Bloody Relations Read online

  “We’re here, sir,” the girl said, as soon as she was able to straighten up and breathe normally. “This is Madame Renée’s.”

  “Then . . . we’d better . . . go in,” Cobb said between gasps. Instinctively his right hand moved towards his truncheon, but he did not draw it out for fear of spooking the girl. Nevertheless, he was on alien ground and would need to remain alert. Although he prided himself on being able to smell trouble in a tavern minutes before it actually erupted, it was men he was dealing with there, men whose moods and motives he could read like a divvy. But women were a different species of humankind: unpredictable and unfathomable.

  “I’m Molly,” the young woman said, and to Cobb’s surprise she reached up and banged the knocker rhythmically, as if tapping a code. As she did so, one of the straps on her shift slipped off her shoulder. Cobb looked away quickly, realizing with a resigned sigh that he was leaving himself vulnerable to any sort of random assault.

  “Why don’t you just call out?” Cobb said.

  Molly gave him a puzzled look. “But you could have me in a hammerlock, couldn’t you?”

  A heavy bar was heard sliding behind the door, which was then eased open a crack.

  “You okay, Molly?” The voice of an older woman, frightened and wary.

  “I brung the constable, like you said, Mum.”

  “Good girl.” The door swung outward. The tepid light revealed a woman in a flowered dressing gown but was not sufficient to show the features of her face. Her size and posture and the deep alto of her voice signalled unmistakably that this was the mistress of the establishment. She reached out and Molly fell into her arms, sobbing uncontrollably. “There, there, girl. You’ve been a great help. There’s nothing more you can do now but go back to your sisters and give them what comfort you can.”

  Molly nodded her assent, gave the dressing gown one last clutch, then tottered into the shadows behind her mistress, who had turned just far enough to let her go by. Then the woman looked Cobb square in the eye and said, “Come in, Constable. I’m known hereabouts as Madame Renée.” She ushered Cobb in as if he were perhaps one of her gentleman callers.

  “I’m Cobb, ma’am. Yer Molly come out onto Lot Street babbling somethin’ about a murder.”

  Madame Renée’s large, dark eyes were luminous with tears that did little to disguise the contending emotions in them: fear, bravado, uncertainty, defiance, pain—all that complex stew of feelings and responses which Cobb associated with the female gender and which caused his head to spin and his heart to thump.

  “I’m afraid so, Mr. Cobb. One of my girls. Come, I’ll show you.”

  She glided back into the room and picked up a bright candle lantern from a fancy, draped table, the hem of her dressing gown floating across a patterned Persian carpet. Beyond the carpet, however, and two padded chairs that had seen better days, the parlour of Madame Renée’s bordello, reputed to be the classier of these carnal establishments, was nondescript. Cobb caught shadowy glimpses of a pot-bellied stove in one corner, three or four hard-backed chairs of undistinguished provenance, and a severely scarred sideboard upon which decanters of wine and whiskey tilted forlornly. Somewhere nearby an incense candle wafted a thick scent into the room. Cobb was disappointed: he had expected this brand of sin to have a more sumptuous face.

  Cobb followed Madame Renée through a narrow hall to a curtained-off doorway.

  “I can’t look in there again,” she said, her voice faltering as she pushed the lantern into Cobb’s hand. “Sarah was like a daughter to me.”

  “No need to, ma’am. That’s my job,” Cobb said with more confidence than he felt. He had been involved in only two murder cases since joining the force, not counting the lethal consequences of tavern brawls. Thus he had seen a number of dead bodies, but the thought of somebody deliberately murdered and a woman to boot was unnerving in the extreme. He took a deep breath, pushed the curtain aside, and went in.

  He found himself in a small bedroom, furnished only with a washstand and a low-slung bed not more than a foot off the wooden floor. Above the bed, high up on the wall, was a window in which a kind of muslin screen ballooned gently, letting in a bit of the night breeze and keeping out the mosquitoes. But it was the bed itself that caught Cobb’s attention and held it in a horrified gaze. The lantern trembled in his hand.

