A Singular and Whimsical Problem Read online

  Books by Rachel McMillan

  HERRINGFORD AND WATTS MYSTERIES

  The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder

  Of Dubious and Questionable Memory (2016)

  (ebook-only novella)

  A Lesson in Love and Murder (2016)

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Cover by Harvest House Publishers Inc.

  Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A SINGULAR AND WHIMSICAL PROBLEM

  Copyright © 2015 Rachel McMillan

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  ISBN 978-0-7369-6646-7 (eBook)

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  Contents

  Books by Rachel McMillan

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Dedication

  To Kat Chin and Karin Chun Taite for all the singular and whimsical Torontonian adventures

  Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man, it is perhaps better to take the knee of the trouser. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward.

  SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE,

  “THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE,”

  NOVEMBER 1892

  Every bachelor girl must know the weapons in her repertoire: knitting needles, thread, the turn of a fan by her dainty wrist, a delicate, long finger as she points to a sumptuous treat displayed on a tray as she entertains. A bachelor girl has more weapons at her disposal than she realizes. While the men might play at cards and guns, so she can play at demure smiles and coy glances. Go to battle, yes, but with a well-steeped kettle of tea and a batch of irresistible muffins. You will slay him where he stands and he will be rendered powerless.

  FROM DOROTHEA FAIRFAX’S COMPENDIUM TO BACHELOR GIRLHOOD

  One

  November, 1910

  The blade was at Merinda’s neck.

  I had a revolver in the pocket of my trousers. We were clad in men’s clothes, three steps ahead of the Morality Squad and legions away from feminine propriety. My shaky fingers felt for and slowly extracted the pistol.

  “You’re sure taking your time, Jem!” Merinda cried.

  “Quiet, or I’ll finish the job.” A dark voice echoed between the surrounding walls.

  “All right, all right!” I held the gun out. “There! Consider yourself threatened!” I cocked the pistol as Merinda had taught me, and though perspiration trailed into my eyes and my hand was far from steady, I aimed it just above her shoulder blade and at the breast of her captor. He was larger than she and far taller too.

  “Don’t shoot me!” Merinda pleaded. “Cracker jacks, Jem! Do you want him to slice me in two?”

  “Could he really slice you in two?” I wondered in a wobbly voice. “He could just slice your neck in two… ” I peered at the man in the shadow.

  “Put the gun down!” he challenged.

  “Not until you let her go!” I screeched.

  The prop knife clicked closed and Constable Jasper Forth of the Toronto Police, our long-time friend, folded it into his pocket, gently disentangling Merinda from his hold. “Self-defense class is over. You fail, both of you.”

  “Fail!” Merinda stretched a crick in her shoulder. “We did not fail.”

  “You fail because any real criminal would have killed you both by now. It was a mistake to think I could teach you. These lessons are over.”

  “Please don’t say that. You’re a wonderful teacher,” I pleaded. Upon Merinda’s whining, Jasper had agreed to teach us some tricks of his trade, and I didn’t want the lessons to be over before they got going.

  He shook his head, sighing. “I never in a million years expected to provide pro bono training for Merinda Herringford and Jem Watts, lady detectives.”

  I passed Merinda the ivory-handled pistol. “Jasper, I wish we could use a fake gun. This one worries me.”

  “There are no bullets in it, Jem.”

  “But what if…?”

  He took the pistol, unlatched the cylinder, and shook it demonstratively. “See… ”

  Merinda and I gasped as a bullet fell from the overturned weapon to the floor.

  “Oh Merinda, I could have shot you. Or you, Jasper.” I teetered a little, the weight of what might have been hitting me full force. Jasper caught me tightly around the waist. When I looked up at him, my world was still turning.

  “Easy, Jem,” he coaxed, his face all concern. “Nothing happened.”

  I shrugged off the dizziness and slowly straightened. Guns made me woozy.

  “You have to stop fainting, Jem,” said Merinda. “I won’t be able to carry your slumped figure while darting after a perpetrator.”

  “It’s not Jem’s fault she keeps fainting.” Jasper looked at me kindly. “Normal people have natural responses to dangerous situations. They don’t dart after them.” He winked at Merinda. “It’s not decent.”

  “I don’t give a hang for decency and I never did!” She pulled a pocket watch from her vest. “Come, Jem! Back to King Street! You know we have an appointment.”

  The days were dawning early and cutting off shorter as November sank into December. Night and a swift sparkle of snow fell outside the broad window of our flat. For it was indeed ours: Merinda’s and mine. No husbands, no parents. Just two bachelor girls on the wrong side of twenty, our comings and goings noted only by Mrs. Malone.

  That kindly old housekeeper had chosen the most inopportune time to visit her sister. We possessed little talent for housekeeping, having been so long dependent on our dear Mrs. Malone, and our flat was in disarray. Stockings, garters, and a lace chemise or two dangled from a string Merinda had tied from over the top of the hearth to the French doors bordering our parlor. Our delicates and dainties were on display for everyone to see. A line of negligees. My best corset!

