by Rhys Bowen
“What are you doing up here in the daylight?” She hissed the words at me in a whisper.
“I’m sorry,” I said, coming up the last of the steps to meet her, “but they told me to come up to you. Was that not the right thing to do?”
She stood there like a statue, staring at me, then shook her head. “I must apologize. You gave me quite a turn. I mistook you for someone else. Now, what can I do to help you?”
“My name is Mrs. Molly Sullivan,” I said, “and I’ve come from the convent in Tarrytown with news of your sister.”
“How very kind of you. How is the dear woman?”
“I’m sorry to be the bringer of such distressing news, but I’m afraid your sister died yesterday.”
“Joan is dead?” she asked and crossed herself. “I mean Sister Jerome, of course. Joan was her name at home and I still think of her that way.” She paused to compose herself. “How did she die?”
I looked at her kind, concerned face. “An accident,” I said gently. “A tragic accident. She fell down a flight of steps.”
“She always was in too much of a hurry,” Sister Mary Vincent said. “Always taking too much upon herself. She wore herself to a frazzle, I’m sure. Ah, well. She’s gone to her heavenly reward and it’s not right to grieve, is it?”
“I think it’s perfectly all right to grieve,” I said.
“You’re very kind,” she said and I saw her fighting not to cry. “But where are my manners. It’s so good of you to take the time to bring me the news in person, rather than the shock and coldness of a letter. Won’t you come down to the parlor and have something cold to drink?”
“Thank you,” I said. “That would be very nice.”
“Watch your step,” she said. “These stairs are horribly steep.” She led the way back down the stairs and into a room that overlooked the street. I couldn’t actually see Sid and Gus, but I presumed they were standing in the shade of that awning. I reminded myself that I shouldn’t leave them there too long as I took a seat at the battered table that was at the center of the room.
“So did you actually know my sister?” she asked. “Are you connected to that convent?”
“I can’t say that I really knew her. They are an enclosed order, after all. But I spoke with her several times,” I said. “She mentioned you. And I can see that you were obviously fond of her.”
“We hadn’t seen much of each other since we were girls,” Sister Mary Vincent said. “But we were close in age. She was the bossy one, of course.” And she smiled. “But I relied on her and it was a blow when we were sent to different convents.”
“Why was that?” I asked.
“It was what our father decided was best for us. And in those days we didn’t argue with our father. There were ten of us, you see and we were sitting around the table one night and father told us that we two were the homely ones. He said we’d never be likely to find ourselves a husband with faces like ours and it would be best if we went into the convent right away and gave them two less mouths to feed. Then he said that I had a pleasant way about me and should do well working with children while Joan was more suited to the intellectual and contemplative life. And so our destinies were chosen for us. Nobody ever asked us if it was all right with us, but off we went, without a word of complaint. That’s just the way it was in those days. I have to say I’ve been happy enough. I expect Joan has too. I know she had been running their ministry of mothers and babies, and running it very well too. Joan always did like to be in charge of things.”
I decided to take the plunge. “I understand that Sister Jerome was a keen supporter of the Irish cause for home rule,” I said.
“She was indeed. She was able to send me small donations from time to time from the contributions they received at her convent, and asked me to pass them along to the cause, which, of course, I was happy to do.”
The amounts of money I had seen would have amounted to more than small donations and I wondered if Sister Mary Vincent was lying to me, or if Sister Jerome had indeed hogged most of the money for herself. I would have to be extra diplomatic in my questions.
“So you yourself are also involved with the Republican struggles are you?” I asked, the Irishness in my voice becoming more pronounced. “God love you.”
She nodded as she carried two glasses of some kind of pink cordial to the table and placed one in front of me. “Our parents raised us to be passionate about the cause,” she said. “After what they went through in Ireland—seeing their home destroyed and cast out into the street with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The English landowner ordered that you know. He wanted the land and didn’t care a fig that people were living on it. Living from it. It’s about time we threw out the invaders and claimed what’s ours by birthright.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I was involved in a small way myself once when I returned to Ireland.”
“You were?”
I declined to elaborate but went on, “So you presumably are in touch with members of the Brotherhood here in New York, if you’re raising money for them. How might I get in touch if I wanted to send my own contributions?”
“If you’d like to give me the money, I’ll make sure it goes to the right people,” she said.
“And if I might want to get involved personally? Is there an address I can meet them and volunteer my services?”
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you that,” she said. “They’re secretive with good reason. The government here is in cahoots with the English. I just have to send on the money to a certain post office box and somebody picks it up. That’s all I know. If you’d care to write a note with your name and address, I could send it along next time there is a contribution.” She paused, reconsidering. “Not that there will be more contributions with my dear sister gone. I work among the poor here. Nobody has money to spare.”
Obviously I couldn’t give her my name and address. It occurred to me to give her a fake one, but I couldn’t see what that might achieve. “I probably shouldn’t do that,” I said. “My husband is a New Yorker and doesn’t understand the Irish cause as I do. He’d be angry with me.”
