Except the Dying

by Maureen Jennings

  He motioned Constable Crabtree to come closer.

  “We’d better find out who she was. Take down some notes, will you?”

  Crabtree took out a black notebook and inserted a piece of carbonized paper between two pages. He was a giant of a man, made taller by his high round helmet and wider by the serge cape. His broad, ruddy face was guileless as a farmer’s, but he was shrewd and Murdoch liked and respected him.

  “Righto, sir.”

  “The body is that of a young female between fourteen and sixteen years of age. She has light blue eyes, dark brown wavy hair. She is approximately five foot three inches, and would weigh about nine stone. There is a small wen to the right side of the nose. No scars or pockmarks. She is wearing silver ear hoops. Got that? Before the postmortem examination we’ll get some photographs just to be on the safe side. Cavendish is the best for that, and Foster can do the drawing in case we need it for the papers. When the rigor has passed we’ll take proper Bertillon measurements.”

  Crabtree was surprised. “Is it worth it, sir? You said you don’t think she’s a slag.”

  “We might as well. You know how the chief feels.”

  Chief Constable Grasett was very keen on Bertillonage, and he’d sent all the detectives and acting detectives on a special course the year before. In fact, Murdoch thought the laborious system had its faults, but it was better than nothing, and there were reports, probably exaggerated, of some resounding successes. Murdoch had heard that the American police were experimenting with a method of identification using fingerprints, but so far the Toronto police had no knowledge of it.

  He called to Richmond. “Bring over the stretcher.”

  The constable pulled it out of the wagon and placed it on the ground beside the body. Crabtree went to help him. As they began to lift, the blanket slipped and the forearm and hand appeared, pointing toward heaven as if in supplication. The other man tried to get it covered over again. Murdoch snapped at him.

  “Take care with that arm, you’ll break it.”

  Richmond swore under his breath but finally managed to slide the girl over. Crabtree seized the lower handles of the stretcher and the two of them carried it into the ambulance. The driver jumped up on the front seat, clucked to the horses and set off down the lane. There was a burst of excited chatter from the watchers. At the same time a carillon of bells sounded from St. Paul’s Church, signalling the Mass. Murdoch sighed to himself. He was a Roman Catholic, but last Sunday he’d stayed in bed reading, and it looked like he’d miss this week too. Father Fair wouldn’t be happy; nor would Mrs. Kitchen, his devout landlady.

  As Crabtree joined him, Murdoch pointed to the depression where the body had lain.

  “Before she was moved, she was lying on her left side facing the fence. Her head was west towards Sackville, feet easterly towards Sumach Street. Her legs were drawn up close to her body and her arms were folded against her chest.”

  He stepped aside and dropped to the ground, curling himself into the position the girl had been in when she died.

  “What does it look like, Crabtree?”

  “Like she might have tried to get a bit of protection from the wind here where the shed juts out.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Murdoch clambered to his feet and brushed the snow from his coat.

  “Was she hickey?” asked the constable.

  “Don’t think so. There was no smell of liquor. We’ll have to wait for the postmortem examination to be sure. But something was wrong. I don’t like the look of it at all. As far as I know, you don’t die naturally and have pinpoint pupils. And she was bruised. Could be from somebody gripping her arm hard. If this is a crime we have to be careful. I don’t want his nibs using my stampers for boot cleaners, if we’ve missed something. At the very least we’re dealing with desecration of a dead body. Back east they used to say, when you’re not sure which way the wind is going to blow, keep your deck clean, your sail up and your Man Thomas down.”

  Crabtree grinned.

  Murdoch took out a retractable tape measure from his inner pocket.

  The snow of the last few hours had been steadily filling up any dints, and the coming and going of the constables overlaid whatever prints had been there previously. However, at the edge of the depression where the girl had lain, he saw one clear toe print. It was narrow and pointed, as from a fashionable boot. He measured it carefully.

  “Let’s have a gander down the lane.”

