by Rhys Bowen
I was outside Daniel’s house by nine o’clock and rang his bell. Nobody answered. It occurred to me that prizefighters probably kept different hours from my own and that Jack was still lying there in a stupor. So I rang Mrs. O’Shea’s bell instead, apologized, and asked to be admitted.
“I had no idea that Captain Sullivan’s friend was there,” she said, as she escorted me up the stairs. “He must have been quiet as a mouse. Anyway, I got the groceries you asked for and left them in his kitchen, so they should keep the poor man going until the captain returns.”
I thanked her and stepped into Daniel’s apartment.
“Mr. Brady? Jack?” I called softly. I listened for the sound of breathing, then tiptoed toward the bedroom. The room was unoccupied, nor did it look as if it had been occupied. The bed was made, exactly as it had been the day before. When I went through into the kitchen, the groceries that Mrs. O’Shea had purchased were still lined up in the larder. The remnants of that sorry piece of cheese still sat on the kitchen table. It didn’t take a detective to work out that Jack Brady had not been here last night.
New and alarming worries flitted through my head: the police had caught him and locked him up or escorted him out of the city; Monk Eastman had taken a dislike to him, and he’d met with a horrible end in the East River. I told myself I was letting my imagination run away with me. The logical explanation was that he’d spotted policemen near Daniel’s house and had been forced to hide out for the night.
I wrote him a note in the simplest terms, hoping his reading skills would enable him to get the gist of it. I told him that I would be back that evening and looked forward to his news. Then I made my way to the Grand Central Station. Soon I was aboard the train to White Plains. It was a pleasant ride. After we crossed the Harlem River into the area called the Bronx, the city gave way to leafy countryside. There were still small farms among the growing number of factories and houses, and we stopped at neat stations with gingerbread trim. I don’t know what I had expected of White Plains, but it turned out to be a fair-sized town with an air of prosperity, its own Broadway, and even a few automobiles in evidence.
I had hoped that the Nortons would occupy the one big house in the area, but I had underestimated the size of the town. It seemed to be a considerable community. What’s more, coming into the town, I had noticed several impressive estates. From what I knew of Arabella, I was sure these were the kinds of places she would live. I asked at the station but was met with a shrug. So I tried the post office. Here I had more luck and was told that the Nortons had a fine property a mile or so out of town on the Hartsdale Road. The clerk suggested that I would be able to hire a hack at the station to take me there.
I didn’t have money to waste on hacks, so I set out in the right direction, hoping that the mile or so didn’t turn out to be five miles or more. It wasn’t unpleasant walking after the town gave way to countryside. While the day was hot and the flies were a nuisance, it was soft underfoot beside the road and large oaks spread leafy canopies of shade.
Even so I was dripping with sweat and parched by the time I came to an imposing brick gateway that had to be the entrance to the Nortons’ estate. I used my handkerchief to wipe the grime from the journey from my face, adjusted my bonnet, and hoped that I looked presentable as I walked up the gravel driveway between rows of tall rhododendron bushes. At last the house came into sight, a splendid Grecian-looking affair with a pillared portico, surrounded by well-manicured lawns.
Until now I had been concentrating on the journey. Now I was here, and realizing I was about to face my nemesis, I felt my pulse start to race. This was pure folly. She wouldn’t see me. Of course she wouldn’t see me. What on earth had led me to imagine that she would? And even if she did, she wouldn’t admit to causing Daniel’s downfall. Well, it was too late to go back now, and I’ve never been one to back away from confrontation. We Irish seem to love a good mix-up, don’t we?
I took a deep breath and marched right up to the front door. It was opened, not by a maid, but by a distinguished old gentleman in tails—an English butler no less. I began to see what a wrench it must have been for Daniel to give up the kind of promise that Arabella offered.
“Miss Molly Murphy to see Miss Norton,” I said, and handed him my card. At least I’d learned from Miss Van Woekem how civilized society behaved.
He took the card and invited me to step into the cool of the marble entrance hall.
“I will see if Miss Norton is at home,” he said stiffly and walked away.
I waited. The grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs struck eleven. My stomach growled, making me realize that I had only had a cup of tea this morning, having not felt like breakfast. Surely Miss Norton’s breeding and good manners would force her to offer me at least a cold drink?
I looked up as the butler’s feet tapped on the marble. He came up to me with my card on a silver tray.
“I regret that Miss Norton is not at home,” he said. “Should I convey to her that you came to visit?”
“Please do,” I said. “What time do you expect her to return? It is a matter of extreme urgency that I speak with her.”
“I couldn’t say, miss.” He looked me straight in the face with the expressionless eyes that only butlers can develop. “I suggest you drop her a note on your return home. Do you have a vehicle waiting?”
“No, I walked,” I said. “I enjoy a country stroll.”
“I see.” He ushered me to the front door. “Good day to you then.”
Once again a front door closed on me, leaving me alone and outside. I walked far enough from the house until I had disappeared among the rhododendrons, then I stopped and waited. It was hard to tell with butlers, but I had a shrewd suspicion that Miss Norton was at home and didn’t want to see me.
