CHAPTER THREE

Murdoch returned to what he optimistically referred to as his office, a cubicle off the back hallway, next to the cells. He put the two letters on top of his desk. He didn’t relish this assignment. He considered the sergeant to be a dedicated police officer who did his work properly, was punctual, didn’t drink, appeared clean and groomed, and was fair to the constables under his command. Surely he wouldn’t be so foolish as to risk his job for some peccadillo. Murdoch grimaced, realizing what he was thinking. Seymour was right. No matter if you were clean as the fresh, fallen snow currently beautifying the city, mud stuck.

There was a tap on the wall outside. Because the cubicle was too small for a door, Murdoch had hung a reed curtain at the threshold. Through the strips, he could see the outline of George Crabtree. The constable filled the entire space.

“Come in.”

Crabtree pushed aside the curtain sufficiently to show his head and shoulders.

“There is a lady out in the front hall who wants to talk to you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know, sir. She didn’t give her name. She said you wouldn’t know who she was anyway.”

“Did she also refuse to say what she wanted?”

“As a matter of fact she did, sir. A personal matter was all she’d say.”

“George, I’ve seen that expression on your face before. What’s wrong with this one? Do I need you to protect me?”

Crabtree looked sheepish. “Not that, sir. It’s just that…well, she’s dressed sort of peculiar. Not what you’d usually see. But well-spoken.”

“I’m intrigued. I’ll come out.”

He put the two letters in a folder and slipped it into his desk drawer.

The public area of the station was a large room called the hall. Along one wall ran a wooden bench where the public could wait while their complaints or misdemeanours were dealt with. A big wood stove in the centre poured out heat into the room. The sergeant on duty sat on a stool behind the high counter and behind him was the telephone and telegram table, manned at the moment by young Callahan. Both men were trying without much success not to stare at the woman who was standing in front of the counter. She was on the short side, slim, with fine features and blonde, wavy hair. However, her features were not the extraordinary thing about her. Her clothes were. She was wearing a loose-fitting, brown tweed jacket, belted at the waist and buttoned at the neck. The hem was at her knees and below it were visible brown pantaloons, also loose fitting, and fastened with narrow bands at the ankle. Her boots, simple brown felt hat, and the portmanteau she was carrying were unimpeachable.

As soon as Murdoch appeared, she spoke up.

“Good afternoon, you must be Detective Murdoch. I wonder if we could talk in private. It is a matter of some urgency.”

“Of course. Please come this way.”

She walked past him and he followed her along the corridor. Except for the strange garb, she was an attractive woman, still on the younger side of thirty, he guessed. And as Crabtree had said, she was well-spoken. She was also very upset about something.

He lifted aside the reed curtain, indicated the spare chair, and took his place behind the desk. He wished yet again that his office wasn’t so shabby. The grey metal filing cabinet behind him could have come from a railway discard yard and the upholstery of the chair she was sitting on had split at the bottom. He’d never quite been able to scrub off the chalk marks on the wall where he’d periodically drawn street maps of the area around the station. The woman, however, showed no curiosity at all about her surroundings. She sat down on the chair, her back straight, her eyes fixed on his.

“May I have the privilege of knowing to whom I am speaking?” he asked.

She thrust out her hand in a somewhat masculine fashion. Her grip was firm. “My name is Amy Slade. I am a teacher at Sackville Street School.” She leaned forward slightly and he had the impression of somebody on a diving board, not completely sure if they wanted to plunge into the water. He nodded encouragingly and she relaxed a little.

“Mr. Murdoch, I realize that what I have to ask you is quite unorthodox.” For the first time, she smiled. “But as you can see, I am not an especially orthodox person. I have come to you for help because you are a police officer, but I must beg for your absolute discretion.”

She suddenly looked as if she were on the verge of losing her composure and he sensed this was not a state that she was particularly familiar with or enjoyed. She was also waiting for an answer.

“Ma’am, I can make no promise until I know why you have come to see me. Of course I will be discreet as the circumstances warrant, but you must allow me to be the judge of that.”

