by Vicki Delany
“Everything is of interest to the Mounties,” McKnight said in his most pompous voice.
Richard Sterling lifted one eyebrow at me as he headed for the stairs. All through the interview, he’d looked miserable.
I watched them descend to the main floor. As I mulled over what I’d heard, the door at the end of the hallway opened, and a bleary-eyed, pot-bellied, hollow-chested, heavily-bearded, probably infested, naked man stumbled out into the corridor. I had never seen him before. We looked at each other. He scratched the blanket of hair coating his chest and politely touched one hand to his head as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing a hat. “M’m,” he burped.
Just another miner, one who’d hit paydirt, and was now desperate to spend every last cent he’d scratched out of earth and rock.
“Go back to bed.”
“Yes, m’m,” he said. He only collided with the doorframe once on his way to his room.
* * *
Angus kicked stones all the way to the Richmond Hotel. He was furious at the way in which Sterling had so casually dismissed him. As if he hadn’t been a great help to the Mounties before.
The look on Mary’s face when she’d been led away haunted him. He couldn’t bear thinking about it. He didn’t know Mary well, hadn’t set eyes on her before a couple of days ago, when he’d pulled her out of the river.
She’d have been better off if he’d left her alone. Better to drown than be hung for a murder she hadn’t committed.
He’d heard a saying once, something about being responsible for a person’s life if you saved it. He’d saved Mary, and now he was responsible for her.
And failing. He asked the desk clerk to tell Miss Witherspoon he was
there and sat in the single horsehair chair in the reception area to wait.
The clerk returned to say Miss Witherspoon would be down momentarily. He held his hand in front of Angus’s face, expecting a tip. Angus considered spitting in it, but being thrown out of the hotel wouldn’t help Mary.
He settled back in the lumpy chair and ignored the clerk, who soon went back to his desk.
“Angus, what are you doing here?” Miss Forester stood beside his chair. Angus struggled to get up. So many springs were broken the chair almost devoured him.
“I’m waiting for Miss Witherspoon, ma’am.” “You needn’t sit down here. We have a sitting room. You can wait for Martha there.”
Their sitting room was small, only two chairs, a table and a small writing desk. Two doors led off the room, and Miss Forester knocked on the door to the right. “Angus is here, Martha. Please, take a seat.”
Angus sat. Miss Forester took the other chair. She said nothing for a few minutes, simply studied Angus from all angles. “Your features are like your mother’s,” she said at last, “but the colouring is all wrong.”
Angus blushed under the force of her inspection. “My father was fair with blue eyes,” he said.
“Where is your father now?” “Dead, ma’am. He died before I was born.” “How sad. I knew her when she was your age.” “I guessed that, ma’am. You talk so alike.” “Do we? I hope Martha is almost ready for dinner. Terribly early for dinner, but it seems that in Canada no one gives much mind to convention.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Angus strained his ears towards Miss Witherspoon’s room, hoping to hear sounds of her coming out.
“Horrible place, Canada. Some of my brothers live in London. I’d like to live in London, it’s so exciting. I was there once, for a few days, before catching the ship for America. Still, Canada is nicer than dreary old Skye. At least it doesn’t rain all the time in Canada, although it gets exceedingly cold, they tell me.”
“No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell me, is Constable Sterling married?”
“What?”
“Constable Sterling, the nice Mountie your mother and I met earlier today. Such an attractive uniform, that red jacket, the big hat and shiny boots.”
“Uh, no.”
“You don’t like the uniform?”
“I mean, Constable Sterling isn’t married.”
“Still, only a constable. What about Mr. O’Brien? He seems to be prosperous, well dressed.”
“I don’t know if he’s married or not.”
“If you find out, I’ll give you a dollar,” Miss Forester said with a wink. Rather, she sort of scrunched up one side of her face and closed one eye—it didn’t look as if she had much experience at winking. “What about your employer at the shop where we first met? He’s old, but one can’t be too fussy. Is he married?”
“To my landlady.”
