The Devil's Making (29 page)

As if to confirm this, she went on: ‘That's why I get upset when Pino … when he wants to do
that.
You know what I mean. I'm afraid I'll catch a child, and then what would I do? Do you think it's enough to sit on the pot and cough?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Me mother – God bless her soul – always said that if a woman got up out of the bed after her husband had done
that,
and went and sat on the pot and gave a few hard coughs, that would take care of it. But she had seven of us, and she would have had more if her insides hadn't dropped out.'

‘I doubt if the method works', I said. ‘Listen to me. If you don't want this Pino to keep interfering with you, you must tell him so. And if he doesn't stop, you must seek another job. There's a shortage of maids in Victoria. You must know that. You'd have no difficulty at all finding employment.'

‘But not in a good Catholic household like this!'

To this I had no answer. I stayed for a while, telling Ellen that Quattrini would never dare treat her badly, knowing the police now knew the whole story, and assuring her that Kathleen must not have suffered much – which I did not believe.

*   *   *

I wanted to confront Quattrini, to reverse in righteous accusation the positions we now held – of dominating Quattrini, inoffensive Chad Hobbes. But to do this I would need to know more. I had a hypothesis I could try on Dr Powell. But I felt more inclined to receive knowledge from the horse's mouth, as it were. I went to the Windsor Rooms, which were empty except for a janitor scrubbing the floors, and asked for Sylvie. Since I was in uniform I had no difficulty in being directed to a shabby rooming house just around the corner, the
Exelsior.
My ring was answered by a woman with a scarf over her curlers, who showed me into a seedy parlour with tattered armchairs and settees, where I waited for a few minutes. There was a smell of stale cigar smoke and the ash trays had not been emptied. There was an abundance of worn velvet in the upholstery. Perhaps in the dim lamplight of after dark, to men at least half inebriated, the parlour would convey sufficient elegance.

Sylvie entered, more than presentable in a canary yellow dress with a black shawl. She was rouged and eye-shadowed as if ready for the Windsor Rooms, although it was still afternoon. She held out her hand, palm downward, as if I might kiss it. I took it, held it for a moment, and let it go. She laughed, as if to let me know that her gesture had been deliberately facetious. ‘To what do I owe the honour of a visit so soon?' she asked.

‘I'm afraid I have to ask questions. Your advice, really. You were so helpful last night, and frankly I'm naïve about certain matters. I need to catch up on some facts.'

She motioned me to the settee and sat down beside me, though not too close, pouting in a deliberate way. ‘It's not a
private
visit then', she said.

‘I'm afraid not. I'm sorry to impose on you, but if there's any way I can repay you another time, I shall. I'm now investigating the case of a young lady who seems to have drowned herself this morning.'

‘Yes, it is all over town I believe. Pulled out of the water with a starfish on her face. A servant girl, I was told. In the family way?'

‘One might suppose so, but apparently not. Can you please tell me about such things from a woman's point of view? I've looked in textbooks of physiology and medicine for information, but there is none, or it avoids the point.' I was thinking of the
Medical Physiology
I had taken from McCrory's. ‘What can a woman who has relations with men do to avoid becoming “in the family way”, as you put it.'

‘You mean what do we do as a contraceptic? Different girls have different ways. A “douche” of strong vinegar is the best. Some use a sponge – soaked in vinegar, or lemon juice, or quinine. Then some girls can sense when they are ready to “catch” – by a twinge in their back or stomach when they are half way between their monthlies – and they abstain at that time.
There's
an area where you find rubbish in the medical books and from the doctors! One girl showed me a book she had got hold of, by a doctor called Scales, supposed to be the most prominent medical man in the States, who said that the
safest
time was exactly between the monthlies! I'm sure a lot of women have been “caught” by that advice. Then, of course, if a girl feels she has caught, even before waiting for the missed monthly, she'll take quinine to bring it on – which it sometimes does. And after that there's always a hot bath and plenty of gin. Then there are ways of bearing down, to force a monthly on. And if all else fails, and a little “by-blow”, as we call it, must come to light, then there's the baby farm. There are several here in town. If you care for your child, you pay for it to live, month by month. If not, you let it take its chances. Is that enough for you, Sergeant? I think I see you looking a little green. I could tell you worse things – of girls rolling down stairs and breaking bones…'

‘In truth it's a subject I know little of. But I want to ask you about one more thing: abortion, by a specialist in that line.'

