The White Feather Murders

by Rachel McMillan

  “Yes.”

  “And we know from your description and the residue found on your car that it is green.” He nudged the paper closer to her. “There are only two other citizens beside yourself who own such a vehicle in Toronto proper.”

  Merinda looked at the names. “The Reverend Donald MacNeill and Sir Henry Pelham.”

  “The Reverend Donald MacNeill is nearly a century old. I highly doubt he is the one who ran you off the road.”

  “But Sir Pelham?”

  “Whoever is responsible was driving one of these two automobiles. Your job will be to discover which car has seen damage.”

  “Can’t you do that?”

  “Tipton will never give me leave to inquire about the accident, however unofficially. When I explained to him in passing this evening about the threat to you, he said, ‘That Herringford woman is a reckless nuisance.’”

  “He knows me so well,” she said. But she didn’t have time to dwell on Tipton’s slight. Rising, she saw Jasper to the door.

  “I hope you decided to heed my advice, Merinda,” he said kindly, taking her hand and lightly squeezing it. He seemed surprised when she didn’t draw it away. “To shelve any casework tonight and get some rest.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course!” she said glibly. Clicking the door shut behind him, she scurried back into the sitting room to add the names of the two automobile owners to the blackboard near the mantelpiece.

  * He spared Mrs. Malone the tone of the conversation, which was even more adverse than he feared might be the case the first time he had personal contact with Jem’s estranged parents.

  † For a comprehensive exploration of Merinda Herringford’s connection to Constable Benfield Citrone of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, please consult the case documented as A Lesson in Love and Murder.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There is nothing so befuddling as our modern world, Merinda. I can’t trace an automobile as I can trace a lynx. I cannot fathom pursuing a wanted man throughout the maze of concrete found in the city, whereas, when here, all I need to be able to do is deduce which tracks are pronounced through a blanket of freshly fallen snow. No, my friend, you have the more arduous task. It is with esteem and respect that I follow your adventures through the clippings you send from your papers. Though, I must admit, the post has been ever so much slower arriving north here in Fort Glenbow since the threat of war began.

  An excerpt from a letter from Benny Citrone to Merinda Herringford

  Merinda woke the next morning far earlier than was her custom. She was determined to take on the world. She roused from a less-than-fitful doze in her armchair with a bellow for Turkish coffee. A few sips later, she was in front of her blackboard, fingers chalky and mind spinning.

  MURDERS:

  HORACE MILBROOK

  ALEXANDER WAVERLEY

  HANS MUELLER

  JEM (almost)

  The morning headlines* announced the whereabouts of Philip Carr, war agent. He was apparently inspecting the automobile factory in Hamilton, a city several miles west of Toronto. Merinda chewed her lip. She had thought of beginning where Jem and she had left off before Jem’s untimely accident but decided Carr would wait.

  She meant to follow up on the leads Jasper had provided regarding owners of automobiles similar to hers, but Merinda knew her promise to Heidi, her paying client, was just as important as finding the culprit responsible for their accident.† The incident at Spenser’s hadn’t completely left her mind, despite the disruption of Jem’s accident, and she assumed Mrs. Malone would happily accompany her to visit her grandson, who worked in the loading bay.

  At first the mention of Ralph’s name lit Mrs. Malone’s face, but then she frowned. “I am responsible for transferring young Hamish to Beatrice Watts.”

  “That’s a new development!”

  “Mr. DeLuca was here last night and arranged for Hamish to spend time with his grandparents while his wife is unwell.”

  Merinda wondered if Jem knew about this arrangement and supposed it was a decision DeLuca had made on her behalf. She grabbed her hat and set out the door, tapping her walking stick in rhythm with her quick pace to the streetcar. Toronto’s usual energy had escalated over the tense summer months, and somehow the city seemed busier and more frenetic this late morning than Merinda was accustomed to on a midweek day.

