The Klondike Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Vicki Delany

encouraging men to go to the bar, to buy another dance ticket, maybe return to the tables for one more round of poker or spin of the roulette wheel.

      Sterling relaxed his grip on his prisoner. “You’ve really messed this one up, Donohue. What came over you? Ireland’s a fool and a popinjay, but you don’t go picking a fight with every idiot in town. Didn’t know you had a fancy for Irene.”

      “Irene.” Donohue shrugged, straightening his rumpled coat. “Plenty like her around. But that Ireland, don’t mistake him for a fool. Man’s trouble no matter where he goes.”

      “You’ve met before?”

      Donohue laughed, the sound cold and bitter. “You could say so. Lead the way to your finest cell, Constable.” The ugly laugh died, and his voice broke. “They won’t give me a blue ticket will they, Sterling? I’m counting on my stint in Dawson to make my reputation. Can’t we just forget about it? Pal.”

      “Don’t insult me with a question like that again, Donohue, or I will recommend you get a card.” Sterling walked out into the strange half-night, confident that his prisoner would follow in his footsteps. A blue ticket was a serious matter, and the NWMP enforced the ban without mercy. They had no facilities, and no food, to care for a jail full of criminals, particularly through a long, desperate winter. Better all round to simply exile miscreants.

      A girl who worked at one of the less reputable dance halls dashed by, giggling wildly, her red skirt and frothy white petticoats held almost up to her knees. A fat man in late middle age, well dressed in a severe dark suit topped by a stiff black hat, followed, trying to keep his footing in the mud and his eyes on his quarry at the same time. The girl tossed Sterling a cheerful wink, peered over her shoulder, squealed at the sight of her pursuer without the slightest alarm and lifted her petticoats higher. She was not wearing stockings, and her legs were thick and white. The man stumbled after her, struggling for breath.

      The Vanderhaege sisters’ bakery was a reproachful dark patch in this street of the midnight sun, of painted, colourful women laughing too loud, and men drunk, if not on liquor at least on possibilities. Overhead, the tattered advertising banners and competing national flags cracked in the night’s stiff breeze.

      “Tonight you’ll spend in jail,” Sterling said. “If you run into that Ireland fellow again, take my advice and keep well clear. This is your second offence, Donohue. Another one, and you will find yourself holding a blue ticket.”

      Chapter Twelve

      The fight on the dance floor served to get the men in the mood: for the rest of the night they were like moose caught up in the rut. Fights kept breaking out all over. Ray stood behind the bar sulking until I wanted to give him a good punch myself. Most of the fights that threaten to break out in the Savoy I can disperse with a smile, a toss of the hair, flutter of the eyelashes, and the occasional firm, no-nonsense tone that reminds them of their mothers. But I am aware of the limits of my charm; I needed Ray behind me, and on this night he wasn’t always there. He was too busy watching and scowling while Irene danced one dance after another with Ireland, plied him with drink, laughed at his jokes and gasped at his stories, while her stockings filled with his drink chips.

      Hindsight is a wonderful thing—I should have banned Jack Ireland, not Graham Donohue. And I certainly should have advised Irene not to cozy up to Ireland.

      But that was all in the future. On this Friday night, the girls were staggering with fatigue after a night spent dancing like wild jungle women with sweaty, unwashed, drunken miners, fancy boys and the odd true gentleman. Of course, I have no personal experience of jungle women, but I did once see an illustrated book when I was a child, sneaked out of the library of the big house, written by a famous African explorer. Mighty terrifying it was too, almost as terrifying as what would have happened to me if I’d been caught with it.

      The bartenders drooped as they washed up their glasses. The orchestra played as if their instruments were filled with rocks and the strings made of cow intestines.

      Almost time to close the dance hall then the bar and gambling tables.

      Ray called last round, and men began to make their way to the door. A few of the newcomers complained, but once they were told that other places were still open, they didn’t mind leaving quite so much. I wasn’t completely scrupulous about shutting the place at six o’clock. If there was a good game going—meaning a big spender on a losing streak—Jake, my head croupier, had the option to keep the tables open as long as necessary to clean the sucker—I mean the customer—out.

      But the dance hall closed at the drop of six, at which time the exhausted dancers lined up to cash in their chips. Then they were ready for nothing but their beds, with maybe a bite of breakfast first. The odd punter waited outside for his favourite to appear, but my girls generally didn’t go in for after-hours entertaining. They left that for the cribs on Paradise Alley, which kept the demand for the dollar-a-minute dances nice and high.

      Irene turned in her chips and joined Jack Ireland who was waiting for her, leaning against the wall under the cracked mirror. She slipped her hand through his arm with an expression I could only describe as greedy, and they walked towards the door in unison. Ray stepped out from behind the bar, where they were still busy finishing last call. Ray’s face reminded me of a thundercloud Angus and I had seen from the comfort of our train as it passed across the vast, open Saskatchewan prairie.

      There wasn’t much Ray could do. Irene was obviously under no pressure to leave with Mr. San Francisco Standard. The Scotsman glared at them with an expression that turned his normally unattractive face into that of a gargoyle adorning the heights of a government building.

      I linked Ray’s arm through mine, still trying to protect my throbbing left wrist wrapped in its makeshift sling. “Rough night.” He shrugged me off.

      “Lovely evening.” Jack Ireland grinned like the proverbial cat with the proverbial cream. Said cream, Irene, patted her hair and avoided my eyes. Ray growled, and I sensed another fight coming. If Ray hit one of the customers, the Mounties might close us down, or even give Ray a blue ticket. Fortunately, I was standing on his left, where my one working hand could reach. I took his little finger and folded it back towards the wrist. I smiled at Ireland. “Hard to believe it’s morning already.”

      Ray tried to pull his hand away. My grip held. They’d taught us wild children a thing or two, and taught it well, in the grimy, hopeless alleys of the East End, where the stench of the Thames had found its way into my very dreams.

      Ireland tightened his grip on Irene’s waist, almost jerking her off her feet. “Goodnight, Mrs. MacGillivray.”

      “Goodnight, Mr. Ireland. Irene.”

      Ray’s body stiffened even further. I maintained my hold on his finger. He could have broken my grip in a second, if he wanted to make a scene for the enjoyment of half the drinkers in Dawson.

      The couple walked out into the dusky light of early morning. A horse and cart clattered by, the horse letting loose his day’s supply of bodily waste, the back hooves tossing the filth in all directions. Irene whimpered as the muck splattered the skirt of her best coat. As if she hadn’t been splattered with a good deal worse since arriving in Dawson. Ireland pretended to block her from the spray, long after all danger had passed. As far as I was concerned, they deserved each other.

      I released my partner’s little finger.

      “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Fee,” Ray growled, genuinely angry.

      One of the bigger gamblers staggered past. If I remembered properly, he’d lost a good deal of money at faro, one night after the other. “I hope to see you again tomorrow, sir,” I said with my best smile.

      He bowed deeply, and said, in a Boston Brahmin accent, “Always a pleasure, Mrs. MacGillivray. You have the best table in the Yukon, if not the entire of Western North America.” Give me a willing loser any day. So much easier than the fools who expected to win at poker or find true love with a dance hall girl.

      That thought, of