  “Are we looking for anything in particular, sir?”

  “Fresh droppings of any kind. Nothing’d last more than two days in this place, so we don’t have to worry whether it’s new or not.”

  The dirt lane ran parallel to Shuter Street from River Street as far as Yonge. Over at that westerly end within sight of the cathedrals, Shuter was respectable and well tended, most of the residents professional men. You could find more doctors per square inch on Shuter and adjoining Mutual Street than bugs on a pauper’s pillow. Here, though, the houses shrivelled in size and demeanour, taken over by working-class families who were too tired or too indifferent to maintain them. Not even the covering of snow could prettify the narrow-faced, drab houses and untended backyards where the outhouses sat.

  Slowly the two officers walked down the lane on each side, but there was nothing out of the ordinary that they could see. At the Sumach Street end they halted, and the people jostling against the rope barricade stared at them. One woman had her child with her, clinging sleepily to her chest underneath her shawl. There was the usual sour odour from clothes that were never washed or removed.

  “What’s going on, Officer?” the man on the stool called out.

  Murdoch recognized him. “Hello there, Tinney. You’re out early.”

  “I didn’t want to miss anything, Sergeant. What’s happening? We heard some tart got a nubbing.”

  “You heard wrong.”

  “She’s dead, though, ain’t she?” interjected a scrawny red-nosed youth.

  “Unfortunately she is that. So listen, all you folks. The police will need your cooperation. I’m going to give you a description of the girl and if you know her, know of her, or saw her anytime last night, speak right up. Is that clear?”

  All eyes were on him, and a few of the crowd nodded eagerly.

  “Is there a reward?” asked a short, round man who was protected against the weather by a long moth-eaten raccoon coat and fur cap with earflaps.

  “Shame on you, Wiggins,” hissed one of his neighbours.

  “Lay off, Driscoll. You’d shat your own mother if there was a dollar to be got.”

  Mr. Driscoll scowled, but the crowd who heard the repartee laughed.

  “Stop this at once,” roared Wicken. “You’re not at a music hall.”

  Murdoch continued. “If there’s any reward it’s the one of knowing you might be saving some poor mother hours of heartache from wondering where her child is. Now listen. The girl is about fifteen or sixteen years old, dark hair, blue eyes. A bit over five feet. Same height as Wiggins. She has a small mole to the side of her nose. Anyone know her?”

  There was a murmur and buzz but nobody answered him.

  “Well? Poor girl died in your laneway, you must know her.”

  Then Tinney offered, “There was a widow woman lived at the corner of Sackville and St. Luke’s a few months back. Could be her.”

  At least four voices shouted him down.

  “You’re leaky, John Tinney,” jeered his friend Driscoll. “That woman was on the downhill side of forty, for one thing, and she was as long as the copper, for another. Six foot if she was an inch. The sergeant says the poor girl was short.”

  Tinney shrugged. “You never know.”

  “When would she have passed on?” a woman asked Murdoch.

  “Last night, probably between eleven and twelve o’clock.” He pointed to Crabtree. “This officer is going to write down all of your names and addresses and any information you can give him. Honest informa
tion, mind. No queer or you’ll find yourself with a charge. If you prefer a bit of privacy you can come to the station. You all know where that is, don’t you?”

  There was a mixed response to that question. Some of them knew only too well.

  He turned to Crabtree. “When you’ve done with this lot, stir up Cavendish, then trot over to the station just in case anybody’s come asking. Join me as soon as you can. I’m going to start knocking on doors.”

  He went back down the laneway to where the body had been. Directly across from him was a row of six narrow, two-storey houses with sharp gables, each one leaning slightly towards its neighbour as if for comfort. All of the houses showed candles or lamps except for the end one, which was in darkness. Murdoch wondered if the inhabitants were sound sleepers. He decided to find out.

