by Vicki Delany
Either Martha or Euila had been wise enough to know that a twelve-year-old boy and a man only a few inches short of seven feet would consider the contents of a ladies’ afternoon tea the equivalent of a scattering of crumbs, so they’d ordered plenty of sandwiches and cake. Mouse drank sickeningly sweet tea by the gallon, devoured the food, and entertained us at length—to Angus’s delight as much as Martha’s—about his complicated journey from New York to Seattle, where he’d happened to be when news of the strike hit, and so on to Dawson over the Chilkoot. He also regaled us with stories of his exploits on the Creeks. He was an excellent raconteur, and as he talked, Martha’s eyes lit with as much intensity as a chandelier in the entrance hall of a Belgravia townhouse the night of a politician’s dinner party. Mouse looked extraordinarily pleased with himself, as well as quite handsome with a touch of red in his cheeks and a sparkle in his own eyes.
Euila, on the other hand, scowled into her tea cup and added nothing to the conversation. If Martha Witherspoon and Mouse O’Brien came to an understanding, Euila would—literally—be left out in the cold.
As time to politely take our leave approached, Mouse and Angus got into a discussion about some boxing match that was scheduled to take place in a few days. Martha appeared to find the subject as fascinating as everything else Mouse said, and Euila excused herself. My eyes wandered around the room, eventually falling on the piles of paper on the table beside my chair. I picked up one of Martha’s notebooks. No one protested at such boldness, so I flipped randomly through the pages. It was a rather dry list of people met and incidents witnessed. She couldn’t even make the finding of Tom Jannis’s dead body sound interesting. Martha didn’t appear to be familiar with many adjectives other than “big” or “small”. The papers lying underneath the notebook were covered in Euila’s neat schoolgirl handwriting. I picked up a sheet to read, and the streets of Dawson came alive. The dirt, the smells, the sawdust covering everything, the noise made by thousands of bored men wandering the streets, the false laughter of women, ladies dragging their skirts through the mud, the desperation in the eyes of many. It was all there, albeit in rough notes and incomplete sentences.
“Isn’t that right, Mother?” Angus said.
I replaced the sheet of paper. “Of course,” I said, with no idea at all as to what I was agreeing with. No matter—a lady must never be suspected of not paying attention to gentlemen’s conversation, however boring that might be. “This has all been perfectly lovely.” I gathered my gloves. “It’s time for us to be leaving, Angus.” I got to my feet, and Angus and Mouse followed. Euila returned to the sitting room, and she and Martha bade us goodbye. Mouse may have lingered over Martha’s hand a few moments longer than was proper, and Euila appeared to notice. The unattractive scowl settled back over her face.
“Nice tea, eh, Angus,” Mouse said heartily as we descended the stairs to the lobby. He slapped Angus on the back so hard, my son took the last two steps in a running stumble. “It would be my pleasure to walk you home, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Mouse said as Angus performed a wild dance in an attempt to keep himself on his feet.
“Thank you, Mouse. That would be most enjoyable.”
We walked through the quiet streets. A few citizens were out getting the air, along with men who had nowhere else to be. As they did every Sunday, many of the big-money gamblers had taken the most popular dancers and a steamboat upriver to Alaska for the day, where they would be free from the stern Sunday observance of the Mounties.
Angus saw a boy he knew and asked if he could be excused. With a rushed “goodbye, sir” to Mouse, he was off.
“You have a nice boy, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Mouse said.
“That I do.”
“I’d like a son someday.”
I hid a smile, thinking that I was fairly certain I knew what had brought that on.
“Miss Witherspoon is a fine lady.”
“I agree, Mouse.”
“She ever said anything to you, Mrs. MacGillivray, about uh…well about…getting married?”
“As it is for any woman,” I lied, “it is her fondest dream.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
On Monday morning, a heavy knock sounded at the front door shortly after I had returned from the privy. I was the only one in the house. Angus and Mr. Mann had left for the store some time earlier, and Mrs. Mann was in the laundry shed.
