Tell Me Pretty Maiden

by Rhys Bowen

  “And Desmond Haynes?”

  “Dear Desmond? Well, between the two of us, my dear, his interest doesn’t lie in girls. We had a brief relationship once but it led nowhere. I could see at the time that his thoughts were straying in other directions. And he is the consummate professional. He would never do anything to damage the success of his show. He’s with the girls now at the rehearsal studio, you know. Putting them through their paces once more before they take to the stage tonight. He’ll work himself into an early grave, will our Desmond.”

  “Then somebody else?” I said. “Can you think of anybody who might have joined this company harboring a secret desire to get revenge on you?”

  She laughed again. “If it was a secret desire, how would I know about it? But the answer is that nobody in the cast knows me well enough to want revenge. Our paths have only crossed when we have been part of the same company, and frankly, I was always the star—set quite apart from the rest of them.”

  She patted my shoulder as if I were a slow child. “I’m sure you mean well and you’re trying really hard, but I think you’re wasting your time, and mine. You haven’t been able to find out the truth or to protect me so far, so I’m afraid I have to conclude that you don’t possess the skills to solve something as bizarre as this. So maybe we should call our relationship quits. I’ll pay you for the time you’ve put in and that will be that.”

  “Miss Lovejoy,” I said, angrily now, “last night you were almost killed on the stage. If you had been standing another foot to the left, that pillar would have crashed onto your head. Now, I don’t believe it was a ghost that gave that pillar a shove. I believe it was someone backstage. Maybe more than one person in a conspiracy, and I would like to get to the bottom of it. It appeared to me that your mark onstage had been deliberately moved, although I can’t prove this. I ask you to give me another week at least. Either that or call in the police right away and have guards stationed around the stage area.”

  She considered this, frowning. “It would make everyone so nervous, having great burly men stationed everywhere.”

  “And it doesn’t make them nervous having pillars fall and nearly kill people?”

  She sighed. “Maybe you are right. I wish I knew what was best. I tried to keep this away from the newspapers, but now look what’s happened—everyone witnessed that pillar falling last night, so now the whole country knows about it. I don’t want to be defeated but I don’t want to live in constant fear, either. I am at my wit’s end, Molly. My wit’s end.”

  She put her hand up to her head in a wonderfully dramatic gesture.

  “Give me a few more days, Miss Lovejoy,” I said. “Then I really think that you should call in the police.”

  “Very well,” she said. “I am in your hands, Molly.”

  I left her and conducted a quick tour backstage. No wires attached to pillars, nothing suspicious or dangerous to be seen. I went back to my dressing room and got ready for the evening’s performance. The curtain went up. The house was packed. One could sense the electricity in the air. Was the ghost going to make an appearance? I could feel them all holding their breath, prepared to be scared and delighted at the same time. But for once the ghost was well behaved, and we went through the whole performance with no incidents at all.

  “Maybe the ghost has realized he can’t make Miss Lovejoy quit,” one of the girls was saying as I came back into the dressing room after the curtain calls.

  “She’s a tough lady all right,” someone else agreed. “Look how she stood there calmly last night and said the show must go on. I got chills up and down my spine.”

  “It didn’t hurt our attendance, did it?” another girl chimed in. “Miss L. was terrified it would keep the people away if the news got out, but look at tonight’s crowd. They couldn’t wait to see the ghost for themselves.”

  “Yes, well, I have some ideas on that score,” Lily said, then went on calmly untying her ballet slippers.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She flung a ballet shoe into her box.

  “How was your beau last night?” I asked.

  She looked at me as if I were a worm that dared to address her. “It’s none of your business,” she said. “But let’s just say that he wasn’t my cup of tea, and when it came down to it, he was downright stingy with the money he put out.” She turned to Connie. “And he had some funny ideas,” she muttered, thinking I wouldn’t overhear. “Lucky for me I got a whiff of what he wanted to do before we left the restaurant. So I played the distressed virgin. Great tears trickling down my cheeks. Imploring the saints. That always works. He took me home.”

  “What did he want to do?” Connie asked.

  Lily whispered something into her ear. Connie went bright red. “He never did?” she demanded. “The louse.”

  I came out of the theater into the throng in the alleyway. Mr. Roth was there again. I wondered if, in the interests of good investigation, I should go with him myself tonight, but I reasoned that I didn’t have Lily’s skills in making a getaway at the right moment.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I opened my eyes to the smell of freshly brewing coffee again, lay contentedly for a moment, then wondered why I had such butterflies in my stomach. I had already made it through my first two nights onstage. It wasn’t Christmas. But something big was about to happen. Then I remembered and sat upright. This morning I was to meet Annie’s betrothed, and by tonight she could be safely among those who could take care of her.

  I came down to a breakfast laid on the kitchen table, and a tray ready for our girl upstairs. It struck me that having Mrs. Tucker to stay overnight again had not been such a bad idea.

  “Well, here we are then,” she said. “Maybe the last meal I shall make for the poor, dear soul.”

  “I am very grateful, Mrs. Tucker,” I said. “I believe you’ve made all the difference to her.”