  Two people lay on top of a skimpy coverlet, both naked, one of them snoring monstrously and the other very much dead. Cobb forced himself to concentrate on the gaping wound in the girl’s neck as she lay motionless on her back with her legs apart and all her womanly appurtenances exposed to the lantern light. There was blood everywhere. The coverlet was soaked, as was the throw rug beside it and the bedding under the young male who lay beside the victim. In his right hand, a slim dagger glittered, gobbets of the girl’s blood still wet upon its six-inch length. Cobb thanked the Lord that her eyes were closed.

  He edged forward, keeping to the outside wall to avoid stepping in the blood on the rug and trying to clear the shock from his head. He was also doing his best to recall what he had learned at the side of Lieutenant Marc Edwards during his investigation of the murder at Frank’s Theatre last year. Observe the scene coolly before becoming part of it, he said to himself. He stopped in the narrow space between the bed and the wall with the window in it. The cheesecloth screen covering the eye-level window looked untouched: no one had come in or gone out that way. He held the lantern high and peered across the bodies to scrutinize the blood-drenched throw rug and blood-smeared plank floor from another angle. No sign of footprints. It appeared that neither Molly nor Madame Renée had ventured into the room after coming upon the grisly sight.

  While the naked man continued to snore loudly, Cobb leaned across him to examine the murdered girl, still keeping half an eye on the knife in her client’s hand. Her hair, lustrous brown and unbloodied, lay demurely upon its pillow; her small rosebud lips were opened as if to register a final “oh” of surprise or regret. She wore no makeup. She didn’t have to: she was naturally beautiful. And a whore.

  Cobb sighed, and the man stirred, moaned, and took up snoring again. Cobb leaned farther over him and held the lantern up to examine the wound. It looked wide and deep, but it was clear she had been killed by a single thrust. Dr. Withers would be able to tell him more. Cobb forced himself to make a quick survey of the rest of the girl’s body, feeling the heat in his cheeks, but there were no visible signs of any other kind of injury. He straightened up then and shone the light upon the girl’s killer. He was surprised to see a fine-boned young man with a shock of ashen hair, beardless and, even in this poor light, pale-skinned. Cobb lifted the knife free of the man’s fingers. They were uncallused. That, and the clothes strewn about Cobb’s feet, indicated a man of means. Not unexpected, in Madame Renée’s establishment. There would be no end of trouble, Cobb surmised, when the murderer was well-heeled and the victim a lowly denizen of a brothel. But at least there would be no doubt about who the killer was. Cobb would escort this gentleman to the jail himself. With no apologies.

  Cobb wrapped the knife in his freshly laundered handkerchief and quietly left the room. For the moment he had decided to question the madam and Molly about the circumstances leading up to the murder. Get a clear picture of what happened as soon as you can, would be Marc Edwards’s advice. And if the gentleman wished to sleep and keep himself out of the way, so much the better. Before entering the parlour, however, Cobb took a quick look at the layout of this part of the house. The bedroom behind him was one of three such cubicles exiting off a narrow hallway. He walked to the far end of it, where a water closet lay to his left. Even in the unlit corridor, he could see that there was no window in the end wall. The other two cubicles were empty, with their forlorn little cots neatly made up.

  When he came back into the parlour, he saw Madame Renée sitting in one of the padded armchairs. She was holding her chin in her hands as if physically trying to still her shuddering body. Cobb had seen it before: delayed sh
ock. Molly had come back into the room, her own tidal waves of trauma passed, and was prodding a fire into life in the stove, preparing to brew some tea. Across the room in a doorway leading to another part of the house, Cobb could see two moon faces peering out: the other girls, no doubt.

  Cobb nodded to Molly to carry on, then went to the sideboard. He brought a glass of whiskey across to Madame Renée, and she accepted it gratefully.

  “I’m gonna haveta ask you and yer girls some questions, when you feel up to it. I also need to have someone go up to Dr. Withers’s place and lead him back here to examine the body.”

  Madame Renée trembled anew at the mention of the word “body.”

  “I treated her like my own, didn’t I, Molly?”

