Gold Fever

by Vicki Delany

  “Fellow plopped down a bag of dust to pay for one drink and forgot to wait for me to weigh it up, he was so keen on following Mrs. MacGillivray into the dance hall,” Not Murray said.

  Eyes still closed, I waved one hand in the air in acknowledgement of the compliments.

  “Did he come back for his dust?” Jake asked.

  “Looking in a right state too. Pity—it was a heavy bag.”

  “Oooh, that looks a treat, Mr. Walker. Can I be next?” Ellie passed through the bar.

  “It’d cost ye, Ellie,” Ray said.

  She laughed. “If only I’d retained my virtue.”

  “’Night Mr. Walker, Mrs. MacGillivray.” A chorus of women’s voices trilled as the group of dancers stepped out into the street. I waved languorously, still not bothering to spend all the effort that would be required in opening my eyes.

  “Where can we go to now?” one of the percentage girls— a new one—giggled. “I’m much too excited to go home to bed.”

  “…some breakfast perhaps,” Irene said. “I know a nice private place just opened up. The Imperial. It’s on King Street.”

  “I’ve heard it’s ever so expensive.”

  “My treat,” Irene said. “Night, Mr. Walker.”

  Ray set to work on the other foot.

  One by one, the men finished their drinks and followed the women out into the new dawn.

  I opened one eye. “You’re a good man, Ray,” I said for absolutely no reason.

  “Don’t let word o’ that get out,” he said. His voice dropped, and he coughed. “I know ye think I’m a fool for her, Fee. But somethings canna be helped.” His fingers kneaded my big toe. The other toes wiggled in envy.

  “Irene has nothing to offer you, Ray.”

  “A man can always hope.”

  “Not always. Take my word for it, will you?” The expression on his ugly face was suddenly full of so much pain, my heart almost closed. I tried to make a joke of it. “After all, anyone wearing a dress this fantastic can’t be wrong, now can she?”

  Some of the cloud behind his eyes slipped aside, and he slapped the side of my foot before giving it back to me.

  I took it reluctantly. “Thank you. I did need that.” I patted my skirts back into place around my ankles. “I’m so tired. At a respectable hour, I’m going to go to Inspector McKnight with something I learned earlier. I’m hoping it will be enough to convince him to release Mary. It’s been difficult, what with the murders and Angus so worried about her, but I…”

  As if summoned by my thoughts, my son, followed by Martha Witherspoon, who seemed to have taken up the role of Angus’s shadow, burst through the doors.

  “Good heavens,” I said. “What are you doing out of bed at this hour, young man?”

  Angus opened his mouth to protest, but Martha spoke first. “It’s six thirty in the morning, Fiona. A time when respectable people begin their day.”

  “Meaning that I am not respectable, I presume.”

  Martha blushed and started to stammer out an apology.

  “Never mind. I have never pretended to be respectable.” Well, not to people I had no interest in fleecing. Ray chuckled and went behind the bar in search of his cap.

  “What do you want, Angus?” I said.

  “Miss Witherspoon has a mind to see the place close up, and…uh…”

  “Unfortunately, I overslept,” Martha said. “I wasn’t ready when Angus arrived, so we have missed the closing. I was most anxious to interview men on their way out of the Savoy in order to get their impressions of the evening.”

  Ray snorted. “High literature that’ll make. Sir Walter himself’ll wonder why he didn’t think of it.” He tossed the bag containing the bar’s most recent batch of takings on the table and slapped his cap on his head. “Good night, Angus, Miss Witherspoon. And thank ye, Fee. I might consider your advice.”

  I pulled shoes back onto reluctant feet and began to lace them. “Your arrival is quite fortunate, Angus. You can check the back rooms to ensure everyone has gone and lock the money in my desk.” I pulled the keys out of my pocket, which I’d had Maggie sew into a discreet fold in the waistband of the gown, and tossed them to Angus. “Then, as a special favour, wash up the dishes so Mrs. Saunderson doesn’t have to face them when she comes in. Take a damp cloth to the bar and a broom to the floor of the dance hall. Don’t forget to draw the curtains and put those lights out.”

