Night's Child: A Detective Murdoch Mystery (Murdoch Mysteries Book 5)

After thirteen-year-old Agnes Fisher faints at school, her teacher, the young and still idealistic Amy Slade, is shocked to discover in the girl's desk two stereoscopic photographs. One is of a dead baby in its cradle, and on the back Agnes has scrawled a terrible message. Worse, the other photograph is of Agnes in a pose captioned "What Mr. Newly Wed Really Wants." When Agnes doesn't show up at school the next day, her teacher takes the two photographs to the police. Murdoch, furious at the sexual exploitation of such a young girl, resolves to find the photographer -- and to put him behind bars. Night's Child is the fifth novel in Maureen Jennings's highly praised historical mystery series. Three of Jennings's novels have been made into TV movies under the title Murder 19C: The Murdoch Mysteries . Bravo/CHUM is currently developing a series based on the character of Detective William Murdoch for broadcast in 2007. From the Paperback edition. Chapter One


It was still dark out, not yet dawn, and the flickering street lamps made little dint in the sodden November darkness. Acting Detective William Murdoch pulled his astrakhan hat tighter over his ears, thrust his bare hands deep into his pockets, and shoulders hunched against the cold driving rain, plodded up Ontario Street toward the police station. Pain from an infected tooth had sent him from his bed, and in an attempt to distract himself, he had dressed and set out for work well ahead of his duty time.

He turned onto Wilton just as a cab was going by and stepped back to avoid being splashed. The cabbie slowed his horse in case Murdoch was a potential fare, realised he wasn’t, and tipped his whip in acknowledgment as he passed by. He was wrapped in a voluminous black oiled slicker, the high collar masking his lower face and the hood pulled down so low over his forehead that only his eyes were visible. The horse had no such protection and its coat was dark from the rain. Like a lot of cab horses, the beast looked underfed, as if it had barely a trot left in it, but the driver snapped the reins and they heaved into a faster clip. Murdoch watched the rear lamp swaying, warm and bright in the gloom, until the carriage turned south on Parliament, leaving him alone on the dark street.

What if I am the last man on the earth? he thought. What if I’m really dead and in purgatory? Is this what it is? Physical pain and loneliness melding together until he couldn’t separate one from the other. Suddenly, somebody, probably a servant, lit a lamp in the upstairs room of one of the houses he was passing and the light winked out through a crack in the curtain. Murdoch was somewhat embarrassed at the relief he felt and he grinned at his own nonsense. He shook his head to clear out the morbid thoughts and was rewarded by a current of white-hot pain along his jaw, so severe he yelped. Trying to move cautiously to avoid aggravating matters, he continued on his way. He was heartily glad to reach the steps of the station. The outside lamp was burning and the windows were bright.

He pushed open the door, greeted by the familiar smell of woodstove, sawdust, and a lingering sourness from the old clothes and unwashed bodies of the local constituents. The fourth division served Toronto from the working-class streets of River and Sackville in the east, to the nobs who lived in grand houses on Jarvis and Church streets in the west. The east-siders were the ones whose backsides polished the wooden benches in the station hall.

The night-duty sergeant, Gardiner, was seated on a high stool behind the counter, entering his report in the register. He glanced up in surprise to see Murdoch.

“Gawdelpus, you’re the early bird.”

The detective grunted, not feeling up to a long-winded explanation. His tooth had started hurting about a week ago, but he’d managed to ignore it until yesterday, when the pain had worsened. His landlady, Mrs. Kitchen, sent him to bed with a brown paper and vinegar poultice to hold to his face and had padded his gum with some cotton wool soaked in carbolic. That had helped for a while, but at five o’clock he had been dragged to consciousness with the sensation that every nerve in his body had gathered at a point on his lower jaw and was pulsing there.

He took off his fur hat and shook the rain out of it.

“What’s up?” asked the sergeant.

Gardiner was regarding him curiously and Murdoch knew he must look like a pauper’s pal.

“Got a toothache,” he mumbled. He tried to talk without moving his mouth very much.

“Awful things them toothaches. Keep you up, don’t they?”

Murdoch blinked in agreement.

“Better get yourself into the dentist. There’s a fellow right at the corner. You could drop in on him.”

