The White Feather Murders

by Rachel McMillan

  Then he turned, an instinct to ensure every inch of his workspace was rid of any half written article or photograph of Jemima or…

  He crossed the floor and inspected it, even lurching open the desk drawers one last time. Slamming shut a scarred drawer again, he almost didn’t notice Skip standing over him.

  “You’re out then, Mr. DeLuca?” the photographer pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

  “It appears so,” Ray said through gritted teeth. “Your camera?”

  “I had it with me. I have little respect for a man who would try to get this operation shut down.”

  Ray swallowed. “I have little respect for him too,” he said ruefully, turning and walking out the rickety door and onto the cobblestones a final time.

  Jasper was right beside him, but Ray was drained of words in either Italian or English and sauntered silently on.

  “This may be an inconvenient time, but…”

  “I didn’t run that article, Jasper! Whoever did this did it for some other reason altogether.” He cursed in his first language and then stopped in his tracks. Jasper followed suit.

  “I have no idea yet what that would be, Ray, but I need to know if the article had anything to do with munitions.”

  “What? No. I mean, I speculated on it, but… the point is the article… no one saw that article. I was working on it last night because after Jem… I went a little…”

  Jasper nodded. He understood. He similarly had difficulty functioning after seeing Merinda so distraught at the garage.

  “How closely were you working with Alexander Waverley?”

  “Not at all. Not outside of the Cartiers.” Ray smiled ruefully. “It’s no secret I wanted to work for his paper.”

  Jasper reached into his jacket pocket. “This was in Waverley’s desk. We found it after we were notified of his death.” He handed a folded piece of paper to Ray, who took it with eager interest. Opening it, he saw several lines of thoughts and ideas that pertained to Ray and the Hog.

  “He wanted you to do what he could not.”

  “He seemed to anticipate what Montague was going to do.” Ray’s eyes settled on the elegant slant of the editor’s old-fashioned handwriting. This was not newspaperman’s shorthand. “This is so neat and precise.”

  “He wanted it to be legible.”

  “Do you think it’s a clue to his murder?”

  “I think it’s a clue to him knowing his murderer. His desk was neatly arranged, but the desk drawer was jammed at an awkward angle. Which leads me to think that he recognized his attacker when he saw him in the doorway and quickly shoved this piece of paper into this desk.”

  “And now it is an unintentional last message,” Ray said, turning it over.

  “This war agent held quite a bit of interest to our editor friend.”

  “Indeed.” Then Ray sighed. “Well, there’s little I can do with it now, Jasper. I don’t have a press.”

  “You’ll find something to do with it.”

  “I am scarcely in the mood for your unfailing optimism—”

  “You’ll find something to do with it,” Jasper repeated.

  They walked Trinity Street in silence. Around them, the world moved on despite the full stop halting Ray’s life. The trees were just beginning to exhibit the first of their red leaves, the grass whistled in the slight wind, and Corktown children played hide-and-seek around the leaning cottages.

  “What am I going to do, Jasper? I sent my wife to Merinda’s, and my little boy is hours away. I have no means of providing for them anyhow.”

  Jasper crossed his hands behind his back and kept his face forward, selecting his words carefully. “I think, for now, you keep that brain of yours turning, you put one foot in front of the other, and you remember that there is always another door.”

  “That’s a little too…” Ray reached for a word. “… vague for this moment. If you think I will go home and make a cup of tea…”

  Jasper shook his head. “Immediately? No. Immediately, you and I are going to go patch up that broken window of yours.”

  Merinda nearly pounced on Jem the moment she stepped into the front hallway.

  “Owww!” Jem cried as Merinda’s arms flew around her, inadvertently putting too much pressure on her hurt rib.

  “Oh.” Merinda stepped backward, assessing Jem from the top of her hair, over her pale face, to her boots. “Well, you’re in one piece,” she said, leaning in to squeeze Jem’s shoulder but opting to pat her awkwardly on the head instead.

