Night's Child (8 page)

“One of my fellow boarders used a typewriter. It didn’t look like that one though. What kind do you have?”

“It’s a Remington. All the stations have them now.”

Gardiner was leaning his elbows on the counter in exaggerated bewilderment.

“I’ve never before known you so interested in what goes on behind the desk, Murdoch. Not considering a change of position, are you? I’m sure young Callahan would be only too glad to swap. He’d like to be a detective, I bet, get to go out all the time, question pretty young women.”

Murdoch decided it was time to leave. “You have a totally false notion of my tasks, sergeant.”

He got his hat and coat from the hook by the door, nodded goodbye, and left.

He hadn’t gone far when a deluge of rain began. The winter weather had been sliding from damp and mild, with November temperatures, to the bitter cold you’d expect in January. Today was like a chill morning in autumn, and the snowfall of the previous day was already reduced to grey mounds in the gutters. Passersby were huddled under their black umbrellas, coat collars turned up. Murdoch didn’t have an umbrella. The unspoken attitude of the police force was that umbrellas were unmanly. No constable was issued one and detectives were expected to show their mettle by braving the elements.

He’d hoped to arrive at the school while the children were out for their playtime, but when he got there, the schoolyard was deserted. The windows glowed with light, warm and welcome in the leaden morning. The building itself was plainer than a bank might be, with no fancy cornices or elaborate carvings. Nevertheless it managed to convey the same air of solidity and sobriety. There was a set of double doors in the centre of the front but on a whim Murdoch went in through the boy’s entrance on the right. He walked through the cloakroom, which was redolent with the fug of damp, woollen coats. A man in workman’s brown corduroys, a lamp in his hand, came through the door that lead to the corridor.

“Can I help you, sir? Would you be in search of somebody?”

“I would indeed. Can you tell me which is Miss Slade’s classroom?”

The man had a round, ruddy face with full blond side whiskers. He pursed his lips at Murdoch’s question.

“She’d be on this floor. Go through this door. It’s at the far end.” He grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “You can’t miss her.”

If he hadn’t already met Miss Slade, Murdoch would have been puzzled by the man’s leer. However, he knew why it was there and felt irritated. He nodded and went through to the corridor.

He was in a wide hall with classrooms to the left. The doors were closed but he could hear the sound of the pupils chanting their multiplication tables as he went by. A boy was standing outside the third room, leaning against the wall in boredom. He straightened up quickly as he saw Murdoch, who smiled reassuringly at him. Whatever trouble the boy had got himself into, he couldn’t rescue him from it.

Near the far end of the corridor, he realized the reason for the caretaker’s mocking tone. There was an extraordinary noise coming from the room. It was as if it was filled with birds, all twittering and chirping at full volume. However, as he got closer, the sounds abruptly changed into full-throated foghorns, pulsing on the sea air. He looked through the small window in the door. Miss Slade was leading her pupils in some sort of exercise. They all had their hands to their mouths, fingers cupped, and they seemed to be blowing out of the side of their mouths.

She made a chopping gesture and the foghorns died away, then he heard her call out, “Horse.” As one, the children shifted to a chorus of neighs and whinnies that were startlingly real. He might have been listening to a stable of agitated equines. At that moment, Miss Slade caught sight of him. Even from his vantage point, he could see her blush. She gestured for the children to stop what they were doing and came directly to the door.

“Free practise, boys and girls,” she said over her shoulder, and Murdoch was treated to a veritable barnyard of sounds as she came out to the corridor.

“Mr. Murdoch, do you have news?”

“I went to Agnes Fisher’s house but she wasn’t there. I’m going to check on all photographic studios but I thought I’d come here first.”

Miss Slade frowned. “She hasn’t come to school again today. Her brother says she is staying with their sister.”

Murdoch took out his notebook and pencil. “Do you know where that is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“May I talk to the boy, then?”

Miss Slade hesitated. “I suppose you will have to. I’ll bring him out.”

She went back into the classroom to a momentary pause in the livestock noises. However, they resumed immediately with great vigour if diminishing authenticity. Murdoch stepped to one side and Benjamin Fisher emerged, Miss Slade behind him.

“I’d like to be present if you don’t mind,” she said.

