by Rhys Bowen
“Jacob doesn’t lurk, does he? He doesn’t seem the type,” Sid said.
“No,” I conceded. “He’s very well behaved as usual. Waiting patiently for my decision.”
“And I don’t think we’ve spotted Daniel lurking recently, have we?” Sid turned to Gus. “Not for the last few days anyway. Maybe he’s given up in despair.”
“He’s still writing to me,” I said. “At least a letter a day. I throw them all in the rubbish bin without opening them.”
“I call that rather devoted,” Gus said.
“Gus! We’re talking about Daniel the Deceiver! The man possesses all the worst qualities of the male sex—untrustworthy, flirtatious, and an all-round bounder,” Sid said fiercely. “He promises Molly he’s broken off his engagement one day, and the next he goes running back to that spoiled Arabella creature as soon as she snaps her fingers. Molly is quite right to ignore him. And Jacob Singer, too. He may profess that he’s no longer under the thumb of his family, but I know Jewish families, trust me.”
Since she came from one, I did trust her.
“It’s not only that,” I said. “I don’t want to marry just for convenience or security. There is just no spark with Jacob. He’s a good man. He’ll make some girl a good husband, only not me.”
“Quite right,” Sid said. “At least we’re all in agreement that women don’t need to attach themselves to a man to make them happy.” She glanced up at Gus with a smile.
I got up and walked across to the French windows. The first fierce rays of summer sun were painting the brick wall behind the tiny square of garden. “I just wish I knew what I wanted,” I said at last. “Part of the time I think I must be crazy to try and carry on the detective agency. But at least when I’m on a case I know I’m alive, and it’s exciting.”
“When you’re not fighting for your life, getting yourself shot or drowned, or pushed off bridges,” Gus said dryly.
I grinned. “So it’s a little too exciting sometimes. But I can’t see myself sitting behind a desk all day. Or being a governess to spoiled children, or a companion, for that matter. I can’t think of what other job would give me pleasure or prevent me from bumping into Daniel.”
“I don’t see why you are so worried about bumping into Captain Sullivan,” Sid said. “You’re not usually a shrinking violet who avoids confrontation or hesitates to speak her mind, Molly. You’ve faced anarchists and gang members without flinching. Surely you’re not afraid of a mere police captain?”
“Not afraid, no.” I looked away to avoid meeting her eye. “I just lose all common sense when he’s around. I know he’ll try to sweet-talk me into forgiving him, and I’m afraid I’ll be weak enough to listen to him.”
“You’re a strong, independent woman, Molly Murphy,” Sid said firmly. “Face him, tell him what you think of him, and get it over with.”
“You don’t know Daniel. He has too much Irish blarney in him. This time I have resolved to be strong. Never seeing him again is the only way of accomplishing this. And I fear that involves leaving the city.” I touched Gus’s shoulder as I walked across the kitchen. “Thank you for the breakfast. I am quite revived and restored, and I’m off to look up Nebraska on the map.”
I let myself out of their front door to the sounds of their renewed laughter. Then I paused, glanced down Patchin Place to make sure that it was devoid of life, before I sprinted across to my own front door opposite. This was no way to live, to be sure.
Silence engulfed me as I closed my front door behind me. No little high voice singing, no Shamey leaping down the stairs yelling, “Molly, I’m starving. Can I have some bread and dripping?”
My friends were right. I was missing the O’Connor children. I had felt myself encumbered by the O’Connors since I arrived in New York, but also responsible for them, since they had essentially saved my life. I had posed as their mother to bring them across from Ireland, when their own mother found that she was dying of consumption and not allowed to travel. Thus I had been able to escape Ireland with the police on my tail. So I could hardly abandon them. And the poor little mites with no mother, too. Seamus and young Shamey had gone to the country to be with Bridie during her recovery, Seamus hoping to find some kind of farmwork to support them.
