Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
We’re slightly late getting back to Greyfriars, but Annie is still there, as are the children.
They’re with her when we come through the gate, and when the children’s eyes go straight to me, it’s obvious that Annie told them I was coming.
A red-headed girl of about ten rushes over, clutching a ragged copy of the first The Adventures of the Gray Doctor—the original version of our adventures.
She looks from me to the chapbook opened to a page where I’m standing over a dead body, my hands clapped to my cheeks in shock, my dress cut lower than I ever wear it.
In the picture, I’m about to faint, and Gray is at my side, ready to catch me.
I faint a lot in those early chronicles .
. . when I’m not bending over to examine nonexistent evidence with my ass in the air and my boobs nearly falling out.
Women and children might be the primary consumers, but the original writer hadn’t wanted to neglect the hetero-male readership.
The girl looks from me to the picture and back.
Then she says matter-of-factly. “You are prettier in real life,” and my cheeks heat.
Flattery always feels strange in this body.
It’s like being told my dress is beautiful when I stole it from another.
I’m slowly getting over that very odd sort of body dysmorphia and reaching the point where my mental picture of myself is becoming Catriona, but even then, it feels a bit like theft.
“Thank you,” I say. “So Mrs. Annie told you we were coming?”
“We?” The girl looks over and sees Gray for what must be the first time. Then her gaze goes up, way up, to his face.
He doffs his top hat and bows his head. “Good day, lass.”
“Oh!” she says. “Oh!” . . . And she races back to the others.
“Was it something I said?” Gray asks.
We continue on to Annie and the kids—two girls and a boy, all between eight and twelve. The girl who’d run to greet us hangs back a few feet away.
“I believe I frightened the child,” Gray says.
Annie shakes her head. “No, sir. She is dazzled, that is all. She is a great admirer of your stories. Found that book in the trash two months ago and has read it a dozen times since. When I told her a pretty young lady detective was looking for Bobby, one who works with a doctor, she was beside herself. Scampered off to get the book and has been waiting in hopes it’s you. ”
“She expected me alone,” I say. “Not with Dr. Gray himself.”
“I told her,” the boy pipes up. “I said Dr. Gray might come, and she said no, he would never come for a missing dog. That was a job for his assistant.”
“Any job for my assistant is a job for me,” Gray says. He turns toward the girl, still staying where she is, and calls, “Have you only the first chapbook?”
She stares, now looking horrified.
“Mallory,” he murmurs. “Help me, please.”
I walk over to the girl, and her gaze swings gratefully my way. “Dr. Gray wonders whether you have been able to find any others. He understands that might not be possible, but I believe he is saying that if you want more, we could get them for you.”
Her shoulders sag in what seems like relief, as if she’d thought he was calling her out for only reading the first case.
I don’t know whether Gray was honestly offering to get her more or just trying to make conversation, but I know he’d offer if he thought of it.
We certainly have plenty of copies—at least of the current version, written by Jack.
“There are more?” she whispers to me, as if Gray might overhear.
“One, two . . .” I purse my lips. “Four cases in total, I believe. They are a little different. There is a new writer, and I do not faint nearly as often.”
“That is all right,” she says solemnly. “Not everyone can faint. I have tried, and I hurt my arm when I fell, because he”—a glare toward the boy—“did not catch me.”
“That is the problem with fainting. It is not like in the books, where someone is always there to catch you, and it hurts to fall on the ground.”
Another solemn nod. “It does.” She plucks at a fresh hole in her sleeve, unraveling the thread, suddenly seeming shy.
“My name is Miss Mallory,” I say. “And what can I call you?”
“Dorrit.” She pauses. “Not Dorothy or Doris. Dorrit. It is an odd name, I know.”
I smile. “I know a girl with that name in a book.”
Another solemn nod. “Her name is Amy. Amy Dorrit, but my mama loves the book and gave me the name.”
“It is a fine name.”
“I think so,” she says, her voice softer, “though sometimes the children make fun of me for having a strange one. Mama says it is unique.”
I smile. “Your mother is right.”
“She was a governess.” Another pause. “She’s not now, but she still reads when she has time.
She likes this story.” She lifts the book.
“She says she wishes you had more to do than look pretty, though.” Her nose scrunches.
“I do not know what she means. I think it must be very fine to look so pretty.”
I laugh. “It is fine, though I had nothing to do with it. This is the way I was made.” True enough. “I think your mother will like the new stories better. They show how much I do for Dr. Gray. Now, do you think you can come over near him and tell us about Bobby?”
Her gaze returns to Gray, and she whispers, “He is a very fine gentleman.”
“He is.”
“My . . . my mother says I must be careful with fine gentlemen, especially if they are kind to me.”
“Oh.” I inhale. “Well, your mother is correct. But you know Annie, and she is here, and I am also here, and I can promise you that if Dr. Gray acts kind, it is because he is kind. If he has questions, though, you can answer to me. Is that all right?”
She nods, and I lead her back.
“But he’s a doctor,” the youngest girl is saying to the boy when we return to the group. “He can look at your finger.”
The boy makes a fist, visibly wincing as if it hurts. “I don’t like doctors.”
Annie tuts. “This is a good doctor. From the New Town. A doctor for rich people.”
Gray hides most of a grimace. “Actually, I am—”
I clear my throat to stop him before he feels obligated to admit he’s not a doctor. Well, he is, in the sense he has the degrees—both in surgery and medicine—but he isn’t licensed to practice.
