The White Feather Murders Read online

  And while Jasper Forth had waited a very long time to hear Merinda say something of this nature,* he knew it had little to do with her becoming suddenly desirous for his company.

  “I will happily accompany you, Merinda,” Jasper said, accepting the glass of water Mrs. Malone handed him. “But I advise you and Jemima to consider the honor of this invitation. It won’t do to get Sir Henry Pelham on the offense.”

  “I am inviting you as a coconspirator! That pesky war agent Milbrook and Waverley were worried about will most likely be traipsing after Sir Henry Pelham!”

  Jem, who had little appetite, was seated not in her usual place, but rather at the end of the table nearest the door leading to the kitchen, where the telephone was housed. “You are sure Ray didn’t try calling the station?”

  “Jem, I swear to you that if I hear anything at all, I will let you know. When Ray wants to be found, we will find him. He took a few hits to his pride today.”

  Jem nodded and focused on shifting peas around her plate with her fork.

  “I don’t mean to make an enemy of Sir Henry,” Merinda said, continuing their earlier line of conversation. “Waverley seemed to be suspicious of some underhanded smuggling that could happen, and we know how close Sir Henry is to the war agent. Also, if one of his automobiles was indeed the same one that hit Jemima, I highly doubt Henry was driving it. He probably doesn’t know how to steer on a city street. The rich lot always have fellows to see to that sort of thing.”

  Jasper had initially tucked into his dinner with a relish, but now, with Jemima’s dour mood and Merinda’s insistence on speaking of the case, his eyes drifted toward the blackboard, which could been seen through the open French doors to the adjoining sitting room.

  “I suppose it’s easy to think this man is targeting members of the Cartier Club.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t account for Hans Mueller,” Jem added.

  “Unless…” Jasper leaned over the table and motioned for Jem and Merinda to follow suit. He lowered his voice a few decibels. “Does it not strike you that Hans Mueller could have been mistaken for another young man also of the loading bay at Spenser’s? Same hair color and roughly the same build?”

  Merinda chewed on this† a moment before whispering, “Mrs. Malone’s grandson Ralph.”

  Jem shook her head. “He’s little more than a child. I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps,” Merinda expounded after a rather unladylike swallow, “this murderer is not only interested in members of the Cartier Club, but those close to them.”

  Jem’s eyes were round as saucers. “Ray!”

  “Ray is fine, Jem.” Jasper squeezed her elbow. “It was just a thought and a possible connection to explain how the Mueller kid is connected to Waverley and Milbrook.”

  Merinda, her head buzzing, was suddenly finished with her nearly clean plate and dashed toward the blackboard. She added the initials “R.M.” with a question mark beside them, vowing to not worry Mrs. Malone by ever speaking of the theory aloud.

  After a few hands of cards, in which Merinda defeated Jasper,‡ he took his leave. Merinda prattled on about appropriate attire for the Pelham dinner, remembering with delight what Lady Adelaide had said about her affection for bowler hats.

  “You’ll still have to manage some sense of propriety!” Jem snapped, cutting her off.

  “Cracker jacks, Jem. You don’t have to snarl just because DeLuca is out prowling the city like a fox. He has done as much before.” She studied her friend a moment in the flickering lamplight mellowing the sitting room, and her features softened slightly. “Was today a little… you are not feeling too worse for wear from our adventures today, are you?”

  Jem shook her head. “I’m fine. Good night, Merinda.”

  “It’s late, Jemima. You never burn the midnight oil.”

  “I promise I will retire presently.”

  As Merinda’s footfall on the stairwell faded, Jem pulled her knees up to her chest and listened to the comforting tick of the grandfather clock. The sounds of her friend’s house were like an old quilt, something Jem could sink into and within its folds excavate the past. She recalled the days when she had lived here, slipping out at night in bowlers and trousers to sneak after a missing pocket watch or cat. Then, the resplendent first days when Ray DeLuca colored her world and every rosebud on the wallpaper reminded her of the terrible poetry on the sheets of the stolen§ journal she tucked beneath her lavender-scented pillow.