“Who is it?” I said through the door.
“Graham. I’m afraid I have some bad news, Fiona.”
Although I was only in my dressing gown, and my unbound hair streamed down my back, I threw open the door, terrifying images of what Graham’s bad news could be rushing through my head. An accident? Another killing? Angus?
Graham froze in the doorway, his mouth half open. His eyes lingered over my red silk dressing gown. In near panic, I hadn’t bothered to tie my gown properly, and my plain white cotton nightgown (with the merest touch of Belgian lace dressing up the scooped neckline) peeked out.
“What’s happened?” I had no desire to stand on my doorstep and be admired in my deshabille. “Has something happened to Angus?”
“Angus? Why would…? Oh, gosh Fiona, no. Nothing like that. Can I come in?”
“If you are asking why I don’t shoot you on the spot, Graham Donohue, the answer is, I truly don’t know.” I stepped aside. “There should be coffee in the kitchen.”
He followed me to the back. I was well aware that the expensive red silk emphasized the sway of my hips and that the gold dragon shooting across my back under a curtain of black hair provided a most dramatic effect. I’d punish Graham for scaring me so then send him on his way.
“What do you want?” I said, turning after checking the coffee pot.
Graham gulped and tore his eyes away from the Belgian lace. “Fiona,” he said, “you must be aware that I have always adored…”
The back door flew open. “Hi, Ma. Oh, hi, Mr. Donohue.”
“Angus,” Graham croaked. I hid a smile.
“Shouldn’t you be at work, dear?”
“Mr. Mann forgot his lunch, so he sent me to fetch it.”
The big parcel was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. “What brings you here so early, Mr. Donohue?” Angus looked at Graham suspiciously.
“Mr. Donohue has news of importance to tell me,” I said. “It can wait while I straighten my appearance. Please, pour Mr. Donohue and me a cup of coffee, dear, and I’ll be back momentarily.”
I tied my hair into a loose knot, splashed a couple of handfuls of water onto my face and slipped into a housedress.
I was back in the kitchen in less than five minutes. Graham and Angus were glaring at each other.
“Now,” I said, taking a seat and pouring tinned milk into my coffee, “what is so urgent?”
“Don’t you have to be back at work, Angus?” Graham asked.
“Not immediately.”
“I’ve received bad news from my publisher, Fiona. It seems that he isn’t interested in my series of articles on the more unfortunate women of the Yukon.”
“Why ever not?” Graham shrugged and swirled his coffee around in the mug. “He doesn’t think our readers would be interested.”
“Nonsense. I’ll write to this publisher and inform him that this is a story the readership of your paper will be most eager to hear. I’ll prepare the letter this morning. How did he hear about it so quickly, anyway? We only discussed the idea yesterday.”
“I…uh…that is…I told him about it some time ago. I just got the reply this morning and came right over. Someone brought the letter in on the steamboat.”
Graham peered into his mug. He seemed to be concerned about his coffee. It was quite dreadful, but no worse than any other served in the North. “You needn’t bother writing to him, Fiona. He’s notorious for not caring about the opinions of women.”
“He will have mine, nonetheless.”
“Oh, Mother.” Angus got up from his chair and grabbed Mr. Mann’s massive lunch parc
el. “Don’t waste your time. There isn’t going to be such a story.”
“Not if we don’t inform this publisher about its importance.”
“Even then,” Angus said. “Mr. Donohue, will you be so kind as to allow my mother to get on with her day?” He rather pointedly held the back door open.
Graham stood. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Fiona.”
“These things happen,” I said. “Angus, I intend to speak to Inspector McKnight and Constable Sterling this afternoon. I’m going to send a message asking them to meet me at the Savoy at four. You might want to come along.”
“What do you want with Sterling?” Graham said.
“Is it something about Mary?” Angus’s eyes lit up. “Have you learned something?”
“I believe I might have, dear. You get off to work, and I promise you can hear about it when the Mounties do.”
“Can I bring Miss Witherspoon? She’s real interested in the case.”
