Governing Passion (2 page)

Certainly it was grander, warmer and cosier
than Sally’s own house, her parents’ log cabin on Newgate Street.
She felt safe in the brothel and here on the streets of Devil’s
Acre. In the warm haven of Madam LaFrance’s, she was known and
admired; so unlike the poverty and rancour of her own home. Her
father was a drunk who took her board money happily while railing
against the ungodliness of her occupation. It was no good Sally
trying to explain that she was not a whore, that all she did was
smile at the gentlemen and sing her heart out. For she truly loved
singing. Even her fiancé had had trouble with her occupation, but
it was she who had broken off the engagement.

She walked west towards Church Street,
familiar with every bend and ell of the warren. It was snowing,
giving the dark a false brightness, but she knew the shape of every
gable and roof-pitch in the area, and moved steadily along, humming
to herself despite her sore throat. She didn’t know exactly when
she first heard footfalls somewhere in the snowy darkness behind
her, but soon they were quite distinct – and frightening. She
clutched her kerchief about her blond curls and shouted back, “Is
anybody there?”

No answer. And no footsteps.

Sally turned and began striding steadily
west. She was only two turns from Church Street and safety. She
stopped abruptly. The footsteps were now loud and very near. With a
thrill of fear running all through her, she began to turn to face
the menacing sounds of the footfalls.

Something powerful grabbed her by the
shoulder. She tried to twist away, but an arm quickly wrapped
itself around her chest. She raised her head to scream, and felt
something slash across her exposed throat. For some reason the
scream that had begun boiling up in her chest did not reach her
tongue. She heard a wheezing gasp, the arm released her, and she
slumped slowly into a nearby drift. The footsteps, heavy and
masculine, thumped on in the direction she had been going.

Sally lay where she had dropped. Slowly but
surely the life-blood flowed out of her and stained the steadily
falling snow.

***

Horatio Cobb was having a lovely dream – he and Dora
were naked in a sea of feathers that tickled and tantalized – when
the knock came at the door. He felt Dora roll off the bed and heard
her padding away towards the front room. The sudden cold draft left
by her absence brought him fully awake and silently cursing his
wife’s addiction to midwifery. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried
to re-enter the dream.

“It’s for you this time,” Dora shouted into
his ear. “It’s a lad sent here by your chief to fetch you to the
police quarters.” She sounded a bit too gleeful for Cobb’s
liking.

“But I’ve done my shift fer today,” he
pleaded.

“So you have, Mister Cobb, but I ain’t yer
boss. Cyril Bagshaw is, if I recall rightly.”

“No need to get
scar-castic
, Missus
Cobb. Tell the lad I’ll be a moment gettin’ inta my uniform.”

“Must be a riot in the town or somethin’ like
it to have you dragged outta yer bed,” Dora said more
sympathetically.

“Or it could be Bagshaw’s in need of a
detective,” Cobb said, getting up and reaching for his
trousers.

Cyril Bagshaw had been the new chief of
police since January, having arrived then from London, England,
where he had been hired away from the Metropolitan Constabulary. He
had, he informed all who would listen and those who had to, served
that ground-breaking force since its inception in 1829. He had been
a patrolman and then a desk sergeant, serving also as an exemplary
constable who inducted trainees into the service. So he had been a
good catch for the Toronto city council when Wilfrid Sturges had
retired as chief. Cobb had become great friends with Sturges, and
missed him terribly. But before leaving the post, Sturges had
recommended to the council that the Toronto force be doubled, from
five to ten, with round-the-clock patrols. In addition he suggested
that a new position, that of plainclothes detective (modelled on
the experiment just begun in London, England) be instituted, and
that Cobb be given the job. Bagshaw had accepted the reorganized
force happily, though the status of the detective was left up to
him to implement as he saw fit. Until then, Cobb was ordered back
on the street – in his uniform. If a serious crime required
investigation, Cobb was to switch roles, but so far no crime had
apparently fit this category, in the chief’s view. But perhaps that
would change this evening (Cobb noted it was only a little past
eleven-thirty), as short of a full-scale uprising, Cobb could not
think of any other reason as to why he would be called out at this
hour.

