To Live is to Dance, Despite Storm Clouds A-Rumbling

by Romantic Nerd

Society's forces of oppression build as William and Julia face tests of their relationship while working to solve a crime amidst the backdrop of the evils and hardships of 1900s racism. Can William's minstrel suspect help them to grasp that what is most precious in life is to come to revel in being who you are, and to take joy in sharing a true love that celebrates that very fact?

10. 10 To Live is to Risk

Chapter 10: To Live is to Risk

It was the middle of the night. William and Julia had gone to bed thoroughly satiated after making love – twice, for after their warmed-over-supper surprise down in the kitchen, there had been the rather sultry shower before bed. It was like a second honeymoon, their having recently made-up with each other after such a long, long and difficult time of fighting. Barely drying off after their shower together, they had practically fallen into bed and then dropped off to sleep as soon as their heads had hit the pillows, for so much had been done, had been accomplished, that they were deliciously consumed. Besides re-strengthening their bond physically, they had also done so in one of their favorite other ways, by talking through one of William's troubling cases. They had struck gold, for Julia had helped him discover an important clue. There had been plenty of cause to celebrate, which they had done with champagne, delightfully, with William even joining in in the partaking.

Disturbed in his sleep, William mumbled, and twitched, and tossed and turned about, the commotion lifting Julia's sleep, then waking her. She rolled to him, quietly worrying, for she suspected his dream was not a pleasant one…

The old man's back was to him, but he was certain he knew him. He was sitting, working, intently focused, on something small, in his hands. William heard his own breaths as he stepped closer up behind the man, gaining sight of what it was the man worked on – it was the wooden bird. "It's Mr. Beau Jangles!" William suddenly knew.

A movement at the periphery caught his eye. "Julia?" he asked after her. He could see that she secretly carried a small copper IUD in her pocket. She lifted a finger to her lips, reminding of their shared secret. A familiar uneasiness trickled into his veins, for he had noticed then, that she had been surrounded by fluttering butterflies…

Suddenly he was somewhere else. There was a fluttering sound. He knew for certain that someone was in trouble – someone needed his help! His heart raced as he searched to find which way to run. "Shh," he told himself inside of his head, "Listen…"

"The flutters! Over there, just in that alleyway!" the location of the emergency came.

A clattering of metallic bangs and clanks sounded as he rushed for the danger… A few human voices mixed in…

And then he saw it – the cage, and he instantly understood what it was that was making the fluttering sounds. The little bird inside the cage, it was thrashing its chest, its wings, its head, its whole body, with all of its might, against the bars, wanting out, wanting to fly, wanting NOT to be alone, wanting to be free. And under that soft, beating sound of feathers and flesh and bone against the metal bars, the other racket barraged into his ears, made by the stoning of thrown rocks smashing against the other side of the bars. Bullies. There were bullies all around… Boys… older boys… Such a panic gripped him as he thought, "William Jr.! Where's William Jr.?!" And he knew as a policeman, HE would need to be the one to stop the brutes. He charged in, a fist clenched and drawn back, committed to the punch…

But he hit nothing…

For he was suddenly in the bullpen at the stationhouse. He saw the bullies, hanging about, mingled in amongst the constables in their uniforms. He looked to the Inspector's office – "Someone there, but not the Inspector…"

"Sir!" he insisted crossing the bullpen. "Sir. These men out here… these are the criminals," he told to the man who was not the Inspector, who reacted by turning his back on him. "Sir?" William called to his superior, confused, and then he noticed that the man's shoulder… "It was so cold," the thought chilled into him, the man's shoulder was covered in dusty-white frost. And the coldness swept straight into his lungs, and the cramping shut off his ability to get air, nearly choking him, and William fought against the frigid bite. He was alone, he suddenly saw it clearly. He, himself alone, would need to make the arrests.

William approached a small bunch of the bullies. He pulled back the lapel of his jacket and started making his usual introduction, "Detective William Murdoch of the Toronto Constab…" but… but… His voice had stopped, and tears filled his eyes, for he had no badge. Devastated to have lost it, he frantically checked his pockets! "Nothing! Nothing there. "Perhaps I left it at home?!" but he was certain, CERTAIN, he had not.He had lost his badge. And the bullies laughed, and they too turned their backs on him. He considered explaining, explaining that he really was Detective William Murdoch of the Toronto Constabulary, but he was also certain that he would not be believed. There was nothing to do but to leave the stationhouse. Nothing to do… Nothing to do… And then Julia had him, had him in her arms. And, sweetly, she tried to soothe him, and her tender caring broke his heart more than it could bear, and so he just fell, fell into sobbing, crying to her, "Julia. Julia. I lost my badge. I lost it…"

And then he was awake… in their bed… in her arms.

"Shh, William. My love, it was just a dream. Shh. It's alright. Everything's alright," she whispered and kissed and held him.

His mind was moving so fast, and it was so cloudy and so confused, and heavy – heavy, making it slow. "I must have done something wrong, something that made everyone shun me. They wouldn't believe me," his voice still begged for it not to be true.

"It was just a dream," she reminded him, and she took a slow, deep breath.

And he remembered he needed to breathe too.

"Shh," he felt her lips touch his ear. And he inhaled, and then exhaled. And he looked for her face in the darkness.

And he settled, and calmed, and felt more sure.

Out of the mistiness of the dream now, William adjusted his position, needing to feel stronger, to rise out of the claustrophobic helplessness, so he shifted up to sit with his back leaned against the headboard of their bed. Julia sat up next to him and invited him to put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He told her what he could remember of the dream, about Mr. Beau Jangles, and the wooden bird that was a real bird, and how it was in a cage, trying to get out, and that SHE had suddenly been there too, with an IUD in her pocket, and she had shushed him before moving on, and that he had been uneasy about her being surrounded by the erraticness of butterflies… And then he remembered that there were all these bullies throwing rocks at the bird's cage, and he had needed to stop them, but the Inspector – "no, somebody else, but somebody like the Inspector, wouldn't listen to him… It was so odd," William suddenly remembered the ghostly image in his mind, "He had FROST on his shoulder. And then I tried to arrest the bullies, but I didn't have my badge. And I just knew for certain that I had lost my badge… that I wasn't a detective anymore."

Julia fought the hum threatening to play in her ears, and she recognized the feeling, the feeling of being frightened, as she listened to him. It was that feeling that led her to the thought – the thought that his dream was as much about their recent troubles as a couple as it was about his case.

He waited, listened to her breathe.

Despite the darkness, she could tell he had wrinkled a corner of his mouth, and there was the slightest hint of a chuckle. "You are the psychiatrist amongst us," he said.

She took a deep breath, calling her courage. They had always been stronger together… "William," her voice told that she sensed she had figured it out, "I believe your dream was about your fear that we…" and a part of her brain noted the power of that last word she had said – WE, and she felt this profound sense of gratitude for it, for having him with her, for them being together in it, and she went on, "That we will get caught… um… Well, clearly the butterflies, like when you found your mother. I'd figure they represent your fear that you will lose me… because of the study." There was more though, something new, from this dream. "But also… well there seems to be more to it than that…" And an idea of it came, and this newfound, harder, part had stalled her for a moment, but she continued on, "You fear that we will get caught conducting the IUD study. I… That it will cost you your job." Her mind said more – that their working together to make the world a better and a more fair place for women was as much as she could ever have wished for in all the world, but it also had its cost, and this was it.He… HE could get hurt. Up until this, she had only considered his fear that he would lose her, that their children would lose her, if she got caught. She continued on, eyes wider with the deeper knowing, a shallow swallow to steady her voice, "The dream is telling you that you fear that we will get caught, and you would lose your badge… and, I suppose, with the butterflies too, that you fear you will lose me too."

He wrinkled corner of mouth. He had thought the same thing, just not so clearly.

She argued with herself not to fall into regret, and guilt, and into asking for his forgiveness. William Murdoch had gallantly, lovingly, accepted her for who she was. More than that, he had recognized that he loved her FOR it. He chose to join her in this risk, so as to help, to help her do something so important as this study is better, to help her NOT get caught, to be ONE with her in something that mattered this much to her. She would not take the beauty of his decisions away from him. He deserved better. It would be better than my asking for his forgiveness, she thought, to delve deeper into those fears, his fears, as expressed in the dream, but also hers too, and face them together.

"Dreams can be so fascinating, William," she said, her intrigue lightening him next to her.

"Mm," his simple answer.

"Well," she breathed a bit faster, "Consider the frost you saw on the man's shoulder… the one who was like the Inspector. I think the man represents the whole Constabulary. And the frost on his shoulder… It was like he was giving you the…"

"The cold shoulder," William nearly gasped with the discovery.

"Yes," she replied, snuggling deeper into him, longing for his connection, his assurance that his love had not wavered with seeing the darker side more intimately. "You fear not only losing your job if we get caught, but also being rejected by those you… we, both hold so dear."

He nodded.

"I think that hurts even more… would hurt you even more, than losing your job would, to be disapproved of by those who have come to be like family," she explained further.

"I suppose you are right," he agreed.

Oh, she lost the battle a bit with her regret, for her heart sunk with the weight of it.

A corner of Julia's mouth lifted into a wrinkle, her own acknowledgment of the hurt, and she said, "It is undeniable that you have risked what is terribly important to you to…" she needed to swallow, for it was hard, "to be with me… to love me, William, as you do."

In response, he then wrinkled the corner of his mouth at her, pointless to deny the truth of what she was saying, impossible to dismiss the depth of the impact to which he felt the fear of losing so much. He hugged her closer, kissed at her hair. He held her there, softly for a moment, long enough to breathe in the scent of her, to feel her take a breath and trust that his love was as strong as she had believed, that it was true, and that she could depend on it.

They stayed quiet, thoughts traveling from there.

A deeper breath, Julia drew his attention. "It isn't the first time you've broken the law," she reminded.

He already knew that that was true, but his mind flew down multiple pathways searching for which particular time she meant. The word 'first' repeated…

"Constance Gardiner," he thought it exactly as she said it. "You let Constance Gardiner go free. You risked everything then, hmm?"

"Very much so," he agreed, and a memory ran of Constance Gardiner asking him if he would regret releasing her, that it would cost him his career… and he heard his own voice, outside and inside, because the sudden awareness of the truth was everywhere to be found, "You'll never know what it's cost me," and he remembered he had been thinking of Julia, and her marrying Darcy at that very same moment, but there was everything else he was sacrificing too, his job, his reputation, his betrayal of the Inspector's trust in him…

A brighter thought appeared. William leaned his mouth closer to her and she sensed his smile. "Father Clements… in his sermon Sunday, told of the early biblical heroes as being jailbirds… and God set them free, for there were higher truths than man's laws," he said.

And Julia remembered telling him about her image of women, through all of time, being trapped in a cage made of bars of something seemingly indestructible, their very own bodies, their biology, and that the IUD would be a key to set them free. Oh, it was a tangly mess, William's Catholic Faith and his love of the law, and even more so for being true, for being good, for being a good man in God's eyes, and it seemed to be their very fate together for her to challenge it. She prayed she would never ask so much of him that he could not stretch or bend to contain it.

She added, "It seemed even Father Keegan faced similar struggles," hoping the thought would provide him comfort.

It seemed it did, for he kissed her cheek and said, "Thank you milady. I feel most able to put the dream behind me now. I suggest we try to return to sleep."

Together, they shifted, and slipped themselves down under the sheets. "That sounds well-advised," she gave, her golden-red curls fanning out over her pillow, and her eyes touching to his in the dim shadows of the middle of the night. The urge took her to tell him, "I love you," before she closed her eyelids.

"And I you," he imagined replying, but chose not to, for sleep was lingering close. "Silence would better the falling…" his brain had its last, conscious, rational thought.

And William and Julia were asleep once more.

) (

Before the Sun, Eloise stood before the array of headlines along the row at the newsstand. Not a one had a good word to say about the detective's case. Audibly, she released a sigh.

The man behind the newsstand commented, "Your Master and Mistress won't be happy about these now, will they, missus?"

"They surely will not," Eloise responded, shaking her head at both the bad press that the detective and the doctor were receiving, and her own difficulty in choosing which papers to purchase for the detective.

Another sigh, this one bordering on a groan, she said, "I suppose they'd best see Miss Cherry's and get that over with," she handed the man some coins. "The Gazette and the Daily Star, please," she had decided. Before tucking the two papers atop her bag of groceries Eloise paused to re-read the Toronto Gazette's headline once more, "Negro-Killer Escapes Toronto: Deputy Minister King Demands Detective's Badge." She thought to herself, "Better that one first. At least it is somewhat professional," as she planned which paper the detective would see first. "And besides, there isn't a chance in hades it'll come to all that," she reassured herself, collecting both papers. She did not re-read Miss Cherry's headline, for it stuck in her mind like bee sting, and further, she feared she would become sick in seeing it again.

