by Rhys Bowen
You can see why my case is so desperate. If we could bring her home and manage to hush up this whole sordid business, she would still have a chance of a normal life in society. She is but nineteen years old.
I can only presume that he took her with him, hoping to get his hands on her fortune. She will, indeed, inherit a considerable sum when she turns twenty-one, but at present she is as penniless as he is. If she has any money at all with them it would be from the sale of some minor pieces of jewelry she took with her.
As to friends in America—we have none. Most of Katherine’s life has been spent in India, where I had the honor to serve Her Majesty in the Bengal Lancers. She is completely unused to fending for herself and I am in grave fear for her. I urge you to put the full facilities of your enterprise to this commission and find our daughter as soon as possible.
I am in this matter, your obedient servant,
Faversham
I reread the letter with satisfaction. At last I had something to sink my teeth into. Katherine had come to New York penniless. That meant there was a good chance that she was still here in the city. Now that I had photos I would start to track her down. My main problem was when. How could I track down Katherine Faversham if my days were still spent in a dreary sweatshop, with no end yet in sight? Indeed Max Mostel hadn’t even completed the designs in question, so there was nothing to steal. And every day my frustration was boiling up, ready to explode. I wasn’t at all sure how much longer I could continue to hold my tongue.
That very day Paula Martino, the young pregnant woman, had risen from her chair and was creeping toward the exit when she was spotted by Seedy Sam. “Where do you think you’re going now?” he demanded.
She gave him a shrug and an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I gotta go.”
“You gotta go, all right,” Sam bellowed. “Get your things. You’re outta here. The boss don’t pay no stinking girls to waste his time powdering their noses.”
“No, please,” she begged, her face white and strained. “I’m sorry. It’s only until the baby—it presses down so and then I can’t help it.”
“Listen, kid, I’m doing you a favor,” Sam said. “You wouldn’t be allowed to bring no squalling baby in here anyway. Buy yourself a machine and start doing piecework from home.”
“Buy myself a machine?” Paula demanded, her face flushed and angry now. “How you think I buy myself a machine, huh? You think I got gold hidden under my bed, huh? I got two kids to feed and a husband who can’t find work and you say buy myself a machine?”
I could stand it no longer. I jumped up and grabbed Sam’s sleeve. “You can’t fire her for heeding the call of nature. That’s just not fair. And it’s not as if she’s paid by the hour, so she’s not wasting your time. She’s paid by the piece and she stays late to finish her work if she has to.”
Sam shook himself free from my grasp and eyed me with a distasteful leer. “I remember now why we don’t hire no Irish. They stir up trouble. Ain’t none of your damned business. Go and sit at your place and get on with your work if you don’t want to follow her out of the door.”
The encounter might well have ended with my being fired but at that moment there was a diversion. The door opened and a young man swept into the room. He was wearing a top hat and a silk-lined cape and carried a silver-tipped cane. He looked at our little scene with amusement.
“Are you bullying people again, Sam?” he demanded. “What’s the poor girl done this time—dared to sneeze when the filthy lint got up her nose?”
Sam managed a weak smile. “I’m just trying to keep ’em in line, Mr. Benjamin. Making sure they don’t waste your pa’s time and money, that’s all.”
“My father’s in his office, is he?” the young man said, his amused gaze sweeping the room until his eyes rested on me. I saw him register surprise at my Irish freckles and red hair. When I didn’t look down demurely, as most of the girls here would have done, he gave me an outrageous wink. Fortunately I was used to winks too. I smiled politely, nodded my head graciously, and didn’t blush. As he walked toward the doorway that led to the stairs I saw him glance back at me. “I hope he’s in a good mood,” I heard him say to Sam. “The automobile just had an unhappy meeting with a streetcar and the front fender is no more.”
Sam turned back to us. “Well, what are you waiting for, get back to work. The boss don’t pay you to sit around gawping.” He jerked his head at Paula. “You, out.”
I went back to my machine wondering what I could do. The boss’s son had seemed interested in me. Could I appeal to him to override the foreman’s decision? Then I had to remind myself that I was not here to make trouble. I was just playing a part. I would help nobody by getting myself fired. When the boss’s son came down from his father’s office again, he walked waked past us as if we didn’t exist.
“I expect he got a ribbing from his old man for denting the automobile,” Sadie whispered to me.
“That’s Mr. Mostel’s son? Is he part of the business too?” I whispered back.
She shook her head. “Goes to some fancy university—studying to be a doctor.” Her eyes became dreamy. “Imagine that—less than twenty years in this country and already a son who’ll be a doctor. We should all be so lucky.”
“Sadie Blum and Molly Murphy—five cents docked for talking,” came the voice from the other end of the room.
I sat, treadling away furiously, and fumed. Somebody should do something for these girls. Their lives shouldn’t be like this. At the end of the day, we took our wraps from the pegs on the wall and I walked down the stairs with Sadie and Sarah.
“I could hardly wait for seven o’clock to come around,” Sarah whispered, even though work was officially over and we were allowed to talk. “I was near to bursting, but I was too scared to ask if I could go to the W.C. after what happened to Paula. In the future I’m just not going to drink anything at lunchtime.”