As if to confirm this suspicion, a high laugh floated out through an open upstairs window. Right, my girl, I thought. Molly Murphy doesn’t give up that easily. I’ll just have to wait for you to show yourself. So I sat in the shade of a large rhododendron and waited. It was not pleasant waiting. Even in the shade it was murderously hot. I had to brush continuously at the flies that tried to land on my face. A couple of bees also investigated me. I must have dozed and woke with a start with no idea what time it was. The shadows had lengthened, indicating it was past midday.
Suddenly I was aware of a dog barking—a shrill yap, yap, yap. That must have been what woke me. Before I could move, the dog itself appeared, a tiny white bundle of fur with pink ribbons tied around its ears. It froze, with those butterflylike ears cocked, then let out a new volley of barks.
“Gyp, naughty boy, come back here immediately,” a voice commanded and Arabella Norton herself stepped into view, looking as always all pink and white and frills, like a large china doll. I scrambled hastily to my feet, conscious that my face was red and sweaty, my bonnet was now askew, and that I must look like some tramp in the hedgerow.
“You? What on earth do you think you are doing?” Arabella exclaimed and stooped to sweep up Gyp into her arms as if I might prove to be dangerous. “This is private property. Leave immediately or I’ll call the servants.”
“Miss Norton—Arabella,” I said, resisting the urge to straighten my bonnet and brush myself down. “Please listen to me. Just give me five minutes of your time. It’s a matter of great urgency or I wouldn’t have come.”
She stared at me with cold contempt. “I simply can’t think what you could possibly have to say to me, unless you’ve come to apologize for behaving like a brazen hussy. If that is so, you need not have wasted your time. You have in no way inconvenienced or hurt me by taking Daniel Sullivan off my hands. I see now that Mama was right. He was not of my class, and I should be aiming for better.”
She tossed back those perfect corkscrew curls.
A battle was raging within myself. I was all for telling Miss Norton exactly what I thought of her, but I knew that I had to remain calm if I wanted to get anything sensible out of her.
That worked. She took a step back, startled. “Dead? What do you mean? Daniel’s not dead, is he?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But he’s been arrested. He’s in a horrible prison cell where he may well languish and die, if he’s not beaten to death by the other inmates.”
Those large, blue eyes opened even wider, enhancing the china doll look. “Daniel, arrested? What has he done?”
“It is claimed that he is in cahoots with a gang, that he accepted a bribe. He maintains that he is innocent and that someone is orchestrating his downfall.”
Arabella’s face remained composed, but she clutched the little dog to her so tightly that it whimpered. Then she stroked its head and shrugged. “I’m very sorry for him, of course, but I don’t see why you came to tell me this. Surely he’s now your concern, not mine.”
“I wondered if you might have any idea who could have planned this,” I said carefully, remembering Miss Van Woekem’s reaction. “Who wished to ruin him? I thought you might know someone with whom he had crossed swords or who carried a grudge.”
She shook her head and the curls danced again. “I know of no such person. Daniel was well liked and respected in our circle. And of his professional life, I’m afraid I know nothing at all. You say he was involved with a gang? There’s your answer. The criminal classes are always stabbing one another in the back.”
“So you can’t think of anybody you know who would be pleased to see Daniel’s ruin?” I persisted. I was looking her right in the eye and she returned my stare without blinking. “In spite of our engagement, Daniel and I were never that close. So I’m afraid I can’t help you, Miss Murphy.”
I opened my purse. “Look, could I give you my card? If anyone comes to mind, anyone at all—any occasion on which he had an altercation and hasty words were said, would you let me know?”
“One has the occasional falling-out, but it rarely leads to sending a friend off to prison,” she said. “You Irish always overdramatize everything. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, and he’ll be out in a couple of days.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid he’s in serious trouble, Miss Norton. More serious than even he realizes.”
A smile twitched at her lips. “How very vexing for you. All that effort to snare yourself a handsome beau, only to find that he’s been taken away from you again.”
I bit back the words I wanted to say. “I’d like you to know, Miss Norton,” I said as evenly as I was able, “that I broke off all contact with Captain Sullivan the moment I learned about you. I respected your understanding. And even if Captain Sullivan is released from jail, I’m not at all sure I could consider a future relationship with him. He hasn’t proved himself exactly reliable so far.”
“That’s true enough,” she said. It was the first time we had agreed on anything.
“But I can’t let him languish in jail, even if he deserves it,” I added. “I don’t believe you would wish that on him either. That’s why I’d appreciate any help you could give me.”
She was looking at me with interest now. “You’re a lady investigator, aren’t you?” she said. “Does Daniel expect you to prove his innocence?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Then I wish you luck.” She brought the little dog’s face close to hers and kissed its nose.
“Thank you. I’ll need it.”
“You Irish are a strange people,” she said. “Perhaps you and Daniel deserve each other.”
“My card, Miss Norton. I’d be most grateful if you would take it and think on what I have just told you. If someone wished to punish him, then perhaps the punishment has gone further than they intended. No innocent man deserves to die in jail.”