Feet already traveling down the road, her mind replayed the mudslinging title back to herself despite her efforts to avoid it, "NOT so 'Brilliant;' Murdoch Bungles and Negro-Killer Flees." Oh, it really irked her, that nasty woman's insistence on using the doctor's own well-meant, protective words to hurt her husband. "Honestly…!" she complained, her teeth actually aching with her anger. "Take a breath, Ellie," she told herself, "Take a breath. They've weathered worse than this before." She blew out the pent-up pressure through her pursed lips. "At least it's a beautiful morning," she tried to cheer. She listened to the dawning world… her own footsteps, hoofbeats and carriages in the background, beautiful, beautiful little birds chirping, and cheeping, and twittering, and warbling their lovely songs all around. And she remembered brave young Master Murdoch saving the baby birds from the attempted stoning, up high in their nest, and she puffed up her chest and she walked taller. It would only take time, but that horrible Miss Cherry would most surely be eating herself some humble pie in the end, of that Eloise was certain.

) (

William stirred, the enchanting dusty shades of pink and yellow spilling into the room telling it was early still – early enough. With romance on his mind, and already coursing through his body, he snuggled in behind his warm, delicious wife. His fingers, his lips, his breath, on her, soft, wanting, calling.

She roused, such a long deep breath, soaking him in, as they rolled together, her coming to be above him. She slipped her long leg, naked and smooth, and with that perfect little puff of a tuft of hair brushing against his thigh, up to his hip, over him, the two of them basking in the silky feeling of bare skin gliding along over bare skin. She noticed… the bigger bump, as her thigh traveled upward. "William," she teased.

Oh, the look on his face floored her, for William Murdoch wanted to play.

"Doctor," he said, the tone of him torqueing her insides with want, "I have a terribly throbbing ache…"

"I noticed, detective," her lusty response told she would be happy to play along. "There does seem to be rather a great deal of swelling," she said, and then she sent his brain into spinning, taking him in hand.

Such effort, William formed the simple words, compelled them through his raspy throat, shaped his mouth, tongue, lips to reply, "Do you think there's anything to be done, doctor?"

And he swore that he would never withstand the force as he flew backwards and shot forwards and fell up and plummeted down and spun, so scrumptiously, out of breath, when she teased further, "Perhaps, detective, I could kiss it and make it better."

Mmm, how his breathing surged out of his nostrils, as if he were a wild bull readying to charge for having seen the red cape, and Julia knew, delighted to the core, that William Murdoch had been rendered entirely incapable of speaking. She smiled at her plans, for she would drive him so very close to his utter edge, and then, when he could not withstand holding back his release for even one second more, she would roll over and lie on her back, press herself down hard into the mattress, and tempt him to cover her, and then she would surrender herself, completely, to him…

Now this, THIS, was marital bliss.

) (

The Tuesday morning headlines had been so damaging that the Inspector had called for an all-hands-on-deck meeting. Murdoch had requested that his wife, the Chief Coroner of Toronto, among other things, be included. Constable Crabtree had made the phone call over to the morgue. The men waited for her, discussing the likely impact of the bashing news headlines. The Inspector was more than certain that the Chief Inspector would be calling to put pressure on them for 'allowing' Mr. Beau Jangles to be released, and then 'allowing' the so-called 'Negro-Killer' to get away.

Dr. Ogden appeared in the doorway. "Gentlemen," she greeted. She stepped in to join her husband, and Inspector Brackenreid, and Detective Watts and Constable Crabtree. She sat next to William on the small sofa. With a quick nod, the gesture aimed Brackenreid's way, she said as she straightened her skirts, "Thank you, Inspector."

The Inspector smiled. This remarkable woman had been one among their circle for as many years as he could remember. A slew of thoughts and memories flooded into his mind in that moment… Murdoch sending the doctor undercover as a lady-basketball player, this first one prompting him to shake his head and feel giddy with the thought… And then he remembered when that sinister toff, that diabolically smug James Gillies, had abducted her – buried the woman alive…! And in juxtaposition to that thought, the next one rushed in as if to put the shoe on the other foot, the doctor being the one to save Murdoch this time, his best man unconscious and drowning down in the bowels of a sinking ship… Oh, most certainly, she belonged… "You are surely one of us, doctor," he said, "You are much more than welcome."

"Why thank you, Inspector," she said graciously.

"Murdoch," the Inspector's tone changed the subject and instantly got them all down to business, "As lead detective on this case, please take us through a review of the evidence." All eyes turned to William.

A quick nod, Murdoch stood, and while fiddling with Mr. Beau Jangles' woodcarving of a bird in his trousers' pocket he took to pacing back and forth while he expounded on the case. "Despite what the morning's newspaper headlines would have you believe," he started right at the hottest part of their troubles, "there was ample evidence warranting the release of Mr. Beau Jangles on the charges of murdering his partner in the Weist Minstrel Show Jubilee, Mr. Ernie Williams. We have not revealed this evidence to the press, but WE know this evidence to consist of the facts that Mr. Beau Jangles was drugged on the night of the murder, as Dr. Ogden found laudanum in his bloodstream, and his shoes did not match the shoeprints found in the coal-dust where the body was set on fire.

William paused to catch the eyes of the others. "Good," he thought to himself, and moved on.

There was a quick scratch of his brow with his free hand, and then the pacing resumed. The slightest shrug, he continued, "Originally, we suspected the killer to be a Negro man because a man matching Mr. Beau Jangles' description had been reported to have threatened Mr. Williams' life while in a drunken tirade outside of Papa's Poolroom…"

Detective Watts hurried a question at the pause, "You said, 'originally.' Has that changed?"

Julia saw William's smile.

William stopped. "We'll get to that, detective," he answered. His pacing recommenced, now both hands in his pockets as he went on, "We know that Mr. Beau Jangles had been recently involved in altercations with the owner of the show, Mr. Weist, and his manager, Mr. Toddy, over his demands that Negro performers no longer be required to wear blackface makeup, and over his demands that Negroes earn the same wages as whites. Mr. Beau Jangles also argued with Mr. Williams about his betrayal, the victim being the one to cross sides, as it were, and agree to Mr. Weist's old ways."

Another pause… met with nods.

"Our interviews yielded that the Weist's have a daughter who is betrothed to an important toff, thus making her parents very happy by moving their social standing up in the world. We also learned that she has recently been sent away to a finishing school… a charm school in the States…" Murdoch said. Then, suddenly thinking of something, he halted and inhaled and turned to George. "Constable, have you tried yet this morning to contact the finishing school in Birmingham?"

"No, err, I thought it was too early," Crabtree explained, already standing from his chair. "I'll try now, sir," he offered.

"Thank you," Murdoch gave him his answer.

The pacing resumed. Murdoch went on, "We were also informed that the victim and Mrs. Weist exchanged messages – notes, using the same street boy. Along with that, there were rumors that Mrs. Weist and Mr. Williams were having an affair…" There was a pause, then a reverse in the pacing. Back to it, William said, "Now, the street boy was found, and the boy reported that Mrs. Weist had only recently begun sending notes to Mr. Williams…" Murdoch's quick spin on his heel suggested that there would be excitement in what he said next. A hand out of his pocket he held it up and then squeezed his fingers into a fist and then said, "Prior to that it was the Weist's DAUGHTER who had sent the Negro performer notes."

The others leaned forward, intrigued. Murdoch had more.

"In my interview with a Negress from the minstrel show, Dame Clara, a woman who admitted that the victim and herself had been involved romantically, I was told that Mr. Williams had stopped seeing Dame Clara because he had fallen in love with another woman, a younger, WHITE, woman, and it could follow that this woman was the Weist's daughter," Murdoch connected the dots.

Inspector Brackenreid commented, "I'd wager Ma and Pa Weist wouldn't have been too happy about that bloody news, now would they me ole mucker."

Detective Watts added, "Nor their manager. Mr. Toddy seemed quite interested in the daughter himself. And the man is… well let's say 'old fashioned,' in his ideas about the Negro's place in this world."

Julia leaned forward and suggested, "Perhaps that's the reason the Weist's sent their daughter out of the country… to stop her seeing Mr. Williams?"

It was that moment that Crabtree returned. Everyone could tell he had news – it was that quirky twist at the one side of his mouth. "Sirs, err, sirs and doctor," he gratefully got to the point, "I rang the Charm School. The woman I spoke to is the matron of the school… It seems that there is not now, nor ever has there been, in the matron's seven years with the school, a Canadian girl at the school with the surname of Weist… sirs… doctor…" He wrinkled his face with the surprise and the mystery and the puzzle.

"A fabricated story then," Watts concluded.

"But why?" George queried.

"Aren't these finishing schools rather expensive?" William suggested, looking to his wife. "Perhaps the Weist's could not afford such a reputable school…?" William wrinkled his face in doubt.

"Are you suggesting they sent her somewhere else…? Somewhere less expensive?" Julia wondered aloud, turning to include the others in her question.

Detective Watts answered, "The Weist's are far from wealthy, according to Mr. Toddy…"

Then William interjected, going back to his pacing, "They probably could not afford 'Lady Jane Grey's Charm School,' in Birmingham, though I'm sure they'd like to have everyone else believe they could."

"Particularly the bloody toff she was marrying," the Inspector reminded.

Now here William's mind ran rather quickly – leading him through a web of ideas that all expanded and then fell back into one. In the end, he had come to the fact that he suspected Mr. Weist of the killing. He began to think out what he would need to say to catch the others up to why he thought so. He started, "That's an important point, Inspector, uh… about the Weist's being motivated to convince their daughter's suitor of her receiving a higher quality education. It gets us to motive… possibly…" And then, at that very moment in that sentence, William remembered that Mr. Weist's lack of a motive had been bothering him terribly… that, and the fact that Weist had an alibi for the night of the killing, with multiple witnesses corroborating that Weist was in Papa's Poolroom all night the night Williams had been killed. And then he remembered that he had been struggling with all of these problems last night. And his mind advanced and moved backward in time, and he saw himself sitting at their kitchen table eating his warmed-over supper…

Wham! It happened right then…

Oh, and my oh my, a thunderbolt of a memory charged in – Julia removing her bloomers, slipping so seductively into his lap…

Abruptly, William turned, midstride, midsentence, away from the others, feigning a reverse of direction in his pacing. A breath, "Where was I…? his mind raced to recover. He massaged vigorously at his forehead…

"Motive?! Bloody hell, Murdoch!" the Inspector replied, briefly standing to accentuate his point. "How in the world does the Weist's hiding the fact that they sent their daughter to a cheap finishing school get us to a motive for a Negro man to kill Ernie Williams?!" Thomas cursed this Murdoch in his head – bloody slow as molasses and so fast no one could keep up with him at the same time.

Gratefully, the Inspector's complaint shook William out of his own tizzy. There was a noticeable sigh of relief from Murdoch. "Well, that's just it, sir," William held his breath for a moment.

"Bollocks!" the Inspector groaned in his head.

The pacing began again, and William's hand returned to clasp the little wooden bird in his pocket, as if rubbing it could absorb some of his tension. Murdoch reminded, "Early on in the case I had found a black greasy substance on one of the garbage pails where the body of Ernie Williams had been hidden, before the body was later moved and set on fire behind Hodge's bar, the Tipsy Ferret." He checked for nods, and then went on, "I had mistakenly figured it to be automobile engine grease…" he shrugged and frowned, admitting it had been an important blunder that he regretted making.

George remembered, "Oh yes, sir. You asked me if cork is used in car engines."

"Yes," William said. "It was thanks to Julia that I finally made the connection," William gave, with one of those luscious sideways glances her way that she so adored. "I believe… that with the tiny pieces of cork within the substance, well, I'm fairly certain it is blackface makeup," he revealed, with an air of showmanship, he paused, secretly anticipating their gasps.

"Of course!" both Crabtree and Watts awed their rewards for him.

William held up his empty hand and squeezed it closed. He had grasped something significant, and he knew it.

Julia fought a smile of her own, noting the tiny curl of a smile on William's face, and with it that tight stiffness she knew in him, as he worked to hide his pride.

Subtly, William nodded, then, clearing his throat for emphasis, he stated, "The blackface makeup clue leads to the likelihood of the killer being WHITE rather than Negro… and," Murdoch considered more of the clues, "also likely male, because of the inherent difficulty in a woman pulling off a convincing imitation of a man's voice, particularly while the man she is meant to be in her performance is raging about in a drunken stupor wielding a baseball bat, threatening bodily injury to another." William knew he had discovered much more than this, and his back-and-forth pacing had slowed as he paused to organize his presentation in his mind.

The small break allowed time for this new information to sink in, and for the others to make connections to the other facts in the case they had gathered.

Still, all eyes remained on Murdoch.

He moved on, "This largely places Mr. Weist under suspicion as the killer," William named his prime suspect. He would need to lay out his case… But… there was that niggling doubt again, "Mr. Beau Jangles thought the killer was a woman," it reminded. William dismissed the thought.

So far, so good. William shrugged before he said, "It could be a case of two birds with one stone," and the irony, the unexpected connections fire-crackered inside of his head – the little wooden bird in his hand, and Mr. Beau Jangles' accentuating the resounding significance of Dunbar's poem about the caged bird singing, and his dream last night with the bird helplessly trying to free itself from the cage, and then William Jr.'s defending the baby birds, and the bigger bullies throwing their rocks, and Father Clements sermon about the biblical heroes being jailbirds, and Julia describing all women's plight as being like being locked inside cages, and his fear that Julia would be arrested and put behind bars herself for conducting her IUD study and he was suddenly emotionally staggered, almost breathless, for a second, trying to keep up with himself.

He had stopped talking, he suddenly realized with a jolt.

"How so?" Watts asked.

