Boy + priests = tragedy

   It's simply a miracle that a mother's heart doesn't stop dead when she is summoned to a hospital where her child lies dying.
   It is January, 1925. As she raced through the snow on her way to St. Justine Hospital, Mrs. Philippe Galarneau remembered the last time she set eyes on Hector, her bright and handsome eight-year-old son. He was just fine that September morning; more than that: he was a brave young man starting his year at the priest-run boarding school in Huberdeau, Argenteuil county.
  The religious brothers in charge of the Orphelinat des Freres de la Merci had reassured Mrs. Galarneau that her son would be just fine in their hands. She was a good Catholic, after all. Such was her faith in the brothers that she also trusted them to take and educate her other son, 11-year-old Philippe, Jr.

But those four months seemed like ages ago. Tonight, as her once-beautiful Hector lay on what would soon be his deathbed at the burn ward of St. Justine Hospital, Mrs. Galarneau had to remind herself that it wasn't all just a nightmare.
  And it wasn't: this story is true.
   "Mom?" croaked the prostate figure in the bed as she silently walked through the door of the burn ward. It was Hector's voice, but instead of filling her with joy, it shot like ice through your veins.
   For silent seconds that felt like hours, she stared at the squirming and sobbing figure. Was that really her son under all those bandages? It sounded like Hector's voice, but how could that really be his body wrapped in yards of gauze bandages? He looked more like one of those Hollywood mummies that were frightening audiences this very night at a downtown motion-picture house.
   Deep down, however, Mrs. Galarneau knew it was her son. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. It was a time to show strength, not break down in tears.
   Gently, she asked him: "How, my son, did you go and burn yourself like that?"
   "It was Brother Fismond," the young boy replied. "He put me in boiling water because I soiled my clothes."
  She could hear he was ashamed and that he was starting to cry.
   "The water was very hot, Mom. My toes are all swollen. Take the sheets off my feet."
   Before the busy nurses could stop her, Mrs. Galarneau did as she was asked. But instead of toes, she saw a mass of pulpy flesh.
   Despair swept over her face. Could she conceal her horror from Hector? She would try.
   "But why aren't your hands burned, son?"
   Hector answered in a fading whimper:
   "The brother pushed me down into the scalding water a second time, Mom, but I pulled myself up by my hands."
   Their moments together were numbered. A doctor asked Mrs. Galarneau to leave the room for a while. The poor boy died just a few hours later, on Saturday, January 22.
   Early the next week, a coroner's inquiry was called. Boys being boiled to death in Quebec? It wouldn't do at all. There were questions to answer. Who was this Brother Fismond? Was he acting alone? Or was there more to this boarding-school affair than first met the eye?
   Coroner McMahon called in the top religious brother who ran the boarding school.
He was ready. "Fismond? What Brother Fismond?" asked the school's director-general, Pierre Landuyt -- aka, Reverend Brother Chrysostome. "We don't have a Brother Frismond in our employ. It's Brother Usmar who is in charge of preparing baths for the boys... . He told me that he prepared the bath in the usual way but when he went away to find fresh clothing, the boy must have turned up the hot water."
   And so on, and so forth.
   Who would you believe?