He thought for a moment that she might get up and leave. She studied his face, not hiding the fact that she was assessing him. He didn’t speak, allowing her to decide as she saw fit. Finally, she gave a sigh and her shoulders released.

“Very well.” She reached down to the portmanteau, snapped open the catch, and took out something wrapped in a white handkerchief. She handed it to him. “Yesterday, I discovered this in the desk of one of my pupils.” This time, she didn’t watch his face but stared over his head. He was unprepared for what he saw.

A girl, dressed in only a chemise, was sitting on a low chair, her legs spread. The caption underneath read, What Mr. Newlywed really wants.

Miss Slade’s voice was shaky. “The girl in that picture is my pupil, Agnes Fisher.”

Murdoch put the card to one side on the desk so it wasn’t directly between him and the young teacher.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She, er, she is of course painted in such a way as to be almost unrecognizable, but there is no doubt.”

“Does she know you discovered it?”

“Yes, I fetched her in immediately and confronted her. She was unable to answer me. By that, Mr. Murdoch, I mean, literally, was unable. She went mute. She could not utter a word.” This time she met his eyes. “I should explain that what the photograph depicts is utterly out of character for this girl. She is normally a quiet, withdrawn child, and I fear is not well-treated at home. I cannot convey to you, sir, how distressed I am.”

“I can quite understand that, Miss Slade. This is an extremely serious matter. Have you informed your headmaster?”

She looked away and he could see her discomfiture.

“No, I have not. I have become fond of Agnes. However, I do not know, I cannot possibly imagine, the explanation for this photograph, but I am sure Mr. Kippen would have her charged. She will be sent to the Mercer Reformatory. He is not, shall we say, a particularly kind or lenient man.”

Murdoch had the feeling that in spite of her matter-of-fact tone, Miss Slade had been affected by the headmaster’s lack of kindness. Given her defiant adoption of Rational Dress, he guessed her relationship with the schoolboard would be a strained one.

“And the child’s parents?”

“She lives with her father, who is a widower and, frankly, a drunkard. I have not yet decided whether he should be informed. I would be afraid of his reaction.”

“What do you want me to do, Miss Slade?”

“Find out who has taken this picture. Agnes must have been coerced. There is no other explanation. The person concerned deserves to be prosecuted.”

“You asked for discretion, but if I do uncover the perpetrator, the law will have to be followed. I cannot guarantee anonymity.”

She sighed. “I am aware of that. I can only trust that you will be sensitive to the needs of my pupil. If this is made public, she will have no future whatsoever.”

“Did she come to school today?”

“No, she did not. I am most concerned about that. Perhaps I should have acted sooner but, frankly, I did not know the best course of action to take.”

Murdoch took his notebook from his pocket.

“Her name is Agnes Fisher?”

“Yes.”

“How old is she?”

“She will be thirteen this birthday. She has a younger brother, Benjamin, who is also in my classroom. Agnes was held back a year, unfortunately, which is why they are in the same standard now. There is also an older sister who is in service. I don’t know where or what her name is.” She fished in the portmanteau again. “These photographs were also in Agnes’s desk.”

He looked at the other three cards.

“You will have to reverse the mourning card,” she said. “I warn you, it is quite repugnant.”

It was, and he winced.

“Is this the girl’s handwriting?”

“I am sure it is.”

“Why would she keep the cards in her desk where they could be easily found?”

“I’m sure it is a far safer place than her home and they were tucked well into the back.” Miss Slade glanced down at her lap. “Unlike some teachers, Mr. Murdoch, I do not believe in inspecting my pupil’s desks. A little untidiness can be a result of a creative mind.”

That’s not what the nuns at Murdoch’s school had drilled into him.

Miss Slade handed him a folded sheet of paper. “I have written out Agnes’s address, on Sydenham Street. You can get in touch with me at the school when you need to.”

“I will do everything I can, Miss Slade.” He got to his feet. “Let me see you out,”

She too stood up. “No, no, I am quite capable of walking down a short hall. I won’t lose my way.”