William's brain chased, "How so what?" The room waited. "Too long! Too long!" one side of him warned. A more practical voice guided, "You were about to offer Weist's motives, for both killing Mr. Williams and…"

Watts leaned forward and pressed, "How is it like killing two birds with one stone?"

William thought to himself that the younger detective looked puzzled, and then he figured, "He probably is – because you are not presenting your point very well, William," and then another part of him reminded that, "It was hard to tell with Watts, though…"

William began pacing again. He would spell it out, "It seems likely a motive for Weist to kill Ernie Williams has been suggested – to stop the victim's affair with his daughter, but Weist also had argued with Mr. Beau Jangles, who was demanding that Negroes need no longer perform in blackface, AND that Negro wages be raised to be more in line with those of the white performers in Mr. Weist's show, giving Weist ample reason to frame Mr. Beau Jangles for the murder."

Watts nodded, "The second bird."

"Yes," William answered, "Frame Mr. Beau Jangles and get Ernie Williams out of the way for his daughter to marry without scandal…" And then suddenly, so frustrating, William hit another stumbling block head on, "Oh yes – Deputy Minister King," he thought to himself. That was enough, just the man's name, blended and writhed in his brain, and disruption intruded again, a flash of remembering his nightmare – losing his badge, and then having those fears compounded by the headline in the Gazette this morning, this particular man, this KING, threatening to make the nightmare a reality… And he felt the building of resentment inside of himself, and he reminded himself to be better than that.

It was Julia who spoke up. "Last night…" her hesitation was a small one brought on by choosing what to call William, "Last night Detective Murdoch and I discussed the case…"

William watched on as she revealed what he was fairly sure the Inspector would not want to hear…

"Well," Julia straightened her skirts as she began, glanced to William, and then sat up tall and sure, "There is something that is not right with the Weist's daughter's engagement to King."

The Inspector felt a few of the hairs at the back of his neck begin to stand on end. "Doctor," there was warning in his tone, "Deputy Minister King would not be the first toff to marry below his station!" he charged, then tossed a hand up in the air and added, "Look at you and Murdoch!"

"Sir," William felt compelled to defend his wife – and himself, "When it comes to Deputy Minister King in this matter, I do think the man doth protest too much…"

"Protest too much!?" Brackenreid was turning red now. He stood and pounded both fists down onto his desk. "If you think Deputy Minister King is protesting too much now, with demanding your badge, Murdoch, how much more do you think he'll PROTEST if you try to involve him in this murder?!" he growled.

"If I may, sir," William had managed to hold his calm, "What Jul… What Dr. Ogden was trying to tell you about King's engagement to the Weist's daughter does NOT necessarily implicate him, personally, in any wrongdoing…"

Brackenreid breathed, an almost immediate lightening of both the air, and his crimson coloring.

Murdoch shrugged and then alluded, "Deputy Minister King is known to be, among some circles, N O T," William slowed his speech here, "not, all that interested in… ladies."

Oh, the Inspector understood immediately. "Deputy Minister King…? A pansy?" For a moment it seemed all was well, that the Inspector enjoyed being privy to such juicy gossip, but then those tingly hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end again…! His eyes narrowed, and he threatened, "Murdoch, this, THIS, best not get out, or he'll most surely have your badge… And he'll bloody well have MINE TOO!"

Calmly Julia answered, "Inspector, there is really no reason anyone has to know anything about Mackenzie King's… preferences…"

William interrupted, "We don't even know for certain if any of these rumors are true, about the daughter having a love affair with the victim."

Watts stepped forward and added excitedly, "We don't even know WHERE the daughter is," and then he looked about, and quieted, "Err, as she is said to be at this posh charm school in Birmingham, and yet, we now know that she is not."

It was quiet.

Minds moved.

And then William remembered his biggest problem. He cleared his throat, and rubbed his brow, and started to pace again, but was so troubled he just halted there and said it. "Maybe all of this is pointless conjecture, anyway. Mr. Weist has an ironclad alibi. Multiple witnesses say that he was at Papa's Poolroom ALL night on the night Ernie Williams was killed.

Crabtree spoke up. "These witnesses, sir…? They're men from Papa's?" he checked.

"They are," Murdoch gave.

"They could be lying, sir," Crabtree suggested.

Glances around the room showed the others agreed it was likely.

And then, in light of remembering the beating that George and Mr. Beau Jangles had endured in the poolroom, the injuries on Constable George Crabtree's face suddenly took on a much more severe look.

"Perhaps we should bring them in for questioning," Watts suggested.

"Maybe one of them would crack?" Julia proposed, her eyes meeting those of her husband across the room.

"I don't know," Crabtree doubted, "There is that one horse-sized brute, Big Jim, who keeps them all in line for… err, well, for Mr. Weist. He is a rather scary character. The others cower from him…"

The Inspector spoke up, "Crabtree," he directed his query to George, "Can you think of any others that frequent the place… men who would not be under this 'Big Jim's' thumb."

"Well there were some women about…" he considered. "I'd just assumed they were all err, well, more like ladies of the night, but uh, there was one that seemed to be more friendly with Big Jim and his hooligan bunch. I never caught her name, but she tried to help me, I think… tried to distract Big Jim, to tempt away from escalating his harassment of me. Maybe she would… But I'd figure she might be loyal to Mr. Weist, as much as any of the others. You know, Mr. Weist wasn't there the night we went in… I uh, I guess I can't really say, sirs… sirs and Dr. Ogden."

"It's too bad your Nina Bloom isn't around anymore, Crabtree," the Inspector said. He thought it then, perhaps because he had remembered earlier that Murdoch had sent the doctor in undercover to spy on those ladies on a basketball team…

The Inspector hadn't realized where his eyes had landed, but he had led all the other men to join him in looking to Dr. Ogden.

The pressure, the being the center of attention, on the stage, as it were, it seemed to push Julia's thoughts in the right direction, and she suddenly had an idea. "I could go," she gasped, "I could go in as a doxy. Maybe this woman would be more likely to reveal holes in alibis to a woman in her same situation…?" she explained, and her brain rushed to imagining what she would wear, and there was a sensation of adventure that tingled at her core…

Her husband, however, was having the exact same, and the exact opposite, sensations. William too, had imagined what she would wear, and what other men would feel seeing her dressed that way – in THAT role, and he felt an infernal itching, a fury, a sickening jealousy, that was both familiar to him and dangerously close to being out of his control. He outright abhorred the thought of men thinking of Julia in that way – abhorred it. His fist curled tight, subconsciously, and he remembered Darcy calling her a whore, and his teeth clenched, and he remembered the explosive deliciousness of walloping the taller toff square in the teeth.

George's voice, slow, bordering on a whisper, turned to William as a side glance, "I believe it would be quite dangerous…"

"Much too dangerous, I would think," William felt a flood of relief. He cleared his throat and added, still a bit scratchy as he said it, "A new woman suddenly showing up… well it might make them suspicious, I'd think."

Crabtree considered aloud, "I can't go back – they'd recognize me."

Detective Watts added, "I interviewed the bartender, and all the men who provided Weist with his alibi…"

Julia leaned forward, her eyes glimmering with another idea, "Have any of the men at Papa's ever seen Detective Murdoch?" she asked.

The men shared glances, all shaking their heads 'no,' none thinking of an instance in which Murdoch had been within sight of any of Big Jim's bunch or any of the staff at Papa's.

"Well," she gleamed, "it turns out that our Detective Murdoch is a phenomenal billiards player," she told.

"Really now?" the Inspector replied, then clicking his tongue at his best man, he admired, "Hidden talents, hey, me ole mucker."

It was the blush on Murdoch's face that best revealed the truth to his wife's claim about his prowess on the billiards table.

Julia elaborated, "I'm sure the detective can play the game well enough to convince them all that he's familiar with such poolhalls. And, well, he can be quite a believable as riffraff," she giggled at the implausibility of it, and yet she knew it to be so from all of the times in the past when William had done exactly that so very well. And OH, even with just imagining it unfold, how she wished she could be a fly on the wall and watch it all.

"Oh sir!" Crabtree exclaimed in Murdoch's direction, "You could say you are a friend of mine, come back to win back my money, sir…" George's face twisted and he found himself hoping, "Maybe you even COULD win back some of my money, sir – it was nearly a month's pay."

Everyone looked to Murdoch…

More still, Crabtree expanded, "Oh! Oh, yes…!"

All eyes jumped back to Crabtree. He was on one of his rolls…

George's eyes danced so with the fantasy unfolding in his mind, "I can see it. We should get the detective a two-piece custom-made pool cue, sir?" Crabtree suggested to the Inspector. "Err, so he would appear to be a professional, like Big Jim?"

"Don't be daft, Crabtree," the Inspector barked. "What do you think, the Constabulary is made out of money for your hair-brained ideas?"

Undeterred, George dreamed on, "Oh, I think you should be called 'Slick' or maybe 'Slim…" Yes, that's it, 'Slim' is a perfect nickname for you, sir."

"I'm not all that skinny, George," William took exception.

George crinkled his face in his own uniquely funny way and replied, "You are quite thin, and small, sir, compared to this 'Big Jim,'" the words out of his mouth, he instantly regretted it, for he had suddenly remembered that the detective was his superior.

Standing there, subtly lost in his considering actually going undercover as this pool shark, William found his gaze down on the wooden bird he had pulled out of his pocket. With a sudden glance to George, he saw that George had joined him in looking there. The two men shared a look, in it an agreed drive to see justice done. The moment solidified William's resolve. He would do this. He would find evidence that would fully exonerate Mr. Beau Jangles and put Ernie Williams' real killer behind bars. He would endeavor to disclose the truth.

Over on the small couch, Julia was also considering it in her mind, but her eyes had stalled on George Crabtree's battered face. Julia suddenly wished she had never suggested the scheme. Clearly, the plan would be sending William into grave danger! Why hadn't she thought of that! Her jolt, her gasp, drew all the men's eyes to her. Nervously she smiled… gave William a quick glance. "Um, gentlemen…" she fought the embarrassment of having them see her more womanly, her wifely, concerns. "Perhaps my idea was a bit too hasty," she started, and the world had the odd greying and smudging at its outer edges, the pressure moving in from the darkened shadows, impinging. Julia swallowed and pressed on, "Well, of course, we must consider these men… um, these men that Wil… Detective Murdoch would be attempting to… trick," she felt her efforts in swaying the decision faltering, stopping her there in the middle of her sentence. She would have to seek a compromise… "Perhaps…? Well, shouldn't we at least have a few other men there undercover… as other customers…?" she urged, "Um, to keep it safer?"

William felt the pull at his heart, for her fears were real, and he knew it. Still, he was certain he would need to go alone… and he was certain it would be difficult to convince her that doing so was entirely necessary. Unknowingly, he took to pacing, tucked the hand with the small bird carving back into his trousers' pocket. Everyone watched him as he reached up and rubbed at his brow, and then blew out a wind of pressure though his lips. His use of her given name, rather than her title, closing the gap between them, he said, "Julia, if other, NEW, UNKNOWN men besides myself show up on the same night, it will only add to suspicion. It will put me at more risk of being discovered."

He did not look directly at her, but out of the corner of his eyes he saw her sinking, dropping, lowering, just a little, her rally defeated.

He continued, hoping not to allow all of the men's attention to cluster on her as she folded and she accepted what would happen, "At least I will have a reasonable explanation to show up, unknown," he reached one end of the office in his pacing and turned. "It will be believable that I, as 'Jack' and Mr. Beau Jangles' friend, have come to settle a score. It would make perfect sense that they would not know me. However, there would be no such reasons for any other unfamiliar faces in the crowd." He stopped in front of her, and so charmingly wrinkled that corner of his mouth like he did when he apologized and admitted to something in one gesture. "Are we in agreement?" he asked plainly.

"Yes," she gave, returning the corner of the mouth wrinkle at him, for there was no denying her fears with the plan. The doctor sighed and said to the room, "I must admit, though, a part of me regrets ever suggesting it."

It was George who would try to comfort her, saying gently, "Your plan is truly a brilliant one, doctor…"

Julia looked into George's face. There was an openness and trust between them that they both treasured. "George," she said with another wrinkle at the corner of her mouth, and glanced away suddenly, having no words.

George strengthened and added, "And you must consider, doctor, that I did not know what I was walking into that night. Detective Murdoch does. He is ready for it… and prepared for Big Jim and his brutish ways. I was not."

The Inspector stood. "Doctor, your husband is quick. You know this as much as anyone in this room does. He's been in bigger, messier, spots than this one. He can handle it," he encouraged. The Yorkshire man managed to push away, to hide from sight, from being detectible in his voice, that doubt that was always present when a policeman took a risk. He knew this doubt intimately. It could not be avoided. It needed to be overpowered by resourceful and efficient preparation and sturdy confidence.

Julia would be a good sport, for she too had, many times in her life, played the same mental and emotional game with a similar doubt when facing risks to her own life, and even though her own personal battle had often been less physical, the risks had been by no means any less dangerous, with the threat of life imprisonment, or even the noose, always lurking in the background of possibilities. And further, for years now, ever since she had met William Murdoch, if the truth be told, she had been playing this same balancing act with her fears of losing him, as well. She stood. "Yes, Inspector. I'm sure you are right."