Murdoch grunted. Not if he could help it. George Crabtree had been forced to visit Dr. Brodie last year and, big and tough as a moose though he might be, the constable had almost fainted when he staggered out of the chair. His face was swollen for weeks.

“My landlady’s good,” said Murdoch. “Knows a lot . . . carbolic . . . ”

“Wondered what it was I could smell. Helped, did it?”

“Hm.”

The sergeant sniffed. “Or is it fish? Did the cat bring something in?”

Murdoch shrugged. The smell was from his sealskin coat, which developed a distinctive odour when it was wet. He’d got it from an old lag a couple of years ago, in exchange for some tobacco, and he considered it a good bargain in spite of the pong.

He started to head for the sanctuary of his office, which was a tiny cubicle across from the cells.

“While you’re over there, put some more coal in, will you?” called out Gardiner.

Murdoch opened the stove door, picked up a pair of tongs, seized a large piece of coal and dropped it into the red maw. The action hurt.

There was a waft of chill air as the hall door opened and Ed Hales, the patrol sergeant, came in. He hung

“Perishing cold out there.”

“It’s nothing to what it will be,” said Gardiner. “Wait till we get winter.”

“You’re early this morning, Will.”

“He’s got toothache,” Gardiner answered for him. “Kept him up. He’s going to have to have it pulled.”

“Hey, I don’t know that yet,” protested Murdoch.

The sergeant grinned at him. “That kind of pain means abscess. If you don’t look after it you could be in bad trouble. Second cousin of the wife’s nearly died from an abscess. Poison got into her blood. She was bad for months after, still not right. It affected her mentally. She cries all the time.”

“Glad to know that, Gardiner. Lifted my spirits no end did that little tale.”

The duty sergeant shrugged, undaunted. “It’s the truth, I tell you.”

“How about I brew up a pot of tea, Will?” interjected Hales. “Cheer us both up. Come on.”

Murdoch was about to refuse but Hales, out of sight of the duty sergeant, nodded warningly. He had something to say.

“I wouldn’t mind a mug myself,” Gardiner called after them. “I’m parched.”

Murdoch followed Hales through to the small back room where the officers ate their meals. The morning shift hadn’t arrived yet and the fire was low in the grate, the room chilly.

“Why don’t I look after the pot and you see to the fire; you’re better at it than me,” he said.

“All right,” said Hales but he didn’t move. He pulled at the ends of his moustache. He was a tall man, ruddy-faced. He was invariably pleasant and even-tempered, qualities that made him popular in the station, but this morning he was visibly distressed.

“Need your ear a minute, Will . . . I didn’t want to say anything in front of Gardiner, he’s got a sniffer for trouble like a rat on offal but,” he hesitated, reluctant to admit the bad news, “fact is, young Wicken seems to have gone missing.”

“Missing?”

“Well, he don’t seem to be on his beat.” He rubbed at his moustache. “I did my first check on him at twenty-five minutes past eight. All correct. Did the second at a quarter past ten like normal. Again all correct. But when I went to check in on him at a quarter past two, he was nowhere to be seen. Supposed to be up at River and Gerrard. I thought maybe he’d stepped into a laneway to have a piss, even though he shouldn’t, and I waited a bit. No sign of him. I walked back along Gerrard. Not a whisker. I put pebbles on the doorknobs. You know that little trick.”

Murdoch nodded. The constable on the beat was supposed to check the doors of the vacant houses to make sure they were secure, no vagrants camping out. The patrol sergeant sometimes tested the officers with a small stone or piece of dirt. If it was still there at the next round, heaven help the constable on duty.

“When he wasn’t at the four o’clock checkpoint, I walked his entire beat in reverse but he was nowhere to be seen. All of the pebbles were still there.”

Murdoch frowned. “That’s bloody strange. Is he playing up, d’you think? Hiding?”

The younger constables sometimes teased the good-natured patrol sergeant by hiding out until he went by, then innocently meeting him on the return route. It was childish but it relieved the boredom. Murdoch had done it himself when he was on the beat.

Hales shook his head. “He’s never done it before and it’s past a joke by now. If he isn’t here at changeover he could be put on a charge.”

“Ill then? Could he have been taken ill? Gone home?”