  “Mother!”

  “Mrs. MacGillivray, I do not think…”

  I tossed Martha a smile. “Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Witherspoon, that if Angus wants to be a writer such as yourself, he needs to explore all avenues of life. Even mopping up a dance hall. Good night, dear.” I swept out into the morning.

  Never give them the opportunity to argue back.

  He might be very young, but I was comfortable leaving my property and my money in my son’s hands, and if the washing up and the sweeping were substandard, it would still give Helen a thrill when she came to work later that morning.

  Feeling quite pleased with myself, I set off for Mrs. Mann’s boarding house. My feet still tingled delightfully from the massage, but the too-tight shoes were quickly putting an end to that. I always felt somewhat naughty walking through town in evening wear when the sun was well over the horizon. I exchanged greetings with merchants on the way to open their shops, laundresses heading for work, and men setting out for the Creeks. I walked west down Front Street heading for home and my lovely bed. One or two fools new to town attempted to approach me, but I saw them off with a glance quick enough. And so I missed seeing someone scurrying in from the east—another person who had lost track of the time.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  As there were no more lines of inquiry to pursue in the Jones/Jannis murders, Richard Sterling had been ordered back to town detachment. Patrolling the saloons and gambling halls of Dawson might not be the way to get his career back on track, but he was beginning to think it was a good deal better than arresting proud, exploited Indian women and trying to delve into the dark heart of a murder.

  He hadn’t slept properly for days, haunted by the idea that he’d failed Mary and, most of all, Angus. In the afternoon, when he should have been sleeping in preparation for the long night shift, he’d woken in a drenching sweat from a dream he was unable to grasp a wisp of, pulled on his uniform, and stumbled out of the barracks into the daylight.

  By early morning, the lack of sleep was catching up with him.

  Outside the Monte Carlo, he stopped to exchange a few words with a constable new to the Yukon. The young man was still wandering the streets with his mouth half-open and his eyes wide. Not a particularly impressive appearance for someone representing the law. Sterling smiled to himself: he’d once been that young and naïve. He had never been outside Saskatchewan’s Carrot River Valley until the day he left home to join the Mounties. An enormous lunch prepared by his tearful mother had been in his pack, a stern lecture on the evils of the world delivered by his father resounding in his ears. He’d been so naïve, he’d thought Prince Albert was an exciting town.

  Inside the Monte Carlo, a woman screamed. Men started shouting, and passersby dashed from all directions towards the dance hall to catch the excitement. Sterling, followed closely by the young constable, shoved men aside, shouting, “Mounties, let us through.”

  A woman lay on the floor in what remained of a shattered wooden table. Her dress had flown up past her knees to reveal plump legs enclosed in many-times-mended stockings. She flailed about in the almost clean white froth of her petticoats, screaming. Another woman stood over her, fists clenched and face set in hard lines. Her dress was drab and plain, stained badly under the arms. Strands of unnaturally-black hair had escaped from her hat, and the paint on her dark red lips had flowed over the lines, making her look like the clown in a down-at-the-heels wandering circus at the end of hard day. “He’s mine, do you hear? Mine!” she yelled.

  “That’s enough,” Sterling said, stepping t
owards the standing woman. “Back off.”

  She didn’t look at him. “Once she leaves my man alone, then I’ll leave her alone.”

  “Constable, escort this lady to the street,” Sterling said to the young policeman behind him.

  The rookie stepped forward, “Madam,” he said, as politely as if he were asking his grandmother to precede him into the church pew.

  Sterling turned to the woman on the floor. He held out one hand to help her up. He could feel as much as see or hear the crowd behind him breaking up as disappointed men realized the excitement was over.

  But it wasn’t. The woman on the floor ignored the offered hand and with a screech leapt to her feet. She touched one hand to her head, as if she were straightening her hat, and lunged at her attacker.