William concluded the discussion of the matter there, moving on to another topic, "Mrs. Weist is coming in later for an interview. Detective Watts…"

The younger detective pitched his attention to Murdoch…

"You will need to pursue her about her husband's alibi, see if there is any indication that he that DID NOT stay at Papa's all night on the evening of the impersonation of Mr. Beau Jangles with the baseball bat and the killing," Murdoch directed. "Also, pressure her to explain why she and her husband lied about sending their daughter to that charm school in the States…" he added, "Oh, and about the street boy who delivered messages between herself and the victim." He changed his aim to George, thinking of another angle, "And constable, we will be needing more specifics about the Weist's daughter, hmm? We need to track down her whereabouts, preferably BEFORE Mrs. Weist's interview."

The Inspector had been caught by a thought. "Murdoch," he drew their attention, "I think it may be best if you interview the wifey…"

"But Detective Watts interviewed her husband so," Murdoch pushed back. "Watts would be more likely to catch any inconsistencies…" William wrinkled the corner of his mouth, doubting the strength of his own argument.

"Then the both of you interview her," the Inspector decreed impatiently. "Right now, the woman seems to be your most important witness. I would think you'd want to know where SHE was at the time of the murder…"

And that's when William darted towards the connection – his mind reminding that "Mr. Beau Jangles had suspected a woman was the killer…"

The Inspector had kept on, "She can tell you about her husband and about this mysterious daughter of theirs, and this whole bloody mess with the bloody toff Deputy Minister!" the raising of his voice coincided with the re-reddening of his face. "Too bloody early for a scotch," Thomas complained to himself in his head.

"Very good, sir," Murdoch agreed. And, with that, the group disbanded to get to work.

Julia accompanied William to his office. Unspoken between them, her suggesting the plan that now she regretted would risk his life. She reminded him that tomorrow was William Jr.'s first day of school. The wonder of it paused them there together for that one miniscule second, one of those that could feel it lasted an hour. He stepped closer, tenderly held her by her upper arms. "It is magnificent, is it not," he asked her, such twinkling and joy in his big brown eyes, "That we have been so fortunate."

She bowed to him and replied, "It is. It is."

)

Inspector Brackenreid's instincts had been right – the interview of Mrs. Weist unfolded to reveal MANY more significant clues because his best man, Detective Murdoch, was present and asking most of the questions and ultimately ended up driving the entire interview.

When asked where her daughter was, preliminarily Mrs. Weist held to their lie, that her daughter had been sent away to the very best finishing school available – "the Lady Jane Grey's Charm School in Birmingham, in the States."

"Such an expensive school," Murdoch led.

"Well, Adelaide is to marry a very important and dignified man…" Mrs. Weist answered.

Detective Watts inserted, revealing the Constabulary was already aware of the engagement, "Yes, Deputy Minister King."

Bouncing and bubbling in her seat, unable to hide her pride and exuberance at the thought of HER daughter marrying a man of such distinction, Mrs. Weist said, "Yes," and then explained, "Now, Mackenzie is a brilliant and quite wonderful man, but he is greatly in need of a wife who can be a hostess with the charm needed to balance against… Well, the man is a bit curt and sometimes so blunt he can be awkward…"

And both detective's in the room suddenly felt themselves to be akin to the man…

Mrs. Weist had gone on, "Adelaide's charm will be essential in substituting for her husband's… rather natural chill, when entertaining guests in their home, guests of the utmost stature."

"I see," Detective Murdoch replied, and then stood from his chair and began to pace, both hands in his trousers' pockets. He asked her, "Was it important to you that her fiancé knew that… Adelaide was in attendance at such a lavish school…? Perhaps, you and your husband wanted to convince Mr. King of your daughter's suitability as his wife?"

There was a huff from the woman in response, registering her insult. "You offend, detective," she complained.

Murdoch scratched at his brow as he paused his steps. "I apologize," he gave. "But, I was searching for a reason to explain why your daughter has never been enrolled at the school you claim she is attending," he revealed, to an inaudible gasp in the interview room, and outside as well, from the Inspector and Crabtree who looked on through the mesh.

Instantly, Mrs. Weist collapsed into tears. The policemen attempted to read her cues – Embarrassment…? Betrayal…? Then it dawned – FEAR!

Gallantly, Murdoch had magically produced a bright, white, handkerchief, seemingly before the first salty drop had trickled down the woman's cheek.

Through her sobs, Mrs. Weist told them that her daughter had gone missing. Suddenly so vulnerable and desperate, she begged them to help find her. She admitted that Adelaide appeared to have run away. Mrs. Weist held the last part in until the very last moment, for to this woman, a woman so desperate to be recognized among those of the upper classes, it was heartbreaking to admit that her daughter did not want to marry the Deputy Minister. She explained, eventually calming down, that Mr. King was in no way aware of Adelaide's reluctance to marry him, or that she had not gone to the Lady Jane Grey Charm School – that they had used that story to cover up Adelaide's being missing while they tried to find her. She produced from her purse, a photograph of her daughter for the Constabulary to use in trying to locate her.

As Mrs. Weist's gloved hand extended the shiny photograph to Detective Murdoch, IT HAPPENED…!

Whoosh, with such a spilling and whirling, William fell into that oddly shaded, shifted inner world of his remarkable brain, moving so fast, in so many directions, that it dizzied and sickened with its pace.

In the reflected light off of the photograph, William noticed a fingermark. HE HAD SEEN THAT FINGERMARK BEFORE! the thought fired into his brain. Lightning speed down two different paths, the one to when he was sitting with Julia and the children in the ice cream shop and his recognizing each of his children's fingermarks, thus impressing her by being able to identify the glass William Jr. and Katie had been fighting over as belonging to William Jr. and not Katie… the other path leading also to a fingermark on glass – this fingermark on the bottle of whiskey that had been drugged with laudanum – the bottle of whiskey that had been used to drug Mr. Beau Jangles. "Of course, just as Mr. Beau Jangles had suspected – a woman! Mrs. Weist was part of the frame! She was the killer! No! No! She could have been an accomplice… to her husband, and Mr. Weist was the killer," as he had suspected. "Or even, she could have acted with the assistance of someone else, another man besides her husband, possibly, who dressed up and imitated Beau Jangles that night while she kept him out of the way, unconscious, till after the killing, to be left at the crime scene to be found by the Constabulary…!" He was getting closer, and his heart thumped and pounded in his chest with the excitement of it.

Being a cunning man, William decided in that moment, "NOT yet," to arrest Mrs. Weist, "NOT yet," to reveal that he had figured out that she was guilty of, at the very least, aiding the killer. More evidence was needed…

Detective Murdoch took the photograph and assured Mrs. Weist that the Constabulary would do everything in their power to find her daughter. He asked where she would be tonight so that they could contact her with any news.

She replied that both she and her husband would be at a special performance tonight, of their minstrel show.

"Good news," William thought to himself, reasoning that that assured that Mr. Weist would not be at Papa's Poolroom tonight when he was to be there undercover as a pool grifter.

) (

Too late to have made it for supper, William came in the front door of their home with enough time to eat and change into his undercover pool hustler clothes, before saying goodnight to his children and heading out for the mission. A sweet smell of baking wafted through the house, filling his nostrils, and he wondered after it, for he was certain Eloise would have gone for the night.

The children's excited footsteps splattered towards him down the hallway from the kitchen.

Joyful screeches of "Daddy…!" and "Daddy's home!" peppered through the air as they grew closer. William squatted down, waiting to receive their onrush in his waiting arms.

With happy hugs and kisses and squeezes, William declared, "Mm-mm, something sure smells good…"

Julia appeared, and his big, sparkly brown eyes looked up at her from where he was knelt down, surrounded by their children. He almost laughed at the sight of her, so unexpected – Dr. Julia Ogden in an apron with a smudge of flour on her cheek, and quite a bit of it dusted into her hair.

"We've been baking," she told him, "I was thinking it would be nice if William Jr. could take some cookies with him to his first day of school."

"And I see you are all wearing much of these cookies," he teased, glancing to each child. William stood and moved towards his wife with every intention of scooping her into his arms and giving her a delightful kiss.

Julia's hands shot up into the air, stopping him. "William, I'm covered in cookie dough!" she squeaked, backing away from him, shaking her head.

Oh, there was such a whiff of play in the air…

And William's expression told that he had detected it, and he would not be deterred.

Still backing away, Julia explained, secretly wishing he would continue his advance, "It will get all over your…"

And then Julia's eyes dropped down to indicate, what every single one of them, even little Chelsea, expected would be William Henry Murdoch's perfect, always perfectly immaculately clean and trim, suit.

William's eyes, all three of the children's eyes, followed her glance. And, in complete opposition to what was the common sight of him, William's suit was a cookie-baking disaster, a white-powdered mess, covered with distinct little handprints and various smudges all about…

And Julia thought to herself, "Knowing William, he could probably identify which child had made each and every one of those marks – and in which order." And the humor of the thought made her giggle.

And the children caught the fun and began to giggle too.

"Oh…!" William teased, feigning upset, "You think this is funny, do you?"

She giggled more, and she nodded with a shrug, "A bit."

And William held her eye as he stepped closer and she resumed her backwards retreat. "Well, as my suit is already headed to the cleaners, I do believe I'd like to collect my kiss," he warned…

And there was the slightest flinch, no one could tell who from, before Julia turned and bolted for the kitchen, and William charged off after her, and the children flooded behind with their pitter-patters and screams of glee.

In the kitchen, Julia placing the kitchen table between William and his prey, and each of them playing that little cat-and-mouse game of left… and right… and then left again, he threatened, "I will be getting you. You do know that, you cookie monster, you?"

"Run Mommy!" the children cheered their mother on, as they bounced about, and they shrieked and squealed with the fun.

Now Julia Ogden was fast, but William Murdoch was faster, and her destiny was decided the moment she committed to a direction…

He swooped her up and gave her the softest twirl, before placing her feet back down on the ground, and then he looked into her big blue eyes, with her peaches and cream skin, and her flooringly beautiful face, and he felt his knees grow weak, and so very romantically, winsomely, he kissed her, dizzying and soaring and gushing her world.

It seemed the world was stuck for a moment, the children caught in seeing their parents' so in love, the memories of their father sleeping, night after night, on the couch, not so very far away. The beauty of it glowed and seared down into the memory.

DING! the sound of the timer rang, and with it the air grew heavier, gravity pulling them all down to the reality of the ground.

"It dinged Mommy!" Katie declared.

"More cookies!" Chelsea gleed, hopping in place with the excitement of it all.

Despite having chased Julia all around this kitchen only seconds ago, it seemed that this was the moment when William first took in the sight of it. He figured there was not a pan or a bowl in the house that wasn't out on either the kitchen table or a countertop. And a part of him thought that their kitchen looked quite a bit like his suit!

"Well," Julia said to her little ones, still catching her breath, "This last batch needs to come out." She stepped to the oven, wiping her hands on her apron. "Now, where are those potholders?" she asked.

"Here! Here they are Mommy," William Jr. rushed to be the one to find them.

Julia allowed William Jr. the honor of using the spatula to remove each cookie from the tray and place it on the last plate. Barely able to contain his anticipation, William Jr. told his father, "Mommy said I could bring enough cookies to school tomorrow to share with the whole class – even my teacher!"

"I'm sure they'll all love that," William said, but truth be told, he worried secretly to himself that Julia's cooking might leave a bit to be desired. But then, he grasped that it would not matter, for he knew as he looked into his son's happy face, that this little boy was overjoyed. And William spotted then that the black marks under his young son's eyes, from when the bullies had punched him as he defended the baby birds, had darkened, but also that the black lines had also thinned over the past half of a week, making them less noticeable. And he thought to himself that the cookies would act as a deflection, as a distraction, helping William Jr. feel more comfortable and also to help him make friends. And he thought to himself then that Julia Ogden never ceased to amaze him. And he felt himself overflow with emotions, it was HIS son's first day of school... HIS and JULIA's son's first day of school. It was astounding, and so much more than he ever could have hoped for, and in his heart, there was that profound gratitude that came with knowing you are living a meaningful life. A deep breath, William turned and perused the kitchen once more.

Now there was no lack of cookies – plates and plates full, to be exact. But what seemed to be in even more demand than all those delicious cookies were the big bowls full of cookie batter.

It turned out that this last cookie bowl was meant to be Katie's, with both Chelsea and William Jr. each having already licked the first two cookie bowls completely clean.

Before handing the big bowl to Katie, Julia suggested Katie let her father have some of the batter too…

"No," the little five-year old answered immediately, reaching up for the treat, "It's mine. You promised."

Julia held the bowl back and reminded, "Yes, I did say that you could have it, but it is also the biggest of all the bowls… and that means there is more batter for you to share," she reasoned.

"No," Katie made a bigger effort to reach the bowl up in her mother's hands, "You said I could have the last cookie bowl for me…"

"Yes, but that was before your Daddy came home," Julia explained.

