Crane had been both older and newer, fresher and more seasoned. Harris didn’t really believe Crane’s money had swayed Theresa, but understood that Crane was all the more dashing for never having to think twice about his means. Harris had three or four investments, but Crane had projects. He made things happen. And he wasn’t the least bit reticent around women.
The brougham turned east on Carlton, a residential street. Harris’s recollection skirted around the snowy afternoon in Sheridan’s Front Street drawing room, when Theresa had innocently told him of her decision. Harris had been unable—had she noticed?—to lift his eyes from one green on yellow arabesque in the Tabriz Persian carpet, a writhing curl that from the intense scrutiny of that half hour in the fading light had become for him the very image of pain. His pain. At no time had he wanted her to suffer.
For her sake, it was to be hoped that Crane loved her more sincerely than appeared, or that he would come to do so. Harris still had his doubts. Whatever the present state of his affections, though, Crane had plainly lost his former confidence regarding Theresa’s.
Seeming to read Harris’s mind, Crane relaxed his wary squint and glanced away into the leafy green of Allan Park, where two squirrels were chasing each other around the trunk of an oak. Having apparently satisfied himself that Harris had indeed taken no part in his wife’s disappearance, Crane would have dismissed him had circumstances permitted. Harris, for his part, was glad they were stuck with each other for the eight or ten more blocks it would take them to reach St. James’s Cemetery. He had questions of his own.
“Have there been any ransom demands?”
Crane shook his head.
“Did she take any luggage then—any things she might want if she contemplated being two nights away from home?”
“Nothing as far as we can make out.”
Harris wondered if the plural, which rang with such authority, included more than Crane and his domestic staff. “Have you engaged a detective?”
“Detective? No-o.” Crane shuddered at the neologism. “It’s my wife that’s missing. I should set a detective to find where pilfered construction materials had got to. No—I had thought she might be with friends and would return in time for the funeral.”
“And now?”
A wasp was buzzing against the inside of the front window. Crane seemed not to notice.
“I’ll speak to Chief Sherwood this evening about police action,” he said. “You’ll understand, Isaac, I wanted to spare Mrs. Crane the embarrassment of any public hue and cry, particularly in view of her bereavement.”
Hue and cry? That had not been Harris’s suggestion—though it might come to that. “Which of her friends have you spoken to?”
“I see you take this matter to heart,” said Crane, newly suspicious. “Which friends would you speak to?”
“Women she went to school with, I suppose. Guests in your home. People she called on. As I think I’ve made clear, I’m hardly in a position to know.”
Crane squirmed in his seat. His irritation was starting to show.
“Can’t you do anything about that bug?” he asked.
Harris lunged at the wasp with his folded handkerchief and missed. Wings whining and clattering, the yellow jacket rose to the upholstered ceiling, dived to the thick-pile burgundy carpet, bounced against the door panels, flew everywhere except out the open side windows to safety, and settled at last on Harris’s striped trouser leg, where he caught it up in the linen pad and crushed it.
“Thank you,” said Crane.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I’m uncommonly squeamish about killing things, you know.” Crane sounded neither proud nor ashamed of his squeamishness and had more or less recovered his composure.
Whether by accident or design, the wasp hunt had filled the time necessary to bring Crane’s carriage up Parliament Street to the cemetery gates. The land beyond them resembled a burial ground less than it did a gently undulating park. Although winding roads and paths had been laid out, there were still few monuments of any size and no chapel.
Up ahead, the hearse could be seen turning left just past an elegant grey granite mausoleum with fluted columns—resting place of a distiller—then climbing towards the squat Sheridan obelisk. William Sheridan had said he wanted it built on a broad base, hard if not impossible for Orange ruffians to push over. He had had the rosy stone brought by horse and waggon from the Credit Valley in the mid-forties, when his wife and son’s remains had been moved from the old Anglican graveyard in town.
The procession straggled to a halt. Footmen trailing black scarves folded the steps of the two mourning coaches down to the ground, and the pallbearers emerged blinking into the sunlight. Harris scanned the landscape in case Theresa, having missed the church service, might nonetheless show herself at the interment.
“When last seen,” he asked, “was she wearing black?”
Crane’s coachman was already holding open the door.
“She had nothing black,” Crane replied. “Nothing that she could ride in.” He climbed out.
“What colour was her outfit?”
Crane was striding ahead towards the open grave. When Harris caught up, he repeated the question.
“Isaac, I appreciate your having granted me an interview.”
“Most welcome. Was she wearing blue?”
“I’m sure your interest is kindly meant.”
“Green?”
Crane stopped dead. “Yes, green. Now I appeal to your sense of delicacy to pursue this matter no further.” The rail baron’s face was pinker than before, his voice stern and commanding. “Assure yourself I shall take every measure appropriate to securing the safe return of my wife.”
Harris saw the futility of asking further questions. Crane was the deceased’s only relative at the funeral, and the rector of Holy Trinity was approaching for a consultation. Before turning to Dr. Scadding, Crane gave Harris’s hand a dismissive shake.
But Harris held Crane’s hand firm until he had said, “I should like to be informed of any fresh developments.”
A sharp, appraising glance was the only reply he got.
There and then Harris made his decision. He was not about to tailor his sense of delicacy to fit Henry Crane’s convenience. Not this time.
Chapter One
The Provincial Bank
After the interment, Harris sorted quickly through the afternoon’s messages at his desk, then changed into cord breeches and riding boots and made for the Richmond Street livery stable where he boarded his horse. Banshee was a dapple-grey five-year-old with large eyes and lots of stamina. He found her picking at her bedding straw. Not for the first time, he asked if the liveryman was spending enough on feed, but avoided threats to take his business elsewhere. Randall’s was the cleanest establishment within walking distance of the bank and had the biggest stalls.
Harris saddled up without waiting for the boy’s help. He intended to spend the evening running over what he recalled as Theresa’s favourite rides to see if he could find any trace of her—someone who had seen her perhaps, or some physical sign of an accident.
The sun at five o’clock was still three hours high and scorching, the air motionless. Only by cantering through it could he obtain the semblance of a breeze on his damp forehead. Unbothered by the heat, the horse whisked him out to