“Most interested,” I corrected. “Yes, she can come.” Once she got word of a meeting, I doubted I could keep the dratted woman away.
“What’s all this about, Fiona?” Graham said, neatly slipping back into newspaperman mode.
“Good day, Graham,” I said.
Angus slammed the door shut behind them.
I sat at what passed for my dressing table in front of what passed for a mirror and brushed out my hair, thinking about the cancellation of Graham’s story. I was disappointed not to get the chance to mess with Joey LeBlanc. Oh, and to help the unfortunate women of the Yukon. Should I wear the blue teardrop earrings? They didn’t match the dress I was planning to wear, but they did bring out the highlights in my hair.
* * *
Angus spent the morning in a fever of excitement. He hated working at the store, but he kept reminding himself that before much longer he’d be earning his living as a writer. A real writer like Miss Witherspoon, a writer of books, not a newspaper hack like Graham Donohue. Who, unbelievably, had managed to convince Angus’s mother that he was going to expose the sordid situation of women forced into prostitution in return for their passage to the Yukon. Angus snorted, startling a lady who was examining a collection of cracked and mismatched dishes. “Is there something wrong with these?” she demanded.
“No, ma’am. Sorry, I was thinking of something else.” The lady bought the plates, but watched Angus out of the corner of her eye as he took the money and wrapped her purchases in used brown paper and the end of a scrap of string.
His mother was the smartest person he knew. Why she believed a word Graham Donohue said, Angus simply didn’t understand. Perhaps his friends were right when they said women weren’t as intelligent as men. They needed a man to look after them all the time: left on their own, they were likely to do something stupid.
At long last, the morning’s work ended, and Angus dashed home for his lunch. Then he was off to the Richmond to collect Miss Witherspoon. They spent a couple of hours interviewing anyone she could find who might know something about the two murders. Angus could tell mighty fast who truly knew something and who was prepared to string Miss Witherspoon a story to get a free coffee, pass the time of day, and perhaps later enjoy a laugh with his friends at the woman’s expense. Miss Witherspoon wrote everything they said in her notebook, and again Angus wondered about the intelligence of women.
He’d come to realize that the only way he’d be able to free Mary would be if he could find the killer of Chloe and Tom Jannis himself. The observations and opinions of everyone they’d spoken to were so vague, and so contradictory, he despaired that he would ever be able to help her.
“That was completely useless,” he said, kicking at an empty blue tobacco can as they walked to the Savoy for his mother’s four o’clock appointment.
“Not at all,” Miss Witherspoon said, sounding quite cheerful. “I got some truly valuable insight into the minds of these men who have come so far in search of gold.”
“Gold! I’m not interested in gold. I thought we were trying to find the killer so they’d let Mary go.”
“Well, yes. That too,” Miss Witherspoon said hastily. “That would make a marvellous ending to my book—the dramatic freeing of the innocent woman. But a hanging is equally dramatic, don’t you think, dear?”
“A hanging!” Angus stopped in the middle of the street. “What are you talking about?”
“If Mary’s found guilty of the killing of Chloe, she will hang. Surely you knew that, Angus?”
“But she didn’t do it.”
“That’s for the law to decide. And for us, as writers, to record.”
A cart driver yelled at them to get out of the way. Miss Witherspoon didn’t move fast enough, and the hooves of the horses kicked mud all up the front of her dress. She shrieked and bolted for the boardwalk, where she tried to wipe the muck away. Angus didn’t think it mattered much against the spotted-brown fabric of her dress. He didn’t bother to tell her that drops of mud decorated her chin and cheek.
When they arrived at the Savoy, Murray told them that Mrs. MacGillivray was waiting in her office. Fiona sat behind her desk, drumming her long fingers against the big blue book that served as her accounts ledger.
Angus bent to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled of soap, fresh-laundered clothes and traces of smoke from the customer’s cigars. It made a pleasant change from the stench of the streets and some of the men they had been interviewing. “Can you tell us what this is about, Mother?”
