Except the Dying
- Автор: Jennings Maureen
- Серия: The Murdoch Mysteries #1
- Год: 1997
- Язык: английский
- Год: McClelland & Stewart
- ISBN: 9780771043208
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Except the Dying». Краткое содержание книги:
In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the unclad body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. Detective William Murdoch quickly finds out that more than one person connected with the girl's simple life has something to hide. From the Paperback edition.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It is not ridiculous to love your own child, Cyril. To want to give them some protection from the harshness of the world.”
“What you have given is not protection, it is mollycoddling.”
“He seems to be doing quite well in spite of it.”
Rhodes tugged angrily at his moustache. Lips tight, he said, “I am not as sanguine as you are, my dear. I ran into D-Davidson at the club. He said he was concerned about Owen. It seems that he has been missing many of his lectures. Not doing the work.”
“Davidson said that? Why … it can’t be true. You heard him. Two or three times a week he stays late and works at the college.”
“According to his teacher, that is not the case.”
Donalda stared at her husband. She wanted to go on arguing, to deny what he said, but she knew it was pointless. There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes that meant he considered himself unassailable. Stiffly, she said, “There has to be an explanation. Perhaps he is with a friend. He is a young man. He cannot work every minute. Perhaps–”
“Perhaps the truth is we have raised a slacker. Afraid of hard work. Interested only in the intricacies of his toilet.”
“Cyril! How can you be so cruel about your own son?”
“Unlike you, D-Donalda, I believe in facing the truth.”
“What a pity you acquired such virtue so late in life.”
He closed his eyes, tilted his head towards the ceiling as if in prayer. “I see. Am I now to get my annual castigation?”
“How dare you demean my feelings in that manner.”
“Donalda, I have begged your f-forgiveness over and over. I might as well have spoken to a stone. There is no more I can say or do.”
He walked towards the door, and she called to him.
“How very fortunate that with such a barren domestic life you can find satisfaction in your work. Where you are universally admired. Perhaps even adored.”
Rhodes’s face flushed and he bowed, coldly, as if she were a disagreeable acquaintance he wanted to cut. “Please inform Edith I will be dining at the club.”
He left. Donalda remained seated, fighting to subdue the trembling of her body. She and Cyril hadn’t had such a bitter quarrel for a long time. His words began to repeat themselves in her head. She knew that what he had said was true, and the thought was like bile in her stomach. Would someone else have forgiven him? Would another woman have restored love and respect between them? She breathed in sharply. The questions were useless. The fact was her marriage had been destroyed many years ago and whether it was primarily her fault or his was a moot point now. It was far too late to retrieve.
She got up to tend to the fire, and her eye was caught by the silver-framed wedding picture at the far end of the mantelpiece. She had married Cyril Rhodes, a young Canadian medical student, the year after Marianne’s death. She was barely eighteen, and she knew now that she had rushed into his arms in the naive expectation that life in a new country would bring her the happiness she craved. Had that young bride ever been happy, she wondered? She seemed so in the photograph, smiling and lovely in her dove-coloured silk gown with its delicate lace and beads. Cyril also was beaming with pride.
With a sigh she replaced the photograph. It was such a long time ago and those two young people full of promise and expectation were no more.
Owen was born eighteen months after the wedding, and by the time he was two she was carrying her second child. Had it lived, she would have named it Marianne.
She returned to the carte de visite. There was a resemblance, there really was, there in the full mouth, the round chin. Perhaps that was why she had become so fond of Theresa, had confided in her one night the way she had once talked to Marianne. She had whispered to her maid the old sad secret that she had told no one else.
She leaned her head against the mantelpiece. The crepe ribbon smelled faintly musty and the fire was hot against her legs, but she was impervious.
How could Cyril wonder why she never forgave him?
Chapter Eight
Tuesday, February 12
WITH A HEAVE WORTHY OF A CABER TOSS, Crabtree lifted the mattress and flung it to the floor.
“Hey, watch what you’re doing,” yelled Alice. “You could have broken my statue. That’s worth a lot of dash, that is.”
She snatched up a chipped plaster figurine, gaudily painted in gilt and blue.
“Sodding, shicey frogs,” Alice muttered.
“Watch your language or you’ll find yourself up on a charge,” said Murdoch.
Alice glared at him. Both she and Bernadette had been asleep when the officers arrived, although it was well past eleven o’clock. Ettie had pulled on her frowzy satin wrapper, but Alice remained in an unclean flannel nightgown that had long ago lost its buttons.
Murdoch surveyed the rusty iron bedsprings. There was nothing hidden there except a couple of squashed cockroaches and a crumpled five-dollar banknote. Bernadette Weston snatched up the money and stuffed it into her bodice.
“I told you there was nothing here.”
“You’d better give those other coves as good a bleeding going-over as you’ve done us,” added Alice, waving her hand in the direction of the wall to indicate their next-door neighbours.
“Why are you picking on us?” snapped Ettie. “There are half a dozen other houses as back onto the bleeding alley. Frigging coppers.”
“I said to watch your language,” said Murdoch. “One more remark like that and you’ll be in for the night.”
Alice put her hand on Ettie’s arm. “Don’t go on so, Ettie. They’re only doing their duty. Can’t help themselves. Gents never can.”
Her voice was suddenly arch, and she leaned forward in her chair so that the placket of her gown opened, revealing a flaccid breast and pink nipple. Ettie laughed and began to pull at the forefinger of one of the wooden forms on the mantel, which they used to hold the gloves when they were cleaning them. The constable abruptly concentrated on the upended box that served as their dresser. Triumphantly he held up a piece of pasteboard.
“Been visiting F. and J.’s, have you?”
He handed the card to Murdoch. It was a pawn ticket from Farrance and Jenkinson, a well-frequented shop on Queen Street.
Ettie scowled. “No crime, is it?”
“What did you pawn?” Murdoch asked.
Alice snorted. “My best drawers.” She leered at them. “I can get on without them. See?”
Crabtree ran his finger around his tight collar. He was a young man and the needling of the two prostitutes was getting to him. Murdoch refused to give them that satisfaction. There was also a date on the back of the pasteboard from two weeks previous, which meant it couldn’t be Therese’s belongings that had been pawned.
The few spare clothes the women had were hung on hooks on the far wall. Under the bed, as well as the chamber pot, which was full, were two pairs of boots, one of newish black leather with needle toes. The ends were well scuffed and a button was missing, but the soles were not worn and the leather still stiff.
“I’ll need to commandeer these.”
“No you don’t. They’re mine,” Alice said.
“Where’d you get them?”
“From Mr. Eaton’s.”
“How much did they cost?” asked Murdoch.
“Three dollars. I saved up.”
“I didn’t notice them before.”
“That’s you being nocky, isn’t it. They were there.”
“I’ll have to check them out.”
Alice wailed. “And what am I supposed to do without my boots? Some of us have to work, you know. I don’t have no others.”