Tell Me Pretty Maiden

by Rhys Bowen

  “Which is why I would be heartily glad if you forsook it for a safer profession,” Daniel said. “But I admire your loyalty to your clients and your determination to see the job through. I’ll be content to wait for a dinner engagement until the assignment is over. When will that be?”

  “I’m planning to observe Mr. Roth for at least two weeks,” I said. “If I have no hint of any deviant behavior in that time, I shall report to my clients that their daughter may safely marry him.”

  “So any young man only needs to behave himself for two weeks to make an ideal husband?” Daniel asked.

  “I didn’t say that. But two weeks should be enough to form an impression of him, and two weeks is about the amount of time the client is paying for.”

  Daniel laughed.

  “I’m starving,” I said. “It’s past lunchtime and we haven’t had a bite to eat.”

  “We could go to the restaurant at the Hotel Lafayette,” Daniel said. “They do a good lunch plate.”

  “We’re supposed to be economizing,” I said. “I’ll make you lunch at home. I’ve a good soup and some cheese.”

  “Very well, I accept,” Daniel said.

  Finally, we reached Patchin Place.

  When I unlocked my front door, I found a letter lying on the mat. It was in a woman’s flowery hand, one that looked strangely familiar. I picked it up.

  “Now who would have written to me?” I said out loud.

  “Maybe it’s another assignment?”

  “No. Letters to the agency are held at the post office,” I said. “I don’t want my clients knowing my home address.”

  Never having been known for my patience, I ripped the envelope open. The stationery smelled of perfume. I glanced at the letter.

  My Dear Miss Murphy:

  I can only hope you are safely returned to New York by now. I have just received a long letter from Grania Hyde-Borne in Dublin, apprising me of the amazing events that took place. My dear Molly, I had no idea that I would involve you in such danger. I never intended to place you in harm’s way and I beg your forgiveness.

  Please come to visit me at your earliest convenience. I would dearly love to apologize to you in person, and also to hear the truth about my poor Rose and about Cullen. And there is the little matter of extra money that I owe you, although now I fear I can never pay you enough for what you went through.

  Oona Sheehan

  I stood there with the letter in my hand.

  “Who is it from?” Daniel asked.

  “It’s from Oona Sheehan,” I said angrily.

  “The actress?”

  “The very same. The one who put my life in jeopardy on the trip to Ireland with her dirty schemes.”

  “So what does she want now?”

  “She’s writing to apologize in person, so she says. But I think the truth is that she wants to hear about what happened to Cullen Quinlan. She was in love with him, you know.” I didn’t add that I had fallen in love with him just a little myself.

  “Cullen Quinlan?”

  I felt myself turning red. “The leader of the republican brotherhood. A very great man.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So are you going to go and pay her a call?”

  “I don’t see why I should. It will only open up old wounds, talking about it again.”

  Daniel peered over my shoulder. “She says she wants to pay you the money she owes you,” he said. “At least you should collect that. You earned it.”

  “I definitely did that,” I retorted bitterly. “Very well, I shall pay her that visit, if only to let her know how thoughtless and cruel her actions were.”

  “I don’t envy Miss Sheehan,” Daniel commented with a dry laugh. “Why did you not go to collect your fee as soon as you got home?”

  “I just wanted to forget the whole business,” I said. “Too many painful memories.” But even as I was speaking I was toying with Daniel’s words. He had said “home.” I could never go back to Ireland and it gave me a thrill of delight to realize that New York really was my home now.

  “I’ll go to her rooms right away, and get it over with,” I said.

  “Not right away, I hope. Were we not going to eat first?”

  “Trust a man to think of his stomach in times of stress,” I said. “Very well, let me put the soup pot on the stove and you shall have your meal.”

  After the meal had been cleared away, I changed into my business costume and attempted to put up my hair into a neat bun. As I was doing this I remembered that I still had the striped black-and-white two-piece that Miss Sheehan had lent me to wear. I found it in my closet, looking in definite need of cleaning and pressing. For a second I wondered if she’d be angry at the state I was returning it in. Then I reminded myself that she owed me far more than she could ever repay.

  I shoved the garment into a carpet bag, said farewell to Daniel, and off I went.

  Miss Sheehan’s address was Hoffman House on West Twenty-fifth Street. I was expecting some kind of apartment building and was surprised to find instead that not only was it on Madison Square, but that it was an elegant hotel. Madison Square is a leafy oasis in the summer, but the sky had clouded over and trees stretched gaunt black branches over gray and dirty snow, making the scene feel quite forbidding. The wind had whipped up again, too, and I was glad to step into the warmth of the hotel foyer. As the doorman closed the gilt-and-glass door behind me, I stood with my feet sinking into thick carpeting while I stared up in half admiration, half fascination at the large oil painting that dominated the back wall. It depicted nymphs and satyrs, all reveal-ingly nude and lusty-looking. One might expect such things in a museum of art, but in a hotel it was shocking, even for one like myself who has sampled the bohemian life.

  Obviously it possessed fascination for other New York visitors, too, as an elderly couple poked their heads in through the front door behind me.

  “See, Mary, what did I tell you?” the man said.

  “Terrible. Wicked and terrible. Don’t you dare look, Joseph.”

  I smiled at their names as well as their reaction, then went over to the reception desk.

