Three

  St. Jerome’s Reformatory for Vagrant and Incorrigible Females stood ominously at the very edge of Toronto, its turrets and mortared limestone closing it off from the bustling city. Women charged for anything from vagrancy to pickpocketing found themselves within its perimeters to be “domesticated and refined.” When the women emerged, they stood paler, and some spark was gone, like the wisps of smoke expelled from an extinguished candle. They could sew and bleach the sheets and dust and perfunctorily perform their duties, but there was something left behind the gates that couldn’t be reclaimed.

  Having disembarked from the trolley, far from our usual stop and at a corner of Toronto I had previously visited only once or twice, I stood as still as Lot’s wife. Merinda eyed the building with more than her usual caution.

  I noted her hesitation from the corner of my eye. “All right, Merinda?”

  “I hate this place.”

  I looped my arm through hers. “We hold our heads high. We look nothing like ourselves, so there’s no need to worry. It’s not like we’ll step over the threshold and immediately be tossed into a cell.”

  “How is it you know what I’m thinking?”

  I smiled and tried to sound cheery. “Come on. An adventure with nifty disguises. It’s like Christmas come early for you!”

  We crossed over the threshold.

  Once inside, the matron escorted us to a large and dull auditorium. We were assaulted by the pungent smell of disinfectant. We waited there for long minutes. When we were just about to give up, Jenny appeared, clad in the drab, colorless uniform all inmates were required to wear.

  “Cousin Jenny!” cried Merinda, recognizing her. She waved and smiled brightly. Jenny came toward us, a question in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, do I…?”

  “We’re friends of Mabel,” I said quickly—and quietly, on account of the eagle-eyed matron positioned by the door. “We’re detectives. Mabel solicited our help in your predicament. I’m Jem Watts and this is Merinda Herringford—but today we’re your cousins Lillian and Mildred.”

  She smiled. “Lillian and Mildred. Got it. And you’re going to get me out of here?”

  “We’ll certainly try,” I said. “Could you begin by telling us your story?”

  “I was working at the Yellow Rose,” she began. “Mabel and I both support our father on account of an injury that prevents him from working. It’s just the three of us. And I liked the Yellow Rose. Most of the customers were working ladies on their lunch breaks.

  “A few months ago I started noticing different customers—well-dressed men. Rich-looking. I wondered why they came to a café near Corktown when they could easily afford something—well, something nicer. At first, I wanted to serve them as I thought the tips might be higher. But after a while, I was warned to steer clear.”

  “Steer clear?” said Merinda.

  “It seemed they only came in when I was working. It was strange. The other waitresses were tight-lipped about the whole business—just told me to watch myself and keep my head about me. And I did. I had a young man and it seemed a good future, but then Mr. Walters… ” She paused, looking uncertainly about. She wondered, I could tell, if she had said too much. “He bought the tearoom, and he talked to me about finding something else beyond the Yellow Rose.”

  “Like what?” asked Merinda.

  “Miss Herringford, I couldn’t… ”

  “Please,” Merinda said. “I am not Miss Herringford. I am your dear Cousin Mildred.”

  A smile played on Jenny’s lips. “Mr. Walters said I was pretty enough to qualify for a special project he was starting in New York City. A new set of tea shops.” Merinda and I exchanged a look. “I kept declining, and when he found out I was in the family way, he lost his temper. Turned over a table.”

  “Odd behavior.”

  “I think these… shops… have criteria. I hear whispers about height and complexion. I was glad that Mabel was spared. Nothing like that happens at the Wellington, where she works.”

  “A new set of tea shops indeed!” seethed Merinda, adjusting her wig and her jaunty little hat.

  “You say you have a young man,” I put in.

  “Frederick.”

  “Surely he must be awfully concerned about you in your… ” I wanted to say condition. Instead, I said, “present circumstance.”

  “I don’t know what he thinks of me now.” Jenny’s voice was somber. “He made it clear that… well, he wasn’t happy about the baby. I’d hoped… well, I’d hoped different.”