As I stood lost in thought, there was a plop and the morning post landed on the doormat. I picked up two letters. The first, in Daniel’s black, decisive hand, went straight in the rubbish bin. The second a childish scrawl I didn’t recognize, liberally dotted with ink blots. I opened it and saw it was from the O’Connors.
Dear Molly,
My pa telled me to rite this as he don’t rite so good. (Little Shamey had clearly not benefited overmuch from his recent schooling). We’re doing fine here. Bridie is up and walking agin. Pa and me is camping out in a farmer’s barn and, we’re helping him with the harvest. You shud see me, Molly. I can lift great bales of hay jest like a man. Pa likes it so good out here, he says he don’t want to go back to the city where there is sickness and gangs and all. He’s trying to get a job all year on a farm. I wish you’d come out here and join us, Molly.
Then underneath in an even more illegible scrawl, “It don’t seem the same without you, Molly. I know there’s no question of love between us, but we get along fine, don’t we, and the children already think of you as their mother.”
I put down the paper hurriedly on the kitchen table. If I read this right, I now had three unwanted suitors. I wished I hadn’t left The Times over at Number Nine. Nebraska was sounding better by the minute!
TWO
An hour later I had come to one big decision. I was not going to mope around feeling sorry for myself any longer. Sid was right. All my life I had been a fighter not a coward. I should face Daniel, once and for all. I was going to put last night’s dream down to a sluggish liver and get on with my life. Having made this momentous decision, I decided to celebrate. Gus and Sid had been so good to me and I had imposed upon their generosity, giving little in return. So tonight I would cook them a grand dinner, as a thank-you. It would take my mind off things to keep myself occupied.
I wasn’t going to try and compete with the exotic fare that they ate, but I decided that I couldn’t go wrong with cold chicken and salad for a hot summer night. Chicken was a luxury I could ill afford at the moment, funds not being too plentiful. I hadn’t had an assignment since I returned from the mansion on the Hudson, almost a month ago now. And I was still owed my fee for that assignment. But since Daniel Sullivan was the one who owed it to me, I’d rather starve than ask him for it. I suppose my behavior could be construed as childish, but this time I was resolved to be firm.
I sat down to write an invitation to the Misses Goldfarb and Walcott, requesting the honor of their company at Ten Patchin Place for dinner at eight, and delivered it in person to their front door. When they accepted, I headed for a kosher butcher shop on the Bowery where I knew their chickens would be freshly killed and not have been hanging about for days with flies on them. I’d also stop off at the post office on Broadway to see if any mail had come addressed to Paddy Riley, former owner of P. Riley and Associates, from whom I had inherited the detective agency. The occasional commission still came in, and frankly at this moment I needed the work. It had been an expensive business maintaining a house and feeding two hungry youngsters.
On the corner opposite, the tall, strangely Eastern-looking tower of the Jefferson Market Building sent a shaft of black shadow across the early morning sunlight. Even at this hour the sidewalks were beginning to heat up. Smells of rotting vegetables and fruit wafted across to me, as barrows piled with fresher fare crushed them under iron wheels. A couple of policemen came out of the police station that was housed within the same building. I turned and hurried away toward Washington Square. Daniel had been known to emerge from that same police station, and I had unpleasant memories of spending a night in the jail there, having been mistaken for a lady of the night.
On the corner the newsboys were hawki
ng today’s newspapers. READ ALL ABOUT IT. THE EAST SIDE RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN.
I had been so intent on reading the advertisements in The Times that I had missed the sensational headline. But it screamed out from all the billboards around Fifth Avenue: Another prostitute found murdered. Ripper at work again.
“They ask for it, don’t they?” I heard one woman say to another as they picked up a copy of the Herald. “If you go into that line of work, you know what to expect.”
“Shouldn’t be allowed in a respectable city,” her companion agreed. “Good riddance I say. I hope he gets the lot of ’em.”
I shuddered as I hurried past. So yet another prostitute had been murdered. Four of them this summer, enough that the press now spoke of an East Side Ripper, following in the footsteps of London’s notorious mass murderer. Because the victims were prostitutes, there had been little public interest until the most recent murders. Many people agreed with those women I had overheard—immoral behavior like that was just asking for retribution.
