Tell Me Pretty Maiden

by Rhys Bowen

  “As it was she left me little chance to refuse,” he said. “I thought that today, being Sunday, we might take a trip to New Haven together. It is a day on which one usually finds people at home.”

  “I would love to,” I said, “but—”

  “But now you have a young woman upstairs who needs constant care. If you must have her here, Molly, then you’d better hire a nurse.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, “but I can’t locate a good nurse on a Sunday, can I?”

  “Your friends across the street, maybe?”

  “And I can’t keep asking them to do me favors. They lead very social lives.”

  He sighed. “I would have preferred not to go to New Haven alone. And I had hoped that, being Sunday, it would be the one night when you would not have commitments at that blasted theater.”

  “Your language in my presence is becoming remarkably coarse,” I said primly. “You sound like Blanche Lovejoy.”

  “She swears, does she?” He was looking amused now.

  “Like a trooper.”

  “And have you come face-to-face with the ghost yet? I saw the headlines in the newspapers. The press is lapping it up, making it sound as if the whole theater is under a curse.”

  “It’s not funny, Daniel. As a matter of fact I did witness the ghost yesterday. A jug of lemonade leaped off the table, all over Miss Lovejoy, and I’m dashed if I can explain how it was done.”

  “Nobody within reach to accidentally nudge the jug?”

  “Only two actors on the stage and neither of them touching the table.”

  “A piece of black twine, maybe? A quick jerk?”

  “I examined the jug and the table for something like that. There was nothing.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts, spirits, phantoms, or anything of that nature,” Daniel said. “Keep looking. There will be a logical explanation.”

  “In the meantime Miss Lovejoy left in hysterics and has threatened to close the show before it opens on Tuesday. She’s furious with me because I haven’t managed to apprehend the ghost yet.”

  “Then you sound as if you need a day out. Could the girl be left, if you put out food for her?”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “I’m not sure how steady she is on her feet. What if she wandered off again, or fell down the stairs.”

  “Blast it,” Daniel said, slapping a fist into his palm. “Isn’t there anybody you could call upon?”

  “Do you think your landlady would keep an eye on her?”

  “I suppose she might,” Daniel agreed.

  “We could take her in a cab, I suppose,” I said, “but I hate to disturb her again when she is finally lying peacefully. I have to go to the dispensary and have a prescription filled for a sedative for her. Dr. Birnbaum thinks that sleep is the best medicine at the moment.”

  “That’s it. Then she’ll sleep all day,” Daniel said.

  “Daniel, I can’t leave her, even if she’s asleep,” I said.

  “Then how do you plan to go to the theater every night?”

  “As you say, I’ll have to find somebody. Maybe the woman who comes in to do Sid and Gus’s ironing may know of someone. I’ll ask them.”

  As if on cue there was a light tap at the front door. My face lit up. “That will be them now.” I ran to open it, but no Sid and Gus stood there, instead an austere figure in navy blue.

  “Mrs. Goodwin,” I exclaimed. “How good of you to call. Come in, please.” I ushered her inside. “Look who is here, Daniel. You know Mrs. Goodwin, don’t you?”

  “Captain Sullivan,” she said evenly.

  “Mrs. Goodwin. How are you?”

  I noticed the difference in the responses instantly. Daniel’s was hearty, cordial, hers was restrained. Perhaps she still was not completely convinced that Daniel had had no part in the death of her husband at the hands of a gang. Or perhaps she was merely being deferential to a superior officer.

  “I am well, thank you, Captain Sullivan,” she said. “A little tired after several shifts on night duty.”

  “I know how that can be,” Daniel said. “In truth I long to be back with such inconveniences, rather than idling my hours away.”

  “Has your situation not resolved itself yet?”

  “And won’t be as long as John Partridge is police commissioner. I’m afraid that men like him do not want to lose face by admitting that they made a mistake. At the moment I am still on suspension, pending an inquiry which will probably never happen.”

