Cauliflower Corners-Part 8

A Sociopath Spreads His Wings

Hanover, 1905

After the unfortunate fire which had destroyed Gorgis Squeers’ first business venture, Kan-O-Korn Collegiate and School of Aristotelian Excellence, our feckless moral entrepreneur took his sweet time recovering at the home of Doctor Carlson and his wife. Most of his protracted convalescence was given over to the joyous recounting in his mind of all the money he had been able to separate from the grasp of the good citizens of Hanover. He knew it would not be prudent to keep all the embezzled funds. So, in a moment of rare magnanimity and calculated self-interest, Gorgis Cornelius Gustavius Burden Squeers, Doctor of Divinity, decided he would return ten cents on the dollar to all his fleeced investors and tuition payers.

Gorgis announced that he was returning to the luckless Hanoverians all that he could under very trying circumstances. He also claimed that he would love to do more but was barred from doing so because he had already spent most of the collected funds on furnishings, expensive pedagogical materials, subscriptions, accreditations and other outlays, the great majority of which were destroyed in the conflagration he had so meticulously engineered. In reality, the lying mediocrity still held over $2300 in a Toronto branch of the First Regal Bank of The Dominion. And this sum was net of his extremely generous refunding.

Although quite saddened by their losses and the destruction of the Collegiate, those who got back a small portion of their investments and tuitions were grateful and mightily impressed for two reasons. Firstly, the junior Most Reverend Squeers, worthy scion of the Most Reverend Cornelius Augustus Ramses Squeers of Cauliflower Corners, was under no legal obligation to return anything. Secondly, and more importantly, Gorgis was (or so he humbly claimed) “digging deep into my own meagre savings so that the good citizens of this exemplary town are not totally inconvenienced by a mysterious Act of God”.

After four months of milking Dr. Carlson and his family, Gorgis felt it was time to resume his path to financial, educational and ecclesiastical glory. With Hanover pretty well tapped out of its excess cash, another unsuspecting town needed to be targeted. Using glowing letters of introduction from the same folks he had so expertly cheated, Gorgis made the rounds of promising settlements just outside of Hanover County where he knew there would be no possibility of suspicion and where his letters of introduction would have maximum effect.

Following a thorough study of its potential for monetary gain and gullibility, Gorgis settled upon Peason Mills as his next conquest. Peason Mills had a population of 725 and was located a day’s train ride from Hanover. It was also the home to Doctor Carlson’s widowed brother, Edward Carlson, the local Reeve who, during the day, sold insurance and mortgages from his home office on Main Street.  Edward lived with his daughter, Myrtle, in the three storey Victorian home he had built for his late wife, just months before her passing.

When her mother died in 1902, Myrtle, aged 19, became mistress of the house. It was her father’s fervent hope that Myrtle would marry soon thereafter, before the less kind town folk started to refer to her as The Spinster Carlson. There had been suitors, but none had met with the approval of Edward. It was not that his standards were impossible to meet. It was simply that Peason Mills had a dearth of eligible bachelors under the age of 60. Some blamed it on the water. Others, more astute, blamed it on a virulent form of warped religionism which assured that any young man worth his salt would vamoose at the earliest possibility opportunity.

Within days of his arrival, The Most Reverend Gorgis Squeers had thought out his three year game plan, which would culminate in his becoming the sole male heir to the handsome estate of Mr. Edward Carlson. Gorgis began by purchasing, for the unheard sum of $435, all of the farmlands of Grayson Campbell Sharfield, an heirless bachelor of 82 who had had the recent misfortune of finding himself crushed under the weight of his favourite mare.

Gorgis Squeers, who had turned eighteen only eight months previous, quickly established himself as the town’s most popular gentleman squire. With his small fortune and plans for purloining more, he had no need to abase himself by performing any kind of manual labour. He could coast easily on his comfortable income and on the fumes of his ill-deserved reputation as a man of honour and worth. He joined the library board and was elected Vice-Chair. He joined the Cattlemen’s Association and became its Treasurer. He established the Little Heathens of West Africa Benevolent Fund and campaigned tirelessly for the salvation of his non-existent charges. He attended every social function, religious gathering, and business meeting, all the while dispensing invaluable oral trinkets from the vastness of his intellectual stores. Gorgis was the most quoted man within miles. He would spin words and phrases like “integrity, transparency, accountability, faith, charity, respect, fiscal future focussing, pedagogy, eleemosynary sustainability” and other jabberwocky into any cloth and to any purpose.  He didn’t spout to clarify. He did it to confuse. And confuse he did: so much so that no one dared question him on anything for fear of seeming uneducated.

For three painstaking years, the Most Reverend Squeers set his trap. He made certain every unmarried woman in Peason Mills somehow believed, without a commitment ever having been made explicitly, that she would someday be his chosen bride. When the time was right, he pounced upon his grateful prey, Myrtle and Edward Carlson. By this time, Myrtle was almost unmarriageable, having reached the desperate age of twenty four. After a brief courtship, it was announced that Miss Myrtle Alice Carlson would be wed to Peason Mills’ most eligible bachelor on December 22nd, 1907. In gratitude, Edward Carlson changed his will on December 23, 1907, leaving the whole of his estate to his new son-in-law. Never in the history of the world were three people more happy.

In January 1908, Edward Carlson moved into the home of The Most Reverend Gorgis Cornelius Gustavius Burden Squeers and his new wife. Edward sold his house in town but continued to travel the two short miles to his new offices every day to attend to his thriving business affairs. By February, Gorgis was already tiring of his wife’s unbearable affection. “What audacity she has” thought Gorgis as she persisted in asking him what he would like for supper or what clothes he needed to have mended. “Why did I choose one so annoying?” he complained to himself. Yet he remembered that his discomfort would not be for long and he soon regained his composure.

The newly-wedded Squeers’ land abutted that of Hieronymous Glenns, who farmed cattle, corn and wheat. A thick forest of tall cedars ran from Mr. Glenns’ main barn to the small creek on the east side of the old Sharfield place, now owned by Gorgis and Myrtle. Gorgis and Myrtle’s home was nestled snugly within that forest, protected from winter storms.

On a hot, windy night in August, 1908, Gorgis excused himself and notified his father-in-law and his wife that he was heading over to Mr. Glenns’ farm next door to discuss some fencing issues. He skulked his way to his own barn where he grabbed the cans he had filled earlier in the day. Silently, he made his way to his neighbour’s barn where he doused the structure liberally in kerosene. With the wind blowing strongly from the west, it would take but a few minutes for the fire to spread through the dry cedars to his own home. Gorgis waited until 7pm and set down a trail of volatile gas from the Glenns’ barn to a small starter fire. He calculated the little fire would reach the Glenns’ barn in less than ten minutes. From there, it would gallop through the dry forest to its intended target. With the starter fire lit, the Most Reverend Squeers worked his way unseen to Hieronymous Glenns’ front door and calmly knocked. Before he had time to explain the purpose of his visit, the sky had burst into flame.

There was nothing anyone could have done. The Squeers’ place and its unsuspecting occupants were incinerated beyond recognition. Myrtle had tried to pull her father from the raging conflagration but both succumbed to the heat and smoke before they could make it to safety. A funeral was held the following week. Gorgis Squeers was publicly inconsolable. His tears were voluminous. His cries were heart-rending. Meanwhile, his fortune blossomed.