Evans had a room of his own, though it’s even smaller than mine. Within twenty minutes, I’ve completed a thorough search. There are textbooks, all shoved in a dusty corner, suggesting he was a recent graduate. One pornographic novel, tucked away where the landlady won’t find it. One hash pipe, well used and also recently used. The residue inside suggests opium.
That pipe nudges a thought, but I push it aside for now. I rummage through his clothing and toiletries, but find nothing hidden there. In a place of prominence lies a scrapbook of his newspaper articles. I thumb through it and then slip it into the bag I brought for our alleged shopping trip. Yes, I feel a twinge of discomfort taking a memento his family would want, but I don’t have time to read it here and I doubt I can hunt through old newspapers at the library … if there is a public library. Also, it’s been a week since Evans’s death, and it doesn’t look as if any family has either come to collect his things or asked for them to be packed away.
It’s only at the end of my search that I find something truly relevant. I’m checking Evan’s jackets when I catch the rustle of paper. I try all the pockets. Empty, save for the lint-shrouded remains of a humbug and one lonely penny.
I pat the jacket again. Definitely a rustle. I spread it out on the bed and check the seams until I find a small tear. I rip it open a little more and wriggle my fingers inside to find a folded piece of paper.
I open the paper. It’s a jotted list of five addresses. The top two have been crossed off. Beside the next one is a date—several days ago—with a question mark.
I’m folding the note when I see writing on the back, too. I smooth it out. It’s written in an entirely different penmanship, and when I see what’s there, I blink and have to reread.
Catriona Mitchell.
Born 1850, Edinburgh. Family name probably false. Ignore any criminal record under Mitchell, dating back to 1865. I have that. I want something I can use to repay the wench for her backstabbing.
I’m rereading the note, processing it, when boots clomp on the stairs. I shove the paper into my bodice. Then I grab a notebook from the bedside, check for handwriting, and shove it into my bag.
I’m out the door when one of Evans’s roommates crests the stairs. It’s the one who’d been studying the other day, the one who’d tried to rein in the others.
He blinks at me in the dim lighting. “What the bloody hell are you doing—” He stops and jabs at the stairs. “Go. Out the back. Thomas is in the front room.”
I nod and squeeze past him. Then I clamber down the stairs and wheel into the kitchen, where Isla is having tea with Mrs. Trowbridge.
Isla starts to smile at me, and then rises with a clatter. “My dear girl. You look a fright.” She strides over to pat my back reassuringly. “That must have been so difficult for you. I know you were terribly fond of young Archie.”
The note I found has my brain whirling, and combined with nearly getting caught in the room, I probably am a little pale. Isla must think I’m faking grief for Mrs. Trowbridge’s sake.
“I-I need some air,” I say. I turn to the landlady and curtsy. “Thank you so much for your kindness, ma’am. I hope I was not a bother.”
“Not at all, child. I am so pleased to know that Archie had a friend who grieves for him.” She glares toward the commotion in the front room as the boys tumble in from school. “He ought to have had more. He was a lovely lad.”
Isla says her goodbyes and jots something on a piece of paper, promising Mrs. Trowbridge it will be “exactly the thing” for her arthritis. Then she bustles me out the door, and we are gone.
* * *
We’re around the corner, near the steps in another close. I’ve given her the note I found, and she’s glaring as she reads it.
“Catriona strikes again,” I mutter. “Making friends wherever she goes.”
“I am not certain whether I am angrier with her, for getting into such scrapes, or this young man for his vindictiveness. So Archie knew Catriona?”
“It’s not his handwriting.” I show her the book, with his penmanship. Then I flip over the note. “This side, with the addresses was written by him. This other side was not. It’s someone asking him to dig up dirt on Catriona.”
“He wrote the addresses after receiving this note.”
“Maybe? But the note was hidden. The information on Catriona hardly seems something his housemates would care about. I think he was hiding the addresses, which would suggest he wrote them first. Also, it was folded with the addresses inside, and there’s no sign of it ever being folded the other way.”
She examines the note. “You are correct. That is terribly clever.”
“Nah, just basic detective work. It suggests that he jotted down these addresses and then spoke to someone about them. That person wrote the information about Catriona on the opposite side, which meant Evans had to keep the note.”
She nods as we walk, and she keeps nodding, as if thinking it through. I’m deep in thought, too. If I mentally shift past the note’s connection between Catriona and Evans, there’s useful data there on her backstory. I might be able to use that in figuring out who tried to kill her.
Then, without looking over, she says, casually, “What are you not telling me, Mallory?”
I don’t answer.
After a moment she says, “Well, I should be glad you are not outright lying and claiming to be hiding nothing. You should be shocked by a connection between the killer and Catriona. Is that not an incredible coincidence? You have already said you are not fond of coincidences, which means you have an explanation for this.”
“I’d like to check out this address,” I say, tapping the third one, with the question mark and a date beside it.
“Truly? Or is that a distraction?”
“Truly, though it does have the added attraction of allowing me to duck a question I don’t want to answer yet. Yes, I am only mildly surprised by a connection between Evans, Catriona, and a third person.”
“The third person being the killer?”
I hold out the paper. “Where is this? And don’t try withholding your answer for mine or I’ll just walk up to those guys, flash my bosom, and ask very prettily.”
She snorts. “Somehow, I cannot envision you ‘flashing’ your bosom or asking prettily.”
I lower my lashes. “Please, sir, if you might be of assistance. I am trying to find the home of my elderly aunt, who recently moved, and I believe I have been sent to the entirely wrong area. I am but a poor milkmaid from the country, all alone in the big city and so dreadfully overwhelmed.” I clear my throat. “Okay, the last part might oversell it.”
“Depends on whether you want directions or a coach and escort.”
“And a lap to sit in?”
She chokes on a laugh. “Yes, I believe the coach would be sadly overcrowded, forcing you to settle into a lap.” She shakes her head and takes the note. “It is about a half-mile walk. Come along.”
* * *
We’re outside a toy shop, and I’m ogling it as if I’m six again, standing outside FAO Schwarz in New York. As a child, I’d have found this tiny shop a disappointment compared to the bright and colorful ones I was used to, but as an adult, it’s a straight sugar shot of nostalgia for a world I’ve only ever seen on Christmas cards and in holiday movies. A place of Victorian magic, with marionettes dancing in the front window and a train set ready to chug around the base.
“Kaplan,” Isla murmurs, eyeing the sign. “Is that not what Evans’s companions railed against in their pamphlets?”
“Toy stores?”
“Immigration.”
I frown over at her.
“The owners are Russian Jewish immigrants,” she says.
I’m about to ask whether she knows them. Then it clicks. The store name. Yes, if pressed, I could probably identify Kaplan as a Jewish surname, but that means nothing to me. You certainly can’t presume that anyone with a Jewish surname is an immigrant. Or you can’t if you’re in twenty-first-century Vancouver.