Case #0468: Loss of Balance ~ April 3, 1903

You meet Judith Scondey at her sister’s house - she has been too shaken to return to the home that she and her husband shared. Judith clearly hails from a wealthy family; you are seen by no fewer than three attendants before finding her in the parlour, holding a cup of tea with both hands. You take a seat across from her on a beautifully upholstered settee. Mrs. Scondey steels herself with a deep breath, and then meets your gaze.

If Gordon Pugh is frazzled, he doesn’t show it. His King Edward concierge jacket is crisply pressed, and he stands with his white-gloved hands folded calmly in front of his body. He greets you with the sort of warm, professional smile that his hotel patrons would likely expect from him. He speaks to you as though he is recommending a nearby restaurant, while glancing around cautiously to determine whether the curious guests can overhear the grim tenor of your conversation.

It’s short work to track down Beecher’s, which turns out to be a fine luggage store. The proprietor, Mr. Beecher, examines the receipt that you hand him. He curtly confirms that it was for a large steamer trunk, purchased the previous day by a young lady matching Ms. MacMillan’s description. As the trunk was too heavy for Ms. MacMillan to carry, two of Mr. Beecher’s attendants carried the trunk out to her taxi. The woman paid with cash, a large amount, and received some change. When asked if she was going on a trip, she replied that she works at the new King Edward hotel, and that a patron had requested it.

You visit the ticket counter at Weston station and confirm that a train is bound for Kingston at 9pm this evening. The ticket vendor cannot comment on the identities of anyone buying tickets, as the large station is very well trafficked. He looks almost insulted that you would ask.

Just as you’re turning to leave, he complains that he saw two passengers board the 10:30 train to Hamilton this morning after dropping a number of soiled rags on the station platform. He ran out to catch them just as their train was pulling away, and they thumbed their noses at him through the window. If there was any justice in this world, he assured you, those two would be locked up and the key thrown away.

Paulson, one of two hotel clerks who was working at the front desk last night, greets you with soft-spoken deference. He seems to you to be barely out of swaddling clothes, and his freckles aren’t helping his case.

"I was told you'd likely be wanting to look at this," he says nervously, pushing the hotel log book across the counter.

The hotel porter is a stocky young lad with a strong back and oversized hands. His King Edward uniform scarcely fits him; it looks as though he grew new muscles overnight. You’re sure he was a farmhand before taking employment at the hotel. He speaks to you in a helpful, but cautious, tone.

You take the ferry across to the island and spend the afternoon strolling casually along the path at Hanlan’s Point. You’re even lucky enough to catch the Toronto Maple Leafs playing a practice game in the chilly spring air. One of the players signs a baseball for you. The island affords you a clear view of the smoky city of Toronto, but the din of its traffic and trade are blissfully distant. You take a deep breath of the fresh island air, and with a newly cleared head, resolve to crack this confounding case.

The tellers at the Bank of Toronto whisper behind their wickets as you’re ushered into the manager’s office. Gerald Doursey is a severe-looking man, with a sloping forehead and a singular eyebrow so dramatic it reminds you of a wild thicket at the base of a tobogganing hill. He brushes an imagined speck from his jacket and invites you to sit across from him in a very large, parliamentary chair.

Abner's desk is about what you'd expect of a loan officer. Two drawers are filled with empty loan application and load extension forms. Another is filled with client files. On the desk you find an assortment of pens, note pads, and a calendar book with payments marked in it.

When you open the shallow drawer in the middle of Abner's desk, you see a variety of scribbled notes related to his job, but hidden underneath these are a curious collection of items.

You could say Bill Blahey’s reputation precedes him, as you could smell something off-putting before you even rounded the corner into the alleyway. He is elbow-deep in a barrel of old potato peels when you approach, and you back up a few steps before hailing him, your handkerchief over your mouth.

You seek out Charles Nasmith on such a frightfully large property that you can scarcely reach the front door without stopping to catch your breath. You notice with passing interest that the exceedingly large garden is somewhat overgrown.

As you approach the front door, you find it ajar. You hear a woman speaking to a man in the main hall. Your instincts tell you to listen a short while before knocking.

“...I have a family to feed, Sir. I cannae go on like this much longer,” you hear the woman saying.