Murdoch knew that what she meant was she didn’t know him well enough to trust him not to be indiscreet, which irked him somewhat. However, he respected her care for her pupils. As for the boy, when he saw who wanted him, he looked as if he would do a bolt right there and then. Any good feeling that Murdoch had purchased with hot pies and gravy the night before had vanished. Murdoch crouched down so as to be more on a level.

“Hello, Ben. I don’t want to take you from you lessons for too long. That sounds amazingly real to me by the way, especially the foghorns.” He glanced up at Miss Slade. “I’m from Nova Scotia and believe me, I’ve listened to lots of foghorns warning off the ships.”

She nodded, but Ben hardly seemed to have heard. He was waiting for the inevitable. The reason Murdoch wanted to speak to him.

“As I told you, I am concerned to have a word with your sister, Aggie. I understand she’s missed school again today. Why is that, Ben? Is she not well?”

The boy wouldn’t look at him. “She’s staying with Sis.”

“Does she do that very often?”

“Sometimes when…”

He didn’t finish his sentence and he didn’t need to. Murdoch guessed that the girl fled the home when things became unbearable with their father.

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

Ben, if possible, shrank even more. “Martha only has room for Aggie.”

“And where is Martha? I understand she’s in service.”

“I don’t know where she is. She didn’t want us to know.”

Again his voice tailed off.

“But she told Aggie where she was? Only Aggie, not you?”

Ben’s eyes flickered. “That’s right.”

Murdoch knew he was lying, but he wasn’t about to press him. For all the boy’s timidity, he had the feeling he had become inured to brutality. If he’d decided not to reveal his sister’s whereabouts, there wasn’t much Murdoch could do about it. He had no intention of outdoing Mr. Fisher in terms of violence. Miss Slade stepped in.

“Ben, neither Mr. Murdoch nor I mean any harm to Aggie. In fact, it is the opposite. She, er, she might be in some kind of trouble and we both want to help her.”

The boy pointed at Murdoch. “Is he a frog?”

“If you mean, is he a police officer, yes he is. I have…I have consulted him because I am worried about Agnes. Benjamin, please answer truthfully, do you know what I am referring to?”

He scrutinized her for a moment, then nodded. “You think she might have one under her apron.”

Miss Slade quickly hid her shock at the vulgarity of the boy’s response.

“In fact, that was not what concerned me. Aggie fainted because she breathed too much air and she didn’t have any breakfast. That is all.”

It was Murdoch’s turn to speak up. This time, his voice was firmer. Still kind but there was no mistaking that he was reaching his limit.

“Benjamin, what you just said to your teacher was rude. Gentlemen don’t speak like that. Please apologize.”

The boy was looking so white, Murdoch almost thought he might faint the way his sister had.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Slade. I didn’t mean nothing.”

“Anything,” she corrected him automatically. “You didn’t mean anything.”

“No, Miss.”

“I am in no way asking you to be disloyal to your sister, Ben, but I would like to speak to her, as would Mr. Murdoch. You say you don’t know where Martha lives now. But at a guess, where might she be? Was it a grand house like the ones on Sherbourne Street or Berkeley?”

He thought for a moment. “I can’t say, Miss. Martha never told us much cos of Pa. She’s come back home a couple of times in the beginning and she said it was a swell house and they treated her good. That’s all I know.”

“How did she get the position, Ben?” Murdoch asked.

“She found a newspaper under a bench.”

Miss Slade and Murdoch exchanged glances. “You mean she answered an advertisement?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what she did.”

Murdoch took the photograph of the baby boy from his envelope and held it in front of Ben.

“Have you ever seen this picture before?”

The boy’s eyes flickered, but he shook his head. “No, sir. Passed on as he, the baby?”

“Yes.”

Before he left the station, Murdoch had taped a piece of paper over the genitalia of the youth in the other photograph so that he was only visible from the waist up. He showed this card to Ben.

“Do you know this lad?”

“No, sir. Why is he covered up? Is he a prince?”

“I doubt he’s a prince and he’s covered up because he doesn’t have any clothes on.”

Ben giggled nervously. “Why not?”

Murdoch decided to ignore the question. “Are you sure you’ve never seen him? He didn’t come to your house ever?”

Ben was on safe ground here. “Oh no, sir. Nobody comes to the house.”