  There was a ramshackle fence with more boards missing than standing. The gate had long gone and Murdoch stepped through the gap into the yard, taking careful notice of the tracks in the snow. From the back door, the snow was trampled down into a narrow path, unfortunately with so much overlay he couldn’t make out anything distinctly. Maybe that was the top of a needle-toed boot, maybe not. He straightened up and turned his back to the house. The place where the girl had died was easily visible.

  Suddenly an angry voice shouted.

  “Oi. What you doing? Get out of here.”

  A woman was at the back door watching him. She was carrying a covered chamber pot that she was presumably about to empty into the outhouse.

  “Detective Murdoch. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  The courteous address wasn’t really necessary, given the sort of woman she was. Her stained yellow wrapper was carelessly fastened and her unkempt hair straggled around a face that looked none too clean. She was young but her thin face was haggard.

  “What sort of questions?” she said, not moving from the doorway.

  “Tell you what, it’s cold as Mercury out here. Why don’t I come inside where we both would be more comfortable. And miss, if you can scrounge me up a mug of tea, I’d be right grateful.”

  “I haven’t even lit the Gurney yet,” she said, yawning widely and showing discoloured and chipped teeth. “I just got up, matter of fact.”

  “Lucky you. I’ve been up so long I’m ready for bed.”

  “That’s not an invite, is it, Sergeant?”

  Murdoch grinned, still willing to appease the woman, but he remained out of reach in case she decided to fling the contents of the pot in his direction. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked as she emptied the chamber beside the door, turning the snow yellow.

  “Like I said, we’d both be more comfortable inside.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She stepped back and Murdoch followed her into the gloomy hallway. Two closed doors were to the right and at the far end was a curtained archway through which came the dim glow of a candle. The air was cold and stale.

  The woman deposited the chamber pot in her room.

  “We’re in here,” she said and led the way through the portieres into the kitchen. Here a second woman was bending over a large black range, fanning at a meagre fire that she had started in its belly. She was trying to get it to blaze but succeeding only in wafting clouds of smoke into the room. She turned around, coughing, when they came in.

  “Bleeding hell, Ettie, will you see to this shicey stove. It won’t go.” She saw Murdoch. “Who’s he?”

  “Copper. Wants to ask us some questions.”

  “What about?”

  “Don’t know, do I? Says he wants some tea.” She went over to the stove and peered at the fire. “Sod it, Alice, I told you to wait ’til it draws to put the coal on. You’ve smothered it.”

  Murdoch stepped forward. “Let me. I’m good with fires.”

  “That’s a surprise. I thought frogs were good for nothing.” Alice scowled. She too was in a day wrapper, this one a dingy green flannel. It gaped open at the neck, revealing her breasts, but she made no move towards modesty. She looked older than the young woman she had called Ettie by a good ten years.

  There was a pair of tongs in a bucket beside the stove and Murdoch took them and removed the big lump of coal. Then he propped up the few bits of kindling and began to blow on the smouldering paper. A couple of good puffs and a bright flame appeared. When the wood began to crackle, he fished out some smaller pieces of coal from the bucket, put them on the fire and closed the stove door.

  “Give it a few minutes,” he said, dusting off his hands.

  The two women had been watching him silently.

  “I suppose he deserves his chatter broth after that,” said Alice. She went to the sink and pumped water into a blackened pot. “It’ll take a while. Stove isn’t hot yet.”

  “You’d better sit down before you knock out the roof,” said Ettie. The ceiling was low and Murdoch was six feet tall.

  “Here.” She pulled forward a wooden chair. The back slats were almost all gone and Murdoch didn’t fancy the thing collapsing underneath him.

  “I’ll stand,” he said, but he unbuttoned his coat and put his hat on the chair. Then he took his notebook and fountain pen from his inner pocket. The silver-nibbed pen had been Elizabeth’s Christmas present to him before she died, and it was his pride and joy. Both women took stock.

  “First off, I need to know your names.”

  “Why?” asked Ettie.

  “Because, miss, the body of a female person has been found in the laneway. Practically in your back garden, as you might say.”

