Only Irene was distant, preoccupied. She’d run in a few minutes after eight, dishevelled and noticeably distracted. Her performance had been poor; she’d stumbled during one elaborate dance that she’d flawlessly executed every night since I’d hired her. During the play, she forgot her lines several times and Ruby, who played her husband complete with britches (suitably loose, of course) and overlarge, fake moustache, had to step in and make up words on the spot to accommodate. Not that anyone in the audience would care. Very few of them paid much attention to the words of the play anyway. But once we were open for dancing, I noticed a couple of men leave Irene at the bar with a disappointed shake of their heads.
That would never do. Inspector McKnight spent the entire evening standing at the back of the dance hall. His attention was making me very nervous indeed.
When Ray at last decided to put in an appearance, towards the end of the disastrous play, I glared at him and dragged him behind the bar. “What’s the matter with Irene?”
“Christ, Fee, I don’t know. Why are you asking me? First you’re on at me about Betsy, and now it’s Irene. It isn’t my fault if you can’t manage your staff.”
Beside the bar, a man threw the contents of his glass into another’s face. The other wiped his eyes and swore. The crowd gathered for a fight.
Ray crossed the floor in a few steps, grabbed the whisky tossing-fellow by the back of his collar, escorted him to the door and threw him into the street.
I returned to the dance hall, and the unblinking, neareyed stare of Inspector McKnight.
Shortly before midnight, when I was checking with Sam about the night’s take, and the girls were graciously declining one more dance, and the croupiers were announcing that the games were about to end, and Ray was bellowing “No more drinks!”, Richard Sterling walked into the Savoy.
I tossed him my best smile, still feeling a few shivers of pleasure from last night’s pleasant dinner. He had to have seen me, but he pretended not to, and marched into the dance hall with a straight, officious back. I abandoned Sam in mid-sentence and followed. I am not accustomed to being ignored, and I intended to find out the cause of it.
Sterling and McKnight were speaking in whispers. I leaned up against the opposite wall and openly watched them, while all about us my business went into the routine of shutting down for the Lord’s Day.
Finally, the police approached me. “Mrs. MacGillivray.” McKnight touched his hat. Sterling said nothing but managed to look highly uncomfortable.
“We’d like to talk to one of your employees, Miss Irene Davidson, at Fort Herchmer,” McKnight said.
They wanted to arrest Irene in the middle of the Savoy? With half the men in town standing around watching? They’d have a full-scale riot on their hands.
“We don’t want to make a public display of this,” Sterling said. “Could you approach Miss Davidson on our behalf, Mrs. MacGillivray? Discreetly.”
My mind raced, but could find neither a flippant remark nor a way out of this mess.
“Please, Fiona. Mrs. MacGillivray. We need your help.” Richard Sterling’s brown eyes pleaded with me.
“Oh, very well. I don’t want a scene any more than you do. May I ask the nature of your interest in her?”
Sterling shook his head a fraction. McKnight said nothing.
In the change room behind the stage, the women were giggling and chattering as they pulled off costumes and dance dresses and put on their street clothes. The room was a flurry of tossing tights, sequins, rhinestones and colourful feather boas. All of the tumult overlaid by a layer of sweat, cheap scent and the residue of their dance partners’ cigars.
“Then what did he do but pull out a whole twenty dollars,” one of the younger girls was squealing in delight as I walked in. ‘My dearie,’ he called me. ‘One minute, my dearie, and a little kiss, and I’ll give you this’.”
“Twenty dollars for a minute’s dance. Not bad, eh, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Ruby shouted above the cacophony of women’s voices.
“Not bad at all,” I said. “Irene, I need to talk to you.” Irene was almost dressed. She had only to button her scuffed black boots. She looked up at me, her face dark and clouded.
“Can you come with me, please.” One by one, the girls stopped chattering and giggling. They looked around, from Irene to me and back again. To each other. “Irene?” I said, trying to keep my voice level.
“Please come with me.”
“I didn’t kill him, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she whispered.
The girls closest to her sucked in their breath. The rest strained to hear.
“What’d she say, what’d she say?” Betsy shouted.
“I have an alibi,” Irene said.
“That’s good. It can all be cleared up quickly then, so I needn’t assign anyone to take your parts on Monday.” Irene got to her feet.
“Ladies.” I addressed the wide-eyed, gaping, halfdressed audience. “I trust not one of you will mention what you heard here tonight. More than the reputation of your friend, Irene, depends on that. If I hear that one word has been spoken outside of this room, I’ll fire every last one of you, without even bothering to find the culprit.” I looked at them all. One by one they blushed or studied the floor.
“If you don’t think I’ll do it, think about this: What will the men of Dawson have to say about the Savoy if we turn our backs on their favourite? Good night, ladies. I’ll see you all on Monday. I suggest you return to your lodgings without further delay.”
I pivoted on my toes and swirled my skirts in a dramatic rustle of fabric of which I am particularly fond. Irene scurried ahead of me, her head down and shoulders hunched.
“Wait,” I said in a low voice. I spun around and swept my eyes across the room. Every one of the women averted her gaze. Goodness, but I should have been a dramatic actress. I turned with another lovely flick of my skirts. to address Irene.
“Hold your head up,” I snapped. “And straighten your back. Did you kill Jack Ireland?”
“No.”
“Try not to look as if you did. Pull your shoulders back, lift your chin, push out your chest. That’s better. Pretend you’re amused although mildly annoyed at this bit of police foolishness. I expect to see you on stage at eight o’clock on Monday evening. No excuses. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Mrs. MacGillivray.”
“Follow me.”
The saloon was almost empty when we entered. Ray stood behind the bar, wiping glasses. Sam Collins wasn’t even pretending to be busy. Murray and Not-Murray huddled together, and the Sunday watchman stood in the middle of the room wondering what was going on. The two Mounties stood by the door as stiff as guards at Buckingham Palace.
“Look, Inspector,” Ray shouted, throwing glass and rag to one side. The glass shattered on the side of the long mahogany bar. “I killed him. He was a swine and a coward. I killed Ireland.”
“Oh, shut up, Ray,” I said. “You’re not helping in the least. Murray, clean that up.”
I addressed Inspector McKnight. “I will, of course, accompany you. I cannot allow Miss Davidson to leave my establishment without a chaperone.”
“Mrs. MacGillivray, I don’t think…”
“That’s settled then. Off we go. Close up, Ray, please.”
I gripped Irene’s arm and gave it a firm squeeze. She tossed me