Murdoch took the boy’s chin in his hand and looked into his eyes. “Are you telling me the truth, son?”

Ben stared back at him but his brown eyes had gone blank, deliberately guileless.

“Oh yes, sir. I ain’t never seen either picture before.”

Miss Slade managed to bite her tongue and not correct his grammar. Murdoch let him go, unconvinced. “Thank you, Ben. Now, listen to me. I want you to let Miss Slade know the moment Aggie returns home. Will you do that?”

“Yes, sir. But Aggie’ll come to school, won’t she?”

“She might be afraid to. You will be doing her a great kindness if you tell her that we want to help her. Then let Miss Slade know. Just in case Aggie decides to run off to Martha’s again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can go back into the classroom, now, Ben,” said Miss Slade.

The raucous attempts at imitation had died down and now there was the ordinary murmur of unsupervised children. Benjamin did as the teacher told him, but she remained in the corridor. Murdoch could see her distress.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this, ma’am, I promise. Even if I have to knock on the door of every photographer in the city.”

That comment won him a rather reluctant smile.

“I do appreciate your help, Mr. Murdoch.”

“I will report back to you as soon as I can.”

She stared at him for a moment, considering some choice he couldn’t fathom.

“Just a moment,” she said and went back into the classroom, returning immediately with a silver card case in her hand. She opened it. “Here is my card. I would be more than happy if you call on me at my lodgings. I don’t mind what the hour. I wish to know any outcome of your inquiries.”

Murdoch put the calling card into his pocket and tipped his hat.

“Good day, Miss Slade.”

As he walked back toward the cloakroom, he could hear new sounds emitting from the classroom. Somebody was whistling an old folk song, sweet and tuneful as any musical instrument. Given what he had already seen of Miss Slade, he assumed it was she who was creating the sound.

CHAPTER
NINE

T
he first studio was on the second floor above a dry goods store, currently closed down. On each side were boarded-up vacant houses. In an attempt to combat the surrounding air of decay, the entrance to the right of the dry goods store was newly painted and a sign,
GREGORY’S EMPORIUM: WELCOME AND COME IN
, hung from the doorknob. There was an ink drawing of a camera on a tripod in the corner of the notice. Following instructions, Murdoch went inside. Almost directly in front of the door was a steep flight of stairs, carpeted in rush matting and, in case the customers happened to get lost between entrance and stairs, a second sign was tacked on the wall. A hand pointed upward, underneath it the words
EMPORIUM, THIS WAY
. Before Murdoch had even reached the first stair, however, a door on the landing above opened and a young man and woman came out. They were laughing and, not seeing Murdoch, turned toward each other. The man grabbed both of the woman’s buttocks in his hands, lifting her up to press against him. Murdoch heard a cry of protest that was smothered by the man’s hard kiss. Embarrassed at being an involuntary witness to this private embrace, Murdoch called out.

“Good morning, I’m looking for the photograph studio.”

He might as well have shot off a gun. They leapt apart and stood staring down at him. He proceeded up the stairs.

“Good morning,” he repeated and tipped his hat to the young woman. Her wide-brimmed hat had been knocked backwards by the force of the man’s embrace and she straightened it quickly. She was dressed in a fawn-coloured walking suit with a corsage of fresh flowers at the breast. He had on a brown tweed overcoat and a snappy bowler hat. Everything about them said they were newly married.

“The studio is this way, I presume?” he said, indicating the door behind them.

“It is,” the man replied. Recovered from his surprise and made a touch belligerent because of it, he pulled his bride toward him and they went down the stairs, his arm around her waist. Their progress was awkward because of the narrowness of the stairwell, but he wouldn’t let go of her. She now belonged to him.

On the door was hung yet another sign,
GREGORY’S EMPORIUM: KNOCK FIRST. THEN ENTER.
In smaller print,
Leave umbrellas in the hall
. A little drawing of a furled umbrella and an arrow aiming in the direction of a stand beside the door. Currently it was devoid of coats or umbrellas. Murdoch glanced around. So far he couldn’t say he was impressed with the Emporium. The stairs and hall were dull, no paintings, no wall covering, just a dingy pale green coat of paint. Either it needed redoing or the gaslight was leeching out the colour, which everybody complained it did.