The Klondike Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Vicki Delany

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СКАЧАТЬ ribbons through their hair or putting a touch of sequins on their belt or a scrap of fur or lace on the collar. Their hands and faces were red and chapped from hard living in a hostile climate, and many had missing teeth. The road to the Klondike wasn’t for delicate women.

      A woman stood on the boardwalk on the other side of the street, watching them. “Lovely day, ain’t it, Constable?” she called.

      “Lovely.”

      “Nice lad you’ve got ’ere. Looks like a perfect angel. Your favourite?”

      “Watch your mouth, Joey.”

      She was tiny, the size of an undernourished child; the bones of her wrists as delicate as a bird’s. Angus knew who she was: everyone knew who she was. Madame Josephine LeGrand owned many of the cribs that lined Paradise Alley. And, even though the law didn’t approve, she owned the women who worked in those cribs as well. Midwest farm and eastern factory girls looking for adventure, abandoned wives trying to make a living, seasoned prostitutes from Montreal, Chicago, St. Louis or San Francisco, Joey LeGrand had paid their way to the Klondike, where they now worked, day and, mostly, night to pay for their passage.

      Angus stared at her open-mouthed; his mother had warned him to have nothing to do with the small woman with the Quebec accent.

      Joey stared back. The smile on her thin lips didn’t touch her eyes. She placed her child-sized feet on the duckboards and crossed the road. Her dress was of plain homespun, her brown hair streaked with grey and pulled back into a severe bun, her only jewellery a plain gold band on the third finger of her left hand.

      “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Angus stuttered. “I’m…”

      “Never mind,” Sterling interrupted.

      She folded her petite white hands in front of her and smiled up at Angus. “No matter,” she shrugged. “I can guess the lad’s name.” The smile fell away and her attention shifted. “Any reason you’re in the neighbour-hood, Constable?”

      “Checking that the law is being upheld, Madame LeGrand. Even in Paradise Alley.”

      “Oh, yes. The Law. Me, I never forget about the importance and the power of The Law.”

      “See you keep it that way.” “Certainement, monsieur. Bon soir.” She grinned at him like a cat at play with a particularly stupid mouse.

      Sterling didn’t say goodbye. He continued on his rounds, an unusually silent Angus following.

      “Anyone ever show you how to box, Angus?” The constable said, apparently out of nowhere.

      “No, sir. But I’d like to learn.”

      “You’re growing into a big lad, Angus. Be not much longer before some men in this town try to take you on, not caring how young you are. Sergeant Lancaster was the boxing champion of Manitoba in his youth, I hear.”

      Angus’s initial flush of excitement was quickly replaced by disappointment. He looked at his shuffling feet. “My mother won’t allow it, sir. She doesn’t want to hear about me fighting.”

      “You mother doesn’t have to know.”

      Angus lifted his head. “Would he charge for lessons? Ma won’t pay.”

      “He loves to teach boys. He’ll probably do it for free.”

      “When can I start? Tomorrow?”

      Sterling laughed. “Let me talk to Lancaster first. We’ll work something out, and I’ll let you know.”

      They walked down Front Street. It was almost eight o’clock, but the northern sun was warm on their faces. Outside the Savoy, Helen Saunderson was standing on the boardwalk, her eyes red from weeping, holding a welllaundered and heavily mended handkerchief to her nose. Jack Ireland, the American newspaperman, stood beside her, writing in a small notebook.

      “Evening, Mrs. Saunderson,” Sterling said. “Everything all right here?”

      “Fine, thank you, Constable. Evenin’ Angus.” Air whistled through the woman’s missing teeth. She blew her nose, the sound like a Prairie tornado. “I’m only telling Mr. Ireland here ’bout what happened to my man, Jim.”

      Ireland patted Mrs. Saunderson’s shoulder. “There, there, my dear. You cry all you want. Such a tragic story.”

      She burst into another round of sobs and buried her face in her handkerchief. Her shoulders shook. Passersby tossed her curious stares and gave them a wide berth.

      “Are you sure you want to be talking to a reporter, Helen?” Sterling said.

      “I don’t see that it’s any of your business, Constable. Not unless the telling of a tragic story is against the law up here,” Ireland said.

      “I was asking the lady.”

      “I want folks to know what he done to me. My own brother. Took everything I had in the world and left the little uns to starve.”

      Angus’s mother had told him the story: Helen’s husband Jim and her brother had a claim out on Bonanza Creek. At first they were among the lucky ones, striking gold their first month on the river. But luck soon abandoned them, as she so often does, when loose gravel on a cliff face crumbled beneath Jim, and he fell to his death on the rocks below. It wasn’t much of a tumble either, as the story went, only a few feet, but the back of his head met with the pointed edge of a sharp rock. His partner, Helen’s own brother, John, took their gold and headed out of the territory before Helen had time to make her way to the base of the cliff and recover the body. She arrived in town with her husband’s remains, his mining equipment, and four children under the age of twelve.

      The Savoy’s housekeeper had quit just a few days before, walked out in the middle of her shift having accepted a proposal of marriage on the spot from a man she’d never before laid eyes on. Not incidentally, he’d found gold and was celebrating his good fortune. So Helen was offered the job, and with just enough hesitation to assuage her pride, she accepted.

      A couple of miners, their hair and clothes still thick with the dust of the dig, stopped at the foot of the step. They looked at the weeping woman, the well-dressed older man taking notes, the boy, the police officer, and hurried down the street in search of a more hospitable drinking place.

      “Some privacy, please, Constable.” Ireland patted Mrs. Saunderson with one hand and dug in his pockets in search of a cigar with the other.

      Mrs. Saunderson gulped, wiped her eyes, and took a deep breath, almost visibly gathering her courage. “If it weren’t for Mrs. MacGillivray, I can tell you, sir, there’s no telling what woulda become of my youngins. This ain’t no town for a woman without a man, and four children. No, sir. You tell your newspaper people that Mrs. Fiona MacGillivray is a fine woman. None better.”

      “I’ll do that,” Ireland said, his eyes roaming the street in search of the next story.

      “Mrs. MacGillivray once owned a grand hotel in London, England.” Helen’s eyes widened at the thought of how fine a grand London hotel would be. Deep lines scored her face, and the delicate skin under her eyes, as dark as a grate full of coal, drooped towards her sunken cheeks. The effects of cold, hard work, grief and the scurvy СКАЧАТЬ