by Sharon Rowse
The woman showing Clara a very smart little bonnet with maroon ribbon had never heard of a photographer at that location. “I only started working here a year past,” she said.
“No, the establishment we are interested in closed at least two years ago,” Emily said.
Clara looked thoughtfully at Emily, then glanced back at the clerk. “You’ve never heard of an A.J. Morgan or his photographic studio?” she asked.
The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. In fact, I think there is only one photographic studio in town. But—did you say Morgan?”
“That’s right. A.J. Morgan.”
“Well, how odd.”
“What is odd?” Emily asked.
“Well, I do know a Morgan. Albert. But whether he is an A.J. I don’t know.”
“And is he a photographer?”
“No, or at least not now. He’s a clerk. But I don’t know him well—he’s my mother’s second cousin’s son-in-law.”
“And he lives in town?”
“Yes. In fact, he works right around the corner, for Butler and Resnick Properties and Accounting firm.”
“Do you think he would talk to me?”
“I don’t see why not. But you will have to wait until he finishes work. Butler’s is very strict; their employees aren’t allowed visitors.”
“Thank you very much. Come along, Clara.”
“Thank you for your assistance, and I’ll think about the bonnet,” Clara said to the clerk. “That particular shade is very effective. I shall have to bring in my material and see if it matches.”
“If not, we should be able to find some trim that does match; our selection is extensive.”
“Truly? Oh, well in that case I will definitely be back. Thank you again.”
As they stepped back into the street, the rain had cleared, but a chill wind had come up off the river. Holding her bonnet against the wind that tugged fiercely at it, Clara hurried to catch Emily’s brisk pace.
Reaching her friend’s side just as she turned the corner onto Columbia, she was too breathless to speak for several blocks.
Finally she said, “Emily, slow down. What are you planning to do now? The last tram leaves at 4:30 and this Mr. Morgan does not finish work until 6:00.”
“Yes I know.”
Clara looked at her. “Oh, Emily, what are you planning now? We were just told that Butler’s does not allow their staff to have visitors.”
“And if we are not visitors, but customers?”
“In a properties firm? Are you mad? Women cannot buy real estate.”
“No, but their husbands can. Or in this case their future husbands.”
“That would be their pretend future husbands?”
Emily stopped walking. “That was unkind, Clara.”
Clara’s cheeks turned red, but she met Emily’s eyes. “I know it, and I’m sorry,” she said. “But Emily, I worry about you. You insist on doing things.”
“Wasn’t it you who just said I should be a detective? Besides, why shouldn’t women be able to purchase real estate? And not just in the name of our husbands, either.”
Clara shook her head with a reluctant smile. “You know, your life would be so much easier if you just wanted to be the best dressed lady in town.”
“But would it be this interesting? Come along, Clara, we have a former photographer to interview.”
“You don’t even know he’s the right man,” Clara said to Emily’s departing back. “Oh, very well.”
Beyond the gilt lettering on the door-window, the offices of Butler and Resnick were very orderly, with a gleaming dark oak countertop and two dark oak desks with ledgers and neat stacks of paper on them. The walls held serried rows of photographs, presumably of the properties they had available for sale.
Emily eyed them speculatively. Could Mr. Morgan have taken these photos? If so, it might explain the otherwise odd leap from fashionable photographer to real estate and accounting clerk. Always assuming it was the same man, of course, but the photos at least gave her hope.
“May I help you?”
The voice belonged to a clerk who looked too young to be an ex-photographer now launched on a second career. He had slicked-back dark hair that wanted to wave over his ears, large brown eyes and an expression that bordered on panic as he regarded Emily.
Obviously they did not get many female clients, Emily thought as she gave him a reassuring smile.
The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his gaze darting from her to Clara and pausing on her friend. Emily seized on his momentary distraction to examine his hands. In addition to the tell-tale ink stains on his index finger, his fingertips showed a dark staining, the kind of marks one might get from developing negatives, she thought with rising excitement.
“Good afternoon,” she said, drawing his eyes back to her with a jerk. “My fiancé has asked me to collect some information on various properties he might have an interest in purchasing. But I must ask, are you the photographer for these truly excellent photos of the properties?” She gestured towards the wall.
He nodded, looking pleased. She’d been right, Emily thought. This was A.J. Morgan, and soon she would have the name of Granville’s missing heiress.
“Mr. Morgan?” she asked.
To her surprise, a tinge of red appeared in the clerk’s cheeks and the very tips of his ears flamed.
“Ah—No, I mean—Well, some of the photos are mine. Mostly mine. Well, I helped develop them. Well, some of them.”
Emily nodded. Her cousin Cyril was about this man’s age, and similarly unable to get out a full sentence in mixed company. “I see. And is Mr. Morgan teaching you photography?”
“Well, yes.”
“And where is Mr. Morgan?” she asked, looking behind the young man for any sign of a more mature clerk.
“I—well—he—I cannot say.”
Emily blinked twice at this, but Clara spoke before her. “Cannot?” she said in a very sweet tone, and smiled at the poor young man.