“I understand. But any time you can spare a little money, you can bring it to me and I’ll make sure it goes to the right place. Every little bit helps, doesn’t it?” She drained her glass and got to her feet. “I should be getting back to work. I have to go and pick up a baby from St. Peter’s church. That’s become a prime spot for dropping off unwanted infants, I’m afraid. I’ll bring it back here to clean it up and then take it to our Foundling Hospital. So many unwanted children in the city. There’s almost not a day goes by that someone doesn’t hand me a child, found in a doorway. Make sure you treasure yours, my dear. Is it your first?”
“It is.” I smiled and got to my feet too. I was trying desperately to think of other things to ask her, but it could well be that she really did know no more than she was telling me. She opened the door for me.
“Thank you again for bringing me my sad news, my dear,” she said. “I appreciate your coming here. Let me just get my basket for the baby and I’ll be off too.”
We stepped out into the blinding sunlight of the day and came down the steps together. Then she nodded to me. “God bless you then.” And she set off down the street with a basket over her arm.
I stood on the steps and it was almost as if I was having a vision. I was recalling the first time I had seen her, nearly colliding with her as I went up to the employment agency. She had had a similar closed basket over her arm then. And I remembered what Sid had said about nuns always going around in twos. She had been alone—the exception to the norm. And she was not there when the woman had started screaming that someone had stolen her baby.
And I knew with utter certainty that Sister Mary Vincent had taken that baby from its baby carriage.
Thirty-two
Why? I thought. When there were so many unwanted infants in the city, would she want to steal another? And I knew the answer t
o that too. Because Blanche’s baby had died. Sister Jerome had promised a couple a fair, blue-eyed baby and she didn’t have one to deliver. So her sister in the city had obliged, presumably thinking that the money was going to the Irish cause. And I had actually seen her going past in a small black carriage, bringing the baby with her. I wondered whether she had been responsible for any of the other kidnappings.
Before I could take this thought any further Sid and Gus had come across to join me.
“Well, that didn’t take long at all,” Sid said. Then she frowned. “Are you all right, Molly. Is something wrong?”
“I’ve just realized something shocking,” I said. “I know who stole that baby and why a different one was returned. I have to go home and wait to tell Daniel.”
“Thank God for that,” Gus said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. You’re as white as a sheet.”
A ghost. Images flashed through my mind—the disembodied face of Sister Mary Vincent floating toward me down the hallway and her expression when she saw me. Almost as if she was seeing a ghost. Why was she so shocked to see me? Who did she think?…
“Oh, no,” I said, looking back up those steps. “I have to go back into the convent. I’ve just realized something.”
“What?”
“I think that my brother might be hiding in there.”
“In that convent?” Gus sounded shocked. “Don’t you think the nuns might have found him by now?”
“Oh, I think at least one of the nuns knows quite well that he’s there,” I said. “Sister Mary Vincent mistook me for someone else when she came upon me in the darkness. She thought she was looking at my brother. We look very alike. And she said, ‘What are you doing up here in the daylight?’ Up here, she said. That must mean that he’s supposed to stay down in a basement during the day. I’ve got to go down and find out.”
“Molly, is that wise?” Gus said.
“He’s my brother, Gus. I don’t want him captured and arrested and killed. I’ve got to try to persuade him to leave the country, or at least leave New York, before the police find him. And I should also make him see that he’s placing a group of nuns in danger.”
“But what if he’s with a group of ruffians down there,” Gus said. “Didn’t you say that he was working with anarchists? Those men wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”
“I can’t believe that nuns would let a group of anarchists hide out in their convent. This particular sister is passionate about the Irish cause and that’s why she must be hiding Liam. I’ll go cautiously.”
“We’re coming with you,” Sid said.
I shook my head. “Liam would surely hear more than one person coming. He’d hide or escape.”
“If you think we’re letting you go down into the bowels of a building alone, you can think again,” Sid said.
“I must speak with him alone. Don’t you see that?” I pleaded. “I tell you what. You can stand at the top of the stairs and watch out for me. You can delay any nun who might want to go down to the basement. And you can hear me if I call for help.”
“I suppose so,” Sid admitted grudgingly. She looked across for affirmation to Gus.
“I think Molly has to go the last bit alone,” she agreed. “And we don’t even know that he really is down there. It’s just Molly’s hunch.”
We went back up the steps. I had seen Sister closing the front door behind us and was pretty sure it wasn’t locked. We turned the handle and stepped back inside to the cool gloom.
“What do we say if one of the nuns catches us?” Gus whispered.
“We’ll tell them we’ve come to inspect the place as our ladies club is considering a charitable donation,” Sid said breezily. “People are always pleasant if they think you’re going to give them money.”