  Once Jem had given her friend a truncated account of her temporary return to the townhouse, Merinda concocted a plan for her convalescence, which Jem subsequently learned involved keeping Jem so busy in solving their unsolved cases she had little time to feel sorry for herself.

  “Do you need tea?” Merinda asked impatiently, strolling in front of the mantel. She hadn’t been able to sit still, opting instead to watch Jemima as she settled on the settee and drew a quilt over her legs.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Ill?”

  “Just a headache.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “A little. Not at any frenetic pace.”

  “So you are not averse to distracting yourself of the unfortunate circumstances of the past day and a half by joining me?”

  Jem shook her head. “It will do me good.”

  “I will convince you it will.” Merinda ignored the deflation in her friend’s voice, flashing a Cheshire grin before turning her head in the direction of the kitchen. “Mrs. Malone, please see Jemima’s bag to her room!”

  Jem slowly disengaged herself from the quilt and rose, while Merinda pointed to the blackboard and the little progress she had made in both the white feather incidents and the Mueller case. Merinda retrieved the feather from the roadster from the bureau, now wrapped in a Papier Poudre sheet to keep its shape and properties. “We found this in the automobile.”

  “How is your car?”

  “Couldn’t matter less,” Merinda said, flippantly. “My first plan was to meet with Philip Carr, but he is out of town on business. So then I thought it would be worthwhile to attempt to find out who ran us off the road.” She bounded into the hallway and grabbed her bowler from the hat stand. Jemima trailed slightly behind.

  “I had a horrible row with Ray.”

  Merinda scowled. “So did I.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I saw your mother.” Merinda’s voice was somber. “She took Hamish.”

  “That was part of what our row was about,” Jem said quietly, stealing a look in the glass, unimpressed with her askew curls and the dark circles under her eyes. With the roadster in the police garage and Merinda with no immediate desire to replace the automobile,* they set to walking to the trolley stop in the sticky sun.

  “Fortunately, Jasper was able to provide some information about the automobile we believe is responsible for the accident,” Merinda said, walking at a slower pace to compensate for Jem’s getting her bearings straight. “There are only two owners with that type of car. I have proven one innocent on account of his being… well, aged. The other is Sir Henry Pelham.”

  “Sir Henry Pelham!”

  Merinda reached into the pocket of her shirtwaist and extracted a small piece of paper, which she passed to Jem.

  Rifle practice

  White feathers

  Ornithology

  Automobiles—Pelham

  “Ornithology?”

  “The study of birds and their patterns. A subsection of zoology. Find the feather, find the culprit!” Merinda clapped as the trolley arrived with its familiar clang and ding. Not a half hour later they alighted at the edge of the wide University of Toronto campus, familiar to Merinda for her almost weekly experiments with Jasper.

  They crossed over a soft carpet of manicured grass toward Trinity College, a neo-Gothic institute whose hallowed corridors housed a department of Animal Biology.

  Grand, cathedralesque windows ushered in the sun
light, while Tudor-style beams crisscrossed over domed ceilings. Portraits of important chancellors watched as sentinels, their legacy bannered over the stoned walls.

  Professor Paul Monroe’s office was perched in a turret atop a winding staircase, which caused Jem considerable effort.

  The scholar welcomed them with a crooked smile, simultaneously nudging his spectacles higher over his nose. Wiry gray curls flounced on either side of his nearly bald head. He was dressed in the ceremonial attire of a tenured professor, but his shoes, just visible under his billowing robes, were scuffed.

  “This is quite the collection.” Merinda beamed while Jem shuddered. Stuffed birds and models and skeletons were a gruesome menagerie atop tomes and folders. His walls were covered with diagrams and scrawled Latin.

  “You are the lady detectives. I recognize you from the papers.”

  “Surely you have heard about the late Horace Milbrook?” Merinda asked.

  “Ah, yes. Poor fellow run through with a knife on the night of the war announcement.”

  “He was found with a white feather on his chest.”

  The professor clucked his tongue.

  “As was Alexander Waverley, the editor of the Globe,” Jem added.

