Except the Dying (21 page)

“Walter Latimer, listen to what I say. When you wake up from this sleep, you will find all your worries have disappeared. They have vanished away like dandelion fluff in a breeze. You will feel in wonderful humour, happy and content. You are with a family that loves
you and you have nothing to fear. I repeat, when you awaken, your worries will have all evaporated. They will not return …”

He repeated this injunction twice more.

“Now I am going to wake you up. At the count of three you will feel a gentle breeze on your face and you will come completely awake.”

Rhodes reached his hand to the nurse, and she handed him a long feather.

“One … two … three.” He leaned forward and lightly stroked the old man’s forehead with the feather and at the same time blew on him lightly.

Latimer opened his eyes, which already seemed clearer and more focused.

“Where am I?”

“In the office of Dr. Rhodes,” answered Mrs. Stockdale in her crisp voice. The man swivelled around to look at her and caught sight of his son.

“Dickie! What are you doing here?”

“I brought you to see the doctor, Da.”

“I’ve been poorly again, have I?”

“You have that.”

“I feel right as rain now.”

Rhodes stood up, pleased. Mesmerism was the thing he liked best of all. It almost always worked, could relieve pain and anxiety better than any medicine. He spoke to the farmer.

“Make another appointment for your father for next
week. Mrs. Stockdale will make up some more medicine.”

Dickie reached out and grasped Cyril’s hand, shaking it heartily. “I can’t thank you enough, Doctor.”

Rhodes withdrew his hand hurriedly and backed away. “J-just doing what’s needed. Mrs. Stockdale, give him another bottle of laudanum. Two grams of opium, add some cherry water.” He nodded at the son. “If your father shows any return of the delusions before next week, simply give him an extra dose with a shot glass of brandy. Do you have some brandy in the house?”

“No, sir, we’re temperance.”

“Never mind, then. The laudanum will be sufficient.”

His father smiled at him sweetly. “Have you got a plug there, Dickie?”

“When we get outside.”

Mrs. Stockdale took the old man by the arm. “Come with me, sir.”

He shuffled off with her but at the door he paused and glanced over his shoulder at Rhodes.

“Women’ll do you in every time if you let them,” he said.

“Da!”

He hurried his father out of the office, and Rhodes went back behind his desk.

They certainly will
, he thought.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15

T
HE CANDLES AND LAMPS IN THE HOUSES
along Lowther had been lit early against the dreary afternoon. Only Birchlea seemed dark and unwelcoming. The curtains were drawn and none of the outside lamps were on.

Like the other houses on the street, Birchlea bespoke quiet affluence. Set back from the street behind a wrought-iron fence, the property was edged with evergreens now laden with snow. Two blue spruce stood sentinel on either side of the door, and the deep bay windows gave a pleasing symmetry. The dark green trim of the dormers and windows was virtually the same colour as the needles of the pine trees.

On the porch, Murdoch scraped the snow from his boots as best he could and waited for somebody to answer his knock. When the door finally opened John
Foy stood there, and Murdoch registered the quick look of fear in his eyes.

“I’d like to speak to Mrs. Rhodes.”

“I’ll see if she’s at home.”

He hesitated, trying to determine whether he should close the door and leave Murdoch on the doorstep, bring him into the vestibule or send him to the back door. Murdoch solved the problem for him by stepping forward.

“I’ll wait inside, shall I?”

Foy retreated down the hall, leaving Murdoch to take care of his own hat and coat. As he hung them up on the oaken hall tree, he checked his reflection in the oval mirror. He smoothed back his hair, wishing he’d worn a fresh collar and trimmed his moustache, which was overhanging his lip a bit too much.