  “That is too bad,” she said. “Your fellow officers often speak of you and wish you were back among them.”

  “Fortunately, Partridge may only be commissioner a few more weeks,” Daniel said, “and one hopes his replacement will look upon my case more favorably.”

  “Would you both like some tea?” I asked. “I haven’t yet acquired the skill to make coffee.”

  “Tea would be most welcome, thank you.” Mrs. Goodwin smiled at me. “I’ve come straight from night duty, but I thought you’d probably want to know the results of my investigation for you.”

  “Investigation?” Daniel looked at me inquiringly.

  “To see if any missing girls matched the description of our patient.”

  “Oh, of course. Good idea,” he said. “And have you come up with anything?”

  “I don’t believe so. Not based on the description that Molly gave me.” She took out a notebook and started reading off names.

  “Frieda Hupfer. German. Ran off with unsuitable young man. Believed heading for New York. Described as blond, five foot one, well padded.”

  “That’s not our girl,” I said. “She is sleeping upstairs. Come and see for yourself.”

  “You have her here now?”

  “Molly agreed to look after her for a few days, since she could no longer stay in hospital,” Daniel said quickly before I could reply.

  “That was most generous of you,” Mrs. Goodwin said.

  “I felt responsible for her, since I was the one who discovered her,” I said.

  We tiptoed up and looked at the sleeping girl. As we came down again Mrs. Goodwin shook her head. “Then I’d say that none of the young women on this list is she.”

  “We’ve placed an advertisement in the newspapers.” I poured boiling water into the teapot and set out cups and saucers. “And tomorrow we can revise it with a name. She has lost the power of speech but in her moaning we are fairly sure that she said the name “Annie.”

  Mrs. Goodwin scanned her list again. “I have no lost girl called Annie on this list,” she said, “but as I explained before, New York is a magnet. Girls from all over the country run away to the big city. This Annie could have started out in South Carolina or even California.”

  “It seems rather hopeless to me,” Daniel said.

  “I disagree,” I said. “Think of how she was dressed. She was dressed for an evening out. Silk dress, dainty shoes. That is not the mark of a runaway, nor a destitute girl. And she must have started out with some kind of outer garment, given the cold. She couldn’t have come too far wearing those shoes or they would have been completely ruined. As I see it, she was expecting a pleasant evening, something terrible happened, and she ran away. I still think that someone in New York is looking for her. I’m confident we’ll locate her loved ones.”

  “I’ll naturally keep my ear to the ground for any more reports of missing persons,” Mrs. Goodwin said, tucking her notebook back into her cape pocket. “You’ve undertaken quite a task here, I should think, Molly.”

  I placed cups of tea in front of them. “I’m going to have to hire a nurse,” I said. “I don’t want to leave her alone and I can’t be in the house all day. I don’t suppose you know where I might find a suitable woman?”

  “We could always ask my neighbor, Mrs. Tucker,” she said. “You met her when I was in that accident. She’s an awfully fussy woman. She’ll drive you crazy, but at least she is responsible and she likes to be useful.”

  “I remember her
,” I said. “I’d be most grateful.”

  “If she accepts, it will only take you a couple of days before you’ll stop thanking me.” She chuckled. “But at least she’s honest. And she will take care of the poor girl. As soon as I finish my tea, we could go and ask her.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I left Daniel minding the sleeping girl and went with Mrs. Goodwin to see her next-door neighbor. That good woman not only agreed to come back with me right away but insisted on bringing a pot of her freshly made soup with her as well. So I was able to go to the dispensary to have the prescription filled, then go with Daniel to New Haven.

  I hadn’t asked Mrs. Tucker how much she would charge for acting as nursemaid. I tried not to think about it, reasoning that I had an advance from Miss Van Woekem and I was going to make quite good money from the three cases I was currently handling. Daniel was obviously thinking along the same lines because, as the train came out into bright winter sunshine after leaving the Grand Central station, he said, “At least you’ll be making enough to pay that woman’s wages. We’d better hurry up and close your case with Mr. Roth. I think we can safely say he is reliable and responsible, don’t you?”

