by Rhys Bowen
“It’s going to be a long, weary night unless somebodyfindsus,” I said. “This is the second time in one day that I've been soaking wet. I'll be lucky if I don't wind up with pneumonia.”
“Here, come and sit beside me,” he said. “I can put my good arm around you.”
I sat. His arm came around me and he pulled me close to him. “I'm glad you're here with me,” he whispered, and kissed me gently on the forehead.
“I don't think we should start that kind of thing,” I said. “Maybe I should move away.”
“I don't want you to move away from me, ever,” he said.
“I don't think Miss Norton will welcome my presence in your happy home,” I said stiffly.
“Damn Arabella Norton! I want you, Molly. I've wanted you from the moment I saw you.”
Then he was kissing me and it was no gentle kiss on the fore-head this time.
“What about your shoulder?” I whispered.
“Damn my shoulder.”
I'll have to put the rest of what happened down to my weakened state and the heightened emotion of the day. For next thing I knew I was lying in his arms, his lips crushed against mine, feeling his heart thudding through the wetfabricof my dress. I was giddy with desire as his lips moved down my throat.
“We shouldn't,” I whispered, but I could hardly make the words come out.
“I'll tell her, I promise,” he whispered back as his hand moved down my thigh and pulled up my skirts. I think I helped him get them out of the way. I know I didn't protest enough.
When Irealizedthe next step was inevitable, a brief thought flashed through my mind that twenty-four was awfully old to be a virgin anyway. Then a moment of fear and uncertainly and then it wasn't at all like the old wives had whispered. When I cried out, it was in pleasure, not pain.
“I love you, Molly Murphy,” were the last words I heard before I fell asleep in his arms.
I awoke to a bright shaft of sunlight falling across my face. It took me a moment to realize where I was and when Daniel sighed gently in his sleep, I jumped a mile. He was lying beside me, looking so peaceful that I just stared at him. Then, of course, the full memory of last night returned. A silly grin crossed my face. I was with Daniel Sullivan and everything was going to be just fine.
When he awoke and gazed at me, a big smiled crossed his face too.
“Don't look at me. I must look awful,” I said. “I've no hairbrush and I fell in the mud and…”
“You look beautiful,” he whispered and kissed me tenderly.
When we went outside, we discovered that the trees behind the bam concealed a farmhouse. In no time at all we were riding in the farmer’s wagon back to civilization, where we learned that the horse and buggy had been found, unharmed, and there had been a search going on for us during the night. I was rather glad they hadn't found us.
By midday we arrived back at Adare.
“Why don't I wait out here at the gate while you give Barney the news?” I said, loathe to have tofacethe embarrassment of seeing Barney again.
“You've just found out that his son is still alive,” Daniel said. “Who could remain angry with news like that? You should be the one to tell him.” He took my hand. “And when were you ever afraid of an angry male?”
So I had no option. I was feeling distinctly nervous as Soames opened the front door, but I need not have worried. Bamey seemed as anxious as Belinda and Clara and grateful to know I was still alive. Only patchy news hadreachedthem of Joseph Rimes’s drowning and my apparent disappearance. As we gave Bamey the news about Brendan, a look of wonder spread over his face.
“My son alive?”
We nodded. “We have every reason to hope so.”
“My son alive,” he said again, then he sank his face into his hands and started to weep.
“Poor Theresa. If only she'd been alive to hear this. That rat Rimes—may he rot in hell for this.” I realized then that he cared for his wife more than I had thought. When he looked up, his face was resolute. “I'll find him, Sullivan. I don't care how much time and money it takes. I'll search this country from top to bottom. I'll offer the biggest rewardin the history of mankind, but I'm going to find my son again.”
His gaze focused on me. “You brought this about,” he said. “I said terrible things to you yesterday, but now I'll forever be in your debt. There will be a welcome for you at my home any time.”
“Thank you,” I said, noting that he had conveniently forgotten the circumstances under which Joe Rimes discovered us. If I came to his home again it would be under the escort of a good strong male, preferably Daniel.