A spasm of concern, or was it annoyance, crossed that perfect complexion; then she shook her head again. “I’m afraid I won’t be much use to you or to Captain Sullivan, Miss Murphy. Mama is taking me to Europe in a few days’ time. She’s hoping I’ll meet a duke or a count.” Amusement flickered across her face for a moment. “I must play with Gyp now. He’s getting restless. You can find your way out, can’t you?”
“One last thing,” I said, as she put down the little dog and started to walk away. “I understand that Daniel’s father is in poor health. Please don’t tell him any of this. Daniel doesn’t want to worry him.”
“Daniel’s parents don’t exactly move in our social circle,” she said. “I think a chance meeting with them is hardly likely.”
On the long walk back into town I tried to think charitably about Miss Norton. I knew how I would have reacted if I’d found that my fiancé was keeping company with another woman. And she was a proud person. She could not have enjoyed having to admit that her engagement had ended in failure or having to endure the whispers and pitying glances. A strong motive for wanting to punish Daniel; and yet I had to think that her reaction when I gave her the news was genuine. I had startled her, I was sure. After a life of raising four young brothers, I had become good at knowing when someone was covering up the truth.
But of course that didn’t mean that no member of her family was involved in orchestrating Daniel’s downfall. Perhaps a doting parent or uncle had taken the law into his own hands to teach Daniel a lesson. I couldn’t think how I was going to find that out.
All that way for nothing. By the time I stumbled back into White Plains in the full heat of the afternoon, I was so hot and exhausted that I was almost in tears. After I had fortified myself with a glass of iced tea and a ham roll I felt a little better and made my way to the station to catch the train back to the city. The carriage was full. I sat in one of the few remaining seats and we lurched out of the station. It was fiendishly hot and the air that blew in through the half-open window was like a blast from an oven. No sooner had we left the station than the man opposite me took out a large cigar and lit it, sending noxious smoke in my direction.
I began to feel queasy and closed my eyes as the carriage swayed to and fro. I had never been sick on a train before. I had even crossed the Atlantic in a gale and not succumbed to seasickness. But today the train seemed to be running on square wheels. We were tossed violently from side to side. At last I could stand it no longer. I fought my way down the carriage and out onto the little platform at the back. There I was horribly sick.
As I stood there, feeling clammy all over, a wave of fear passed through me. Had the typhoid epidemic caught up with me after all? Or was it just something I had eaten? I had been poisoned once this summer and had no wish to repeat that experience in a hurry. In the fresh air I began to recover. I wondered if the effects of arsenic poisoning ever lingered. It would be almost a month since—
The world stood still. Almost a month since I had returned from Adare, and during that time I had not been visited by the normal female curse. I wasn’t the most worldly or experienced of young women, but even on the remote West Coast of Ireland, I had heard enough whispered tales to know what that meant. The sickness and weakness and emotional state were all explained in horrible clarity. I stood staring out as the countryside rushed past me. I was, to use the vernacular, in the family way.
NINE
I managed to make it home somehow although my mind was in such a state of turmoil that I found it hard to walk or even breathe. I had only felt this way once in my life before, and that was when I had seen Justin Hartley lying dead at my feet and knew that I had to flee from Ireland or be hanged. That terrible feeling of suffocation, of doom, of no way out. Above all I was mortified by my own weakness and seething with anger that fate had dealt me such a cruel blow. One night, one reckless, imprudent occasion, when Daniel and I had been trapped together in a storm and now this—a life in ruins. For that was what it would surely be. Oh, to be sure, Sid and Gus would rally round a
nd maybe even find me a place to hide out during a pregnancy, but in the end I’d be a woman with an illegitimate child that I had no way of supporting.
Daniel would have to marry me. The words came into my head, making me almost laugh at the bitter irony. Daniel was in no position to marry anybody at the moment. I didn’t even know that I wanted to marry him, if he were free. There was a big difference between wanting to marry and being forced to marry. And yet society had no tolerance for fallen women. Some of those prostitutes I had met during my night in a jail cell had probably started off as good girls whose lives went wrong in this way.
As I turned the key and opened my front door, the first thing I saw was a letter in Daniel’s bold, black script lying on my doormat. The afternoon post had brought the answer to the note I had sent him yesterday. I tore it open.
Molly—as to retaining a lawyer or posting bail: my assets appear to have been frozen until it can be proven that they are not linked to gangland payoffs. The lawyer they have assigned me is either stupid or in the pay of my enemies. He wants me to plead guilty to the lesser charge of accepting a bribe and thereby take only a short prison sentence and dismissal from the police. He doesn’t seem to entertain the fact that I might be innocent. I am at my wit’s end, Molly. You are my one candle in this darkness. I’m relying on you. Don’t let me down.
I stood there with the letter in my hands, just staring at it. No hope. That pretty much summed it up. “Holy Mother of God,” I muttered, half exclamation and half prayer. My own mother had told me on numerous occasions that I’d come to a bad end. Well, it seemed now that she may have been right. I could just picture her sitting on that heavenly cloud, rubbing her hands and saying, “I told you so.” My father, too. He called me “fast and loose” once for walking home from a dance with a boy. My hand strayed down to my stomach. It was hard to believe that a baby might be growing in there.