by Rhys Bowen
The driver jumped down to help us from the cab. “You’re sure you’ll be all right, miss?” he said again. “Watch out for pickpockets around here, and less savory folk too.”
“Don’t worry, I come to this part of the city every day,” she said. “I work in the settlement house on Elizabeth Street.”
“Well, blow me down,” he said, mopping his brow with a big red handkerchief. “Good luck to you then, miss.” He looked at the coin she had given him then tipped his cap. “And God bless you too.”
Sarah slipped her arm through mine and steered me through the traffic. We had to break into a sprint as a trolley car came toward us at full speed, its bell clanging madly. One always forgets how fast mechanized vehicles can go. Once on the other sidewalk we were in the shadow of the El and had to force our way among the housewives shopping for tonight’s meal, children getting out of school, and factory workers coming off the early shift. When we turned into Broome the scene was even more chaotic with pushcarts lining both sides of the street and the air resounding with the cacophony of hawkers calling their wares, children shrieking at play, and the ever present Italian organ grinder on the corner, cranking out a lively tarantella. Sarah seemed impervious to it all as she proceeded briskly, pushing aside ragged children and shopping baskets. She was moving at such a great pace that I found it hard to keep up with her and almost collided with a nun, bearing down from the opposite direction. She was wearing a black habit with a cape over it and carried a shopping basket over her arm. The habit was topped off with a peaked bonnet that jutted out, hiding her face in shadow, apart from a long nose that protruded, giving the impression of a black crow.
“Sorry, Sister,” I muttered, remembering the trouble I had gotten into at school when I’d run around a corner during a game and knocked one of the nuns flying.
“No harm done. God bless you, my dear,” she said softly, then crossed the street nodding to two other nuns in severe black habits topped with white coifs who were chatting with a priest and couple of round, elderly women.
“I’m glad I’m not a nun,” Sarah said, echoing my thoughts. “To be wearing all those garments in this weather must be unbearable.”
“They’re probably so holy they don’t notice,” I replied with a grin.
A bell started tolling, a block or so away. The little group broke apart and looked up. The two women crossed themselves. The priest nodded to them and then started walking briskly toward that tolling bell. The crowd on the sidewalk parted magically to let him through. It was clear that the Catholics held sway in this part of the city.
Sarah pulled me out of the stream of the crowd. “Ah, here we are,” she said, stopping at a dark entryway. “It’s on the second floor. Are you able to make it up the stairs, Molly?”
“Yes, of course.” I peered up a long, narrow flight of stairs, then added, “I’m not quite an invalid, you know.”
Up we went. I found it more of an effort than I had expected and that long dark stair seemed to go on forever, but I tried not to let Sarah see that I was out of breath and perspiring by the time she tapped on a dark wood door and then ushered me inside.
I had been to employment agencies myself when I was first looking for work in the city. They all seemed to have been staffed by haughty dragons of women, but the white-haired, soft-faced lady behind the desk could not have been nicer. She listened to my request then nodded. “You’ll be wanting someone who has experience with babies then. Most of the girls we see don’t have much of a clue. Oh, to be sure they’ve helped look after siblings, but their ideas on safety and cleanliness leave much to be desired. So let me give the matter some thought. How soon would you want the girl?”
“There’s no hurry,” I said. “I want someone who’ll be just right. I’d rather wait.”
“Of course you would.”
“So did you already place Hettie Black, Mrs. Hartmann?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, yes. Snapped up instantly. She would have been good,” Mrs. Hartmann said. She had me write down my name and address. “I’ll have a note sent to you the moment I find a suitable girl,” she said.
We were about to leave when it occurred to me that Mrs. Hartmann was the perfect person to ask about Maureen O’Byrne.
“You keep a list of past clients, presumably?” I started to say when there came a scream from the street below.
“My baby! Someone has taken my baby!”
Three
We rushed over to the window. Below us we could see a young woman, fair-haired and attired in the usual white shirtwaist and cotton skirt of the Lower East Side, looking around desperately, her light eyes wide with terror.
“My baby!” She screamed again. “She was here. In her carriage. I left her for a second while I went into the butcher’s and now she’s gone.”
Instantly there was chaos as the crowd closed in around her. We didn’t wait a second longer but went down the stairs as fast as we could, then were caught up in the crowd and swept across the street to the young woman. She was gesturing to a battered baby carriage that was now empty, apart from a crudely made cloth rabbit and one knitted bootie.
Older women had already come to her side to calm her screams. One of the nuns we had seen was first to reach her, patting her shoulder with a comforting meaty hand. “Don’t fret, my dear,” she said in a strong Irish accent. “Perhaps someone from your family picked the baby up. Perhaps she was crying and one of your other children is carrying her around.”
“I don’t have other children. She’s my only child.” Her eyes continued to dart up and down the street. “Who can have done this? Where have they taken her? My baby. Somebody find my baby for me.”
I felt a wave of terror, of almost physical sickness, come over me and as if in response my own baby gave an almighty kick. I clutched at a lamppost to steady myself. Sarah had gone ahead of me, pushing through to the center of the little group. “Somebody go and find the constable,” she said. “And you children—spread out. Go and look to see if you spot anybody running away with a baby. They can’t have gone too far with her.”
