Gold Digger: A Klondike Mystery

by Vicki Delany

  The dangers arising from my anger, that is.

  Without me, Ray would long ago have lost every penny he’d sunk into the business and be working as a bouncer at the grimmest crib in town, if not panning through mountains of dirt up on the Creeks.

  It was past time I reminded him of his obligations.

  Of what would have become of me without Ray, it was best not to contemplate at this time.

  Another Saturday night: the eager clientele was desperate to get in every last drink, every spin of the wheel and deal of the cards, or the last possible dance with the most beautiful and popular of the performers, and failing that, the cheapest of the percentage girls. Perhaps because they remembered what happened here last Saturday night, everyone was particularly well-behaved.

  Big Alex McDonald sat in his box and ordered bottle after bottle of champagne. Mouse O’Brien dominated the poker table and pulled in his winnings in handfuls. The usual drunks lined up at the bar, and the usual hangers-on filled the dance hall, tongues hanging out, counting the change in their pocket to see if they could come up with the dollar for a dance. And my girls didn’t disappoint. Everyone of them managed to free the easy-spending men from their hard-earned cash. Betsy was in good form. Flirtatious, saucy, appealing. No one would suspect how much she resented being demoted to the back row. If her take were good enough, I’d consider forgiving her sins and returning her to centre stage.

  Only Irene was distant, preoccupied. She’d run in a few minutes after eight, dishevelled and noticeably distracted. Her performance had been poor; she’d stumbled during one elaborate dance that she’d flawlessly executed every night since I’d hired her. During the play, she forgot her lines several times and Ruby, who played her husband complete with britches (suitably loose, of course) and overlarge, fake moustache, had to step in and make up words on the spot to accommodate. Not that anyone in the audience would care. Very few of them paid much attention to the words of the play anyway. But once we were open for dancing, I noticed a couple of men leave Irene at the bar with a disappointed shake of their heads.

  That would never do. Inspector McKnight spent the entire evening standing at the back of the dance hall. His attention was making me very nervous indeed.

  When Ray at last decided to put in an appearance, towards the end of the disastrous play, I glared at him and dragged him behind the bar. “What’s the matter with Irene?”

  “Christ, Fee, I don’t know. Why are you asking me? First you’re on at me about Betsy, and now it’s Irene. It isn’t my fault if you can’t manage your staff.”

  Beside the bar, a man threw the contents of his glass into another’s face. The other wiped his eyes and swore. The crowd gathered for a fight.

  Ray crossed the floor in a few steps, grabbed the whisky tossing-fellow by the back of his collar, escorted him to the door and threw him into the street.

  I returned to the dance hall, and the unblinking, neareyed stare of Inspector McKnight.

  Shortly before midnight, when I was checking with Sam about the night’s take, and the girls were graciously declining one more dance, and the croupiers were announcing that the games were about to end, and Ray was bellowing “No more drinks!”, Richard Sterling walked into the Savoy.

  I tossed him my best smile, still feeling a few shivers of pleasure from last night’s pleasant dinner. He had to have seen me, but he pretended not to, and marched into the dance hall with a straight, officious back. I abandoned Sam in mid-sentence and followed. I am not accustomed to being ignored, and I intended to find out the cause of it.

  Sterling and McKnight were speaking in whispers. I leaned up against the opposite wall and openly watched them, while all about us my business went into the routine of shutting down for the Lord’s Day.

  Finally, the police approached me. “Mrs. MacGillivray.” McKnight touched his hat. Sterling said nothing but managed to look highly uncomfortable.

  “We’d like to talk to one of your employees, Miss Irene Davidson, at Fort Herchmer,” McKnight said.

  They wanted to arrest Irene in the middle of the Savoy? With half the men in town standing around watching? They’d have a full-scale riot on their hands.

  “We don’t want to make a public display of this,” Sterling said. “Could you approach Miss Davidson on our behalf, Mrs. MacGillivray? Discreetly.”

  My mind raced, but could find neither a flippant remark nor a way out of this mess.

