Night's Child

by Maureen Jennings

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “‘Baby baby bunting, your father’s gone a hunting,’” Kate Tibbett sang softly to the twins, whom she was carrying in the crook of each arm. Both babies were teething and her nerves were worn ragged. She had hardly soothed James and got him to sleep when Jacob would wake up, screaming, and within minutes she had both of them crying again. Her arms ached from the weight of carrying them, walking around the tiny bedroom, into the front sitting room and back, round and round. She wished she could have even one hour free, when she could fall into the sweetness of sleep. But there wasn’t anybody to take over. Her family were far off and wouldn’t be sympathetic anyway. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it would be her mother’s sour words. But Ralph had pursued her so ardently, he had swept away the misgivings she’d had about surrendering to his passion before they were married. You should have known, he’d said angrily when she told him she believed herself to be with child. But she hadn’t known anything, and had brought such shame to her mother and father, she doubted they would ever forgive her.

  When they had first moved here, Ralph had been attentive and loving, but as soon as she became clumsy and heavy with the pregnancy he had spent more and more time away from their lodgings. He’d taken work in an office, he told her, general odds-body, he said, but his allowance wasn’t generous and she felt the want more keenly than she could admit even to herself. There were many nights when she cried herself asleep after waiting until the early hours of the morning for him to come home. Since the birth of the twins, his absences were even more prolonged. He said he’d had to take a second job to supplement his wages and was working as a night porter at the Dominion Brewery on Queen Street.

  Don’t worry, little Kate. I can get catnaps throughout the night and nobody will know.

  The extra work didn’t seem to tire him out, and on one of the few evenings he was at home, she thought he looked as prosperous as he’d ever been. His worsted suit was of excellent quality, but when she timorously remarked on it, he told her it was a charitable castoff from his employer. His voice was full of reproach. You don’t know how it eats at a man’s pride to be forced to accept charity, he’d said and she burst into tears, stung once again by the feeling that she was to blame.

  She halted. Both babies had fallen asleep. Now the trick was to ease them into the cradle without disturbing either one. She bent over and slipped Jacob crosswise onto his end of the mattress. He made little smacking noises with his lips but didn’t wake. Carefully, she placed James at the opposite end. They hadn’t expected two infants and couldn’t afford a second cradle so Ralph had sawed off a piece of wood and made a divider. She kept meaning to cover it with soft cloth but she hadn’t yet found the time to do so. Besides, the twins were growing fast and would soon be too big for this arrangement. Looking down at them, she felt a rush of tenderness, something she sometimes feared she would never experience again. She covered them with the quilt that her oldest sister had grudgingly passed on to her. It was irretrievably stained from previous use, but it was soft and warm and she was glad of it.

  She stepped back from the cradle. Rain was pelting against the window and it was so dull and cheerless in the room, she’d had to light a candle. She watched it for a moment, dancing and juttering in the draft from the door, then walked to the window and looked into the grey street. Snow would be better than this, at least after it had stopped falling, the sun would shine and the fresh white snow would glisten beneath a blue sky. She leaned her head against the windowpane and yawned as if she would crack her jaw. She was thankful that at least the room was warm. The brewery workers were allowed to take home buckets of slack from the coal furnaces, and even though the stuff was so dusty it seemed to give off more smoke than heat, it was better than nothing. Also, every time Ralph came home with a bucket, she was relieved she could believe him about his job.

  She went back to the bed. Both babies were fast asleep. She lay down, covered herself with a blanket, and closed her eyes. Just a little nap while she could.

  She must have dozed off because suddenly she was awake, the babies still sleeping quietly beside her. What had awakened her was the sound of a loud, angry voice overhead. Kate groaned. Fisher had come home and, as was usually the case, he was full of liquor. Sometimes, she knew he ranted at nothing, the bed, the weather, the bedbugs. Mostly though, he yelled at the children. She’d heard Ben go off to school this morning so his father must be shouting at Agnes. She thought about the man who’d come the day before, the one she assumed was a truant officer. In their brief meeting, she’d had the impression he was kind. If the babies hadn’t been crying she would like to have lingered, talked to him. From the upstairs, she heard a crash and a bellow from Fisher, then a girl’s voice, loud with fear, a shriek. He must have hit her. Light footsteps followed by the man’s heavy tread. Another shriek, then weeping. Fisher’s voice continued for a little longer, then there was silence.

  She heard the sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and there was a timid tap, tap on her door. She didn’t move. There was another tap, then the steps moved away and she heard the front door open.

  She pulled the blanket up so that it covered her ears. There was nothing she could do. She had her own troubles to deal with.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Broom and Co., the studio on Queen Street, was so imbued with stultifying respectability that Murdoch wondered how they deigned to photograph anyone who wasn’t related to the British peerage. He showed the young man at the reception desk the photograph of the dead infant, making up some story about his uncle being near death’s door and could he commission a portrait? The man sniffed and said disdainfully that they did not take such pictures. There were those that did, but he did not know who they were and, he implied, he did not wish to know. Murdoch then asked if they took stereoscopic photographs with stories that were so swell these days and the man almost pulled himself by his nostrils into heaven. No they did not, indeed. Murdoch asked to see the studio where the photographs were taken and with great reluctance, the young man did so. The backdrop here was another painted canvas, this one well done, of a park with a manor house in the distance. Murdoch knew it was too early to eliminate anybody from his list, but his instinct was that Broom and Co. were what they appeared to be, snobbish and expensive, catering only to the affluent. He didn’t bother to get another set of pictures taken.