‘That's a delicate subject, Sergeant, since it's against the law.'

‘Can such an abortion be procured in Victoria?'

‘Of course. But I could never tell you where. It's not a fair question.'

‘Can you tell me – from hearsay perhaps – what the after effects of such an operation are?'

‘Tiredness. Melancholia. An infection if it's not done properly.'

‘Bleeding?'

‘Like a stuck pig, as they say.'

‘For some time?'

‘Several weeks.'

‘Thank you. I think that's what I wanted to know.'

‘Was she bleeding, the drowned girl?'

‘I shouldn't say, because it hasn't been made public. But your guess is a good one. I'd like to know who does such things, though – I mean abortions.'

‘I can't say. But look, Sergeant Hobbes.' She moved closer and put her hand on my knee. ‘I like you well enough, and I know you don't look down on us girls – I don't know why. Is it that your lady friend is one of us? But that doesn't fit. Anyway, since I know you're interested in the carrot-haired mad-doctor, and since he's dead and out of the way now, I'll tell you: he did some work in that line.'

‘All roads lead to that man!' I could not help exclaiming. I fell silent. It all came together in my mind. I remembered the scraping tools among McCrory's surgical scalpels. ‘With ladies from the Windsor Rooms?' I asked.

‘No names, now. And certainly not I. But for one or two I know he did.'

I took Sylvie's hand and lifted it off my knee but again held it for a moment before letting it go.

‘What do you and your friends think about McCrory's death?' I said.

‘Well, it looks as though the Indian did it, doesn't it? But some of the girls say a man like McCrory could have been killed by anybody. He knew so many secrets. Yet I find it hard to believe he was a blackmailer. Once he started on that his whole life would have failed: it was built on his guarantee of absolute confidence. And though he would talk to us girls, he would never speak of his patients. His profession was like ours.' She smiled sweetly. ‘We must also provide complete confidence. We too know many secrets. And a girl who tried blackmail would be swiftly ruined. She would lose all her friends and nobody would go near her.'

‘You express it very clearly.'

‘I was a school teacher once – in California. Then something happened to put me into this life. I'm not complaining. But when a girl becomes tired of it, she begins to slip down the scale. You see, to “dance” in a high class place like the Rooms, a girl must enjoy it. If she no longer does, she soon ends up on the street. But I'm putting by some savings, and I shall retire soon, and return to California. This will merely have been a gay episode in my life. And you Sergeant? You look less happy than the other night. Troubles with your “amour”?'

‘I pulled the drowned girl out of the harbour.' But I knew that, in itself, was not the origin of my ‘tum tum' sickness.

‘Never worry, she'll be happier where she is now', Sylvie said.

I got up. ‘Again I have to thank you', I said. ‘If you should ever need me to speak up for you, I shall.'

‘If something should go wrong with your “amour”, come and see me.'

‘Thank you.'

The appropriate way to take leave of Sylvie was apparently with a kiss on the rouged cheek which she was turning towards me. Again she smelled strongly of a heavy floral scent. I preferred the wood-smoke of Lukswaas's hair. But I liked Sylvie.

*   *   *

It is true, I don't look down on those girls. I don't mind what they do. Could I fall in love with someone like Sylvie? Perhaps. Could I sleep with her night after night knowing how many men had possessed her? I don't think so. But I've never slept with any woman night after night. Is it because of my mother? If I despised a woman for making love with more than one man I would have to despise my own mother. Was my mother – is my mother – a whore? Not for an instant. She had her own reasons. Sylvie has her own reasons. I like her.

