Except the Dying (2 page)

He sat back on his heels, shielding the body as best he could. The girl was lying on her back close to a
rickety wooden fence. On the left side of her body were the purple marks of lividity. Rigor mortis was advanced, the head unmovable, the arms and legs frozen. Her eyes were closed, and he lifted one eyelid. The pupil was a mere pinprick in the light blue iris. The right eye was the same. He bent and sniffed at her mouth but there was no detectable smell of liquor. At first sight the cause of death was not apparent, no blood or obvious wounds. He leaned closer. There were three small bruises at the left wrist. He placed his own fingers on the spots. They fit. There was also a largish contusion on the inside of the forearm and another at the elbow. Gingerly, he examined her hands. The nails were cut short and there was nothing caught there that he could see. He ran his finger over the cold flesh of her palm, feeling the slight roughening. He brushed aside the snow and checked her feet. The toenails were likewise clean and there were no scratches or marks on the soles.

“Here you go, sir.” Crabtree handed him a grey hospital blanket. “She looks to be about the same age as my sister. Fourteen, if that,” he said.

“I’d put her older, myself.”

The face was youthful, especially with the thick dark hair loose about her shoulders, but her body was voluptuous, the breasts full and the hips and buttocks rounded. Murdoch covered her over and straightened up, frowning.

“Bloody peculiar, Crabtree, her eyes …”

He stopped as the police horse whinnied. There was an answering neigh from the street. Wicken was pushing the onlookers back as a two-wheeler turned into the laneway. The constable went over to hold the horse, and the elderly driver got down stiffly. He was wearing an old-fashioned houndstooth cloak and stovepipe hat and his lower face was wrapped in a white silk scarf. When he reached Murdoch he muttered, “Abscess tooth,” and indicated the scarf. He looked down at the body.

“… happened here?”

“I don’t know, sir,” answered Murdoch. “One of our constables found her about forty minutes ago.”

He pulled away the blanket so the coroner could see.

“Whoze she?”

“We haven’t determined that yet.”

“A doxy?”

“I don’t think so, sir. She’s quite clean and the constable on this beat says he hasn’t seen her before.”

The coroner indicated the purple stains on the side of the body. “… you move her?”

“No, sir, somebody else did.”

“Clothes?”

“Nowhere around. Probably stripped.”

“Heathens.” He tried to bend closer but the movement caused pain in his jaw and he straightened quickly. “She’s dead … right enough, but I …” He frowned at Murdoch. “Where’ve … seen you before?”

“Last December, sir. The Merishaw case.”

“Course, remember now. Shocking … heathen!”

The Merishaws’ servant girl had given birth to a stillborn child and tried to bury the body in the neighbour’s front yard, where some children had found it. Arthur Johnson had been the attending coroner in that instance and without the excuse of an abscessed tooth he had been just as perfunctory.

“Bring the body … morgue postmortem examination … too cold here … Get a report …”

Murdoch didn’t make out what he said. “Beg pardon, sir.”

Johnson pulled the muffler away from his mouth, then winced as the cold air hit his tooth. There was a waft of oil of cloves in the air. “I’ll get an examination done at once and send you the report.”

He quickly wrapped himself up again and started back towards his carriage, muttering something else undecipherable. Crabtree gave him a lift up into the seat, and he slapped the reins at the docile bay mare, which trotted off briskly.

Murdoch replaced the blanket. He’d never encountered a situation like this before, and although he’d felt pity for the dead girl he was also keenly aware that it might prove to be a noteworthy case. The notion was agitating. Promotion was difficult to come by in the city’s police force. The last few years had been hard economically for the city and the council had refused
Chief Grasett’s request for a bigger budget. The police force could not expand. Murdoch had been acting detective for three years and unless somebody above him in rank died or retired he was stuck there. Lately he had fretted beneath that yoke, hating the need to kow-tow to men he despised. There was a chance the dead girl could bring him some glory if he handled himself well.

The constable in charge of the ambulance called out. “D’you think you’ll be much longer, Mr. Murdoch? It’s perishing cold for the horses.”

“Put their blankets on, then.”

Richmond was a chronic complainer and lazy to boot. Murdoch had no time for him.

