Chapter Eight

IT WAS ALMOST TEN O’CLOCK by the time Murdoch returned to his lodgings. He was dead tired, famished, and in decidedly low spirits. The house was in darkness, but when he let himself in, he saw there was a light in the kitchen. A smell of sausages lingered in the air and he hoped there were some left. Since Mrs. Kitchen had packed her and her husband off to Muskoka to see if they could cure Arthur’s consumption, one of the new lodgers, Katie Tibbett, had taken over the cooking. And truth be told, however fond he was of Mrs. Kitchen, the one thing Murdoch didn’t miss was her cooking. Katie was a good cook and now he looked forward to coming home to tasty meals. Murdoch, his old friend Charlie Seymour, and Amy Slade, a schoolteacher, were the others who now boarded in the house and they paid Katie a small wage in exchange for housekeeping duties. She was the young mother of twin baby boys and would be destitute if it weren’t for this arrangement.

Good food wasn’t the only reason Murdoch liked being at home these days. Charlie, a sergeant at number four station, was a bachelor whose taciturn speech belied an intense and passionate nature. They had great animated discussions about life, death, and God, not to mention bicycles. Murdoch knew it was Charlie’s night to be on duty at the station, but he wished he was available to talk to.

And then there was Miss Amy Slade. They had met in January, when she had asked for his help with a police matter that involved one of her pupils. Murdoch found himself in a constant turmoil of feeling, which had started almost as soon as he met her. If he were to be honest with himself, which he didn’t particularly want to be, he had to admit that it was partly because of Amy Slade that he hadn’t proposed marriage to Mrs. Enid Jones.

The kitchen door opened and the woman in question emerged. She was in a quilted red house gown and her hair, usually so neatly confined, was loose about her shoulders. Murdoch almost missed the peg on the coat tree as he went to hang up his coat.

“Good evening, Will. You are very late tonight. You must have been working on a case.”

She wasn’t at all uncomfortable about the casualness of her dress, which paradoxically made him more so.

“I was indeed.”

“Come into the kitchen. Katie has left some delicious toad-in-the-hole in the warming oven. Your case must be a difficult one, by the look of you.”

He followed her, marvelling yet again how she was able to pick up his mood so easily. He also marvelled at the beauty of her fair hair, which was thick and curly and reached almost to her waist. All this marvelling made him irritated with himself. He was as fickle as water, pining for one woman after another.

As if on cue, Amy turned to him and gave him a rather enigmatic smile. “I picked up a letter from the post for you today. I believe it’s from Mrs. Kitchen.”

“Oh, good.” Murdoch rubbed his hands together with excessive zeal. He didn’t want Amy to think he was waiting on a letter from Enid.

The envelope was on the table, propped up against the salt cellar.

“Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get your supper.”

This was not usual for Amy. She’d made it clear from the beginning that in her view, men and women were equally capable of making a meal, getting it out of the oven, and cleaning up after themselves. This was all new to Murdoch and he was still getting used to it. Frankly, he’d rather liked the way Mrs. Kitchen and then Enid had looked after him.

He headed for the stove. “That’s all right, I can do it … Ow.” He’d underestimated the heat of the warming oven and the plate was hot.

“Use the teapot holder,” said Amy. She didn’t jump up to help him. He did as she said, gripped the plate, and came back to the table. The toad-in-the-hole looked delicious, the plump sausages sticking out through the pastry, the gravy thick.

Amy sat across from him and leaned her elbows on the table. With her hair unpinned in that way, she looked like a young girl. The house gown was fastened to the neck, but the sleeves were loose and she was revealing her bare forearms, well shaped, pale-skinned with a smattering of freckles.

He speared one of the sausages. “How were the twins today?”

“They were a bit mardy. Katie says they are teething. You’d better be prepared, they might wake you up tonight.”

“I’d better put cotton wool in my ears then.”

“You already look exhausted, Will. What has happened?”

“Let me feed the beast within first, then I’ll tell you.” He picked up the letter, immediately getting gravy on it. “Damn.”

“Shall I read it to you while you eat?”

“That’d be swell.”

Too late he realized Mrs. Kitchen might have made a reference to Mrs. Enid Jones, her former lodger. Or worse, some shrewd comment about the new boarder, Miss Slade. But Amy was already slitting open the envelope and it would seem churlish, if not suspicious, to snatch the letter away from her. He gave a little mental prayer and concentrated on stuffing pastry into his mouth.