Miss Witherspoon sank into the couch and continued sinking, looking rather surprised at how badly sprung it was.
Heavy boots sounded on the rickety stairs, and McKnight and Sterling walked through the open door.
“This had better be important, Mrs. MacGillivray,” McKnight said, not bothering to say hello.
“I would have thought any pertinent information a prominent member of the citizenry might wish to bring to the attention of the constabulary would be important.” A mischievous light danced behind Angus’s mother’s eyes. She used big words when she wanted to be difficult.
McKnight struggled to regain his composure. “Quite correct, madam.” Sterling looked at the ceiling. Miss Witherspoon scribbled.
Angus’s mother let the silence linger for a few seconds. Then she said, “I heard something Saturday night that I thought you’d be interested in. It seems, according to dressing room gossip, for whatever that’s worth, that Chloe had come to an understanding with Tom Jannis.”
McKnight’s head snapped up. Sterling stopped his examination of the ceiling. “Indeed?” Miss Witherspoon whispered, looking up from her notebook.
“What sort of an understanding?” McKnight asked. He leaned forward, as if he were about to grasp the answer.
“The girls are saying he had arranged to be her protector.”
“Protector from what?” Miss Witherspoon asked. They all ignored her.
There were lots of lonely men in the Yukon, some with a good deal of instantly-earned money, all of them looking for female companionship. Particularly when they thought ahead to the long, dark winter nights, when even the heaviest bag of gold or title to the best claim on the Creeks didn’t bring a man much comfort. It was the dream of many women in the dance halls to be taken under the wing of a man with money enough to provide for them. The word “marriage” was rarely mentioned. What they hoped for was a handsome something to remember him by when winter ended and life, and everyone involved, moved on.
“Your girls know this how?” McKnight asked.
“Supposedly from Chloe herself. I can’t say whether or not the wretch…uh…poor thing simply imagined his interest. Because it was Tom Jannis paying her attention, I thought you’d be interested.”
McKnight said nothing. Sterling spoke up. “We certainly are, Mrs. MacGillivray. Thank you.”
“Who told you this?” McKnight asked.
Fiona gave him Besty’s full name. “I don’t know where she lives, but if you want to talk to her, she starts work at e
ight.”
“You learned this on Saturday, Mrs. MacGillivray? Why didn’t you bring this matter to our attention earlier?”
Fiona’s eyelashes fluttered. “Dear me, should I have contacted you on a Sunday? I was unsure if the police offices were open.”
McKnight barely suppressed a growl.
Fiona stood up. “In light of this news, Inspector, we can conclude that there’s a definite connection between the murders of Chloe Jones and Tom Jannis. And as Mary has what I understand the penny-dreadfuls call a cast-iron alibi for Jannis’s murder, being under lock and key in your jail at the time, she’s clearly not responsible for Chloe’s murder either.”
“We can conclude that, can we?” McKnight said.
Fiona smoothed down the front of her dress. Her eyes took on the colour of coal. “Well, some of us can think things through in order to arrive at that conclusion.”
“Mrs. MacGillivray,” McKnight said, a vein throbbing in the side of his neck, “I’m conducting this investigation. Although it was nothing less than your duty to do so, I thank you for informing us. We’ll be back at eight to speak to the girl Betsy.”
“You can’t continue to hold Mary in light of this evidence,” Fiona said.
“Good day, madam.” McKnight stalked out.
For a moment Angus thought his mother was going to run after the inspector. Instead she looked around for something to throw.
“Don’t try him, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Sterling said. “McKnight came out of the boss’s office this morning looking considerably worse than when he went in.”
Fiona pulled her eyes away from the door. “I’m sorry. His officiousness does get somewhat overbearing at times, and that gets my Scottish back up. Will you forgive me, Richard?” A strange light shone in the back of his mother’s eyes that Angus hadn’t seen before.
“Of course,” the big Mountie almost purred.
“He can be pigheaded, your inspector.”
“I can’t comment on that, Fiona.”