  “And how did you come to be arrested?” Merinda’s eyebrows were furrowed, curious.

  “I was waiting for him,” Jenny said simply. “We were supposed to talk about the baby—what we’d do when it was born. He was late arriving, and it was getting cold. I was just thinking I ought to go home, go inside, when one of those Morality Squad fellows showed up.”

  Merinda gave a low growl from between her teeth.

  “I told him I was waiting for Frederick,” Jenny continued. “And he said Frederick wouldn’t be coming. That Frederick had reported me to the Morality Squad… for loose morals, or something like that. As if he hadn’t done his part to put me in this mess!” Her eyes were bright with tears, and I passed her my handkerchief. “Next thing I know I’m being sentenced to this place. No job, no beau, no hope of what to do after… after my time comes.”

  “Is there anything else at all we should know?” asked Merinda before Jenny could descend further into her sniffles.

  Jenny furrowed her brow, concentrating. “Well, there’s the sneezing.”

  “Pardon me?” I said.

  “Whenever Mr. Walters came into the tea shop, some of the girls would start to sneeze.”

  The matron standing at the door harrumphed, signaling the end of our conversation. Merinda and I thanked Jenny and wished her well, promising to pursue her case further.

  As we neared the door and the promised sunshine (which, after a brief sojourn to St. Jerome’s, I vowed to never take for granted again), Merinda set her face in intense determination.

  “Sneezing is an interesting development,” she offered.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  All of a sudden, we were met by a familiar figure and face. Melanie LaCroix was hoisting a basket of bleached laundry.

  She looked so hopeless.

  “Merinda, we have to help her too.” We watched her move wearily away.

  Merinda nodded. “I know. I certainly don’t believe she stole so much as a biscuit from her employer. I telephoned DeLuca to ask about her case and told him to get me more details.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he’d basically handed it to me on a platter.” She grimaced. “The case bears further investigation.”

  “Are we going to ask the secretary about Jeannette?”

  “No point. I doubt Martha Kingston was lying when she said she got nothing out of these people.”

  “So we’re leaving?”

  “Nonsense. We haven’t gotten nearly enough. Martha didn’t know that the best place to look is far from the files.”

  I followed Merinda as she snuck down a corridor and creaked open a wrought-iron gate that slid loudly over checkered regulation tiles.

  The dormitories. Where women plucked from the streets were shoved away. Though the only bars were on the windows, there was something so institutional and cruel about the lines of beds made with sharp creases and tucks, the pillows flat against the bleached sheets. Small cases and trunks sat beneath each iron bedframe, and it was here that Merinda and I caught a whiff of personality and color.

  None of the trunks were locked. We looked around before selecting one and lifting its latch. Inside was a wreath of dried flowers and a few childhood books, a few pictures—one of tousle-haired children, another of a young man with a clerical collar. A Bible. A pair of stockings. Papier poudre sheets.

  “Odd that they let this stuff in,” Merinda snuffed. I was of the same opinion. As much as I was delighted—if somewhat saddened—at these tokens of femininity in the midst of this dreary gray, my impression was that the matron would be caught dead before allowing these girls to have personal possessions.

  We moved along, peeking in and around, fluttering our hands through the contents of the trunks but leaving everything the way we found it.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” I asked Merinda.

  “We’ll know it when we see it,” she said.

  But all we found were keepsakes and knickknacks. A few pairs of silk stockings as well as an old pink garter. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  I had let Merinda get a few trunks ahead of me, and something had evidently caught her eye. She motioned me over in dramatic whisper.

  “Jemima!”

  I shuffled over and leaned down.

  “Look. Melanie’s effects.”

  A few letters in French, smelling of rose and soft with wear at the edges. A cameo of a brother or beau. Her initials embroidered on the lid of a jar of potpourri and a sketch of a black cat. A cat with a missing ear.

  “Pepper.”