“You are certainly some investigator, for a woman,” he added. “I don't know what gave you the idea my son was still alive and how you tracked him down.”
“Albert Morell’s character,” I said. “He loved children. And I always thought there had to be a mastermind behind the kidnapping—although I have to confess that I suspected your secretary.”
“Desmond?” He sounded surprised.
“Why else would such a bright and qualified young man choose to stay out here when New York City is just down the river?”
“Ah,” he said. “I think I can explain that. His father, you see, is in Sing Sing. Guilty of embezzlement. Desmond visits him whenever he can. And with that disgrace hanging over his head, a lot of jobs are barred to him. Since I've done a few crooked things in my own career, his family history doesn't bother me. He’s afinesecretary.”
He broke off as two automobiles came down the driveway, bearing the occupants of Riverside. Someone must have tele-phoned to tell them of our arrival. I glanced nervously to see if Justin was among them. He wasn't. Neither was Captain Cathers. I watched Arabella as she was assisted out of the car, looking delicate and lovely, her elfin face framed beneath a mauve silk parasol.
“Daniel,” she cried, and ran toward him.
I held my breath.
“We were worried sick about you,” she said. “Where were you?”
“We were following a lead about the Flynn baby,” Daniel said “and as you can see, we got trapped by the storm.”
She took in his crumpled suit, liberally caked with mud, then her eyes moved past him to where I was standing in the doorway.
“We?” she said icily.
“Miss Murphy was with me.”
“Miss Murphy? I understood this was Miss Gaffney.”
“Ah yes. Well, she was working for me. Undercover operation.”
“She seems to keep popping up with boringregularity,Daniel.” Arabella was eyeing me with distaste and suspicion. “What exactly was she doing with you?”
I held my breath.
“I told you, Arabella,” Daniel’s voice was harsh. “She’s an investigator. We were on a case. The creek rose and we couldn't get back. Please don't make a scene about nothing.”
I wanted to start breathing again but my breath wouldn't come. About nothing. The words resounded through my head. Nothing. I was nothing. I had let myself be fooled by the circumstances last night. Mrs. Van Gelder began cross-questioning Daniel and Barney. I chose the moment to slip away unnoticed. Once inside the house, I ran up the stairs, threw my belongings into the valise, then, while everyone was still chatting out in front of the house, I let myself out through the French windows in Barney’s study. I lugged my case along the cliff path all the way to the village, where I got a boat across to Peekskill and a train home.
Thirty-five
It was a long train ride back to the city. I felt like a coward for running out without saying good-bye to anyone at Adare, but truly my nerves had been stretched to breaking point. If I had had to be around Daniel and Arabella Norton for one more second, I would have cracked. Let Daniel finish sorting out matters with Bamey Flynn. As far as I was concerned, I had done what I came to do—more than I came to do, in fact. Hopefully I had given Bamey Flynn back his son. And Annie Lomax her good name, I realized. Joe Rimes had confessed to removing the child from the house and deli
vering him to Albert Morell. I would make sure the newspapers published this fact. Being able to tell her the good news was another reason I couldn't wait for the long train ride to end.
I thought of going straight to Broadway and seeing if I could locate her, but the draw of home was too strong. Patchin Place had never looked more inviting when I stepped out of the hansom cab. The cabby carried my heavy case to the front door of number nine, then I opened it and walked in. Nobody was home. The place was quiet and orderly No half-eaten jam sandwiches or toys on the floor. I put down my case and went across the street to Sid and Gus.
Their front door was opened immediately by Sid, wearing a Japanese kimono.
“Molly!” she exclaimed and I fell into her arms, fighting back tears.
“It’s so good to be home,” I managed to say.
“My dear girl, what have you been doing with yourself? You look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backward.”
“I have, and more.”
“Come on, into the garden where it’s pleasant today.” She took me by the hand and led me like a child. “Gus has made lemonade.”
Gus was sitting in a deck chair, fanning herself with a large Oriental fan, and she jumped up as she spotted me.