Even as he said it, Murdoch knew how unlikely that was. Wicken would have gone to the closest alarm box and telephoned in to headquarters.

“He looked healthy as a doctor when I saw him last. He wasn’t drunk neither.”

The two men looked at each other, mirroring each other’s uneasiness.

Murdoch reached for his hat. “I’ll go and have another gander. You’ve got your report to do.”

“Thanks, Will. If he is just acting batchy, I’ll overlook it as long as he’s back on the beat when the next shift comes in. But if he’s not there without a damn good reason, it’ll be dire.”

“Where should he be right now?”

“Coming down River Street from Gerrard. Maybe you could try going the reverse way.”

Murdoch stood up. “Save me some tea.”

“The whole pot if you find him safe,” said Hales. “And you’d better take my lamp. But don’t let Gardiner see you if you can help it.”

Murdoch went back to the hall. He managed to whip the lantern off the hook while the duty sergeant was turned away, getting a file from the cabinet. However, Gardiner saw him at the door.

“Where’s my tea? What are you doing, growing it?”

“Hales’s doing it,” muttered Murdoch. “Got-tuh go.”

The sergeant called after him. “Have them all pulled out. You’ll be better off in the long run.”

Murdoch waved his hand.

Outside, dawn was coming in begrudgingly and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. He set off at as fast a pace as he could manage, heading east along Wilton to River Street. Even though moving quickly caused the pain to pulse through to his eye socket, he felt the need to hurry. He couldn’t imagine why the young constable wasn’t on his beat. No one with a brain in his head would take a joke this far and risk losing his job. That left the possibility that something had happened to him and that wasn’t good either.

River Street wasn’t as heavily populated as the other streets in the division and there were several vacant lots. They reminded him of missing teeth, a gap between molars. Quickly, he checked the doors of the houses that were boarded up. On each knob was balanced a small pebble. Wicken’s beat started at the corner of Parliament Street and Gerrard and would have taken him in an easterly direction toward River Street, where he turned south to Queen, back west, then north again up Parliament. During the long night, he walked this square many times, making sure all the God-fearing were safe in their beds. If he had the bad luck to miss any criminal occurrence, such as a break-in, he was held accountable. As far as the chief constable, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Grasett, was concerned, a crime meant the constable on the beat was remiss in his duty and he was always reprimanded.

Murdoch turned left onto Gerrard and paused, looking down the deserted street. More lamps were showing in the houses now, welcome smudges of light. If the constable had run into any kind of trouble, it had been silent. No one had raised an alarm.

He continued to Parliament Street, past Toronto General and the Burnside lying-in hospital on the north side of Gerrard. Even as I’m going by, an infant might be squawling its first cry. His mind skittered away from the thought because that led straight to Liza, and what they had hoped for. Four children, Will, and then we’ll see. I’m not going to be one of those women whose job in life is to be a breeding mare. Murdoch sighed. Fat lot of good all that nattering did us. There won’t be any at all now. The memory of her sudden death from typhoid fever, two years ago, was still a cause for anguish.

He forced himself to focus on what he was doing. Across from the hospital grounds was the medical school. Quite a lot of lights burning there. It took him about fifteen minutes to reach Parliament Street but there was absolutely no sign of Wicken. He stopped for a moment until the throbbing in his jaw subsided. On the southeast corner there was another vacant house. It had once been quite grand, but now the windows were boarded up and the front fence was protecting only weeds, colourless and drooping. He squeezed by the stiff iron gate and walked down the path to the front door. Shrubs, heavy with raindrops, brushed against him as he went up a short flight of steps into a deeply recessed porch. Hales’s pebble was where he’d put it. Murdoch knocked it off, turned the doorknob and shoved. The door had lost much of its paint but was solid wood and it didn’t yield. He stepped back, fished out a box of matches from his pocket, and lit the dark lantern. The bull’s-eye beam was bright and strong and he directed it at the windows. They too looked intact, no sign of breakage.

There was a flagged path that branched off to the rear of the house and, pushing his way through the long grass that had overgrown it, Murdoch tramped around to a high gate that opened into a walled garden. This was neglected and overgrown, but like the house, suggested a former grandeur. To his right was a patio with a fancy design of yellow and red brick. He walked over to the back door. Around the lintel there was a climbing rosebush, two or three frostbitten buds still on their stems. An image of the church window, Christ’s blood on the thorns, jumped into his mind, taking him by surprise with its intensity.

