The Night Before

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wrong Must Be Made Right":

Y&P is a very skillful plant. Nurture at your own risk.

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Everything I do  here is at my own risk. Every post and every comment.

Y&P asked a  question about the Case of The Purloined Museum

He opened the door. I sailed right on through. D'you think I don't know all the various characters in the feindish plots.

That  last account of  the museum saga reminded me of another little play within a play.

The night before Grace Marsh resigned.

Grace was still under the illusion she was dealing with a rational  being. Little could have prepared her for the awful reality. She had made a casual  observation  in the  reception area of the town hall, after a council meeting, which set the harridan Mayor off in a screeching  tirade from the stairs.

Grace's late father had been a firefighter in the beaches area of  Toronto. She  spoke of him often. She had followed her Dad into municipal public service.

Being elected  was especially significant. Membership on  the Joint Fire Services Committee was an add-on.  Becoming vice chair of the committee really mattered

Sometimes I had the impression much of what Grace accomplishes in her life, she sees  through the eyes of her father.

She had the normal municipal staffer's respect for  the Office of Mayor. 

 Even before that last night, she had been the target of an earlier degrading exchange in front of a town staffer. In a conversation at the town's booth at the Chamber of Commerce Trade Show , she put forward  an idea for  social housing on the old library site on Victoria Street.

The  Mayor erupted in outrage.  Informed her she had her own plans for the property. If Grace were to even attempt to put that idea forward she, the Mayor, would destroy her.  Then she turned to the staffer and said.

"And if you know what's good for you, you will forget you heard that"

So, the night before Grace  resigned her seat was not the first or only degrading experience.  But it was the last.

Next day at mid-day, she attended upon the Clerk, still in a state of shock and  proferred  resignation from her council seat. It was accepted with regret.

It was another sad ending.

I am telling the story now because Grace Marsh came in for considerable criticism and snide references following her resignation.

At the time, the full story, complete with details, could not be told and certainly not by Grace.