Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“You have a case, and you did not tell me about it,” McCreadie says when we track him down. He wasn’t hard to find. He’s doing every detective’s favorite thing: paperwork.
“It only landed on our laps yesterday,” I say as Gray and I take a seat in the tiny, windowless office.
“But I saw you yesterday. You were both out, and then you came back and . . .” He pauses. “Ah. You did not wish to interrupt my evening with Isla.”
“It’s not exactly a major case,” I say. “A potential dognapping. We were fifty percent sure old Bobby just wandered off to die.”
“But it is not simply any dog who has been stolen. It is Greyfriars Bobby. That will be news.” He leans my way. “And you know how I love to get my name in the news.”
I smile. “No, you love to be publicly recognized for cases because they help you climb the ladder, and you’re an ambitious SOB.”
His brows lift. “Do I want to know what SOB means?”
“Nope.” I pat his shoulder. “We’ve brought you the case now. Fame and glory awaits.”
He rolls his eyes. It’s true that he enjoys the recognition, but only because it impresses the higher-ups.
I know exactly what that’s like. I’d gotten my share of ink as a detective—being young, female and attractive enough, friendly, but also quick with a soundbite—and I’d only tolerated it because I was also an ambitious SOB.
Law enforcement management always loves good press. Because so much of it is bad.
He taps a sheaf of papers on the desktop, straightening them. “Finally done, and now we can be off.” He looks at me. “Tell me again how someday we will not be trapped in these tiny offices, bent over paperwork. Computers do it, yes? You have told me about the miracle of computers.”
“Yep. Instead of writing those reports in triplicate, you type it in once and instantly send the file to everyone who needs it.”
He sighs. “It sounds wonderful.”
“It is. And because it’s so much more efficient, you’ll have time for more paperwork.
More forms to fill out. More records to keep.
More letters to write. But you won’t be in a tiny windowless office.
You’ll be in a big windowless office, with everyone in tiny cubes, talking and farting and belching while you’re trying to get your paperwork done. ”
He jabs a finger at me. “And this is why I do not wish to know about the future.”
“Hey, you started it.” I stand. “Can we go now? Duncan is getting restless.”
McCreadie glances at Gray, who has been quietly waiting. “Poor Duncan. Forced to put up with the two of us.”
“Nah, he likes it when there’s someone else for us to talk to. Then instead of us yammering at him and expecting responses, he can turn his mind to more important things.”
“What were you thinking about this time?” McCreadie asks him. “Wound identification? Blood splatter?”
“No, the building that we are about to visit, and what might be the best place to keep a dog, if one has roommates who could object. I noted a small shed to the rear. I believe it once housed chickens, but it seemed empty.”
“See?” I say. “This is why you and I chatter. So Duncan can think excellent thoughts. Let’s go check out the shed.”
As Gray noted, there is a small coop in the apartment courtyard.
I’d seen it, but I hadn’t even recognized it as an outbuilding.
To me, it looked like a pile of wood stacked against the wall.
When I draw near, I can see that the wood—haphazard and rotting as it is—forms a small enclosure that stinks of chickens.
“I will stand guard,” McCreadie says. “Mallory? You may do the honors.”
“Some detective you are,” I say. “More worried about your fine coat than finding the truth.”
“Those are fighting words,” he says.
“Gonna fight me for the right to dive into a filthy coop?”
“Oh, no. I am on to your little scheme. You challenge me, and then ‘lose’ to me, but the real loser is the person who—”
“Duncan,” I say as I leap into his path. “You are not going in there. Do you know who caught hell when you tore your last pair of trousers on a case? Not you.”
“I thought I might speed this along. I will handle Mrs. Wallace.”
“Nope.” I lift a hand. “I was just needling Hugh. I will examine the coop. Because I”—I look at McCreadie—“am a properly dedicated detective.”
Before they can argue, I’m at the makeshift coop, and the smell . . .
In this part of the Old Town, the very air is enough to turn my stomach. The fact I can actually smell the chicken coop proves just how bad it is.
I pull a handkerchief from my pocket and fashion a makeshift mask. Then when I dare to inhale again, I open the door on the tiny coop and—
The smell rushes out, and I gag. When I rock back, Gray catches me.
“Allow me,” he says. “Please.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
McCreadie calls, “Do not get in the way of Mallory proving she is capable.”
“May I point out that I have been experimenting on decaying corpses for nearly a decade?” Gray says.
A young woman passing toward the rear door stops short and slowly turns our way.
“Doctor!” I call to her. “He’s a doctor!”
She hurries inside and firmly shuts the door behind her.
“Decaying corpses and infected wounds,” Gray says. “I can stomach the smell.”
“I know,” I say. “But Mrs. Wallace has had no reason to give me shit for three days and ten hours. Please, just let me have this.”
He sighs. “I will speak to Mrs.—”
“No. I have this. All of it.”
I shoo him back and peek inside, where it’s pitch black. Then I turn to Gray. “Science question. If I light a match in an enclosed area full of old chicken guano, will I blow up?”
“Really more of a chemistry question,” Gray says. “But no, the concern is methane, and this coop is not large enough to be dangerous. Still, may I at least do that part? Hold a match at the doorway for you?”
“Fine,” I say. Then add, “Thank you.”
He holds the lit match. I bend and enter, even as my eyes water from the smell.
There’s no dog inside. I figured that—I’d have heard it.
But there is a bowl and a pile of what looks like feces.
I check the bowl. Smeared blood and bits of meat suggest whatever food had been in there wasn’t for the chickens.
The still-damp pile of feces definitely didn’t come from a chicken.
What I find next clinches it: a gnawed bone.
And beside the bone? A few shed dog hairs. Brown, bristly, terrier-like hairs.