The vestibule itself was almost as large as the entire living room in the house he’d grown up in, and there were more oil paintings hung on the burgundy-papered walls than had existed in the entire village. Most of them seemed to be landscapes full of tumbling clouds and low trees that were distinctively English in character. He paused in front of one small one. A young woman stood on a desolate beach, staring out across a tumultuous sea. She was holding a shawl tight over her head against the fierce wind, and a curly haired child clung to her skirts. In the distance a lifeboat valiantly climbed the back of a huge wave as it made for the spar
of a ship barely showing above the water. A brass plate at the bottom of the frame named the picture.
Sorrow.
Murdoch grimaced. He’d witnessed a shipwreck when he was twelve and he remembered keenly the grief of the women. There must have been a dozen of them, all ages, from young brides up to old women whose sons were on the stricken trawler. They had huddled together against the wind and against the fear that was in all their hearts. It was the sea, as well, who had robbed him of his mother. She was a tiny woman, far too thin, not at all like the young woman in the painting. She’d been found drowned in a shallow pool on the rocky beach. His father put out that she’d slipped on a rock when she was gathering mussels, but Murdoch had grown up with bitter suspicions. He had vivid memories of his mother cowering behind the door to avoid the deluge of his father’s drunken rages. There were the three children then. Suzanna, as sweet as the child in the painting but nervous and too quiet, and Albert, barely walking yet, but already showing signs of his affliction. They all knew better than to cling to their mother’s skirt. She couldn’t protect them.

He touched the brass plate with his fingertip.
Sorrow.

He moved away. A little farther down the hall was a japanned table with a silver tray in the centre for calling cards. He smiled to himself. His sister had loved to play “visiting” when they were children. Leaves acted as pasteboard and the tray was a piece of tin. He sighed.
She certainly didn’t need a card tray now. When she was barely sixteen she’d run off and joined an order of cloistered nuns from Montreal. He was allowed to visit the convent once a year and then he could only talk to her through a curtained grid. The priest said he should rejoice that she had chosen a life with Christ, but he grieved. He had looked forward to the sharing of their lives, of her children playing with his, and he constantly reproached himself that he had not been able to take her away from their father in time.

“Detective Murdoch …” Foy was standing at the door of the drawing room. “Madam would be happy to receive you.” He glanced towards the hall tree but made no apology for his lack of attention. “Mrs. Rhodes and Mr. Owen are both taking tea at the moment.”

“Good, that’ll save me having to repeat myself.”

“This way, if you please.”

Man moves like he’s got a broom up his arse
, thought Murdoch as he followed Foy into the drawing room.

Donalda Rhodes and Owen were sitting next to the hearth and Edith was serving them from the tea trolley. The boy, Joe, was building up the fire with coal from the shuttle. He didn’t turn around but the other three did, and Murdoch saw worry in each face. However, Donalda immediately assumed an expression of polite welcome.

“Mr. Murdoch, do come in.” She indicated the tea trolley. “May I offer you some tea?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

He didn’t fancy trying to cope with a fragile cup and saucer, cake plate and his notebook.

“Will there be anything else, madam?” asked Foy, about to withdraw.

Before Mrs. Rhodes could answer, Murdoch said, “I’d like everybody to stay, if you don’t mind.”

“The servants as well?”

“If you please. Makes my job a bit easier. Then I don’t have to go over everything twice.”

It was also a good way to have all the cards out on the table. It was amazing what people could forget. Saying things out in front of company had a way of jogging the memory and the conscience.

“Well, of course, if you say so.”

“We are shorthanded, madam,” said Edith. “There is some mending to be done.”

“I won’t take long,” said Murdoch.

Edith looked sour as she wheeled the trolley away from the fireside. Foy remained beside the door, and Murdoch intercepted a quick warning glance between him and his wife.

Murdoch took the rosary out of his pocket. “Do any of you recognize this?”

Owen leaned forward. “That’s a rum-looking necklace.”

“It’s a rosary. We believe it belonged to Therese Laporte. The crucifix is missing.”

The housekeeper came closer and peered at the rosary. “That’s hers, all right. I saw her holding it once or twice. Couldn’t understand what she was doing. I’m Methodist myself.”

Murdoch glanced around at the rest of them. Owen had returned to his chair. He started to play with the silk fringe on the lampshade, flicking it back and forth. The boy had turned around but was motionless, staring down at the carpet. Murdoch went closer to him, the rosary dangling from his fingers. Joe glanced up and reached out his hand to touch the green beads. Murdoch had deliberately placed himself between the boy and the others, and he alone saw the look of naked yearning on Joe’s face.

“Where did you find it?” asked Donalda.

Murdoch faced her. “To tell you the truth, ma’am, it was around the neck of a woman who was found dead yesterday morning. Which is the reason I’m here.”

