table.
I hurried out the door in pursuit of Graham and the Mounties. The police stood on either side of my friend. Richard Sterling rested a hand on one of Graham’s elbows. The life of the bar swirled all around us. In the dance hall, Betsy’s voice reached a high note, reminding me that I should be in there, watching. Ray was occupied peeling a man up off the floor.
“Do you have a place where we can talk to Mr. Donohue?” McKnight asked. “In private.”
“No,” I said.
“For heaven’s sake, Fiona,” Graham pleaded, “say yes. I want to get this charade over.”
“Very well. You can use my office. Follow me.” I led the way up the stairs. All conversation stopped as every man in the room watched us. And not just those who were hoping to get a peek at my ankles.
I threw the door to the office open, and the three men marched through. I debated leaving, but decided on principle—it was my office—to hang around until they told me to go. I closed the door.
“Sit,” McKnight told Graham. Graham walked around my desk to sit in my chair, facing into the room. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow, and his hands shook as he pushed a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. He avoided looking at me.
McKnight took the visitor’s chair. A match flashed as Sterling lit the lamp on the bookcase before leaning up against the wall.
“It has come to our attention, Mr. Donohue,” Inspector McKnight began, “that you were in a fight with the late Mr. Ireland the day he arrived in town.”
“So?”
“You want to tell me what you had against the fellow?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“If you were under arrest, Mr. Donohue, we wouldn’t be having this conversation on the second floor of a dance hall. I can arrest you if you’d prefer.”
“I met Ireland years ago. I was working at the New York World when they hired him on.”
“Year?”
“Late ’85, early ’86. Around then.”
“Go on.”
“Ireland arrived at the World as if he were cock-of-the-walk, big man around town, instead of the washed-up hasbeen he was even then. He was a right bastard.”
I expected Sterling to reprimand Graham for his language. That he didn’t made me truly understand the seriousness of the situation. What was vile language from someone facing possible murder charges?
“Lots of unpleasant men around,” McKnight said, quite sensibly. “Why’d you dislike this one so much?”
Graham shrugged, trying to appear casual and unconcerned. Which only made matters worse; he looked like a man with something to hide.
Worry touched at the front of my mind. Could he be hiding something?
“Constable,” McKnight said, “take Mr. Donohue to Fort Herchmer. Perhaps he’ll talk to us in the morning.”
“He besmirched the reputation of a gentleman of my acquaintance,” Graham snapped.
“And you’ve carried a grudge for what, almost fifteen years? Seems a bit much. We’ve been told that you had several run-ins with this Ireland since he arrived in town only a couple of days ago. People said you attacked him the moment you first laid eyes on him. Must have been some besmirching, wouldn’t you agree, Constable?”
Sterling grunted. He wasn’t looking any too happy either. He and Donohue weren’t exactly friends, but I’d always believed that they respected each other, perhaps even trusted each other, as much as a police officer and a newspaperman can. The constable glanced at me, then his eyes slid away.
“It was my sister’s husband, my brother-in-law,” Graham said, “who Ireland accused, in print, of knowingly selling faulty rifles in the war.”
“What war would that be?”
“The War Between the States, you fool. What war do you think?”
McKnight didn’t respond to the insult. I suspected he’d deliberately provoked it. “Plenty of wars to choose from. Did he?”
“Did who what?”
“Did your brother-in-law sell faulty rifles? Knowingly?”
“No, he did not.”
Sterling spoke for the first time. “Your sister’s husband must be a good deal older than you. That war ended more than thirty years ago.”
“He was. My sister, named Garnet after our mother, was eighteen years my senior and more of a mother to me than a sister. She raised me after our parents died when I was a baby. She didn’t marry, spent her youth caring for me. She was forty when she met Jeremiah MacIsaac. He was widowed, had grown sons he didn’t care much for, loved her enough not to mind her age. She was happy. They were happy. Until that bastard Ireland ruined it all.”
“Did the newspaper publish the story?” McKnight asked.
“Yes. Jeremiah sued. And won. Ireland had forged some of his documents. The World fired him.”
“So it ended happily.”
Graham leapt up from his seat, knocking the chair to the ground. His dark eyes blazed. “No, it didn’t end happily, Inspector. Some people believe everything they read in the papers. And a good many more don’t care whether it’s true or not. The scandal put an enormous strain on Garnet. Acquaintances cut her dead in the street; friends closed their doors in her face. Naturally, she was delighted when Jeremiah was vindicated, but she was never the same again. The affair broke her heart. She died about a year later.”
I believed him. I’d seen Ireland at work; his story about Helen Saunderson, lies interwoven amongst the truth, would have killed the woman’s reputation if anyone in Dawson were inclined to care about such things.
“Please, Mr. Donohue,” McKnight said, “sit down.” He hadn’t batted an eyelid at Graham’s explosion, just sat in my visitor’s chair as if he were ordering cucumber sandwiches for tea.
Richard Sterling expressed my thoughts. “Sounds like Ireland to me, sir. Fellow hadn’t been here a day before he was stirring up trouble and threatening a lady’s reputation.”
For the first time since we’d entered the room, McKnight glanced behind him.
“Not me,” I said, answering the question in his eyes. “I don’t have a reputation worth threatening. My charwoman, Helen Saunderson.”
McKnight turned back to Donohue. I guessed he’d be talking to Helen next.
“Now that we’ve established that you had a motive for the murder of Jack Ireland…”
“What the hell? Are you trying to frame me?”
“Sit down, Mr. Donohue. I’m not attempting to frame anyone. Her Majesty’s North-West Mounted Police don’t operate in that fashion.” He didn’t bother to mention what police forces he thought did operate in that fashion. “Where were you yesterday in the early afternoon?”
“When?” Graham’s eyes shifted at the question. The colour rose in his neck, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. His moustache drooped. He looked down at his hands, folded neatly across my desk. The knuckles were white.
“Sunday between, say, noon and three in the afternoon? Where were you?”
“I, uh, don’t remember.” “You don’t remember? That’s odd. It was only yesterday. I remember perfectly well what I was doing yesterday afternoon, although I might not remember a month from now. What were you doing yesterday at noon, Constable?”
“Me? I was in my bunk writing a letter to my sister.”
“Mrs.