  He tried one more studio, one nearer to Yonge Street. This place was much less pretentious, owned by a placid older man, Elias Thompson, who seemed to be waiting patiently for customers, his feet on his desk, a cigar in his hand. When Murdoch held out the mourning card, he sighed for the poor lost lambie, but said it wasn’t his. Yes, there were a few photographers who took these kind of pictures but he had no names to give him. He said he’d seen the series of Mr. Newly-wed and the maid and he thought they were hilarious; very popular as well but too expensive for him to make. Murdoch considered showing him the photograph of the naked Mr. Newly-wed but decided against it. He liked him and shifted him to the bottom of the list as a likely photographer of pornographic images.

  He didn’t feel he had accomplished much. Of the three photographers he’d met, the one he most disliked was Gregory but disliking a man wasn’t a good reason for charging him with issuing obscene material and, so far, he had absolutely no proof that Gregory had photographed the girl. For that matter, all four pictures could have been taken by different people, although he thought that was unlikely. The three stereoscopic cards seemed linked, at least by their obscenity. Discouraged, he decided to visit Seymour’s lodgings and see if he could get any further with that investigation.

  “River Street! River Street!”

  The conductor was calling out his stop and Murdoch sat up. He’d actually been dozing, lulled by the warmth of the streetcar. He went to the rear door and the streetcar halted just long enough for him to get down, then clanged off on its way as if it were a horse anxious for the barn.

  The rain h
ad turned to sleet, which was homing into the gap between his neck and his collar. He wrapped his muffler more tightly. River Street was at the eastern edge of the city limits, and the houses along it were interspersed with vacant lots, all weed covered and dispiriting. Ahead of him, a woman tried to handle her umbrella, two parcels, and at the same time keep her skirt raised above the wet pavement. He was reminded of Miss Slade and her odd but practical trousers. She would have no difficulty manoeuvring through inclement weather. He knew his Liza would have liked her and he felt a mixture of guilt and pleasure. Would Mrs. Jones also like the teacher? He wasn’t sure but didn’t think there would be an immediate compatibility. For some reason, that made him sigh.

  He quickened his pace, about to offer his help with the parcels but the woman turned into the front yard of one of the houses. The door opened even before she rang the bell, a young girl in maid’s uniform came out to help her and they disappeared inside.

  As he approached the planing mill, Murdoch could hear the thump of the steam engines that drove the machinery. Scott’s was obviously in full production, and dozens of logs were piled in the yard waiting to be hauled inside for planing. Murdoch halted in front of the fence, gripped by a surge of nostalgia. Ten years ago he’d had a crib at a logging camp near Huntsville. In spite of the hard work and rough company, he had been happy there. He’d filled out to manhood, physically and emotionally. Only a half-acknowledged driving ambition had pushed him away from that life, until he finally settled in Toronto and joined the police force. Early on, fretting about the lack of opportunity, he’d questioned that choice. Then, three years ago, he had been invited to join the newly established detective department, and he liked that much better. Because he was a Roman Catholic, he knew his chances for promotion were slim, but that was compensated for by interesting work and more freedom than he’d had while on the beat. He even didn’t mind being expected to be on call all the time. If he were married, that might cause problems, but he’d have to tackle that question if and when it came up. And why were his thoughts constantly scurrying back to the subject of matrimony? He was like a dog returning to his buried bone, wondering whether it was time to dig it up and, if he did, whether it would be tasty.

  Murdoch glanced around him. The street and yard were deserted. With one leap he was over the low fence. He landed on one of the logs that were lying across the yard, in some places two or three deep. The rain had made the surface slippery just as it always was when the logs were damned in the river. He skidded and almost lost his balance but he bent his knees, flung out his arms, and kept going. Damn, he needed his iron crampons, his boots didn’t give him a good traction. Nevertheless, he quickened his pace, almost running now. He’d won the competition two years in a row for fastest crossing. The trick was to be balanced low over your feet and to land squarely in the centre of the log so it didn’t roll. A fall was dangerous as the huge logs could shift in the water and deliver crushing blows. Two men had been injured the year he was there, one had succumbed to his injuries and died.

  “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” A man had appeared at the loading door of the mill and was glaring at him.

  “Just doing an inspection of your goods,” called Murdoch. “Making sure these logs are packed in tight, do you want one of your workers to break his leg?” He turned and ran back, hoping he wouldn’t slip again and look like a fool.

  “What! What inspection?”

  Before the man could protest further, Murdoch had reached the fence.

  “Everything seems in order,” he called and hopped over the fence the way he had come.

  “Hey, get back here,” yelled the man, but Murdoch got out of sight fast. He was panting but he’d enjoyed the exercise.

  A few houses up from the mill was number 108, and the pounding of the steam engine could still be heard, or felt, more like it–a minor perpetual earthquake rumbling beneath the street.

