Gold Digger: A Klondike Mystery

by Vicki Delany

  Men never avoid my company.

  Unless they owe me money.

  Or are accompanied by their wives.

  I went home, had a nap, and read a bit of Wuthering Heights, before joining my small household for a meal of stringy grey beef, over-boiled cabbage and tinned peas. As usual, Mrs. Mann served the Sunday supper at a most uncivilized time; in London it would be scarcely past tea time.

  I was settling into the comfortable chair in my sitting room prior to resuming the book when, out of nowhere, the idea popped into my head that I’d made an error in the accounts. If it had been an error in my favour, it would have waited until the next day. But as it was an error that was not in my favour, I wanted to check on it immediately.

  “I have to go to the Savoy,” I said to Angus. “I might have made a mistake in the ledger, and I want to check.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “It can, but I can’t. Do you want to come with me?”

  And so we came across the remains of the loathsome Mr. Jack Ireland, late of the San Francisco Standard.

  Chapter Twenty

  Angus ran to fetch the Mounties, and I cracked open a bottle of whisky and poured myself a good shot. Then I helped our watchman out of his disgustingly filthy flannel overshirt and handed him a glass of whisky. He was highly embarrassed at vomiting in my presence, but I’d come close to losing the contents of my stomach myself—those tinned peas! The very thought of it was enough to have me choking it all back. At least I’d been forewarned that I was about to encounter something unpleasant.

  I sat on the floor beside my employee with my legs stretched out in front of me, and we drank our whisky in companionable silence.

  “Mrs. Saunderson will not be at all happy tomorrow morning,” I said at last.

  “M’m?”

  “To find such a mess. In here as well as…in there. She may even threaten to quit. Upon which I’ll offer her an extra twenty cents. And she’ll say that isn’t enough for all she has to put up with, so I’ll up my offer to twenty-five cents—and not a penny more—and with a great sigh, she’ll fetch her cloth and mop and bucket.”

  “M’m?”

  “Never mind.”

  Angus burst through the doors, followed by Richard Sterling—is that man never off duty?—and Sergeant Lancaster. I struggled to my feet, using my Sunday watchman’s head as point of leverage.

  “You wait here, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Lancaster said. He had the sour expression of one whose ambitions have not quite panned out and who never allowed himself to forget it. “Your son can show us.”

  I ignored him. “Angus, go and get Ray.”

  “But, Ma.”

  “Now.”

  He ran out the door.

  The watchman gripped his empty glass and looked around for the bottle, which I’d closed and slipped under the counter before collapsing to the floor in a shocked stupor.

  “Gentlemen, follow me.” I led the way through to the back room and its macabre still life.

  “Jack Ireland,” Sterling said as the two Mounties approached the body. Despite my early outburst of bravado, I hung behind, back pressed against the wall.

  “You know him, Constable?” Sergeant Lancaster asked.

  “Yes, sir. American. Reporter. Only arrived in town day before yesterday. Saw him get off the boat myself.”

  “Pretty quick to make enemies, even for Dawson.” The sergeant chuckled. “Don’t suppose this was an accident, do you? Or a suicide?” His tone turned wistful.

  “’Fraid not.”

  “Someone had best fetch the inspector, then.”

  “Right.”

  “Won’t be happy to be roused out from his after-supper pipe.”

  “No, but he’ll be even less happy if we don’t call him.”

  This was starting to sound like a comedy act so dreadful, I wouldn’t allow it anywhere near my stage. I abandoned my refuge against the wall and stepped forward. I opened my mouth, while the words took shape behind my tongue. Don’t stand here blabbing, you fool. Find the killer! Arrest him! And I would have said something, had not Sterling looked at me. His face was wooden and more impassive than I’d ever seen it, but his eyes were full of compassion.

  “Someone has to go for the inspector,” Lancaster repeated.

  “I’ll fetch him,” Sterling said. “You guard the body.”

  The sergeant shivered at the thought. “No. I’ll go.”

  He touched his hat as he passed me. “What a fool,” I mumbled, once Lancaster was out of earshot.