Murdoch waited until she had left to pick up the photographs. He reread what Agnes had written on the back of the mourning card. How could she know words like that? He hoped she was not also familiar with the sexual acts she described. He turned the card over. The photograph of the dead baby had a simple setting of rear draperies, tinted blue, as was the cradle. The infant was dressed in a white-edged lace gown with matching bonnet. His eyes were closed.

The sweetness of that image was in direct contrast to all three of the other photographs. What Mr. Newly-wed really wants. Murdoch knew the so-called Newly-wed series was very popular, and that, typically, five cards told the story. In the first, a young servant girl and her employer, named only Mr. Newly-wed, are in a kitchen. The man, young and dapper, exclaims, By Jove, I didn’t know you were our new maid, or words to that effect. In the second photograph, he embraces her, but she leaves tell-tale floury hand-prints on his jacket, which are seen in the third image. Next picture, his wife sees this evidence of misbehaviour and orders the maid out of the house. Final picture is, Mrs. Newly-wed’s new maid. This servant was always an ugly woman or a coloured wench, presumably unattractive to the lustful Mr. Newly-wed.

Murdoch examined the version, not commonly sold, that was in front of him. A doorway to the left offered a partial view of a dining room with flock wall covering and a patterned rug. A row of china plates sat on a shelf and above them a half-seen painting of two sporting dogs. To the right was a large clock, the hands standing at five minutes to five. The floor covering was a striped oil cloth.

Murdoch picked up the second photograph, which was tinted. A naked youth was wearing only a gold turban with a pin in the front holding a spray of ostrich feathers. The pin itself was a silver circlet with brightly coloured red jewels around the edge. He could see that there had originally been five but two were missing. The boy’s lips had been reddened and his eyelids coloured violet. His body was slim and hairless and at first glance he seemed a mere child but Murdoch thought his face was too lined for that and his genitals were mature. He put him at about seventeen years of age or even older. A black border around the edge of the card had been carefully inked in.

Lastly, Murdoch turned to the photograph of Agnes, which was also tinted. The girl’s cheeks and lips were rouged and her hair was loose about her shoulders, but she was unsmiling and expressionless. She was seated on a low chair and behind her was a painted backdrop, rather ill-drawn of a panelled room. To her right was an empty birdcage and a bedraggled-looking palm in a pot. To her left, a doorway revealed the end of a Turkish couch draped with a gauzy cloth. There was a leopard-skin rug on the floor.

Murdoch took a magnifying glass from his drawer and began to examine all the ink marks. The writing on the back of the mourning card was clotted with blots, typical of cheap school ink and worn pens. Then he held the glass to the scratches on the two faces in the Newly-wed picture. The gouges were deep, and when he moistened his handkerchief and tried to wipe away the ink, the marks remained. The black ink looked the same as that used on the back of the mourning card, so he assumed Agnes Fisher was the one who had obliterated the faces. Why? So the two people couldn’t be identified or because she hated them? The black border around the photograph of the naked youth seemed to also be the same ink.

For the next half an hour, Murdoch went over every detail again of the four photographs, making notes as he did so. On previous occasions, he had been called on to bring charges against young women, always in the theatre, who were supposedly revealing too much leg or bosom. He had always been glad when the charges were dismissed or the young women received only a small fine. Even though they upset some respectable citizens, he saw no harm in what they did. They were of an age to be responsible for their own decisions and mostly, they catered to adult men who rarely got beyond the leer-and-cheer stage. He felt somewhat the same way about the second Newly-wed picture. If grown men and women wanted to take off their clothes and take up lewd poses, that was up to them. Presumably they were paid to do so. The photographs of the two young people were different. Even if the youth was of the age of consent, Agnes was not. He could understand why Miss Slade was so distressed. The way the girl had been painted and rouged like a tart, and worse, the pose she had been placed in, disgusted him and made him furious with whoever it was had exploited her.

He opened his drawer to take out an envelope and saw the folder he’d placed there earlier and he suddenly felt intensely uncomfortable. Surely, the anonymous letters and Miss Slade’s photographs were unconnected. The thought they might not be was disturbing.