“She’s come home at last,” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around me. “I can't tell you how much we missed you. Not so much as a postcard, Molly. Shame on you.”
“I'm sorry. I wasn't exactly in a position to write postcards.”
“But we thought you were staying at a mansion on the Hudson,” Gus said, pouring lemonade as she spoke. “We used our spies to try to find which one, but nobody seemed to have heard of you.”
That’s because I was under an assumed name.”
“Ah. Clandestine, of course.” Sid and Gus nodded to each other. “So did it go well? Did you return bathed in glory?”
I shook my head and felt again that I might cry at any moment. “I suppose I did what I set out to do, but—”
“She’s tired, Sid. Let her sit and rest before we grill her,” Gus said, patting my hand.
I sat in the shade of their plane tree and sipped lemonade.
“Where is everyone at number nine?” I asked. “Don't tell me that Seamus finally has a job?”
Then I saw their faces. “What? What’s wrong?”
They tried to contact you, Molly, but nobody knew where you were. Bridie caught typhoid. They took her to the fever ward at St. Vincent’s Hospital.”
“Oh, no—is she going to be all right?”
They looked at each other.
“It’s a terrible disease. People have been dropping like flies.”
I jumped up. “I must go to her right away.”
They tried to dissuade me but I ran past them like a madwoman. If I had been here, this wouldn't have happened, I kept telling myself—although I knew that she wasn't my child and not even my responsibility. As I came out of Patchin Place and turned past the Jefferson Market, I opened my mouth in horror as I realized some-thing. The Sorensen Sisters were not fakes after all. That child in the veil at the seance—it wasn't somebody’s niece at first communion. It was a little girl dressed as a bride so that I would recognize her. The message had been for me. Bridie was now with her mother in heaven and she had come to tell me she was all right.
I fought back tears all the way up Seventh Avenue to the hospital. It was a futile mission. If she had really been dead since the stance, then she would no longer be lying in a hospital bed. She'd have been buried days ago. But I kept on running, pushing my way past crowds of people, out shopping for their evening meal.
Stories don't really have happy endings, I told myself. I had gone from the heights of elation to the depths of despair in one day. To have been betrayed by Daniel the coward and then to have lost this precious child was almost more than I could bear. I forced my way in through the front door of St. Vincent’s Hospital and heard a crisply starched nurse shouting at me as I ran down a tiled hallway. She grabbed me and shook me to my senses.
“Where in heaven’s name do you think you are going?”
“I've got to see her,” I babbled. “She wouldn't have died if I'd been there. I have to see her.”
“See who?”
“Bridie O'Connor. She had typhoid.” 'You'll most certainly not be allowed anywhere near the typhoid ward,” the nurse said. “Go back to the waiting room. Someone will deal with you.”
She forced me around and shoved me back down the hallway. As I entered the waiting room, I heard someone calling my name. Young Shamey came running down the hall toward me.
“Molly, you're back!” He flung himself at me with uncharacteristic affection.
“I came as soon as I heard,” I said. “Where is she? They haven't buried her yet, have they? I do want to see her.”
They won't let you see her,” Shamey said. “Nobody’s allowed in the contagious ward. But she’s doing better. They say she’s sitting up and eating broth.”
“Sitting up?” I stammered. “You mean she’s not dead?”
“No. She’s doing fine. Getting better every day,”
Seamus came running to meet me. “You've heard the grand news then, have you? Sitting up and sipping broth.” He wiped a big hand across hisface.1 tell you, Molly. I thought we'd lost her fora while there. She hung between life and death for a couple of days. We tried to contact you, but nobody knew where you'd gone.”
“I'm sorry I wasn't here, Seamus,” I said, “but it is indeed grand news.”
“We certainly needed something cheer us up,” he said. “We got another piece of news while you were away. My dear Kathleen died last week.”
I crossed myself. “Out of her suffering at last, God rest her soul.”
