by Vicki Delany
“She wouldn’t have told. I knew how to keep her sweet.”
“Oh, Irene.” Brandon’s words were as light as a butterfly on the wind.
She lifted the gun.
“No,” Sterling yelled. He flew across the floor, kicking chairs out of the way.
Maggie Brandon put the gun to her temple. “I will always love you, Irene,” she whispered as she pulled the trigger.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I held my precious child in my arms and pressed his face into my chest. By the time I’d reached him, he’d rolled Mouse O’Brien over and was tearing open Mouse’s crisp white shirt. The big man’s eyes opened, and his face moved in recognition. “Nothing sadder than a fool for love, is there, Mrs. MacGillivray?” He closed his eyes. In the poor light cast by the kerosene lamp, now beginning to splutter and go out, Mouse’s left side glistened bright with blood.
“Stay still,” I whispered, to both Mouse and Angus. For once Angus didn’t argue. He settled into my embrace, and I felt his thin shoulders shudder.
My mind didn’t process the words that were being exchanged between Irene, Sterling and Maggie. I could only feel the emotion as it swirled around the room and close my heart against the scorn and the despair.
But I heard Irene’s cold voice and Richard’s cry of “no” and the sound of crashing furniture, and I heard the bark of the pistol, and for a flash of time all was quiet, the only sound being the sigh that marked the last breath of life as it left a body. Then Martha Witherspoon screamed at the top of her lungs, and we were surrounded by men, all shouting at once. I closed my eyes, murmured sweet nothings, and cradled my child.
And, for the first time in a long time, he was content to be held.
* * *
Richard Sterling fell to his knees beside Maggie Brandon.
The gun slid across the floor, and he let it go. Maggie would have no use for it again. Her body twitched as her life force departed, and her blood spread out across the wooden floor of the Savoy. Fiona MacGillivray had Angus pressed tightly against her body, and her eyes were closed.
She was all right. They were both all right. But Mouse O’Brien needed a doctor. Fast.
Men ran into the room from all directions. Sterling stood up. Irene Davidson was looking into his eyes.
He walked slowly towards her, to where she stood beneath a painting of an undressed woman. She didn’t move. He stopped inches from her. “It didn’t have to end this way,” he said, so softly no one else could hear. “You could’ve talked her out of it.”
Irene looked up at him with eyes that were dark and empty. She shrugged. She wore a lovely gown, but now it looked tawdry. “What’s the point? You heard her confess to killing Chloe. She was going to hang; if she’d lived to stand trial, she’d cause everyone a lot of trouble first.”
A Mountie shouted for a doctor. Miss Forester, yelling loudly enough to be heard over the din, demanded to be allowed inside. Someone bustled Martha Witherspoon, whose screams had settled into hysterical sobs, outside before she could turn around and look at the scene behind her.
Ray Walker burst into the room. He ran to Irene, shouting a stream of words, but his Scottish accent was so overpowering, Sterling couldn’t understand a single word.
Irene lowered her eyes, turned her back on Sterling, and allowed Walker to put his arms around her. Her shoulders shook as she began to cry. Walker patted her back while his gaze took in the scene in his saloon. Fiona and Angus were still huddled together on the floor, while beside them the doctor tended to Mouse O’Brien, whose curses would have him tossed out of town if anyone bothered to take offence.
Over Irene’s heaving shoulder, Walker looked at Sterling, and said, “You’ll look after her.” It was as much a statement as a question.
“If she allows me to.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I allowed myself to be lowered into my chair. Plump red velvet cushions were tucked into my back, and a footstool covered in beige damask, specifically purchased for my comfort, had been placed at my feet.
I looked around the saloon of the Savoy. It was Tuesday evening—impossible to believe it was the same day as the hostage-taking and the death of Maggie Brandon. We’d been forced to close for most of the day, while the police did whatever police do at the scene of a crime. The coroner arrived and carted off Maggie Brandon with a good deal less respect than seemed proper, and the doctor left for the hospital with Mouse O’Brien, who, we were all relieved to see, walked out on his own two feet. The bullet had gone through the fleshy part of his upper arm. Messy, probably painful, but not life-threatening. And as for the mess— poor Helen Saunderson arrived for work at her usual time to find that she had to mop up not only Mouse’s blood but a good portion of Maggie Brandon’s brains. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d quit on the spot. Instead she sighed and got out her bucket and mop. Something extra would be in her pay packet at the end of the week.
