Night's Child (10 page)

She nodded but without expression.

Murdoch decided to stir up a little jealousy. You never knew what would fall out when emotions ran high. He continued.

“That Miss Hill’s a mighty handsome young woman, I must say. Talented too, I’d wager. Does she ever get on the other side of the desk? You know, pose for pictures herself?”

“No, she does not.”

“Pity that, with her good looks she’d be very popular.”

“I’ll let her know your sentiments, sir. I’m sure she will be flattered.”

She took a form out of the drawer. “Perhaps I can take your order now and not keep you any longer.”

So much for calling on the green-eyed god. Mrs. Gregory had been impervious.

She handed Murdoch the piece of paper. “You didn’t indicate which package you wanted sir. I understand it’s ten copies.”

“Oh no. That’s too many for me. Two will do. One for me and one for my mother.”

Mrs. Gregory sighed, looked as if she would try to talk him out of it, changed her mind, and dipped her pen in the inkwell. “Two portraits then. That will be three dollars please.”

“Whoa back, ma’am. The other young lady said you would send a bill seeing as I don’t have a position at the moment.”

Mrs. Gregory frowned. “Miss Hill is new here and obviously not familiar with our policy. We require one half payment now and the remainder on delivery of the photographs.”

There wasn’t any point arguing with that chin and besides he wanted to come back again. He fished in his pocket and took out all the coins he had.

“I’ve got seventy-five cents here. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

She didn’t blink and he regretted he had succumbed so easily. “Given your circumstances, I will make a concession.”

She swooped up the money and put it into a cash box.

“Speaking of mothers,” said Murdoch. “My dear old mother gave me a stereoscope for a Christmas present and I’d like to buy me some more cards. I wonder if you sell them, seeing as you do photographs.”

He was observing her carefully but detected no reaction. Either she was completely ignorant of the possible secondary line of work of the Emporium or she was a consummate actress.

“I’m afraid we don’t, Mr. Murdoch. But I understand Mr. Eaton’s store has a good selection. You know where he is, don’t you?”

“Yes, indeed ma’am. He’s right at the corner of Queen and Yonge Streets.”

“That’s right. Now if you will excuse me, I must get on with my work.”

She swivelled around in her chair. There was a typewriting machine on the desk that had been covered before. She inserted a sheet of paper.

Murdoch stood up, retrieved his hat and coat from the stand, and went to the door. The clacking of the typewriter’s keys followed him. Mrs. Gregory sounded like an expert typewriter, he thought. Pity he hadn’t been able to see what kind of machine she was using. He could have verified Enid’s statement that offices were using Remingtons these days.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“‘B
aby baby bunting, your father’s gone a hunting,’” Kate Tibbett sang softly to the twins, whom she was carrying in the crook of each arm. Both babies were teething and her nerves were worn ragged. She had hardly soothed James and got him to sleep when Jacob would wake up, screaming, and within minutes she had both of them crying again. Her arms ached from the weight of carrying them, walking around the tiny bedroom, into the front sitting room and back, round and round. She wished she could have even one hour free, when she could fall into the sweetness of sleep. But there wasn’t anybody to take over. Her family were far off and wouldn’t be sympathetic anyway.
You made your bed, now you have to lie in it
would be her mother’s sour words. But Ralph had pursued her so ardently, he had swept away the misgivings she’d had about surrendering to his passion before they were married.
You should have known
, he’d said angrily when she told him she believed herself to be with child. But she hadn’t known anything, and had brought such shame to her mother and father, she doubted they would ever forgive her.

When they had first moved here, Ralph had been attentive and loving, but as soon as she became clumsy and heavy with the pregnancy he had spent more and more time away from their lodgings. He’d taken work in an office, he told her, general odds-body, he said, but his allowance wasn’t generous and she felt the want more keenly than she could admit even to herself. There were many nights when she cried herself asleep after waiting until the early hours of the morning for him to come home. Since the birth of the twins, his absences were even more prolonged. He said he’d had to take a second job to supplement his wages and was working as a night porter at the Dominion Brewery on Queen Street.