  Murdoch stopped for a moment to get his breath and glanced over his shoulder to make sure the irate watchman hadn’t come out looking for him. All clear. He opened the gate quickly and walked up to the door. He’d come here last summer to meet Seymour for a long bicycle ride but then the house had been rather drab, with brown trim and sparse bushes in the small front yard. The door was now a cheery buttercup colour and there were a couple of ornamental stands in the front that no doubt held flowers in summertime. The shiny brass door knocker was in the shape of a lion’s head and he lifted the ring that the beast was holding in its mouth and rapped on the door. Nobody responded and after the third attempt, he was about to give up when the door opened a crack and a man peered out.

  “What do you want?” asked a hoarse, whispery voice. Murdoch couldn’t help the momentary shock at the man’s appearance. The entire right side of his face was covered with livid scar tissue from a severe burn, the lips drawn down and revealing the pink inner flesh of the mouth. The fingers of his hand were fused into a claw.

  “I’m calling on Mr. Seymour,” said Murdoch. When he’d been here previously, a pleasant middle-aged widow was the landlady.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Murdoch. William Murdoch.”

  “Friend of his or what?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t elaborate, not wanting to start gossip by revealing he was a detective.

  “He ain’t in.”

  Murdoch forced himself to be polite. With a disfigurement like that, the man had a right to be surly.

  “Any idea when he’s expected back?”

  Their eyes met and Murdoch realized the man was probably his own age. The hideous burn marks and the scanty hair across his seared scalp made him seem much older. He grunted, conceding a little.

  “He won’t be long, he just went to run an errand.” He moved back. “You might as well come in.”

  Murdoch stepped into the hall. A lit sconce threw off a low light, showing plain, whitewashed walls. There was oil cloth on the floor, no druggetts to soften the coldness. The simple, wooden coat tree was hung with a black overcoat and fedora. He had an odd sense of being in a monastic establishment, something else he didn’t remember from last summer.

  “Does Mrs. Pangbourn still live here?”

  “No, she moved out to Calgary a few months ago.” The reluctant doorman started to shuffle away. Whatever had burned him must have also broken his leg or hip for he limped badly.

  “Are you the landlord?” Murdoch called after him, wanting to engage him in conversation.

  But the man didn’t answer and disappeared into the room at the back. There were two other doors off the hall, but neither had draped portieres, which contributed to the austere appearance of the hall. There wasn’t anywhere to sit and he hovered awkwardly by the door wondering if he should haul the sullen man out of his lair. Then the front door was flung open and in a bluster of chill air, a woman, her long mackintosh slick with rain, burst into the hall. She stopped short.

  “Goodness me, it’s you, Mr. Murdoch.”

  Murdoch tipped his hat. “I, er, I regret you have the advantage of me, ma’am.”

  The woman tugged off the black, mannish felt hat that was jammed low over her brows.

  He smiled. “Ah, I do beg your pardon. Good afternoon, Miss Slade.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Amy Slade regarded him apprehensively. “I certainly didn’t expect you so soon. What have you discovered?”

  “Regrettably, not a great deal. I have not located the photographer.” He saw the disappointment in her eyes and he continued hurriedly. “But I do intend to continue the search. I’ll find him.”

  She nodded. “If Agnes does not return soon, I will have to report her absence to the truant officer.” She turned away to hang up her wet waterproof. “Ugh. This rubber lining keeps out the rain all right, but you get so clammy, it’s hardly any better.”

  “I am actually here to call on Mr. Charles Seymour,” said Murdoch. “I didn’t realize you were fellow boarders.”r />
  “I gave you my card.”

  “I must confess, I hadn’t taken note of your address.”

  The man who had answered the door poked his head out of his room. “Oh, it’s you, Amy. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, of course, John. Mr. Murdoch and I are acquainted. He is here to see Charlie.”

  “So he said. Charlie’ll be back in a jig.”

  “It’s so dreary out, I think a pot of tea would do wonders. Mr. Murdoch, why don’t you come down to the kitchen. Will you join us, John?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Come and at least let me introduce you.”

  John emerged as reluctantly as a maltreated dog comes out of its kennel.

  “Mr. Murdoch, this is John Reordan. John, this is Mr. William Murdoch. He works with Charlie.”

  Reordan brushed the palm of his left clawlike hand with his right and tentatively reached out.

  Murdoch also offered his hand, “Yes, I’m acting detective at his station.”

  Reordan suddenly jumped back. “Are you, indeed? Well, Mr. Acting Detective, I only shake hands with those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. You don’t qualify.” With that he turned and hobbled away.

  “John! Don’t be so silly,” Amy called after him, but he ignored her and slammed his door shut behind him.

  She sighed. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Murdoch. I can never predict how he will be.”

  “It’s not your fault. He’d obviously had an unfortunate experience and can’t distinguish that from me.” Murdoch spoke pleasantly, but in fact he was annoyed by Reordan’s behaviour. If Miss Slade hadn’t been there, he would have told the man off. “Besides, he’s quite wrong, if you were to see me in the height of summer, you’d think I earned my bread by the sweat of my brow.”