Of Dubious and Questionable Memory by Rachel McMillan

Chapter One
    October 1911
    It all could have been avoided had we not accused Henry Tipton, Chief of Police, of stealing his neighbor’s rooster. This accusation, I must note, was made before we were in possession of all the facts. My associate, Merinda Herringford, and I had very little to go on other than an anonymous note saying the bird was in danger.
    Later, when our feather-flurried chase ended poorly, the Toronto Globe and Mail would run an article featuring a rather unflattering picture of Merinda and me in pursuit of the blasted bird. This would be but the tip of the iceberg of our humiliation, proving ever more true Sherlock Holmes’s belief that it is a “capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”
    Rather than data, Merinda had a hunch. The Herringford and Watts detective business had been experiencing a bit of a lull, and perhaps that is why Merinda jumped to conclusions when the note arrived. I had no time for mysteries that day. I was preoccupied with memorizing the jam-making section of Flora Merriweather’s Guide to Domestic Bliss. I was determined to master a few rudimentary housekeeping skills. (An astute reader might wonder what in heaven’s name was I thinking in attempting jam in October so far out of season. I had been able to find some late-season blackberries from Murdoch’s grocer—paying more than I ever had for produce—and decided to surprise my new husband, Ray.)
    When Merinda invited me to sally forth, I quickly moved the jam from the stove and accompanied her, realizing halfway down SumachStreet that I had used salt instead of sugar and the already burned concoction would smell something dreadful when Ray returned to the soot-stained kitchen (yet one more example of my less-than-exemplary domestic capabilities). But I put the kitchen out of my mind. I was blindly focused on the case at hand. So blind that just as we arrived at Chief Tipton’s home, our mission was truncated by my face-first collision with a weaselly-faced man. He was wearing the badge of the Morality Squad, the plainclothes detectives who were tasked with cleaning up the streets… and would take any excuse to lock up a couple of wayward females.
    I squeaked and stumbled backward, tripping over the curb in the process and tumbling into a mud puddle. My husband’s second-best bowler hat fell from my head, and the long braid of hair that had been coiled underneath it came down over my shoulder.
    â€œRats!” I squeaked.
    â€œYou’re a woman!” cackled Weasel Face. “Herringford and Watts, as I live and breathe!”
    â€œJemima,” Merinda sighed, “you’re really not very good at this, are you?”
    To add insult to injury, I could do little to salvage Ray’s hat as we were dragged off to St. Jerome’s Reformatory for Vagrant and Incorrigible Females, Merinda bellowing the whole way about roosters and the Chief of Police not being above the law.
    The iron door of the gated institution echoed behind us with a thud.
    â€œSurely you can contact our particular friend and newly promoted Inspector Jasper Forth!” Merinda called. But no one was listening.
    The matron appeared with nondescript gray cotton dresses folded in her arms, her mouth tight as if she perpetually sucked on lemons. “Everything off,” she said with a hiss of disgust. “Everything.” And she looked pointedly at my wedding ring.
    â€œMy ring?” I squeaked. “But surely… ”
    â€œEverything. A respectable married woman wouldn’t be here in the first place,” she huffed.
    We washed in freezing water and coarse lye soap. And then we were shoved into a cell.
    Merinda’s eyes snapped around the dark, drafty room and her lips twitched. “This is a bit of a pickle.” She took in the thin uniform and the ratty wool blankets. “But also a bit of a lark!”
    I picked caked mud from my fingers, angry at the trap