The White Feather Murders Read online

  Jasper was startled to see Jem and Merinda lead Lars into the station house, a dirty, bleary-eyed St. Clair holding his sore neck and muttering a string of curses.

  “What are you doing?” Jasper said to Merinda.

  “Solving Hans Mueller’s murder.” Merinda shoved her finger into St. Clair’s shoulder. “He may not be our white feather murderer, but he killed an innocent kid at Spenser’s.”

  “It was an accident,” St. Clair said through gritted teeth.

  “Really? I was also there at the scene,” Jasper said, coldly. “Didn’t look much like an accident to me.” He ran his hand over his face. “Then you had the audacity to go and inform the family that…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Never mind. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Jasper turned to Merinda, Jem, and Lars. “We can take it from here,” he said, grabbing St. Clair’s arm and leading him in the direction of his office for questioning. “You all had best be off home. It’s late.”

  Merinda nodded, and the trio set out into the night, leaving Jasper disgruntled, shocked, and perplexed. His first thought was most likely the one running through Merinda’s head. If St. Clair was Hans’s murderer and the white feather found with him presumably an accident, their pattern was off.

  Not twenty minutes later, St. Clair was moved to a holding cell with Tipton arriving due to the emergency phone call that dispatched him.

  By the time the chief met with Jasper, his eyes were bleary, and he muttered several curses under his breath.

  “I wouldn’t have called for you, sir, if it wasn’t an emergency,” Jasper said, following Tipton into his office and watching the chief pour a finger of strong liquid from his decanter.

  “Forth, you can’t hold St. Clair.”

  “He admitted to killing the Mueller kid! There were witnesses. He’s also the man prowling in the Ward and making the lives of these innocent people a living hell!”

  “He says it was an accident.”

  “Some accident.” Jasper ignored the chief’s insistence that he take a seat.

  “Can you imagine how this will look in the papers?” Tipton asked. “It’s hard enough for us to scrape up some credibility as is. Let’s just write it off as St. Clair being a little too rough. I’ll give him a slap on the wrist and the public will never know.”

  Jasper’s eyes widened “You can’t be serious. He killed a boy, sir! An innocent boy! He’s been smashing windows, probably getting in and around on account of being in uniform.”

  “He has a lot to learn, granted. But I am ordering you to keep quiet.”

  Jasper stood a moment, gripping his hands behind his back. They shook slightly. This was an order he wouldn’t listen to, and it ran through his ears and buzzed through his fingers. He was stepping away from something deeply inherent in him, the response to a command.

  “No, sir,” Jasper said evenly.

  “Excuse me, Forth? Are you disobeying my direct order?”

  “Yes, I am, sir. I am going to let Toronto know there is no unseen terror. That there is a man responsible for the actions in the Ward, and that Hans Mueller died innocently as a result of the brutish tactics of a prejudiced officer.”

  “I will have your badge, Forth, so quickly that—”

  Jasper reached into his pocket and flung it onto Tipton’s desk. “Spare me, sir. I give it freely. I want nothing to do with your tyrannical brigade.” He turned toward the door, his breath heaving and a cold sweat sheening his face. What had he done? Then, settled with a strange certainty, he turned. “I don’t know what justice you’re peddling here, but I can’t believe in it anymore.”

  “You’re a fool, Forth. You have a great career ahead of you. I am only doing what is best for the station.”

  “You are doing what is best for you. And you are not the law. And I will not subscribe to your skewed view of justice anymore.”

  “Forth, if you—”

  But Jasper was gone, slamming the door behind him. He bounded into his office and then bounded out, grabbed a canvas sack from evidence, and returned to his office, collecting all of his trinkets and knickknacks and photographs—one of his parents, one of himself and Merinda—and he shoved them all in. When he left, he clicked closed the door of his office reverently, tipped his head in acknowledgment of Kirk, and set out into the night.

  “Constable Forth!” Skip McCoy intercepted him on the station steps. “I heard of some sort of ruckus in the Ward.”

