Death of Riley

by Rhys Bowen

  He wasn't on the stairs. Enough light came through the glass pane at the top of the front door to highlight the shape of the hallstand and to shine on the middle of the staircase. He could, of course, be standing at the top of the staircase, waiting for me to come past. In which case, maybe the glint of a long blade in my hand might dissuade him. My breath sounded as noisy as a puffing steam engine and I pressed my lips together to stop the sound from escaping. I drew level with the hallstand. I had reached the front door and still nothing moved. My hand reached for the door handle. One turn, one tug, and I'd be free.

  At that moment I heard an intake of breath behind me. I spun around as a dark shape leaped from the drawing room doorway.

  “Stay away from me, I'm armed!” I shouted loudly, waving the knife. I lashed out as he came at me and I saw the glint of metal in his hand. He also had a knife, though not as big as mine. He went to stab and I parried with my knife. There was a satisfying clash of metal and for a wild second I felt as if I was playing the part of D'Artagnon. As soon as this vision flashed through my head the knife came again and I was reminded forcefully that this wasn't playacting, it was real. He made another jab and as I reached to parry, he grabbed my wrist.

  “I should have killed you then,” he hissed in a voice little louder than a whisper. His face was close to mine. It was then that I saw his eyes. I had seen those eyes before, in the second before he leaped at me in Paddy's office— that intense, desperate, burning gaze of hate or panic, or both. I struggled violently, trying to free my hand from his grasp.

  “How much … did he tell you … The old guy?” he demanded. The words came out between jerks of my arm, trying to get me to drop my knife. I responded with a hefty kick at his shins and a stomp on what I hoped were his feet. I heard another intake of breath, which indicated I might have struck my mark. I fought to get my wrist free but his grip was like steel. At least while I was flailing around with my own knife only inches from his face he wouldn't find me an easy target. His knife flashed toward me. I put up my free arm and the blade sailed harmlessly through the fabric of my leg-of-mutton sleeve. I mouthed a silent thank-you to Gus for providing me with such out-of-fashion garments. There was the sound of cloth ripping as he wrenched the knife free from the fabric. It caught for a moment and I decided to try his own tactic. I made a grab for the wrist that held the knife. My fingers closed around it—a slim wrist, slim as a woman's—and I held on. He let out a growl and hurled me back against the front door. My head crashed against the solid oak and sparks shot across my vision.

  “Who did you tell?” he growled and braced to slam me against the door again. It occurred to me, as ridiculous thoughts often do at moments of crisis, that I should try to lead him on and find out what he thought I knew. But I didn't answer him for the simple reason that every ounce of my strength was needed that moment to stay alive. Obviously I couldn't keep going like this much longer. I could annoy and delay him for a minute or two, maybe, but he would have to triumph in the end.

  But I certainly wasn't going to give in without a good fight. I had sparred and wrestled with my brothers in the past, but this was very different. They had been younger than me, and they hadn't been trying to kill me either. I cursed my stupid skirts that encumbered my attempts to deliver a kick where it might do the most damage, but I did manage to connect with his shins again. Then he used all his weight to slam me back against the door once more. As I braced to connect with the solid wood, the door miraculously opened. I felt myself falling backward into blackness, with my attacker pitching on top of me. I struck the ground. The wind was knocked from me. The knife clattered from my hand.

  Then I was aware of my name being called, of shouts and screams. Figures were flailing and grabbing at my attacker. “Grab him round the throat, Gus!”

  “Watch out, he's got a knife”

  I summoned my own strength to bring up my knee as hard as I could and heard a satisfying yelp of pain. At that moment Sid snatched up my own knife, yanked back the stranger's head and held the knife to his throat. “Drop the knife this instant, or I'll cut your throat,” she commanded.

  The knife fell to the ground beside me. Gus snatched it up.

  “Get up,” Sid said, my knife still at his throat.

  She half-dragged him to his feet by his hair. I scrambled to my feet.

  “Did you think because we were women we were easy pickings?” Sid demanded. “Go into the kitchen and get string, Molly. We'll tie him up and then go for the police.”

  I ran through to the kitchen and found the ball of string in the drawer. As Gus and I attempted to bring his arms behind his back, he lashed out like a madman, sent Sid sprawling to the cobblestones and took off down Patchin Place.

  “Are you all right, Sid dear?” Gus dropped to her knees beside her.

  Sid sat up and put her hand to her mouth. “I think so, apart from a bloody lip and a nasty bang on the back of my head. But I'm fiirious that we let him get away.”

  “We didn't let him. He was just too strong for us,” Gus said. “I'll go for the police. You and Molly get inside and take care of your wounds.”

  “No,” I exclaimed. “Don't go for the police yet.”

  “Why ever not? They can catch him before he gets too far away.”

  “It's useless,” I said. “A young man, dressed all in black? Half the inhabitants of the Village fit that description. Did you get a good look at his face?”

  “Not really,” Sid said. “It's too dark out here and it was all so sudden.”

  “I hardly had a chance to get a good look at him,” Gus said.

  “Then we will just look foolish if we call the police,” I said. “Let us be thankful that we are all relatively unharmed.”