  “What about his financial reputation? Did you have a chance to check on that yesterday?”

  “It was Saturday and the banks closed at two, so I didn’t manage to accomplish everything I set out to do, but all indications were that he was a decent young fellow.”

  “I’m so glad,” I said.

  Daniel glanced across at me with a smile on his face. “Why should it matter to you if he is responsible or not?”

  “I like to conclude my cases in a positive manner,” I said.

  Daniel was still smiling. “Molly, you want to put the world to rights, that’s your problem. If you were with the police, like me, you’d learn that most of the time we don’t have it in our power to fix things. The world is a sad and broken place.”

  “Not for me,” I said. “I’m going to continue believing that I can help, here and there.”

  He patted my hand. “Molly, the eternal optimist.”

  We were rattling across the railway bridge that separates Manhattan Island from the area to the north known as the Bronx. There were signs of new housing developments springing up but the railway line soon veered off to the right and crossed a desolate stretch of marshland at the edge of Long Island Sound. Black channels wound between snow-covered flat stretches of marshland, with dried rushes sticking up along the banks and the occasional sorry-looking tree, bent by the prevailing wind. It presented a bleak, wild scene so close to the city. It made me shiver, just looking at it, and I found myself wondering if John Jacob Halsted had crashed his car anywhere near here and had wandered off to perish in this bleak expanse.

  “I don’t see the road,” I said. “Does it also cross the marshes like this?”

  “It goes farther inland to cross into Manhattan,” Daniel said, “but it will join the train tracks later on and more or less skirt the coastline all the way across Connecticut.”

  “I was wondering where Miss Van Woekem’s nephew ran his motor car into a tree,” I said. “If he hasn’t turned up yet, it’s possible he was dazed and wandered off into an inhospitable area like this one.”

  “I’m sure the police would have noticed if any tracks led away from the vehicle,” Daniel said, “but that is certainly something we should investigate further. I’ll see if I can persuade one of my acquaintances to lend us an automobile for a day. That way we could retrace the route he took.”

  “It does seem strange, doesn’t it? A student at Yale, from a rich family, one understands. Why would he want to steal, and especially why would he want to steal from a friend?”

  “Sometimes privileged young men like that do things as a lark, or because they have drunk too much or experimented with some kind of drug.”

  “But not shoot one of the servants in the process,” I said. “That sounds more like a hardened criminal. And you don’t really think he could be mixed up in the other robberies that have taken place along this route, do you? Breaking into a bank, robbing a pay wagon?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Daniel said. “I don’t know the boy myself. But I do know that even the best families can produce a wrong’un from time to time. Maybe he is weak and easily misled. Maybe he has run up terrible debts and was desperate to find a way to repay them.”

  “I find it very perplexing,” I said. “Especially as Miss Van Woekem described him as a gentle boy. Natures do not change however desperate one is. I do not think a gentle person could kill with so little thought.”

  Daniel nodded. “I tend to agree with you. Maybe he was not alone. He could have worked with a more violent partner. We’ll just have to see what facts come to light today.”

  We left the marshes behind and moved into more civilized countryside. Here the land was cultivated, tamed into fields with trees and hedges between them. Cows and horses stood in the snow around bales of hay. Smoke curled from the chimneys of solid farm houses. On our right we caught glimpses of the water. We passed icy ponds with skaters testing their luck. Buggies were leaving white-spired churches. It was the land of Currier and Ives and I gazed at it with satisfaction. I had rarely been out of New York and I enjoyed these occasional forays into a world that I knew so little about.

  The train stopped in one old brick town after another: Greenwich, Bridgeport, and at last we came into New Haven. My first impression, as we came out of the train station onto Union Street, was of a well-laid-out town of fine brick buildings, built around squares. On a Sunday it had a deserted feel to it, with closed shops and empty streets. One got the impression that the whole town was taking a snooze after a big Sunday lunch. There was little evidence of snow here and we walked with ease through the town, following the directions we had been given to Yale University.