  “What are you doing sulking around the Ward at this time of night, Skip?” Jasper growled. He couldn’t plaster even a semblance of amicability for the photographer this evening.

  “Always following a story,” Skip said, shoving his glasses up his nose. “Quote for the Hog?”

  “I miss Ray,” Jasper said sourly, taking the last steps of the station house without looking back.

  “You have a lot of stuff there, Constable Forth,” Skip said thoughtfully, looking at the sack Jasper was clutching.

  “I just quit.”

  Skip came closer. “You quit the police? Now, there is a story.” Skip proclaimed a headline: “Tipton Loses His Finest. What are you going to do now?”

  “Besides sidestep nosy photographers?” Jasper smirked. “I haven’t yet decided.”

  * This particular Sherlock Holmes paraphrase from The Hound of the Baskervilles was one Merinda had attributed to Jemima before in an adventure documented as Conductor of Light.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The boats lap into Toronto Harbor, and the trains belch smoke from Union Station, and droves of men in khaki filter in and out to the shrill of the train whistles while a band plays “The Maple Leaf Forever” in the corner. Mothers and sweethearts and wives wave handkerchiefs in white surrender to the change coursing through their world.

  Newsies sell out within the first hours of the new day. Any news that would bring the victory that is promised us by Christmas.

  The city empties of men young and middling, whose boots scrape the promenade of Yonge, heavy under its swinging Union Jacks in a mournful parade, before leaving for a world that might never release them.

  In Britain, the men who have not yet enlisted find white feathers of cowardice slipped to them in shame.

  And yet there is another layer to the corruption even as families wring their sorrows with their damp handkerchiefs: the self-same that waved their lads off to the fray. Those Torontonians who had the audacity to be born of a country that is pitted against Great Britain as we answer the piper’s call.

  Martha Kingston,* the Globe and Mail

  Time crawled. September arrived, and the newspapers were so preoccupied with the escalating conflict that the white feather murders took a back burner. Mayor Montague himself expressed solidarity with Chief Tipton, who was adamant police efforts were more productively charged in keeping the peace of the city.

  “We must put these unfortunate events behind us,” Montague was quoted as saying. “Violence in the Ward. Perceived notions of police neglect. We must move forward. We are all doing what we can.”

  Even though St. Clair had been deported back to his post in Hamilton, the vandalism in the Ward trolled onward. It seemed to come mostly from street kids now, but also from some grown men with an agenda. Tipton finally caved and saw that junior officers were put on double patrol. There was no one as able to elude detection as St. Clair had been. Not possessing his police disguise, it was easier to catch vandals and tyrants in the act.

  Merinda visited Mouse almost daily, Jem sometimes at her side. Mrs. Malone was at the ready with baskets of her favorite treats. The doctors assumed something was pressing onto the little girl’s brain, locking her in a slumber they were unsure would give way to eventual waking.

  Martha Kingston’s editorials in the Globe were so well received that when she pulled back the curtain on their true source, the staff at the city’s most popular paper decided to hire Ray DeLuca themselves. The interim managing editor told Ray that it was unanimous. The whole staff, f
rom the typesetters to researchers, had nothing but respect for his expositions. In Waverley’s honor, Ray was assured, they were taking the paper in a new direction—and what better voice to lead the way?

  Merinda rang to congratulate him, but he remained curt to her. Frustrated, she slammed down the receiver and returned to the blackboard.

  “Obstinate!” she repeated over and over even as Mrs. Malone announced a visitor. “Are you settled into your new domestic bower?” Merinda was feeling surly as Jem walked into the parlor.

  “Merinda, I thought you would be happy that we are closer and that we have working electricity and a telephone!” Jem couldn’t stifle her smile. “I will be at your beck and call.”

  “Much good it will do us on this case,” Merinda huffed.

  “Perhaps this is not the most suitable hour for you to receive me.” Jem’s tone was sarcastic.

  “What have we accomplished?”

  “Merinda, please don’t. You have done so much. What happened to Mouse is not your fault.”

  “What have we accomplished?”