William interrupted, trying to help, "Julia… I really don't…"

"No William," Julia asserted, "She needs to learn not to be so selfish…"

Now, there might have been about one tenth of a second to stop what happened next, but…

Katie's face reddened and crinkled up, and her lungs sucked in as much air as possible, and all eyes turned to face her, each and every one of the Murdoch's knowing exactly what would happen next – William Jr. even rushing to plug up his ears with his index fingers before…

Katie Murdoch exploded into a full-fledged temper tantrum, bawling out her anger at the unfairness and the injustice that had been done to her. Her face so crimson that any parent would have worried that she was in danger of harming herself with the lack of oxygen. "You said it was mine! I want the cookie bowl!" she whined and bellowed and stormed against the cruelty, "It's mine! You said it was for me!" she torrented as tears gushed out of her, "You promised!"

Handing the cookie bowl to William, Julia squatted down to try to calm her, her voice amazingly steady, she tried, "Little One, I just want you to share a little. Your Daddy worked hard all day. Don't you want to be nice to your Daddy?"

Katie's face wrinkled into a mushed up mess, only her lower jaw pulling down to show a flash of her seething teeth, and for a second she considered throwing herself on the ground and flailing about, but instead she stomped her foot with as much of a stomp as any little five-year old ever did, ever, in the whole wide world, and she simply SCREAMED… she screamed as loud as she could until her lungs ran out of air, and then she inhaled and yelled, "It isn't fair!" before she fell apart and bolted out of the room, her feet stomping out the long trail to her bedroom, all the way up the stairs.

Standing next to William, Julia said to him, "She falls apart at the drop of a hat, sometimes, that one."

Her husband's face lightened, drawing her curiosity. Almost bashfully, he shrugged, as a warning that he was about to tease her.

"It can be quite disconcerting – dropping your hat," he leaned to her and said with a twinkle.

Gratefully, Julia smiled and then bumped her shoulder against his. "You and that hat of yours, detective – thoroughly insufferable," she chuckled.

"I do care for my hat," he admitted with a winsome wrinkle at the corner of his mouth.

Upstairs, that little girl of theirs slammed that bedroom door with a humungous thud that reverberated through the entire house.

"I'll go," William volunteered, his heart registering now its aching for Katie.

"Let me," Julia requested. "I'm the one who broke my promise," she too felt the hurt as it would be seen through such a young one's eyes. "And she's been so terribly jealous of William Jr. going off to start school…"

Wisely, William turned to the other two children as his wife left to care for their third one, "Perhaps we should each test one of the cookies…!" he offered to a round of happy cheers.

)

By the time Julia opened the girls' bedroom door and came to sit on Katie's small bed next to her, it seemed any hint of anger had all but dissipated. Oh my, but the way the child sobbed into her pillow, as if trying to drown out the sound from others hearing it, as if she had to bear the unbearable while being utterly alone in the world, it simply ruptured Julia Ogden's heart into two.

She pulled the child into her lap and let those smoldering tears smother into her warm soft bosom instead, and she held her, and she rocked her, and she said she was sorry that it hurt her so badly, and that she needed to breathe, "Nice and deep. Just breathe, sweetie, hmm?" she said, said it as a soft whisper into Katie's little ear. "Shh," she soothed her. Julia took another slow, deep, breath and said, "Let's try counting to ten… like Daddy and William Jr. did. Remember, in the park, when William Jr. was so upset…?"

And Katie nodded against her chest, and a ray of hope trickled in. Julia gave her a kiss, and stroked at her silky hair, and then she leaned back and opened Katie's hot face to the cool breeze. Wiping at the little one's tears, she tried to catch her eyes. My God, those eyes were so big they tugged at her very core. "Let's try," she encouraged. "One..."

Katie's little voice joined in weakly.

"Two," the number was stronger.

By the time they had reached five, Katie's tears had dried up, and the little one swiped the remaining wetness away from her cheeks on her own.

In her heart, Julia understood the suffering. This beautiful child had withstood more heartache in her tiny life than many adults ever would in a lifetime. The crux of it had come at the very moment when they had first met her, William and Julia there at the orphanage in Nova Scotia, unknowingly, to take the only person left in the world from her, to take her little sister Chelsea away, to leave Katie there alone in that orphanage, alone, forever. So many reasons to feel insecure, to believe she was unlovable. And Julia herself felt overwrought, the wave taking her by surprise. She held Katie's face in both hands as she told her, "No matter what, no matter what you ever do, even if it isn't nice, I promise you, Little One, Daddy and I will always, always love you." She smiled, and nodded and said, "You are the best thing that ever happened to us, Katie… You and Chelsea and William Jr., and we are going to love you forever, no matter what."

Wiping at her eyes, Katie asked her, "Do you promise Mommy?"

And Julia's face beamed with love for this innocent child who had weathered so much. "I promise the biggest promise ever," Julia vowed. She smiled, and took another breath, and waited for Katie to breathe too.

A short while later, Julia said, as she stood, lifting Katie with her. "Now," she turned to look to the door, "I believe your Daddy will have left ALL the cookie batter in your bowl for you. Shall we go see?"

Katie nodded.

Oh, and Julia hoped, and wished, the little child would be wise enough to catch the chance…

And Katie stretched to reach her lips close to her Mommy's ear and she whispered "Daddy can have some. I don't mind."

And Julia couldn't help but squeeze her tight and say, "Oh my! You are going to make your Daddy so happy," and her heart ruptured with love when that beautiful little girl smiled back, for she knew Katie felt it, the inherent beauty in being generous.

She leaned down and let Katie step to the floor. The child reached for her hand.

"I love you Mommy," Katie said as they walked together.

"I love you more," Julia assured.

)

Ready, dressed as a lowlife pool-shark, William paused with leaving his, now battered with wear, metal shield-shaped badge resting on the top of his dresser, and then headed down the stairs. "Perhaps," he thought to himself, "this next part would be the hardest."

Julia and the children were in the living room, partaking in one of their treasured family traditions, the sharing of reading a fairytale while indulging in some hot chocolate, before the children were tucked into their cozy beds. He could tell, as he listened in, that this tale was about knights and princesses and fire-breathing dragons, and such. As he came before them all, cuddled together on the couch, the story stopped, and all eyes turned to him.

Julia glanced to each of the children, eyes glowing with adventure, and told, "Your Daddy is going out on a quest tonight to slay a dragon, of sorts, himself."

"A real dragon!?" William Jr. excitedly asked.

"The sort of dragon that torments the real world," his mother clarified. "In the real world, most dragons are men," she explained further, letting the reflections on that truth sink down deeper into her own mind.

Katie's worried-child eyes poured into William's as she fretted, "But you don't have a suit of amm… arr… arm-or?"

"Or a sword?!" William Jr. added the apparently missing, and highly essential item, to his adored father's plight.

William squatted down, intending to reassure. "I have to sneak up on this… dragon," his eyes moved from child to child, "I have to look like one of his men… to pretend to be one of them to get clo…"

Little, tiny Chelsea cried out, "Dwagon haves fire…!?"

"The dragon could burn you up, Daddy?!" Katie's terrifying words flew out into the world, and the charred images from so many stories she had heard over her short years flooded into her head – images of the suddenly-skeletonized trees, and bushes, and birds in mid-flight, remaining behind after being 'breathed on' by an evil dragon. Each time, the scorched remnants would hover weightless for a moment, before the blackened ashes simply dropped down to become part of the earth. Every part of her little body fought against seeing those scary things AND seeing her father, together, in the same scene in her mind.

William and Julia both rushed to ease their children's fears…

But William had been knocked off balance, just for a second, for his own mind had conjured up an associated memory and it had captured him within that disturbing moment when he had first laid eyes upon the charred body of Ernie Williams, in the ground-level window of the coal-chute behind the Tipsy Ferret, and he had felt so unsettled by the excruciating suffering the contorted position of the body revealed – left there, fetally curled, as if to protect what was most sensitive, its charred fingers clenched into fists. A failed effort at defense…

Julia's words calmed, the book now dropped aside, her hands warm and soothing to little cheeks, "Now you children know there is no such thing as a REAL dragon," she pulled Chelsea deeper into her lap, tenderly kissed down at the child's curls.

William, too, leaned in closer. "The man I seek to catch will most likely never know I was even there," he smiled. The quickest of glances to Julia, his heart to hers with that subtle visual touch – shared wishing, and knowing, and most of all loving – the loving of these beautiful children, this simple caress making the significance of the moment seem to magnify into a vibrant hum.

Julia's deep breath signaled the gathering of her strength, as she shifted Chelsea off of her lap to place the child next to her bigger sister. She straightened her skirts and said, "Your father is as brave and gallant and strong and smart as any knight there ever was, and a kiss and a hug from each of his beloved children to take with him on his quest will only make him even stronger."

As if her words had cast a magic spell into the wind, all three children jumped off of the couch and into William's arms, wishing to contribute their part to its magical powers.

"Now," Julia stood, "William Jr., could you please tell the story…" she opened the book to a few pages prior to those she had most recently read to them, placing it in the young boy's lap, and pointed, and then continued her instructions, "Tell what you know with the pictures." She looked into her son's brown eyes, struck in this one moment, like so many others, she remembered, by the Williaminess of them. She gave him a nod, and her son nodded back.

"Yes Mommy," William Jr. said soberly, so wise for one so young, he had felt the importance of his task, and he knew he had to be brave. The boy glanced at his two sisters, catching the eye of each before he turned to the book. "The dragon lived in this cave," he pointed and told.

And Julia tucked her arm into William's, and the parents headed to the threshold between out and in.

Paused before the front door, Julia worked to talk herself out of voicing… re-voicing, her concerns…

Oh, but William could see her worry in her eyes.

"Julia…" his tone melted her down the marrow of her bones.

She reached up and straightened the collar of the plain white shirt he wore, then slipped down to fuss with the edges of his brown suede jacket, and memories flared inside of her head of how many times she had seen him wearing this when he was in such trouble. "Perhaps that's it?" a part of her mind offered her associations with these particular clothes in dismissing the ominous feelings that pulsed through her veins.

He watched as she made herself strong. Try as he might, he could not catch her eye.

She spoke, her voice as steady as she could muster, her focus seemingly busy with his collars, "You WILL be careful, won't you?"

"I will," he answered her simply. Then he thought to remind her, "Watts and Crabtree and four constables will be waiting right by the phone…" But once the words were between them, he realized that he was about to do exactly what had most frightened her for years now, his going into danger – going into danger alone. And all he could offer her was his wrinkle at the corner of his mouth, as he touched his fingers under her chin, and he lifted her face to bring their eyes to meet.

Unsaid between them – I love you. I love you forever.

William leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, slow and gentle, a breath of her into him, and then he turned and took his leave. He closed the door behind him, sparing her from having to stand there helpless and watch him walk away.

Away from the house, a deep breath, he picked up the pace, his mind running through his plans for what he would need to do. His was no imaginary quixotic quest of the ilk of tilting at windmills, as if he were some knightly Don Quixote Man of La Mancha. No, for when sneaking into the real-world equivalent of a dragon's lair, one must be fully focused, well-prepared, and, too, highly alert to any need to adapt. There was much at risk.

) (

William had left his scruffy five-o'clock shadow on his jawline, adding to his rougher look. Gratefully, he had grown accustomed to his undercover brown suede hat and his brown suede jacket, and he felt himself sinking into the role once again. Still, he paused outside of the door into Papa's Poolroom and took a deep breath, steeling himself for the job at hand. In his head William reminded himself, "You're a pool-shark by the name of 'Slim' who has come to settle a score for your good friends Jack and Mr. Beau Jangles, with a big bully named 'Jim.' You're tough, and you're slick, and this Big Jim – he's in for a load of trouble because of you…" and then William pushed solidly at the door.

Seeing the racehorse betting counters to the front of the establishment, and in the center an impressively large bar, with rows and rows of liquor bottles stacked up behind it, he toured his eyes around, suddenly worrying that there weren't actually any billiards tables in the place as he had expected. "Towards the back," he spotted a wide entryway to what appeared to be a more private backroom. "There," he thought as he nodded at the bartender but moved on past without ordering a drink. Slim was meant to be here on a mission, and he was getting right to it.

There was a small gang of tough-looking men huddled about near the entrance to the guarded room. A glance into the background showed William that there were a few billiards tables inside, cloaked in murky cigarette smoke, none of which were being used.

He spoke right up, "I'm a south Alabama country boy, and I'm lookin' for a man named Jim. I'm a pool shootin' boy, name of Willie McCoy, but down home they call me Slim. Yeah, I'm lookin' for this 'Jim' of Papa's Bar. He's been givin' lots of folks some whacks. Jim took my friends' money, and it may sound funny, but I come to get their money back."

Oh, no. No… All the tough-guys shook their heads at him.

And all the bad men said, "HACK! Ya don't tug an emperor's cape. Ya don't spit into the wind. Ya don't pull the mask off that old bank-robber. And ya don't mess around with Jim."

Mm-hmm, hmm, mm-hmmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, the small gang nodded at him. They told Slim he was lucky, "because Big Jim wasn't here yet, and he had best take his leave while he could."

"I won't be doing that," William said. He shoved past them and headed straight for the pool tables. Behind him, he sensed the crowd watching, and this bunch of men that George had told him about hung together and followed along.

A selection of pool sticks hung on the wall, and William went over to choose one. "Pick the straightest one," he told himself, "Straight and long."

A woman's voice surprised him, a female not expected, and she was quite close. "You must be very brave," she whispered to him.

He glanced at her and then went back to choosing his stick. Bashfully, he shrugged.

"Delores," she said. "I hear you're Slim… that right?" she pressed closer to him.