  When she arrived at Spenser’s and requested to see Mrs. Malone’s grandson, she again considered her growing celebrity fortunate. For not three moments later, Ralph gave her a proud though meagre tour, buoyantly indicating his particular influence on the ins and outs of the stock room and loading bay. Merinda attempted to listen with interest while her eyes narrowed on every worker, seeking any kind of sign that would indicate something was going on behind the store that hid an operation worth killing for. Perhaps a man with Hans Mueller’s death on his conscience might unwittingly reveal himself.

  Merinda asked Ralph about Hans, but he was summoned away before she could finish the question. He gave her a bright smile and an informal salute. Merinda bade him farewell, walking back through the stockroom at a slow pace. She supposed the most interesting exchange she had with Ralph included his excitement at the prospect of longer shifts—night shifts on the weekends and being paid double. New shipments and barges were tugging in, and men were needed to meet them at the harbor so that the goods could be transported to the loading bay.

  “Apparently with the war, it’s imperative that we be prepared.” Ralph’s enthusiasm had been genuine, but she doubted whatever Spenser had up his sleeve could be labeled as mere preparedness with the prospect of war.

  Sauntering back to Queen Street, she noticed a familiar figure a half block away. “Miss Mueller!” she called across the sunny street.

  Heidi Mueller wrung her hands, and Merinda noticed that her face was paler than it had been before.

  “I was just at Spenser’s,” Merinda said. “I am determined to learn the identity of Hans’s murderer.”

  “I didn’t think I could hate this city any more,” Miss Mueller said. “First my brother, and now our house in near tatters.” She blinked back tears. “My little garden. We had radishes and turnips. I was so proud of it. Mama helped me when she could, and—”

  Merinda wanted to curse. “They ruined that too?”

  “They ruin everything!” Heidi held up her hand, her index and thumb pinching a long envelope. “I am to report as an enemy alien along with my family on the fifth day of each month.”

  “Enemy alien.” Merinda snarled as she repeated the atrocious words.

  “We go to the City Hall, and they sit us in a room and then interrogate us. If they suspect we are fraternizing with the enemy—”

  “What enemy?”

  “Miss Herringford, I am of German descent. These people… these officials believe that my family is as much to blame for the war overseas as those fighting in the battle.”

  Merinda nodded. “I read something of this new protocol in the Globe.” She sighed heavily. “Am I correct in interpreting that anyone who is relatively new to the city from a county seemingly tied to the enemy overseas will be subject to new imposed laws?”

  Heidi nodded. “It’s as if I’m a visitor in my own city, Miss Herringford. An imposter in my own home. Guilty of a kind of treason merely for being born in a country that opposes Canada in this horrible war.”

  “I can’t much help with Montague and his ridiculous fear tactics, but I can continue to try to find the man responsible for your brother’s death and the vandalism in the Ward.” Merinda inclined her head in the direction of the warehouse. “I’ve been searching Spenser’s.”

  “Have you learned anything?”

  “Your brother’s murder may be linked to the other two murders of the past few days.”

  Heidi’s eyes widened. “How?”

  Merinda shrugged. “That’s what I have to find out. But when I do, I will let you know everything.”

  “I appreciate your help.”
<
br />   Heidi said goodbye and walked on, leaving Queen Street to enfold Merinda with its harried brand of bustle and noise. Merinda’s next plan of action was to question Reverend MacNeill, one of the automobile owners Jasper mentioned the night before. His parish was St. Stephens-in-the-Field, a long, stout, redbrick building at College Street.

  A matronly secretary found Merinda wandering aimlessly in the vestry and escorted her to Reverend MacNeill’s office.

  Jasper was right. The man appeared to be two feet away from a crypt. But his watery gray eyes were kind as he slowly issued an invitation for Merinda to take a seat.

  “Young man, it is a pleasure to have you.”

  Merinda looked down at her trousers, and even though her hat was off, this fellow squinted at everything. She might as well play along.