Don’t worry, little Kate. I can get catnaps throughout the night and nobody will know.

The extra work didn’t seem to tire him out, and on one of the few evenings he was at home, she thought he looked as prosperous as he’d ever been. His worsted suit was of excellent quality, but when she timorously remarked on it, he told her it was a charitable castoff from his employer. His voice was full of reproach.
You don’t know how it eats at a man’s pride to be forced to accept charity
, he’d said and she burst into tears, stung once again by the feeling that she was to blame.

She halted. Both babies had fallen asleep. Now the trick was to ease them into the cradle without disturbing either one. She bent over and slipped Jacob crosswise onto his end of the mattress. He made little smacking noises with his lips but didn’t wake. Carefully, she placed James at the opposite end. They hadn’t expected two infants and couldn’t afford a second cradle so Ralph had sawed off a piece of wood and made a divider. She kept meaning to cover it with soft cloth but she hadn’t yet found the time to do so. Besides, the twins were growing fast and would soon be too big for this arrangement. Looking down at them, she felt a rush of tenderness, something she sometimes feared she would never experience again. She covered them with the quilt that her oldest sister had grudgingly passed on to her. It was irretrievably stained from previous use, but it was soft and warm and she was glad of it.

She stepped back from the cradle. Rain was pelting against the window and it was so dull and cheerless in the room, she’d had to light a candle. She watched it for a moment, dancing and juttering in the draft from the door, then walked to the window and looked into the grey street. Snow would be better than this, at least after it had stopped falling, the sun would shine and the fresh white snow would glisten beneath a blue sky. She leaned her head against the windowpane and yawned as if she would crack her jaw. She was thankful that at least the room was warm. The brewery workers were allowed to take home buckets of slack from the coal furnaces, and even though the stuff was so dusty it seemed to give off more smoke than heat, it was better than nothing. Also, every time Ralph came home with a bucket, she was relieved she could believe him about his job.

She went back to the bed. Both babies were fast asleep. She lay down, covered herself with a blanket, and closed her eyes. Just a little nap while she could.

She must have dozed off because suddenly she was awake, the babies still sleeping quietly beside her. What had awakened her was the sound of a loud, angry voice overhead. Kate groaned. Fisher had come home and, as was usually the case, he was full of liquor. Sometimes, she knew he ranted at nothing, the bed, the weather, the bedbugs. Mostly though, he yelled at the children. She’d heard Ben go off to school this morning so his father must be shouting at Agnes. She thought about the man who’d come the day before, the one she assumed was a truant officer. In their brief meeting, she’d had the impression he was kind. If the babies hadn’t been crying she would like to have lingered, talked to him. From the upstairs, she heard a crash and a bellow from Fisher, then a girl’s voice, loud with fear, a shriek. He must have hit her. Light footsteps followed by the man’s heavy tread. Another shriek, then weeping. Fisher’s voice continued for a little longer, then there was silence.

She heard the sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and there was a timid tap, tap on her door. She didn’t move. There was another tap, then the steps moved away and she heard the front door open.

She pulled the blanket up so that it covered her ears. There was nothing she could do. She had her own troubles to deal with.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

B
room and Co., the studio on Queen Street, was so imbued with stultifying respectability that Murdoch wondered how they deigned to photograph anyone who wasn’t related to the British peerage. He showed the young man at the reception desk the photograph of the dead infant, making up some story about his uncle being near death’s door and could he commission a portrait? The man sniffed and said disdainfully that they did not take such pictures. There were those that did, but he did not know who they were and, he implied, he did not wish to know. Murdoch then asked if they took stereoscopic photographs with stories that were so swell these days and the man almost pulled himself by his nostrils into heaven.
No they did not, indeed.
Murdoch asked to see the studio where the photographs were taken and with great reluctance, the young man did so. The backdrop here was another painted canvas, this one well done, of a park with a manor house in the distance. Murdoch knew it was too early to eliminate anybody from his list, but his instinct was that Broom and Co. were what they appeared to be, snobbish and expensive, catering only to the affluent. He didn’t bother to get another set of pictures taken.