“Really, Euila, the boy is busy enough without asking him to search town for a marriageable gentleman.” To Angus’s great relief, Miss Witherspoon came out of her room. She was dressed in an outfit almost identical to the one she’d been wearing earlier. Her hair was tied back in its neat knot, and she’d replaced the frivolous shoes with practical, sturdy lace-up boots.
“You have the notebook?” she asked.
Angus produced it.
She examined it carefully. “It doesn’t appear to be too badly damaged. A writer must always protect his notes, Angus. Nothing more important than one’s notes. One must never rely on memory. It can be so deceiving. I had the foresight to bring a healthy supply of notebooks, so we can allow this one to dry off.” She placed the damp book in the middle of the writing desk.
“Yes, ma’am.” “Well, we’re off. It’s almost eight. Men will be arriving at the Savoy, ready and eager to be interviewed.”
“I was hoping we might have a bit of supper first, Martha,” Miss Forester said. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Supper sounded like a wonderful idea to Angus, but his hopes were soon dashed. “No time to waste, Euila. I’ll speak to the boy at the desk; he can have something sent up for you. Turn the pages of that notebook every half hour or so. I don’t want them sticking together as they dry.”
Miss Witherspoon plopped another flat brown hat onto her head, gripped a fresh notebook and headed out the door.
Angus followed. They were halfway down the street when he reminded Miss Witherspoon to arrange for Miss Forester’s meal.
Chapter Twenty
I found my partner by the roulette wheel observing the festivities. “There is a naked man wandering around upstairs.”
“Big loser,” Ray said, watching the wheel go around. “Arrived around noon and dropped about a thousand dollars at poker. When he fell asleep at the table, I offered him a room. Gotta keep him in the house.”
Jake shouted, “No more bets.”
“We can’t have him on the loose. Suppose he came downstairs dressed as God made him when the Mounties were here?”
“I’ll lock him in,” Ray said. “His room doesn’t have a window, so he can’t do much damage to himself if he wakes up and tries to escape.”
The roulette wheel stopped turning. Jake gathered up most of the chips and counted out a small pile for the winner. He added them to the two lonely chips that were all the man had left in front of him. The gambler picked them up. He held them in his palm, enjoying their weight, making sure everyone in the vicinity saw them. He moved as if to put one down my décolletage. I grabbed his hand in mid-air. “Touch me and you’re banned,” I said softly, giving his wrist a twist for emphasis before releasing him.
“Jesus, lady.” He dropped the chip back on the green felt table as though it had burst into flames. “Calm down.”
“Mounties hear that talk, ye’ll be off to the Fort for using vile language,” Ray warned the gambler. He spoke to me under his breath. “I’ll check on our guest upstairs.”
I walked into the dance hall as Ellie’s song came to an end, accompanied by cheers and stomping boots. Now that the audience was nicely warmed up, it was time for Irene and some of the girls who made at least a pretense of being able to act to perform scenes from Macbeth. Ellie, who was playing the Thane of Cawdor, slipped out from behind the curtain, half-t
ripping over the wooden sword stuck through her belt. She looked rather silly with her dress tucked into her belt to reveal a large pair of bloomers, but we had to observe propriety, and I wasn’t going to waste money on costumes. Anyway, the men didn’t mind seeing Ellie’s bloomers.
Satisfied, I stood against the back wall to watch the performance. The audience had fallen so quiet, I could hear a mouse moving in the walls.
Irene had glided out onto the stage, watered-down red paint dripping from her hands, to begin the famous attempt to wash them, when a man came to stand beside me.
“Mrs. MacGillivray,” he said. “Mr. Jannis. I thought I’d banned you from my establishment.”
“Only for one night, I believe you said.”
“I doubt that. But as long as you don’t cause trouble…”
“Oh, let me assure you, Mrs. MacGillivray, I’m here to cause trouble.”
I lifted my hand to beckon one of the men over to show Mr. Jannis the street.
