Gold Mountain: A Klondike Mystery (3 page)

It had been only a year ago when Angus and I departed Toronto with an unseemly degree of haste. We took the first train pulling out of Union Station, paying no heed to where it was heading.

We ended up in Vancouver in July of 1897.

Every person we encountered was talking about nothing but gold. Yukon gold. On July 14, the steam ship
Excelsior
had arrived in San Francisco carrying half a million dollars worth of gold, and then on the 17th, the
Portland
pulled into Seattle with a million dollars worth. Newspaper headlines screamed the weight of the precious metal; store fronts were instantly covered in advertisements for the equipment one supposedly needed to go prospecting; waiters and butlers and shop clerks and policemen discarded their uniforms and walked out the door, heading for the Klondike.

Although a great many didn’t exactly know where that was.

Or what they would find there.

I stood on the street corner outside our hotel while the bellboy unloaded our trunks and Angus peppered him with questions. He told Angus that his three older brothers were preparing to leave, that he wanted to go with them but his widowed mother was begging him not to abandon her.

I watched a cart go by, laden with pickaxes, burlap bags of flour, wooden boxes stamped canned corn, and three men, the youngest of whom was seventy if a day. “Ho! The Klondike! Ho!” they cried to cheering onlookers. A group of small boys and a scrawny dog ran after them. The boys waved and shouted. The dog barked.

The bellboy took our things into the hotel, and we followed. It wasn’t a particularly good hotel. Definitely second rate, not the sort of establishment I was accustomed to frequenting.

Which was, of course, the point.

I was likely being sought by one Mr. Jonathan McNally, whose wife’s jewellery was resting comfortably in the valise that never left my hand.

Jonathan McNally was a fat, red-faced man in his late forties who dabbled at being a banker but in truth was dependent on his mother’s family fortune. She was a daughter of one of the old-money Protestant families who controlled the financial life of Eastern Canada. Jonathan’s wife — as plump and plain as he — and their six children spent the entirety of the summer at the family vacation home on Stoney Lake. At the weekend Jonathan would travel up on the train to join his progeny. During the week, he would entertain me.

Shortly after he had made my acquaintance over an excellent dinner at the Royal York Hotel, I told my paramour that my house had been discovered to be infested with vermin. I shuddered prettily and said that, as I was in temporary accommodation, I couldn’t possibly invite a gentleman around for an after-supper drink, now could I?

He looked slightly unsure — they always did. Then he gave in — they always did — and said he’d be delighted to show me his home.

One of Jonathan McNally’s virtues, for me, was that an excess of drink put him straight to sleep. I suggested brandies before retiring, and sure enough he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. I left him snoring lustily and examined the house. Most specifically, his wife’s dressing room. She hadn’t taken the best of her jewels to Stoney Lake. The drawers to the desk in the library were locked but looked easy to pick.

The weekend arrived and Jonathan, as was his custom, departed to join his family. Saturday night, I used the copy of the key I’d made from the one in Jonathan’s jacket pocket and entered the house.

Unfortunately, the butler was up in the night. Also unfortunately, a delicate pie-crust table had been placed behind a door where it hadn’t been previously, and I knocked it over. What the butler thought he was doing upstairs in the family bedrooms when no one was in residence, I cannot imagine. Hearing the table fall, he armed himself with a candlestick and came face to face with me, dressed in trousers and a multi-pocketed working man’s jacket, all in black, exiting Mrs. McNally’s boudoir.

The butler was not accustomed to ladies who’d been taught to fight as if in a bare-knuckle ring.

I screamed, only half-pretending shock, dropped my sack, mumbled something about having left my late mother’s necklace behind, burst into tears, and reached out as though to weep on his chest. Instead, I grabbed him by the shoulders of his night attire, pulled him toward me, and drove my knee deep into his jewels. He screamed, I let go and stepped back. He bent over, protecting his vitals, overcome with pain. I brought my knee in again, this time driving it into his face. His nose burst in a spray of hot, sticky blood.

I ran, having the presence of mind to first pick up my bag.

I estimated I had sufficient time to collect my things and my son and get out of town. Fearful of the possibility of scandal, or the rage of the elder Mrs. McNally, the butler wouldn’t call the police without his employer’s authorization. And even then, McNally might not be too welcoming of the sort of questions the authorities would ask. Such as how I’d obtained a key and knew the layout of his house.

He’d told me they didn’t have a telephone at the lake. Something about Mother objecting to the vile instrument. Knowing who was the boss — Mother — Mr. McNally might want to instruct his butler to break a window and leave large muddy boot tracks across the carpet before contacting the authorities.

No, I wasn’t afraid of the police.

His mother’s money or no, McNally was a wealthy man, and wealthy men had their resources. Rich or poor, no man was fond of being made a fool of.

Particularly by a woman.

