by Vicki Delany
I went to bed with a heavy heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I scarcely slept a wink, what with dreams of soggy tea leaves, the portly Prince of Wales, Ray Walker in the grip of blood lust, a crying, battered Irene, and the blank, empty eyes on the dead face of Jack Ireland.
When I judged that it was time to get up, I dragged an unhappy Angus out of bed.
Mrs. Mann, knowing that facing the first day of a real job was hard on a young man, had prepared him a special breakfast of eggs and fried bread.
I was served porridge as usual for a Monday morning. But as it arrived in a deep bowl full to the brim with fresh cow’s milk, I was more than happy to dig in. Besides, don’t they say that bacon is not good for a lady’s figure? I was past thirty years of age; time to start taking care.
Thirty! Heaven help me!
My own mother was married, mother of me—her only living child—with death breathing heavily down the back of her neck when she was but the age I am now.
* * *
I carried my big ledger down to a table in the saloon, in order to keep an eye on the door while I worked and to catch Mrs. Saunderson as soon as she arrived. I didn’t bother to check on the state of the stage, feeling strangely reluctant to venture into the back by myself. Angus had told me the doctor had come and the body had been taken away. The men who’d gathered to investigate wouldn’t have troubled themselves to clean up the mess.
“Good morning.” Mrs Saunderson burst through the door, catching me wool-gathering. “It’s looking to be a lovely day.” She took off her plain straw hat. “Strange to see you sitting down here, Mrs. Mac. Something the matter with your office, or are you just waiting for a cup of coffee? Won’t be but a minute. My Luke said the funniest thing last night, let me tell you about it, he said…”
“Mrs. Saunderson, Helen, I have something to talk to you about. Even before we have our coffee. Please have a seat.”
The blood drained from her face, and she clutched both hands to her chest. Her eyes filled with water. “Oh, Mrs. MacGillivray. Please, no. The little ’uns are only just now getting some colour back into their sweet faces, what with good food and all.” The tears started to fall. She collapsed into the chair and buried her head in her hands.
“What on earth are you talking about, Helen? I’m pleased to hear your children are eating well. I’ve noticed the same with Angus, that as soon as fresh food started getting through, he perked right up. He’s probably grown another couple of inches in the last month. Why, we had milk from a cow for our breakfast this morning. It was wonderful.”
“Fresh milk,” she said, through her tears. “Even now I can’t afford no fresh milk. And without this position, I won’t even be able to afford tinned milk. Please, Mrs. MacGillivray, give me another chance.”
At last I understood. I pulled a handkerchief out of my skirt pocket and handed it to her. “Do stop crying, Helen. I’m not about to sack you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
A glimmer of hope flashed behind her red eyes. “You’re not?”
“Certainly not. I simply have an unpleasant task to tell you about.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Mac. Thank you.” She blew her nose heartily and handed back the handkerchief.
“You can return it once it’s been laundered,” I said. “Now, as to the matter at hand. There is a… considerable… mess…in the dance hall.”
“Mrs. Mac, I’ve seen me share of men’s messes in this life. I’ll make your coffee, then I’ll go clean it.”
I stood up. “This isn’t a normal mess, Helen. You’d best come with me.”
She looked at me.
“Someone died yesterday. In the dance hall. On the stage.”
“Died? Here in the Savoy? Oh, my goodness. But how? We was closed yesterday.”
“I don’t know how, or why.”
“Will you be wanting me to lay him out, then, Mrs. Mac? That’s no job for a stranger. Don’t he have no kin, no friends?”
I wasn’t explaining this very well at all. “No. That’s not it. The body is gone. Taken away.”
She heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good then.”
“He didn’t just die. He was murdered. Stabbed.”
“My goodness.” She crossed herself.
“I haven’t dared go back there this morning, and I’d feel more comfortable if you would accompany me, Helen.”
“Surely I will. But murdered! Mother of God.”
“There’s some blood and…such like to be cleaned up.”