  “Please, Fiona. Mrs. MacGillivray. We need your help.” Richard Sterling’s brown eyes pleaded with me.

  “Oh, very well. I don’t want a scene any more than you do. May I ask the nature of your interest in her?”

  Sterling shook his head a fraction. McKnight said nothing.

  In the change room behind the stage, the women were giggling and chattering as they pulled off costumes and dance dresses and put on their street clothes. The room was a flurry of tossing tights, sequins, rhinestones and colourful feather boas. All of the tumult overlaid by a layer of sweat, cheap scent and the residue of their dance partners’ cigars.

  “Then what did he do but pull out a whole twenty dollars,” one of the younger girls was squealing in delight as I walked in. ‘My dearie,’ he called me. ‘One minute, my dearie, and a little kiss, and I’ll give you this’.”

  “Twenty dollars for a minute’s dance. Not bad, eh, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Ruby shouted above the cacophony of women’s voices.

  “Not bad at all,” I said. “Irene, I need to talk to you.” Irene was almost dressed. She had only to button her scuffed black boots. She looked up at me, her face dark and clouded.

  “Can you come with me, please.” One by one, the girls stopped chattering and giggling. They looked around, from Irene to me and back again. To each other. “Irene?” I said, trying to keep my voice level.

  “Please come with me.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she whispered.

  The girls closest to her sucked in their breath. The rest strained to hear.

  “What’d she say, what’d she say?” Betsy shouted.

  “I have an alibi,” Irene said.

  “That’s good. It can all be cleared up quickly then, so I needn’t assign anyone to take your parts on Monday.” Irene got to her feet.

  “Ladies.” I addressed the wide-eyed, gaping, halfdressed audience. “I trust not one of you will mention what you heard here tonight. More than the reputation of your friend, Irene, depends on that. If I hear that one word has been spoken outside of this room, I’ll fire every last one of you, without even bothering to find the culprit.” I looked at them all. One by one they blushed or studied the floor.

  “If you don’t think I’ll do it, think about this: What will the men of Dawson have to say about the Savoy if we turn our backs on their favourite? Good night, ladies. I’ll see you all on Monday. I suggest you return to your lodgings without further delay.”

  I pivoted on my toes and swirled my skirts in a dramatic rustle of fabric of which I am particularly fond. Irene scurried ahead of me, her head down and shoulders hunched.

  “Wait,” I said in a low voice. I spun around and swept my eyes across the room. Every one of the women averted her gaze. Goodness, but I should have been a dramatic actress. I turned with another lovely flick of my skirts. to address Irene.

  “Hold your head up,” I snapped. “And straighten your back. Did you kill Jack Ireland?”

  “No.”

  “Try not to look as if you did. Pull your shoulders back, lift your chin, push out your chest. That’s better. Pretend you’re amused although mildly annoyed at this bit of police foolishness. I expect to see you on stage at eight o’clock on Monday evening. No excuses. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Mrs. MacGillivray.”

  “Follow me.”

  The saloon was almost empty when we entered. Ray stood behind the bar, wiping glasses. Sam Collins wasn’t even pretending to be busy. Murray and Not-Murray huddled together, and the Sunday watchman stood in th
e middle of the room wondering what was going on. The two Mounties stood by the door as stiff as guards at Buckingham Palace.

  “Look, Inspector,” Ray shouted, throwing glass and rag to one side. The glass shattered on the side of the long mahogany bar. “I killed him. He was a swine and a coward. I killed Ireland.”

  “Oh, shut up, Ray,” I said. “You’re not helping in the least. Murray, clean that up.”

  I addressed Inspector McKnight. “I will, of course, accompany you. I cannot allow Miss Davidson to leave my establishment without a chaperone.”

  “Mrs. MacGillivray, I don’t think…”

  “That’s settled then. Off we go. Close up, Ray, please.”