She smelled over-flowery, and William felt himself begin to feel guilty towards Julia, for he sensed what was coming.

William cleared his throat. "It's nice to meet you, Delores," he replied. William swallowed, and then thought to use his inspection of the pool sticks as a way to give himself more space, so he turned away from the woman and stretched one of the longer sticks out in front of himself, leaning down to consider its rather noticeable curve.

Delores was not deterred, and she stepped in close to his side. "Big Jim has a two-piece custom-made pool cue," she said. Her eyes dropped down to William's crotch, and she said, dripping with sexual connotation, "But it seems you come well-equipped yourself, Slim."

William's ears began to hum with the discomfort, and he tried with all his might not to blush. His mind felt suddenly slow, and he needed it to be fast. He hadn't planned on THIS particular problem, and he really needed to shake this off. "Get back to the case, William!" his brain scolded him.

"You know Big Jim well, then?" he asked her. For the first time he really looked at her. Delores was quite pretty… unfortunately. "The case, William," he heard the reminder…

"Everybody knows Big Jim…, Slim," Delores said. She stepped VERY close, so close he could feel her breath on his face. She was shorter than Julia, and she had to stand on her tippy-toes, despite wearing heels, to reach his ear. She whispered, "You should let me save you…" and Delores dared slide her hands up William's chest. The contours of his rather well-built muscles were not fully expected, and she moaned with the delightful discovery. "You are quite nice," she purred into his ear. "The men here would be impressed if you left with me," she nibbled at his ear.

William pushed back. "I will not be doing that," he said. William took a deep breath, and he held sternly to the woman's eyes. "I came here to get my friends' money back, and it's Big Jim who took it from them, and so it's Big Jim I'll be waiting for." He went back to selecting a pool stick.

"Who are these friends you care so much about…" she asked, but then hesitated before she said his name again, "…Slim?"

The hesitation, the way Delores had said it, flared an alert inside of him. He worried she might know he was not who he pretended to be. "Just play the game," the inside voice advised him, working to focus his efforts back onto the billiards tables. "Play the game, and you'd best play it well if you're going to pull this off." William took the stick at hand and turned confidently to face Big Jim's cronies.

"Anybody looking to part with their money?" he asked cockily.

The red-haired older man stood up, taking the challenge.

If William had figured it right, this man was probably the better player of the bunch of them. He blew out the pressure. He would need to win, and win big. And he'd best do it BEFORE Big Jim arrived.

The first shot William took, having to wait three balls after the break before 'Rusty' missed, was one of his favorites, a bank shot. The whole poolroom gasped when Slim made the difficult shot. This guy was good!

Actually, William never gave Rusty another chance to shoot, 'running the table' his first time out.

Rusty handed over the money.

Slim turned to the others. "Well…?" he taunted.

Well a hush fell over the pool room when Big Jim come in off the street. Now the thug was challenged to quite a match, but all Jim'd get would be defeat…

As expected, Big Jim pulled out his two-piece custom-made pool cue, and he cheated, and he cheated in many different ways. But William Murdoch was a smart man, and he knew not to appeal to Big Jim's cronies for justice. No, he would have to beat this thug at his own game. And deep inside William was thrilled, because it turned out that Julia was right – he was really, really good at this game.

William, William as Slim, won the first game between himself and Big Jim…

But then Big Jim claimed that he hadn't, because "those highfalutin' bank shots n' such ain't no good here."

William considered pointing out that Big Jim, himself, had taken two bank shots – and missed, but he thought better of it. Better to pretend to accept defeat, he reminded himself, "You're not here to win – You're here to break alibis… Eye on the ball, William" he chuckled at himself, for he had thought to himself that Julia would have liked the pun.

"An honorable man would give me a chance to win my money back," Slim said, pulling a large bundle of bills out of his pocket. The small wooden carving of the bird he had kept in his pocket had come out with the money. William looked about and explained, "For good luck," with a modest chuckle.

Delores stepped in between the two men. She suspected there might be some trouble. Men like Big Jim would just as soon rob the man as play him for it. And… well, that was quite a BIG WAD of money Slim seemed to have…

"Gentlemen," the sole woman in the establishment said.

And the whole joint held its breath.

Delores turned her flirting to Big Jim, her delicate hands sliding all over the large man's hunky muscles. "Big Jim," her red-painted lips dangled just barely up to the man's shirt collar as she stood on her toes, "Why not take Slim here for a little ride here, hmm? Give him another game. He comes from down south… he's friends with that Negro, Beau Jangles, and his friend Jack…"

"Beau Jangles!" Big Jim's jaw clenched tight. Now that seemed to fuel some anger, and Big Jim shoved Delores aside. He pressed close to William, and he was imposing, the man's bulging chest just about at jaw level. "You don't pick very good friends, now, do ya Slim?" he glared down at William.

William looked around at the men watching on and insulted, "Takes one to know one, I'd say."

Prompting all the other men to curl their fists and surge forward.

Big Jim stopped them, just by raising his hand up in the air. "It's alright boys," he said, still scowling down at William, "We'll show this little country boy how it's done here in Toronto."

Big Jim grabbed the whole wad of money out of William's hand and said, accepting the challenge of another game, "No bank shots, and winner breaks, and that's me." He almost stepped away, but then thought better of it. "I'll have that good luck charm of yours too, I think," he goaded.

William handed it over. "Very good," William said. Refusing to step back, knowing it would show weakness, he held his ground and waited for Big Jim to be the one to step back.

His plan worked, and the big man took a step backwards.

William looked down at his money clenched in Big Jim's hand and said, "You seem to have all my money… for the wager…" William looked out to the crowd. Cocky, he said, "Perhaps you could buy a man a drink then?"

Big Jim handed one of his cronies a few of William's bills and told them to, "buy everybody a drink – make sure it's top shelf." He tucked the rest of the money and the little wooden bird into his pocket and then opened an arm to Delores, who quickly dove into position with her arms around his tree-stump-thick neck.

While Delores flirted, and jiggled, and wiggled, and kissed at Big Jim, William turned to making the rack of balls Big Jim would break to start their pinnacle match. He spoke with Rusty as he did so, thinking he may have befriended the man somewhat with their having shared a game. Now, William was unsure as to whether what he planned to do with the rack would be considered to be cheating at playing billiards or not, but he certainly wasn't going to ask, and he was taking this opportunity with Big Jim being distracted to do it. Further, he really did need to question some of these men, and now that it had been made known that he was a friend of Mr. Beau Jangles, he had a way to do it.

A quick glance to Rusty, William said, "I'm surprised they even let Mr. Beau Jangles back in here the other night…" He placed the triangle-shaped frame of wood down flat on the billiards table and began to place all the colored and striped balls into it. He held to Rusty's eyes, hoping the man would not watch what he was doing down on the billiards table too closely. "I mean, I heard it was Beau Jangles who came all wild and mad-like at this place the other night, weren't it? I heard he broke up the place with a baseball bat…" William carried on the casual conversation as he set up his cheat – balls loosely packed inside the rack so they would not spread out when hit, and the entire rack rotated off of center so none of the balls would be aimed at any of the pockets. "Weren't that the night that that other Negro got killed?" he asked.

"Yeah," Rusty replied, "Ernie Williams."

"Were you here that night?" William pushed, pretending he wasn't done racking the balls, forcing his breathing to remain constant, his heart not to race, because he was stepping close to the fire now, for he risked being discovered as a fake by going so directly at this line of questioning. He dared add, looking away now as if uninterested, "You and all the others?"

"We's here pretty much every night," Rusty answered.

Whew, William took a breath – here came the big one…

"How about any toff-like fellas. I mean I hear sometimes there's a minstrel show owner comes in and plays the tables," William coaxed, as he glanced to Rusty.

"You mean Mr. Weist," Rusty gave.

Rusty stepped up next to William and put a toothpick in his teeth.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be checking William's racking job. "The case, William, the case…" William's brain fired down two parallel lines, the one planning the wording of his next question, the other hoping that Rusty would notice the one, simple, and intentional mistake he had made with the rack to distract attention from his cheats… William made himself stare at the 'trick' ball.

"You didn't put the eight ball in the center, there Slim," Rusty said.

"Oh… Oh, sorry bout that," William rushed to exchange the center ball with the eight ball so that Rusty would stop his inspection there. Balls in the correct positions, he lifted the triangle rack away from his masterfully-created and cheatingly-packed (probably) rack of balls, and then hung it back in its spot on the hook on the side of the table. Retrieving his pool stick, and then placing its bottom end firmly down into the floor, as if he had planted a flag, William looked Rusty square in the face. "This Mr. Weist had quite a beef with Mr. Beau Jangles, I hear. There's tell the toff even ran and hid in the bathroom when Beau Jangles showed up here with that bat…"

Rusty leaned close and chuckled, "That he did. Stayed in there for near an hour!" Rusty scoffed at the big boss' show of weakness.

"An hour?!" William whispered, his eyebrow peaked upwards.

"Probably even more," Rusty said, clearly enjoying the gossip.

"Was Mr. Williams still here then?" William really risked asking.

"Mr. Williams?" Rusty wondered.

"Remember…?" William suddenly sensed the need to rush, "Ernie Williams, the Negro who got himself killed… Was he still here when Weist was hiding in the bathroom?" William had gone this far, he figured he might as well press on. With a jolt, he spotted two of the men heading back, hands full of drinks. A glance to Big Jim. Delores was in his lap now. Wham, a memory fired of Julia in HIS lap last night, because 'the urge just took her.' Amazing the zing he felt to his groin, so quickly, with just the mere thought of his being so sideswipingly besotted by his wife. William took a breath and pushed further with Rusty, "He was Beau Jangles dance partner… the other Negro in the act… At Mr. Weist's show…?"

Rusty scratched at his head and clamped down harder on his toothpick, chewing it and making it bounce about distractingly at the corner of his mouth. "The other Negro fella was in here that night… early like," Rusty remembered, "But he was gone before Mr. Beau Jangles showed up outside all crazy like that. Some kid come in off the street with a note for 'im. They don't usually let no street boys in here…"

William turned to face the men with the drinks. "What have you there, gentlemen?" he asked, secretly taking a breath of relief. He had accomplished much, his mind rushed behind his smile, "maybe it was the same street boy who had delivered notes for Weist's daughter, and later Mrs. Weist…? No time to think about it now…"

"For you, Slim, we got you a beer," one of the men replied. Slim eyed up all the other drinks. They looked to be much more expensive than beers… doubles of scotches and such.

"We figured you wouldn't mind treatin' us all to our favorites, now, would ya, Slim," Big Jim managed to remove his lips from Delores' in order to flaunt his rudeness and power.

"I don't mind," William replied, taking his beer, playing at being a good sport. He braced himself against the awful taste of the bitter hops and made himself chug down quite a bit of it, all manly like. His nerves threatened in his gut, for it was time to begin the match and he was dreading the thought that Big Jim would catch his attempt at tricking him so soon in the game. "Wait, William. Wait," his inner-voice coached, "Don't be the one to push for the game. Let him be the one…"

Big Jim made a show out of how delicious his big, expensive high-end scotch tasted, and he insisted Delores was satisfied with her red wine before he even looked William's way. "Well, pretty lady," he said turning his eyes to dance with those of Delores, "You'd best let a man earn his money," he said. So crude, the way he reached in between her legs to turn her off of his lap. Slow-like, he let his fingers slip upwards before he pushed her aside. "I'll be back, don't you worry your little heart none," he said before he stood. Another chug at his drink, bottoming it, he slapped it down and ordered one of the men to, "Go spend more of Slim here's money, won't ya," and then he turned and glared a dominating look into William's eyes.

William held fast and replied, "I figure I'll be winning it back and more, Jim," he smiled politely, making sure not to be the first to look away, not even to urge the man to the pool table.

Big Jim extended his hand to receive his two-piece custom-made pool cue from one of his cronies, his eyes piercing into William's the whole time. "We'll be seein' bout that… Slim," he said and then eyed William up-and-down. Big Jim chuckled, "Slim," he mocked, "They'd been better off to call you 'Puny' in my opinion."

William's eyes dropped to the floor, feigning deference.

Big Jim strutted up to the billiards table. He bent himself forward and lined up the white cue ball to hit just right at the juncture of the lead ball and the ball next to it…

Perfect!

Big Jim bashed William's racked balls with all his might, and not one ball sunk into a pocket.

Now, this infuriated Big Jim on multiple counts. First, he hadn't come up empty on a break in probably over ten years. And second, he had just figured out that this slimy Slim character had cheated. And third, he wasn't going to be able to get away with changing this particular rule – because everybody knew a break that came up empty meant the opponent was up.

William managed not to grin with glee. He stepped up to begin to shoot immediately, thinking it would stop Big Jim from coming up with a way to claim it wasn't his turn fair and square. He really didn't have time to plan it out, so he had to make quick decisions. Not relying on ANY bank shots, he mapped out all the connections he needed to run the table. This first shot would be the hardest, the target ball only an inch from the cue ball but miles away from the intended pocket. "Two-ball in the right corner pocket," William called his shot.

So softly the firm tap of the white and blue balls touching, breathless long roll… dunk, in near silence the two-ball dropped out of sight. Slim would be playing solids.

