The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (15 page)

There is some inherent intelligence in her face. A spark constantly lit behind her eyes. She is two steps ahead of you and has already looked you over… Perhaps the greatest mystery is why no young man has snatched either of these girls from their spinster lives and transplanted them into the realm of domesticity. Swapping propriety for adventure, Herringford and Watts are more preoccupied in their current investigations than in securing husbands, a fact that may make you working ladies, bachelor girls, and shoppies stand up and salute.

The Hogtown Herald

J
em whistled as Merinda appeared at the breakfast table the next morning far earlier than she had ever seen her. Merinda was clad in a gray cotton dress. She scratched at her collar and announced her intention to play the part of an out-of-work girl from the Ward at Spenser's garment workplace.

After breakfast, Merinda followed Jem through her usual morning commute. But while Jem alighted at Queen and Yonge and crossed the street to Spenser's, Merinda stayed on a little farther north to Gerrard.

At the garment workplace, Merinda was led into a dank, overcrowded room that at one point must have been a parlor but had fallen into grave disarray. Several women were already bent over their
piecework. None smiled or looked up. Few talked, and when they did they kept it a whisper. The forewoman showed her where to hang her coat and place her luncheon bucket. A few women silently inched over to allow her room on a crowded bench. Merinda smiled her thanks, but no one said anything. Instead, she was handed a large pile of soft cloth. Silk.

“You brought your thread and needles?” the forewoman asked. In this regard, Merinda was prepared. She nodded. “And a thimble?” She nodded again. The forewoman continued: “Get a start on these. We keep ten percent of what we sell to cover supplies.” She acknowledged the cloth folded in Merinda's lap. “I see that face. Don't worry: You can buy your fill of it. Mr. Spenser provides it to his ladies at cost.”

At cost or not, this was a sham, Merinda thought. Women had to pay from their meager salary to provide their own needle and thread, and they were also docked for their fabric—a fabric of a quality far more dear than they could ever afford.

Merinda set to her work. She was a quick learner and watched the perfunctory motions of the women around her. The dingy light through the curtains made it difficult to see the delicate stitches without squinting. She saw several women with crude spectacles and pince-nez.

“Sight is the first thing to go,” one of the girls told her. Another girl, who couldn't have been fifteen yet, warned her that bone stiffness and arthritis would eventually set in.

Merinda concentrated on her cloth, wanting to act the part as authentically as possible. She followed the sewing pattern, despite her awareness that there had to be a dozen different ways to cut corners for the same result. Instead, she sewed the desired detail into each shirtwaist. Some ladies around her had beautiful scalloped pieces. She was happy with her plain stitches.

Stealing a glance up now and then, Merinda saw harsh worry lines blighting the girls' faces. Worse still, she saw the callused redness of misshapen fingers. These women worked hard and long hours. They were far more poorly dressed than she was, and she was wearing
something third-hand from the trunk. She wondered if they knew anything but twelve-hour shifts and poor pay.

She stitched and threaded and observed. She wove and tangled and spun and spindled. When her lunch break came, she ate on her own, fingering the edge of her shirt and playing with the crust of her sandwich before giving the entire thing to a slack-jawed young Asian woman whose eyes were foggy with hunger.

Then she was back at it. She learned nothing other than the mechanics of a twill stich. At the end of the day, Merinda reached into her pocket and tossed the forewoman enough money to pay for a week's worth of thread for each girl. She had barely survived one shift at this menial and horrible job—how could these women piece and stitch for sixty-five hours a week?

As they stepped into the cold air together, Merinda longed for the warmth she would enjoy by her hearth. But she was painfully aware that these other women would return to barely habitable living situations where they would now be expected to care for their families.

Few spoke English, but she spoke to those who did, asking them about Fiona and Grace, and asserting that she was familiar with the latter from the King Edward laundry. No one wanted to talk about the Morality Squad, though, even in the light way Merinda cast out the line. The Corktown girls? The seamstresses had apparently learned from the tragedy of those murders and were playing it safe. A few admitted to a few trips to the dance hall on Elm. But they cautioned Merinda to keep her hem to regulation length and to ensure she had a male escort.

Merinda was too angry to take the streetcar. She walked instead, wanting to vent her frustration and stretch her cramped muscles.

It took a full city block before she spotted the slight figure close behind her. Merinda turned and made out the pale features of the girl who had eaten her lunch. Poor waif.

Merinda offered a companionable smile. “What can I do for you?” Merinda ruffled in her bag for money.

“I know who you are,” the girl said.

“Do you?”

The girl gave a shrill whistle, and another girl of the same height and size materialized, seemingly out of thin air. This one had features not as pronouncedly Asian as her young companion, but there was a similarity in their size and stature.

“I'm Kat. She's Mouse.”

Merinda shook each offered hand. “And I am—”

“You're Merinda Herringford,” Kat said. “You're that lady detective.”