“He’s ill. But Mr. Resnick cannot know,” the young man said quickly, lowering his voice and darting a glance to door leading to the rear offices.
“And where does Mr. Resnick think he is?” Emily asked.
“Out taking photos. He’s been sick too often this winter; they’re talking of firing him if he misses any more time. And he has a wife, and a baby daughter.”
“It’s very good of you, to protect him so,” Clara said with a beaming smile. “And perhaps we can pay a visit to his wife, see if she needs any assistance.”
“They aren’t there.”
“Not there?” Clara asked, leaning forward slightly.
The clerk flushed and hesitated. “They’ve gone to Vancouver, to stay with his aunt,” he said at last. “I don’t know where.”
“Thank you for your time,” Emily said, taking out a small notebook. “I’ll just make a note of these properties you’re offering. And I’ll be sure to tell my fiancé that this is a most reputable firm, and a good place to do his real estate transactions. Come along, Clara.”
When they were standing in the street once again, Clara turned to her and frowned. “Do you know how many times today you have told me to come along?”
Emily tried not to smile. “Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t want you to stay and flirt with that young man—you had confused him quite enough already.”
“Flirt? Me? Why Emily, what do you take me for? And where are you going?”
“I take you for a good friend,” Emily said, stopping and looking over her shoulder. “Thank you for your help in there. And I’m going back to your favorite hat shop, to ask the shop assistant whether her mother’s second cousin’s sister happens to live in Vancouver.”
Clara hmmphed dramatically and slid her arm into Emily’s. “You have no idea how fatiguing it is, being your friend,” she said, giving Emily’s arm a small squeeze.
TWENTY
Saturday, January 13, 1900
Granville and Trent rode in silence, sh
adows wavering ahead of them in the odd light of pre-dawn. A thick mist wound among the trees and sat heavily along the river.
“Are we going to stay at Katzie until Mr. Scott can ride?” Trent finally asked, his voice barely carrying above the soft clinking of their horse’s bridles.
“Perhaps. It depends how quickly he’s healing.”
“I still don’t see why we had to leave town so early.”
“You’d rather have waited for daylight, made it easy for our pursuer?”
““He’s in jail,” Trent said. “It was a nice trick, tying him to the robberies in the West End.”
“He’d been seen there, hadn’t he, wandering the residential streets, as if checking out his next target?”
“Only because he was following us, and that’s where you led him. It was brilliant!”
“Thank you. It was, however, a trick, and like all tricks only good for a time. We needed to vanish before he was released from jail, or able to get word out.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Good of you to say so.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Only a little.”
“Oh, well, so long as it’s only a little.”
He heard the laugh in Trent’s voice, and grinned.
At least the boy had kept his sense of humor, even if someone was trying to kill them.
It just made him angry, but he hadn’t been sure about the boy. Trent was proving to be made of tougher stuff than he’d imagined. He’d probably had to be, to survive.
“Why the sudden return to Katzie?” Trent asked. “It’s about that telegram, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It was veiled, but the threat was there.”
“Threat?”
“Against Scott. Injured, he’d be easy pickings if they decided to kill us one by one. Besides, now that I have Emily’s promise not to put herself in danger, we have some unfinished business in Katzie.”
The sky was lightening in the east by the time they crossed the Pitt River bridge and Granville could see the tide running, creating little ripples that glittered on the wide spread of the Fraser. The Katzie village was hazed with smoke from a number of fires, under a lowering gray sky. It looked small, cold and far from welcoming.
“Where can we leave the horses?” he asked.
“Follow me.”
As they rounded the corner of a small wooden building, he was surprised and rather amused to see their two mules. “Too stubborn to die,” he muttered.
The one Trent had named John turned and regarded him for a moment, then brayed. He’d swear he heard derision in the sound. “Easy for you to say. You cost me a pretty penny at the livery.”
“What’s that?” Trent turned to look at him.
Granville pointed to the two mules. “Those are ours.”
“I figured they’d make it down eventually—they’re pretty tough. And I bet old man Devoy will be glad to get them back.”
“Except they’re no longer his mules. After the amount I paid him for their loss, those are now our mules.”
Trent looked from the mules to Granville, his expression considering. “We going after the gold?”
“Yes. Eventually.”
Trent’s eyes searched Granville’s face, then his nose twitched. “I smell bannock,” he said. “Nothing beats the taste of fresh bannock, and I’m starved. Let’s go.”
“They may not be too happy to feed you.”
“C’mon, you never heard of hospitality? Course they’ll feed me. Us. And if we’re lucky, they’ll have dried salmon, too. You’ve never tasted anything like it—they catch a half ton of it every fall, when the salmon run up the Fraser, then dry it in the sun, to preserve it, and mmmm.” He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips, an expression of such delight on his face that Granville laughed.
“Then for your sake I hope they serve us some dried salmon with the bannock.”
“You’ll see,” Trent said as he opened the wooden door and preceded him into the longhouse.