For the second time that night, William ran the table. He reminded himself not to gloat. Slim reached up and rubbed at his brow. It was time to collect the money…

It was Delores who braved it. "Well Jim…?" she wiggled sexy at him, "Fair's fair," she said. The attractive woman stepped close to Big Jim and whispered something to him.

William thought he saw the slightest softening of the man's rigid, clamped jaw.

"Delores wants to play," Big Jim said. "And Delores only plays with me," he decreed the rules everyone else in Papa's Poolroom already knew. "You'll be forfeiting the table then, Slim," he ordered.

William remembered how utterly, brain-spinningly, gorgeous Julia had looked in the various positions she took while making shots bent over that pool table that night at the Fenwick's dinner party. Knowing this Delores as he thought he did, the voluptuous woman would likely take full advantage of bringing these men to their knees with her 'playing.' It would afford him more opportunity to question others… and possibly to even get away to inspect the back bathroom where Mr. Weist had supposedly spent over an hour on the night of the murder… Actually, this was perfect! "But! But! Remember you're playing the role of an intelligent thug," he inwardly laughed at his notion of his current fake character as being exactly what Julia had told him women – SOME women, found attractive in a man – because of Darwin, and evolution… "The case, William! The case," his brain barked at him.

William cleared his throat and said, "I believe I would quite enjoy watching such a lovely woman take her shots." William allowed himself the pleasure of taking his turn at ogling Delores' curvy body, up-and-down, to be sure that everyone watching got his intended 'drift.'

"Still," William said, as Slim, needing not to cower from his rival, "There is the matter of payment," he pushed at the bully.

Big Jim pulled what was left of William's wad of money out of his pocket. He counted through it, then separated about half of it off, and handed it to William.

The whole joint was on pins-and-needles waiting to see if the new kid in town, to see if this new Slim-guy, who had managed to beat Big Jim at billiards, would dare demand a fair payment of Big Jim's debt.

William reached out and took the offer. "I'll use it for a re-match later," he suggested as he tucked the money into his pocket, accepting what could be portrayed as a compromise. The plan would buy him an excuse to hang around longer without suspicion, for he hoped to learn much more that would be pertinent to the case.

The best he got from Big Jim in reply was a grunt.

"Very good," he said, considering it a victory of sorts. William replaced his cue stick in the rack on the wall, gathered his beer, secretly wishing he hadn't, for now he would have to drink the foul stuff, and paused to see if the men would make room for him at one of the tables. They did, and he sat and prepared to pretend to watch.

)

There was a sense of urgency, and in the background of William's mind, an infernal din of an imagined too-fast ticking of a clock, as he inspected the small, putrid-smelling bathroom, barely more than a privy with a flushable toilet. Inside, there was a window which could easily be used to escape undetected. He would need to check the other side to see where it opened out to.

A flood of wolf-whistles and cheers sounded out from the billiard's room, as William checked down the corridor. His mind flashed an image of Delores wiggling her shapely and plump bottom enticingly at the men as she bent down over the table. For the moment he was still safe. At the end of the narrow hallway there was a backdoor.

It opened with near silence into what appeared to be little more than the wall of the next building. No choice but to go around a corner… Then, behind this little nook of the building of Papa's Poolroom, there was a small open space. William's eyes hurried to follow the wall, searching for the bathroom window. Stacked up against the wall were crates of empty bottles, followed by a row of garbage pails. Just above the pails, he spotted the window. "Quietly William," his inner-voice reminded as he lifted the first metal lid to be graced by a stench of overly-fermented alcohol and decaying food. A small rusted-shut padlock had been thrown out most recently, so it rested atop the slimy pile. Hoping he would not need to dig deeper under that mess, William moved over to the pail directly under the bathroom window. Immediately his heart jumped – this one had possibilities. Inside, there was a soiled canvas bag. William opened it – "GOTCHA!" his inner-voice whispered its exclamation. The first clue to be noticed inside the bag was a sparse grey wig, under it a raggedy shirt and pants… down lower a pair of old shoes… "probably dried blood," William told himself as he inspected their tops in just the dim light from the window, "the right size… no taps on the soles. I'll probably even find traces of coal dust…"

His next discovery inside the small canvas bag stopped his thoughts!

"Rags!" Rags absolutely smothered in a black, greasy substance – "BLACKFACE!" his brain screamed his triumph! "Weist must have used these to wipe off the blackf…"

The window above him squeaked as it suddenly opened. A wave of panic ensued.

"Delores," his brain gasped her identity to him, his heart thundering so that it might explode. He quickly hugged the bag to his chest, and rushed to sneakily reach into that first pail… He planned in a flash, imagining a million possible pathways inside of his head. One was that he could throw the rusty padlock at her.

"Detective Murdoch!" she whispered excitedly.

And William had to read her so fast – so fast. Friend or foe, this woman who knew he was not 'Slim…?'

He snuck the small padlock around his middle finger and folded it into his fist, and then replied, "Delores… I was, err…"

"The others will be right behind me, detective," Delores whispered. "Wait there," the woman seemed to take charge, her doing so somehow putting him at ease.

Quickly, she appeared around the back corner.

William stood tall, and typically for himself, stiff, as she approached. "You know who I am?" William asked her, having regained his composure.

"I do," she said, close enough to be heard as she whispered to him now. "I've seen you and your wife in the papers. That Madge Merton sure does adore the two of you. You and Dr. Ogden are in her column all the time – Toronto's Favorite Couple. I'd suppose the men don't know about it though, being of such low character they don't read such things as the society pages." Then she reconsidered, "More likely, they can't read at all," she insulted.

Deciding that he had no choice but to trust her, William explained that he was investigating the murder of Ernie Williams.

Delores told him that she was here at Papa's that night and saw a street urchin deliver Mr. Williams a note. When asked to remember, she said that it had not been long after that that Mr. Beau Jangles had showed up outside making a scene with the baseball bat. Delores had also noticed that Mr. Weist had run off and cowered in the bathroom. "Big Jim even joked about it," she remembered.

William assessed his evidence aloud, in a whisper, "Weist was the one who everybody says was in the bathroom, and this bag with the disguise used to impersonate and frame Mr. Beau Jangles was found right here, under that same bathroom window. Inside of it there are rags with blackface makeup on them, and the same substance was found where Mr. Williams' was hidden behind the Tipsy Ferret. I think it might be enough…"

Out of the corner of the eye – the terror hitting before the actual sight of them…!

Big Jim and the other men in his gang shadowed the only way out.

Big Jim stepped deeper into what suddenly felt like an illegal boxing ring. The other men hung back as if to watch the show.

Big Jim spit on the ground, then turned his eyes briefly to Delores. "You warnin' im, are ya darlin'?" he threatened.

William Henry Murdoch had the habit of absolutely losing his mind whenever a woman was being threatened by a brute, and instinctively his blood began to boil inside of his veins, and what had been fear tempting his palms to sweat changed to a fury that curled his fingers into fists and clenched his jaw. Like David heroically stepping up to face Goliath, William puffed out his chest and moved to place himself in front of Delores.

Big Jim took a huge step forward to close the gap, and from his advantaged position, towering over brave William, Big Jim growled, "You snoopin' into none-a your own business 'Slim'…?"

From behind him, William heard Delores answer the charge, "Slim's friends of the Negro and Jack. He's gotta right… to help his friends, ain't he?"

Big Jim invaded further, his huge feet nearly toe-to-toe with William's. Even without looking down, William's mind imagined the unequal sight of their juxtaposed pairs of shoes beneath them both. And that rapid-fire brain of his whispered a certainty that he felt in his bones – "Big Jim's shoesize is too big… Weist did this on his own… This watchdog goon is just protecting against anyone finding out – stopping anyone from finding proof…" William clutched tighter to the bag of evidence in his left arm, and secretly secured the small padlock like a set of brass knuckles inside the grip of his right hand – readying for the battle to come.

The smell of scotch, humid and hot, steamed down over William's face as Big Jim snidely instructed, "You're gonna have to hand over that bag there Slim…" and then he leaned down to smother any breathing space the smaller man had and added, "And that wad of money in your pocket too." Speaking of himself in the third person, as if he were a king or a god or an emperor, he goaded, "Big Jim don't take kindly to smartass little punks showin' up and thinkin' they're gettin' away with cheating… sneakin' some trick or another into the balls you racked. Yep, you'll be handin' over my money too."

William knew his best hope was to use the element of surprise. Quickly, incredibly quickly, his brain imagined the whole scene unfolding, in that odd shade of light it had when it moved faster than the speed of sound, encroached on the speed of light. He would fake fear. He would fake attempted retreat. His inner-coach told him to pretend to "back away, scan the area for exits… Hold tight to the padlock in your right grip. Let the opponent come to you. Begin a sentence, in the middle of it, fake a blow to his gut, then let loose your strongest weapon…"

You see, William Murdoch had always had one hell of an overhand right...

Oh, the sweetness flooded into him with imagining the forceful landing of the blow square in the bully's nose. William wanted it. He wanted it badly…

Unexpectedly, the bag of evidence dropped to the ground.

Inaudible gasps whispered in reaction as all eyes, except those of Slim, followed the sound…

Time slowed as hearts raced, and breath held while chests heaved.

Eyes blazing to eyes, the two rivals honed in.

Big Jim leaned forward.

William leaned back… stepped back, for his instincts had reminded that the ultimate distance to empower a punch was at full extension, and, so too, backing away fit with his feigned cowardice.

Keeping his face aimed directly into Big Jim's, William darted his eyes to the left, then to the right, following his pre-mapped-out plan.

Big Jim smiled a sly grin, enjoying the marshmallowy taste of his quarry's fear.

William reasoned, "I don't want any troub…"

The suddenly invading fake to Big Jim's gut surged the big man's motion forward to curl around the believed incoming blow.

The collision course was in motion before anyone could have seen it coming. Slim's fist, secretly loaded with the inner force of the small metal padlock inside of it, surged forward on a trajectory straight towards Big Jim's nose, which was now hurling downward on a perfect path, aimed right for the inevitable, unavoidable impact.

KABOOM!

The crack of it landed hard.

Big Jim's red, slick, hot blood sprayed out to splatter seemingly everywhere in the midst of the storm.

A punch had not felt as satisfying since William's fist had landed square to the jaw of Dr. Darcy Garland…

The force of the crash had sent the goliath backwards into the empty crates of bottles, the sounds of their high-pitched clattering and cracking and tinny splintering distinctly different from the deeper thundering thuds of William's pummeling round of follow-up blows. In the recesses of his mind, William felt himself losing control, and a memory played of his beating Mr. Falcone to a bloody pulp, out on the dock, the goon from the Black Hand having had so cruelly terrified the lovely Ana Fulford to the point where he and Julia had had to fake her death to free her from the gangster's grip. And a part of him, somewhere out of sight, somewhere much deeper, imagined his punches pounding into his father…

As if from underwater, he heard the cries to stop – his mother…? "Julia…?"

Delores…

Big Jim's cronies…

All sides rushed in to stop the slaughter, the men pulling 'Slim' off of their slain ruler. The bunch of them grabbed into the fray and hoisted Slim up off of Big Jim.

And when the punchin' was done, the only part that wasn't bloody was the soles of the big man's feet. Big Jim was bleedin' in bout a hundred places. And he were bruised in a couple more. And you better believe they sung a different kind of story cause Jim had hit the floor.

The reality of the world settled in around William. "Delores…" he said, his memories and thoughts aligning with what was, with what he had just done. "Big Jim…" he looked down at the big man covered in blood, an imagined dent in the ground underneath where he lay from how hard the behemoth had fallen. William stared dumbfounded at what he had done, part impressed and part relieved and another part feeling sickened by the carnal brutality at his own hands. He dreaded the thought that crossed his mind, that he would need to bless himself…

The beaten man proved he was not dead by barely lifting a hand to cover his broken nose and bloodied mouth. Weakly, Big Jim let out a pained moan.

Relieved of that burden, William's eyes spun to consider Big Jim's cronies. Defensively, the fire in him began to recharge.

"You beat Big Jim?" one of them said, stunned.

"I… I didn't mean to… I…" William answered, still reeling.

"Handed him his hat, as it were, Slim," Rusty said… and then smiled.

And then completely unexpectedly, they began to say, they began to chant, they began to nearly whisper it in a song…

"Ya don't tug an emperor's cape. Ya don't spit into the wind. Ya don't pull the mask off that old bank-robber. And ya don't mess around with SLIM.

Yeah, Big Jim got his hat.
Found out where it's at.
And it's not hustlin' people strange to you
Even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue…"

It took a second to solidify in William's mind, but he figured it out. Gratefully, Big Jim's cronies were GLAD to see the bully dethroned, and they were in awe of 'Slim' for getting it done. And then, just as his relief told his body that it could relax, he felt the throbbing, searing pain in his hands – particularly his right one…

"Detective Murdoch!" Delores gushed, "That was unbelievable!"

One of the men questioned, eyes investigating the small-town hero before him, "Detective…?"

Rusty asked her, "Did you call 'Slim' detective, Delores?"

"You're a copper?" another followed, directing the question to William now.