  “Merinda, can’t we send the washing out until Mrs. Malone gets back?” With our client’s arrival imminent, I whisked the underthings from the line and into a basket crooked in my arm.

  I wasn’t fast enough. The bell rang, and I opened the door to greet a well-dressed lady adorned in a dark blue day suit and a feathered hat. She raised an eyebrow at the basket of lingerie. I blushed, hurrying to the kitchen to make tea while Merinda greeted our client and showed her into the sitting room.

/>   I was still assembling the plate of biscuits when I heard an emphatic “No!” Quickly gathering up the tea service, I returned to the sitting room and began pouring out three cups.

  “No?” The woman recoiled at Merinda’s vehement denial. “But I can pay! I’m told that most of the work you do for immigrant women is done out of the goodness of your hearts: I am a paying client.” The well-dressed lady settled on our doily-ornamented settee, gingerly sipping the hot black tea I supplied her.

  “Yes, you can pay.” Merinda sounded bored. “But my mind cannot handle your case.”

  I smirked: “Too complex, Merinda?”

  “It’s a cat, Jem,” she hissed at me.

  “Not just any cat,” the woman said. “Pepper!”

  Merinda made a sound I cannot emulate in prose. She stretched her legs and narrowed her eyes. “No. No cats! I don’t even like cats!”

  “Ms. Herringford, please. Please. My husband is Clinton Walters. I will pay you whatever you wish.”

  I took in a hiss of air. Clinton Walters was a shipping magnate—one of Toronto’s most prosperous citizens. But Merinda seemed unimpressed by the name. “You’ll pay for a mangy cat?”

  “Merinda.” I leaned forward in the armchair opposite the hearth and spoke carefully. “We could use the money.” I opened my blue eyes wide and bored them into her, willing her to understand what I hesitated to say aloud: Our accounts were close to empty.

  “Oh, cracker jacks. Very well! We’ll find your wretched cat!”

  “Brava!” Mrs. Walters clapped her gloved hands and reached into her pocketbook. “Consider this an advance for your services, Ms. Herringford.” She unscrewed the cap from a heavy pen and wrote out a check for a generous sum, finishing with a bold flourish on her signature.

  Merinda, mumbling something about needles in haystacks, wasn’t paying attention to the check held out to her. I rose instead and accepted it politely.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Walters,” said Merinda. “I’ll let you know when we find Peepers.”

  “Pepper,” I said quickly.

  “I am much obliged to you. Here.” Mrs. Walters lifted a locket on a long chain from underneath her high collar and opened its delicate clasp. Inside was a portrait of an ebony cat with one ear. “This will help you recognize Pepper.”

  Merinda didn’t even turn as Mrs. Walters rose and I walked her to the door, ducking under our laundry line. “Jem, take her particulars!” Merinda bellowed.

  “Is she always like this?” asked Mrs. Walters in a low tone.

  “You’re lucky to find her in such a pleasant mood,” I said.

  I returned to the sitting room, waving the check. “This is quite a tidy sum, Merinda. And how hard can it be to find a cat?”

  Merinda had rather brilliant cat eyes herself, and they were eyeing me skeptically. “Jem, this is a big city. Lots of black cats. We ought to just find the first one that crosses our path and present him to Mrs. Walters.”

  “But she is awfully attached to him. He is her best friend.”

  “You cannot be best friends with a cat!”

  “How would you know? You don’t even know how to be best friends with a human!”

  “The game is afoot!” she cried, quoting Holmes. “And that game”—here, she sneered—“is a feline. Come, Jem! We best gather the troops! We’ll need Kat and Mouse!”

  Kat and Mouse were two young urchins who lived near the docks. They were our eyes and ears in the dark corners of Toronto, observing and collecting information otherwise unavailable to young ladies of our station.

  But before Merinda could rise from her chair to enlist their services, the bell rang again—more firmly this time. I escorted another woman into the sitting room. She was tall and classically beautiful, with warm brown eyes and the most stunning red hair I had ever seen. She seated herself in the chair Mrs. Walters had just vacated, a strange sort of command in her bearing.

  “What can we do for you?” I asked.

  Before the woman could answer, Merinda recognized her. “Of course! You’re Martha Kingston,” she cried, leaning forward in her chair. “The notorious advocate for women’s suffrage. I’ve seen you in the papers.”

  The woman nodded regally. “I am. I’ve followed the two of you in the papers as well. You too have a noble cause—aiding women in distress.” Her long fingers played with the brooch at her lace collar. “I’m here today because one of my colleagues has gone missing. At the last rally the police got involved, and several of us were thrown in jail for the night. It’s a consequence of the work we do. But while most of us were released the next day, one of my colleagues, Jeannette, hasn’t been seen since.”

