Of Dubious and Questionable Memory
Page 1
Books by Rachel McMillan
HERRINGFORD AND WATTS MYSTERIES
A Singular and Whimsical Problem
(e-only novella)
The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder
Of Dubious and Questionable Memory
(e-only novella)
A Lesson in Love and Murder
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Cover by Nicole Dougherty
Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
OF DUBIOUS AND QUESTIONABLE MEMORY
Copyright © 2016 by Rachel McMillan
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-6879-9 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.
Contents
Books by Rachel McMillan
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
The Herringford and Watts Mysteries
About the Author
About the Publisher
Dedication
For Leah and Jared
I dedicate this story about siblings and friends
to my siblings (who just happen to be my friends).
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have
seldom heard him mention her under any other
name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates
the whole of her sex… there was but one woman
to him, and that woman was the late Irene
Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, “A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA”
Chapter One
October 1911
It all could have been avoided had we not accused Henry Tipton, Chief of Police, of stealing his neighbor’s rooster. This accusation, I must note, was made before we were in possession of all the facts. My associate, Merinda Herringford, and I had very little to go on other than an anonymous note saying the bird was in danger.
Later, when our feather-flurried chase ended poorly, the Toronto Globe and Mail would run an article featuring a rather unflattering picture of Merinda and me in pursuit of the blasted bird. This would be but the tip of the iceberg of our humiliation, proving ever more true Sherlock Holmes’s belief that it is a “capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”
Rather than data, Merinda had a hunch. The Herringford and Watts detective business had been experiencing a bit of a lull, and perhaps that is why Merinda jumped to conclusions when the note arrived. I had no time for mysteries that day. I was preoccupied with memorizing the jam-making section of Flora Merriweather’s Guide to Domestic Bliss. I was determined to master a few rudimentary housekeeping skills. (An astute reader might wonder what in heaven’s name was I thinking in attempting jam in October so far out of season. I had been able to find some late-season blackberries from Murdoch’s grocer—paying more than I ever had for produce—and decided to surprise my new husband, Ray.)
When Merinda invited me to sally forth, I quickly moved the jam from the stove and accompanied her, realizing halfway down Sumach Street that I had used salt instead of sugar and the already burned concoction would smell something dreadful when Ray returned to the soot-stained kitchen (yet one more example of my less-than-exemplary domestic capabilities). But I put the kitchen out of my mind. I was blindly focused on the case at hand. So blind that just as we arrived at Chief Tipton’s home, our mission was truncated by my face-first collision with a weaselly-faced man. He was wearing the badge of the Morality Squad, the plainclothes detectives who were tasked with cleaning up the streets… and would take any excuse to lock up a couple of wayward females.
I squeaked and stumbled backward, tripping over the curb in the process and tumbling into a mud puddle. My husband’s second-best bowler hat fell from my head, and the long braid of hair that had been coiled underneath it came down over my shoulder.
“Rats!” I squeaked.
“You’re a woman!” cackled Weasel Face. “Herringford and Watts, as I live and breathe!”
“Jemima,” Merinda sighed, “you’re really not very good at this, are you?”
To add insult to injury, I could do little to salvage Ray’s hat as we were dragged off to St. Jerome’s Reformatory for Vagrant and Incorrigible Females, Merinda bellowing the whole way about roosters and the Chief of Police not being above the law.
The iron door of the gated institution echoed behind us with a thud.
“Surely you can contact our particular friend and newly promoted Inspector Jasper Forth!” Merinda called. But no one was listening.
The matron appeared with nondescript gray cotton dresses folded in her arms, her mouth tight as if she perpetually sucked on lemons. “Everything off,” she said with a hiss of disgust. “Everything.” And she looked pointedly at my wedding ring.
“My ring?” I squeaked. “But surely… ”
“Everything. A respectable married woman wouldn’t be here in the first place,” she huffed.
We washed in freezing water and coarse lye soap. And then we were shoved into a cell.
Merinda’s eyes snapped around the dark, drafty room and her lips twitched. “This is a bit of a pickle.” She took in the thin uniform and the ratty wool blankets. “But also a bit of a lark!”
I picked caked mud from my fingers, angry at the trap into which we had unintentionally fallen. Toronto’s Morality Squad had wanted to lock up the notorious trouser-wearing, bowler-hat-sporting lady detectives for an age. Catching us just as we were arriving at Chief Tipton’s home was a coup for them. Would they ever let us out again?
Now, cloistered in our frigid cell with a cracked window that did little to keep out the autumn air, I had dwindling tolerance for Merinda and her insufferably good mood.
“Why is it that whenever we are hired by a man, it’s for some problem including fowl?” Merinda flopped back on the hard slat of a bed and folded her arms behind her head. “Honestly, it’s a bit of a trial trying to establish Toronto’s premiere consulting detective business when we’re dashing after roosters.”