“Why didn’t you just say so? Blood’s a right problem to get rid of.”
Mrs. Saunderson, now that she was faced with a simple task of cleaning, as normal a part of a lower class woman’s life as breathing or cooking, ignored my miserable attempts to soften the bad news and charged on ahead.
Not wanting to appear any more muddleheaded than I already had, I attempted to keep up.
The gaming room was dark and empty. Difficult to even imagine how full of colour and movement, smoke and the smell of unwashed bodies, the unabashed joy of the winners and quiet despair of the losers, it would soon be. Men would be pouring through the door in less than two hours, all of them ready to throw their money, very hardearned money at that, into my bank account.
“Do you know who the dead gentleman was?”
“Jack Ireland.”
She stopped walking so abruptly I bumped into her. “Ireland? The newspaper feller?”
“Yes.” She crossed herself again and turned to face me. The look of polite sorrow had been replaced by a smile. She placed her hands on her hips. “Is that so? Jack Ireland. I’m a good Catholic woman, Mrs. Mac, and it’s a sin to be happy at another’s misfortune. I’ll take it to confession and ask forgiveness, but I don’t mind tellin’ you that I’m right glad to hear it.”
“Helen, you can’t mean that. Ireland treated you badly, to be sure. But to be happy at his death?” Of course, I myself was quite pleased that the detestable Mr. Ireland had been prevented from causing us any more trouble, but I wasn’t about to express in public my quiet satisfaction at his untimely demise.
Helen, on the other hand, virtually rubbed her hands together in glee. Chuckling, she led the way into the dance hall.
Jack Ireland’s lifeblood had splattered across the boards, and there it had dried, staining the wood dark. No one would be able to notice it from the audience. And it wasn’t as if the stage wasn’t stained already, with everything from tobacco juice to vomit and urine. The vomiters we couldn’t do much about, save toss them into the street, but the man who’d unbuttoned his trousers and urinated on the stage when his favourite girl accepted a dance with his rival? He was still spending his days chopping wood in Fort Herchmer.
Vomit and urine and tobacco juice were one thing, but my girls would balk at dancing on the stage if they saw bloodstains beneath their feet.
Helen Saunderson and I stared at the dark patches. I’d thought it would be much worse. In my imagination I’d seen the stain covering the entire stage, perhaps even dripping down the stairs and spreading across the dance floor.
Helen might have read my thoughts. “This ain’t nothin’, Mrs. Mac. A few drops. You had me thinking there was a flood or something.”
“Can you get the stains out?”
“Probably not entirely. But enough so’s it won’t show worse than any other mark.”
“Good. Thank you.”
As I turned to leave, Mrs. Saunderson reared back her head and let loose with a mouthful of spittle, aimed directly at the heart of the stains.
I tried to say something, but my mouth simply hung open, a most unladylike position. I snapped my jaws shut.
She saw me watching her. “Fellow ruined my good name. Mighta ruined my daughters’ chances for a good marriage. I’ll fetch your coffee. Then I’ll clean up in here.”
She marched out, her back straight and her head held high.
I fell onto a bench. That was quite a display. I’
d remember not to get on Helen Saunderson’s bad side.
But how much of a display was it? She hated Ireland, that was plain to see. How far would she go to get revenge on the man who had supposedly slandered her? She’d appeared to be genuinely surprised at my news of the body and then its identity. Could that have been an act? Did she arrive at work this morning knowing exactly what had been found in the back room of the Savoy? She’d been distressed at the thought that I was about to sack her. Was it because she feared I was going to cast her adrift in order to avoid implication in any scandal that would arise from the murder?
I still didn’t understand why Helen was making such a fuss over it all. But then the upkeep of my “good name” has never worried me over much. Although, when I stopped to think about it, if my lack of reputation ever endangered Angus, denied him a position at school perhaps or shut him out of the homes of his friends, I might have been ready to do some serious damage.