Grumbling, the constable got down from his seat, took two blankets from the back of the wagon and threw them over the horses. Their breath smoked in the cold air. The snow continued to drift down and bits of ice were crusting on Murdoch’s moustache from the moisture of his breath. He was grateful for the warmth of his long sealskin coat and forage hat, which he’d acquired in exchange for three plugs of Jolly Tar from a dying prisoner. The nap was gone under the arms of the coat, but it wasn’t obvious and his landlady had managed to remove most of the stains.

He motioned Constable Crabtree to come closer.

“We’d better find out who she was. Take down some notes, will you?”

Crabtree took out a black notebook and inserted a piece of carbonized paper between two pages. He was a giant of a man, made taller by his high round helmet and wider by the serge cape. His broad, ruddy face was guileless as a farmer’s, but he was shrewd and Murdoch liked and respected him.

“Righto, sir.”

“The body is that of a young female between fourteen and sixteen years of age. She has light blue eyes, dark brown wavy hair. She is approximately five foot three inches, and would weigh about nine stone. There is a small wen to the right side of the nose. No scars or pockmarks. She is wearing silver ear hoops. Got that? Before the postmortem examination we’ll get some photographs just to be on the safe side. Cavendish is the best for that, and Foster can do the drawing in case we need it for the papers. When the rigor has passed we’ll take proper Bertillon measurements.”

Crabtree was surprised. “Is it worth it, sir? You said you don’t think she’s a slag.”

“We might as well. You know how the chief feels.”

Chief Constable Grasett was very keen on Bertillonage, and he’d sent all the detectives and acting detectives on a special course the year before. In fact, Murdoch thought the laborious system had its faults, but it was better than nothing, and there were reports, probably exaggerated, of some resounding successes. Murdoch had heard that the American police were
experimenting with a method of identification using fingerprints, but so far the Toronto police had no knowledge of it.

He called to Richmond. “Bring over the stretcher.”

The constable pulled it out of the wagon and placed it on the ground beside the body. Crabtree went to help him. As they began to lift, the blanket slipped and the forearm and hand appeared, pointing toward heaven as if in supplication. The other man tried to get it covered over again. Murdoch snapped at him.

“Take care with that arm, you’ll break it.”

Richmond swore under his breath but finally managed to slide the girl over. Crabtree seized the lower handles of the stretcher and the two of them carried it into the ambulance. The driver jumped up on the front seat, clucked to the horses and set off down the lane. There was a burst of excited chatter from the watchers. At the same time a carillon of bells sounded from St. Paul’s Church, signalling the Mass. Murdoch sighed to himself. He was a Roman Catholic, but last Sunday he’d stayed in bed reading, and it looked like he’d miss this week too. Father Fair wouldn’t be happy; nor would Mrs. Kitchen, his devout landlady.

As Crabtree joined him, Murdoch pointed to the depression where the body had lain.

“Before she was moved, she was lying on her left side facing the fence. Her head was west towards Sackville, feet easterly towards Sumach Street. Her legs were
drawn up close to her body and her arms were folded against her chest.”

He stepped aside and dropped to the ground, curling himself into the position the girl had been in when she died.

“What does it look like, Crabtree?”

“Like she might have tried to get a bit of protection from the wind here where the shed juts out.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Murdoch clambered to his feet and brushed the snow from his coat.

“Was she hickey?” asked the constable.

“Don’t think so. There was no smell of liquor. We’ll have to wait for the postmortem examination to be sure. But something was wrong. I don’t like the look of it at all. As far as I know, you don’t die naturally and have pinpoint pupils. And she was bruised. Could be from somebody gripping her arm hard. If this is a crime we have to be careful. I don’t want his nibs using my stampers for boot cleaners, if we’ve missed something. At the very least we’re dealing with desecration of a dead body. Back east they used to say, when you’re not sure which way the wind is going to blow, keep your deck clean, your sail up and your Man Thomas down.”

Crabtree grinned.

Murdoch took out a retractable tape measure from his inner pocket.

The snow of the last few hours had been steadily filling up any dints, and the coming and going of the constables overlaid whatever prints had been there previously. However, at the edge of the depression where the girl had lain, he saw one clear toe print. It was narrow and pointed, as from a fashionable boot. He measured it carefully.