  I gripped Irene’s arm and gave it a firm squeeze. She tossed me a weak smile, but she held her back straight and her head high as we left the Savoy. McKnight and Sterling followed. I didn’t dare look at Ray.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The remainder of that dreadful night, I will scarcely mention. Save that, as should go without mentioning, they were perilously short of jail space in which to accommodate a respectable lady. In Dawson a dance hall girl was ranked, just barely, within the boundaries of “respectable”. They escorted Irene to a tiny room in the main building and insisted I remain outside. McKnight suggested, somewhat rudely, that I might want to go home and rest.

  I informed them that I would remain, and after Richard shut the door in my face, I lowered my bottom to the wooden planks outside the main buildings, there being no seating for visitors. It was most uncomfortable, and I wondered if the dirt and the splinters would wash out of my skirt. I was wearing the pale green satin, formerly my second best. If things continued at this rate, soon I would have nothing decent to wear. I wished I’d had the foresight to bring my book. But even I don’t plan my day expecting to accompany a murder suspect to prison.

  They kept Irene for a very long time. I might have dozed for a while, and it occurred to me that I should send word to Angus so as not to cause him worry, but I didn’t dare move in case something happened in my absence. Both McKnight and Sterling left the room at intervals, McKnight glaring at me and Richard trying to avoid my questioning eyes.

  Men crossed the courtyard occasionally, every one of them watching me surreptitiously from beneath the brim of his hat, while pretending not to. I considered growling at a particularly skittish young constable, but thought better of it. I thought I saw the bulk of Sergeant Lancaster scurrying off into the shadows, but I might have been mistaken. At one point someone inside the jail began screaming at the top of his lungs, calling for help. Officers came running, and the dogs set up a chorus of barks and howls. The screamer stopped as quickly as he had begun, but it took a good deal longer for the dogs to settle back down.

  The sun returned, after a very brief absence, and at last the two Mounties escorted Irene out. Her dress was rumpled, hair escaping its pins, hands shaking, face almost as white as that of Jack Ireland when I’d seen him last.

  “You can take Miss Davidson home, madam,” McKnight said. “We have no reason to hold her further.”

  He looked at Irene. “You are not to leave Dawson until we tell you you can.”

  I took Irene’s arm and half-dragged her across the large square. It isn’t normally my habit to waste my time looking out for anyone else. I’d learned the hard way what happens to those who don’t watch out for themselves first, but it was in my interest to take care of Irene. What might happen if I lost the most-popular dancer in Dawson was one thing. What might happen if I lost my business partner was a far more pressing concern.

  “So,” I said, once we’d crossed the parade ground and were back on the street, “what happened in there?”

  “I didn’t kill Jack Ireland.”

  “Stop saying that. I wouldn’t be here if I thought you had, you fool. Why does McKnight think you did?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She read disbelief in my eyes. “I don’t, Mrs. MacGillivray, I truly don’t. Maybe they were fishing. Maybe they’ll call in all the girls.”

  I snorted, considering that it was acceptable to snort in the early hours on a deserted street in the presence of one’s own employee.

  “I’ll admit some folks might think I’d good reason to kill him. But so did a lot of people. Have you ever met anyone who angered so many people so fast?”

  I laughed, although it wasn’t much of a laugh. More like another snort. “No, I don’t think I ever have. And that’s certainly saying something.”

  I’d never seen Dawson so peaceful. The streets were deserted at this hour on a Sunday morning. A drunk lay in the dirt against the wall of a closed cigar store, loudly snoring off his night’s misadventures. A priest, recognizable by his white dog collar, came bustling down the appropriately named Church Street. He looked at us warily—two gaily-dressed women unescorted on the streets on Sunday morning—but still managed to nod politely.

  We reached Fourth Street. “I go this way,” I said. “Do you want me to walk you to your lodgings?”

  “You’ve done enough, Mrs. MacGillivray. I can find my own way home. I want to, I mean…” She struggled to get the words out.

  I cocked my head to one side and looked at her with a waiting expression. I’d make her say it. No matter how long it took.

  “That is…how can I thank you for helping me?” she mumbled.