  He paused for their reaction, but there was none. No expression of any kind, except stillness. They reminded him of two cats who’d come into the yard of his lodging house last winter. Lean and tattered, with pale, wary eyes. When he’d tried to befriend the starving creatures, they had growled and spat at him and would have bitten his hand if they could.

  Alice shrugged. “This weather’ll kill you, that’s for certain. Poor old dolly.”

  “Who do you mean, miss?”

  “The stiff mort.”

  “I doubt she was a tramp, and she wasn’t old. Possibly no more than fifteen or sixteen.”

  “Shame that.”

  They stared at him but he didn’t say anything.

  “What’s it to do with us?” Ettie said finally.

  “That’s for you to tell.” He paused. “We don’t know who the girl is as yet. I’m making enquiries.”

  He wanted to see if either of them would offer information that they shouldn’t have or try to mislead him in any way. Ettie spoke again.

  “What kind of girl was she, then? A working girl, for instance, or a young lady?”

  Alice guffawed. “Bleeding hell, Ettie. Young lady? What would a lady be doing in the lane?”

  Ettie shrugged. “Takes all sorts,” she said.

  Murdoch knew this exchange was entirely for his benefit. He decided to play out the line a bit longer.

  “We can’t tell yet. She was mother naked.”

  Alice grimaced. “Couldn’t have had much in her idea pot if she was stark in this weather.”

  She was overtaken by another fit of coughing, and she grabbed a cup from the table and spat into it. Dispassionately, she studied the sputum she had deposited.

  “Just phlegm.”

  “What’s your last name, Alice?” Murdoch asked.

  “I’m Alice Black.” She pointed at her partner. “She’s Ettie Weston.”

  “Bernadette Weston,” the other woman corrected her. “They just call me Ettie.”

  “Just come over did you?” he asked Alice.

  She shrugged but the other woman laughed. “She’s been here since she was a nipper but you’d never know it.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m homegrown.”

  “Do you both live here?”

  “Yes. We’ve got a snug down there.” She pointed down the hall.

  “You get use of the kitchen?”
<
br />   Alice snorted. “Use! That’s a joke, that is. We supply the rest of this shicey household, if you ask me. We have to fetch the coal scuttle into our room at night, else it’d be empty as a cripple’s stomach by morning. Don’t notice Mr. bloody Quinn bringing in a bit of coal, do you? But he’s quick enough to come in here and warm his chilblains when we’ve got it up, isn’t he?”

  “Come on, Alice, he helps us out in other ways.”

  “You maybe, not me.”

  “Who is this Mr. Quinn?” Murdoch interceded.

  “One of the other dudders that lives here. He’s got the room next to us.”

  “Who else?”

  Ettie answered. “There’s two brothers upstairs. Say they’re lumberjacks. Don’t know what they’re doing here if that’s the case. Aren’t going to cut down many trees in this neighbourhood, are they? And they’re both lumpers. Bang around like horses up there.”

  She looked as if she was going to continue with a diatribe against the absent brothers but Murdoch stopped her.

  “What’s your occupation?”

  Ettie grinned at him. In spite of her bad teeth she had an attractive face when she smiled. Youth still lingered there.

  “I’m a glover. Alice the same.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Here. We work from home, don’t we, Alice? We mend and clean.”

  “That’s right. We specialize in men’s articles. Of the best pigskin.” She met his eyes impudently. “We fit them.”

  Murdoch knew that sexual protectors were made from fine pigskin, but he didn’t take the bait. They were toying with him and the slightest sign of annoyance or embarrassment on his part would be seen as a victory they would chortle over for weeks to come.

  “Who employs you?”

  “Mr. Webster, the tailor. He’s over on Queen Street.”

  “We’re always in demand,” added Alice. “The shops are using machines these days but we find most gentlemen still like the work done by hand, don’t we, Ettie?” She laughed. “It’s hard work, Sergeant. At the end of the day we’re spent many times over.”