“Let’s have a gander down the lane.”

“Are we looking for anything in particular, sir?”

“Fresh droppings of any kind. Nothing’d last more than two days in this place, so we don’t have to worry whether it’s new or not.”

The dirt lane ran parallel to Shuter Street from River Street as far as Yonge. Over at that westerly end within sight of the cathedrals, Shuter was respectable and well tended, most of the residents professional men. You could find more doctors per square inch on Shuter and adjoining Mutual Street than bugs on a pauper’s pillow. Here, though, the houses shrivelled in size and demeanour, taken over by working-class families who were too tired or too indifferent to maintain them. Not even the covering of snow could prettify the narrow-faced, drab houses and untended backyards where the outhouses sat.

Slowly the two officers walked down the lane on each side, but there was nothing out of the ordinary that they could see. At the Sumach Street end they halted, and the people jostling against the rope barricade
stared at them. One woman had her child with her, clinging sleepily to her chest underneath her shawl. There was the usual sour odour from clothes that were never washed or removed.

“What’s going on, Officer?” the man on the stool called out.

Murdoch recognized him. “Hello there, Tinney. You’re out early.”

“I didn’t want to miss anything, Sergeant. What’s happening? We heard some tart got a nubbing.”

“You heard wrong.”

“She’s dead, though, ain’t she?” interjected a scrawny red-nosed youth.

“Unfortunately she is that. So listen, all you folks. The police will need your cooperation. I’m going to give you a description of the girl and if you know her, know of her, or saw her anytime last night, speak right up. Is that clear?”

All eyes were on him, and a few of the crowd nodded eagerly.

“Is there a reward?” asked a short, round man who was protected against the weather by a long moth-eaten raccoon coat and fur cap with earflaps.

“Shame on you, Wiggins,” hissed one of his neighbours.

“Lay off, Driscoll. You’d shat your own mother if there was a dollar to be got.”

Mr. Driscoll scowled, but the crowd who heard the repartee laughed.

“Stop this at once,” roared Wicken. “You’re not at a music hall.”

Murdoch continued. “If there’s any reward it’s the one of knowing you might be saving some poor mother hours of heartache from wondering where her child is. Now listen. The girl is about fifteen or sixteen years old, dark hair, blue eyes. A bit over five feet. Same height as Wiggins. She has a small mole to the side of her nose. Anyone know her?”

There was a murmur and buzz but nobody answered him.

“Well? Poor girl died in your laneway, you must know her.”

Then Tinney offered, “There was a widow woman lived at the corner of Sackville and St. Luke’s a few months back. Could be her.”

At least four voices shouted him down.

“You’re leaky, John Tinney,” jeered his friend Driscoll. “That woman was on the downhill side of forty, for one thing, and she was as long as the copper, for another. Six foot if she was an inch. The sergeant says the poor girl was short.”

Tinney shrugged. “You never know.”

“When would she have passed on?” a woman asked Murdoch.

“Last night, probably between eleven and twelve o’clock.” He pointed to Crabtree. “This officer is going to write down all of your names and addresses and any information you can give him. Honest information, mind. No queer or you’ll find yourself with a charge. If you prefer a bit of privacy you can come to the station. You all know where that is, don’t you?”

There was a mixed response to that question. Some of them knew only too well.

He turned to Crabtree. “When you’ve done with this lot, stir up Cavendish, then trot over to the station just in case anybody’s come asking. Join me as soon as you can. I’m going to start knocking on doors.”

He went back down the laneway to where the body had been. Directly across from him was a row of six narrow, two-storey houses with sharp gables, each one leaning slightly towards its neighbour as if for comfort. All of the houses showed candles or lamps except for the end one, which was in darkness. Murdoch wondered if the inhabitants were sound sleepers. He decided to find out.

There was a ramshackle fence with more boards missing than standing. The gate had long gone and Murdoch stepped through the gap into the yard, taking careful notice of the tracks in the snow. From the back door, the snow was trampled down into a narrow path, unfortunately with so much overlay he couldn’t make out anything distinctly. Maybe that was the top
of a needle-toed boot, maybe not. He straightened up and turned his back to the house. The place where the girl had died was easily visible.