  “There are so many people whose lives are better because of your adamancy that a woman can pursue a man’s profession. Our empathy and our resilience and our stubbornness have all contributed.” She accepted the china cup Mrs. Malone handed her, exchanging a sympathetic nod with the housekeeper. When Jem wasn’t in close proximity, she knew the dear lady was on the receiving end of many of Merinda’s barbs. “Look at Heidi Mueller. Her brother’s killer has been identified and is no longer in Toronto. There is one less insect prowling on the weak in St. John’s Ward.”

  “And justice?” Merinda hedged.

  “We have to believe that there will be final justice for him, Merinda,” Jem said somberly. “If not here, then in the next life.”

  Merinda paced silently before flopping into her chair, stretching out her trouser-clad legs in front of her. “My world is changing. I don’t want this autumn wind to come any closer and bewilder what is left of this summer. Is it our last summer, Jemima?”

  “I-I can’t say. Merinda, you need something to hold on to. Some fixed point.”

  “You’re my fixed point, Jem.” Her voice was tremulous.

  “No. I cannot be. You know that. Once I was here, but then I met Ray and had Hamish and our world has changed. And it might keep evolving. You need to believe in something. Something beyond me.”

  Merinda shook her head at the empty hearth. “Don’t.”

  “Merinda—”

  “I believe in you and Jasper and DeLuca. But now…” She clutched the sides of her armchair and faced Jem straight on, her green eyes blazing. “DeLuca is no longer at the Hog, Jasper quit his job, Mouse is in the hospital, and you… I don’t know what to believe in.”

  “I know,” Jem said softly.

  “I’m not ready.”

  “Maybe not. But you will be. Someday. I have faith in that. For now…” Jem raised an I-have-an-idea finger and turned toward the bureau. A moment later, she returned with the papers they had snapped from Philip Carr before Mouse’s accident. “Keep your mind occupied. It rebels at stagnation.” Jem laughed at her Holmes’s paraphrase.

  Merinda flipped through the papers with a fresh eye. “If we take this incriminating evidence to the police, what do you think they will do?” Merinda worked her teeth over her bottom lip. “Arrest Carr? Spenser? Montague?”

  Jem shook her head. “Probably not, but I know you still believe that the white feather murderer is tied to the potential of this munitions smuggling. Someone who knew we would be on its trail.”

  Merinda studied the blackboard. “But who?”

  “I have to go,” Jem said, rising. “But I know we’ll figure it out, Merinda. And now,” she leaned forward to grip Merinda’s hand a moment, “I am an easy telephone call away.”

  Merinda bellowed for Mrs. Malone to see Jemima out and then redirected her attention to the papers in front of her. She loomed over the photographs. One had a jagged tear at its right corner. She held it up to the light. It was grainy and somewhat underdeveloped, but she made out the familiar logo of “Spenser’s” on the barrels and crates piled in a corner documented in the scene.

  Merinda set it aside and studied the next picture. This one was harder to make out. The photographer had spent little time processing it. Only a slight imperfection blemished the top in a black smudge, but the rim of the photograph had been lazily clipped. The scene was rather bland—tiled walls and a cement floor, without the recognizable evidence the other photograph provided.

  Merinda turned it over a few more times, losing herself in a dozen possibilities as to its whereabouts, when a knock at the door roused her.

  A moment later, Mrs. Malone admitted Jasper.

  Though dressed in civilian clothes, his bearing was the same as it had been on the police force. “I am at your disposal, Merinda.”

  “My disposal?”

  “You needed me as your connection to the police force. I can’t morally align myself with it anymore. So I will do what you need me to do to bring about the conclusion of this outstanding case, but I cannot apologize for acting on my convictions. Even those acted on regardless of your own selfish gain.”

  “Jasper, please.”

  “Merinda, I shall go mad without some occupation. Think of the freedom I have.” He tapped his forehead. “Before, Tipton wouldn’t sign off on my pursuing the white feather murders, but now…” He shrugged and settled easily onto the sofa. “Besides, Jemima is busy playing house.”