  Four

  Constable Jasper Forth was stationed at King and Yonge, his regular beat. The wind was whistling sharply but he seemed warm enough in his regulation overcoat, kid leather gloves, and bright blue constabulary hat. We watched from the corner as he flipped his traffic sign back and forth, signaling to the jingling horse-drawn carts and Model Ts as they jostled for road space on Yonge.

  “Well, well.” He smiled and saluted us when we finally had an opportunity to dash across the street.

  “Hello, Jasper!”

  He continued waving and leading traffic, holding out his Stop and Yield sign to prevent clash and chaos. It seemed the entire town was out in a hubbub of Christmas shopping and seasonal spirit. From Spenser’s we could hear a brass band playing old favorites.

  “What can I do for you ladies?”

  “What can you tell us about the Yellow Rose?” asked Merinda. “It’s a café on… ”

  “On Queen East,” said Jasper. “I can tell you plenty. Better, I can show you. My relief is here in about ten minutes.” He glanced at the pocket watch chained to the breast of his uniform. “Can you wait?”

  We peeked in and around the large Spenser’s window displays and took in the laughing children and passing pedestrians. Soon enough, Jasper joined us and we headed west.

  It didn’t take us long to arrive. The street was respectable but not affluent. We passed a number of small restaurants and tearooms on the way to the Yellow Rose.

  “Most of these”—Jasper inclined his head toward one—“are just tearooms. Pastries and the sort. A nice place for respectable young women to lunch. And by respectable young women I am not looking at you, Merinda.” Merinda harrumphed. “But some of them are a front. Opium, liquor joints, and—ahem—congregations for particular services that employ women in the world’s oldest profession.”

  “You couldn’t fit more euphemisms into that sentence if you tried.” Merinda, intrigued, was looking through the bright, clear window to the checkered tablecloths and pert iron chairs inside.

  “And over here’s the Yellow Rose,” said Jasper. “It may have cleaned up its act. But a year ago August, we had it shut down for over a month. I didn’t see the end of the investigation, but Jones told me that there wasn’t enough to go on. That usually means someone was rich enough to purchase a loophole.” He shrugged. “Why don’t we go in for a bite of lunch? I’m freezing and I could use a hot cup of tea.”

  Settled, Jasper used an empty chair to position his discarded police hat and ran his fingers through his thick hair. I ordered cream teas for all of us with a plate of extra sandwiches for Jasper. While we sipped, Merinda’s cat eyes patrolled the tearoom.

  It seemed much smaller on the inside than it had appeared from the street, Merinda was quick to observe. Jasper and I figured a kitchen and perhaps laundry and storage compensated for this strange illusion. Still, I could see Merinda itching to discover the hidden world of the Yellow Rose.

  We finished our lunch, but Merinda seemed hesitant to leave. She kept looking around.

  The chimes jangled and a figure commanded the entire room, smiling broadly and striding across the dining area to the back room. “Now there’s a familiar face,” Jasper said under his breath. “Clinton Walters.”

  I wondered if Merinda was thinking what I was. This was the affluent man whose cat had gone missing. The cat whose picture was in Melanie’s trunk.

  “He isn’t eating up front?” Merinda asked.

  “I shouldn’t expect so. Walters owns the place. Bought it three months ago.”

  Merinda’s eyes narrowed. She bid Jasper an abrupt farewell and left him finishing the last sandwich. I scurried to follow her.

  “We’ll get Kat and Mouse to trail him,” Merinda was saying as I caught up with her. “From Jenny’s story this morning, I think it is quite obvious the business he is running at the Yellow Rose is far from ethical.”

  “And the cat?”

  Merinda shrugged and said no more.

  At the corner of King and Spadina we caught up with a familiar figure approaching our flat. Martha Kingston—rigged out in a black-and-white checked suit and a cunning little cap. She smiled broadly when she saw us, and we ushered her into our sitting room.

  “I was hoping you’d be home,” she said as we divested ourselves of our outerwear. “I came across some information that I thought might be of use to you. At least, I hope it’s helpful. I certainly found it interesting.”

  Merinda and I leaned in. Before us on the table she was laying out a series of records from the Women’s Courts.