  The professor was visibly taken aback. “I have not yet had a chance to see any of the papers today,” he said somberly. “Such tragedy.”

  Merinda nodded. “Which is why it is imperative that we find a solution as quickly as we can before the killer has a chance to strike again.”

  “May I see the feather?” A note of urgency was in the professor’s voice.

  Merinda reached for the feather from the roadster. “This feather is not from either body, but it seems to match almost perfectly with those found with both corpses.”

  Professor Monroe accepted it and carefully detached it from its Papier Poudre bower, turning it over and over in his ink-stained hand. “Do you know the significance of white feathers during a time of war?”

  “I remember a popular novel inspired by the war against the Boers,” Jem contributed. “In that story, the feather was a symbol of cowardice.”

  The professor nodded. “This is a columbidae feather,” he assessed. “Definitely of the pigeon and dove family.”

  “Were these the same feathers made famous in the conflict against the Boers?” Jem asked.

  “I believe so.” Monroe passed the feather to Jem. “They were known as a release dove or a homing pigeon in the latter part of the nineteenth century because they knew how to find their way home. Messenger birds.”

  “I’ve seen a thousand pigeons in the city,” Merinda mused, accepting the feather Jem held out, wrapping it up again, and then tucking it into her pocket. “But none as white as this feather.”

  “Mostly these doves are specially bred for ceremonial purposes. They are not your typical Toronto pigeon hovering around crumbs and whatnot.”

  “Do you know of any breeders in Toronto?”

  “The Pelham family keeps an impressive collection.” He straightened his collar.† “The rare privilege of consultation on the family’s collection was bestowed upon me before they found a resident ornithologist.”

  Jem and Merinda exchanged a glance.

  “Indeed?” Merinda said. “Well, Professor.” She grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. “You’ve been a great help.”

  They left him amidst his dusty books, the stuffed birds’ beady glass eyes following their exit.

  “One does not just walk into Pelham Park,” Jem said, as they maneuvered slowly down the spiral staircase and back into the shimmering blue.

  “We’ll just have to get an invitation.”

  “I recognize that look.” Jem peered closely at her friend.

  “What look? Honestly, Jemima, I am probably just squinting funnily because of the sun.”

  “You have an idea on how to get an invitation to Pelham Park?”

  “Precisely how severe was your row with DeLuca, Jem?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because we are going to the Hog.”

  Jem conceded, but only under condition that they take a taxi. Merinda happily obliged.

  “Everything from tennis matches to the swimming pool to the preferred turbot sauce,” Merinda said as they were underway. “Skip has been photographing all of it. He might have need of an assistant. I am sure we can convince him to return to Pelham Park.”

  They exited at King and Trinity Streets and walked down to the Hog offices.

  “Take a deep breath, Jemima! I’ll lead the charge.”

  “Ray will be furious with me for being out with you so soon, and I don’t want to say anything even stupider than I did in our argument earlier.”

  “You are always a lady. Even when you’re a man.”

  Jem’s soft laugh rippled through the air.

  Once they reached the office, they found the door wide open.

  Inside, Skip was bent over his desk, snipping at photographs. He looked up, jarred, before registering them.

  “Oh my!” Jem gasped at the extensive damage. It hurt her heart. It was so much about Ray and how they met and who they were and… “Where’s Ray?”

  “Hello, Miss Herringford. Mrs. DeLuca.”

  “How’s it faring, Skip?”

  He pushed his tawny hair back from his forehead. “Ray is no longer employed here. I was sure he would have told you.”

  Merinda grabbed Jem’s elbow to steady her.

  “They did quite a number on this place,” Merinda said. Though the photographer had begun restoring the ransacked office, Jem and Merinda still took in the toppled desks and bashed presses.

  Sawdust and pulp permeated the air, while bits of paper were covered in a film of the same and besmirched the floor. Jem walked slowly toward Ray’s work area and audibly gasped when she saw the damage therein.

  “Are they going to arrest who did this?” she asked Skip.