  Sterling read my mind. Either that, or he has exceptionally good hearing. “He’s not a bad man, Sergeant Lancaster. They say he was headed for high rank, until he lost a company of new men, raw recruits, in a snowstorm.”

  “The boys died?”

  “No. Just fingers and toes lost to frostbite. But Lancaster blamed himself.” Sterling shrugged. “Killed his career all by himself, with regret and guilt. Or so they say. What do you make of this, Mrs. MacGillivray?”

  “What? Oh, Ireland. He’s dead.”

  “Thank you for that considered opinion.” Sterling knelt by the body. He didn’t touch anything, only looked.

  Reluctantly, I walked over to stand at the foot of the stage. “He was not a nice man, Mr. Ireland.”

  “You’re right about that. First, we’ll have to eliminate the handful of people who didn’t particularly want Ireland dead. Then we’ll be left with the majority of the population of Dawson.”

  Sterling stood up at the moment I leaned over to take a closer look, my churning stomach having settled down and my pesky curiosity taking control. Sterling was on the stage, and I stood on the first step. He loomed over me. All the inquisitiveness of a police officer fled from his perfectly structured face, his expressive eyes softened, and the edges of his mouth turned down. He lifted one hand as if he were about to touch the top of my head, to run his fingers through my hair.

  I had sworn that no one would ever again look down on me. My heart pounded, and I took a step backwards down the stairs.

  Heavy boots sounded on the floorboards in the gambling room. Sterling and I were facing the door when the men arrived. Angus and Ray came first, with Lancaster and his inspector close on their heels. The watchman followed.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Ray said. “Jack Ireland, of all people.”

  “You know this man, Mr. Walker?” the inspector asked.

  “Jack Ireland, it is. He came in here for the first time only yesterday, maybe the day before. Spreading money around like he’d printed it himself.” Ray shook his head. “Fee, my dear, are you all right?”

  The inspector’s attention shifted. He nodded to me, the greased edges of an enormous handlebar moustache curling heavenward. I hate a moustache that requires artificial embellishment. “Perhaps the lady would be more comfortable sitting outside?”

  I peeked out from under my lashes. “I am feeling faint, sir.”

  “Constable!” he barked. “Escort Mrs. MacGillivray and her son home.”

  “If you don’t mind, Inspector,” I said, patting my chest to gather breath. “Perhaps Sergeant Lancaster would do me the courtesy. He has been so terribly gracious.” I smiled at them all.

  Ray raised his eyes to the roof.

  Lancaster tried not to look thrilled at being singled out and failed utterly.

  Richard Sterling and Angus MacGillivray looked at the body, both of them avoiding my face.

  “Very well.” The inspector was new in town, and I didn’t know his name—a substantial oversight on my part.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I do not believe we’ve met?” I offered a slightly strained smile, which contained a hint of distress beneath a lady’s natural desire to be polite.

  “Inspector McKnight,” he said, with a smile almost as condescending as mine. And I knew that I’d best not play this man for a fool. “At your service, madam.” He was a scrawny fellow, about my height, with a pair of glasses so thick, he must be
half-blind. But his eyes, enormous behind the lenses, were sharp and intelligent. “Who’s the fellow who found the body?”

  The watchman stepped forward, wearing nothing above the waist but his dirty undershirt. “This were how I found him, sir. I didn’t touch nothin’. Then I went and fetched Mrs. MacGillivray right away, Mr. Walker not bein’ available like.”

  “Mrs. MacGillivray?” Lancaster said, “shall we go?”

  “Angus?”

  “Please, can I stay, Ma? Mother, I mean. Ray might need me.” Angus looked around the room, seeking support. It came from an unexpected quarter.

  “Let the boy stay, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Richard Sterling said. “If Walker wants to get a message to you, Angus’ll be needed.”

  Angus beamed, looking more like an angel than the hard-hearted criminal investigator he probably thought himself to be.

  I sighed heavily. “If you insist. Gentlemen, good night.” I picked up the skirts of my plain, but nonetheless flattering, green skirt and swept out of the room. Sergeant Lancaster tripped over his right boot, leapt into the air in an attempt to recover, blushed to the roots of his nonexistent hair, and stumbled after me. I stood by the door, patiently waiting for my escort, and favoured him with a grateful smile.