He turned the handle and the door opened easily. He stepped inside.

The light shone on Wicken’s body.

He was lying on his left side, facing the door; his head was uncovered and surrounded by a halo of blood, which had soaked much of his blond hair. His legs were crossed at the ankles and between his thighs was wedged his revolver, barrel uppermost, stiff and protruding like a grotesque symbol of manhood.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Continues...
Excerpted from Poor Tom Is Cold by Maureen Jennings Copyright © 2002 by Maureen Jennings. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Chapter One


He remembered the match vividly. After that – after he had fallen by the bridge – he had no recall and only knew what had happened from the statements of witnesses at his trial. The day had been oppressively hot, the sky heavy and dark with a threatening storm. Inside the barn it was stifling, the air thick with the smell of blood and the stink of the rats. The dogs were going wild. Tripper, the innkeeper’s black- and- tan bitch; the two white pugs that belonged to the Craigs; and a squat, brindle bulldog, who was there for the first time, were all tethered to the rings that ran along the wall. All of them were barking nonstop, their eyes dilated, saliva flooding from their mouths. He had shouted with the others all through the matches. They all had, even the Englishman who made such a point of being unruffled. Delaney had Flash in his arms and was having a hard time holding on to him, he was squirming so much, wanting to get back into the ring. Everybody knew this terrier had won unless Havoc got more kills. The stakes were high as they always were at Newcombe’s matches, and Harry had put down a lot of money, every dime of what he’d saved over the summer. He was glad he’d drawn the last run because the later dogs were always more ferocious.

“Havoc up! Last dog. Flash the one to beat with forty kills,” Lacey, the ring- keeper, called out. He released a cage of rats into the pit. They were dull brownish grey and fat from their summer feeding. At first they stayed close together, noses twitching, dazzled by the light. Lacey stirred them up with his crooked stick, then he shouted again.

“NOW! LET LOOSE YOUR DOG.”

Harry dropped Havoc into the ring. Immediately the terrier pounced on three rats in succession, killing each one with a single bite and a violent shake that broke their necks. The rest started to run, circling the small walled pit. Some tried in vain to climb up the smooth sides. For the next, long ten minutes the dog pursued them, biting, shaking, and dropping one after the other. The men took up the count, calling out the number of hits.

“TWENTY- TWO . . . TWENTY- THREE . . . TWENTY- FOUR . . .”

One of the rats twisted up and gripped the dog on the nose with its razor teeth, but Havoc wasn’t deterred, running on until finally he slammed against the wall crushing the creature and it dropped to the floor. Several of the other rats tried to huddle in a corner, but Lacey banged on the side of the pit wall to get them going. The terrier killed all of them. The chant got faster, driving him on. His muzzle was crimson, his coat flecked with blood and spittle.

“THIRTY . . . THIRTY- ONE . . .”

Briefly, the little dog seized one of the corpses.

“Dead un! Leave it!” yelled Harry, and Havoc obeyed. The brown- and- white feist that belonged to White almost broke his leash in his attempts to get over to the ring. As if sensing what was at stake, all of the other dogs grew more frantic and shrill until it was hard to hear anything at all.

“. . . THIRTY- SIX . . .”

The dog captured another one, almost tossing it out of the ring.

“. . . THIRTY- SEVEN.”

Lacey was watching his big brass clock, which was on the ledge where everybody could see it. His hand was at the ready, clutching the rod to strike the gong beside him.

Suddenly the terrier stopped, panting hard. He looked toward the ring of spectators. Harry yelled.

“Go on . . . Get ’em. Go on! ” But the dog didn’t move.

“TIME! ” Lacey sounded the gong. The match was over.

“Pick up your dog,” he called out.

“It was a cheat. My dog was stopped. We could have won.”

“Please pick up your dog now, sir,” repeated Lacey.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Harry. It was fair and square,” said Delaney, who was across from him.

Harry turned on him in fury. “You’re a cheating liar. You did something, I know it. We could have won.”

