by Rhys Bowen
“Sit on your bottom and slide down gently to the flat part,” I said, then reached for the next one.
One after another we handed the girls out onto the roof until the flat area was jam-packed with terrified, sobbing bodies. Now I just prayed that the roof didn’t collapse under the weight of them.
There was an explosion as glass blew out from a window on the floor below us and flames licked upward. Smoke billowed up toward us, making it hard to see.
“Where do we go now?” someone shrieked.
That was a good point. I hadn’t had a chance to see how we might get off the rooftop.
“Hold on a minute. Katherine, you get the last few out,” I said and slithered down the slates myself, working my way through the crush of bodies. When I reached the end of the roof and turned the corner they followed me, like rats after the Pied Piper. We kept on going down the other side. I had hoped that this roof would join the next building somewhere, but it didn’t. There was a six-foot gap between them. Safety was a few tantalizing feet away.
At the other end of the building there was a crash and sparks shot high into the air as part of the ceiling fell in. A collective scream arose again.
“We’re going to be burned alive.”
One girl threw her leg over the parapet. “I’m not waiting to fall into that,” she said. “I’m ending it now.”
Katherine grabbed at her. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “We’re going to get out of this. Listen—I can hear the fire engines.”
And it was true. In the distance we could hear bells ringing as fire engines galloped toward us. I looked at the flames, now licking up from all sides and knew that there was little the firemen could do. Even if they had ladders long enough, how could they put them through the flames to reach us? I stood at the parapet and looked at the rooftop on the next building. It was maybe less than six feet away and stacks of lumber were piled on it. If only I could get across—
Without hesitating any longer I unlaced my boots, undid my skirt, and pulled it off, then off came my petticoat until I stood there in my drawers and stockings. This produced a gasp of horror almost as great as the original flames had done. I climbed up on the parapet and heard screams behind me.
“Molly, don’t do it,” someone called.
“I’ll be fine.” I didn’t feel fine. I had done some stupid things in my life, including jumping little ravines on the cliff tops, usually on a dare, but that was long ago now and I was out of practice for such stunts. I glanced down. My eyes were streaming from the smoke and all I could see was a blurred mass of upturned faces five floors below me beneath the drifting smoke. If I missed, it would be a quick death and maybe the girl had been right. Maybe it would be better than being burned alive.
I’m not usually a religious person—in fact definitely heathen, according to my mother—but I crossed myself hastily, just to make sure. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints, just help me this time, not for myself but for those girls,” I whispered, “and I promise I’ll start going to mass again.” Then I took a deep breath and leaped. Cold air rushed past me, then my fingers grabbed onto the brickwork, my legs scrabbled, and for a second I teetered on the brink. Another shriek behind me as I hauled myself over the parapet and stood, safe and secure on the other rooftop. I rushed to the lumber and came up with a plank that I thought was long enough.
“Catch the other end,” I shouted, standing it up and then letting it fall in their direction.
Hands caught it as it fell. It reached, but only just. I ran back and found a second one, a little longer. Then a third. We had a bridge of precarious planks. I stood up on the parapet at one end.
“Come on, I’ll help you,” I said.
Nobody moved.
“Look, any moment that roof is going to collapse and you’ll all fall into the fire. Is that what you want?” I yelled, my voice harsh and scratchy from the smoke. I rubbed at my eyes and tried to focus as I set my balance.
“Come on, hurry up,” Katherine shouted, stepping up to steady her end of the plank.
After what seemed an age one girl climbed up, looked down, shrieked, and hastily got down again.
“Come across on all fours then,” I suggested. “Crawl like a baby, only hurry.”
The girl tried again, this time hitching up her skirts and clambering across on hands and knees. When she reached safety she burst into tears. Another girl followed and soon there was a stream of frightened animals coming toward me on all fours. I shouted across to make sure they only came one at a time, as once the first girls had succeeded they all wanted to be next.
It was going well until Henny, the one whose panic had set off the whole thing, got to the middle. She looked down, then cowered, frozen on the middle of the planks.
“Henny, come on. Give me your hand,” I shouted. “You’re almost there. Hurry. The other girls are waiting.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered.
There was nothing for it. I leaned over the side until I could grab at her hands, then I yanked her like a sack of potatoes. On the other side a cheer went up and girls started coming across again. The fire bells came closer until I could see a flash of red beneath us, but I didn’t see how they could ever get a ladder up here. Hoses started spraying the lower floors, plunging us into clouds of billowing smoke that made the crossing impossible.
“Idiots!” Katherine shouted down. She started handing girls across to me, shouting at them to get a move on. It seemed to take forever. Every now and then there would be another crash, another roar as more of the building collapsed. My heart was beating so loudly, I’d swear you could hear it over the other noises. We’d never get them all across in time. I became a machine—reach out, grab girl, drag her to safety, reach out again. When I looked around behind me, the square roof was packed with girls. Only the last few remained on the other side.
“Hurry up, the roof’s going!” I shouted. “Run if you dare. Hold the plank steady, Katherine.”