“Does anyone have smelling salts?” the nun demanded. “This poor woman is about to pass out.”
Sarah rummaged in her delicate little purse and produced hers. The nun proceeded to wave them under the woman’s nose. For once I could almost have used them myself. But I got a grip on myself and stepped forward. “Did anybody see a person near the baby carriage? Did anyone see someone carrying a baby away?”
Heads were shaken.
“You see people carrying babies all the time,” a small girl answered. She spoke with a trace of Italian accent and had the black hair and big dark eyes that betrayed her ancestry and the fact that this quarter was known as Little Italy. She looked no older than seven or eight but she herself had a squirming toddler on her hip. “We have to take the babies out and look after them so mother can clean up the apartment. Stop it, Guido,” she added as the toddler wriggled even harder. “You’re not getting down.”
The woman was no longer screaming but sobbing, her thin body shaking with great gulps.
“It’s another of those kidnappings they’re talking about,” a woman next to me muttered.
I turned to ask her what she meant when the crowd parted and two constables pushed their way toward the distraught woman.
“Stand aside please!” one of them bellowed. “Move back now. Go on, about your business, all of you.” The crowd backed up a little as his bully club was brought out. He reached the woman. “Now, what’s happened here?”
Fifty people tried to talk at once, shouting in various accents with much hand waving. If the circumstances hadn’t been so terrible, it would have been a comical scene. The constable held up his hands. “Ladies. Quiet. One at a time.”
I glanced at Sarah, then decided it was about time I helped. I stepped forward. “This woman’s baby has been stolen from the baby carriage,” I said.
He looked at me, determining immediately from the way I w
as dressed that I was not a resident here. “Did you witness it, ma’am?” he asked.
“No. We heard her screams when we were in that building across the street and came straight down. We have asked, but it seems that nobody actually witnessed it.”
He nodded. “It’s easy enough to lift a baby from a buggy around here without anyone seeing,” he said. He looked across at his fellow constable. “You’d better let them know at HQ. We might be looking at another one.”
The younger policeman nodded, fought his way back through the crowd then disappeared down the street at a great rate. The constable turned back to the young woman, who was visibly shaking, hugging her arms to herself as if she was cold. “Now then, what’s your name, my dear?”
“It’s Martha, sir. Martha Wagner.”
“So tell me exactly what happened, Mrs. Wagner,” he said.
The young woman fought to control her sobs. “I was shopping for my man’s dinner, the way I always do. I went into the butcher’s for sausages and I left the baby outside because there’s no room for a buggy in the shop. I was only in there a moment. Not more than a minute or two and when I came out…” she paused and gulped. “She was gone!” Her voice rose in a hysterical scream again.
“You were alone? No other kids to guard the buggy?”
“She’s my first. We’ve only been married a year,” the woman said. “We just moved here from Pennsylvania. My man has just found a job on a river steamer.”
The nun was patting her arm again. “We’ll pray for you, my dear, and for your little child that the good Lord watch over her and deliver her safely back to you.”
The young woman shook her head furiously. “I want her back now,” she said.
“We’ll do what we can,” the constable said, “and these things usually turn out well. So give us a description of the child.”
“They say she takes after me,” she said. “She’s three months old, real dainty like a little china doll with big blue eyes. Just a tiny amount of light hair like mine. Everyone says she’s like a little angel. Her name is Florrie. Florence after my mother who passed away last year.”
The constable duly wrote this down. He shifted uncomfortably as if unsure what to do next.
“I heard that there have been other kidnappings,” I said. “Does this fit the pattern?”
He looked at me as if I was speaking a strange tongue. “That’s not my job, ma’am,” he said. “I couldn’t say.”
“But surely the police must have some ideas? Haven’t you been asked to be extra vigilant?”
Sarah tugged at my sleeve. “Molly, we shouldn’t get involved in this. I need the help of these men. I don’t want to antagonize them. I’m sure they’re doing all they can.”
“They don’t seem to be,” I said angrily. “He doesn’t seem overly concerned. If it were my baby…” I stopped short as that awful vision flashed through my mind. My baby. If somebody stole my baby.
“The good sisters here will keep an eye open for your child,” the constable said, nodding to the nuns.
“We will indeed. And we can alert the sisters at the Foundling Hospital to be on the lookout as well.” She looked at her fellow nun for confirmation.
“But who can have taken her? Why would anyone do this?” The words came out as gulping sobs.
“I’m sure the baby will turn up again safe and sound,” the constable said. “Now why don’t you give us your address and…”
“Here we are, sir.” The young constable had reappeared, red-faced from running. “Another kidnapping, so they are saying.” He forced his way through the crowd. “Stand aside ladies and let the captain through.”
And to my horror Daniel materialized between the heads of the crowd. He strode impatiently to the center of the group with that confidence that bordered on arrogance.
“What’s going on, McHale?” he demanded.
“This woman’s baby’s been snatched from the buggy,” the constable said. “Just like the last one on Hester.”