  “Sergeant,” McKnight called after us, “fetch the doctor once you’ve seen Mrs. MacGillivray home.”

  It wasn’t that I was uninterested in the remains of Jack Ireland, late of the San Francisco Standard. On the contrary, the demise of the unlamented Mr. Ireland might turn out to be of considerable importance to my business as well as my life. But it was necessary to leave the men to their work. I could count on Ray and Angus to report exactly what transpired. Ray would tell me the facts, and Angus would reveal every nuance that lay under the surface.

  Sergeant Lancaster said not a word on the walk back to Mrs. Mann’s boarding house. The streets were deserted. A few rats scuttled about, seeking refuge in the gaping boards that were the feet of the hastily constructed dance halls, shops and homes. A wolf howled in the hills, sounding very close indeed. Dawson might try to pretend it was a cosmopolitan city, but I’d never heard the call of a wolf on the streets of London. Not even in Toronto.

  “Here we are. This is my home. Thank you, Sergeant.” I smiled at my escort. My feet ached, my head throbbed, my ribs hurt from the pressure of my corset. I had no desire to linger in discomfort making polite conversation.

  Lancaster touched his hat and shifted his feet. I hoped Mrs. Mann had the stove stoked and the kettle full.

  “You’re a fine lady, Mrs. MacGillivray. You’ve raised a fine boy.” The words burst out of Lancaster like I hoped steam would shortly rise from Mrs. Mann’s kettle. “Good night.” He touched his hat and stumbled into the dusk.

  How odd.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Can’t say as I’m sorry to see the end of that bastard,” Ray Walker said, once the men had all finished watching Fiona depart.

  “Why is that, Mr. Walker?” Inspector McKnight asked.

  “’Cause he was a filthy woman-beating piece of human garbage.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  Ray snorted. “No. And don’t you go trying to pin this on me. If I’d killed him, I wouldn’t ha’ left the body anywhere near the Savoy.”

  “Ray didn’t kill anyone,” Angus shouted.

  “Thank you, laddie.”

  McKnight turned to Sterling. “What do we have here, Constable?”

  Sterling looked up from where he knelt by the body. “A slash to the belly, sir. Looks bad, but not life-threatening, at a guess. Probably distracted him enough for the killer to move in and deliver the cut to the throat.”

  McKnight knelt on Ireland’s other side.

  Angus didn’t know how close he dared get. He was amazed he hadn’t been asked to leave. He edged forward until he stood at the bottom of the steps. Sterling and the inspector talked in serious voices, paying him no mind. Ray pulled up two benches, one to sit on and one to prop his feet on and looked like he was about to settle in for a welldeserved nap. He scratched at his scalp, causing a big clump of thin, greasy hair to stick out at the back of his head. Angus adored the tough little Scot, although not as much as he admired Richard Sterling. But now he was unsure if Ray Walker was worthy of his respect.

  He’d arrived at Ray’s room, in a building called a boarding house, although it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the boarding house in which he and his mother lived with the Manns, where they had home-cooked, plentiful meals, a nice warm kitchen, clean sheets and towels, and a proper outhouse. Ray rented one room in a house full of men. The place was dirty, and it smelled bad.

  Angus had knocked at the door, loudly.

  “Who the hell is it?” Ray had bellowed.

  “Angus MacGillivray, sir. You have to come quick.”

  The door opened a crack. Ray’s head popped out. His hair was tossed as if he’d been sleeping. But it was only early evening.

  “Angus? What on earth? Your mother?”

  “Ma’s fine, sir. But she sent me to get you. She said you have to come quick.”

  “The Savoy? Not a fire?”

  “No, sir. The Savoy’s fine too.”

  “What then? Speak up, lad. I’m not running out into the night to accommodate some flight of fancy of your mother’s.” vRay Walker, of all people, should know that Angus’s mother had never had a moment of fancy in her life.

  “Someone’s…”

  “Come back to bed, Ray. I’m getting cold.” Inside the room, a woman giggled.

  Ray looked behind him. “Hush, you.”