  “I’ve done my best,” she said, looking pleased. “I think I was born to be a nurse, you know. If I hadn’t married Mr. Tucker, I’d have maybe gone into nursing. And how was I to know that the louse would go and die at forty, when it was too late for me to take up a useful profession?”

  She picked up the tray. “I’ll just take this up to her. The doctor should be here soon. Between you and me I don’t think he’s doing a darned thing to help the young thing. Just makes her cry most days and then tells us he’s making progress.”

  Up the stairs she went like a ship in full sail. I sat down and helped myself to the oatmeal and toast she had prepared. I had just finished when Dr. Birnbaum arrived.

  “A momentous day, wouldn’t you say, Miss Murphy? I just wish I could be here to see the young lady handed into the care of her loved ones.”

  “You can’t stay?”

  “Unfortunately, I am to address the New York medical society at a luncheon today. I have to be there by eleven thirty and I must go over my speech before that. It is a very important occasion for me. There are many doctors who still resist the thought that the mind is something that can be treated by scientific methods, that dreams are mirrors into the world of the subconscious.”

  “Then I wish you luck,” I said, “although I also wish you could be here to help me decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Whether to let the girl go with this Laslo person.”

  “My dear, if he brings proof that he is her family, then you have no choice but to release her to him. It’s not up to you to judge.”

  “I suppose not.” I sighed. “I’ve come to feel so responsible for her.”

  “I’m sure it will all turn out magnificently. Maybe one sight of the young man who is her betrothed and her memory will return instantly. I’ve seen that happen before, you know—patients coming out of comas at the sound of a beloved voice.”

  “At least being Hungarian explains one thing—why she doesn’t understand us. Hungarian is a strange and difficult language, not related to any other. She must have thought we were beings from
another world, jabbering at her. No wonder she was so afraid and unwilling to trust us.”

  I nodded. “That certainly does explain things.”

  “And now I must hurry up and see my patient. Would you please leave the gentleman my card and tell him that I will be happy to continue working with the girl if they wish, at her new address.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “On the contrary. She presents me with my biggest challenge to date. I would love to return home to Dr. Freud with such a case documented.”

  He went up the stairs. I heard him greet Mrs. Tucker and then say something to the girl that I didn’t understand. After a few minutes he came downstairs again. “I tried addressing her in Hungarian,” he said. “I know a few phrases. But it seemed to make her more distressed, so I stopped.”

  I closed the door behind him, still wondering. If the sound of Hungarian being spoken made her more distressed, how could I be doing the right thing in handing her over to this young man? A suspicion came into my head. What if she had arrived, an innocent virgin from Hungary, pledged to a man she hardly knew, and what if he had tried to have his way with her as soon as he got her home? Might she not have fled into the snow, hoping to find a friend? I was going to give Mr. Laslo Baka a good grilling before he took Annie away.

  I dressed with care and then took the El to Grand Central, giving myself plenty of time to reach the meeting place first. I stationed myself under the clock, as instructed, and waited. It was smoky and noisy in there with the sound of puffing locomotives competing with the shouts of porters and the hubbub of the crowd. I waited. The clock struck eleven. Nobody came. An absurd hope rose inside me that he had changed his mind and I wouldn’t have to give up Annie to him. Of course, like many of my notions, it bordered on the ridiculous. I had neither the time nor the means to care for her in the long run, but I realized I’d harbored this stupid secret fantasy that one day she’d open her eyes and say, “I am restored to my former self, thanks to you, Molly Murphy.”

  I hadn’t taken into account that her former self might have been deranged.

  As the big hand on the clock jumped on to ten after eleven and I had decided to leave, I saw two men hurrying toward me. One was tall, lanky, and dark-haired, with a sad face and drooping mustache, and the other short, stocky, clean-shaven, and distinguished-looking, with an impressive head of iron-gray hair worn beneath a dark homburg. They both wore dark overcoats of what seemed to be good quality, and the older one carried an ebony cane with a silver tip.

  “Miss Murphy?” It was the older one who spoke. He held out his hand. “May I present my nephew Laslo Baka. Unfortunately, he speaks only little English. He came from Hungary two years ago.”

  He nudged the younger one, who held out his hand. “Happy to meet you, Mees Murphy,” he said.

  “And I you,” I replied.

  “We are so grateful you rescue our beautiful girl for us,” the older one went on. “We think she is lost forever.”

  “We don’t yet know that it is your girl,” I said.

  “Of course. But we are hopeful. You find this girl lost the day after she should have arrived from Germany on the ship.”

  “How was it that you failed to meet her at the ship?” I asked.

  The old man muttered something to the younger one, who muttered a reply.

  “He say he was a little late. They were digging up the streets around the docks. The cab take longer than it should. He gets out and starts to run. It is farther than he thinks and when he gets there—the gangways are already down and people are going ashore. My nephew asks for her. He goes on board and asks for her. They think she already went ashore.”

  The young man muttered something else, waving his arms as he spoke. “He is frantic. He is desperate. He search the whole of New York for her.”