“But we weren’t hired. We just got a note,” I said sourly.
“I should have smelled a rat the moment I saw that message.” Merinda did her best to fluff the hard pillow on her wooden slat of a bed. “Tipton clearly wanted the Morality Squad to lure us into this exact situation!”
Time ticked onward. A loud knock at the door came not from Jasper as I had hoped, but rather the matron. She announced where supper would be served.
Merinda and I opted against the meal. Neither of us hungry, we stayed in our room. I tr
ied to sleep, but every tick and creak in the vacuous hall outside kept me on edge.
“Cracker jacks! It’s Jasper’s birthday party tomorrow.” Merinda sat up in her bed at the memory. “Well, he’d better spring us out of here by then if he wants his party. I already sent out all the invitations.”
“My poor jam.” I sighed. “I was so hoping to impress Mrs. Malone and prove I had finally ascended to the ranks of capable domesticity.” Merinda’s housekeeper despaired of my ability to keep myself fed.
“Oh hush, Jemima. Just buy jam at the market like the rest of civilization.”
In the shaft of light through the bars, I watched her blow a truant blond curl from her forehead. Her mind was clearly no longer on the party. “Our pursuit of the rooster was sound. I mean, suppose I was acting a little, erm, rashly… but there is a logical explanation for… ”
“Shush, Merinda!” Dirty water dripped through the cracked ceiling to drum on my forehead. “I’m too tired and too upset for us to fall down this rabbit hole of your silly hypotheses again.”
Finally, after hours of darkness and little hope of sleep, the gray light of morning stretched over my cramped shoulders. I swallowed the sour, chalky taste in my mouth as, blessedly, the door clamored open.
The dowdy matron jangled her keys impatiently, and we hopped to our feet. A man stood beside her, dark circles rimming his eyes but his face washed with relief.
“She give you any trouble?” he asked the matron while glowering at Merinda.
“No more than to be expected from a girl like her.”
Merinda opened her mouth to defend herself, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her. If she blabbered on we might never get home.
The matron handed over the bag containing our soiled belongings, and I was relieved to find my ring tucked into the pocket of my trousers. We changed back into our men’s clothing, the mud from the day before caked and dusty.
Walking across the broad lawn, Jasper inspected both of us. His eyes took in every part of Merinda, from her dirty tweed right down to her scuffed ankle boots. His eyes glimmered. “That was too close, girls.”
“I look this way because I was holed up in St. Jerome’s all night. What’s your excuse?” Merinda quipped, clearly uncomfortable under his careful eye.
I shot her a look. “You must have been worried sick, Jasper.”
“I just got promoted, Merinda. Chief Tipton! Chief Tipton’s house! I spent most of the night cutting through bureaucratic tape trying to liberate you. I was able to do so with the strictest of warnings.” He yawned and then apologized. “And my word, Jemima. I’ve never seen Ray so angry.”
“I burned the jam. Come to think of it, I left the door unlocked too… ”
We were soon seated in the automobile and Jones, a young officer, began steering us toward Merinda’s flat on King Street.
“When I heard,” Jasper was saying, “I dashed over to Ray as soon as Tipton let me go. Your husband threw a teacup. Took one of our new bicycles.”
“The new motorized fleet of bicycles!” Merinda positively jumped in her seat. “I’ve been longing to give them a try.”
I shoved her back onto her seat, Officer Jones coughing uncomfortably at our disheveled appearance and Merinda’s improper behavior. We made it to King Street in near silence.
“You’re remembering the party tonight,” Merinda said to Jasper as he opened the door of the car for her. “Seven o’clock sharp. It’s going to be a wonderful evening. You’ll forget this unfortunate business ever happened!”
Jasper’s countenance remained stern. “It’s a rather hard thing to forget, Merinda. I doubt you’d forget if the Chief said you were on a short thread for encouraging reckless lady detectives.”
My stop was next, and I spent the moments of our journey staring out the window. Jones swerved the automobile to the curb of the Cabbagetown townhouse Ray and I had shared for the three short months of our new marriage.
Jasper helped me out of the backseat and looked at me kindly. “Jem, you’re the sensible one.”
I chortled. “Not so much.”
“My job is important to me.” He smiled. “You know that. Can you make her see that? She’s like a runaway train, barreling through everything in her path.”
“Your job?” I hedged, knowing while his mouth said job, his heart said Merinda. I blinked into the sun as it settled above us with a cheeriness I didn’t feel. “She cares about you, Jasper.”
Jasper gave a curt laugh. “Does she?”
I gave his arm a quick squeeze. “She does. Happy birthday.”
I waved him off and straightened my shoulders. I’d had such high hopes for yesterday, I thought, stepping slowly over the stone walkway. I picked my way between overrun weeds and shrubs I had no intention of taming with a careful manicure. I slowly turned the doorknob, hoping Ray was out on his usual beat.