It was so easy to dismiss crimes like this as happening in another world. Nothing to do with me, thank God. That was the general attitude. And yet I had spent a night in a jail cell with some of those women. They had been kind to me, and all I felt for them was pity. Those sad young girls with innocent faces hidden under rouge and lipstick could have been me when I first arrived, penniless, in New York.
I had just reached Broadway and joined the throng of pedestrians that seemed to populate that street at all hours when I had a sudden feeling that I was being followed. I glanced around but saw nobody I recognized. I quickened my pace but the feeling didn’t go away. I suppose you could say I was born with the Irish sixth sense. Well, it had stood me in good stead before, and I wasn’t about to ignore it now. Those headlines about the East Side Ripper flashed through my mind. Ridiculous, I told myself. Those murders were all done at night, the bodies all dumped on one of the streets known for their houses of ill repute. I was clearly not that kind of woman. It was broad daylight, and I was on Broadway. I was quite safe.
Even so, when I saw a chance to dodge between two streetcars and a dray carrying beer barrels, I took it and continued on the other side of the street. The feeling was stronger than ever. I stepped under the awning of a greengrocer’s shop and stood surveying the crowd. Nobody I recognized. Nobody who looked like an East Side Ripper either. Just ordinary housewives about their morning shopping before the day’s heat became too intense, businessmen on their way to appointments, children on their way to play. I noticed a young police constable, his familiar helmet bobbing above the crowd, and felt reassured. I could always appeal for help if I really needed to. So I set off again. When I came to Wannamaker’s, the dry goods store on Broadway, I paused, pretending to examine the hats in the window while in reality surveying the crowd that passed behind me.
At that moment a hand grabbed my shoulder. I looked around frantically for the policeman, then found that I was staring up into his face, and it was his hand that held me.
“Holy Mother of God,” I exclaimed. “You scared the daylights out of me, Officer. What do you think you are doing? Do I look like a pickpocket to you?”
His angular boyish face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I believe I know who you are. Miss Murphy, is it not? I was sent to find you by Captain Sullivan.”
“By Captain Sullivan?” I blurted out as the crowd parted around us. “Of all the nerve. He daren’t face me himself so he sends one of his underlings to do it now, does he?”
“I’m sorry, miss,” he repeated again. “But it’s important. Captain Sullivan really needs to speak to you, and you haven’t answered his letters.”
“Of course I haven’t answered his letters, and I don’t intend to speak to him either. That should be quite obvious by now. He and I have nothing more to say to each other.”
“So you won’t come with me to speak to him?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. You can tell Captain Sullivan that our acquaintanceship is at an end and I have no wish to speak to him again. And if he continues to annoy me, I’ll complain about him to his superiors. Is that clear enough for you?”
The young constable’s embarrassment grew. “Then I have no alternative, miss. I’m only obeying orders, mark you, but I’m placing you under arrest.” With that he clapped a handcuff onto one wrist before I knew what was happening to me.
I stared down at the wrist in horror and indignation. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! How dare you! Release me this minute or I’ll make the biggest fuss you can imagine.”
“I’m really sorry, Miss Murphy, but I’ve been told to bring you to Captain Sullivan and bring you I will, even if I have to carry you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I said. “Now let me out of this contraption at once.”
A crowd was gathering around us.
“Do you need any help, Officer?” A distinguished-looking man stepped forward. “Should I summon assistance for you?”
“I think I can handle her, thank you,” the constable said, “but she’s a feisty one, I’ll grant you that. A string of outstanding warrants for her arrest as long as your arm.”
“Don’t listen to him!” I shouted. “I’m being kidnapped against my will. I’m a respectable woman. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“If you could just hail that hansom for me, I’d be most grateful,” the constable said, wiping the sweat from his brow as I squirmed to break free of him.