  Yale’s ornate tower was unmistakable and we headed straight toward it. The university almost took my breath away, seeing it for the first time across a green park. The only equally impressive sight of my comparatively sheltered life had been my first views of Dublin and Trinity College. But these buildings, in their red hues of brick, were warmer and for some reason this made them seem older and more distinguished. Again the campus had a deserted feel to it, apart from the occasional student hurrying off with books tucked under one arm. We stopped a passing student and asked where John Jacob Halsted roomed. He looked at us with distaste, thinking us to be reporters or morbidly curious, no doubt.

  “We’re here on behalf of his family,” I added quickly and he directed us to a dormitory building. The porter at the door was equally hesitant to let us in to talk to the young men in residence, but relented when Daniel informed him that he was a police officer from New York City.

  “Such a tragedy.” The old man shook his head. “We were all stunned here, you know. I’d never have thought it of him.”

  “So you wouldn’t have classed him as a wild young man, who might do something impetuous and stupid like that?”

  The porter’s face became guarded. “Impetuous and stupid, maybe. I remember once he accepted a bet to walk along the parapet of the library roof. He made it too and almost got himself expelled afterward. But that’s the sort of thing one expects from students. It’s just high spirits, isn’t it? I’ve seen him come home the worse for wear, of course. And he has been caught trying to sneak in after curfew. But robbing and killing? That I can’t see.”

  “We are of the same opinion,” I said. “May we have a chance to chat with some of his friends, do you think?”

  The porter looked at me as if I were a talking parrot who had suddenly started spouting Shakespeare. “This is a gentleman’s hall of residence,” he said. “Young women are not allowed upstairs.”

  “I run the detective agency that is looking into Mr. Halsted’s disappearance for his family,” I couldn’t resist saying.

  “Detective agency. Fancy that.” The old man scratched his head. “I suppose I can
’t stop the police from asking questions, but I’d have to get permission for a detective agency.” His face conveyed the unsaid “especially one run by a woman.”

  “Then I’ll ask the questions,” Daniel said quickly, sensing that my Irish was in the process of being roused. “It will save you from getting permission. Correct?”

  “Right, sir. Much obliged to you.” His face registered relief. He pointed up a narrow staircase. “Now if you go up to the third floor, turn left, you’ll find the young gentleman’s room is the last one on the left. The rooms on either side of his are occupied by his closest friends. From what I gather, they are as baffled as I am about this whole nasty business, but maybe one of them can tell you something that will help you with your inquiries. Although the New Haven police have certainly grilled us all enough already.”

  “I don’t intend to do any grilling,” Daniel said. “Come, Molly.”

  Now I was definitely annoyed. “May I remind you that this is my inquiry and that you are aiding me?” I muttered as we mounted the creaky wooden stairs.

  “You saw how it is.” Daniel turned to answer me. “A lot of men don’t respond well to questions from a woman. We’re more likely to learn something if they think they are talking to someone official.”

  “Then next time don’t say ‘Come, Molly’ as if I were your dog.”

  “I apologize, Miss Murphy. Would you be good enough to accompany me up the stairs?” Daniel grinned as he glanced back at me. He thought the whole thing was amusing. I was beginning to think there was no getting through to men.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There was a distinctive smell to the building—old wood, furniture polish, and a hint of pipe tobacco. It was an old sort of smell, of a building that has existed for a hundred years or more. The upstairs hallway was narrow, wood-paneled, and dark. We made our way along it to the far end.

  “Let’s see if Halsted’s room is unlocked, first,” I suggested. “He may have left a letter or note that could be a valuable clue.”

  Good idea.” Daniel tried the door. It opened and we went inside. “Although I’m sure the local police will have been through his room thoroughly by now.”