*   *   *

I returned briefly to the court house where I sat down in my bedroom and carefully opened the locket again. The glass had dried and become transparent. Behind it the photograph had faded slightly, perhaps from the water, but its browns and whites were clear enough to show the face of a candid-looking young man in an Oxford boater. Frederick. This was what I had feared, since seeing the boater through the misted glass. The lock of hair, now dry, light brown with golden streaks, was Frederick's.

I decided to finish with the business of the drowned girl before the day was over. I put the locket back in its envelope and in my tunic pocket. I walked to the warehouse and asked to see Quattrini. The scene was at first like a repetition of our other interviews. The clerk was shooed out of the room, and Quattrini sat down overpoweringly close to me. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. ‘I hope this is important, my lad', he said affably. ‘I'm a very busy man.' He was certainly his usual self. But I recalled the anguished yell when the corpse had been pulled out of the water. I had decided that since the autopsy report was not yet ready the only way to shake Quattrini was through bluff.

‘Your servant, Kathleen Donnelly, had had an abortion. What's more we know she obtained it from Dr McCrory.'

Quattrini looked startled, but quickly said, ‘Dio mio! Who'd have thought it? A nice Irish church-going girl like her.'

‘Please Mr Quattrini. We're talking about a criminal matter – the murder of an unborn child. Why not be open with me? You can see, I'm not taking this down in my notebook, and no charges have been laid – yet. If you insist on providing no explanation, I shall make your life very difficult by calling in your other servant, Ellen, your son Giuseppino, and yourself, for questioning at the courthouse. I suggest you provide some explanation – especially since the man who performed the abortion has since been the victim of a murder which is under investigation.'

In fact I knew that if I wrote in my report about the dead Kathleen something like: ‘suspected she was mentally deranged after a surgical abortion by Dr McCrory (now deceased)' – the police, even under the direction of Pemberton, a man of probity if there ever was, would almost certainly ‘let sleeping dogs lie.'

But Quattrini was looking at me in a stunned way, the blustering gone out of him. ‘You wouldn't do that, my lad', he said in a dry voice. ‘It'd ruin me. And what would Mrs Somerville think? Bella!'

‘It doesn't need to come to her ears,' I said, although making the mental reserve that if Quattrini had been involved in foul play it would be a different matter. ‘But I want the whole story.'

‘It's nothin' unusual, I guess. I got the girl in pod, and I arranged for it to be taken care of.'

‘How did you know McCrory would do such a thing?'

‘Like I said already. I knew him from the Somervilles.'

‘You said before that was the
only
place you knew him.'

‘Awright, awright. When Kathleen told me she was that way, I went to see McCrory at his house and I said, ‘What do I do?' And he said he'd take care of it. So he did. That was a coupla weeks before he was killed.'

‘What did you pay?'

‘A hundred dols. Pretty steep, but what could I do?'

‘What could
she
do? Did she not want you to put things straight another way?'

‘By marryin' her?' Quattrini's eyes bulged and he became red again. ‘A slut?'

‘Did she suggest marriage?'

‘Sure she did. She was crazy – scared to death. But when I told her I could arrange sumpn', she calmed down. Also I said I'd give her some money.'

‘And did you?'

‘Fifty dols.'

‘Did you attempt to resume relations with her? Last night for instance?'

‘Dio mio! You been talkin' to Ellen?'

‘Yes.'

‘She ain't got no business…'

‘Wait a minute. If you give her any trouble over this, you'll be in even bigger trouble. Of course Ellen answered my questions. And by the way, your son Pino is attempting to force her. Do you know about that?'

‘Christ!' Quattrini actually jumped up from his chair and stood in front of me, puffing up as if about to explode. ‘Giuseppino! The little bastard! I'll have his skin! I'll send him back to Frisco!'

I think you should give Ellen her leave, with some money as compensation. In fact I expect you to do so.'

‘Awright, awright, I will. Jesus! Giuseppino! He's only sixteen.'

‘So you attempted to resume relations with Kathleen last night?'