He reached over into the pit and snatched up Havoc, who yelped at the roughness of his grip. Normally Harry would have felt bad at hurting the dog, but now he was too angry to care and he thrust him into the wooden carrying box.

Newcombe, who always had his eye out for trouble, who was always pouring oil on boiling water, came over to him. “Now then, don’t take on so. It was a fair match. Your dog got himself distracted. It’s happened to us all at some time or other.”

He tried to place an arm on Harry’s shoulder to placate him, but Harry would have none of it.

“It suits you to say that, Vince Newcombe.” He pointed accusingly at Lacey. “I had more time due to me. He cheated. I’ll wager he’s getting a cut of the take.”

The timekeeper shrugged but said nothing.

Again, Newcombe tried to soothe. “Walter’s honest as they come and never makes a mistake. Come on, let me stand you an ale. The match was won fair and square.”

“I don’t believe that. Those rats looked half asleep to me. You probably smoked them.”

The innkeeper wiped at his face. He was a living replica of the old- time monks, with his bald head and round belly. “Why would I do that? It’s all the same to me who wins.”

“Not if he gives you a cut, it isn’t.”

The man, Pugh, who had been running the bulldog, spoke up. He’d come on his wheel, dressed for it in a bicycle suit of brown tweed and matching cap. His beige leggings were stained with blood and dirt. His dog was useless, more afraid of the rats than they were of him. Pugh was as garrulous as a jackdaw.

“You lost, sir. Your dog balked. Nobody was cheating you. Take your lumps and stop whingeing.”

Delaney started to approach his opponent. “You’ve got a game little lad, there, Harry. It was a good match. Why don’t we shake on it like gentlemen.”

He held out his hand. However, Harry turned away and spat on the dirt floor. “Hell will freeze over before I kiss the arse of liars and cheats.”

For a moment, everything hung in the balance, and they all knew it. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw that Lacey’s hand was on the handle of the water bucket ready to douse them both if need be.

“Tell me how I cheated you,” said Delaney.

“You made some kind of sound. Something, I could tell the way he looked over. You’ve got a whistle I bet.”

Delaney abruptly turned out all of his pockets, jacket and trousers. Harry thought they hung down like hounds’ ears.

“Nothing, see. Will you be satisfied now?”

At this point, his son moved in closer. He was big like his father but smooth chinned and soft faced. For a moment, Harry thought he’d have to take on both of them, but then he saw that the boy was afraid and needed to take comfort from his father rather than defend him.

“He’s not going to buff down for you, Harry,” said Pugh. “Leave it now.”

There were three other competitors in the barn. The Englishman, Craig, was the oldest man present. He looked ridiculously out of place in his suit of fine grey tweed, as if he should be in church rather than in a barn spattered with blood. He spoke up in an English accent as impeccable as his clothes.

“Mr. Newcombe, this has been a most exciting evening, but it is damnably hot in here. I suggest we Corinthians settle our bets and all get on home before the storm breaks.”

Harry glared at him. “You’re so eager to finish up here, aren’t you? I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not in on it as well.”

Even to his own ears, his words sounded slurred. He’d lost count of how many glasses of ale he’d tossed back, although he knew Lacey was keeping a close reckoning. Craig flicked at his moustache, which was waxed to such a thin point you’d think he’d be afraid of stabbing himself.

“It might be a good idea for you to cool off outside yourself, sir.”

Lacey made a slight movement, making it clear he was ready to assist if need be. James Craig stepped over, but unlike Philip Delaney, he was obviously ready to stand with his father. White wasn’t saying anything and didn’t look as if he would give any fight. Harry looked around at all of them, spat again, and picking up the box where he had put his dog, he left.

Outside the coming storm had overwhelmed any light still lingering. He saw the lightning flash, and from habit learned at sea, he counted until he heard a crack of thunder. The storm was nearly here. He hesitated but he was consumed with thoughts of revenge: all his money gone, stolen from him. He turned toward the end of the road and the path that led down into the ravine, Delaney’s path home.

It was darker as he descended, the trees thick and lush with leaves. He was about to cross the bridge at the bottom of the path, but he misjudged his step and tripped, striking his cheek hard against the railing. Cursing, he staggered further along, but he was too full of liquor and fell to the ground. Havoc barked at being jolted, but Harry had to find a place to rest. He crawled into the dense grass that was at the side of the path and lay down.