Which is why it is always better, I had learned, to move in the very highest of circles, where men scarcely care about their reputation or anyone else’s as long as their wife or, most important of all, her mother, doesn’t find out. I do have one addendum that I will add to my life’s lessons: It is even better to swim in the waters of a town so wild, so full of naked ambition, so free of inhibition, that no one cares who you are or where you come from. As long as you have coin in your pocket.
My head hurt. There would be time later to sort out who amongst my acquaintances might be a murderer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I sat on the hard, uncomfortable bench and looked around the empty dancehall. The benches were pushed up against the walls, except for two that had been placed in the middle of the room, for some reason. A mouse scurried across the floor and jumped up the stairs onto the stage. Its whiskers twitched cautiously and, catching sight of me out of the corner of its black button eyes, it disappeared into a crack that at a casual glance appeared to be far too small to accommodate its chubby frame. My stomach rolled over at the thought of what the creature might discover in the dark, empty space underneath the stage.
I fled.
Ray Walker was sitting at the big table in the centre of the room, reading my ledger. He looked up when I came in. “Not a good idea, Fee me dear, to leave the accounts spread open on the table with the door unlocked and not a soul in sight. Ye don’t look well. Rough night?”
“Oh, shut up.” I slammed the ledger shut.
“Rough night,” he said.
I placed my hands on the table and leaned forward. “What do you know about Jack Ireland’s body being found in the Savoy? If you know anything, you’d better tell me.” Helen came out of the back with a tray. “Coffee!” I said. “How lovely!”
I threw my body into a chair with so much force, my tailbone groaned in protest. “I told Helen about the unfortunate events of yesterday. She’ll have the stage as clean as a whistle by opening. And biscuits too, isn’t that nice.”
Ray accepted his coffee with a tight smile. He might think I looked awful, but I hope that as far as my appearance is concerned, awful is a relative term. Ray himself looked like he’d been dragged out of a snowdrift and left to thaw in front of a one-twig fire.
Coffee served, Helen retreated to her back room.
“These biscuits are as tough as hard tack,” Ray mumbled. “They could be used to stake out a man’s claim.”
“Will you shut up about biscuits and how the hell I look. I want to know what you know about the murder of Jack Ireland, and I want to know it now.”
Ray’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking me this, Fee?” Helen’s bucket clattered as she dragged it out of her storage closet. Ray and I smiled at her. She disappeared into the back rooms.
“I’m asking you,” I whispered, “because if you’re involved, I’m going to be dragged through the muck with you, and I’d prefer to avoid that.”
“Now, I wasn’t there, but folks told me the last words anyone heard from Jack Ireland was that he was going to get you, Fee. So I’m thinking you may have had more reason to want the man dead than I did.”
“Me! You can’t turn this back on me!”
“Come on, Fee. There are parts of your life you don’t want exposed to the world.”
“Now see here, Ray Walker! Constable Sterling, what brings you out so early this fine morning?” Sterling stood in the doorway, blocking the morning sun. “If you two are having a business meeting, I can wait here. Pay me no mind.”
“Please join us. Would you care for coffee? It’s fresh. Let me pour you a cup.”
“That would be nice, Mrs. MacGillivray. Thank you.”
The Mountie pulled up a chair. “Morning, Walker.” “Morning.”
I sprinted into the broom closet and grabbed a cup from the cupboard. I couldn’t find a saucer, too bad. My heart was pounding in my chest, and not from that minuscule bit of exercise.
“Have you made an arrest yet, Constable?” I put the cup down on the table and poured the coffee. “Please, have a biscuit. Made fresh this morning.”
“I’ve come to talk to Mr. Walker,” Sterling said. “About the events of Saturday night.” He selected a biscuit, which is what the Canadians call a “cookie”. Horrible word. Belongs in the nursery, not as a part of polite, adult conversation.
Ray leaned back in his chair. “Busy night, Saturday. Always is.”
“Everyone’s trying to soak up enough drink and dances and spins of the wheel to see them all the way through to Monday,” I added.
Ray eyed me. “Really, Fiona? Is that what they’re doing?”