“That's right.”

“Word on the street is that you're trying to find who killed those poor Irish girls.”

“That would be correct.”

Kat and Mouse shared a smile. “You're going to need help,” Kat said.

“I have help.” Merinda was amused. “I have my associate, Jemima.”

“Jemima can't sneak in and around like we can.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Mouse and I know the city like the backs of our hands. You want something done, we do it.”

“When you're not sewing shirtwaists?” Merinda raised an eyebrow at Kat, while Mouse remained silent.

“I needed extra coin. But now I have you.”

Merinda mulled a moment. It would be helpful to have someone track Montague. Someone to keep an eye on that Forbes fellow from the Morality Squad. To report anything out of the ordinary in the city. “You can be my eyes and ears,” she said, understanding.

Kat and Mouse nodded in unison. “Exactly.”

Merinda introduced Kat and Mouse to Jem as their Baker Street Irregulars. She provided them with a few wardrobe changes, pleased that their short, flat figures allowed them to easily pass as boys. She set them off to trail Gavin Crawley and Tertius Montague, to watch the
headlines, and to let them know what was said about Corktown. They also were invaluable for running errands and messages—especially to Ray in the Ward or at the Hog office—so that Merinda and Jem could focus more on the Corktown case.

Jasper was still miffed to be off the case in which Jem and Merinda were invested. “I know I can't work it any longer,” he said one night as he and Merinda sat at dinner and Jem worked late. “But I'm at a loss as to why Station One has let it go completely.”

The wheels in Merinda's head turned. “Where are most of the Morality Squad constables from?”

“The ones that aren't plainclothes are from Station One.” Jasper turned and smiled at Mrs. Malone as she spooned more soup from the tureen. “Thank you!”

Merinda nodded at this information. “Is it usual for someone of your rank and record to be punished with traffic duty for so long, just for letting two girls close to a crime scene?”

Jasper shook his head slowly. “Lieutenant Riley told me it wasn't from him. It came from Chief Tipton. He's bearing down hard these days. My supervisor fought for me. I know he did.”

Merinda chewed this for a moment, then tore off a piece of roll. “Jasper, did it ever occur to you that they may not want the murders solved?”

“Nonsense, Merinda. I have to trust my superiors and respect Chief Tipton's decision. Anyway, it does me good to work the King beat, you know. Keeps my head from getting too big.”

Merinda bit her lip to stifle a snicker. “Jasper, you're already the most humble man I know. You know something has to be going on over there. Chief Tipton just closes the door on the Corktown Murders? What if Tipton is in Montague's pocket? He kills these girls and they remove their best detective from the squad. Don't blush, Jasper, it's unbecoming.”

“I have more faith in the Toronto Police than that, Merinda. Why would I work for someone who was so obliviously corrupt?”

Merinda didn't want to speculate. All she knew was that it seemed
the newspapers were all too eager to move onto far more mundane headlines, like the cooling weather or a looming transit strike, and that the Toronto Police were not in any great hurry to solve the case of two deceased girls. Indeed, the only person who seemed to want to solve the case was her!

That evening, Gavin Crawley was to take Jem to
The House with Closed Shutters,
which was playing over at the Harmonium. He'd planned to pick her up from work, and he arrived at Spenser's with a wink and a smile.

“Gavin,” Jem said, “may I present Tippy Carr?”

Tippy's cheeks were bright red. She must have found him as handsome as most women did.

Gavin gave a short laugh. “Odd name.”

“It's short for Tabitha,” Tippy said, her eyes down at her lap.

Jem looked from one to the other. Did she imagine it, or did a kind of strange energy spark between them? But before she could ponder it, Gavin was taking Jem's arm and escorting her the few blocks to the Harmonium.

The moving picture show was about a woman who posed as a man and fought in the war.
How ironic,
Jem thought. Before she'd met Merinda, such a getup as the actress wore in the movie would have seemed preposterous to Jem. Now, sitting beside Gavin in the dark and recalling her most recent trouser-clad adventure, she was surprised at how much her life had changed. Not only her life but also her worldview. Little surprised her anymore.

“Can you imagine?” Jem gushed after the picture was finished and they went for a soda and ice cream on Wellington Street. “A woman soldier!”

“It's improper!” Gavin said.

“She saves her brother! Sacrifices herself!” Jem's hands flew to her heart. With Gavin by her side and the fizzy soda bubbling at her
nose, she could barely contain her euphoria. “Merinda would love that story.”

Gavin took a pin to her balloon. “You know I don't approve of your living with Merinda Herringford.”

“She's my best friend,” Jem offered simply, slurping through her straw.

“You should be married by now.”

The soda spurted through her nose, fizzing her nostrils. She coughed. “E-excuse me?”

“You know you should. Pretty girl like you.”