  She finally turned down the lamps and ascended the stairs, performed her evening toilette, and attempted to settle into sleep. Instead, memory called, and with it her heart flurried with moments at once adventurous and commonplace in a city that was exciting and new and a life she was finally deciding for herself beyond the perimeters of her parents’ expectations.

  She was just beginning to drift off when she heard a rather pronounced thud at the windowpane. At first she supposed it had begun to rain and droplets were pounding on the window. But its insistent rhythm was of a stronger staccato, and it finally drew her legs from under the covers.

  She tied her robe around her while striding toward the window-sill to draw open the curtains.

  She blinked to adjust her vision to the waning streetlight before finally making out the perpetrator. She squeaked her delight and threw open the window.

  “Where have you been all day?”

  “Consuming about eighty egg drop tarts,” Ray called up in a dramatic whisper. In response, a stray dog began barking, and a light from a window across the street shone through closed curtains.

  “I’ll be down there in a moment,” she called quietly. She turned away, letting the curtain fall into place behind her.

  “Get dressed!” she heard through the window.

  And suddenly the night was alive and the room fizzled.

  Jem quickly stepped into a pair of cotton pants and shirt, leaving her braided hair hatless. She eased from her room and down the stairs as silently as she could and then was out the front door, closing it behind her.

  “I am so sorry about… I thought that…” her fragmented sentences were stopped by her husband the moment she stepped outside.

  He smiled and took her hand. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Jem merely caught his smile under the streetlight, tightening her hold on his hand and happy to wind along dark streets with their lazy sputtering lamps and eerie blanket of quiet just so long as he was at the helm.

  They took King at a pace she knew required effort on Ray’s part. He had an incessant need to render the city smaller by taking it in fervent stride. She turned to whisper she loved being married to someone who couldn’t sit still, but he pressed his finger to his lips, making out what he could of her visage in the half shadows before pressing onward.

  Several silent moments later, Jem renewed by the pressure of his fingers intertwined with hers and the friction of his cotton shirt against her sleeve, they reached their destination on dark Victoria Street.

  “I am certain this is highly illegal,” she informed him, even as he kicked down the rattling fire escape stairs suspended from the back of the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres.

  He motioned for her to ascend first, and she carefully held to the bars in the pitch-dark night around them, taking the stairs gingerly, conscious of the limited movement rendered by her bruised rib.

  When she reached the landing, she turned and waited for him. Ray confidently raised the lever and pushed open the door.

  “They really do need tighter security on this place,” he said with a wink she could just make out in the shimmer of moonlight before they stepped into the building.

  She knew what awaited her there: a forest, a sweet secret, a bower safe from shattered glass and enemy alien cards. Ray scratched a match on the brick wall and flicked it into a small flame, using it to light a discarded lantern. Then he moved toward the electrical switch and clicked it on, Jem’s heart catching at the movement.
r />   She could hear a smile in his voice as he said, “You would think after all this time that a celebrated female detective wouldn’t jump at the slightest noise.”

  Soon enough they were surrounded by the theatre’s forest. On the other side of a fire curtain, adorned in an elaborate pastoral set, the stage stretched toward rows of empty chairs.

  “I am so sorry about what happened at the Hog,” Jem blurted out. “I don’t want you to think I didn’t try to find you, because I did—”

  “I didn’t want to be found.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “You needn’t have been. I was…” He flipped through his mind for a word. “I was selfishly sulking and far too proud to see you.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  Ray lowered himself to the lip of the stage and then hopped off. He extended his arms to Jem, and she gingerly crouched, feeling some discomfort in the region of her sore rib before stumbling into his arms. “I remembered, fair Jemima, that this is a row we have had before.” He could see the wheels in Jem’s mind turn. “Before Hamish was born.”

  “It is a row we shall have again, Ray, and again and again.”