That was all he remembered.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Continues...
Excerpted from Let Loose the Dogs by Maureen Jennings Copyright © 2004 by Maureen Jennings. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Chapter One

Saturday, February 9, 1895
The wind cut to the bone and Alice Black pulled her shawl tight about her head and throat. The hot gin was a fire in her stomach but no defence against the cold of the winter night. She grumbled to herself, trying to expose as little of her face as she could. She’d expected to do some business at the John O’Neil but none of the piss-makers wanted to pay for a bit of dock tonight. She wiped the back of her hand across her dripping nose. She hoped Ettie had fared better, else it was potato-peel soup for the next few days.

It was getting late. Although the hotel officially closed at the legal Saturday time of seven o’clock, there was a backroom where the regulars could go to top off, and for a cut of the dash, the proprietor, James McCay, usually allowed her and Ettie to stay on.

Alice edged closer to the houses. She was afeard to go past the churchyard where the bodies of the Irish immigrants were laid out in their eternity boxes. Even though the epidemic had happened almost fifty years earlier, for sure ghosts lingered in the area. Not so the cholera. She always held her nose as she scurried by. On this stretch of Queen Street the shops were interspersed with vacant buildings and the boarded-up windows were blinded eyes. The gas lights were few and far between and what with that and huddling into her shawl, she didn’t see the young woman walking in front of her until they almost collided.

“Mind where you’re goin’,” snapped Alice. She heard a muttered “Pardon” as the other one moved out of the way. She had a thick muff ler wrapped around her face, but Alice had an impression of youth, and she wondered where the girl was going by herself at this time of night. A country piece, by the look of that hat and valise.

Alice glanced over her shoulder. The girl was hovering on the sidewalk. She looked lost, and for a moment Alice considered stopping to offer help. But sod it, it was too cold. A gust of wind blew her skirts up about her knees and she struggled to hold them down. At that moment she heard the jingle of harness as a carriage came around the corner heading east onto Queen Street, going a good clip considering the state of the road. The iron-hard ruts had a light covering of snow and they were slippery and dangerous to the horses.

“Get out of the way, you bloody bint,” yelled the driver. Alice jumped back onto the sidewalk just in time. She lost her balance on the snowbank and fell backwards, landing on her tailbone. For a moment she remained sprawled on the hard ground, groaning, then angrily snatched up a handful of snow and threw it in the direction of the carriage. The wind tossed it back in her face. Sodding toady. She shook her fist and suddenly the driver pulled his horse up sharp, wheeled around and headed back in her direction. She shrank back, prepared for recriminations, but the carriage went right past her and halted beside the girl. The door opened and a gloved hand reached out. After a moment’s hesitation, the young woman accepted the help and climbed in. In the f lick ering yellow light of the gas lamp, Alice saw that the carriage was a smart burgundy colour with brass fittings, the high-stepping horse light-coloured, but the blinds at the windows were pulled down tight and she couldn’t see the occupant.

The driver cracked his whip, wheeled the horse around, and they set off again at a brisk canter back along Queen Street.

Alice got to her feet, rubbing at her rump. She brushed the snow off her skirt, rewrapped her shawl and started to walk. Her stomach was cramping badly and she needed to get home soon. She should’ve known better than to trust those snaggy sausages of McCay’s. If there was a morsel of real pork in there at all she’d be surprised. More like rotten horsemeat, by what it was doing to her stomach.

She was going by the Dominion Brewery now, the pleasurable part of her route. In spite of the increasing urgency of her indigestion, she paused in front of the entrance. The smell of hops hung heavy and sweet on the night air. She sniffed hungrily but the cold made her cough. Sod it. She headed up Sumach Street. Her toes had gone numb. Even though she’d stuffed newspaper into her boots, they were so split they were useless.

“Lucky for that little tit, whoever she is. Gettin’ a ride to some warm place. Why’d it never happen to Alice?”