  “St. Jerome’s?” I wondered aloud. St. Jerome’s Reformatory for Vagrant and Incorrigible Females was an imposing structure near the harbor. It was a dreadful place—a place where women were thrown away. I shivered at the thought of it.

  “This was my suspicion as well. I went to ask after her, but they say they don’t have anyone by that name in residence. I wish you could find out what happened to her.” Martha reached into her handbag and extracted a few bills. “I do hope you will let me know if you find anything.”

  I accepted the bills and set them on the table. “So she just vanished into thin air? Any idea where she might have gone? Might she have run away?”

  Martha shook her head. “She was devoted to our cause. She knew that a night behind bars and a few scrapes here and there were to be expected. I cannot see her vanishing without a word.” Martha looked up and out the window for a moment. Eventually, her eyes met ours. “Something happened to Jeannette after she was put in that cell. I want you to find out what.”

  Wordlessly, Merinda nodded. I took Martha’s particulars and saw her to the door.

  In the Holmes stories, the great detective stimulates his mind with a seven-percent solution of cocaine. Merinda’s own addiction was to Turkish coffee with head-buzzing quantities of caffeine. She was on her fourth cup of the day and her fingertips were shaking, her cat eyes flickering.

  I had been taking notes on the chalkboard hanging near the fireplace. A wayward cat. A missing suffragette. Two paying cases in one day! Our prospects were looking up.

  “Get your coat,” Merinda said suddenly, setting aside the ornate copper pot that still held the last bitter dregs of coffee. “We can set Kat and Mouse on the trail—and maybe stumble across this wretched cat if we have any luck. And we need to consult with Ray DeLuca. He might have some ideas about Jeannette—or at least who we can bribe to tell us.”

  I willed myself not to blush at the mention of Ray DeLuca. Toronto was a battlefield of rival journalists, tripping over themselves to find the first hint of excitement. On the very bottom rung of respectability, Ray sat behind a peeling desk at a thrice-weekly paper called the Hogtown Herald. Lately he had taken to writing our adventures in detection as part of his regular beat—always two steps behind us, catching us in our male garb, with a sly half-smile and a pencil ready to record whatever schemes he found us in. Always with those eyes as dark as ebony and hair that tumbled over his forehead and features that some Renaissance painter would have immortalized…

  We bundled in winter coats and hats and left the comfort of our sitting room. We had just closed the door behind us when a newsboy saw us and waved.

  “The Hog, ladies. You’re in this one.”

  Merinda reached into her pocket and tipped him a penny, snapping open the paper so we could both read the headlines.

  Crime Slows, Bachelor Girl Detectives Reduced to Fowl Play

  Who stole Mr. Murdoch’s chicken? That was the only thing on Merinda Herringford’s mind as she barreled through St. Lawrence last Tuesday, determined to reunite the bird (affectionately known as Fidget) with its owner…

  I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Fowl play!”

  “This is detestable! How could he write such a thing? And if he hears we’re looking for a cat… ”

  “Merinda, you have to admit it’s funny.
And we did find the chicken… and now we have a supply of eggs to last us the winter!”

  Our footsteps echoed briefly on the pavement before turning to catch an approaching trolley. We didn’t have to go as far as the Hog presses down by the harbor to find Ray. He was at his favorite diner, the Wellington, and there we found him tucking into a lunch of corned beef, coleslaw, and coffee—all at a rather alarming pace.

  Merinda seated herself beside him, helping herself to a pickle from his plate. I swooshed my skirt beneath me and lowered myself into the chair across from him.

  He swallowed, not looking surprised to see us. “Welcome, Miss Herringford, Miss Watts.”

  “Fowl play?” Merinda chastised, leaning in.

  “I thought it was remarkably clever.” DeLuca’s words drifted on a lush Italian accent.

  Merinda scowled. “We are above this. Do you want us to become a laughingstock?”

  “Laughingstock… livestock… ” Ray played with a few headlines under his breath, much to Merinda’s annoyance. He winked at me while she fumed.

  “DeLuca, I want to be respected. I want us to be accepted as the professional investigators we are. Headlines like this don’t help us. I didn’t even know you were at St. Lawrence last week when we were chasing that blasted chicken.”

  “You see, but you do not observe,” he said, taking a sip from his drink.

  “I want you to take us seriously.”

  “Then stop bounding about in pants after dark and getting into scrapes.”

  “We don’t get into scrapes.”

  He looked at me, ignoring Merinda. “Tea, Jemima?” He lifted a hand to the waitress, who acknowledged him with a nod. She returned in a moment with a pot and was rewarded with a smile.

  “It’s you!” The waitress started at the sight of Merinda and me, almost dropping the pot. I supposed we were easy to recognize from the papers.

  “It is,” Merinda confirmed, and dismissed the waitress with a wave after she poured the tea. “DeLuca, if I say the name Clinton Walters, you say… ”