  He held her tightly, and she tucked her head under his chin. “It is a row I have with myself,” she whispered into his shirt. “I want to be everything. I want to be a wonderful mother to Hamish, and I want to be everything you need me to be. But I also want to be myself. I never want to lose that little jump of feeling I get when we are out on a case or seeing my name in the paper or following Merinda.”

  “You are relaying to me things that made me fall in love with you.”

  Jem stepped back slowly, still holding on to his forearms. “But you are angry with Merinda, and you couldn’t force two sentences together when I was in the hospital.”

  “Because you take the words from me, Jemima. You always, always have.”

  “I suppose I want too much.” She felt her bruised side. Ray noticed her slight wince and led her to a chair in the front row.

  “I want to be able to tell you everything that is happening. How my hand shakes since Tony’s death, how I fear for you and Hamish more now than even after our window was broken. How ashamed I am that I cannot provide for you. That you are tied to my name.”

  Jem smiled and cupped Ray’s chin in her palm. “How many men would wake me in the middle of the night and take me to my favorite place in all the world?” Her eyes traveled the theatre, from ornamented moon over latticed flowers and dripping lanterns. “You are all I have ever wanted, Ray DeLuca. At my core it is you. Even when I want to spirit off into the city and grab at a few adventures of my own. In the deepest part of me, it is you. The very center.”

  Ray smiled, and Jem wondered if the fake buds adorning the stage would start to bloom, or if the lights would flicker and brighten further still with the effect.

  “I will stay at Merinda’s as you wish, but I will not go so many nights and days without you near me.” Jem was adamant. “Which is why it is rather opportune that you sought me out tonight.” She straightened and clutched Ray’s hand. “I would like you to be my escort to Pelham Park tomorrow evening at the personal invitation of Sir Henry and Lady Adelaide.” Jem’s eyes grew as she shared the details of how the invitation came to be, and Ray grinned at her enthusiasm.

  Then the magnitude of her request washed over him, and he paled slightly. “Jemima, can you imagine me at a fancy dinner at Pelham Park?”

  Jem cut off his deepening frown with a lingering kiss. A moment later,¶ she caught her breath and combed her fingers through his hair. “Darling, I can imagine you anywhere. You can be remarkably charming when you put your mind to it.”

  * Precisely 7 years, 3 months, and 22 days.

  † And simultaneously her third roll.

  ‡ Partly because she creatively conjured up her own rules.

  § For more on Jemima’s uncustomary thievery please consult The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder.

  ¶ In this instance, several moments.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A proper wife must be at all times ready to infiltrate any manner of society, even to its highest echelons. This requires that she be versed in all manner of social etiquette from china and cutlery to conversational conventions. It would not do for her to embarrass her husband on account of her being unprepared to blend in with the upper crust.

  Flora Merriweather, Guide to Domestic Bliss

  Merinda almost looked like a lady in her best organdy dress, but black ankle boots and a bowler interfered a little with her efforts. Strands of pearls from her uncle’s costume trunk in the attic were swathed around her neck with a small Union Jack affixed on her collar.

  Jemima was more traditionally outfitted in a dress of delicate lavender and lace gloves.

  She gave a little laugh as she descended the stairs. “Merinda, you cannot go looking like that.”

  “We are celebrities, Jemima.” Merinda gave herself a saucy look in the mirror and was pleased with what she saw. Jasper, too, was pleased when he arrived dressed in spit-shone shoes and blue uniform.

  Ray arrived a few moments later, out of breath and attempting to smooth down his hair. Not owning anything remotely appropriate for the occasion, he was adorned in a suit he’d borrowed from Ethan Talbot. His collar button was open, and his jacket draped his shoulders in a cavalier embrace.

  Jem extended her hands, and he took them both with a smile. He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You are radiant,” he said, his eyes twinkling appreciatively.

  “And me?” Merinda pouted at Jasper as she tugged a few of her blond curls from under her bowler.

  “You are you.” Jasper’s congenial voice made it a compliment.

