After the Horses. Jeffrey Round
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to green. He grasped the handle and entered into a vigilant silence, gazing down a long hallway with a green and ivory harlequin pattern. While re-arming the system, his nose picked up the scent of cleaning substances covering something disquieting that might have been the smell of embalming fluid. A perfectly preserved tin ceiling spread overhead while a staircase cascaded behind Dan’s right shoulder. The walls were polished rosewood. High double doors led off from both sides of the hall. The first set opened into a sitting room offering a tableau of stuffed chairs, antique lamps, and a wide brick fireplace. It was like stepping back a hundred years.
At the far end, a white grand piano sat perfectly framed between bevelled lead windows. Dan ran his finger along the polished top, leaving a faint trail in the dust beside a glittering candelabra above a keyboard that seemed to be awaiting the tinkering fingers of a Liberace-come-lately. A portrait of Jesus with what looked like an exploding purple heart stood propped against it for that added touch of kitsch. Had the notorious bar owner and sex-trade proponent been a secret religious acolyte on the side? Dan recalled seeing a documentary on notorious drug dealers, surprised to learn that one of them, a ruthless killer who had her enemies assassinated, was also a doting grandmother captured by the FBI while reading her Bible in a Florida hotel.
The second set of doors led to a dining room with a mahogany table that sat twenty. On the walls, a series of tempestuous seascapes in oil were mounted in hand-carved frames, while a vintage bookstand cradled a scrapbook stuffed with newspaper clippings and old registries. A page from The Society Blue Book, subtitled “Toronto’s Social Directory for the Ages,” listed J.S. Lockie at the present address as though he lived there still. Time never failed to make mock of human pretension.
On the reverse, Boyd’s Business Directory for 1875–6 credited Lockie as manager of the Canadian Bank of Commerce beside an advertisement for “DOCTOR J BELL’S TONIC PILLS FOR NERVOUS DISORDERS — WE NEVER FAIL TO CURE.” A few of those might put him to rights when he was having a bad day, Dan mused, wondering just how much cocaine was in those pick-me-ups back then. Those were the days.
The Canadian Mining Manual of 1890 followed one page over, with ads for the Hamilton Powder Company (“Manufacturers of Gunpowder, Dynamite, Dualine, and the New Eclipse Mining Powder”) and I. Matheson and Co. of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia (“The Best Place in Canada for Gold Mining Machinery”). Lockie was listed again, this time as director of the Haliburton Mining Company, incorporated with “a capital stock of $100,000 in shares of $1,000” to work mineral lands in the nearby counties of Haliburton, Victoria, and Peterborough.
A short article on architecture noted an addition to the house in 1892. Then, in 1905, another write-up stated that it “had passed hands to Mr. Frederick S. MacGregor, bachelor, age 35.” Suspiciously old for a bachelor back then, Dan thought. “Mr. MacGregor receives 1st, 2d, 3d Thursday of every month,” the piece noted, while mentioning the various sports groups he belonged to, including the Toronto Racquet Club and Toronto Canoe Club, where he was noted as a “vigorous and lively member.”
A portrait of MacGregor showed an intense, handsome young man with high cheekbones, well-formed ears, and deep-set eyes. His sporty build and muscular chest were well-defined by a collegiate sweater. Well, Fred, you’re a real catch in my books, Dan thought. I’d visit you on just about any Thursday, even if you’re over a hundred now.
In the kitchen, two-fours of beer had been stacked against the far wall, revealing Malevski’s taste for micro-breweries and Belgian lager brewed by Trapist monks. The fridge contained water bottles, yoghurt containers, and a half-empty carton of eggs. A damp mop and plastic bucket sat behind an outside door, the inevitable attendant to late-night party-giving, as though Malevski had intended to be prepared for all eventualities. The bottom of the sink held a residue of dust and sand where someone had emptied a pail of dirty water, probably the last time any cleaning was done.