  “At least he had to flee without his loot,” Gus said. “Loot?” I asked.

  Sid nodded. “He was most certainly a burglar, wasn't he? Why else would you have surprised him in our house?”

  She led the way down the front hall, felt for the matches, then went on to the kitchen, where the gas bracket lit with a satisfying pop and warm, friendly light flooded the kitchen.

  “I'm afraid it was my fault,” I said. “I went out leaving the French doors ajar. He could have come in that way.”

  “Don't blame yourself, Molly,” Sid said. “We often leave doors and windows open on hot evenings. It could have happened to any of us.”

  “I don't think so,” I said. Shock was beginning to set in and I was shaking all over. I sank to the nearest chair.

  “Some brandy, Sid. She looks as white as a sheet,” Gus said. She came and put an arm around my shoulder. “Poor Molly. You've had a most terrible shock. How brave of you to fight him off, when he had a knife, too.”

  “I heard a floorboard creak and grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer,” I said. “That held him at bay for a little while. But if you hadn't come home when you did, I should surely have been dead by now.”

  Sid handed me the brandy. “Get that down you and you'll feel better,” she said. “I'm going out to retrieve his knife. There will be fingerprints on it.”

  “No, there won't,” I said. “He was wearing dark gloves.”

  “Damn,” Sid muttered. “I'll retrieve it nonetheless. And our knife, too.”

  She went outside and as she came back, I heard her laughing.

  “Molly, my sweet,” she said as she came into the kitchen, “Next time you attempt to defend yourself against an armed intruder, I'd choose something other than this.”

  It was then that I realized the knife I had selected had been the large fish server, with broad, curved blade and rounded edges—not sharp enough to cut anything tougher than a poached salmon.

  Twenty–Four

  “I wonder what he was trying to steal?” Gus said as she attended to Sid's cut Up with warm water and iodine. I, amazingly, had come through my ordeal almost unscathed, apart from a bump on the back of my head and a nick on my upper arm where the intruder had succeeded in stabbing my sleeve. But
I was just now beginning to face the reality of the attack and felt decidedly wobbly.

  “As soon as I've done your lip, I'll scout around and see if anything has been moved,” Gus went on, dabbing efficiently as she talked. “Of course, Molly could have surprised him too soon, when he'd just got here.”

  I sat in a turmoil of indecision. Should I let them go on thinking it was an attempted burglary, or should I tell them the truth? I decided they had a right to know. Their lives might have been at stake, might still be at stake if I didn't take action.

  “It was no burglary attempt,” I said, sitting up and removing the ice pack from my head. “I'm afraid I have been less than honest with you. You have just saved my life. I owe you the truth.”

  “You're really a gangster's moll,” Sid exclaimed delightedly.

  “No, I'm really a private investigator,” I said. “Well, that's a slight exaggeration. I was working for a private investigator and I was there when he was murdered. My attacker tonight was the same man who killed my employer.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  “No and I've spent the past few weeks trying to figure out who might have wanted to kill Mr. Riley.”

  “And what conclusion have you come to?”

  “I thought I was no nearer to solving the case. The police sergeant assigned to it decided that it might be a gang's retaliation. I didn't believe that, because I surprised the killer ransacking Paddy's office, and I know he returned on a later date, still looking for something.”

  “How dashed exciting.” Sid perched on the table beside me. “So who do you think the killer might be, Molly?”

  “I'm still not sure, but this isn't the first attack on me. Someone followed me into the theater the other night.” Then something else struck me. “And this only started after I went with Ryan to visit the group run by that strange Emma person.”

  “Emma the anarchist?” Sid asked. “I met her once. She tried to recruit me to write articles for a radical journal she was editing. It was a little too radical, even for me.”

  “You think Emma could be behind this, do you, Molly?” Gus asked. “You think she might have sent someone to murder your employer?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “All I know is that I wasn't personally threatened until I went to her meeting. It could easily have been one of the young men I met there who attacked me. They all looked very much like the man tonight.” Again I remembered the uneasiness that had grown during that evening at Schwab's, the feeling that I was being watched as I left with Ryan.

  “So why won't you go to the police?” Gus asked. “If someone is threatening your life, they should do something.”

  “Because I have no facts yet, just a lot of suppositions.”

  “Someone tried to kill you,” Gus said. “I'd say that was a pretty conclusive fact.”

  “What will you do now?” Sid asked.

  “I must move out of here in the morning,” I said. “I have already abused your hospitality by staying as long as this, and now I have put you in danger. I'm very sorry. It was selfish of me.”

  “Move away just when things are getting exciting?” Sid demanded. “You don't think we'll let you escape now, do you? Besides, you need two efficient bodyguards like us.”

  “You were wonderful,” I said. “The way you held that knife to his throat.”

  “Thank God I didn't know I was wielding a fish sheer or I might not have sounded so confident.” Sid broke into laughter again. “Will you try and find him and bring him to justice yourself?”

  “I'm going to visit Emma in the morning,” I said. “It's possible that she is involved in this and that she put one of her young men up to it, but it's a risk I've got to take. From what she said, she doesn't believe in violence, so I'm counting on her help.”