I hurried home and dismissed the cabbie. I roused the footman and told him to find me a cab, quickly. Letting the rest of the servants sleep, I stuffed the best of my possessions into only two trunks. The scented cedar box containing jewellery, as well as the pieces for possession of which I was forced to flee, went into a valise. I stuffed cash into envelopes for my staff. More than enough to make up for lack of notice, but also to ensure some degree of loyalty, hoping they wouldn’t sell me out to the first person who came calling.

I ordered the cab to Angus’s school, where I roused the headmaster in the middle of the night. Angus was sent for and told he had ten minutes to pack his truck. The headmaster and his bony, nightgown-clad wife protested earnestly, something about the importance of strict regimen and rigorous attention to routine in the development of a young man’s character. I told them I’d leave a donation to the school, which went a long way to mollifying them, slapped another cash-stuffed envelope on the table, and went outside to wait impatiently by the cab.

Angus was back in seven minutes, trailed by a porter wheeling his trunk in a barrow; his possessions were loaded onto the top of the cab, and we were off again.

On our arrival at Union Station, while Angus patted the horses’ noses and thanked them for bringing us, and the cabbie went in search of a porter, I slipped into the building alone, telling Angus to deal with the porter and meet me inside.The cavernous station was dark and quiet. The sound of my footsteps disappeared into the great vaulted stone ceiling.

I changed into a plain dress of brown cotton, wrapped my long black hair into an exceedingly tight bun and topped it with a most unattractive hat, propped a pair of spectacles containing plain glass onto my nose, and slipped a cheap wedding band onto my finger. I rubbed a bit of dirt, scooped up while waiting for Angus, onto the hem of the dress. To his credit, Angus barely batted an eyelid when I emerged in my new costume. I purchased our tickets in a flat Canadian accent, blinked myopically at the man behind the counter, and fumbled through my reticule for a few coins to tip the porter.

“What have you done this time?” was all Angus said as we boarded the train.

During the long journey across the continent, I’d decided to head for the United States. San Francisco, perhaps. It was supposed to be a rough-edged town. I had sufficient funds to find a place for Angus in a good boys’ school, rent a house in a respectable part of town, and hire an adequate household. Whereupon I would make my living as I had since I’d been eleven years old.

Stealing.

Standing in the hotel lobby in Vancouver I changed my plans.

Enough of climbing up drainpipes and escaping by the skin of my teeth. Enough listening to fat old men snore in the night.

And enough of missing my son. Angus was eleven years old. I hadn’t wanted to put him in boarding school, but once he reached the age of awareness I could hardly have him living with me when I entertained the gentlemen who, usually unwittingly, provided my income.

We’d left London four years ago with as much haste as our recent departure from Toronto. It was time to provide my son with a bit of stability.

“Angus,” I said, as we stood in the lobby of the second-rate Vancouver hotel. “How would you like to go to the Klondike?”

“That’d be grand, Mother.”

“Where,” I asked the hotel clerk, “is the shipping office located?”

I hadn’t intended to actually go to the Klondike. It sounded like a most difficult trip. I certainly had no intention of prospecting for gold. Unlike what had been suggested by the talk I heard in Vancouver, then Victoria, and then on the
Bristol
, heading for Alaska, I suspected that gold nuggets were not lying about on the ground waiting to be picked up by men who’d last week been bank clerks or cooks or farmers.

But where there were men, lots of men, away from their homes, full of dreams, there was always money to be made.

And legally, too.

I’d find a profession in Alaska that would allow me to have my son living with me, and not necessitate bracing myself every time I saw an officer of the law heading my way.

This place called Skagway seemed like a good destination. I’d open a theatre and employ women to dance and perform stage plays. I exchanged Mrs. McNally’s jewellery for cash and bought supplies and two boat tickets to Skagway.

Skagway turned out to be more than even I had bargained for, and eventually Angus and I joined the long line of fortune-seekers climbing the Chilkoot trail.

Corporal Richard Sterling had told his constables to be on the lookout for the tall thin man and to let him know if they spotted him.

Settled down to dinner in the back room of the detachment office, which served as the dining hall, Sterling decided to confront Mr. Paul Sheridan personally. He told himself it wasn’t because Sheridan had offended Fiona MacGillivray — definitely not, he would never let his personal feelings interfere with the performance of his duties. But if Sheridan was a scout for Soapy Smith, this needed the attentions of someone more experienced than a raw constable fresh from the Outside, still shaking the dust of the Chilkoot off his scarlet tunic.

Dinner consisted of the ubiquitous beans, this time served with a slab of overcooked meat of indeterminate origin. At least the bread was hot and fresh, and it came with a scraping of butter.

“Sir,” Constable McAllen came in. He didn’t look quite old enough to shave yet. “Sorry, don’t want to disturb your supper.”

Sterling pushed the plate away. “Not worth worrying about. What is it?”

“I think I spotted the guy you’re after. Tall, very thin. He’s in the Monte Carlo. Playing roulette. Losing big.”

“Thanks. Let’s look into it.”

It was six o’clock in the evening and the Monte Carlo was busy. Men eyed the police officers as they came through the front doors. Sterling nodded to the man behind the bar and kept walking. The gambling room was about half full. Still early for some of the bigger players.

