“Dead.”
“Dead?”
“On the stage. In the Savoy. Dead. Murdered, looks like.”
“Wait right there.”
The door closed in Angus’s face. But it was a very thin door. He could hear Ray cross the room, a woman’s soft question, the light slap of hand on ample flesh, and another giggle, followed by a whispered “quiet” from Ray. Finally the door opened, and Ray came out, stuffing his shirttails into his trousers. The laces of his boots dragged along the floor.
“Let’s go.” Ray pushed past Angus and shut the door. But not before Angus had a good look at Betsy from the dance hall. She was sitting up in the narrow bed, the crumpled sheets bunched around her plump legs. Angus stared at her heavy breasts, pale pink with dark brown centres and large, hard nipples. She wiggled her fingers at him and ran her tongue across her lips.
“Not a word to your mother, you hear me, Angus. Not a word.”
“But, sir, I thought…”
“You thought nothing. Now tell me what happened, for heaven’s sake. A body—that’s all we need.” Angus mumbled something about the Savoy—the stage, blood, death—but his mind couldn’t get rid of the image of Betsy licking her plump pink lips. He knew perfectly well what Ray must have been doing with her in his room. But he was having trouble understanding why. Betsy was one of the dance hall girls. The girls who danced at the Savoy weren’t whores—women who had intimate relations with men in exchange for money. And besides, wasn’t Ray in love with Irene? That’s what his mother had told him, and she knew everything there was to know about things involving love and men and women. So if Ray was in love with Irene, why was he…doing stuff with Betsy? And they weren’t even married!
“Ray?”
“Not a word, boy. Not a word.”
* * *
Angus edged closer to the stage, afraid to attract attention, attention that might get him sent off to the care of his mother, but equally afraid of missing something important. He mounted the steps, trying not to make a sound.
Difficult, if not impossible, on the Savoy stage, constructed of cheap wood and insufficient nails. He stood behind Richard Sterling and peered over the constable’s shoulder, swallowing the bile that rose into his throat, threatening to choke him, or worse.
Sterling and McKnight were talking in low voices, as if they were mindful of showing respect to the dead. Sterling had pointed out that the wound in Ireland’s stomach wasn’t deep enough to kill. At least not right away. He would have died from it, eventually, if it had been left unattended. But not here, on the stage of the Savoy. With that wound, a healthy man could have staggered into the street looking for help. But the slice across the throat would have sent his lifeblood splashing across the stage in all directions. He wouldn’t have been able to stand up after suffering that.
“You can look, Angus,” Sterling said, acknowledging the boy’s presence. “But mind you don’t touch anything.”
Angus leaned closer to get a better look, trying to take it all in. His stomach was beginning to settle.
“Had to have gotten a good amount of blood on his clothes,” Sterling said.
“Agreed,” McKnight said.
The doctor arrived in the company of Sergeant Lancaster. Breathing heavily from his exertions, Lancaster took a seat on the bench beside Ray. The doctor walked to the foot of the stage. “Dead, I’d say.”
“Really, doctor,” McKnight said. “Is that your professional opinion?”
“Don’t know why you dragged me away from my pipe,” the doctor grumbled. “The fellow’s obviously dead from a knife wound to the abdomen.”
“If you could take a closer look?” Sterling asked.
“No need.” The doctor snapped his fingers at the men who’d come in behind him. “He’s dead. I took the liberty of calling in at the funeral parlour on my way past. When you’re finished looking for clues, these men will take care of him. Drop by my office tomorrow during hours, and I’ll have the death certificate ready.” The doctor slapped his hat back on his head and started to leave, but he hesitated at the door. He walked over to Ray’s bench.
“Perhaps I should call on Mrs. MacGillivray? I understand she found the body. She might be in need of sedation. Exposure to the brutal reality of life and death can be most upsetting to the delicate female constitution.”
Ray yawned. “Right. I remember my mum. Gave birth to twelve children, buried nine o’ them, nursed my gran for months as her guts rotted inside o’ her, and then cared for my own dad when he died. Her delicate wee constitution almost cracked under the strain.”
The doctor’s chest rose, and he puffed up all over, reminding Angus of a frog the boys had watched for what seemed like hours on a summer’s day at the creek behind his school in Toronto. “I was of course referring to the fact that Mrs. MacGillivray is a lady.”
Angus held his breath, expecting that Ray would take offence at the blatant insult to his own mother. Instead, the Scotsman chuckled. “We know exactly what you were suggesting, Doc. Don’t we, lads?”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed. He struggled to think of something appropriately cutting to say.
“Thank you for your time, Doctor,” Sterling said. “An officer will be around tomorrow to get that certificate.”
“Someone should check that man’s credentials,” Sterling said as the door swung closed behind the doctor. “He wouldn’t be the first fellow to arrive in Dawson pretending to be something he isn’t.”
“I don’t think his intentions towards Mrs. MacGillivray are entirely honourable.” Sergeant Lancaster wagged a finger at Angus. “You watch out for him, young fellow. Until she marries again, it’s up to you to protect your mother’s reputation.”
“I’m fully aware of that, Sergeant,” Angus said. And he was. At school, they’d lectured the boys extensively about a man’s responsibility to his mother, a God-given responsibility, particularly important in the case of a widowed mother such as Angus’s. But it was a hard job, in a place like Dawson, with the sort of company that came into the Savoy and the fact that, as a child, he wasn’t allowed to spend much time in the dance hall.
McKnight rolled the body over, checking to see if there was anything underneath. There wasn’t and he let it fall back. The limbs were stiff, as if Jack Ireland were exerting all his control to keep them from moving.
“What’s the matter with him, Constable Sterling?” Angus whispered, forgetting in his curiosity that he should be keeping quiet.
“He’s dead, Angus,” Sterling said, not laughing.
“I mean other than that, sir. Why are his arms so stiff? It looks like he’s frozen solid.”
“Rigor mortis, son,” Inspector McKnight said, standing up with a soft grunt. “Happens in the hours after death. It wears off after a few days.”
“Rigor helps us determine how long a man’s been dead,” Sterling explained. “It starts in the head and moves down. Now, Ireland here is pretty stiff most of the way down, but his feet still have a ways to go yet.”
“So at a guess, I’d say he’s been dead anywhere from six to nine hours. No more than twelve. Constable?”
“Probably, sir. But it would have been cold in here last night. Cold delays rigor. Might be more.”
“Good point,” the inspector said.
“Pardon me, sir, but that doesn’t seem quite so clever. It’s close to six o’clock now. Me and my ma found him around five. The Savoy was full of customers at midnight,