  In the morning I had to dissuade Gus and Sid from coming with me.

  “Three of us might look a little intimidating,” I said.

  “Oh, Molly, don't be such a spoilsport,” Gus said. “You know we're dying to be sleuths and bring the criminal to justice.”

  “I think I have to visit Emma alone,” I said, “but you could certainly help me by asking at the various neighborhood taverns if a young man in black came in last night, out of breath and distressed. He must have been distressed when he ran away, don't you think?”

  “Good idea. We can certainly do that, can't we, Gus dear,” Sid said. “I wish we'd managed to get a better look at him. I'd love to apprehend him and make him pay for my cut lip and your bruises, Molly.”

  “This isn't a game, you know,” I said. “This man is a violent killer. I was lucky that I heard a floorboard creak last night or I would have suffered Paddy's fate.” I touched Sid's arm. “Promise me you will be discreet and careful. And don't mention my name.”

  Having extracted promises from them, I set off for the house on West Eighth Street. When the door was opened by the old European woman, she stood there shaking her head.

  “Not here no more,” she said. “She gone.”

  “Gone—gone where?”

  She shrugged. “Home. She gone home.”

  “Do you know where her home is?”

  She shrugged again. “Chicago, maybe? Somewhere over there.” She pointed vaguely in a direction that may have been west.

  “Do you have an address for her?”

  Yet another shrug.

  Not much help. Now I would have to think of another way of identifying my attacker. The logical thing would be to ask Ryan. He must know at least some of the people in Emma's group, although… I stopped short, standing poised at the curb about to cross Eighth Street. What if Ryan himself was involved? RO with LC. I shook my head in disbelief. Ryan—dear, sweet Ryan somehow involved in planning my death? It was too absurd to think about. And yet the first incident had happened in the darkness at his theater. He had claimed he didn't know I was there, but he could have known. And he had arrived at our front door not long after I got home. Was that to check if I had made it home safely?

  “Absurd,” I said out loud. “Rubbish.”

  I had been alone with Ryan on several occasions, including the other night after we left Emma. If he had wanted to kill me, there would have been ample chances. A quick shove under the hooves of a passing carriage would have been enough. But instead he had insisted on escorting me home safely. Besides, I didn't want to believe he was involved.

  I wasn't sure what to do now. Maybe Sid and Gus were right and there was no alternative but to go to the police. I should meet with Daniel. He would know what to do next. Of course, he'd be furious with me that I had continued to poke my nose into this case after he had specifically forbidden me to get involved. But a lecture from Daniel would be preferable to winding up stabbed in a dark alleyway. I knew I would never feel safe until my attacker was caught.

  If only I had some kind of evidence to present to Daniel. Apart from Paddy's little black book which I had deciphered, all I had were hunches and suppositions. And the fact that I had recognized my attacker—that he thought I was spying on him. Not much to go on. Of course, when the photos were ready, I might indeed have something worth showing.

  I decided to take the bull by the horns and went straight to the photographer's shop on Broadway. I knew a week had not yet passed, but if I stressed the urgency to him, maybe he'd be understanding and work on those photographs right away. He greeted me with an unfriendly “Oh, it's you” as I came into the shop.

  “Sorry to trouble you, but I just wondered …” I began.

  “If the photos were ready yet?” he finished for me. “Been ready for days. You made such a fuss that I thought you'd be back here pestering me long before this.”

  He pulled open a drawer below the counter and took out an envelope. “Here you are,” he said. “That will be one dollar, on account of the rush job.”

  “One dollar?” I demanded, horrified at such extortion.

  “Do you want them, or don't you?” The man pulled open the drawer again, r
eady to replace the photographs. Hurriedly I paid him and stepped outside. A gray morning had become progressively grayer, and now raindrops were spattering on the pavement. I stepped under the awning above the butcher's shop next door and carefully removed the prints from their folder. They weren't exactly photographic masterpieces—most of them dark, and blurred as well. I recognized Lord Edgemont leaving the house on Gramercy Park with a glamorous lady who had to be the famous Kitty. Then there was a snapshot of them entering what was presumably Delmonico's. There was also one taken in their private dining room, but it was too dark and blurred to identify either of the shadowy forms at the table apart from Kitty's outrageous hat.

  Then I came to a picture that literally took my breath away. RO and LC at O'Connor's. It was dark again, of course, but I could just make out Ryan's handsome, smiling face as he leaned close to another man. And the other was a skinny young man wearing a black worker's cap. He had haunted, hollow eyes. He could easily have been my assailant. What is more, I recognized him. He had sat at the far end of the table at Schwab's Tavern that night.

  A couple more pictures followed. Ryan and the same man, bent over a sheet of paper on a tabletop. And then the biggest surprise of all. I found myself staring at a picture of Sergeant Wolski talking with another man I didn't recognize. Had Wolski been involved in this? He had certainly responded quickly after Paddy's death. Did that mean he had been lurking in the neighborhood, even keeping watch while the dark fellow did the killing? He had done the most perfunctory of searches of Paddy's office, and made sure I was hustled out of the way. And he had seemed interested in Paddy's camera, too. Did he realize there might be incriminating evidence against him?