  “How did you get these?”

  “That bailiff happened to be sitting next to me at a diner. It’s amazing what sources you can unearth when you know the right people to flatter.” She gave a smirk that was not at all professional.

  Merinda was visibly impressed.

  “Here, look at these.” Martha pointed a finger first at one page, then another. “Every case here was presided over by Judge Abernathy.”

  Merinda and I looked over the contents together. “And signed off by Chief Inspector Henry Tipton,” I noted.

  “He’s from Station Four, I believe. Jasper has mentioned him,” said Merinda.

  “Every woman tried by Judge Abernathy is sentenced almost exclusively to St. Jerome’s,” said Martha. “They’re quite a pair, that Tipton and Abernathy.”

  “Look!” Something else caught my eye. I scooped up a sheet of paper and pointed. “Melanie!”

  “Who?”

  “Melanie LaCroix,” Merinda explained to Martha. “We met her at the court yesterday. She was sent to St. Jerome’s for stealing from her employer.”

  “Allegedly,” I put in.

  “Allegedly. But look who her employer was!” Merinda pointed a long finger at the page, and Martha and I both leaned in.

  Martha gave a low whistle.

  “Judge Abernathy!” I exclaimed. “Her accuser was the judge? Why, it can’t be legal.”

  “Certainly it’s not legal,” said Martha. “This is a ghastly business.”

  Merinda bit her lip and squinted at the bottom of the page she was examining. Then the telephone in the kitchen clanged and Merinda dashed to get it. It wasn’t long before she returned, pale as a ghost.

  “That was Mabel. The matron called from St. Jerome’s. Jenny’s gone missing.”

  Five

  Gone missing. One thing was clear: We had to get to the bottom of this business, and soon.

  Merinda and I were glad of the freedom our disguises gave us—particularly when we were clad in our favorite bowler hats and trousers—while knowing that if the Morality Squad ever got its clutches into us, they would breathe a sigh of relief as they clamped us away. But now we seemed to be sidestepping an even greater danger, one that saw women stolen from their homes.

  The easiest prey was poor women who had no familial attachments. Women whom the Morality Squad easily profiled. It would be easy enough for someone like Mr. Walters, a shipping magnate, to pursue the enterprise that made women disappear as barges sailed in and out every day.

  “The Yellow Rose might be an easy way to meet with girls and see if they are acceptable,” I mused, staring at our chalkboard in the sitting room. “They may be tricked into doing something they should never have to do.”

  Merinda stood next to me, listening without comment as she shrugged into her long coat. I turned to collect mine as well. It was the type of cold that tickled your nostrils and froze your eyelashes to icicles, and I was not in the mood to keep bounding around Toronto with Merinda’s indefatigable energy. But we needed to check in with Kat and Mouse.

  Merinda had convinced Ray to help Kat and Mouse secure positions as newsboys for The Hogtown Herald. They would be positioned outside Mr. Walters’s office near the harbor and outside the Yellow Rose, respectively. The perfect places to observe any nefarious goings-on.

  We paid for their first stack of papers at a penny apiece, and Merinda gave them their instructions before they were sent off to their posts. Kat and Mouse were not as warmly dressed as we, and I made a mental note to find them warmer attire. Their faces were smudged with dirt, their eyes hollow and wide.

  Merinda took a few bills from her pocket, which Kat and Mouse eyed greedily. “Listen for any information about Abernathy and Walters. About vagrancy, incorrigibility. St. Jerome’s. All of it. Then you bring it to me.” She handed each of them a fiver, telling them to keep the change for a meal and a night at the YWCA.

  I flashed them the largest smile the whistling arctic wind would allow, and we set off for home.

  Three days passed—three cold days. By this time I had secured them toques and scarves from the St. James Christmas Bazaar. We gave them pennies aplenty to duck into the warmth and secure a treat when needed, and with the prospect of sustenance and the knowledge that they were on an important case, they stood sentinel, each evening recounting whom they had seen and where.

 

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