Constable Second-Class Oliver Wicken was looking forward to the end of his shift, when he could warm his feet at the station woodstove. His thick serge uniform and cape kept his body warm enough but his feet were frozen and a chilblain itched painfully on his right heel. He stopped for a moment and stamped to restore his circulation. Since the early hours of the morning a steady snow, soft and pure, had been covering the grey detritus of the week. Now with dawn approaching the wind had got up again, burning his face, and tiny icicles had formed along the edge of his fine blond moustache.

At this hour the streets were empty. He hadn’t encountered another living soul during his entire beat except for a bread man in his dray rumbling down River Street. Privately, young Wicken always hoped for a little excitement he could relate to his sweetheart. She was a romantic girl and was always after him to tell her his adventures. Like he’d told her, the graveyard shift in the winter wasn’t going to be lively. The citizens were sealed up tight in their snug houses. Summer was different. Larceny, pickpockets on the increase, violations of Sunday bylaws. And, of course,the f lood of drunk and disorderly. Over three thousand cases of D-and-D charged in 1894. Made you want to take the Pledge. Almost.

This month his main task was to check the vacant houses to make sure no vagrants had broken in to get shelter for the night. Toronto was just climbing out of bad times and there were over a thousand properties standing empty throughout the city. The police were placed in charge of protecting them.

He turned north on Sumach Street. He badly needed to relieve himself and he wasn’t sure he could hold it until he got to the station. Just up a ways was a dark laneway, and he walked in for a few feet, intending to use one of the outside privies that served the row of houses along St. Luke Street. However, the pressure in his bladder became too urgent and he stopped by the tumbledown fence.

In a hurry to unbutton his trousers, he didn’t notice the body immediately, as the whiteness of it was blended into the snow. But two large rats were sniffing at the girl’s head, and at Wicken’s approach they scurried away like shadows and attracted his attention. He had placed his lantern beside him on the ground and it was only when he raised it aloft that he fully comprehended what he was seeing.

He went close enough to confirm the girl was dead and then spun around and ran as fast as he could to the telephone signal box that stood on the corner of Wilton and Sumach. Panting, he tugged free his key, opened the box and grabbed the receiver off the hook. He turned the crank and waited for what seemed endless moments until the police operator at central headquarters answered. Wicken could hardly hear him above the usual static and hiss of the telephone. He yelled, “Connect me with number-four station. It’s an emergency.”


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Continues...
Excerpted from Except the Dying by Maureen Jennings Copyright © 2004 by Maureen Jennings. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the unclad body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. Detective William Murdoch quickly finds out that more than one person connected with the girl’s simple life has something to hide.

Kirkus Reviews

How ungrateful of Therese Laporte to leave her maid's post with Dr. Rhodes in Toronto to sneak out of the house and return to her family back in Chatham without any notice or explanation but a hastily scrawled paper. And how inconsiderate of her to turn up dead in a disreputable neighborhood, naked, drugged, and dead of asphyxia and exposure. Now Acting Detective William Murdoch, who suspects it'll be years before he's promoted, is examining the doctor's household under a microscope. How long will it be before he finds out that Cyril Rhodes's servants are bursting with accusations against each other and their master? Or that the chilly relations between Dr. Rhodes and his English wife Donalda are based on a long-standing (and highly material) grudge? Or that their son Owen has asked his all-but-fiancée, Harriet Shepcote, to tell a fib about what time he left her father Alderman Godfrey Shepcote's house the night of Therese's death? Or that the unsullied Rhodes family has closer ties to Alice Black and Ettie Weston, a pair of working girls who cherish some dangerous knowledge about that last night, than they'd like to acknowledge?

Jennings handles every aspect of the fin-de-siècle milieu—the domestic rituals, the social divisions, the suspects' secrets, the bachelor investigator's loneliness—with such assurance that the villain's identity is a major disappointment. Surely this talented newcomer will conclude her next novel more compellingly.

Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help – and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients'condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly's squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isn't sure if he's hunting one murderer – or two. Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dollys squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isnt sure if hes hunting one murderer or two. In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the naked body of a young servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway, and Detective William Murdoch soon discovers that many of those connected to the simple country girl's life have secrets to hide. The biggest surprise, however, is that the innocent victim was pregnant. Was her death an attempt to cover up a scandal in one of the city's influential families? Murdoch's investigation takes him from brothel to drawing room as he attempts to unravel the clues to her death