“Are we sure it’s a kidnapping this time?” Daniel demanded. “Remember the last time they dragged me out only to find that the child’s grandmother had picked it up and gone into another store with it.”
“This lady doesn’t seem to have any relatives around here,” McHale said. “Newcomer to the city.”
Daniel glanced briefly at the woman who was now silent, but clung to the sleeve of the nun’s habit. He turned back to the constable. “Any witnesses? The whole damned street was crowded with people. Someone must have seen something.”
His eyes searched the crowd. I had been standing holding my breath, not daring to move. His gaze reached me, went to pass on, then he started in surprise.
“Molly, what the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I came with Sarah,” I said. “You remember Sarah Lindley? She introduced me to an employment agency for domestics. We heard the screaming and…”
“An employment agency?” he snapped, glaring at me. “I thought we’d agreed to put this matter into the hands of my mother. I asked you to mail the letter.”
“Which I did,” I said, “but I met Sarah and it seemed like a good opportunity to check out some girls for myself.”
“But I thought I said clearly that—” He broke off abruptly. “We’ve no time to go into this now.” He turned to the younger constable. “Please escort Mrs. Sullivan away from here and find a cab to take her home.”
Four
The young constable came over and offered me his arm. Every fiber of my being was itching to resist, to shake him off, to tell Daniel that I was not going to be ordered around by him and would make my own decisions. But I also realized that I was his wife and I couldn’t question his authority in front of these people without jeopardizing his standing among them. Besides, the law gave husbands complete authority over their wives. This was really the first time I had had a true taste of Daniel exercising that authority, and I didn’t like it.
“Go home with the constable now, please, Molly,” Daniel said, “and we will discuss this later.”
I saw some of the women tittering behind their hands and others looking at me with sympathy. Sarah looked white-faced and shocked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’d better go. I don’t want to complicate matters.”
She nodded. “I understand. We’ll be in touch.”
I let the constable lead me away. We had to walk all the way to the Bowery before he found a hansom cab for me. Anger and humiliation thundered through my head all the way home. I was not going to accept this treatment from Daniel. I was not going to allow him to order me around like some servant. I was his wife, his partner, his equal. I would make that perfectly clear when he came home. When I reached Patchin Place I looked longingly at Sid and Gus’s red painted front door. If only they were home they’d take me in, allow me to let off steam, offer sympathy and advice, ply me with wine and whatever exotic delicacy they were cooking up at the moment. And at some stage we’d probably laugh over the stupidity of men and I’d come away feeling so much better. But they weren’t home. They were miles away, enjoying the brisk sea air in Rhode Island. I heaved a sigh and put the key in my front door.
When I took off my hat and gloves I found the letter from Ireland stuffed into my handbag. In all the excitement I had completely put it from my mind. I took it out and reread it, looking with sympathy at the unschooled hand that wrote it and sensing her fear. I certainly wasn’t just going to discard it or send it back to Ireland, that was for sure. Presumably I’d have to hand it over to Daniel and ask him to find another investigator to look into the disappearance of Maureen O’Byrne. Then my feisty nature resurfaced. The way Daniel had treated me, it would serve him right if I went behind his back and did the investigating myself.
A glance at the kitchen clock on the wall told me that I should think about preparing my husband’s evening meal.
“He can go to hell first,” I said out loud. I’d not prepare anything for him to
night. He could come home to a bare table and fare for himself. That might remind him what life without a wife was like and how lucky he was to have me. Then those words “go to hell” echoed around my head. Be careful of what you wish for. One of my mother’s other favorite sayings. Daniel lived close to hell every day. I never knew when he might be dealing with a ruthless gang or a violent criminal, or when I’d open the door to find a policeman standing on my doorstep with bad news. I felt tears stinging in my eyes. I should not have said such a terrible thing, even if I didn’t really mean it. After all he was just behaving like any other man, wasn’t he? Most women in the world were treated by their spouse like helpless, simple creatures who needed guiding and protecting—and chastising when they did something wrong. It was rather like being a pet dog.
Grudgingly I washed lettuce and radishes and put out a pork chop ready to fry. The sun sank lower through my kitchen window until it disappeared behind the silhouettes of tall buildings to the west. I ate my own light supper. Night fell and still he didn’t come. I tried to read by the gaslight. Finally when the clock struck ten I went up and prepared for bed. But I couldn’t begin to sleep. My mind was racing with terrible thoughts. I had made him angry and because of this he wasn’t as vigilant as usual. I got up again and started to pace, going to the front window to peer down at Patchin Place, my ears straining for the sound of feet on the cobbles.
When I saw a constable coming my heart nearly leaped from my throat, but it was only our usual constable on his nightly rounds and I heard his heavy boots die away into the rumble and roar of the distant city.
I sat in bed hugging my knees. “Don’t let him die,” I prayed. Images of myself trying to raise a fatherless child hovered in my brain. I heard a distant clock striking midnight and the city sounds fell silent one by one until all I could hear through the open window was a baby crying and a pair of tomcats yowling at each other on a distant rooftop.
Then suddenly I heard the sound of an automobile. A door slammed. Imperious feet came closer and the front door opened. I was out of bed in a shot.