We knelt on either end. A girl screamed as she ran across, but it was the same half-exhilarated scream that a roller-coaster produces. Another followed, then another. One girl froze. It was little Sarah and she held her lunch bag in one hand.
“Drop the bag, you’ll be unbalanced!” I shouted, but she didn’t obey. She just stood there, like a statue.
Sadie got up behind her and gave her a mighty shove that sent her staggering across to me. As I caught her she went sprawling. The bag fell from her grasp. Sheets of paper flew out over the parapet to be lost in the smoke. I caught a glimpse of a dress with a high frilly collar, another with a gentleman’s bow tie. I turned to look at Sarah but she had melted into the crowd and I had more important things to take care of.
Four more girls, then at last I held out my hand for Sadie and Katherine.
“Well done. You did a marvelous job,” the latter said as she stepped down gracefully.
“So did you.”
“Good old British sangfroid. We don’t lose our nerve like the continentals do.” She gave me a triumphant smile as we joined the crush of girls.
Then behind our backs came a great cracking sound. Flames shot up, making us all jump back and brush off the sparks that landed on us. We turned around to see the roof fall in. There were a few moments of panic when it looked as if the fire might spread to our building, but before that could happen a door onto our rooftop opened and a fireman appeared.
“They’re all up here, Barney,” he shouted. “They’re safe.”
Weeping and hugging we made our way down the stairs, into the arms of relatives, friends, and well-wishers. Families snapped up daughters and mothers and whisked them away, weeping with joy. I looked around for Sarah. She was hurrying toward the outstretched arms of a frail-looking woman and a girl I recognized—the sister who worked for Lowenstein’s. Little Fanny who looked as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. As I started to push my way through the crowd to reach them then I saw them hugging and kissing and I lost my nerve.
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nbsp; One by one girls were whisked away from me. I stared out through a blur of tears feeling suddenly alone and helpless. Then through the crowd I thought I saw Daniel’s face and started toward him.
Suddenly I heard someone shouting my name.
“Molly!” I spun around to see Jacob running toward me. “Molly, I’ve been looking everywhere. Thank God.”
I had thought the tears in my eyes were just from the smoke. Now I knew they weren’t. I fell into his arms, blubbing. His arms were warm and strong around me and I lay my head against his shoulder, feeling safe.
“This is enough,” he said, stroking my hair. “I can’t take any more of this. I want you to marry me right away, so that I can look after you.”
At any other moment I would have told him that I could look after myself very nicely thank you, but I had to admit it sounded most appealing.
“Your mother won’t approve,” was all I could think of saying.
“She’ll have to learn to accept it, won’t she? And who could not learn to love you, Molly?”
I looked up into his face. He was smiling at me with infinite tenderness. To be cherished and protected—what more could any woman want? I felt a warm glow spreading all through me.
“Now we had better get me home before your mother learns that I was on the street in my underwear,” I said.
Jacob eyed me. “At least I know that you have good legs before I sign the wedding document,” he said, still smiling. “Most Jewish men are not so fortunate.”
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked, as my brain started to clear.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I had a feeling you’d be doing something else stupid.”
“I didn’t intend this to be dangerous,” I said. “They locked us in. A stove was knocked over and the place was a complete firetrap. It was an accident that could have happened anywhere.”
“It wasn’t deliberate then?”
“No, of course not.”
“But I thought Mostel was responsible for Katherine’s disappearance?”
Katherine—I had forgotten all about her. I looked around and saw her sitting on a doorstep, all alone, looking as shocked and bewildered as I had been. I took Jacob’s hand.
“Over here,” I said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She rose to her feet as we approached her.
“Jacob,” I said. “This is Katherine.”
Twenty-six
Katherine?” Jacob looked from her face to mine. “You found her? You mean she didn’t drown then?”
“Obviously not.”
“Why did you think I had drowned?” Katherine asked.
Spray from fire hoses and flying particles from the fire coated us in a sooty rain.
“The police told us that a woman resembling your picture had been pulled from the East River,” I said.
“My picture? How did you get my picture?” She looked completely bewildered.
“Your father sent it to me,” I said. “I am an investigator. He hired me to track you down.”
The bewilderment was replaced by a look of utter horror. “Then you weren’t—I mean, we thought the woman who—”
“The young woman who discovered you?” I said, suddenly putting the pieces together. “Her name was Nell Blankenship. She was trying to find out what happened to you after you disappeared from Mostel’s. We suspected foul play, you see.” As I spoke it was my turn to go cold all over. I had just taken in the implication of her words. “You thought she was the detective,” I said.
She nodded. “We got word from Michael’s cousin who also worked for my father that a woman detective had been dispatched to find us. Naturally we thought . . .”
“So you killed her?” I demanded angrily.
“Not me. Of course not.”
“The Eastmans then.”
She shook her head, a look of bleak despair on her face. “Not the Eastmans. The man I married, Michael Kelly.”
Jacob forced his way through the crowd, stepped out into the street, and flagged down a cab. The driver looked at us in horror. “You’re not thinking of putting them young ladies on my clean seat, are you?” he asked.