“You’ll want to listen to what I have to say before you try to have me thrown out.” His voice was low and serious, his tiny eyes fixed on me. I dropped my hand, although it itched to slap the smirk off his podgy face.
“If you have something to say, sir, please say it. And then leave.”
On the stage, Irene howled her madness. She fell to her knees in a piece of overacting that would have them demanding their money back in London. But this wasn’t London, and the Klondike audience moaned in sympathy. For those who weren’t completely caught up in the drama, it was enough that the dress was made of layers of sheer fabric representing a Queen’s night-gown and that in her despair, Irene tore at the false stitches sewn nightly through the front of the bodice.
“She’s popular, your Lady Irenee,” Jannis said. “With the men, I mean. All of them thinking they have a chance if they can only spend enough money to catch her interest.”
“That’s part of the attraction: always wanting, never achieving.”
“But still achievable.”
“There are numerous other fine dance halls in Dawson. Please take your patronage to one of them.”
“You’re a smart woman, Mrs. MacGillivray,” he said. There were people all around, including men Ray employed to keep troublemakers away, but no one could hear us above the lamentation of Lady Macbeth and the encouragement of the crowd.
A line of sweat had broken out on Jannis’s upper lip and across his receding hairline. All I had to do was walk away, and his attempt at blackmail was finished. But was it blackmail? Was he saying what I thought he was?
“Very smart,” I agreed. “And very busy. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Irene Davidson is a lover of women. She has a female companion. Some men like that, or so I’ve heard. The idea of two women naked and rutting gets them excited.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Jannis, if I’m not interested in your immature fantasies. I’ll remind you that I can have you arrested for talking to me like that.”
“Most men don’t care for it. They want their favourite for themselves, and they’ll take their business elsewhere if such news were to become general knowledge.”
I looked at Tom Jannis. His suit was well cut, and the diamond stickpin thrust through his tie was bold and shiny, but the collar on his shirt was beginning to fray and had not been washed recently. The buttons on his waistcoat were mismatched, the knees of his trousers a mite shinny, and one could buy a tie like his on the waterfront for a few cents.
“The most popular dancer in Dawson and a highly respected businesswoman on one hand, and a down-andout-Yankee trying to make a buck without working for it on the other. Who will men believe? Don’t take me for a fool, Mr. Jannis. You have nothing to threaten me with. Please leave quietly, or I will have my men throw you out, with some considerable loss of dignity on your part.”
We only performed a few choice scenes from Shakespeare. It was now time for Banquo to do his haunting of the banquet bit. The already dim lighting went down a fraction.
Jannis’s face grew dark right before me, his eyes narrowed and his lips compressed into an ugly line. I moved my hands into position and settled onto the balls of my feet, expecting him to lash out.
If he’d cried, he couldn’t have surprised me more. All the bluster exited him like air escaping from a child’s balloon popped too early. “Okay,” he said, “it was a bad idea, but I’ll tell you this for nothing…”
“Wasn’t that the day, Fiona?” Graham Donohue almost elbowed Jannis out of the way. “I’ve prepared some great copy for my paper.”
Tom Jannis melted away. The last I saw of him, he was slinking out of the dance hall as Macbeth called upon MacDuff to “Lay on, and damned be he who first cries hold, enough.” The men loved seeing the women dancing around the stage in their bloomers waving wooden swords at each other.
“Pardon me, Graham,” I said, “I was in the midst of an important conversation there.”
“With that son-of-a-bitch?” Graham laughed at the idea. “Sold his watch this morning, I heard.”
“Really, Graham. You hear everything.” “The lot of a newsman, madam.” He tossed me a wink of such exaggeration, I laughed out loud. “Tell me, my dear, do you suppose the audience would care if Lady Macbeth recovered from her unfortunate death and charged onto the battlefield to save her husband, lover and liege lord at the last moment?”
“They’d love it,” I said. “But the staging would be a bit awkward considering that the same actress is playing MacDuff.”
“Find a new MacDuff. Then you can present it that way. I won’t even bill you for my creative advice.”