  “Hans Mueller’s murder is solved.” Merinda motioned in the direction of the blackboard. “Then why did I find a white feather at his resting place?”

  “You said St. Clair thought he heard someone else.”

  Merinda nodded. “I thought I did too. The night of the ultimatum. Maybe I imagined it… or it could have been a raccoon… but…” Merinda exhaled and moved her gaze over the photographs. “Then there are these. They were in Carr’s possession.” She handed them to him. “One is clearly a layout of Spenser’s. I have the blueprint of the warehouse as well.” She bit her lip, watching Jasper study the print. “But the other? If this is an indication as to where they might smuggle their illegal weapons, then it would do well for us to determine the second location.”

  Merinda watched Jasper squint at the print before holding it up to the light.

  While he perused it, Merinda pulled her knees to her chest, staring at no central point in the parlor. It was the same as ever: mismatched furniture of high value, crystal decanters and knickknacks from her parents’ house at a dissonant clash with cushions and drapes and a Persian carpet of the same affluent history. All stamped with objects of the profession she was never sure she would excel at.

  For Merinda Herringford was one of those rare people believed unflappable and ensconced by a heavy shell, and yet whose center was far more easily rattled than she would ever admit. Even to someone as close as Jasper.

  She straightened her shoulders with a confidence she didn’t feel and wondered what modicum of control she could exert. Outside the window, beyond the fluttering shadows of the falling light, the moon was harvest bright, foreshadowing the season slowly unfurling. It shrouded the edge of the Herringford and Watts sign, peeking up from its sentry at the front of the townhouse.

  Simultaneously, she and Jasper spoke.

  “Merinda, I have an idea…”

  “Jasper, I have an idea…”

  “Ladies first.”

  “I want to do something for Jem and DeLuca.”

  “That’s rather benevolent of you,” he said drily.

  “And you’ll help me? As you said, you have plenty of time on your hands.”

  He nodded.

  “And you?”

  “I know the location in this photograph.”

  Merinda jolted up. “Where?”

  “The night of the Pelham dinner, Ray and I were given a tour of the automobiles in Sir Henry’s extensive garage.” He nudged the ph
oto toward her. “The tile. Merinda, this photo was taken at Pelham Park.”

  Merinda brightened. “Of course!” She clapped. Then her brow furrowed. “I just need to find a way back in.”

  “Lemon everything!” Merinda instructed Mrs. Malone. “Tarts, sandwiches.” She threw her hands in the air. “Even lemonade!”

  Merinda surveyed the room and the large frame covered with a black dust sheet perched atop the easel that usually held her blackboard. After Jasper had recognized the Pelham mansion in one of Carr’s photographs, Merinda put good use to Jem’s new telephone and instructed her to find some way to return to Pelham Park. “Make up something about our canvassing for a hospital ship.”

  Jem acquiesced, and now Merinda awaited her first guest.

  When Mrs. Malone ushered Ray into the sitting room, he turned his hat over in his hands. “Merinda, sometimes I say stupid things.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Is this an apology?”

  “I just…”

  “Never you mind, DeLuca. You’ll just trip over a bunch of sentences in a hybrid of languages and then end up telling me I was right.”

  “That was not exactly—”

  “Besides, if you prattle on, I cannot give you your present. Come!” She tugged him into the dining room, where a shiny new typewriter sat proudly on the lace tablecloth.

  “I can’t accept this,” Ray said, admiring the smooth veneer of the new Underwood. “There’s no missing H key! My fingers wouldn’t be able to find their way around.” He winked.

  “It’s the latest model,” Merinda said shortly. “You’ll need it for your new job.”

  “I can’t accept it.”

  “It’s a birthday present.”

  “It’s not my birthday.”

  “Well, it was, wasn’t it?” she said, huffing. “Cracker jacks! And I clearly failed to give you a present, and… DeLuca! Don’t stand there smirking at me. Just take the stupid typewriter.” She ran her index finger over the side of the apparatus. “I don’t like it when we get to blows.” Her voice was soft.