I wasn’t so fortunate. He bounded into the front hall at the turn of the door handle.
I let him get through a string of Do you have any idea and Honestly, Jemima. His English was always far poorer when he was riled, and his flurry of furious words was knotted by drifts into Italian, his first language. Something seemed to have flustered him quite completely.
Too tired to stand any longer after my sleepless night, I dropped on the sofa in my muddy clothes and sighed. “I knew this would happen. I knew even while I was shivering in that cold jail cell that you would be angry because I left the kitchen in a state and probably left the door open. I told Jasper as much, and he said you were in quite a state. And obviously we can chalk this up to one more disaster in my pursuit of domestic proficiency.”
Ray dug his finger under his collar for a moment. Cocked his head to the side. Blinked a few more times. “The kitchen? Are you seriously thinking that—”
“There’s no sense in just standing there fuming at me. Go get a drink of water. My goodness, even the tips of your ears are red! I am not going to fight back. I had grand plans for yesterday. I was going to cook something wonderful and of course not leave the kitchen a charred mess—”
“Jem, have you been listening to me at all?”
“Yes. And I am dreadfully sorry. You have every right to expect that the kitchen will be clean and the food will be warm after a long day. I will try harder.” I didn’t know how, I thought, but I would.
He just stared at me. Finally, after several ticks of the large, hollow clock in the next room, he turned. “I have to go work.”
“I’ll see you at Jasper’s party tonight? You can be sore at me, but poor Jasper had nothing to do with it. You have a fresh shirt at the office, I hope?”
My husband didn’t answer me before he walked out the door.
I heaved a sigh. My first order of business was to scour the scorched kitchen as best I could. Then a proper bath. A luxurious dose of lavender. And the red dress that was a particular favorite of Ray’s. A nice dress, I thought, would go a long way toward showing him I was sorry.
Chapter Two
The King Street townhouse was decorated with bright flowers, and Mrs. Malone kept the punch flowing and the side tables towering with all of Jasper’s favorite treats.
Ray and I arrived at nearly the same moment. I smiled, hoping to win one from him in return, but there was no chance to speak privately, and we fell apart, forced into small talk with some of our acquaintances.
Several officers—some on brief relief from duty—stopped by to toast the man of the hour and wring his hand. Jasper’s kind parents stood sentry in the corner, excusing themselves early but not before showering their son with an affection that made me swallow a lump in my throat. Reverend Talbot’s baritone led us in “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” Skip McCoy’s camera flashed, and young Jones flushed proudly to be in the company of his superior officer.
But the easy joy of the night was undercut by the tension prickling between Jasper, Merinda, Ray, and me. Merinda sang a few bars of a popular ballad along with the crackling gramophone, and R
ay tucked into a plateful of lemon sandwiches Mrs. Malone set beside him with a matronly wink. But between the four of us, smiles were subdued.
One of Jasper’s colleagues slapped him on the arm. “Quite bold to be in league with ladies who would want to see poor Chief Tipton locked up for a stolen rooster,” he jabbed.
“I never accused or encountered him,” Merinda said.
“The fellow from the Morality Squad found the note used to trap you. You’re such an easy target, Miss Herringford.”
Jasper swallowed and continued avoiding eye contact with Merinda. Ray overheard and made to interject and defend his friend, but Jasper smiled and shook his head.
Meanwhile, Skip McCoy, Ray’s colleague at the Hogtown Herald, was failing at his own joke. “What headline will you use, Mr. DeLuca? None so drastic as the Globe! Shame I didn’t snap a picture of your wife face-first in a mud puddle.”
I flushed, but Ray waved it off. “Ah, but Skip, you forget as far as my readership is considered, she is just one half of Herringford and Watts. If she wants to run recklessly off and get tossed into a reformatory, it can do little but help us sell more papers.”
The air in the room was stifling. I might have ducked outside to breathe more freely, but just then Merinda tinged her punch glass with a spoon with a force that resounded more like a dissonant bell than a celebratory chime.
“Excuse me!” she said.
Eyes drifted upward.
“As hostess, it is my duty to give a speech.” She swallowed. “Detective Constable Jasper Forth is a longtime friend of mine. I first met him in university when he almost knocked me backward down the stairs balancing a tray of test tubes. From there, I couldn’t go two steps without his pestering me to join him in the chemistry labs as he pursued his love of forensic science.”
I coughed and motioned for Merinda to say something—anything—nice.
“We all know that Jasper is rather a human golden retriever of a sorts. Always smiling and willing to do anything for you. It’s a surprise a man of his disposition has done so well on the police force. Nonetheless, despite numerous demotions, he has persevered and even enjoyed a recent promotion.”