  “We all did, Mum,” Molly said, plunking the tea kettle onto the hot stove. “Sarah was the sweetest girl. She wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

  “Is there a boy we could send into town for the doctor?” Cobb asked. “And, if possible, another lad to fetch the chief constable.” Cobb was beginning to worry about being the lone authority with a killer to watch over and witnesses to interrogate. God knows what other form of trouble might be lurking nearby. He couldn’t be everywhere at once.

  Madame Renée collected herself. “Yes. I sent our trackers home hours ago, but they just live two doors up. Carrie, dear, go up and fetch Donald and Peter.” A natural air of command had come back into Madame Renée’s voice.

  Carrie, in a flimsy wrap, inched out of the doorway, her face glistening with tears. “Is Sarah really dead?”

  “Yes, she is, Carrie. And Constable Cobb is here to help us. So be a good girl and fetch the lads. Tell them it’s urgent.”

  Cobb reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “Would sixpence speed them on their way?”

  “You give them that and we’ll not see hide nor hair of them,” Madame Renée said, a brief twinkle surfacing through her distress.

  A few minutes later, when the tea had been made and Madame Renée’s grief had subsided, Cobb went outside and gave two skinny, yawning boys their instructions. He slipped them each a three-penny piece, and they vanished into the darkness. As he re-entered the parlour he heard Madame Renée saying to Molly, “We’re ruined, you know. We’ve lost Sarah and we’re ruined.”

  While Cobb knew that Marc would have questioned the witnesses one at a time in privacy, he could not bring himself to order Molly or her mistress out of the room while he dealt with them individually. Besides, if they had wished or needed to concoct a plausible lie about what had happened, they had had plenty of opportunity to do so before his arrival. So he drew up a chair beside Madame Renée and Molly, while the others were allowed to look on. Cobb decided to start with what he assumed to be the most salient points first, then backtrack to the larger narrative of events.

  “Who was the victim?” he said to Madame Renée.

  “Sarah McConkey. She was one of my four girls. You’ve met Molly—”

  “Molly Mason, I am.”

  “And over there is Carrie Garnet and Frieda Smiley. We work in this part of the house and live together in the adjoining section.”

  “Was it you, ma’am, who found Sarah like that?”

  “It was Molly and me together. We were all asleep in our rooms over there—Molly was sleeping with me and Frieda and Carrie right next—”

  “You left Sarah alone with a . . . customer?”

  “He seemed so harmless,” Madame Renée said, and faltered.

  “It weren’t your fault, Mum,” Molly said, reaching across and giving her mistress a pat on the forearm.

  “What I need to know more’n anythin’ else is exactly what you saw when you opened the curtains and looked in there.”

  “Molly and I were asleep when Molly woke up saying she heard someone yell.”

  “It was a sort of shriek,” Molly said with a shudder, recalling it.

  “Sarah?”

  “I’m sure it was the gentleman.”

  “Anyway, we both ran in here and then into the east bedroom,” Madame Renée continued. “We were both standing in the doorway, struck dumb.”

  “The candle beside the bed was almost burned down, but we could still see, couldn’t we, Mum?”

  “I saw the blood, everywhere. I saw the wound in Sarah’s neck. I knew she was dead. And that man, that horrid little man was snoring away—still drunk.”

  “Then he must have cried out in his sleep,” Cobb said. “Sarah must’ve been stabbed long before that noise woke you up. It’d take some time fer all of that blood to drain outta her.”

  Frieda and Carrie, both very young and very frightened, emitted a joint cry of anguish. Cobb turned and apologized, “Sorry to be so blunt.”

  “Yes, I knew she was already dead. And I couldn’t bring myself to walk through her blood, I—”

  “Now, don’t go upsettin’ yerself so,” Cobb said. “It’s the man I want to know about.”

  “He had Sarah’s knife in his hand!” Molly said.

  “Sarah’s knife?”

  “She kept that little dagger under her pillow whenever she had a caller—”

  “You warned her about it, didn’t you, Mum?”

  Madame Renée looked at Molly with a sad, grateful nod. Her eyes were full of tears. “But Sarah was a strong-willed girl,” she said to Cobb.