Sterling cleared his throat. “Tasty cookie this,” he said, trying to stifle a grimace of distaste and avoiding my eyes as he put the remaining half back onto the table. Goodness, he thought I had made them.
I once boiled an egg. Forgot about it and left the pot over the fire until all the water had evaporated. The egg exploded as I reached into the burnt pot to take it out. I never dared to try cooking again. I wouldn’t call the horrid food I managed to scrape together on the Chilkoot trail cooking. Angus had to intervene out of sheer desperation.
“Can you tell me any more about what happened on Saturday, Walker, Mrs. MacGillivray?” Sterling pulled a small note pad and a stub of pencil out of his tunic pocket.
“Where’s Inspector McKnight today?” I asked, dipping my biscuit into the coffee to soften it. “I expected he would be the one looking into Ireland’s death.”
“Who said anything about Jack Ireland? I only asked you about the events of Saturday night.”
“Oh, don’t play clever with me, Constable Sterling. You don’t come in every morning to join us for coffee and chat about our business.”
He grinned, and I remembered last night and that brief moment standing on the steps of the stage, with a dead body lying at our feet, when I had thought he was going to touch me.
“McKnight is pursuing other lines of inquiry. He’ll be around later to talk to you. This isn’t Alaska; we don’t have many murders in the Yukon. Ireland is the first this year, and the boss is determined it’ll be the last. Now, about Saturday?”
Ray shrugged. “Told you all about it last night.”
“So you did. But I’d like you to tell me again.”
“Ireland wanted to keep dancing after his minute was up. He wouldn’t let go of the girl and objected when I told him to leave. So he got thrown out. That’s about it.”
Sterling lifted one eyebrow. “Was Jack Ireland here for long?”
“I seem to think he might have been. Did you see him, Fee?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Ray. It probably took the Constable less than a minute to find out precisely when Ireland was here and what transpired. People will have been talking about nothing else, and no doubt the story is growing bigger and more extravagant every minute.”
Helen clattered back through the bar carrying her pail and a dripping mop. Liquid sloshed in the bucket, and the contents of my stomach rose into my throa
t. I averted my eyes. “Jack Ireland made quite the nuisance of himself. He insulted one of my girls and tried to start a fight when Ray stepped in, which is, as you are no doubt aware, part of his responsibilities here. Mr. Ireland was escorted to the door and politely told never to return.”
“As you said, Mrs. MacGillivray, the men are talking about little else. I dropped in to a couple of the dance halls on my way over here. I’ll admit that the story gets more interesting in the telling. They’re saying that Walker would have kicked Ireland to death if you hadn’t intervened. Isn’t that taking things beyond your job, Walker?”
Ray growled.
“Exaggeration, of course, Constable. Ray was, naturally, extremely angry at the insult to the dancer. An insult that was accompanied by an act of physical violence. Ray takes the girls’ welfare to heart. Don’t you, Ray?”
“I’m inclined to believe you, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Sterling said. “Bar gossip is about the most unreliable evidence the police can get. The men are saying you put Ireland onto the floor yourself before Walker intervened, and that you single-handedly dragged Walker off of Ireland.”
I laughed lightly and waved my hand in the air. “You see the things you might start to believe if you listen to gossip.”
“Which lady was it, Mr. Walker, who Ireland offended?”
Ray said nothing.
“Irene,” I said.
“Irene?”
“Irene.”
“Irene what, Mrs. MacGillivray? What’s her last name?”
“Davidson.”
Sterling wrote in his notebook.
I was about to make my excuses and take my leave when he spoke again. “People are also saying that you’re very fond of Irene Davidson, Walker. A fondness that she doesn’t appear to return. They say you weren’t happy about the attentions Ireland paid her. He promised to take her to San Francisco and make her a famous actress, or so they say.”
Ray said nothing. I wanted to shake some sense into him. He was a suspect in this killing, and his sullen refusal to speak up didn’t show him in a good light.