“I would be much too afraid that the ghost of Mr. Shakespeare would come charging across the Chilkoot Pass to avenge himself on us,” I laughed.
“Do you suppose the Mounties at the summit would allow a ghost into Canada without the required year’s supplies?” Graham pondered the idea carefully. “Ghosts don’t eat too much, I reckon, so they might make an exception in Will’s case.”
I touched his arm. “You are a dear, Graham Donohue. But you’ll have to excuse me; I should tell Ray to keep an eye out for Mr. Jannis. I don’t trust him any more than I believe that diamond in his tie is real.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After meeting with Irene Davidson to ask about her friendship with the late Chloe Jones, McKnight dismissed Sterling for the rest of the evening. As he’d been temporarily removed from his duties of keeping the town of Dawson somewhat respectable and law-abiding, Sterling returned to barracks to change into civilian clothes. The necklace that had caused so much trouble was still in his uniform pocket.
He held the gold chain up to the thin stream of light coming in through the barrack room window. It didn’t give up any secrets, and he tossed it into his shirt pocket. Too bad he couldn’t throttle the truth out of Joey LeBlanc.
He went into town in search of Angus MacGillivray. Sterling could think of nothing he could do to help Mary; perhaps Angus, who knew the woman better than anyone else, might remember something.
Mrs. Mann told him Angus had not come home for his supper, but before he could say “thank you and good evening,” she also confided that she was concerned about Mrs. MacGillivray.
“The poor lady,” Mrs. Mann said, leaning against the open front door, “simply doesn’t get enough sleep, and she doesn’t stop for her meals. It’s no good eating on the run, you know. A civilized person needs to sit to table and enjoy her supper properly.”
Sterling mumbled his agreement and attempted to back away. “Now,” Mrs. Mann said, “if a man is intent on courting a lady, he should ensure she cares for her health. Though goodness knows,” she rolled her eyes to the heavens, “it’s hard enough for man or woman to mind their health in this place. I’m not complaining, mind. The Klondike’s made Mr. Mann and me most welcome and provided us with an income that’s the envy of my family, but…”
“Mrs. Mann, ma’am,” Sterling interrupted, “Mrs. Mac Gillivray and I aren’t court
ing. I can’t possibly talk to her about her…uh…sleep patterns.” He felt so hot, he might well be standing in front of a blazing wood stove in full winter uniform rather than on the Manns’ front porch on a pleasant evening.
“Nonsense,” the lady said. “Some things may be different here in the North, but I can tell when a man and a woman fancy one another. Sleeping is an inappropriate topic, but you could still hint at the importance of proper meals.”
Mr. Mann came out of the kitchen, puffing on his pipe and adjusting his suspenders. “Ah, Sterling,” he said noticing that for once the Mountie was not in uniform. “Wees go for zee drink. One moment.”
“I don’t have time right now, Mr. Mann,” Sterling said, unsure as to whether he should be happy that Mrs. Mann had stopped talking about that embarrassing subject or concerned that Mr. Mann apparently wanted to be pals.
Mr. Mann eyed Sterling’s clothes. “You not working,” he said. It was not a question.
“Not officially,” Sterling stammered. “I’m looking for Angus. I have to talk to him about…things to do with a recent case.”
“Angus good boy,” Mr. Mann said. “I get mine hat, we goes.”
Mrs. Mann smiled at them both, looking pleased that her husband had found a respectable drinking companion in this most unrespectable of towns.
With Mr. Mann in tow, Sterling next checked the Richmond but was told that Miss Witherspoon and the blond boy had gone out.
They found Angus at the Savoy, seated at the centre table with a glass of lemonade while Miss Witherspoon conducted her interviews. Angus shouldn’t be in the Savoy in the evening, but so long as he only drank lemonade and stayed out of the gambling rooms and the dance hall, Sterling decided to say nothing. Besides, he wasn’t working for town detachment tonight, was he?
Angus looked up when he saw Sterling and dashed over to ask the Mountie what had happened to Mary.