Cobb finished dressing, went to the front
stoop, where he tipped the messenger boy, then started off westward
for the police quarters. The snow that had come down for much of
the early evening had stopped. There was no traffic on King Street
and the slushy, rutted roadway was now a pristine, white ribbon
between rows of houses and shops. Fifteen minutes later found him
at the City Hall on Front Street, the rear portion of which now
housed the expanded police force. A candle flickered in the
reception room as he opened the door and walked in.

“Well, Cobb, it took you long enough to get
here,” Bagshaw snapped. The room was icy cold, the fire in the
stove long since gone out. “The body will be frozen stiff by
now.”

“Body?”

“That’s what I said, sir. Body. A young woman
was found an hour ago with her throat slashed from ear to ear.”

Bagshaw stamped his feet in a vain effort to
warm them.

“Where?” Cobb said.

“Where else? In that cesspool known as
Devil’s Acre. A couple of blocks from here, if you can
imagine.”

“A prostitute?”

“I don’t know that, do I? That’s for you to
find out.”

At last, thought Cobb. He needs a detective.
Cobb smiled and took a long look at the new chief in the light of a
single candle. He was tall without an ounce of flesh to give his
bones comfort. And his uniform – the one he’d worn as constable on
the Metropolitan Force – looked as if it had been painted on him
with a palette knife. It was a trim blue outfit with brass buttons
and a thick, brown belt around what little waist there was. The
stiff collar seemed to be holding the man’s head erect and pointed
to the front. The head itself was too generous for the body it sat
upon with evident pride. The features were angular, with a jutting
chin and a beaked nose some hawk might have boasted of. Under
overarching eyebrows, as bristled as any hair brush, there stood
two, round pop-eyes that seemed ready to hop out at any moment to
say what couldn’t be spoken by the lips and tongue. The dark brown
hair was slicked back like an otter’s and aided materially in the
upright posture that appeared to be a permanent aspect of his
bearing. In fact, if he were to bend at the waist too suddenly, the
whole apparatus might collapse in upon itself.

“You want me to do the investigation?” Cobb
said evenly.

“That’s what you’ve been assigned to do by
the aldermen,” Bagshaw said. “But if the victim turns out to be a
Devil’s Acre whore, you can be sure one of her cronies slit her
throat for tuppence and will never be found.”

“Has the coroner been told?”

“He left here just before you came. Wilkie is
waiting at Madame LaFrance’s brick house to show him where the body
is. He’ll come back there and wait for you as soon as he can.”

“Who found the body?”

“Some young fellow at a nearby gambling den.
He sent for a policeman, and Wilkie was nearby, sleeping probably
behind St. James.”

“I’ll go right away, sir.”

“You do that.”

“Am I to put on my Sunday suit while I
investigate?”

Bagshaw frowned and scrutinized Cobb for any
sign of sarcasm in the remark. “That business is a lot of nonsense.
I said so at the Met when they introduced it this past year. Out of
your uniform you’ll receive no respect at all. Keep it on. And
that’s an order.”

“Fine with me,” Cobb said, who had not been
looking forward to working in the confined clothes of a gentleman.
However, he did realize that plainclothes would soon become the
badge of the detective, and mark him off as a special member of the
force. But his uniform fit nicely, and he had grown to feel at home
in it.

“I expect a written report on my desk by
mid-morning,” Bagshaw said, and with that he blew the candle
out.

Cobb was dismissed.

***

Cobb walked north to St. James Cathedral at Church
and King. There were half a dozen entrances to Devil’s Acre, he
knew, and then nothing but a labyrinth of shanties, hovels and
alleyways scattered helter-skelter across several acres of ground
just above the cathedral cemetery. Cobb went to the rear of the
church building and came to the graveyard. He crossed it and
entered a dark, snow-lit alley. The upper half of Madame LaFrance’s
two-storey house was outlined in shadow somewhere a few hundred
yards ahead of him. Keeping an eye on it, he navigated the maze
adroitly enough, seeing only the occasional lamplight from the
gambling dens and other places of iniquity and hearing the shouts
and sighs of men caught in the vise of their pleasures. A few
minutes later he emerged next to the brothel. It was not snowing,
but the sky was still cloudy and only the eerie half-light of the
snow gave any real illumination. The lights inside the brothel were
discreet, like everything else about the establishment.