“Dr. Gray is a fine doctor,” I say. “With degrees in . . .” Hmm. Probably shouldn’t mention surgery or the poor kid will envision losing that finger. “Medicine. He can take a look at your finger, and if he cannot help, he will know who can, but he will do nothing without your permission.”
It takes more coaxing before the boy opens his fist to reveal what likely started as a sliver but has become infected.
“He’s going to chop it off!” the youngest squeals far too cheerfully.
“No,” Gray says. “It only needs tending. However, if it is not tended, the corruption will spread.”
“That’s what happened to my papa!” the little one says. “Stubbed his toe, and it got in-fec-ter-ed and the whole leg had to come off. That’s why he can’t work.”
“No,” the boy snaps. “He can’t work on account of his drink—”
Annie and I clear our throats at the same time and then exchange a rueful smile.
I note the sadness behind hers, too, and I remember what Davina said.
If alcohol had ruined Annie’s life, it seems she’s stopped.
I’d spent enough hours on the downtown Vancouver streets to recognize long-term alcoholism in someone her age, and I don’t see that. Just the sadness.
“I need to clean and bandage the finger,” Gray says. “Then you need to keep it bandaged. Can you do that?”
“Will it hurt? The cleaning?”
“Yes, but it will hurt more if you lose the finger.”
I bite my lip at Gray’s matter-of-fact tone, which the boy considers and then nods. “All right.”
“I do not have what I need to do the job,” he says, “but I know a doctor nearby—”
“I won’t go to another doctor,” the boy says. “One’s enough for anyone.”
“I was going to suggest that I get what I need from my friend and bring it back to fix you up here.”
“It will hurt, though,” I say. “Dr. Gray will need to bring a sweet for you to suck on while he cleans the finger. Is that all right?”
The girls start chattering excitedly, but the boy only grunts, “I suppose.”
“I’ll bring extras for the girls,” I say. “One should never eat sweets alone.”
“And for Annie!” the little one says. “She likes sweets.”
“No, silly,” the boy says. “She only says that so she can give us some.”
“Enough of that,” Annie says. “Why don’t we let Dr. Gray go visit his friend while you talk to Miss Mallory about Bobby.”
I’m not sure whether Gray is actually going to visit a doctor or stop in at McCreadie’s police office, which will also have what he needs. I suspect the latter, but he’s certainly not telling these kids he’s getting supplies from the police.
Once he’s gone, Annie asks them to tell me what they saw, and they all start talking at once. She pipes them down and tells Dorrit to speak. I half-expect the boy to bristle at that—he’s older and male—but to his credit, he cedes the stage to her.
“We know who did it,” Dorrit says. “We all know, but no one listens to us because we’re children. Grubby little street urchins.”
“Dorrit!” Annie says.
“That’s what they say. The people who come here to see the castle and the kirkyard and Bobby.
” She switches to a remarkably dead-on English accent.
“Grubby little street urchins. My mama says they have them at home, too. Worse, the ones there don’t know their letters and numbers. We do. We go to school.”
“I don’t,” the little one says.
“You will. We shall make sure of it, no matter what your papa says, and if he won’t take you, I shall teach you myself.”
The little one beams. We haven’t reached the age of public schooling yet, though it seems to be in the works.
Children like this would go to “ragged schools” funded by charities.
Even for poor children whose parents don’t expect them to work in a factory, it wouldn’t be a full school day.
They’d go for a few hours, likely just exceeding the two-hour minimum.
“About Bobby . . .” Annie prods.
“Yes. Bobby.” Dorrit straightens. “The man with the funny necktie and strange hat took him.”
“Funny necktie . . .” I begin.
“Like Americans wear,” the boy says. “The ones in books. With horses.”
“Cowboys?”
“Yes!” The little one says. “Cowboys and Indians! Like in the book Dorrit found. The brave cowboys who save the pretty girls from the savages.”
I open my mouth. Shut it. Consider. There are times in this world when I need to refrain from what I would otherwise say. And, damn it, that’s hard, especially when it’s children. I take a moment and then can’t stop myself from saying something, however careful.
“I know someone from the Americas,” I say. “And they would point out that the native people were there first. What you read in books might seem like a grand adventure, but everyone spins a story the way they want, which might not be the truth.”
“Like this.” Dorrit waves the chapbook. “It says you faint and you hardly do any work, and that’s not true.”
“Right. So, about the man who took Bobby. You say he had a funny necktie. There’s a thing cowboys wear, called a bandanna, that they tie around their neck.”
“Yes! Just like that. Men wear them sometimes for work, but his looks like the ones in the cowboy stories, and his hat is like that, too.”
I look at Annie, who shrugs. “It sounds like someone I would remember, but I haven’t seen him.”
“Because he only just started coming to the kirkyard,” Dorrit says. “We’ve only seen him a few times, and we noticed because he dresses funny. Then he tried to take Bobby.”
“What?”
The little one nods fiercely. “He tried to call Bobby away. Brought meat to lead him off. Only Bobby wouldn’t go.
He didn’t like the man. We told the day watchman, but he only grumbled and said he wished the dog had gone.
He said people are always trying to lead Bobby off, and the dog is too stubborn to go. ”
“It is true,” Annie says. “People do try to adopt the poor thing, but he’ll have none of it.”
“When did this happen?” I ask Dorrit.
“The day before Bobby disappeared.”