  “The next time we present scenes from Shakespearean tragedies, by acting Lady MacBeth’s handwashing scene with a touch more feeling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pitiful display in all my life as I saw tonight. She might have been distressed at finding a dab of schoolroom chalk on her gloves.”

  “I was distracted.” I didn’t ask what had made her suspect that the police were about to make her their prime suspect. A young constable hoping for the honour of a smile from his favourite in return for issuing the warning, perhaps? Unethical, certainly, but none of my business.

  “Oh, one more thing, Irene, dear. Stop playing Ray Walker for a fool. If you enjoy teasing him, you may quit the Savoy, find employment elsewhere, and continue to entertain his apparently hopeless courtship. If you want to pledge some sort of attachment to him, with the full knowledge of us all, then you can remain in my employ.

  But if you intend to continue toying with his affections and also to work at the Savoy, where you are, undoubtedly, the most popular dancer we have, that will not be possible.

  You’ll have to choose one option or the other. Good night, Irene. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “Doesn’t Mr. Walker have anything to say about this?”

  “Most certainly not.” I walked away.

  “Mrs. MacGillivray?”

  The strain in her voice stopped me in my tracks, and I turned back. “Yes, Irene.”

  She studied the patterns of dust before her feet. “The police suspected me, they said, ’cause I didn’t go back to my room the night Ireland was killed.”

  “And…”

  “I’ve got no interest in Mr. Walker, although he’s real nice. My…romantic attentions…are elsewhere.”

  “I’d suggest you let Mr. Walker know that, before his behaviour embarrasses us all. Bring your young man around one evening. Introduce him to us.”

  Irene blushed. Will wonders never cease? A Dawson dance hall girl who knows how to blush.

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. MacGillivray.” She reverted to form and lifted her proud head.

  “Very well. I’ll see you on Monday, Irene. Tomorrow, I suppose, it’s already today.”

  Irene walked down the street, leaving me standing in the dirt.

  So Irene had a secret relationship. A married man, almost certainly. I only hoped I, and the Savoy, would survive the inevitable fallout.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I walked the length of Fourth Street deep in thought. The summer morning caressed my arms and face, and the air smelled fresh and clean. A rabbit, a tiny, furry, brown thing, all floppy ears and large feet, scurried across my path.
I was thinking how rare it was to experience a moment of peace and quiet in Dawson, when a mangy dog, nothing more than skin and bones and huge brown eyes, darted out from behind a shack, setting up quite the racket as it attempted to squeeze under the floorboards of someone’s house in pursuit of the rabbit.

  When I got home, everyone was still in bed. I stoked the stove and put the kettle on the hob. There would be no sleep for me for a while yet.

  “Ma, you’re back.” Angus stumbled into the kitchen. His blond hair stood on end, and he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. He looked five years old, except that the hem of his nightshirt almost reached his knees, and the sleeves had crawled up towards his bony elbows. I made a mental note to purchase some flannel and ask Mrs. Mann to sew him a new garment.

  “Do you want tea?” I asked. “No.” He pulled up a chair and fell into it. “Where have you been? Mr. Walker came by after closing to say you’d be late. He looked real worried, but he wouldn’t say what was going on.”

  “He looked very worried,” I corrected my son’s grammar automatically.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Never mind. Do you want something to eat?”

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you going to cook breakfast?”

  “I can toss a bit of bacon into the pan without burning it too dreadfully.”

  “Yes, please. What happened?”

  “The police arrested Miss Davidson for the murder of Jack Ireland.”

  Angus nodded and said nothing. The significance of which didn’t go unnoticed.

  “You don’t seem too surprised, dear.”

  “Miss Davidson had reason to do it.” Angus pulled a loose thread from his sleeve.

  “What do you mean she had reason to do it? What do you know about all of this?”

  Guilt descended on my son’s head like a swarm of what the Canadians call no-see-ums: horrid little bugs that are invisible unless they gather in a multitude. “Nothing.” His voice squeaked.