Before all that happened, Angus had begun to wiggle uncomfortably in my embrace and finally pushed me away. He glanced around the room, presumably hoping no one had seen him being comforted by his mother as though he were a child. Everyone had seen it, but they all pretended they hadn’t. My feelings were hurt, and I reminded myself that this was the natural order of things—my son wouldn’t need me much longer.
Richard Sterling offered a hand to help me up. If he held my hand for a few moments longer than was proper, I was happy for his strong warmth. Once I stood on my feet, I almost fell over. Stars streaked across the blackness behind my eyes. Sterling and Angus grabbed me and halfcarried me to a stool at the bar.
“I’ll ask Sergeant Lancaster to see that you and Angus get home,” Sterling said.
I shook my head. Bad move: more stars.
“Where’s Ray?” I asked.
“He’s taken Miss Davidson home.”
With all the men passing to and fro, I wouldn’t have been surprised if more than a few wayward hands found the whisky bottles behind the bar. “Someone has to remain here. The sergeant can escort Angus.”
“I’m not leaving you here, Mother!”
The men from the funeral parlour arrived. I averted my gaze.
“Fiona, please.”
“No.”
Another Mountie joined our squabbling little group. Sterling respectfully took a step back. “I’ll personally ensure that your establishment is fully protected, Madam, until either you or Mr. Walker can resume your responsibilities.”
“Very well,” I said, giving the man a slight nod. It was Inspector Courtlandt Starnes, commander of Dawson and Fort Herchmer in the absence of Superintendent Steele.
He turned to a young constable. “Brown.”
The man snapped to attention. “Sir?”
“See Mrs. MacGillivray and her son safely home.” He glanced down at my feet, torn to shreds, leaking blood all over the floor. “Mrs. MacGillivray is unable to walk. Commandeer a horse and wagon if you have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
Angus cleared his throat. “Inspector Starnes, sir?”
“Yes, Angus?”
“I heard Miss Brandon confess to the killing of Chloe Smith myself. So did Constable Sterling and my mother. That means Mary didn’t do it.”
“It would appear so.”
“Are you going to release Mary? Sir?”
“Immediately, son. You escort your mother home then come to the Fort. I’ll see that your friend gets a cup of tea and is made comfortable while she’s waiting.”
“Thank you, sir.” And so I had been carried out of the Savoy by two husky young Mounties and was loaded carefully into a donkey cart, while Sergeant Lancaster fluttered about and got into everyone’s way.
My feet were an absolute mess. God only knows what I’d run through on my mad dash, sans shoes, from home to the Savoy and from the Savoy to the Imperial and back again.
Once I got home, the doctor—a good one, not the fool who was always trying to check my heartbeat—tended to my
torn feet then wrapped them heavily in bandages. Among the debris in the street, there had been a nice sharp piece of glass, and the doctor, peering though thick spectacles, attempting to dig out the glass with a pair of tweezers, told me I’d be off my feet for a good while.
When he’d left, Mrs. Mann helped me out of my dress and into my nightgown. She went to fetch the first of a great many cups of tea, and allowed Angus into my room. My son checked his watch and asked if he could go and see Mary. He was very proud of that watch, Angus was, because I’d made a great fuss of presenting it to him, telling him that it had been my father’s watch. In truth, before I had climbed up a drainpipe and removed it from his bedside table, along with a nice pair of diamond cufflinks, it had belonged to a fat member of parliament who drank himself into a stupor every night and snored excessively. I had nothing to remember my parents by, except for my memories, but I’d wanted Angus to believe he had a family heirloom.
I fell into a deep sleep before my door had closed behind him.