Amy began to read. “‘My dear Will. Life here continues to be quiet. Now that I have a routine, my work is not arduous. I am not used to giving orders to other people, but that is what I am supposed to do so I do it. The girls are for the most part industrious and honest, thank the Lord. I am happy to report that Arthur continues to gain strength. He frets at the idleness as he puts it, but it is obvious the air and rest are doing him good. I would never have known what fresh air really is if we hadn’t come here. Toronto is dirty indeed. The patients are weighed every week and he has actually put on two pounds. We celebrated by a little party with the others on his floor. We were all wrapped up against the cold because, as much as possible, everybody stays on the veranda for the air. Arthur complained that if the consumption doesn’t get him, the cold will, but there are hints that spring is coming and that will be more comfortable. He says to tell you he misses the smell of your tobacco and especially the evening talks you used to have. There is a young boy two beds down who is only seventeen, and he is the most ill of all of them. The nurses shake their heads at us behind his back, meaning he is a hopeless case. Arthur has taken him under his wing and is telling him the stories of your cases and how you solved them. The boy’s name is John and he begged me to tell you that when he is better, he would like to come down to Toronto and meet you. He’d like to be a police officer. I say my prayers that this might be. How is everything in the house?’” Amy paused and Murdoch braced himself. Here it comes. Amy continued. “‘How is Mr. Seymour? And that poor young girl with the babies? Is Miss Slade behaving herself?’” Amy stopped reading. “Why would she say that? What sort of impression did I give her?”

Mrs. Kitchen had met Amy once just before they were leaving for Muskoka. The schoolteacher had been wearing her pantaloons and jerkin and even though her manners were impeccable and she was very well spoken, Beatrice had been shocked.

“It was your, er, your Rational Dress. Mrs. K is quite conservative.”

Amy sighed. She had experienced such reactions many times. “She signs off by saying, ‘I say my rosary constantly. Remember us in your prayers, Will. Yours sincerely, Beatrice Kitchen.’”

They were both quiet for a few moments, Murdoch thinking about Arthur and the precariousness of his life. Then he picked up his plate and stood up. “I’ll make a pot of tea.”

He lifted one of the lids from the stovetop and dropped in a piece of coal to build up the fire. While they waited for the water to boil, he started to tell her something of what had happened that day. He had too much respect for her to treat her as if she were a potential hysteric, so he told her about the murder, glossing over the more horrendous injuries but sparing nothing else.

She straightened in her chair. “What a dreadful thing. I do pity his wife. Do you have a notion as to the culprit?”

“It looks very much like a thief. Howard wore a silver pocket watch, but it is gone. His boots were also taken. I don’t know if anything else is missing yet.”

“Who found him?”

“One of the parishioners. A woman by the name of Sarah Dignam. She was coming for a prayer meeting.”

“Poor woman.”

“Indeed. She is dreadfully upset.”

He hesitated, wondering whether he should share his thoughts about Miss Dignam, but they seemed rather unfair and he had tangled with Amy before about denoting strong emotions in women as hysteria.

“It’s funny, after I left her I was reminded of this chopper I knew at the camp. His nickname was ‘Monk’ not because of any pious habits, far from it, but because we all thought he resembled a monkey. He had abnormally long arms and short bandy legs and masses of hair all over him.”

Amy smiled. “Surely it wasn’t a physical resemblance to Miss Dignam that made you think of him?”

“Hardly. Brodie was something of an outcast, but he found this stray dog about the camp and he became a changed man. He loved that mongrel and became friends with any other chopper that paid attention to the little creature. There was a lot of snickering behind his back, as you can imagine with that bunch of hard hearts, but they wouldn’t have dared say anything to his face because Monk was far too tough.” Murdoch started to fold the tea towel. “Anyway, what came back to mind so vividly was the night he discovered his dog, Paddy was its name, was missing. He was beside himself. We weren’t supposed to leave the camp after dark because it was too dangerous, but I couldn’t stand to see him so I agreed to go with him in search of Paddy.” Murdoch hesitated, not sure how much he should tell Amy, but she was obviously listening intently and he could feel how much he wanted to unburden himself. He’d never told anybody the story before. “We didn’t have to go far because we soon picked up a trail of blood leading off one of the runs. Paddy had managed to drag himself to the shelter of the trees. He must have been attacked by a coyote because his ear was half off and he had several deep bites on his head and legs. The worst was the one at his throat.”

“Oh how dreadful.”

“It was. At first I thought he was dead, but Monk dropped to his knees beside him and Paddy moved his head and tried to lick his face. Brodie just recoiled in horror and he yelled at me. ‘I can’t bear it. We must do something.’ I tried to tell him that the dog would die soon enough, but Paddy whimpered and tried to crawl toward him. Brodie screamed and before I could stop him, he reached for a nearby stone … with two blows, he dispatched the creature on the spot.”

Amy was gazing at him, her hand to her cheek in horror.

“After that he cried, clutching the dog to his chest, rocking back and forth … I didn’t know what to do or say. Finally he stopped and I persuaded him to bury the little mongrel, which we did.”

“Oh Will, that is such a sad story.”

“There was an expression in Miss Dignam’s eyes and the way she cried for those few moments that reminded me of Monk when we first found the dog and he knew he’d lost him. It was as if a door had opened up into the sorrow of all their lives.” He averted his eyes. “My God, that sounds fanciful.”

