McCurdy has been kidnapped. Please meet
me under the Birks clock.—M. Wickstram
DS Hook knows nothing about Mildred Wickstram other than that she is an associate of McCurdy’s, a casual acquaintance who supplies him with particulars and has seen him through a number of crises he’s brought upon himself. He pictures her as a typical scion of some upperclass school for girls, with buttoned gloves and a fondness for croquet.
To his surprise, the person waiting underneath the Birks clock at Georgia and Granville turns out to be a compact figure in a plaid shirt, denim work pants and a flat tweed cap pulled down over one eye. As he approaches this person he can descry a moustache, neatly penciled above the lips. He wonders what the world is coming to when women go about dressed as golfers and sailors, and men masquerade as rowing enthusiasts and grouse hunters. Don’t people want to look like what they do anymore?
(Like most things, he expects that it has something to do with the war.)
“How do you do, Officer Hook.” She steps forward and shakes his hand with a surprisingly firm grip. (He resists the urge to give her a bone-crusher in return, out of spite.) “Please come with me.”
Hook accompanies Miss Wickstram through pedestrian traffic, turning right on Hastings, without exchanging a sentence. By the time they cross Carrall, their destination has become clear and the reason for her workman’s getup.
Of course. The Lumberman’s Club. These women will be pissing in the men’s loo before long.
It’s late morning, so only a few tables are occupied by the all-night poker players, who glance blearily at the intruders then go back to their cards, having recognized the uniformed copper as one who is known to ignore the legal status of the place, on duty or off. For DS Hook, this has become the only place in Vancouver where he feels comfortable, other than at home.
“Morning, Officer Hook. An early visit, I see.”
Truman is tending bar, looking terrible. His right eye is the same purple as his nose, and he seems to have lost a front tooth so that he has a slight lisp.
“Good to see you, Truman. You look like you’ve had a rumpus with my colleagues in the Dry Squad.”
“Not this time, Calvin. Stopped a fight between two regulars—veterans, good fellas I thought, but they resented the intrusion.”
“I’ve warned you about this before. You didn’t bring out the billy club. Just because they were veterans, you made an assumption.”
“I admit that’s true,” replies the bartender, looking abashed; then he turns to Hook’s companion, standing behind him facing the door.
“And who might you be, sir?”
She speaks in a guttural alto that is good enough for Truman: “Malcolm Wickstram is my name. My friend Ed McCurdy sends his best wishes.”
“Yes sir, of course. Sign the membership, please.”
The bartender hands a pencil to the new logger, who provides an unreadable scrawl of a signature.
“Done. What’ll it be, gentlemen?”
“Whisky please,” Mr Wickstram says, “with a splash of water to release the aroma.”
“What aroma are you talking about?”
“I was only joking.”
“Nothing for me I’m afraid,” Hook says. “I’m on duty.”
“Suit yourself.” The bartender shrugs. Just as he turns to fill their orders, the door opens to admit another ambiguous figure—tall and lean, walking with the spring of an athlete.
Hook is beginning to feel lightheaded. The evidence before him almost suggests the existence of a third gender.
They engage in a handshake, surprisingly ordinary: “Howdy, Officer, my name is Johnston. Hollis Johnston. I reckon we have something to discuss.”
Mildred sits back in her chair, lights a cigarette and watches as Hook and Johnston exchange accreditations. Never having witnessed Holly in her official capacity, it comes as a mild shock to discover a different version. One never knows the whole person, even a lover. Perhaps not even a fraction.
Hook suppresses his unease at the creatures before him. It’s not that he didn’t know about the existence of such people—confirmed bachelors, spinsters, roommates of long standing; he has no argument with their right to be on this earth, and never has. The difference is that such people were somewhere else, over there and not on public display—thus, by unstated agreement, avoiding the letter of British law.
Since the war, so many things about the nature of human beings have been pried open and exposed, things that were formerly considered best hidden. It provokes one to reconsider the difference between men and women: Is this the thin edge of some sort of wedge? And if so, what is the wedge?
As an officer of the law, Hook makes every effort to put all this out of mind and to listen to Mr Johnston as a fellow officer on a case.
“Sergeant Hook, first you should know that for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, BC is our biggest client in Canada. Fact is, your law enforcement, fine though it may be, lacks manpower and resources. That’s where we Pinkerton’s folks come in.
“But it’s a ticklish situation. As a private contractor we can’t be suspected of breaking Canadian law. We have to be pretty darned careful.”
Hook gazes wistfully at Miss Wickstram’s glass. How he wishes the conversation were happening in an officers’ mess, where men can temporarily shed their mental uniforms and be straightforward. But this isn’t a mess, and they’re not in the army.
“And you are here on what orders?” He asks this in a toned-down version of his Redhat voice.
Abruptly, the Pinkerton’s person switches to another role—or rather, another version if him- or herself.
“I am seconded to undertake the transition of Daisy Douglas Tyler back to the USA, where she is wanted for embezzlement and grand larceny in the state of Indiana.”
Hook fires up an Ogden’s. “Welcome to British Columbia.”
“Thank you, suh. We at Pinkerton’s have a long history with this great province.”
“Forgive my ignorance, sir, but what is going on in Indiana that has anything to do with BC?”
Johnston leans forward—the eager officer, explaining everything. Mildred lights a cigarette, leans back and watches.
“As I mentioned to Miss Wickstram here, Miss Tyler was the force behind Mr D.S. Stephenson’s domination of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. She seems to have envisaged the Hoosier Klan as a form of shadow government, guiding the legislature of the state of Indiana under the banner of temperance, race, immigration and the flag.”
“A powerful combination anywhere, I should think.”