When Angus returned, I was sitting up in bed drinking tea. “I brought Mary home with me. She’s out back, helping Mrs. Mann in the laundry.”
“Good.”
“I called at the hospital. Mr. O’Brien has only a flesh wound in his upper arm,” he reported. “But the doctor wants him to stay in the hospital overnight, just to be sure.”
“Good,” I repeated, trying to fluff my pillows.
Angus sat at the end of my bed. “Miss Witherspoon is at the hospital. They say she refuses to leave.”
“Also good.”
He took a slice of cold toast off my tea tray. “I don’t understand what happened today, Mother. Why did Miss Brandon threaten me and Miss Witherspoon? Why did Miss Brandon think Miss Davidson would leave town with her?”
I looked into my child’s wide-open blue eyes. And I lied. “Miss Brandon mistakenly believed Miss Davidson had promised to make her a star of the dance halls,” I said, picking at a loose thread in the quilt. “When that didn’t happen, her poor confused mind thought Miss Davidson had meant she would be a star Outside. Terribly sad all around.”
Angus leaned over and kissed me. “I love you, Mother.”
I smiled around my tears. “I love you too, dearest.”
In the late afternoon, Ray stopped by for a visit, looking extremely pleased with himself. Considering that I’d last seen him leaving the Savoy in the company of my own Lady Irenee, who had been putting on a better show than she ever did on stage, I decided I didn’t want to know why he was so cheerful.
“Angus,” I said. “I’ll need Mrs. Mann’s assistance in getting dressed. Can you fetch her for me, please?”
I shoved Angus and Ray’s concerns aside and insisted I’d go to work that evening. Knowing it would be hopeless to attempt to convince me to stay in bed, they, with the help of Mrs. Mann, put their heads together and hired a cart and a sad excuse for a horse to carry me to the Savoy.
I felt rather like the Queen must, travelling down Pall Mall in her ornate carriage on some affair of state, as the single scrawny beast pulled the rickety cart through Dawson. I waved to the cheering onlookers exactly as I’d seen Her Majesty do, with a sort of half-movement of the hand.
Unlike Queen Victoria, however, I couldn’t help but grin. Angus refused to ride in the cart with me, so he walked beside, looking perfectly embarrassed at the whole affair.
Richard Sterling, his face as displeased as Angus’s, met us at the entrance to the Savoy.
It took me a moment to notice, but as I shuffled across the cart bench, ready to be shifted into a chair, to be carried inside by the cart-owner, Jake the croupier, and both Murray and Not-Murray, I saw that Richard’s uniform jacket was pressed, brushed and spotless, his trousers ironed to a knife edge, and his boots polished to a high gloss. I opened my mouth to say something, but at that moment Murray lost his grip on the chair leg, and I lurched perilously towards the good Yukon earth. They righted me in time, and I was spared that indignity.
Shortly before eight, I was beginning to consider putting a guard on the door to keep any more customers out. We were bursting at the seams, sort of like Betsy when she put on weight in the spring but couldn’t afford a new dress. Word had gotten around, as it does, that I had heroically returned to the Savoy, carried from the field of battle, so to speak. I, of course, had contributed exactly nothing towards the resolution of this morning’s crisis, but men like to have a heroine, and they like me very much. So I was the designated heroine of the day. I decided to simply enjoy it for the short time it lasted. By tomorrow, all would be forgotten and something else would have drawn their attention.
Irene Davidson arrived for work wearing a cheap, overly elaborate dress of the sort most people would associate with a dance hall girl. She kept her head down and scurried for the back rooms. She needn’t have avoided me: her secret was safe with me. I’d heard some of the town scuttlebutt from Angus, and a good deal more since I’d been sitting here. Maggie Brandon had gone mad, they all said—naturally enough with her being a middle-aged spinster—with jealousy at the popularity of Irene Davidson.
She’d hatched a scheme to get Irene to come Outside with her and teach her to be a dance hall star.