  “Why would they? It was most likely Montague’s men. Tipton won’t care. We’d had several warnings.” Skip ran a nail over one of his clippings. “Someone found an article Ray had been working on about Montague. Odd, even for him. Something really upset him.”

  “I can only imagine.” Merinda looked pointedly at Jem.

  “It’s my fault,” she breathed.

  “So if you can’t write about the mayor and his corruption,” Merinda said, moving a fingertip in circles around the smudged surface of a desk, “what are you going to write about?”

  “There’s the white feather murderer.”

  “Clever.” Merinda wanted to exchange a look with Jem, but her friend was leaning over Ray’s old desk. Merinda joined her.

  “Ray loved this typewriter,” Jem said, her eyes misting. “It was a present from Ethan Talbot. Secondhand and not the most modern model, but it was his own.”

  Merinda sighed. Even she knew about Ray’s love for that old typewriter. She picked it up for a moment. Its gadgets and keys were berserk, the levers and bars bent.

  “Merinda!” Jem gasped.

  “What?”

  “Look!”

  In the empty space left by the typewriter, and in the middle of the outline it had made in the old wood, sat a smushed white feather. It wasn’t as pristine as the one they found in Milbrook’s car or the one left in Jem’s side of the roadster; but it had the same shape and ivory tint as the first two.

  “What?” Skip appeared,

  “Nothing,” Merinda hedged, quickly shoving the feather in her pocket. “We’re just surprised at how long this poor mangled typewriter was on the desk. It left its imprint. The desk will never be quite rid of it.”

  “You sure you’re talking about a typewriter, Merinda?” Jem asked softly, caressing the edge of the desk.

  “Yes, well… Skip! Business!”

  Skip folded his arms over his chest. “Which is…”

  “Your pulse on Toronto society. The Pelhams.”

  “I can’t help you. Do you know how many times I was t
urned away? Why do you want to go there anyway?”

  “A case,” Merinda explained. “I will give you first dibs on the story.”

  “You overestimate my interest in you now that Mr. DeLuca has left,” Skip said.

  “Oh, please, Skip,” Jem pleaded. “Ray was always helping you.”

  He shrugged. “If you want into Pelham Park, you’re best to try your hand at something with Lady Adelaide.” He returned to his desk to retrieve a paper that he handed to Merinda.

  Lady Adelaide Pelham is pleased to chair the Ladies Auxiliary and Women’s Patriotic League.

  The inaugural meeting is to be held at St. James Cathedral

  Monday, the third of August, 1914 at seven o’clock in the evening

  “That’s tonight!” Jem said, her eyes widening over the date.

  “Much obliged, Skip,” Merinda said brightly. She looped her arm with Jem’s and tugged her gently toward the door. Jem swept one more lingering look around.

  Outside was a study in contrast. The sun was bright, the clouds were scattered about the sky, and the tang of hops and barley flirted with the tang of summer humidity in the heavy air.

  Back on the main stretch of King Street they found a taxi, which Jem was adamant they take to Cabbagetown. But when they arrived, they found the townhouse empty. They noted that Ray had been there, at least. The broken window was now boarded up in an attempt to render the home secure in lieu of replacing the glass. Jem walked slowly through her home, each wall seeming to whisper something—a lost snatch of laughter, a moment she’d shared with Hamish. Now, it was so bare. So still.

  “Ray?” Jem called.

  “You know he’s not here, Jem,” Merinda said softly.

  “I just…”

  “Come on,” Merinda coaxed. “There’s nothing for us here.” She grabbed Jem’s elbow and led her to the front door. “At least the raccoons won’t get in,” Merinda said, referring to the boarded window.

  They instructed the driver in the direction of the Wellington, a diner Ray frequented.

  Jem kept her nose planted to the windowpane, scanning the pedestrian traffic on sidewalks and under every striped awning, and around the large buildings at the arcade at Yonge as they trundled toward the east side of King Street. As the driver swerved outside St. James, Jem wondered if Ray even wanted to be found.