There was a flight of stairs going down where I had previously gone up. I glanced back at my friends then began to descend. At the bottom were several doors, and I heard women’s voices coming from what had to be a laundry judging by the sounds and smells. This was only the floor halfway below street level, I concluded. It probably housed the kitchen and scullery as well as the laundry. I moved along as silently as I could, looking for the way down to a floor below this. I didn’t think it was likely that anybody would choose to hide here, when this level was so obviously in use. I prowled most of the hallway, but discovered no stairs. I opened one door quietly and found myself staring at a broom closet. Another room had chairs stacked up in it. I had almost given up when I peered into a scullery and saw what looked like more steps in a far corner. I crept across, realizing that it would be increasingly difficult to explain my presence if I was spotted now. The stone steps did indeed go down into darkness, turning a corner so that I couldn’t see what lay beyond. The wall felt cold and damp to the touch as I inched my way down. The small square hallway at the bottom was in almost complete darkness, the only light coming from a tiny grating up at the top of the wall. I stood still, wondering what to do next. I felt my way along the right-hand wall until I made out the shape of a doorway. I tried the handle. It was locked. I tried a second doorway. Also locked.
Of course, I thought. If I were hiding out from the authorities, I’d keep the door locked too. I was just about to give up in frustration when I heard soft footsteps approaching. I stepped back hastily up into the stairwell and pressed myself against the wall as I heard one of the doors open with a click.
“Don’t stay outside too long this time,” a voice whispered. “Sister said you were almost spotted.”
“A man’s got to take a pee, doesn’t he?” the closer voice answered. “Besides, I’m going mad, cooped up in here like a caged beast. How much longer, do you think? Why won’t they tell us anything?”
“We’d have been out of here by now if those explosives had made it through safely, wouldn’t we?” The voice sounded remarkably like Liam’s. “Go on. Hurry up, for God’s sake.”
I was conscious of a figure moving past me. Then one of the locked doors clicked open and daylight came in. He had gone into a narrow area between buildings, where I supposed the WC was to be found. I didn’t wait a second. I darted through the half-open door into the room where I had heard the voices. It smelled of stale food and stale sweat and my senses recoiled. It was lit by one small oil lamp on a packing case on which the remains of two meals also reposed. Apart from that there were only two cots in the room and on one of these my brother was sitting. He leaped to his feet as I came in, fists up, ready to defend himself and a look of utter horror crossed his face as he saw me.
“For the love of God, Molly, what are you doing here?”
“I worked out who was hiding you. I have to speak to you, Liam, before the police find you. You’re a wanted man. They know you’re here, Liam. You have to get away while you can.”
“Do you think I don’t know all that?” He gave a bitter laugh. “And I would have been long gone if our original plans hadn’t been stymied. But I’m not leaving, Molly. I’m seeing it through.”
“What exactly is it you’re seeing through?”
“Something big, Molly. Something that is going to make the world sit up and notice that we Irish can’t be trodden on any longer.”
“Something that needed a lot of explosives,” I said.
“How the devil do you know that?”
“I heard your friend talking,” I said. “You’re going to blow something up, Liam.”
“No sense in denying it. We are.”
“You’re planning to destroy innocent lives to make your statement? How will that make the Irish look to the rest of the world?”
“Sometimes innocent lives have to be lost in a war. You know that. And this is war, Molly. War against the English until they give us home rule.”
“You put me in a difficult position, Liam. I’m married to a policeman. I can’t let you do this. But you’re my brother. I have to try and save you if I can. I don’t suppose I can make you come forward and tell the police what is being plann
ed.”
“Damned right you can’t. Do you think I’d betray the cause? It would be more than my life is worth.”
“Then I’ll give you twenty-four hours to escape before I tell my husband. That’s my best offer, Liam.”
He looked at me and I saw he was crying. “You give me no alternative,” he said. “You know I can’t let you go, don’t you? I should kill you now, but you’re my sister and you’ve the little one coming too and I can’t bring myself to do it. But I can’t let you get in the way of our plans either.” He glanced at the doorway then back at me in an agony of indecision. “My pal will be back any second. Go while you still have a chance to leave. You have to do what you think is right, just as I do.”
“You’re a brave man, Liam. Our mother would have been proud.” I stared at him for a long moment, taking in the features of his face. I longed to hug him, but I knew he wouldn’t want me to. Then I turned to go. But the doorway was blocked by a big man standing there.
“What’s this then?” he asked, coming inside and shutting the door behind him. “Having visitors now, are we?”
“She’s my sister, Barney. She came to warn me the police are onto me.”
“Did she now?” The big man was looking at me with cold, animal eyes. “And how did she find you? Did you contact her? Have you let your mouth run away with you again?” He lunged at me and his hand came over my mouth. “So will you do it or shall I?”
“Do what?”
“Kill her, of course. We can’t let her go. She’ll bring the police straight here.”
“I’m not killing my sister, Barney. And neither are you,” Liam said. “She’s on our side. She’s fought for the cause before now.”
“And you don’t think she’ll give us away? We can’t risk that, Liam. Nobody is supposed to know we are here. Nobody.”