Amy reached out and touched his hand. “No, it doesn’t at all. I had a pupil once whose mother died suddenly, influenza I think it was, the girl was about twelve years old. When she came back to school, we happened to be studying Romeo and Juliet. The girl wasn’t a particularly good student or had never before shown much response to Shakespeare, but this afternoon when we got to the passage where Juliet dies, she burst out crying. I couldn’t soothe her. She was only a child, but she had known much loss in her young life.”

Murdoch smiled at her gratefully. “Monk left the camp at the end of the season and I never saw him again. We never talked about poor Paddy … I was also troubled by the way he killed the dog.”

“I suppose it could be considered as an act of mercy. The dog must have been suffering.”

“He was, but Brodie went into a kind of panic as if the sight was more than he could bear. Whether that was for the dog’s sake is debatable. I hope I’m never faced with a situation like that.” Murdoch shuddered. “I still have nightmares about it.”

At that moment, the kettle began to whistle.

“Good timing. A cup of tea will hit the spot,” said Murdoch and he got up and went over to the stove. While the tea was poured and sipped, he resumed his narrative of the day’s events.

“I spent the evening going through Howard’s personal portfolio. He was very organized and everything was filed under subject matter, including sermons, church business. There was quite a bit of correspondence and minutes of meetings about the installation of a new water closet. Apparently, the proposal was controversial. There were those who thought it was a ridiculous expense and the earth closet was quite adequate and those who thought it would enhance the public standing of the parish to have such a fine piece, not to mention being more suitable for the older members of the church.”

Amy smiled. “Surely the poor man would not have been killed over the matter of a water closet?”

“Let’s hope not. I saw the new facility and it is indeed very handsome and probably cost a lot of money. As far as I can tell Reverend Howard was generally keen to improve the church furnishings. But except for minor quibbles from a few of the elders, I couldn’t find any evidence that somebody was sufficiently enraged to murder him over it.” Murdoch poured them each more tea. “The letter opener told me nothing new other than that the thrust was a single one, made hard and deep. There was no sign of footprints inside or out. So that’s it for the silent witnesses. As for human witnesses, that was equally as unproductive. Crabtree and Fyfer questioned as many people in the area as they could, but so far nothing at all has emerged. It was such a dismal day, there was hardly anybody out to see anything. The murderer came and went without a trace. He might as well have been a spirit.”

Amy blew on her tea to cool it. “You’ve been saying he all the time when referring to the culprit. Do the injuries preclude a female attacker?”

He reflected for a moment. “The letter opener had been thrust into his neck very deeply and then I’d say he was kicked hard when he was on the ground, but he would have been defenceless by then. So, no, alas, we cannot at this point eliminate the possibility it was a woman who killed him. The coroner, who is a woman by the way, said she will do a post-mortem examination in the morning. I’ll attend that. Sometimes there are surprises.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the pastor was an opium eater or a drinker or had syphilis.”

Amy looked at him in amazement. “Is that likely?”

“Believe me, anything is likely.”

She gave him a slightly teasing smile. “Are you becoming cynical, Will?”

“Perhaps. I’d like to believe Mr. Howard was as good a man as everybody says he was, but if that’s true how can we explain such a tragedy?”

“Ah, we’re back to the inscrutable nature of God’s intention, are we?”

“That sounds awfully much as if I’m becoming boringly predictable.”

“Not at all. Not predictable, just forever questioning.” Her eyes held his for a moment. “You’ve been in the presence of too much human misery, Will. You can’t take the sorrows of the world on your shoulders.”

Murdoch grabbed at his own neck. “Heck, I thought all that stiffness was from too much riding on my wheel.”

Amy pushed back her chair and stood up. “I should go to bed. I am tireder than I realized.”

And that was that. Without more ado, she picked up her candleholder.

“I wish you good night.”

To delay her, he said, “How were your pupils today?”

“Let me say, I felt as if I were trying to hold down twenty balloons all at the same time. It’s a wonder we didn’t float away.”

She left and Murdoch groaned to himself. Why had he made light of her remark when she was trying to be kind? What a boor she must think him. He reached for his pipe and tobacco pouch, although he didn’t usually smoke in the kitchen. He tamped down the tobacco in the bowl of his Powhatan and struck a match.

He supposed it was true what she’d said about him. He still went to mass but less and less frequently, and he was often restless when the priest delivered his homily, which was usually about some doctrinal issue that Murdoch couldn’t completely accept. Amy made no secret of her atheism, although she was obliged to attend church if she wanted to keep her job. She had opted to go to the Presbyterian church on King Street. “If I have to spend two hours of my precious Sunday going to an institution I don’t believe in, I might as well get a good sermon out of it and the Presbyterians are the best as far as I’m concerned.”

Murdoch had considered inviting her to come to mass with him, just so she could see what it was like, but he knew all too well what she’d think of Father Fair and all the crossing and genuflecting that went on.

He sat for a long time thinking about things – or, more specifically, love and the human heart.