A Singular and Whimsical Problem by Rachel McMillan

Author:Rachel McMillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736966467
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.

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.

On that third afternoon, Kat hopped on the back of Judge Abernathy’s automobile as it was leaving Walters’s office and trundling down toward the harbor. She jumped off just as it skidded past Front Street to the Queen’s Quay.

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