November Rain by Maureen Jennings

Author:Maureen Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BISAC: FIC022060 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical FIC022090 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Private Investigators FIC022040 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths
Publisher: Cormorant Books
Published: 2020-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

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OUR NEXT INTERVIEWEE was Arthur MacNeil, one of the cutters. He was a taciturn Scot who would probably be good at poker, if he were so inclined. His craggy face gave nothing away. He declared emphatically he had no idea who could have killed Klein. “To say you didn’t like the man didn’t mean he was an enemy exactly and it certainly didn’t follow like the night the day that you would kill said man.”

This time, Arcady introduced the accusation that Bertha Koenig had levelled against Klein. McNeil looked sober. “Sorry for the lassies who had to put up with that.”

We continued on with the interviews, but got nothing new. Nobody had been fond of Klein, but they had no idea who would have killed him. Shocking that was. As for Mr. Klein forcing trysts on the young women, there was only the one specific assertion. The women workers seemed to shrug it off. The general attitude was, as one of them said, “That’s life, isn’t it?” You put up with disagreeable things like rainy days and chilblains.

Most of them expressed some liking for Mr. Rosenthal and his son. “He has to make a living,” said one woman. “If he didn’t, we wouldn’t have jobs, would we?” If there were somebody trying to start a union, I didn’t think they stood much chance of success. The employees at Superior Ladies’ Clothes seemed to be non-combative.

We’d finished the final interviews by half past two. This was Ruby Robertson, a young woman whose job was to dress the mannequins and display them in the front window. She was also responsible for keeping everything neat and tidy in the whole building. For this she got fifteen cents an hour. Like Ben, she looked to be hardly legal working age. She had come to the city a month earlier from a small town near Ottawa. She had a difficult time finding work at first, but had been hired two weeks earlier. She was still on probation. She said that Mr. Klein had been planning to give her a review this week, which would determine if she got permanent work. When she said this, both Arcady and I exchanged glances. She was a pretty girl with blue eyes and fair hair that was braided and pinned around her head, Slavic style. She’d changed into the company uniform of white overall top, as if she’d expected to work today. I thought that life had crushed some of her spirit, even though she was very young. She was nervous to the point of trembling.

Arcady, who seemed to get getting more human by the minute, left me to do the talking.

“You said Mr. Klein was planning to give you a review of you work. Did you make an appointment with him?”

She was trembling more than ever, so I came around the desk and poured her a glass of water. Mr. Rosenthal had sent in a carafe and some glasses earlier. There were some cookies left and I offered her one, which she devoured hungrily.

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