday tea sessions in the cabinet rooms as a Member of Parliament. He decided he had better put aside such thoughts, at least for now. He opened his satchel and withdrew a sheath filled with paper. The pages were covered with his scrawls, some in ink and some in pencil. He’d have time before the train reached Cobourg to read everything he’d written about Rosannah Leppard.