  “I understand you own a green roadster?” She passed him the specifics of the model, and he held them up to his cataract-filmed eyes.

  “You are interested in cars!” he exclaimed with a rusty smile. “I did own such a vehicle, but I sold it only a week ago to a friend with a parish in Mississauga.” The man tapped at his temple. “Not a lot up here anymore, and not a lot to see.”

  “And this man drove it away?”

  The reverend nodded. “I got a whole new train set in exchange.”

  Merinda began to tell him that he was cheated, but the fellow seemed happy enough to have given the automobile to a person he was fond of.

  She bade him good day and strolled westward, her brain emphatically underlining the only other person in Toronto who owned a vehicle of the pertinent make and color: Sir Henry Pelham. And as she walked along, thinking about all that had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours, the city embraced her in the harried way it had of seeming to weave around her.

  How she loved this city! Its progress, its populous streets, its billboards that winked in a neon carousel of light at night. The organ grinder at the mouth of the Ward, the energy that thrummed through the electric wires and over the trolley tracks and settled amid the throng moving this way and that. But she also loved Toronto because it was a mélange of people and thoughts and ideas. A girl in trousers and bowler hat was lauded for her work in an international case. A fellow like DeLuca could scrape by at the roundhouse with barely a handful of English at his disposal before working and learning and finding opportunity at a city-wide level while his readership expanded.

  But Montague’s new protocol demanding immigrants like Heidi report as potential enemies conjoined with the already salacious enterprises of a few of the city’s most powerful men soured the otherwise perfect summer day. Would they stop with citizens supposedly aligned with the enemy from their home country? Or would Montague’s fear and prejudice stretch their gnarled hands out to more and more people? Women had so long been seen as potential enemies to his city, and this improper view of them inspired the brutal tactics of the Morality Squad. Now the pervasive tactics of those who would see Toronto’s newest citizens return to the lands from whence they came resulted in havoc and violence.

  Merinda loved her city, yes, but she also feared it.

  Once home, she noticed a strange car parked on the street, its driver leaning against the door.

  He met her eyes and tipped his cap.

  Inside, she met Jemima’s mother.

  “Hello, Beatrice,” Merinda said in greeting.

  “I am collecting the boy.” Jem’s mother seemed frozen in time. Her bearing was elegant, and she barely had a line on her porcelain skin. She had the same big blue eyes as her daughter, though her hair was a silvery blond contrasting with Jem’s chestnut curls.

  “Does Jem know?” Merinda asked Mrs. Malone.

  “Her husband had the common sense to ring me last night,” Beatrice Watts answered, reaching for Hamish.

  Merinda intervened, picking up the baby and holding him a moment. He babbled and grabbed for the watch she kept fastened to her pocket. His little fingers were used to seeking it out.‡ “Goodbye, Hamish,” she said, staring into his bright eyes a moment before transferring him to Mrs. Watts. Jem’s mother gave her a curt goodbye, nodded another slightly more courteous farewell to Mrs. Malone, and then she spirited Hamish off to the waiting car.

  After Mrs. Malone had returned to the kitchen to see about lunch, Merinda peeled back the lace curtain to watch Beatrice situate Hamish in the taxi. The poor fellow would die of boredom in the stuffy, stodgy nursery of his grandparents’ home. Merinda bit her lip. There was little chance Jemima knew about this arrangement.

  In the sitting room, she crossed off the name of the kindly minister. The more likely possibility was Sir Henry Pelham or someone who had access to his renowned collection of automobiles.

  Merinda had one glaring problem. One did not just walk into Pelham Park, no matter one’s celebrity status as a lady detective.

  She rifled through the bureau. Though messy, it contained articles and pamphlets of the sort Holmes often made Watson fetch for him.

  Merinda was hopeful that something therein would inspire her next step.

  * “Morning” to Merinda Herringford was a loose term for her own lazy descent upon the world at a much later hour than was decent or respectable.

  † Some of M.C. Wheaton’s advice regarding the detective-client relationship was easier to follow than others.