“You wouldn’t have a problem, Sarah.” Sadie looked at her kindly. “You’re quiet and shy and you do what you’re told. And you’re a dainty worker too. It’s girls like you that they like.”
“That’s my aim,” Sarah said softly, “to stay invisible and pray to get through each day.”
My annoyance boiled over at the thought of little Sarah, too frightened to ask to relieve herself.
“It’s not right,” I said. “Why doesn’t somebody do something? If you all got together, you’d have strength.”
They looked at me with pity. “You think nobody has tried?” Sadie said. “We’ve had girls here who are all fired up like you and try to do something to make things better, and what happens? They disappear. One day they are here, next they don’t come to work. And if we all joined together and demanded better treatment, Mr. Mostel would just fire us all, send Sam down to the docks and pick new girls straight from the boats. We are at the bottom of the heap, Molly. We have no one to speak for us. We work here with one thought in mind—that one day there will be something better.”
I should be doing something, I thought. I could speak up for these girls. Then I had to remind myself severely that good investigators do not allow themselves to become emotionally involved in their cases. So far I wasn’t being too successful in this area. My assignment, for which I was being paid, was to find a spy—and the sooner the better, as far as I was concerned. I wanted this assignment to be over for various reasons, not the least was the bad taste it left in my mouth.
But I was also itching to move on to my other case. How could I track down Katherine Faversham and her scallywag companion while they were still in the city when I had no time and no energy? As things stood, I only had Sundays to devote to finding Katherine and Michael. If I didn’t find them soon, they might be out of the city and far away and I would have lost them for good.
I stood in the cold, dank street as the other girls wrapped their shawls around their heads and scurried off into the night. I hesitated on the sidewalk. This is ridiculous, I thought. The Katherine Faversham case
was important to me, important to my whole future as an investigator. Was I going to let it slip away because I was sewing collars all day? I’d just have to take some risks and find enough energy to hunt for them at night. I wrapped my shawl around my head and started toward the dock area.
I only got as far as the first corner tavern before my resolve faltered. A couple of drunken men staggered out and made a grab at me. I fought them off easily enough and crossed the street with their ribald comments and laughter ringing in my ears. The next street was dark and I was scared to enter it. I hated to admit I was giving up, but clearly this wasn’t going to work. Reluctantly I made my way back to Broadway and the trolley, trying to put my racing thoughts in order. Exactly why was I slaving away at a sewing machine all day? I was proficient enough now, so what could I achieve until Max’s designs were ready? By the time I reached the trolley I had come to a momentous decision. I had wasted enough time working for Max Mostel. I was going to take a few days off.
As soon as I got home I sat at the table and started to write a letter.
Dear Mr. Mostel,
I have been at your garment factory just over three weeks. This has given me ample opportunity to observe your workers and to get my sewing up to speed. I now plan to apply at Lowenstein’s, so that I am completely familiar with his workers and operation by the time your designs are complete. Please keep me apprised of the status of your designs and send me a copy of them by messenger the moment they are complete. You can always leave a message for me at my new address, 10 Patchin Place.
Bridie came to look over my shoulder. “You write pretty,” she said. “All curly.”
“You’ll learn to write like that too if you study hard at school,” I said. “Your pa should enroll you in a new school this week—one close by.”
“I ain’t going to no school,” Shamey said, standing in the doorway and scowling at me. “School is for sissies.”
“You’re going whether you like it or not,” I said. “Everybody needs to know how to read and write.”
“I know how to read and write already,” he said. “My cousins don’t go to no sissy school and they earn money.”
“Running errands for a gang, Seamus? I don’t think your father would want you doing that.”
He glared at me defiantly. “I want to earn money too so I can take care of my pa and my sister.”
I looked at his skinny young face and realized that the scowl had not been of defiance, it had been of worry. He had decided that he must take over the duties of head of the family. I went over to him and attempted to put an arm around his shoulder. “That’s a very noble thought, Seamus,” I said, “but you’ll be able to take care of them much better if you educate yourself first.”
“I don’t have time.” He shook himself free from me. “I can get a job as a newsboy right away.”
“Of course you have time. You have a place to live and enough to eat.”
He looked at me scornfully. “Nuala says it’s accepting charity.”
“Charity? Of course it’s not charity.”
“You ain’t a relative. Only relatives are supposed to help each other. That’s what Nuala says.”
“Your Nuala talks a lot of rubbish.” I smiled at him. “But I’ll tell you what—if you need to earn money now, then I’ll employ you. Promise me you’ll go to school and then you can run messages for me when school is out. I need a messenger tomorrow morning, as it happens.”
“You do—where?”
“To take this letter to an address on Canal Street.”
“I know where that is.” His face had lit up.
“Good. Then you’re hired. When you take it, make sure it goes directly to Mr. Mostel. Tell them it’s important. Oh, and Shamey—don’t tell them it’s from me.”