The Savoy had an enormously successful night. I should be injured more often. Everyone in town must have stopped in front of my chair to wish me well. I was wearing the green satin tonight, having decided it didn’t much matter what I wore, as I wasn’t getting out of my seat, and I had tossed a woollen blanket over my legs for the sake of decency.
My dress! How on earth had I forgotten. A blue day dress, having had the final fitting, was waiting for me at the “dresmakers shop”. And all those wonderful fabrics. What would happen to them? First thing tomorrow, I’d try to salvage what I could from the remains of Maggie’s business.
My cloud of admirers drifted apart for a brief moment, and Richard Sterling stepped in front of me. “I’m glad to see you looking so well, Mrs. MacGillivray. No ill effects from this morning’s unpleasantness, I hope. Other than the feet, that is.”
He was strangely formal. I felt somewhat formal myself. I wanted to thank him for being the first into the Savoy to confront Maggie Brandon so I could reach Angus without worrying about her attention falling on me. But I could not find the words.
“You’re looking most respectable tonight,” I said.
“I had an interview with Inspector Starnes this afternoon.”
I lifted one eyebrow, but he didn’t elaborate.
“I hope you have a pleasant evening, Mrs. MacGillivray,” he said with a smile. He had a lovely smile, Constable Richard Sterling, warm and comforting, although he rarely used it. “For all our sakes.”
Chapter Forty
As he passed through the throng packing the room from the bar to the doors, Richard Sterling thought back on the events of the morning. Martha Witherspoon, almost collapsing in shock, had been hustled out. Mouse O’Brien, swearing a blue streak, had walked out of the Savoy under his own power, heading for the hospital. Ray Walker had left with Irene Davidson, who was conscientiously avoiding Sterling’s eyes.
Fiona MacGillivray, unable to walk on the torn feet that had carried her this far, had been carried out by two extremely pleased young Mounties, supervised by Sergeant Lancaster.
The men from the funeral parlour had hoisted Maggie Brandon’s body onto their stretcher and carried it away, one of them complaining all the while that he’d scarcely had an hour’s sleep before being dragged out of bed.
“You did a good job there, Mr. Sterling,” a man said as the mass of people dispersed from the saloon of the Savoy.
“No sir, I didn’t. I failed. The woman died.”
“She chose to die, and so hers was the only death here today. It could have been a bloodbath.”
“Yes, sir.” Sterling rubbed his eyes. God, he was tired.
“You kept your head, and therefore Mr. O’Brien, young
Angus MacGillivray, and Miss Witherspoo
n lived. I like to
see a man keep his head in a crisis. Look after what needs
to be done here. I want to see you in my office at three this
afternoon, Constable Sterling.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will be reassigning you. Your first assignment will be
to find out where Brandon got that firearm and to make sure that the conduit of such weapons is plugged. Permanently. We won’t abide that sort of thing in this town.”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”
Inspector Starnes went to confer with McKnight.
* * *
My feet healed quickly, although I wouldn’t be going back over the Chilkoot Pass any time soon. I could get around without being carried but was limited to the distance covered by the direct route between the Savoy and Mrs. Mann’s boarding house. My son seemed to enjoy looking after me, and I enjoyed his attentions. Ray continued to look excessively pleased with himself, and that I was not at all pleased about. I suspected Irene was making friends with Ray in order to try to squelch any gossip about herself and Maggie. Poor Ray.
I’d worry about that tomorrow. Today a small crowd stood at the gangplank leading to the steamboat Queen Victoria.
Mouse O’Brien and Martha Witherspoon had come to say their farewells. Ray Walker and Richard Sterling were there also. Mary stood close to Angus, who held on to her small cardboard suitcase. A large coloured woman was with them, wiping her eyes on an embroidered handkerchief. Yesterday, my lovely son had gone upriver to Moosehide Island, by himself, to talk to Bishop Bompas. It had been agreed that the steamboat would drop Mary off at the village, and she could stay with the Bishop and his wife while he looked for a place for her.
“I have them all, Fiona,” Euila said.
“All what?”
“Martha’s notes. She said she won’t be needing them, and I can do what I want with them. Wasn’t that nice of her?”