“I understand your position, Moira,” says the man. “We will rectify the situation in short order, rest assured.”  The man turns on his heel and walks off.  You knock.

A maid answers the door, and you recognize her voice as the one you just heard. You identify yourself as a detective, and ask to speak with Mr. Nasmith.

“Is it about the wages?” she asks. You shake your head. She nods, disappointed, and ushers you in.

When the great Charles Nasmith finally arrives in the sitting room, you shift uncomfortably, suddenly keenly aware of your scuffed shoes and the missing button on your coat.

You enter the busy department store directly across the street from the King Edward Hotel. After tipping your hat to a women shopping for prams, you locate a store clerk in the Men’s Wear department.

James Gooding adjusts his spectacles and squints at you as if looking at the sun while you describe Judith Scondey to him.

“Yes, he says. “She came into my shop last night at around 6:45pm. I sold her a… bow tie. No - a tie clip!”

He thinks for a moment longer.

“She was dressed up impressively, but her face was not powdered. She wasn’t even wearing her hat!” Gooding raises a conspiratorial eyebrow.

“She seemed to be in a bit of a rush, and selected the first tie clip she could see, although other clips were perhaps more handsome.”

He thumbs through a short stack of receipts, and pulls one out with a satisfied click of his tongue.

Mister Phelps looks annoyed when you knock on his door. He’s a very busy man on an important business trip (as he keeps reminding you), and all the police activity around the hotel has delayed him. When asked where he was the night of the incident, he huffily shouts that he was at a business meeting, and that several of his associates can vouch for his whereabouts. You make a note to investigate his alibi, if only to inconvenience him further.

After a lot of persistent knocking, a very terrified-looking woman answers the door.

“Oh Jesus, don’t hurt me!” she pleads, in a thick Newfoundland brogue. “I won’t say a ting - no, not a ting!”

When you explain who you are she looks up from behind her hands and wilts with relief. She identifies herself as Margaret Craig.

“Oh Jeeeesus!” she exclaims. “Aye tot it was him agin!”

The hotel patrons look at you and whisper as you cross the foyer of the King Eddy, and head to hotel room #10b where the Scondeys were staying. The door to their room was still open when the officers arrived that night. The window was also open. Near the window, you see a large steamer-style trunk, also open, and empty.  Some of the couple’s personal effects are on the vanity, along with a change of clothes for each spouse, and nighttime wear, inside another open suitcase. The more casual daytime clothes have been tossed into the suitcase on top of the night wear, suggesting they had been changed out of.

You knock on the door of room 10d, which was around the corner from the Scondeys’ room. The corpulent Mr. Earl Peterson answers.

“My wife and I had already been in the dining room for about an hour before all the commotion happened. We didn’t see or hear anything.” He closes the door somewhat abruptly.

Rachel’s apartment is in a modern, modest townhouse where on the West end of the city, where she lived alone. Her room was kept tidy and spare. You find a copy of her journal on the bedside table, and flip through some of the more recent entries.

Hotel management supplies you with the address of Peter Milavec, who had taken ill the night before. You find him in his mother’s Cabbagetown home. The old woman speaks to you rapidly in some undecipherable language, and foists a bowl of boiled potato dumplings on you. Peter is laid out in bed, clammy and moaning. His mother replaces the warm cloth on his forehead, and then implores you to eat a plate of very large, breaded pork skewers. By the time you leave an hour later, you’ve had to undo the top two buttons of your pants, and the neighbourhood seems distinctly windier than when you arrived.

The investigation can wait. Your sense of justice inflamed, you board a train to Hamilton to chase down the inconsiderate cads. When you arrive, signs of their recalcitrance is everywhere: a gasping child, an offended gentlewoman, a mocked fop. These two blights on polite society had to be stopped, and you would be the one to stop them!

After an exhaustive search, you locate the fiends plucking tulips from the flowerbed of a public park. You arrest them immediately, and tow them back to the train station by their ears, as happy onlookers applaud you. The two scoundrels are sent to jail to await a trial. You and the good citizens of Toronto and Hamilton are free to feel safe again.

You head back to Toronto with a strange, nagging sense of duty in the back of your brain. Ah yes - the Loss of Balance case!  You resolve to get back to it.