  Sterling grabbed her wrist and twisted. Something fell to the floor with a clatter. “Do you want to come to the Fort with me?” he asked pleasantly.

  The woman looked at her hand, trapped in Sterling’s big paw, then she looked into his face, and all the fight went out of her. “No sir. Please sir, I’m sorry.”

  The constable hustled the other woman outside.

  Sterling released the woman. “If I hear of any more fighting, it will be a trip to the Fort. Now get out of here.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She ran, her hat tilting to the side.

  Sterling dropped to one knee. The woman had been holding some sort of weapon, he was sure of it. The floor was covered in mud and sawdust, lumps of chewing tobacco and spilled liquor, and the residue of horse dung carried in on men’s boots. He pulled a shiny piece of metal out from between one of the floorboards. It was about four inches long and as thin as a cat’s whisker. One end was as sharp as a sword point, the other covered with a lump of fake pearl.

  A hat pin. Used to secure a lady’s hat firmly to her pile of hair.

  Sterling got to his feet slowly, turning the pin over and over in his hand while the Monte Carlo returned to its business.

  There must be hundreds, thousands, of hat pins in Dawson.

  He’d searched town, looking through castoff miners’ equipment for the sort of thing that could have been used to make the neat hole in the back of Tom Jannis’s neck. But placer mining didn’t lead itself to small, delicate instruments, and he’d given up that line of inquiry.

  This hat pin, however, was exactly the right size.

  The police surgeon had found a fresh puncture wound close, but not close enough, to Chloe Jones’s heart. He concluded that a very small sharp knife, badly aimed, had failed to kill her, and the killer had changed tactics and bashed her head in. A similar weapon had succeeded in killing Tom Jannis with one sharp stab.

  Richard Sterling would bet a month’s pay that a hat pin, just like this one, had been used on both Jones and Jannis.

  Not everyone would have ready access to a hat pin. Anyone could purchase one in a hat shop, but few men would be likely to do so. A man might steal one from his wife’s dresser, or off the table where a whore kept her shabby collection of property while her back was turned. If it was intended to be used as a murder weapon, it would require a degree of forethought for a man to have one to hand.

  Most women, however, would have one every time they were out of the house.

  Chloe Jones and Tom Jannis had been killed by a woman. Which didn’t help narrow the suspects down by very much. There were more men, by far, than women in Dawson, but there still had to be hundreds of women.

  Sterling put the hat pin into his pocket and continued on his rounds. It was too early to get Inspector McKnight out of bed, but Sterling would be there the moment the inspector sat down to breakfast.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My new red gown had been such a success, I was looking forward to wearing the new white muslin tomorrow. Now, if only a good shoemaker would set up business…

  Soft voices could be heard from the back of the house as I came in through the front. Not wanting to engage in polite conversation with the Manns, I slipped into my room and pulled off my shoes. I tossed my reticule on the table, unfastened my hair, and ran my fingers through it, letting the weight of it stream down my back. Feeling in a strange mood, I teasingly undid the two pearl buttons that closed the top of the dress and stood in front of the cracked mirror to admire myself one more time. Maggie truly did have the skill of the angels in her calloused fingers; I imagined a lifetime of wonderful clothes that she would provide for me. Evening gowns, day dresses, afternoon dresses, tea gowns, even nightgowns and robes. Images of crimson silk, champagne satin and pristine, virginal white cotton paraded before my eyes.

  My eyes opened, and I stared at myself in the mirror.

  I was no longer admiring myself nor thinking of clothes.

  Chloe.

  Tom Jannis.

  Dead, the both of them.

  What was the connection?

  Irene.

  Chloe had told the dancers she knew something, something incriminating, about Irene. Jannis had agreed, according to Betsy—for what that was worth—to set up housekeeping with Chloe. Jannis wasn’t well off, although he’d tried to keep up appearances to the contrary. It was not likely that he had enough money to keep Chloe in the style to which she would have liked to become accustomed.

  So what did they have to offer each other?

  In exchange for his security, it was not difficult to imagine that Chloe would tell him how he could make some quick money.