They all stared at him incredulously.
That woke them up a bit
, he thought. Owen stopped in midflick.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“She was murdered. Strangled.”

“I say! How dreadful.”

“Yes, it was.” Murdoch took out his pen and notebook. “I need to ask where each of you was on Wednesday evening.”

“What? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with us,” said Donalda.

“I hope not, Mrs. Rhodes.”

She stared at him in disbelief. The others watched, stiff with wariness.

“The deceased was a prostitute. We know now that she was the one who stole Therese Laporte’s clothes.”

“Is she the one who gave her the drug?” asked Mrs. Rhodes.

“I doubt it.”

Another silence. John Foy was surreptitiously leaning against the doorjamb, looking decidedly under the weather. Edith had stationed herself beside the tea trolley like a warden. Her face was grim and tight with disapproval. As for the boy, Joe, Murdoch almost forgot him, he was so still. He was crouched by the fender, half sitting.

“Are the two deaths connected, Mr. Murdoch?” asked Donalda.

“At the moment, ma’am, I can’t say definitely, but I strongly suspect they are.”

Owen got up abruptly and went to the trolley with his cup and saucer. “Are you sure you won’t have some tea, Mr. Murdoch?”

“Positive, thank you.”

Murdoch could see the black crepe that festooned the mantel and the black ribbon around the pictures, the trappings of mourning. He felt a flash of anger. Every last one of them was hiding something. He could smell it. He waited.

Suddenly, a piece of coal collapsed with a spurt of flame. All eyes turned to watch as if it were a fireworks display. Murdoch gave them a few more moments, then said, “Mr. Foy, let’s start with you. Your whereabouts on Wednesday night?”

“Me? Well, yes, in fact I was out all evening. I had a Masonic meeting and Mrs. Rhodes kindly gave me the evening off. I was at the temple on Yonge Street and I can give you fifty names to prove it.”

Foy’s normally colourless voice had a distinctly belligerent edge to it.

“Five will do. And their place of residence if you know it.”

The butler rattled off half a dozen names and addresses, which Murdoch wrote down.

“Mrs. Foy, can you confirm your husband’s statement?”

“Naturally. He left after supper was served, about six-thirty.”

“When did you return, Mr. Foy?”

Edith answered for him. “Twelve on the dot. The clock was chiming. Woke me up.”

Again her lips tightened, and Murdoch could guess at the welcome Foy had received when he’d stumbled into bed full as a lord.

“You were home yourself, Mrs. Foy?”

“Of course!”

Murdoch turned to the boy. “Joe, my lad?”

Surprised, he nodded.

“Were the horse and carriage in the stable?”

Joe hesitated, then almost imperceptibly shook his head.

“Who had them?”

“I don’t think you’ll get much out of him, Officer,” said Edith. “He’s slow-witted. Or at least pretends to be.”

Joe lowered his head again and his expression returned to dullness.

“Joe?”

The boy shrank back as if he would climb into the fire itself.

“Well? Who had taken the carriage? Was it Dr. Rhodes?”

Donalda interrupted. “My husband never uses the carriage at night, Mr. Murdoch. His office hours are too unpredictable. Joe takes him in the morning and he comes back by hired cab when he has finished.”

Edith shifted her position. Her voice was polite but Murdoch saw malice cross her face. “I have to say, Sergeant – knowing as how this is a police investigation – I have to say I overheard Mr. Owen leaving in the carriage. ’Bout ten o’clock it was. I was on the point of retiring for the night.”

Donalda glanced over at her son. “Is that so, Owen?”

“Yes, I was about to fess up when Edith beat me to the punch.”

“You were out on Wednesday night, then, sir?”

“I was. I had some tests to catch up on. I went down to the laboratory to burn the midnight oil. My examinations are coming up before too long.”

“Was anybody else with you?”

“Yes, a couple of the fellows.”

“Who were they, these friends? May I have their names?”

Owen was looking most uncomfortable. “Good Lord, no. I mean, what am I saying? I was by myself. I’m getting mixed up with other evenings. Yes, that’s it. Sorry, no friends.”

“So there’s nobody who can confirm your statement. A night porter, for instance.”