I finished the letter and addressed the envelope from J. P. Riley and Associates. When I handed it to Shamey the next morning, I felt a great sense of freedom and relief. No more sweatshop for a few days. I was off to find a missing heiress!
Nine
I started the trail for Katherine and Michael at the very tip of Manhattan Island where the ferry from Ellis Island lands the new immigrants. If they were penniless and knew nobody, then their first priority would be finding themselves a place to stay. I remembered clearly my own arrival from Ellis Island. I had been with Seamus, of course, and he had led me directly to his apartment on Cherry Street, but we had run the gamut of touts, waiting to prey on the newcomers. Those same touts were already lined up, bright and early in the morning, waiting for the first ferry from the island. Some of them clutched signs, some wore sandwich boards: The messages were written in Italian and Yiddish and Russian and God knows what else. A few, however, were written in English. MRS. O’BRIEN’S BOARDINGHOUSE, CHEAP AND CLEAN. ROOM TO LET. GOOD SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD . . . as well as the more ominous, PETER’S PAWN SHOP, 38 THE BOWERY, GOOD PRICE PAID FOR YOUR VALUABLES. Some men carried no signs. They lurked in nearby saloon doorways and watched and waited. Maybe they were hoping to find unaccompanied young girls, or even young men, but you could tell just by looking at them that they were waiting to prey on the weak and the unprotected.
I walked among the signs, taking down the addresses of the various boardinghouses and rooms for let. Then I started to visit them, one by one, beginning with those closest to the ferry dock. If they had arrived late in the day and were tired, they’d have chosen the closest.
Several hours later I was tired and footsore, and none the wiser. I had visited ten boardinghouses, God knows how many rooms for let, and none of them had heard of Katherine and Michael Kelly.
From what I knew, the Irish slum areas were along the waterfront, facing the East River, stretching from Cherry Street, where I had first lived with Nuala, down to Fulton Street where she now lived. There was also an area on the other side of the island, also along the docks, where my former employer, Paddy Riley, had lived, and then further up there was Hell’s Kitchen—although I didn’t look forward to going back there. I’d just have to start on the Lower East Side and work my way around. A daunting task, but I couldn’t think of any way around it. Again I was reminded how little I knew about being an investigator. Paddy would have probably been able to locate the missing couple with a few well placed questions. He had the contacts on both sides of the fence—the police and the underworld. I had no contacts, anywhere. Everything I did was by trial and error.
I decided to start on Cherry Street and comb the area methodically. It was now midday and commerce was in full swing. The saloons were open and a parade of men drifted in and out. It was likely that Michael Kelly had slaked his thirst in one of these. He was, from his photo, an attractive young man, with the ability to charm both Major Faversham and his daughter. He’d have been noticed. But women did not go into saloons. Again I was reminded how much easier this job was for a man.
I had to be content with stopping women on the street and asking about local boardinghouses or landlords who let cheap rooms. At each of these establishments I gave the same emotional plea about my dear lost cousin Katherine and her husband Michael. I asked about other boardinghouses nearby. Usually the answer was similar, “There’s herself down at Number Eighty-nine on the corner. Calls herself a boardinghouse but it’s so dirty even the mice won’t stay there.” I worked my way down Cherry Street, up Water Street, and then I moved inland—Monroe, Madison, Henry, and their cross streets. It was hopeless. In this area of crowded tenements almost every building had rooms that were let, sublet, and sub-sublet. Half the families took in boarders. And there were enough people called Kelly to send me on several wild-goose chases.
In the end I gave up and went back to the ferry dock, realizing that I should have questioned the touts and shown them the photos. They were a striking couple. Someone might well have remembered them. I came back to find a three-ring circus in full swing—a boat was just unloading, children were screaming, touts were shouting and trying to herd hapless immigrants in the direction of their establis
hment, small boys were trying to earn some coppers by carrying baggage which the frightened owners were not going to release, and among the crowd I spotted enough criminal element to make the immigrants’ fears justified. Pickpockets were doing a lively trade in the crush and some more brazen crooks were simply snatching bundles and boxes and dodging off with them into back alleyways. What a welcome to the land of the free! And where were New York’s finest when you needed them? I’d have to tell Daniel—forget that right now, Molly Murphy, I told myself. I wouldn’t be telling him anything again.
I was cursing myself for coming all this way for nothing when I saw something that made me grin from ear to ear. At the far side of the crowd a tall lugubrious fellow was walking up and down with a sandwich board with the words, MA KELLY’S BOARDINGHOUSE. JUST LIKE HOME. CHEAP AND CHEERFUL. The address was on Division Street, a mere half block from where I had stopped my search.
Of course they would have gone there if they’d seen the sign. How could Michael Kelly have resisted going to someone who might even have been a distant relative? I hurried to the Third Avenue El and rode it up to Canal Street where it was a mere hop, skip, and jump to 59 Division Street. A dreary tenement like all the rest—five stories of dingy brown brick. I knocked on the front door and it was opened by an enormous woman wearing a dirty white apron over a faded black dress. “Yes?” she asked, folding her arms across the monstrous shelf of bosom.