  “What do you think happened?” I asked.

  “What I think,” the old man said grandly, “is that sometimes no good rats wait for these ships. They pounce on girls alone. They lure them away and want to force them into prostitution.” He looked at me with a penetrating gaze. “What was the girl wearing when you found her?”

  “She was dressed as if for a party or the theater. A white silk evening dress. Little evening slippers.”

  “No coat? No shawl?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “You see, I am right! These rats, they dress her, tell her is for party, and then she find what is for. She escape. She run.”

  It did seem possible.

  “So now we take cab. We go to her, si?”

  “Do you have a photograph of the girl you are looking for?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. This girl is from primitive village, far from city. No photographer. But I bring you letters.” He opened his overcoat and produced some papers from an inside pocket. He bowed as he handed them to me. “One from her father. One from priest to say on which ship she comes.”

  I stared at the letters. They looked as if birds had been hopping over the paper, creating a series of wild scratches that hardly resembled words. Finally, I did manage to pick out the word Budapest and then Bremen on one of them. The older man looked over my shoulder and jabbed at the letter with his forefinger. “This say Anya is so happy that she will meet Laslo again. She looks forward to her new life in America.”

  “We don’t yet know that it is the same girl,” I said.

  “We will know her when we see her. We go?”

  He took my arm and firmly escorted me from the station and out to the hansom cabs.

  “It’s quite a way to my house,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want to take the El?”

  “No, today is important day,” the uncle said. “Today we take cab.”

  He hailed a hansom and helped me in with great courtesy. The nephew scrambled in behind him.

  “So where do you live?” I asked.

  “Brooklyn. We live Brooklyn. Nice house. Backyard. Good place for girl.”

  “Is her name really Annie?”

  “Anya,” he says. “Sometime we call her Anni. Is affectionate little name, no?”

  The cab ride seemed to go on forever. I kept telling myself that these were good people. They were well dressed. They had enough money to take care of her. She would be fine. From time to time I glanced at the younger one. He had a beaky nose and dark, sad eyes. But he seemed mild enough. He had taken off his gloves and I noticed that his hands were not those of a laborer.

  “What kind of work does your nephew do?” I asked.

  “He work for me,” the old man replied. “I own a business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  He looked at me scornfully for a moment. “Trade. Buying and selling.” Then he laughed and patted my hand. “You a young lady. What you know about business?”

  “I run one,” I said. “I own my own detective agency.”

  I thought he looked startled for a moment, then he chuckled again. “You—a detective? What you look for, lost pussycats?”

  “Actually my agency is quite successful,” I replied haughtily. “I located you, didn’t I?”

  “Anya will not have to work.” He dismissed me with a wave of his kid-gloved hand. “My family will keep her safe and well fed. You can be assured of that.”

  Another long silence.

  “So tell me again, how you find her?” he asked. “Was it just chance?”

  “Pure chance. I was walking through Central Park, with my gentleman friend, and we stumbled upon the body. I thought she was dead. She wore no cloak. Only dainty evening slippers. But we managed to revive her and brought her to the nearest hospital. Then the hospital didn’t want to take care of her any longer, so I had her brought to my place.”

  “Central Park?” he said. “This is far from ship. How does she get to Central Park, I ask myself. She can tell you nothing of this?”

  “She doesn’t speak,” I said. “She appears not to understand.”

  “Ah. She will understand Hungarian and tell u
s what happened to her. You are kind young lady. We thank you.” He nodded to me graciously.

  We pulled up at last at the entrance to Patchin Place.

  “Nice house. Small,” the uncle said.

  He picked his way in his polished patent shoes through the remaining slush to my front door. I let them in. They stood in my hallway, looking around.

  “You say she remembers nothing?”

  “Nothing. The doctor who is treating her says she has experienced a very traumatic event.” I saw this might be beyond the scope of his English. “Something very bad happened to her.”

  “Exactly what I tell you. Some rat try to make her do bad things.”

  “She’s up here, in the bedroom. Do you think she will know you?”

  “Me she will not know. I came to America when she is little girl. My nephew, she will know him, I am sure. He left our village five years ago to work in Vienna. He work there until I tell him to come to New York. When he want wife, I say take nice girl from our village and the girl’s father arrange with me. But she should remember his face, I hope. He has not changed much in five years.”

  I led them up the stairs.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Was Anya a dancer?”

  “Dancer? No. Her parents have bakery. Make bread. Good girl.”

  I opened her door and went in. Mrs. Tucker was sitting beside her.

  “Dr. Birnbaum has kept her mildly sedated,” I said. “He gave her something to make her sleep a lot.”

  They came to stand beside me. I heard the intake of breath.

  “It is her. Thank God,” the old man said and crossed himself. The nephew did likewise.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I would know her anywhere. She look just like her mother. When I was a young man her mother and I were sweethearts.”

  I touched her hand. “Anni? Something wonderful has happened. Here is Laslo, come to take you home. You remember Laslo?”

  Her eyes opened and focused on the young man bending over her. “Anni?” he said, then rattled off a string of Hungarian at her. She stared at him blankly.