  ‡ Merinda, of course, in general had little time for children, but she fancied Hamish more intelligent than any other of his ilk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The law is a funny thing, especially for an amateur detective. It is so easy to want to bend it or move around it at the interest of a client. But remember, the police are a detective’s greatest allies, and the justice system is at the core of wanting to find resolution to the most perplexing mysteries.

  M.C. Wheaton, Guide to the Criminal and Commonplace

  If two murders and one attempted murder are committed while a fellow is in jail, then said fellow is innocent,” Jasper told Kirk while walking in the direction of his office. “Yet Tipton has yet to sign off on the fellow’s release.” It bothered Jasper more than he could say that Lars Hult sat in a cell when there was no possibility of his having committed any offense other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

  After Jasper had arrived at the station, he passed Russell in the corridor, who was seeing to a complaint from a young woman whose shrill voice painted a dramatic scene of broken windows and generalized terror.

  Russell looked up, and the men locked eyes. Jasper’s sympathy met Russell’s impatience.

  Sighing, Jasper strode to his office and slammed the door. He rolled a pencil over his ink blotter again and again. He had long felt alone in the department. Perhaps that was why he was so excited for Russell’s arrival and so disappointed the more he saw that, rather than gaining an ally, he had found yet another man willing to side with Tipton.

  Jasper ran a hand through his hair, plastering the front to his forehead. What was he going to do? Part of him had long thought he went along with Tipton because, even though his chief was in Montague’s pocket, he still believed that Tipton’s dedication to the justice system would cut a swath through the corruption. Even when he disagreed with the chief, Jasper felt he was working toward their united goal for justice. To uphold the laws so integral to the preservation of Toronto’s growth and freedom as a burgeoning city.

  Jasper had always thrown himself into his duty, no matter the cost. But what was his duty if he no longer followed orders or believed in the man dictating his next move in the name of justice?

  Jasper rose, opened his door, and crossed the sleek tiles in the direction of the chief’s office. He tapped on the doorjamb.

  “Enter!” Tipton looked up over his paperwork “Ah, Forth.”

  “Sir, why is Lars Hult still incarcerated? We can’t keep him here.”

  “Why can’t we?” Tipton cocked an eyebrow.

  “Because he is clearly as innocent as you or I.”

  “Forth, so
metimes you need to make an example.”

  “An example? An example of what? So you know he has nothing to do with these murders!”

  “There’s too much going on in St. John’s Ward. This bull of a man has been noticed for being a bit of a vigilante. Roughing up those who—”

  “I don’t believe it… unless he was defending someone.”

  Tipton shrugged. “He may call it defense, but our laws are in place for a reason, and all Hades will break loose if we let citizens take those laws into their own hands.”

  “Sir, I’m sure he had a good reason for—”

  Tipton turned back to shuffling the papers on his desk. “I remember the days when you were efficient at taking orders without these pesky questions of yours.”

  “We have no manpower working on the Mueller kid’s death, and my friends were in a very intentional automobile accident!” Jasper said in defense of his questions. “I will see a resolution, sir, to this man’s death. And to the accident as well.”

  “I am sure you’ll try,” Tipton said patronizingly. “But even your altruism would concede that Milbrook’s and Waverley’s murders seem a bit more calculated than a kid being roughed up at Spenser’s.”

  Jasper barreled on. “Roughed up at Spenser’s?” He shook his head “That’s a poor euphemism for murder, sir. And I will make it so that every unlawful arrest from Montague’s latest tyrant brigade is found innocent and dismissed if I have to spend the next day reading through the fine print of our police code. There is a higher law than his, sir, and yours. Justice. God. And while I have done my due diligence by both, we are at war! I will not see my city terrorized and innocent blood spilt.”

  “Get out of my office, Forth. I am not your friend DeLuca’s silly liberal paper. Forget about all of this. Focus on one of the many outstanding tasks you have at hand.”