Only when replying did William feel the exhaustion seep in. "Detective William Murdoch, of the Toronto Constabulary," he introduced himself. Out of habit, he had reached to open his jacket to reveal his badge. "It's not there," he remembered. "It's at home on the dresser," he explained to himself further. And an inkling of his nightmare in which he had lost his badge replayed. And it was true, and it was not true. And then he remembered the case…

Fortunately, it seemed that these men had been bullied by Big Jim for way too long, and they were more than happy to aid this brave copper in finding the truth of his quest. Big Jim's men eagerly jumped sides. They told Detective Murdoch that Mr. Weist had been in the bathroom MUCH TOO LONG that night. Delores added that at one point she had wanted to use the privy herself and so she knocked on the privy door. She even went around to the outside to look in the window. The door was locked from the inside, but it was empty. Mr. Weist was definitely NOT in the privy at the time his alibi had claimed. Further, it turned out that Mr. Weist was not actually seen until just a half hour before closing time. The group admitted that they had been suspicious of Mr. Weist – because they all had been ordered by Big Jim to stick to Mr. Weist's claim that he was here in Papa's Poolroom ALL night, from before the street boy brought the note for Ernie Williams until closing. Big Jim was said to have threatened them that if they said otherwise, he would "take care of them," so they had held their tongues.

With that said and done, Rusty leaned over and dug his fingers deep down into Big Jim's pockets, pulling out layers upon layers of bills. "Here's your money back, detective…" the new friend said placing the piles of bills into William's hand, "And Jack's and Mr. Beau Jangles' money too, I'd wager, by the looks of it. Oh, and that good-luck charm of yours," he added, balancing the small wood carving on the top of the pile.

With this, Mr. Weist's alibi was destroyed. Murdoch still wondered after Mr. Weist's motive for killing Ernie Williams. Probably the rumors about a love affair between Mr. Williams and Weist's daughter were true, the killing of Williams ensuring his daughter would be able to marry the toff Deputy Minister, Mr. King. King likely played into it all somehow. Perhaps he would never know… Perhaps not until after Mr. Weist and his wife were arrested and charged.

Back inside of Papa's, Detective Murdoch placed a call to Stationhouse #4. He sent Detective Watts and two constables over to the minstrel show theater to arrest Mr. Weist for the murder of Mr. Williams. He instructed Detective Watts to, "also bring in Mrs. Weist. If she insists on resisting coming down to the stationhouse with you, then arrest her as well. Charge her with aiding and abetting a crime, if it comes to that. And I'll need two constables here, um at Papa's Poolroom, with a paddy wagon. I'll be arresting Big Jim Walker for making false statements to the police and assault." Murdoch reminded Watts to call the Inspector and let him know that they were making these arrests in the case. "Oh, and please call my wife," he added just at the end of the call, "Ask her to have the nanny stay with the children…" William looked down to examine his blood-soaked shirt and jacket… even the shoes. "And please have her bring a suit for me… Oh, and her medical bag," he requested, thinking of Big Jim, but also perhaps for himself, as he found himself staring down at his own swollen and injured, and already purple, right hand.

)

For so late at night on a Tuesday, Stationhouse #4 was buzzing. Mr. and Mrs. Weist had each been brought in, and Murdoch had instructed the constables to keep them separated, so Mr. Weist waited down in the cells, along with the rather beaten-up Jim Walker, while Mrs. Weist waited in the Interrogation Room. Two of the constables had been allowed to go home, the need for them over now. Constable Fisher stood guard down in the cells, Detective Murdoch figuring that having a Constabulary presence would inhibit the two men from exchanging information before he could question each of them. Inspector Brackenreid had come in despite the late hour, for this was an important case. Wanting to allay the profound pressure he and his men had been under throughout this case at the hands of the press, Brackenreid had notified the papers that Ernie Williams' killer had been arrested. The Inspector had given a short statement to the reporters who waited outside, telling them that, "as my detective here at Stationhouse #4, Detective William Murdoch, had predicted, the killer is not Mr. Beau Jangles."

When Julia arrived with William's clean suit, and his shoes, and her medical bag, she had to push her way through the reporters. She noticed that Miss Cherry was among the reporters who would be rushing to write their new headlines before re-printing tomorrow morning's papers. An excited jolt of energy surged through Julia as her eyes met those of the lady-reporter and the irritating woman immediately turned away. "Good," Julia thought to herself, "She's embarrassed because she knows I was right," and her mind played back to that Sunday morning when the infuriating woman had ambushed her outside of her home.

Despite the fact that Miss Cherry had turned away, Julia made sure that all the reporters heard her as she greeted, "Good evening Miss Cherry." She chuckled to herself thinking she might have goaded, "It seems tonight there's more 'humble pie' than 'cherry pie,' wouldn't you agree?" But choosing the higher road, she left it at that and simply nodded to the others and added, "Good evening gentlemen."

One of the men held the door for her, and she stepped over the threshold. Her earlier dread returned, churning her stomach with that nagging fear that William had requested that she bring her medical bag because he had gotten hurt. She squeezed her hand tighter around the handle of the extra bag she had brought – filled with ice… underneath his clean shoes, for she had envisioned the swollen and broken noses and ribs and hands that come with beatings. She inhaled deeply and forced herself to slowly let go of the air, calming herself. The door had not yet closed behind her… "There!" her instincts seemed to find William before her mind did. He was at George's desk talking with George…

"OH MY GOD! WILLIAM'S COVERED IN BLOOD!" her very core seemed to scream her panic at her, making her instantly dizzy, and sick, and weak, and terrified practically into a mere puddle on the floor.

And, as if an invisible thread connected them, Julia's sudden halt, and her instantaneous pools of tears, her nearly silent gasp of his name, "William?!" drew his eyes up to see her from across the bullpen, "there," at the Stationhouse door.

"Julia," he called to her and rushed to close the distance between them, reassuring her as he ran to her, "It's not my blood Julia. I'm alright. I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Of course he was," some reasonable-sounding voice inside of her head answered. "He can run. He can run. He's fine…" and then the important part landed, "It's not HIS blood."

William tenderly took hold of her by her upper arms, grounding her eyes to his as he steadied her. Such a pull between them, her big blue eyes at home in his, and he watched her refocus and center, and breathe with knowing that he was safe and unharmed. "I'm fine," he whispered more intimately to her.

The adrenalin cemented in all of her muscles, unneeded, spreading a lead-weighted surge of pain through her with the relief.

Then the corner of his mouth wrinkled, and there was a quick tilt of his head as he gave, "Well, fine except for my hand," with a small chuckle, for the pain had re-registered after the rush to soothe her had passed.

She stepped back and he lifted his injured right hand for her to examine it.

"I see," she said, even more relieved, "I'll examine it further, but at first glance it doesn't look to be broken."

"Very good," he bowed to her and invited her to join him to his office. In his good hand, he took the suit from her. "What's in there?" he asked, eyeing the other, non-medical, bag she had brought with her.

Utter silliness entered her head when she imagined the two items inside together, and then extended the idea to one of her favorite things to tease him about.

Her expression warned him she would be telling one of her bad jokes. Already his eyebrow lifted…

"Well," she tried in her mind to find the best way to word it, "Your shoes… And some ice…" she tilted to him and whispered in his ear, "You wouldn't be complete as William Henry Murdoch without 'cold feet' now, would you?" she giggled, remembering all the myriads of times he had come to their bed with his freezing cold feet shocking her, underneath the blankets, seeking out her warmth.

He pinched his lips tight and defended, "Julia, you know I can't help that."

"I do," she admitted, and then gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then more seriously she added, as their progression forward resumed, "I thought your injuries… um, because you had requested I bring the medical bag, well, I thought I might need ice… which I do, it seems."

"Yes," he agreed. "You will need to treat Big Jim as well, I'm afraid. He's down in the cells."

"Oh?" she asked. Her eyes dropped down to his blood-soaked shirt. "His blood, then?"

"Mm," he answered.

And secretly a part of her marveled at him.

Once the couple was inside of William's office, they closed the door and pulled the shades down, allowing the detective privacy to change out of his blood-stained clothes. While he changed, he told her all about his adventures as Slim and about all the evidence he had found, like the grey wig and the rags with blackface makeup on them. Julia readied the ice in a bowl, covered it with a towel, and a prepared a bandage for his hand as well.

Dressed except for his jacket, very glad to have his badge back on his chest, William sat on a stool at his worktable and Julia began treating his injured hand. A memory flared in his mind, from years and years ago, the situation so very similar to this one. That time he had burned his hands rather than battered them… in the fire, when he and Prince Alfred had been kidnapped by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and William's friend from his days at the Jesuit School, Eddie Driscoll, had run back into the fire, killing himself. For Eddie," William figured, "after losing in his fight for his cause of avenging the murders of his daughter and his wife, after seeing that his killing of others, who were also innocent, was not the answer, Eddie had had nothing else to live for…"

Her question pulled him out of the memory, "Based on the amount of Big Jim's blood all over you, William, I truly wonder how you managed NOT to break this hand?"

"Fortunately, I was able to improvise," he explained. "I saw an old padlock in the garbage pails where I found the bag with all the evidence. I used it as a makeshift set of brass-knuckles of sorts…" he started and then cleared his throat.

The science geek in him would elaborate…

And Julia fought the urge to roll her eyes and sigh, anticipating the forthcoming dissertation on the physics of padlocks and brass-knuckles and punches.

"I calculated that the padlock would add weight, thus further empowering my punches," William figured aloud, "and with its being made of metal, by putting a finger through the ring of it, I could strengthen the force of each impact I could make… and, well, the main body of the lock filled the empty space inside of my closed fist that would have collapsed with the blows, were the lock not there…"

"Thus minimizing the chances of breaking your hand," she finished his thought for him, nodding her head. Truth be told, she had come around to awing at this remarkable man again. The Inspector had said he was quick… and that, he surely is. "I'm sure it helped, William… It was very smart," she said. But then, then… her mind began to imagine him actually IN the fight, brass-knuckles or not, and she felt that skin-crawling terror return, for he could have been beaten to death, she was certain of it… Such a lump swelled tight in her throat, and her eyes filled with tears, and she didn't want him to see, so she just twirled away from him… But she felt him there behind her, and she felt embarrassed in the same moment, realizing he probably knew what had happened to turn her away. She hurried a hand up to cover her mouth, afraid that a distressed sound might come out.

And oh, how sweet the concern in his voice was, as he asked after her, "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

And then, deciding she did not mind if he saw her tears, she turned back to him and answered, "No, William. I'm just glad you're here."

It was lovely, the way he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, telling her that he understood her tears, and admitting that he was sorry, and so too, reminding her that there was nothing he could do about it. Deepening his care, he brought his uninjured hand up to brush away a curl from her face, and then he softly tucked his fingers into her hair and glided them over her ear. "We've already discussed this, Julia… at some length," his big warm eyes swore his truth to her, "It is who I am. It is who we each are…"

She nodded, a flooding inside of her of knowing that he was right.

William ducked down to catch her fleeting eyes. He added his other hand to his tender hold on her face. "We have agreed there will be risk in living our lives as our hearts tell us each we must," he continued.

"Yes," her voice a whisper intermingled with a squeak. She nodded, and her eyes glistened so beautifully with pooled tears, and she swallowed them down and flashed him a smile.

A tear, so big, grew heavy and then began to roll down her cheek… to be caught by his thumb. And he leaned in and kissed away the salty moisture there. Close to her ear now, his voice said, "And we've come to see how we love each other, especially BECAUSE of these things that drive us each to risk so much, hmm?"

She leaned into his arms, and she told him sweetly, "Yes. Yes. We do." And she knew in her heart that he was right, for it was the deepest truth, that for them, to live was to risk in following your heart.

A knock at the door.

The Inspector's impatient voice barked…

William detecting the hidden hint of play in it…

"Oi! Murdoch! Must you always be slow as molasses!" prompting the couple to uncomfortably jump apart.

William called a reply through the closed door, "Sorry sir. We're… We're finished, err… Dr. Ogden was treating my injured hand…"

"That's not all she's 'treating' I'd wager," Brackenreid mumbled to himself. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?" he pushed for the man and his wife to hurry up.

They separated and Julia collected her medical bag.

Thinking of Julia's next going down to the cells to care for Big Jim, William felt an onslaught of shame. "She would see! She would see what a brute you've been… what a brute you are…" the wave of the nauseating thoughts permeated through him.

His eyes, his expression, told her, "Something was wrong."

William, in turn, saw her worry and immediately his eyes teared against his will.

She stepped back in close to him, and his eyes diverted downward.

"William," her tender voice promised compassion, "What is it?"

What he said in response was unexpected, his calling up a shared memory.

"Do you remember when you helped me convince Mr. Falcone of the Black Hand that Ana had been shot…?" he asked her.

"Yes," she nodded.

And William left it there… waiting for her to see…

"Oh William," she melted with grasping what it was that troubled him so much, "The man you went up against tonight was a horrifying bully. I swear to you, William, in many ways it WAS as if you set out on an impossible quest to slay a dragon… a dragon that terrorized and brutalized the world. It is expected that you would need to be violent in defeating such a man."

His lips pinched tight, raising and puffing his rosy cheeks, and he nodded, thanking her.

"Good," she replied.

Standing from the stool and walking her to the door, he opened it and said, "I'd like you to join me when I interrogate Mrs. Weist… after you've been down to see to Mr. Walker, um, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," she answered and then tilted to him and added, "I'd be delighted."

)) ((