Free The Devil's Making by Seán Haldane Page A

woman’)
    â€˜Ah-ha.’
    Pemberton asked where the Indians were from? What were they doing at Cormorant Point?
    In a quiet but strong, rather deep voice, Lukswaas explained in Chinook, more hesitant than Wiladzap’s but not lost for words, that it had taken them fifteen days to come South from Tsalaks and they had been at Cormorant Point for twenty days. She replied to questions about McCrory, explaining that the ‘Doctah’ had come to Cormorant Point with a yellow man, then three times on his own. He talked about the ‘breath of life’ with Wiladzap. She said Wiladzap is Tyee but also ‘mestin man’. He knows how to suck and blow the breath of life. McCrory also wanted herbs for medicine. She and Wiladzap went with McCrory into the forest to show him where plants grew. She gave McCrory dried plants. He gave her money – eight silver dollars in all.
    Pemberton asked if she had fun (‘hee hee’) or kisses (‘bebe’) with McCrory.
    â€˜Wake!’ She looked down her nose as haughtily, I thought, as an English lady would when asked such an impudent question.
    But Pemberton pursued the point, asking if Wiladzap was jealous – ‘tum tum sick’.
    â€˜Wake!’ But she said Wiladzap would surely now be ‘tum tum sick’ – meaning literally ‘sick at heart’ – in the big house of the King George men.
    What was the name of the Indian who had told the story that Lukswaas had been kissing with McCrory?
    â€˜Smgyiik’. (My approximate transcription).
    Why would he tell such a story?
    â€˜Smgyiik tum tum sick.’
    Did Smgyiik want to have fun, kiss, with Lukswaas?
    â€˜Ah-ha.’ Then she added, ‘Nika halo tikegh Smgyiik’. (‘I not like Smgyiik’).
    Who killed McCrory?
    Luskwaas said she did not know, but it was not a ‘Siwash’ – not an Indian, ‘Siwash’ being the Chinook pronunciation of ‘Savage’.
    â€˜Do you have any questions, Superintendent?’ Pemberton asked Parry.
    â€˜Nothing to add. Of course she’s lying.’
    â€˜You think so?’ Pemberton stared down the table at the woman, his eyes a pale icy blue. She stared back at him, calmly now, her eyes, in absolute contrast, almost black, with the pupils indistinguishable from the iris.
    Pemberton turned to me. ‘Any questions for her, Hobbes?’
    â€˜Might I ask her the names and functions of the plants?’
    â€˜You mean in case they are some sort of drug or opiate?’
    â€˜That was my thought, Sir. Does she know their purposes and what McCrory wanted them for?’
    I asked my questions. Lukswaas gave a list of six names in Tsimshian – difficult to transcribe. She said three of these plants helped give sleep to people who found it difficult. One plant was a cure for anger. Another two were to help in making a man strong in kissing, as she put it. McCrory had been very happy to have these.
    I wished I had not asked the questions.
    â€˜That’s enough, I think’, Pemberton said. ‘Ask the clerk to write up the deposition from your notes and get her to sign it with the usual thumb print. Make sure the clerk has an outside witness. I want this done properly. But don’t send her away yet. First I’ll look at the victim, then I’ll interview the other prisoner.’ He stood up and said ‘Mahse’ (‘Thank you’) to Luskwaas.
    I went to Lukswaas and escorted her from the room. The clerk had been called and in another room she had to sit down again at a smaller table with him and with Harding.
    *   *   *
    The corpse was under its grey blanket on a table in another room. I pulled the blanket off, down to the waist, as gently as I could.
    â€˜Go ahead, Hobbes, take it off completely. We’re not squeamish’, Pemberton said.
    I took the blanket off and dropped it without folding it on a chair near the wall.
    The corpse