“They’ve just been rescued from the fire,” Jacob said. “Surely you don’t want them to have to walk home in their condition. What if they were your own daughters?” He reached into his pocket. “There will be an extra dollar to aid with the cleanup,” he said.
The cabby’s eyes widened as Jacob produced the dollar bill. “You’re right, sir. We couldn’t expect them to walk in their condition, could we?” he said with a grin. Jacob opened the door and bundled us inside. As we drove away I glanced out of the window and again I thought I caught a glimpse of Daniel’s face in the crowd.
The cab made its way slowly through the great crush of people. I looked back but Daniel’s face had gone. I turned back to Katherine, who was sitting tight-lipped, staring straight ahead of her.
“You say that Michael was the one who killed Nell Blankenship? Couldn’t you have stopped him?” I asked as the cab got up speed and turned into the Bowery.
“I had no idea.” She hugged her arms to herself, shivering. “My God, don’t you think I would have stopped him if I had known what he was going to do? She found out where we were hiding. Michael had done some work for the Eastmans, so they let us hide out in a shed behind their headquarters. This woman came and she asked questions about me. Mike thought that—” She bit her lip, looking younger and more fragile than her photograph. “He said he’d take care of her. I never dreamed . . . then he came back and told me he’d killed her by mistake and we’d have to stay hidden until we could make a run for it and go out West where they’d never find us.”
“What I don’t understand,” Jacob said, “is why it was so terrible that the detective found you? You are a married woman, after all. Your parents might be annoyed but legally there is not much they can do.”
Katherine sank her head into her hands. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said.
“Don’t worry about that now,” I said. “I’ll hide you where you’ll be safe.”
The cab driver reined in his horse and poked his head down to us. “Patchin Place did you say, sir? I don’t want to take the horse all the way down, on account of how it’s hard to back him up again.”
“That’s fine. We can walk a few yards,” I said.
Jacob jumped down first and handed us down from the cab. Katherine looked around her. “This is nice,” she said. “It reminds me of London. Quite different from the New York I have seen up to now.”
We walked the length of Patchin Place and stopped outside Number Nine. I knocked on the front door. Sid opened it, looked at me, then her jaw dropped open.
“Molly—what in God’s name have you been doing to yourself?”
I had quite forgotten that I had no skirt or petticoat on, that I was dirty and covered in soot. Katherine didn’t look much better.
“We were in a fire,” I said. “We got trapped and we had to climb out over the rooftops.”
“Mercy me.” For once Sid sounded less sophisticated than usual. “Come inside, do. I’ll find the brandy and I’ll get Gus to run you a hot bath. What an awful experience for you.”
Her eyes moved past me to Jacob and Katherine. “You were in the fire too?”
“Katherine was. I was merely the comforting shoulder afterward,” Jacob said.
“Katherine?” Sid’s eyes opened wide. “The Katherine?”
“The Katherine.”
“But I thought she had drowned.”
“Does everyone in New York know about me?” Katherine asked, uncertainly.
“Only my very closest friends,” I said. I looked up at Sid. “I want to ask you a favor.”
“Other than a hot bath and a good meal?”
“I want to ask you to hide Katherine for a few days. Her husband is trying to find her and that would not be a good idea.”
“Then for God’s sake don’
t stand there on the doorstep. Get inside.” Sid grabbed at Katherine’s shoulder and yanked her into the house. “Gus, dearest,” she called, “you’ll never believe who has come to visit!”
Gus came running down the stairs, wearing a painter’s smock, brandishing a paintbrush and with a smudge of orange on her nose.
“Molly, what on earth have you been doing to yourself? Are you making a protest against the wearing of skirts, a la bloomer?”
“I had to abandon it in a fire,” I said.
“When she jumped from rooftop to rooftop,” Katherine said. “She was fearless.”
Gus’s gaze turned to Katherine.
“This is Katherine,” I said.
“The Katherine,” Sid added.
“Resurrected from the dead?” Gus asked.
“Never died in the first place. Went underground. Wicked husband,” Sid said. “Wants us to hide her.”
I smiled at Sid’s succinct account. That pretty much summed it up.
“Well of course we’ll hide her, but let’s clean her up first,” Gus said.
“May I suggest brandy for shock first,” Jacob said.
“Oh, Mr. Singer. I didn’t notice you standing there,” Gus said. “Were you part of this amazing exploit?”
“He was there at the fire, looking for me, worried sick,” I said.
“You can’t imagine how powerless and wretched I felt, watching the building go up in flames and being kept away by the fire crews,” Jacob said. “And then she was one of the last girls to come down from the next building. I don’t ever want to go through that again.”
“He wants to marry me,” I said in response to Sid’s raised eyebrow.
“And do you want to marry him?” Sid’s voice sounded sharp. “Not that I am against the principle of marriage for the rest of the world, but . . .”
“I think I might,” I said, smiling shyly at Jacob.
“Could do worse, I suppose.” Sid gave Jacob an appraising glance. “At least he won’t try to put you into a glass case like a stuffed bird.”
“I don’t know about that.” Jacob laughed. “It may well be the only way of keeping her out of trouble.”