  He waited while the girls walked ahead of him, stepping into the lemon light of evening and in the direction of a hired vehicle that cost Jasper more than a day’s salary.

  A white-gloved driver opened the door and stretched his hand to Jemima, who gathered her skirts and lowered herself into the vehicle. Merinda turned to smile at Ray, whose eyes were kept straight ahead.

  “We haven’t spoken two words to each other in as many days.” Her voice held entreaty. He didn’t move or blink. Deflated, she joined Jasper and Jem in the back, Ray settling in the front.

  The driver smoothly swerved off King and onto Spadina Road.

  “He’s a much calmer driver than Merinda.” Jem tried for a light voice in response to Ray’s inquiry as to her comfort in the back.

  The car slowly climbed the hill from Walmer, and soon the stone gates of the castle perched high atop a hill overlooking the city came into view.

  The driver swerved right, and the magnitude of the mansion was made manifest, highlighted by the setting sun.

  “Did Mr. Rochester live here?” Jem whispered to Merinda after they had exited the automobile and went through the open wrought iron gate. The imposing Gothic structure overtook the whole of their sightlines.

  “It’s magnificent!” Merinda gaped at the tiered fountain, the tennis courts, and the extensive gardens.

  Jem grabbed Ray’s arm. “Can you imagine? It’s all a fairy tale! And look—”

  “Ah, my lady detectives!” came a familiar voice a moment later, interrupting Jem’s gushing.

  Lady Adelaide appeared before them in a fashionable dress of delicate black satin with a sheen of lace over the bodice. Ebony glass beads set off her white skin at the open neckline, and a gigantic diamond ring drew the eye to violet gloves extending from fingertip to elbow. Atop her head at a prim angle was the promised bowler.

  “Cracker jacks!” giggled Merinda. “That really is the most atro—”

  Jem, anticipating her friend’s reaction, introduced their escorts with all of the propriety her breeding could muster.

  “Constable Forth,” Lady Adelaide acknowledged. “Mr. DeLuca.” She puzzled over Ray a moment, noticing perhaps for the first time the wink of Jem’s plain wedding band and the possessive hand with which
she clutched Ray’s arm. “Indeed, you are not Jem Watts after all.”

  Jem shook her head happily, her curls dancing slightly under her glistening bandeau. “My maiden name,” she explained. “But familiar to the press.”

  “Of course.” Lady Adelaide flashed Ray a genuine smile, winning a slight one from him in return.

  While Ray was visibly nervous, Jasper used the opportunity to prove to Merinda exactly how at ease he found himself in a variety of situations. He bowed to Lady Pelham, using the hand not clutching his hat under his arm to take her own hand for a kiss.

  “A constable and a gentleman!” Lady Pelham was delighted. She stepped slightly ahead of them and flung her arms out to her wide property. “You must take in as much as you like. You’ll find refreshments in the tents yonder, and the gardens are yours to explore. Later, after dinner, I would be pleased to give you a tour of the house itself. Mind, a few wings are yet to be completed* on account of the war. Sir Henry and I want to ensure that Toronto’s young men are available for service, and that our industry and resources are available to help the city at large and not just the perfection of our grand estate here.”

  “That is very generous of you, Lady Pelham,” Jasper said.

  “One such area is the indoor pool. It will sit right off a tunnel that Sir Henry constructed to lead from the main house to the garages.” She inclined her head. “But Sir Henry has decided that is the area of construction of the least importance while we do our part for the war effort, so the poor space goes unused. A shame. It will be one of the first in the city!” Lady Adelaide turned to Ray. “I suppose you would like to see the automobiles? My husband keeps quite a collection.”

  Merinda caught Ray’s eye and nodded her encouragement. Yes, her cat eyes read, you do want to see the automobiles. One may have crashed into your wife.

  Ray merely smiled at Lady Pelham, who transferred her attention to Jem. “We have just acquired the most darling pair of Indian peacocks,” she enthused.