The cabby reined in his horse, and I was bundled inside by willing hands.
“The Tombs, as fast as you can,” the constable shouted up to the driver, and we took off at a lively trot.
“The Tombs? Have you taken leave of your senses?” I demanded, suddenly feeling frightened. “You’re taking me to jail? On what charge? Is this Daniel Sullivan’s idea of a joke?”
The constable shook his head. “It’s no joke, miss. It’s deadly serious, I’m afraid, or the captain wouldn’t have had you brought in this way. But he had no alternative. He’s in serious trouble, Miss Murphy. He’s under arrest and being held in The Tombs pending his trial.”
I had been looking out of the hansom, wondering if I had any way of making my escape. Now I spun around to face the constable. “Daniel, under arrest? What has he done?”
“I’m not quite sure of the details, miss. He’ll have to tell you himself. I only know that the whole police force has turned against him. There’re only a few of us he can trust, me being one of them, and that’s why he sent me to fetch you. He needs your help.”
“He doesn’t deserve my help,” I said.
“But you will speak to him, won’t you? I don’t want to see a fine officer like Captain Sullivan going to jail.”
I sighed. “All right. I suppose I’ll have to see him.” Inside my head a small voice whispered that a stint in jail wouldn’t hurt Daniel Sullivan. It would serve him right. But even I couldn’t take revenge that far. “But I want this handcuff removed immediately,” I added. “I’m not going to be seen entering the city jail in handcuffs. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”
The constable grinned and clicked open the cuff. “Sorry, miss. Captain Sullivan would never have forgiven me if you’d done a bolt on me.”
I peered out of the cab as it turned onto Center Street and slowed outside the imposing pillared entry to the city jail, commonly known as The Tombs. The nickname came from the architecture, supposedly copied from an ancient Egyptian tomb. But it carried with it a more sinister connotation these days. People who were sent there for a stint didn’t always come out alive. The building was notoriously damp and the crowding led to typhoid, consumption, cholera—those same sicknesses that plagued the tenements and flared up during the heat of summer.
“Here we are, miss.” The constable sprang down and offered me his hand.
There had been some major rebuilding going on since I was last here. Scaffolding covered the whole of one wa
ll and the chink of masons’ hammers echoed as we emerged from the cab. A cloud of fine dust hung in the air. The papers had reported that the whole edifice was finally subsiding into the mud and in danger of collapsing on the inmates’ heads at any moment. Like many New York buildings, it had been constructed over a former stream or pond. Hence the continual complaints about the damp.
I coughed and put my hand to my mouth as I was ushered in through the front door. Inside was noticeably cool and dark after the heat radiating up from the sidewalks. An exchange I couldn’t quite hear took place between the constable and the officer sitting at a desk. The latter glanced up at me, nodded, then got to his feet and produced a giant set of keys.
“This way then,” he said. “Mind your step.” He led us down a long, dark hallway, finally opening a door into a bleak and Spartan room containing a couple of straight-backed chairs, both rather the worse for wear. He turned on a switch and the room was bathed in harsh electric light. The green paint on the brick walls was peeling in places so that the original brick showed through with interesting adornments of mold. It smelled moldy and damp too, with a hint of urine. If the building was being renovated, they clearly hadn’t reached this part of it yet.
“Wait here, please,” the warder said. “And just ten minutes, mind you, or it’s more than my job’s worth.” He retreated, shutting the door behind us with a hollow clanging finality. The constable offered me a chair. I sat and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Now that I was about to see Daniel again, my heart was pounding so violently that I could hardly breathe. Outside it had been so hot that my thin muslin dress was damp with perspiration. Now I started shivering. In fact, for one horrible moment, I felt that I might faint. Having never worn a corset in my life, I was not prone to swooning and the cold, clammy feeling was alarming. As I leaned back and closed my eyes, I heard distant footsteps echoing on a stone floor. Then a scraping sound as a partition was slid open in the far wall and I found myself staring at Daniel’s face through an iron grille.