  Back to Angus. “Someone’s what?”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “On the stage. In the Savoy. Dead. Murdered, looks like.”

  “Wait right there.”

  The door closed in Angus’s face. But it was a very thin door. He could hear Ray cross the room, a woman’s soft question, the light slap of hand on ample flesh, and another giggle, followed by a whispered “quiet” from Ray. Finally the door opened, and Ray came out, stuffing his shirttails into his trousers. The laces of his boots dragged along the floor.

  “Let’s go.” Ray pushed past Angus and shut the door. But not before Angus had a good look at Betsy from the dance hall. She was sitting up in the narrow bed, the crumpled sheets bunched around her plump legs. Angus stared at her heavy breasts, pale pink with dark brown centres and large, hard nipples. She wiggled her fingers at him and ran her tongue across her lips.

  “Not a word to your mother, you hear me, Angus. Not a word.”

  “But, sir, I thought…”

  “You thought nothing. Now tell me what happened, for heaven’s sake. A body—that’s all we need.” Angus mumbled something about the Savoy—the stage, blood, death—but his mind couldn’t get rid of the image of Betsy licking her plump pink lips. He knew perfectly well what Ray must have been doing with her in his room. But he was having trouble understanding why. Betsy was one of the dance hall girls. The girls who danced at the Savoy weren’t whores—women who had intimate relations with men in exchange for money. And besides, wasn’t Ray in love with Irene? That’s what his mother had told him, and she knew everything there was to know about things involving love and men and women. So if Ray was in love with Irene, why was he…doing stuff with Betsy? And they weren’t even married!

  “Ray?”

  “Not a word, boy. Not a word.”

  * * *

  Angus edged closer to the stage, afraid to attract attention, attention that might get him sent off to the care of his mother, but equally afraid of missing something important. He mounted the steps, trying not to make a sound.

  Difficult, if not impossible, on the Savoy stage, constructed of cheap wood and insufficient nails. He stood behind Richard Sterling and peered over the constable’s shoulder, swallowing the bile that rose into his throat, threatening to choke him, or worse.

  Sterling and McKnight were talking in low voices, as if
they were mindful of showing respect to the dead. Sterling had pointed out that the wound in Ireland’s stomach wasn’t deep enough to kill. At least not right away. He would have died from it, eventually, if it had been left unattended. But not here, on the stage of the Savoy. With that wound, a healthy man could have staggered into the street looking for help. But the slice across the throat would have sent his lifeblood splashing across the stage in all directions. He wouldn’t have been able to stand up after suffering that.

  “You can look, Angus,” Sterling said, acknowledging the boy’s presence. “But mind you don’t touch anything.”

  Angus leaned closer to get a better look, trying to take it all in. His stomach was beginning to settle.

  “Had to have gotten a good amount of blood on his clothes,” Sterling said.

  “Agreed,” McKnight said.

  The doctor arrived in the company of Sergeant Lancaster. Breathing heavily from his exertions, Lancaster took a seat on the bench beside Ray. The doctor walked to the foot of the stage. “Dead, I’d say.”

  “Really, doctor,” McKnight said. “Is that your professional opinion?”

  “Don’t know why you dragged me away from my pipe,” the doctor grumbled. “The fellow’s obviously dead from a knife wound to the abdomen.”

  “If you could take a closer look?” Sterling asked.

  “No need.” The doctor snapped his fingers at the men who’d come in behind him. “He’s dead. I took the liberty of calling in at the funeral parlour on my way past. When you’re finished looking for clues, these men will take care of him. Drop by my office tomorrow during hours, and I’ll have the death certificate ready.” The doctor slapped his hat back on his head and started to leave, but he hesitated at the door. He walked over to Ray’s bench.

  “Perhaps I should call on Mrs. MacGillivray? I understand she found the body. She might be in need of sedation. Exposure to the brutal reality of life and death can be most upsetting to the delicate female constitution.”

  Ray yawned. “Right. I remember my mum. Gave birth to twelve children, buried nine o’ them, nursed my gran for months as her guts rotted inside o’ her, and then cared for my own dad when he died. Her delicate wee constitution almost cracked under the strain.”