“Correct. But there is another factor. Detective Sergeant Hook, in your experience, surely you are aware that certain women have the ability to control gutless men. Daisy had such a hold on Stephenson. But in the end, he was proven to be a degenerate skunk and now he’s in gaol. Daisy was about to be deposed, so she emigrated to Canada.”
“And has done well for herself.”
“Correct. In fact, all indications suggest that Miss Tyler aims to turn BC into Indiana north, and that Harlan Crombie is her Stephenson.”
It occurs to Mildred that this scenario reinforces one of McCurdy’s pieces—perhaps the one that inspired someone to try and shoot him. When a hack lays open a sensitive topic at a critical time, one that implicates important people, it is like a dentist approaching a nerve—there will be a response. All of which suggests the possibility that McCurdy is in a ditch somewhere, or at the bottom of Burrard Inlet, wrapped in logging chains.
But that is not the only reason she finds the conversation disturbing.
She doesn’t care for Holly’s tone of voice—and not because she is impersonating a man. This isn’t the voice of the woman with whom she has been sharing her bed. It is the voice of a soldier, an ambitious soldier, a well-lubricated cog in a machine. A soldier who takes orders and hunts people down. Who carries a pistol and is ready to use it without hesitation.
It all reminds her too much of the war. Putting aside the accent and pitch, she sounds like a lieutenant reporting to a captain, every sentence expressing her solidarity with the team and its objective.
At Whitehall, Mildred was under orders to listen in on conversations for verification, in case of a difference of opinion later—for example, over what was said before orders went out that killed a thousand men. All for the purpose of covering the superior officer’s behind, of course. One consequence was that the hello girl learned things she would rather not know.
“I wonder, Mr Johnston,” she interjects, “if we might return our attention to the original subject of the meeting: Mr McCurdy’s disappearance?”
“Miss Wickstram, I wouldn’t have brought this up if it wasn’t relevant,” Holly says—a bit snappishly, Millie thinks.
A long pause follows. Hook lights an Ogden’s; Mildred lights something Turkish; Holly checks her pocket watch.
“I agree with Mr Johnston,” Hook says, at last. “A reporter has disappeared without explanation. A reporter who has gone out of his way to antagonize well-defended institutions, including the Klan. Based on evidence I’m not at liberty to divulge, the Vancouver branch is capable of such violence.”
“I reckon McCurdy is dead more likely than not.”
Mildred’s cigarette quivers. “Do you really mean that, Mr Johnston?”
“Millie, that’s your third cigarette in a half-hour.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Well if you want me to tell you the honest truth, with the Klan you never know for sure. They either hang people in public to send a message, or they make them disappear, never to be seen again. This specially applies to aliens—that’s what they call non-members who speak out against them. They snatch ’em up, shoot ’em, then take the body someplace remote and bury it. You folks up here have a lot of territory to bury folks in. Sorry to say, but that’s my opinion of it.”
DS Hook lights another Ogden’s. He was not prepared for this. Vancouver has had its fair share of kidnappings—there is no end of hand-wringing over “white slavery”—but a kidnapping and murder would be unprecedented.
“Truman, I think I’ll have a small whisky after all.”
They sit back in silence while the bartender brings over a whisky, a gin and a glass of tap water for Hollis Johnston—probably the most dangerous drink of the three.
“I don’t cotton to bringing you folks down any further, but there’s an additional matter to consider. Millie, you had better bone Detective Sergeant Hook up on the other situation.”
Bone up: Mildred is suddenly back at Badminton school and Hollis is Matron Webster, poking her with a horny forefinger and telling her to get cracking.
“Yes, Mr Johnston. I suppose so.” She takes a deep breath and prepares to tell her sorry tale.
“First of all Sergeant Hook, you should know that I am the person behind the Klan lawsuit. My suspicion is that Mr Forrest killed himself—or was murdered, if that rumour is true—on my account.” Mildred remembers lying awake at night, wishing Mr Forrest dead. She didn’t think it would actually happen.
DS Hook takes a moment to mentally parse her words and find an appropriate response. Observing Miss Wickstram’s breathing pattern and the cigarette trembling between her manicured fingers, he decides to, for want of a better word, lie.
“Miss Wickstram, there is evidence that can’t be divulged at this time, that suggests your assessment of the cause is wrong.”
“That is very gentlemanly of you. In any case, Luther Forrest’s death is unfortunate, but irrelevant. I still want his money.”
LCB Fire Ignites Fiery Speech
Stalker Brings Legislature to Its Feet
Max Trotter
Staff Writer
The Vancouver World
The LCB outlet on Dunsmuir Street was a blur of flame by the time firefighters arrived, and a tangle of charred posts and beams in less than an hour. Some witnesses claimed to have heard an explosive blast, while other reports involved a whooshing sound. One observer claimed to have heard a high-pitched whine that may have been a rocket.
The general opinion is that the fire was not accidental, but a case of arson—and if so, who is to blame? We must keep in mind that the notion that a wooden building filled with flammable liquid meeting such an end by accident is not entirely out of the question.
Harlan Crombie of the LCB was quick to ascribe the destruction to bootlegging interests. For his part, in a statement Attorney General Boris Stalker saw the incident as part of a wider conflict.
In an impassioned speech before the Legislature, Stalker, as acting premier, called on British Columbians to “face the fact that we are under attack by an insidious enemy, an enemy without a country, without uniforms, without purpose and without rules.
“For the past five years, British Columbians have lived in a fool’s paradise—unaware that, with the lifting of the War Measures Act, a cap was released and a boiler blew open, spewing out anarchists, Bolsheviks. Anyone with an agenda or a grudge is now free to seek ways to destabilize society.”
Mr Stalker concluded with these words: “There is every reason to call a state of emergency.”
Liberals rose to their feet, many crying: “Hear! Hear!”