  A big spender with limited resources, a dance-hall girl tossed out onto her ear. Of course she would tell him. Nasty slug that he was, Jannis would be anxious to take advantage of some supposedly secret information. Once Chloe was dead, he’d come to me—the person who had the most invested in Irene. I’d spurned his feeble attempts at blackmail, so he’d gone…where?

  He might have approached Ray. Ray could surely kill a rival in the heat of the moment—most men (probably most women) were capable of it. But if he could carry on with life as if all was normal after doing the deed, I’d eat my new silk dress.

  The only other person with reason to fear Jannis’s revelation of her secret was Irene. It would be nice to pin this on Joey LeBlanc, but Joey wouldn’t cross the street to protect Irene, my most profitable employee. Joey would be more likely to have banners hung all over town screaming the sordid details in giant black print.

  When Graham had interrupted us watching the dancing, had Tom Jannis been about to tell me he believed Irene had killed Chloe because Chloe, spurned by Irene, had threatened to reveal Irene’s terrible secret? That she was a woman-lover, which would have made her an object of scorn to every man in Dawson, and pure poison in every dance hall—including the Savoy.

  Was that why Jannis had died—because he was blackmailing Irene?

  I’d seen Irene leave the Savoy. Or rather, I’d heard her while Ray was doing such wonderful things to my feet. She was in the company of one of the new percentage girls, a pretty, fresh-faced young thing, going out for breakfast. “My treat,” Irene had said.

  Angus. My son was at the Savoy. I’d left him alone. Under the ridiculous protection of Martha Witherspoon. Angus and Martha had been all over Dawson, talking to everyone, poking their innocent, shiny noses into everything and everyone’s business.

  Who had killed Chloe?

  Who had reason to kill Jannis?

  I wasn’t wearing shoes or a hat, my hair was unbound. In my haste to fasten my dress, the over-corset caught in the eye of the lower button. I wrenched the button off in frustration, revealing enough of my breasts to have me arrested.

  Let them try.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Angus pulled the curtains over the windows at either side of the front door. “I’m sorry, Miss Witherspoon, but I have to help my ma here. If you want to leave, it’s okay.”

  Martha Witherspoon set her shoulders firmly. “Such is the lot of the writer, dear boy. Your mother is perfectly correct. Good heavens, what was that?”

  “A mouse, probably. Come out whe
n he thinks everyone’s gone. Man’s been sick in the back, most likely. That attracts all sorts of vermin. Never mind, Mrs. Saunderson’ll take care of it when she comes in. Ma didn’t really expect us to clean it up. Are you feeling all right, Miss Witherspoon? You look slightly pale.”

  Miss Witherspoon mumbled something about being perfectly fine and sank into the chair recently vacated by Angus’s mother.

  “The sick isn’t so bad,” Angus continued. “It mops up easily. It’s blood that’s hard to get out. Soaks into the wooden floor, and there it stays. Ma tells me they have a fight every so often, and some guy’s usually on the floor, blood pouring out of his nose, before the bouncers can get to him. Mrs. Saunderson hates that. She’d rather have a puking drunk any day. Sure you’re okay, Miss Witherspoon?”

  Miss Witherspoon tossed him a sickly smile. “I’ll lock this sack up.” Angus lifted the bag heavy with gold dust, jingling with coins, stuffed with bills of American and Canadian denominations and topped up with a good number of hefty gold nuggets.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but we’re closed right now,” he said as a woman came in through the unlocked front door. She was small and skinny. She wore a plain brown dress, caked with mud at the hem, and an unflattering hat, slightly askew. Her pale eyes darted back and forth too quickly, and the skin under them folded over and over upon itself to form deep crevices. The look in her eyes made Angus think of sadness and of loss.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Can I help you?” He’d seen eyes like those before: change the colour from lifeless blue to unemotional brown and they could have been the eyes of the Indian women who’d stood perfectly still as they’d watched Angus and Sterling cross Moosehide village.

  The woman shook her head. “Irene,” she said. “Where’s Irene?”