So die Sorensen Sisters might just have been right after all— maybe Bridie did meet her mother during those days when she hung between life and death. The important thing was that she had come back. There was still hope. Life seemed to be one succession of good news and then bad. Ups followed by downs. But there was always enough hope to keep on going. I'd survived a lot before. I'd live through this latest setback. I'd get by without Daniel Sullivan. After all, I had a little family who needed me, friends who loved me, and an ex-nanny who was going to be very pleased to see me. I resolved to take the trolley to her patch on Broadway this very minute and give her the good news.
“Molly, where are you going?” Shamey asked, grabbing my hand. “I just have to go and see a lady and tell her some news,” I said. “Ill be back right away.”
“But Molly,” he said, clutching my hand more tightly, “I'm starving. Couldn't we go home first and you make me some bread and dripping?”
I smiled down at him. “Come on, then,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
Historical Note
The mansion, Adare, does not exist. I decided to create a fictitious house for Senator Flynn as I didn't want any real history attached to it. I also needed it to be on the side of the Hudson where there is no railway line!
The spiritualist movement in the late nineteenth century was extremely popular and produced some incredibly slick mediums. I read every book I could find on the subject and was disappointed that many of their most spectacular stunts were never explained. These included disembodied hands writing messages, talking heads, violins playing by themselves—all at a time when the most primitive phonograph had only just been invented.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Rhys Bowen’s next
Molly Murphy Mystery
Oh Danny Boy
Coming soon in hardcover from St. Martin’s Minotaur
New York, August 1902
There was that maniacal laughter again. I looked around but I couldn't detect where it was coming from. It seemed to be part of the very darkness itself. Black water lapped up at me as I stepped onto the iron lace of a walkway. I thought Icould hear a child’s voice calling, “Save me, save me,” and I started toward it. But beneath me were other faceless forms and they held up white
arms to me, calling out, “Help us first.”
The laughter grew louder until it was overwhelming. I started to run. Water splashed up at my feet and when I looked down at my shoes they were black. That’s when I noticed it wasn't water at all. It was blood.
I woke with my heart pounding and sat up, my hands grasping the cool reality of the sheet before I realized I was in my ownroom. I sat still for a while, conscious of the empty quiet of the house around me, wondering what the dream might mean. It was the third time I had dreamed it this week. The first time I put it down to an exotic Mongolian meal at my friends' house across Patchin Place (they were into a nomad phase at the moment). But dreaming the same thing three times must mean more than just plain indigestion.
Back in Ireland dreams were always taken seriously. My mother would have been able to interpret mine for me in a wink, although I rather think her interpretation would be influenced by the fact that I was rude, didn't mind my elders, and was heading for a bad end. But I recall the women sitting around in our cottage over a cup of tea, debating whether dreaming of a black cow meant future wealth or a death in the family. What would they say about an ocean of blood? I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself.
My life had certainly been in turmoil since I had returned from my assignment on the Hudson, but I couldn't think what could have sparked such a terrifying nightmare. There Was my frightening ordeal in the river, of course. That might have prompted me to dream of water. And I had almost lost little Bridie O'Connor to typhoid. She was still far from well and had been sent to a camp for sickly city children in Connecticut, run by the ladies at the settlement house on Sixth Avenue. Was it her voice I had heard in the dream? Had she been calling for me to come to her? Should I havegone to the country to be with her?
I got up and walked across the landing feeling the cold of the linoleum under my bare feet. I paused at what had been Bridie and Shamey’s door, almost expecting to hear the children’s regular breathing. But the only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantel downstairs. I shivered suddenly, although it was still midsummer and the night was warm. I went back to bed, but I was afraid to sleep again. It occurred to me that this was the first time in my life that I'd been alone in a building. Normally I would have been proud to be mistress of my own establishment, but at this moment all I felt was overwhelming loneliness. I sat hugging my knees to my chest, staring out of the window at the shadows dancing on the houses across the alleyway. When the first streaks of dawn showed inthe sky, I got up and made myself a cup of tea, drinking it with one eye on the front window until I saw my neighbor Gus, go out to buy their breakfast rolls from the Clement Family Bakery around the comer on Sixth Avenue.
