“I just think that in a sensitive situation like this, we should lay out the… I mean we should address… I mean I should reassure you that… that… Oh, cracker jacks!”
Jem giggled, her features softening. She leaned in and kissed Merinda on the cheek. “That you’ll always take care of me and I’ll never be alone? Whether changing nappies or infiltrating dens of anarchists?”
“Yes!” Merinda said, pleased that she had expressed herself so articulately. “Of course! Of course! All of that!”
“And I appreciate it.”
They strolled along several paces in silence. Then Merinda said, “It’s dreadfully hot out, Jemima. I think I care less about touring the city than I do about finding ice cream.”
Jem, cognizant that joyful, carefree moments were fleeting, couldn’t disagree.
Ray heard Jasper before he saw him. The constable’s bright voice was easy to detect in the swarm of men hustling in and out of the corridor.
“You came!” he said brightly, shaking Jasper’s hand and leading him to a clean but crowded room with two rows of military-style beds.
“Like police training,” Jasper said.
“The King Edward it is not,” Ray replied. Far more familiar with the unwritten rules of establishments such as this, Ray took the lead and Jasper’s canvas luggage bag and tossed it onto a free bed. According to the trust system shared by all men down on their luck, this indicated it was occupied. Jasper watched Ray confidently move around the place, speaking to the men and securing their lodgings. With equal command, he motioned for Jasper to follow him, and not a moment later, they sat side by side on the fire escape. They were surrounded by grimy, noisy buildings ornamented only by broken windows and the lines of laundry that connected one side of dismal brick to the other.
Ray reached into his pocket. “Such a good story,” he said with a half grin, handing Jasper the little knot. From his other pocket he handed him a small bottle with the unmistakable Spenser’s insignia. Sirop d’Erable.
“Same knot, that’s for sure.” Jasper matched it with the identical one from his own pocket. Then he cleared his throat.
“You got quiet all of a sudden,” Ray observed. “Putting all of this together? Linking it to Tad Spenser and Tertius Montague?” There was a sparkle in Ray’s voice, one Jasper most often heard in conjunction with a story or idea.
“I suppose I should tell you I didn’t come to Chicago alone.”
“Oh?”
Jasper chuckled lowly. “It’s kind of amusing when you think of it,” he tempered, watching Ray intently. “Same car and everything… ”
Ray’s right eyebrow rose slightly. “Jasper.”
“Jem and Merinda were on the trail. With that new client of theirs, Benny Citrone. He’s a Mountie. His cousin has fallen in with the anarchist movement, and they think he might be here with a fellow named Ross who has been drumming up support in Toronto.”
“Jemima in Chicago!” Ray had heard little else. He hopped up and rattled the unstable step with the sudden movement. “Where are they staying? We’re going there now and sending them home.” Ray was halfway down the rickety stairs.
“Now, Ray. You mustn’t overreact.” Jasper rose too, albeit far more slowly.
“I am not overreacting,” Ray said a moment later, truncating a string of sentences in his first language that sounded very much to Jasper like an overreaction.
“They’re staying at the Palmer House. They’re fine.”
“A corpse in a tugboat. A tie to Spenser’s in Toronto. I was just in a fight with my useless brother-in-law. Not to mention”—Ray’s hands, Jasper noticed with interest, were moving almost as fast as his words—“it’s hot as Hades and muggy and Jemima… and Jemima… ” He ran his hand over his face. “Well… this is a… ”
Ray wanted to say conundrum, but the word wouldn’t come. “Jasper, what is it you say when things are completely… flummoxing and you’re in a state and frustrated and… ”
“A pickle.”
“A pickle. This is a pickle.”
Benny Citrone was being tracked. He had started off in the direction of his guesthouse but didn’t get far before instinct kicked in. A sense heightened by years of spending time alone in the woods.
He kept pace but jogged across the street just as a throng of people were alighting from a streetcar. He heightened every sense but sight, knowing that if he turned his head over his shoulder his pursuer might disappear. And Benny wanted to know who his pursuer was.
Michigan Avenue was at least preferable to Toronto’s gritty Yonge Street. It was bordered by green, and the buildings were widely spaced apart. With the exception of pedestrians and the occasional automobile, he was very much alone on the sidewalk. Which, in this case, made him even more conspicuous.
He let the nearing footsteps behind him draw closer, surprised that the man? allowed himself such proximity. Finally, breaking the rules of his own guidebook, he turned around, just as a large green lion statue jutted out majestically from the walkway toward a russet red building.
And he found what he’d half hoped to find.