I collect the bone and the hairs, exit, and hold them out to the guys. “I think we found Bobby.”
We’re right on time for getting to Roy before he begins his performance.
McCreadie accompanies us and calls for a constable on the way.
By “calls for a constable” I don’t mean rings him up.
That isn’t possible, obviously. Instead, we veer into McCreadie’s district, and he speaks to the first constable he sees and passes on a message.
He can’t just take that constable—the guy is on patrol, and this is hardly urgent.
But he will tell the next constable he sees, until the message gets to someone who can swing by.
The message includes a request for the constable to hang back.
Without a uniformed officer at his side, McCreadie can pass for a civilian.
Well, he can in the sense that any plainclothes officer can, in a neighborhood where a sizable portion of the population makes it their job to memorize every cop’s face.
As we walk, some people fade into the shadows on seeing McCreadie.
Just as many, though, tip their hats or murmur a hello, a reminder of how desperately people in difficult neighborhoods want to see a decent officer, someone they can trust not to haul them off to the station because they looked at him wrong.
We arrive just as Roy must be starting his performance, because we hear him over the general hubbub of the street.
“—one and only Greyfriars Bobby, resting under this sheet.”
I reach the small crowd and edge deeper into it, men reflexively stepping aside when they see me, which might be the one good thing about being a woman in this era. Like a small child, I have no problem getting to the front of a crowd.
There, at the center, is a man in his early twenties, with dark hair.
He matches the description given by Dorrit’s two friends, though he’s missing the cowboy gear.
Today, he’s dressed as a gentleman, though his suit is shabby, the jacket hanging loose, the trousers showing a good four inches of stockings.
He even has a top hat, which he’s currently brandishing at a cage covered by a dingy sheet.
“You all know the story of Bobby, do you not?”
He doesn’t wait for a response before launching into the tale, complete with embellishments that would please Jack.
Bobby was no mere pooch. He was his owner’s right-hand man—or dog—helping him solve case after case while rescuing small children along the way.
No mention, of course, of the fact that John Gray was a night watchman, not a constable.
As Roy tells the stories, he intersperses them with side notes about Bobby’s failing health and the cost of getting him good care, while passing around his hat for donations to the cause. This is typical for tourist-area huckster shows—draw out the reveal as long as possible while collecting money.
“Poor wee Bobby is an old man,” Roy says, “and yet no one seems to have had the heart to take him home and care for him. Worse, they were going to take him out and shoot him.”
A gasp from the women and whimpers from the children.
“You may not know this,” Roy says, “but stray dogs are illegal in Edinburgh. They must all have a license. But fear not—I am paying for one for Bobby.”
The hat goes around again, and I bite my tongue against comment. Yes, stray dogs are illegal. Yes, they must be licensed. But the lord provost of Edinburgh himself pays Bobby’s annual license fee. That’s a known fact.
Roy continues, “I have warned you that he is elderly and unwell. So I must prepare the women and children for what they are about to see. Know that he is under the best of care and receiving only the most delicate victuals, thanks to the generosity of people like yourselves.”
Pass the hat again . . .
Roy begins to slowly pull back the sheet. “I would ask that no one come close or make too much noise, or you risk giving the wee fellow heart failure.”
I brace myself. He’d said Bobby was unwell, which is technically true, but everyone I’ve spoken to says he’s in fine shape for his age.
What has Roy done to him? Hurt him or—
The sheet slides off, answering my question as I see the dog within lifting a groggy head from the tattered pillow on which he lies. He is indeed old—with that classic look of elderly dogs, stained whiskers and graying muzzle. He also matches the breed of dog I’ve seen in pictures.
“Behold Bobby, wee king of Greyfriars, the most loyal dog who ever lived,” Roy says.
“That is not Greyfriars Bobby,” says a voice that sounds remarkably like Gray’s.
“What?” Roy says. “Is there a naysayer among us? Who here has seen Bobby? You will know this is him, complete with the collar his master gave him and the new license on it.”
“The collar was given to him by the city, as was the license.”
The crowd parts now to show it really is Gray speaking. He stands there, his expression impassive, gaze on Roy.
“That dog, sir, is an imposter,” Gray says.
Roy sputters. “This is Greyfriars—”
“It is not,” Gray says. “Which I know, because Bobby belonged to my cousin, John Gray, and I often saw him while I was young.” I will never fail to be amazed by how smoothly Gray can lie, and this one rolls off his tongue with frosty superiority.
Roy straightens. “Cousin? You are no cousin to John Gray, a good Scotsman who looked nothing like you.”
“Everyone has two parents,” Gray says with a withering look. “My father was a Gray.”
“Dr. Gray!” a child pipes up. “Mama! It is Dr. Gray. The detective!”
I look to see a middle-class woman with two children, their attire suggesting they’ve come in from the countryside for the day.
The woman stares at Gray. “Oh, it is. Dr. Gray. Are you on a case?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. From her tone and expression, you’d think she’d just stumbled into a performance, as if “famous” detectives stride through the city, looking for miscreants, and she has been lucky enough to see a criminal apprehension live.
Of course, if Gray hadn’t wanted the spotlight, he wouldn’t have seized it. If he seized it, taking the chance of also being recognized . . .
I realize McCreadie is no longer at Gray’s side, and I glance discreetly around to see him slipping up behind Roy and the caged dog.
“That is not Greyfriars Bobby,” Gray says, as if he really is on a stage. “And yet he wears the collar that does belong to that dog, which begs the question . . .”
“Where is Greyfriars Bobby?” I say, and one of the children shrieks, “Miss Mitchell!” with obvious delight.
Roy looks from me to Gray. Then he turns to run, only to find McCreadie and a constable right behind him.
“The lass asked a question, Roy,” McCreadie says, “and I would suggest you answer it.”