Gambling, like prostitution, was illegal in Canada. But when the men in charge of this tiny police force, in the town fast becoming one of the biggest — certainly the busiest — in Western North America, realized what they were about to be faced with, they decided it was better to control vice than to outlaw it. The authorities in Ottawa were a very long way away, and the officers and men of the North-West Mounted Police were on their own. So they allowed gambling and prostitution but kept a strict eye out to ensure business was as properly conducted as possible. Places could be and were shut down if they stepped too far over the line.

A crowd had gathered around the roulette table. As Sterling and McAllen entered, a man placed a pile of chips onto the table. “Seventeen,” he said.

“You been playin’ seventeen all night,” a grizzled sourdough said. “It ain’t come up yet. When you gonna try somethin’ new?”

“That’s my plan, old fellow. At some point seventeen will come up. And then I’ll be a winner.”

The old man’s face said what he thought of that plan.

The croupier spun the wheel. He passed his hand over the table and said, “No more bets.”

Everyone, Sterling and McAllen included, watched the ball.

“Sixteen,” the croupier announced in a flat tone. He scooped up most of the chips, then counted a couple out and placed them beside the ones on red.

The old sourdough, the owner of that bet, chuckled and collected his winnings. He put them in front of the man who’d bet on seventeen. “Luck ain’t with you tonight, my boy. Why don’t you quit while you can?” With that, the sourdough stood up from the table and took his leave, passing the two police officers standing in the doorway. “Corporal,” he said in greeting.

Sterling knew the man — one of the very few who’d actually found gold. Lots of it. He’d prospected up and down Alaska and the Yukon for more than twenty years and was lucky enough to be close to the Creeks when word spread of the great discovery. He had staked his claim within days and pulled a great deal of the gold metal out of the ground since. He came into town once a month, stayed for two days, showered his favourite dance hall performers with gold nuggets, visited the cribs on Paradise Alley, gambled at the Monte Carlo and the Savoy, usually losing all the gold he’d dug up since he’d last been in town, and then disappeared back to his claim with a month’s worth of supplies, empty pockets, and a smile on his face.

Sterling approached the roulette table as Sheridan was placing the chips the old miner had given him onto number seventeen. The croupier lifted one eyebrow when he saw the police.

“Mr. Paul Sheridan,” Sterling said.

The man didn’t look up. “Yes.”

“I’m Corporal Sterling and I’d like to have a word with you.”

“Can’t right now, Officer. My luck’s about to turn.”

“A night in jail and your luck will definitely be turning.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Glad to hear it. Then we can just talk. Randy, give the man back his chips.” The croupier pushed them over.

“Keep them,” Sheridan said. “And save my place. I’ll be back.”

“Free with your money, aren’t you?” Sterling asked, as he led the man though the bar and out to the street.

“I’ll be getting plenty more soon.”

Sterling didn’t bother to ask where. Half the men who arrived in the Klondike seemed to expect gold nuggets to be lying on the ground or hanging from the scruffy pine trees like fruit ripe for the picking. But some people were starting to leave, giving up the dream, heading back to the south. Telling others they passed on the trail there was no point in carrying on. No more gold was to be found, no jobs except hard work on another man’s claim.

Still they came. Optimistic to the end.

“Where’d you come from?” Sterling asked. They stood on the wooden sidewalk, a few feet down from the Monte Carlo’s doors. McAllen watched the street.

“Told you about me did she?” Sheridan shook his head. “Naughty minx. Or was it her boy?” His eyes darkened. “You wouldn’t have a
personal
interest in this would you?”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Where was your last place of residence?”

“As you know, Skagway. And yes, I was in the employ of Soapy Smith. Although I never did anything illegal, you see. I worked in one of his establishments. All above board, of course.”

“Of course. Did Smith send you here?”

“Nope. These days, Soapy isn’t sending anyone anywhere. He’s losing control, Soapy is. I could see the writing on the wall. Time to get out of town.”

Sterling believed the man. Rumour drifting over the passes said Soapy was running into trouble. On one hand criminals, new arrivals, weren’t about to take orders from anyone, and on the other hand Skagway townsfolk were muttering about taking the law into their own hands.

“Planning to stay in town for long?”

“Nope. I’m getting married and then my lady and I will be heading north.”

“North? There’s nothing north of here.”

Sheridan tapped the side of his nose. “Not telling. These men,” he nodded to a group of grime-incrusted, long-bearded, probably lice-infested miners, heading out of town carrying equipment and supplies, “they’re wasting their time. Bonanza Creek. Eldorado. Child’s play. There’s a mountain of gold out there. And I’m the only one knows where it is.”

“If you say so. Be sure you keep your nose clean while you’re here, will you.”

Sheridan tipped his hat and sauntered away, whistling, hands in pockets. He didn’t go back to the Monte Carlo.

McAllen lifted his hand to his head and drew circles in the air.

Sterling laughed.