  “So you both saw the knife in his right hand, just as I did?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  Well, that more or less clinched it. Cobb congratulated himself. Nevertheless, he felt obliged, despite the discomfiture of feminine tears and the near nakedness of the women he was questioning, to establish a chronology of events before waking the murderer and making any accusations. Piece by piece, with help from both Madame Renée and her three charges, they painted a vivid picture of what had happened before the discovery of the body. Because the brothel drew its clientele from among the prosperous and respectable in the community—merchants, bankers, councillors, army officers, and the like, if Madame were to be believed—the governor’s ball had robbed them of a good night’s take. Only three of their regulars had visited, elderly gentlemen too decrepit or senile to attend the gala at Spadina. Cobb was fascinated by the complex workings of a fancy brothel in the midst of a shantytown. Each of the regular callers, it seemed, had a nickname (Madame professing not to have the slightest notion of who they really were). Her trackers scouted the verges of Lot Street and, when a regular showed up, they escorted him safely to the red door. The caller would then use the brass knocker to rap out a prearranged code (frequently changed). The tracker lads had a different knock if they merely wanted to convey messages or otherwise be admitted. The parlour door, heavily barred, was the only way into the working section of the house. The windows were all high, small, and either shuttered or screened. None of the screens showed any signs of forced entry. One other door at the far west side of the house, with its own sturdy bar, led into the living quarters of the women.

  About one o’clock, realizing that no one else was likely to arrive this night, Madame had sent Peter and Donald home, barred the red door, and prepared to close up shop. They had just finished a cup of tea and were walking towards their own quarters when they heard a discreet rap—of one of the regulars. They waited. The knock was repeated. Madame unbarred the door and eased it open. A pale young man, heavily cloaked, stumbled in as if he had been pushed. He was a stranger. Puzzled, for the knock had been legitimate, Madame stepped out in time to see the back of a man in a purple or black cape and top hat moving quickly into the darkness. She concluded that one of her regulars—who knew his way in without assistance—had brought along a friend, though it was curious that he himself had not stayed to introduce him. When Cobb queried Madame as to why she didn’t simply toss the intruder back into the murk outside, she sighed and said that he was very young, unthreatening, and exceedingly drunk. He also waved a wad of pound notes at her, ogled the girls, and gave them all such a boyish, helpless sort of grin that they took pity on him.
And none of them, it was clear, would ever forgive themselves for doing so.

  Because Sarah McConkey was the only one of the girls not to have entertained a client that evening, she inherited the task of divesting the young gentleman (whom she dubbed Jocko, which seemed to amuse him) of his clothes and enticing him into bed. Madame insisted that she had remained awake in her room for half an hour or so, until she heard Jocko’s drunken snores. Then she peeked in and found both of them sound asleep. She returned to her own room and lay down beside Molly. The rest he now knew.

  Cobb stood up and thanked Madame. He was sure he heard footsteps approaching. It would be Dr. Angus Withers to confirm his own findings or Chief Constable Sturges to congratulate him and take the accused into custody. But before he could unbar the door, he was startled by a sound behind him and a collective gasp from the women. He swivelled around. There in the opening to the little hallway—naked, detumescent, blood-smeared, and plainly horrified—stood the murderer.

  • • •

  DR. ANGUS WITHERS, PHYSICIAN TO THE well-heeled and the self-important but a kindly gentleman himself, was in Sarah’s cubicle examining the body. The man presumed responsible for its condition was seated on the edge of a hard chair near the stove, which was throwing off more heat than anybody but the killer required. The moment he had appeared in the parlour, Cobb—offended by the man’s nakedness and spooked by the wild look in his eye—had moved decisively. Calling for a blanket to cover the wretched creature’s shame, Cobb had thrown both arms around him and half-dragged him to one of the armchairs. Amid the initial shrieks of the three girls, Madame Renée was a pillar of steely determination. Whatever revulsion she may have felt for the man who had slaughtered Sarah, she kept it under control, chivvying her young charges back into their quarters and returning with another dressing gown. She tossed it at Cobb, and he wrapped it around the shivering form before him.