Granville had a confused impression of sound and movement.
Ignoring the commotion in the center, he ran his eye along the empty bunks on the far wall to where he’d last seen Scott. He spotted a still form, swathed in blankets and his breath caught in a suddenly tight throat.
Had Scott’s wound gone putrid? It’d only been two days, but he’d seen men take ill and die more quickly than that. He’d also seen them linger in agony for weeks.
He made his way to where his friend lay and stooped down. A loud rattling sounded and the blankets stirred violently. He froze.
With a second raucous snore Scott flung the blanket away from his face, then turned on his side and covered his head again. With a relieved grin Granville turned back towards the center of the longhouse. The brief glimpse of Scott’s fever-free face was enough to reassure him.
“Granville, Mr. Moore from New West wants to talk to us,” Trent was saying. “Seems he has some questions about Mr. Cole’s murder.”
“And who is Mr. Moore?”
“I’m a detective with the New Westminster police.”
Granville turned to see a tall, gaunt-faced man with thick dark eyebrows, a shock of wiry black hair and an aggrieved expression.
“You’re the one reported the death?”
“Yes.”
“Report says you think it was deliberate, not hunters with very poor aim. You sure about that?”
“Given that they managed to shoot three out of the four of us, I think we have to make that assumption.”
“Hmmm. And you don’t have descriptions?
“I never saw more than dark shadows in the trees. Trent?”
“No.”
One of Moore’s thick eyebrows went up, and he made a note. “And you’ve no idea who your pursuers were?”
“None.”
“Or why they were shooting at you?”
Granville shook his head, hoping that Trent wouldn’t choose this moment to contribute to the conversation. “I’m afraid not. Unless they had a grudge against our client that extended to the rest of the party.”
“The murdered man, Cole, was your client, then?”
“Yes.”
“And what was it he hired you to do?”
“He hired my partner and myself to…”
“Your partner?”
Granville indicated the blanket wrapped lump that was Scott. “My partner.”
Moore’s eyebrows climbed. “No-one mentioned two murders.”
A grin split Trent’s face.
“He’s injured, not dead,” Granville said. “As I was saying, Cole…”
“Injured?”
“Shot. He received two bullets, I was shot once. Our assistant here,” he indicated Trent, who beamed, “received a concussion and a broken arm in trying to escape the avalanche they created.”
“An avalanche?”
Granville gave up trying to keep the story simple, and explained the ambush.
Moore’s eyebrows inched higher and his pencil flew. “So why were you hired?”
“My late client heard rumors of a lost mine, and hired us to assist him in finding it,” he said.
“In January?”
“There are no other miners prospecting in January. Cole was paranoid about being followed.”
“Hmmm. He may’ve had a point, given how he died.”
Granville gave Moore a sharp look. The officer was jotting something in his notebook, his thick brows drawn slightly together. Not even a hint of a smile. “So what happens now?”
“I’ll need to examine the body. Where is it?”
Granville and Trent exchanged glances. “We cached it during the attack,” Granville said. “Perhaps it’d be best if we brought it here.”
“I’ll accompany you,” Moore said.
He couldn’t allow that, not while the body was hidden with the gold from the cache, though Moore’s presence might deter any further attacks. “Of course. But first I need to see to my
partner’s well-being.”
“I’ll wait.” And with a nod and another sharp look at Granville, he ambled off in the direction the scent of fresh baking was coming from.
No doubt he would wait.
Granville’s eyes searched the crowd for the shaman, when he realized someone was staring at him. He turned his head slowly.
Scott’s gray eyes were fixed on him. The big man was half-slumped against the rough board wall, but he was upright and his eyes were clear. Catching Granville’s look, Scott levered himself upright, wavered a moment, then sauntered over and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for leaving me behind.”
Granville winced.
“That the shoulder got shot?”
He nodded. He’d thought the arm was healing well, but Scott’s arm was nearly back to its old power, roughly similar to a swipe from a grizzly. Obviously he was feeling better. “You look pretty good.”
“Yeah. How is Emily?”
“She’s just fine.”
“So how did she find out about the ambush?”
“Oddly enough, her classmates at the typewriting school have fathers who appear to be involved. They also have loose lips.”
“Can we follow that connection?”
“She’s already done so. And it seems Gipson may be involved; he’s in partnership with one of the men.”
“Him again. Too bad they can’t just run him out of town.”
Granville smiled. “Ah, but we are in civilization now. No frontier justice here.”
“I liked the Klondike better.”
In some ways, so had he. Life there was stripped to the essentials. You knew what mattered, when it took everything you had to survive. “That isn’t what you said when we only took enough gold out of Rabbit Creek to buy food for two weeks.”
“We’d have been just fine if we hadn’t been at the back of beyond, with bread costing a dollar a loaf and coffee even more,” Scott retorted.
“Ah, but the back of beyond was where the gold was.”
“That’s what I like about our new mine. It’s close to civilization.”
“There wasn’t much civilized about that valley. We’re lucky we found our way out again.”