Under the Dragon’s Tail
- Автор: Jennings Maureen
- Серия: The Murdoch Mysteries #2
- Год: 2008
- Язык: английский
- Год: McClelland & Stewart
- ISBN: 9781551992815
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «Under the Dragon’s Tail». Краткое содержание книги:
Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help – and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients' condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly's squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isn't sure if he's hunting one murderer – or two. From the Paperback edition.
“Now for my favourite part of the evening…and yours…”
She nodded to the piano player, who began to tinkle the keys softly. She climbed down delicately from the ladder and came back to the edge of the stage, leaning over to speak to the men who were closest. There was a gasp at the sight.
“You, sir. You in the brown cap. What’s your name?”
“Archie, miss.”
The man was short and wiry with a rather grubby face, as if he never quite got it clean.
“And what’s your trade, Charlie?”
He shuffed his feet and looked embarrassed.
“He’s a honey man,” yelled his companion. There were cries from those beside him who ostentatiously swayed away.
Annie stepped back. “Oh dear! An honest trade if ever I heard of one, but a little too sweet for me I’m afraid.”
She surveyed the men pressing in front of her.
“Me! Me!” They were thrusting their hands in the air like boys in a classroom. Annie pointed to one of them who was wearing a beige linen suit that looked as if he’d got it from a secondhand clothes shop on Queen Street. But he had wide shoulders, and even under the too-big coat he looked strong.
“You’re a real swell. What do you do?”
He stammered. “I’m a logger, miss.”
“My, that’s grand. But I don’t know if I can ever trust a logging man again.”
“Why is that, Annie?” bellowed a tough in the front row.
She pouted. “It was a logging man as ruined my sister.”
“Oh no!”
She began to prance back and forth as she told the story.
“My sister is a dear, dear girl, soft-hearted as…sh…well, let’s say very soft-hearted. One day this logging man came to her. He was very low.” Lots of titters. “His mood, I mean, you naughty men. He told her he was in danger of losing his crib. ‘Oh dear,’ says she, foolish girl. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ ‘There is that,’ says Charlie. ‘You see, a logging man has to be real handy with his hook. He’s got to get those logs unjammed and sometimes they are sooo tight, you just can’t get your bill in no how–’” Huge guffaws. Annie acted bewildered. “I don’t know what’s so funny about that! Let me go on with my story. ‘All I need is a little practice,’ says he, so my sister, who has too many soft things about her, heart, head, and – well, never mind that. Anyway, she helped that logging man practice all summer with that long, long, long hook of his. But then you know what?”
“What, Annie?” they yelled in unison.
“When winter came he was completely cured of his problem and happily he trotted off to go back to his crib…and now my sister has a problem.”
Roars of laughter. Rather guiltily, Murdoch found himself smiling too.
Annie held out her hand.
“I hope I can trust you, Charlie. And don’t forget I’m wearing my new boots.”
She lifted her skirt so they could see. More hollers and hoots. Murdoch was pressed against the stage. The heat was overwhelming and he was sweating. The smell from the bodies jammed against him was rank.
The piano player began to thump out another song.
The lumberjack clambered on the stage and took Annie clumsily in his arms. They did a waltz around the stage, the logger moving his arm up and down as if he was at the pump. She only tolerated it for two rounds then she let go and led him back to the stairs.
“That was lovely,” she said with a grimace, rubbing her arm. “Got the blood flowing. Who’s next?”
Murdoch didn’t wait. Boldly, he shoved the honey man away from him and vaulted onto the stage. The others shouted disparaging comments. He ignored them and bowed politely to Annie. She curtsied back and Murdoch held up his arms in dance position just as Professor Otranto had taught him.
Annie smiled. “Ha, a dancer I see.”
“I sure am,” said Murdoch. He didn’t add that to date his only partner had been his teacher, who took the woman’s part. His first real dance was coming up next week.
Graciously, Annie stepped up to him. This close he could see how painted her face was, the complexion unnaturally smooth and white, the cheeks and lips rouged. She placed one hand on his shoulder and the other in his. She smiled up at him but it was an impersonal professional smile. He smelled a waft of violet on her breath. As did the good professor, she favoured breath cachous. Her eyes were unnaturally shiny, and as she readied herself he could detect a slight unsteadiness to her stance. She’s as close to being full as you can get without falling over, he thought.
The piano player started again, the audience joining in.
The bobbing red feather pinned in her hair was brushing his nose. They started to waltz, Murdoch trying to pay attention both to her and to his feet. He was counting in his head. One, two, three; one, two, three.
“What do you do when you’re not dancing, Charlie?”
He executed a tricky cross-step. She followed easily.
“I’m a police officer. Acting Detective William Murdoch.”
The bodice beneath his hand was stiff and unyielding, but even so he felt the sudden tightening of her back. There was a flash of fear across her eyes but the smile replaced it immediately.
“I hope you’re not here officially, Mr. Murdoch.”
“As a matter of fact I am. I’d like to have a talk with you.”
At that point the harmony between them broke down and he tripped over her feet. She dropped her arms and cried out, making a big to-do of hobbling away.
“Get off the stage, go on, you ox.” The men were yelling at him, waving fists; some in good drunken earnest.
The thought flashed through Murdoch’s mind that he’d aroused their jealousy with his smooth reverse turn. He stood his ground, although out of the corner of his eye he could see the manager was at the steps ready to move in. He went closer to Annie.
“When?” he asked.
She pirouetted. “After closing time, in my dressing room.”
Shirtsleeves was on stage and coming fast towards him. Murdoch jumped down of his own accord.
Annie had called up another dancer, a well-dressed man with dark hair and a sun-tanned, weather-beaten skin. In time to more tweeting they waltzed around the stage and Murdoch was glad to see that the newcomer was no champion. He obviously knew the right steps but he moved so stiffly he could have been a mechanical piece. However, Annie smiled up at him and although Murdoch knew quite well it was all part of the act, he felt a twinge of jealousy.
Leaving them to it, he forced his way through the hot bodies back to the door and finally got outside. Here the air was blessedly cool and he leaned against the wall and wiped his dripping face and neck with his handkerchief. His hand smelled faintly perfumed from Annie’s glove and he shifted uncomfortably at the remembered image of all that white, bouncing flesh so close to him.
Chapter Twelve
Murdoch returned to the station to check the street directory for the Pedlow address and to see what sort of state Crabtree was in. He found the constable in the stable yard. Number-four station possessed two horses, both elderly and reliable, who were used to pull the police ambulance. At the moment, both were in harness. The traces, however, were not hitched to the wagon but to the large frame of George Crabtree. Two of the young constables, Burney and Duncan, were observing, both as alert as seconds in a prize fighter’s corner.