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in.
    The fancy gambler I’d been telling Graham about earlier was standing outside our front door. He was dressed in a crisp suit, diamond stick pin too large to be real, cravat as white as snow on the Ogilvie Mountains in February. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, and the ends of his heavily-waxed handlebar moustache pointed towards the sky. I gave him a second look and could see the signs of genteel wear: ground-in dirt on the edges of his white cuffs, a line of stitches holding together the knee of his right trouser leg, the strain around the waist as an ill-fitting shirt tried to stretch over his sizeable belly.
    He’d had a good night in our gambling hall, bent over a hand of cards at the poker table, not pausing to watch the stage snow or joining in the dancing. All for the good— he’d be more than eager to return.
    He tipped his hat to me. “Good morning, madam. May I compliment you on the quality of your establishment?” American. Very Boston Brahman. He spoke to me but watched Irene out of the corner of his small, dark eyes.
    â€œYou certainly may,” I replied. “We’re closing temporarily, but I hope you’ll do us the honour of a return visit this evening.”
    â€œIt would be my pleasure. Allow me to introduce myself. Tom Jannis, late of Boston, Massachusetts.”
    â€œMr. Jannis.” I stepped around him, my hand on Mary’s arm.
    â€œLady Irenee,” he said. “If you would allow me a small indulgence, I’d like to offer you a small breakfast.”
    Ray growled. I kept walking: let them sort it out.
    â€œThank you for the offer, sir,” Irene said, in a simpering voice, “but I’m having breakfast with my boss, Mr. Walker here.”
    â€œSome other time perhaps,” Jannis said.
    I didn’t hear any more. Ray would not be pleased at being identified as Irene’s boss, as if breakfast with him were an obligation.
    Poor Ray. I suspected Irene had a secret lover. Almost certainly a married man, as she kept him so much under wraps that she’d been prepared to go to jail rather than use him as her alibi when she’d recently come under suspicion of a particularly heinous crime.
    Ray continued to live in hope.
    Don’t we all?
    * * *
    Angus MacGillivray hated working at the hardware store. His mother had insisted that he spend every morning, six days a week, helping out in Mr. Mann’s shop. The waterfront consisted of a sea of stores operated out of filthy canvas tents thrown up as soon as the spring floodwaters receded. They called the instant road Bowery Street. The floodplain beside the Yukon River was prime retail territory, catering to men who staggered off the boats, took one look at the town they’d given their all to reach and sold everything they owned at pennies on the dollar to raise enough money for the return journey south. Mr. Mann did a roaring trade buying hardware, mining equipment and personal items cheap before turning around and selling them at a handsome profit to men who’d come prospecting but somehow neglected to equip themselves with the proper equipment. The whisper of gold seduced a lot of foolish people, Angus’s mother had told him, and there was no shame in taking advantage of their stupidity—as long as one remained within the boundaries of the law and common decency. Angus was only twelve years old, but he’d sometimes wondered about his mother’s definition of legality. He had a clear memory of being roused out of his warm, comfortable bed in the dormitory of his exclusive boys’ school in the early hours and bustled through ice-covered streets to catch the next train leaving Toronto’s Union Station. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he could remember England and making an equally rapid departure from his beloved nanny and their London townhouse for the ship that took them to Canada.
    Right now he wished he could make a rapid