He tried one more studio, one nearer to Yonge Street. This place was much less pretentious, owned by a placid older man, Elias Thompson, who seemed to be waiting patiently for customers, his feet on his desk, a cigar in his hand. When Murdoch held out the mourning card, he sighed for the
poor lost lambie
, but said it wasn’t his. Yes, there were a few photographers who took these kind of pictures but he had no names to give him. He said he’d seen the series of Mr. Newly-wed and the maid and he thought they were hilarious; very popular as well but too expensive for him to make. Murdoch considered showing him the photograph of the naked Mr. Newly-wed but decided against it. He liked him and shifted him to the bottom of the list as a likely photographer of pornographic images.

He didn’t feel he had accomplished much. Of the three photographers he’d met, the one he most disliked was Gregory but disliking a man wasn’t a good reason for charging him with issuing obscene material and, so far, he had absolutely no proof that Gregory had photographed the girl. For that matter, all four pictures could have been taken by different people, although he thought that was unlikely. The three stereoscopic cards seemed linked, at least by their obscenity. Discouraged, he decided to visit Seymour’s lodgings and see if he could get any further with that investigation.

“River Street! River Street!”

The conductor was calling out his stop and Murdoch sat up. He’d actually been dozing, lulled by the warmth of the streetcar. He went to the rear door and the streetcar halted just long enough for him to get down, then clanged off on its way as if it were a horse anxious for the barn.

The rain had turned to sleet, which was homing into the gap between his neck and his collar. He wrapped his muffler more tightly. River Street was at the eastern edge of the city limits, and the houses along it were interspersed with vacant lots, all weed covered and dispiriting. Ahead of him, a woman tried to handle her umbrella, two parcels, and at the same time keep her skirt raised above the wet pavement. He was reminded of Miss Slade and her odd but practical trousers. She would have no difficulty manoeuvring through inclement weather. He knew his Liza would have liked her and he felt a mixture of guilt and pleasure. Would Mrs. Jones also like the teacher? He wasn’t sure but didn’t think there would be an immediate compatibility. For some reason, that made him sigh.

He quickened his pace, about to offer his help with the parcels but the woman turned into the front yard of one of the houses. The door opened even before she rang the bell, a young girl in maid’s uniform came out to help her and they disappeared inside.

As he approached the planing mill, Murdoch could hear the thump of the steam engines that drove the machinery. Scott’s was obviously in full production, and dozens of logs were piled in the yard waiting to be hauled inside for planing. Murdoch halted in front of the fence, gripped by a surge of nostalgia. Ten years ago he’d had a crib at a logging camp near Huntsville. In spite of the hard work and rough company, he had been happy there. He’d filled out to manhood, physically and emotionally. Only a half-acknowledged driving ambition had pushed him away from that life, until he finally settled in Toronto and joined the police force. Early on, fretting about the lack of opportunity, he’d questioned that choice. Then, three years ago, he had been invited to join the newly established detective department, and he liked that much better. Because he was a Roman Catholic, he knew his chances for promotion were slim, but that was compensated for by interesting work and more freedom than he’d had while on the beat. He even didn’t mind being expected to be on call all the time. If he were married, that might cause problems, but he’d have to tackle that question if and when it came up. And why were his thoughts constantly scurrying back to the subject of matrimony? He was like a dog returning to his buried bone, wondering whether it was time to dig it up and, if he did, whether it would be tasty.

Murdoch glanced around him. The street and yard were deserted. With one leap he was over the low fence. He landed on one of the logs that were lying across the yard, in some places two or three deep. The rain had made the surface slippery just as it always was when the logs were damned in the river. He skidded and almost lost his balance but he bent his knees, flung out his arms, and kept going. Damn, he needed his iron crampons, his boots didn’t give him a good traction. Nevertheless, he quickened his pace, almost running now. He’d won the competition two years in a row for fastest crossing. The trick was to be balanced low over your feet and to land squarely in the centre of the log so it didn’t roll. A fall was dangerous as the huge logs could shift in the water and deliver crushing blows. Two men had been injured the year he was there, one had succumbed to his injuries and died.