Dan followed the hallway to the far end. A final door led unexpectedly to a greenhouse. It was like entering a small jungle. Plants sat on the floor, hung from beams, reached to the sky. Cacti proliferated. Those were the lucky ones, Dan noted. Most of the others had been left to die, shrivelling like the skin of a nonagenarian. He recognized a peyote plant, its small, button-like formations sprouting telltale pink flowers. The waxy leaves of orchids, equally neglected, dangled above with their jointed, mostly-flowerless stems spiking the air. As a gardener, Yuri Malevski seemed to have lacked a green thumb.
For the most part, the house was in good order, not in any state of neglect or abandonment. It was clear that someone with taste and money had lived here, at least until recently. Dan wondered which had been the party rooms where Malevski’s guests took their drugs and played out their little dramas of the high life.
The second floor consisted of several bedrooms and a sitting room replete with a small library. A quick glance at the spines showed the man had been a fancier of biographies: writers, artists, actors. People of accomplishment. They seemed to accuse him, Dan felt, as if asking whether his life had been of any special significance compared to theirs.
It struck him the house was too big for one person. J.S. Lockie had had a wife and, presumably, a family. MacGregor, a confirmed bachelor, would have lived alone. Or had he? Perhaps he’d taken in a friend to relieve him of boredom and loneliness. Someone to help chase away the gloom. Maybe a squash-playing pal with benefits. It was no wonder Malevski had entertained. The problem was that the sort of company available for late-night get-togethers tended to want more than companionship. Sex, drugs, money. Clearly, Malevski’s pool of friends hadn’t been culled from the pages of The Society Blue Book. His friends came from bars and were probably as transient and temporary as they got. Had he been trying to buy their affection? Put a roomful of drug users and sex addicts in the hands of a rich man and the inevitable problems would arise, expectations rising with them.
Dan snapped pictures with his cellphone as he went. There was nothing unusual, just a house that felt empty and, because it was empty, lifeless, as though its owner were away on a long vacation. As yet, he had nothing to report to Lionel and Charles. Fair enough. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to take on the job. Business of late had kept him flush enough that he could afford to be choosy.
Emptiness and silence weighed on him like a dull pressure at some underwater depth. As he opened a final door, ghostly laughter emanated from the walls. Dan started as he caught a dim movement at the far end of the darkened room. His hand flew to the light switch. Quicksilver galvanized the walls as he confronted his mirror image. He waved and saw his relieved-looking twin wave back, glad not to have to explain his presence to anyone more demanding.
“Sorry for disturbing you,” he said, the reflection’s mouth moving in silent accord.
An echo of the laughter filtered in from the street, some passersby sharing one of life’s amusing little moments. He leaned against the wall and felt the urge for a serious drink. A good Islay Scotch with plenty of peat. Something that would burn as it went down. The yearning had come over him more often lately. He resisted, of course. Alcohol was a companion he’d learned to control only after it spent years controlling him. A promise to his son still hung over his head. Social drinking — one or two at most — was permissible. No more. But the urge to sit and drink in an empty room surrounded by silence had a pull that was hard to resist.
A soft padding pricked his ears, like raindrops on pewter. Only it wasn’t raining. He stopped to listen. Nothing came to him. What was it about empty houses that set the imagination stirring? He’d just convinced himself it was an illusion when he heard a soft click upstairs.
He crept down the hallway to a set of stairs, climbing carefully, lifting each foot and setting it down as quietly as he could. Halfway up, he stopped to listen once more. Again, there was nothing. He began to think his nerves were getting the better of him.
The only door led to the master bedroom. The furniture here was unexceptional, functional in the extreme. An outside wall angled down on a slant, its window well jutting outward. This, he presumed, was where the notorious bar owner had died.
Over the bed, a portrait of a rugged, attractive face in late-middle age arrested Dan’s gaze. The perspective was shoddy. The eyes stared straight ahead, bright blue forget-me-nots, with a wooden