There was no sign of Wilkie, so Cobb stood
beside the front stoop and waited. Five minutes went by before his
fellow constable emerged from the shadows to the west and greeted
him.

“You’ve seen the body?” Cobb said.

“The doctor’s there now,” Wilkie said. “I
didn’t care to look too closely, but there was a lot of blood.”

“What about the man who found it?”

“He’s warmin’ his toes at the bootlegger’s he
come from earlier. We can fetch him whenever you want.”

“Take me to the body first, then fetch him,
will you?”

Without further conversation Wilkie turned
and led the way westward towards Church Street. After several
zigzags they came into an narrow alley between a row of log shacks.
Just ahead, kneeling over the body was Dr. Angus Withers.

“What have we got?” Cobb said, coming up to
him.

Withers looked up. “You doing the
investigation?” he said, not unkindly.

“That’s right. I’m gonna play detective,
accordin’ to the Chief.”

“Well, we’ve got a savage murder on our
hands, I’m afraid. This young woman’s had her throat slashed.” He
drew back the handkerchief that had been covering her face, and
Cobb recoiled.

“Any idea when the attack took place?”

“Hard to say. It’s damn cold out here.
Everything freezes up and slows down. But no longer than a couple
of hours ago, I’d guess.”

“Any guesses as to how it might have
happened?”

“I’d say someone came up behind her and slit
her throat before she could blink.”

“A very pretty girl,” Cobb observed, trying
to focus on her blond curls and keep his gaze away from the gaping
wound.

“If she was respectable, and she’s dressed
that way, I wonder what she was doing wandering through Devil’s
Acre at night?”

“Maybe I can learn somethin’ from the fella
who found her,” Cobb said.

“I’ll fetch him,” Wilkie said, and left
quickly.

“We’ve messed up the footprints ourselves,”
Cobb sighed, looking back at the rumpled snow where he, Wilkie, the
coroner and the man who found her had all walked.

“Ah,” Withers said, “but the killer did not
retreat. He kept on going.” He nodded towards the west end of the
alley. Faint from the fresh snowfall but still visible was a single
set of footprints.

“You’re right, doc,” Cobb said and, keeping
to one side of the alley, he began following the prints. They were
three-quarters drifted in, but their outline was clear enough. And
they were huge, surely a size twelve or larger. The killer must be
a big man, perhaps six feet tall. Either that or he was the owner
of abnormally large feet. At the first turn, where the fresh snow
had not penetrated, Cobb was able to discern one, clear, fully
outlined print. It revealed a distinctive star-shaped pattern on
the sole. Cobb committed it to memory, and would reproduce it in
his notebook as soon as he could. It might prove to be an important
clue.

Another two alleys and abrupt turns brought
him and the prints to Church Street. Here the trail went cold, for
the prints suddenly met the ruckus of the earlier foot-traffic
along the busy street. It seemed likely, however, that the killer
knew the layout of Devil’s Acre. He had escaped by the shortest
route, blending into the normal flow of people and vehicles along
Church Street.

To the south, at the Corner of Church and
King, Cobb spotted the night watchman, the last of his breed in the
city now that the police patrolled day and night. He walked along
and hailed him.

“What in blazes are you doin’ out at this
time of night?” the fellow said. “You’re a day-patroller, ain’t
ya?”

“Hello, Edgar,” Cobb said. “I’m investigatin’
a murder over there in Devil’s Acre.”

“How can I help?” old Edgar said, rubbing the
sleep out of his eyes.

“Did you see anyone come out of Devil’s Acre
just down there, sometime in the past two hours?” Cobb said,
pointing to the spot where he himself had emerged.

“I don’t see everythin’ on this street, but I
know it’s been awful quiet tonight. Didn’t see a soul hereabouts
except an elderly laundry woman cartin’ her wares, who I advised to
go straight home.”

“Do you know her?”

“Not really. Lots of ‘em go by here at all
hours, luggin’ their stuff. I may have seen this one before and I
may not have.”