  “I’m here to see Miss Sheehan,” I said. “My name is Murphy. She is expecting me.”

  “Let me see if Miss Sheehan is in residence,” the clerk said and disappeared, leaving me unable to take my eyes off the painting. He soon came back with an almost gracious smile on his face.

  “Miss Sheehan will be happy to receive you, Miss Murphy. Please take the elevator to the tenth floor. Room number 1006.”

  The elevator operator saluted smartly and whisked me upward. As the door opened on ten a rather striking older woman was standing there. She was swathed in some sort of ginger fur—lynx maybe—and it went well with her wiry mane of hair, giving the impression of a lioness on the prowl. She nodded to me solemnly and said, “Bonjour,” in a deep, mannish voice. I was sure I had seen her before somewhere but it was not until the elevator man said, “Going down, Madame Bernhardt,” that I recalled Miss Sheehan telling me that the Divine Sarah also kept a suite of rooms at the Hoffman.

  Talk about mingling with the mighty, I thought to myself. If only the folks in Ballykillin could see me now, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. The thought flashed through my mind before I had time to remember that there was nobody in Ballykillin any longer. No family. No friends. All gone. And I was going to have to relive some of my most painful moments for the woman I was about to see. I hesitated in the mirror-lined hallway and almost turned back. But I put on a brave face and rapped smartly on her door.

  She was looking as stunning as ever, wearing a silk robe of dark rich green that accented the copper hair. For once this wasn’t piled on her head but spilled over her shoulders. Her face bore no trace of makeup but in truth it needed no help. It was simply the epitome of beauty. One looked at her and gasped. I could well understand why so many young men became besotted with her. I had been resolved to be cold, efficient, and distant with her, but when she stood at the doo
r and opened her arms wide, saying “Molly, my sweet child. Thank you so much for coming,” I found myself accepting her embrace and even murmuring some kind of thanks of my own.

  She drew me into a drawing room overlooking the park, elegantly furnished with brocade chairs and sofas. A huge bowl of out-of-season fruit was on a side table, along with the sort of floral tributes that seemed to accompany Miss Sheehan wherever she went.

  “Take off your coat, do,” she said, “and do sit down. I’ll have Yvette bring us some tea.” She motioned to a dainty little brocade armchair beside the window. She rang a small silver bell and a slim dark person in a black-and-white uniform appeared, bobbing a curtsey. “You rang, Madame?”

  “Yes. Tea for two please, Yvette.”

  The maid jerked a halfhearted attempt at a curtsey and went.

  Quite a change from Rose, I thought to myself. Her last maid had been a broad country girl from Ireland and she had been brutally murdered.

  “Life must go on,” Miss Sheehan said sadly, as if reading my thoughts. “I chose a new maid as different as possible from Rose so that I was not reminded of her. Madame Bernhardt’s own maid suggested her. They come from the same town in France, so one understands.” She paused, looking at me critically. “So how are you, Molly? From what Grania writes you had a most harrowing time.”

  “Yes, it wasn’t too pleasant,” I said. “No thanks to you.”

  She reached out and touched my hand. “I felt so awful when I realized what I had let you in for.”

  “You knew from the very start what you were doing,” I said angrily. “You used me.”

  “Yes, but I never thought . . . ,” she said. “Molly, I would never have exposed you to such danger, had I known. I thought it was a simple assignment. Can you ever forgive me?”

  She took my hand and smiled her most enchanting dimpled smile. Against my better judgment, I felt myself soften and managed a weak smile of my own.

  “And could you possibly bear to tell me all about it? I only have Grania’s account and she has left out a lot of details I would dearly like to know.”

  “All right,” I said, and started to recount the events. I tried to be as brief as possible and to stick to the main facts, but it was hard to tell the story without dwelling on my brothers and on Cullen. As she listened she put a lace handkerchief up to her mouth. “Our brave Irish boys,” she muttered. “Such a waste.”

  “As you say, such a waste.”

  We sat there looking at each other.

  “He was a fine man, wasn’t he, Molly?”

  “One of the best,” I agreed.

  “And did he speak often of me?” she asked.

  I didn’t like to say that he had long forgotten her. “All the time,” I lied.

  “If only I could have been there,” she said. “But I have a duty to my public. They count on me, Molly. I brighten their little lives.”

  For a while I had been feeling pity for her. Now that vanished as easily as a pricked bubble. “I can’t stay long, Miss Sheehan,” I said. “I have brought the clothes that I had to wear when I left the ship, because my own were not available to me. I’m afraid you’ll need to have your maid give the outfit a good cleaning.”

  I had started to open the bag, but she waved me away. “Keep them, please. You should have helped yourself to any of my clothes that you wanted. Couturiers are always giving me things to wear. I have far too many. Come and see—is there anything else you’d like?”

  She took my hand and tried to drag me toward her bedroom. She was trying to be friendly, and I have to admit I was sorely tempted. Who wouldn’t want to help themselves to a Worth gown or two? But I remained steadfast. “You are most kind, but no, thank you.” There was the little matter of the money she still owed me. I hated asking for money but I had completed the assignment for her, hadn’t I? And almost been killed in the process. She did owe it to me. I took a deep breath. “If you want to repay a debt,” I said, “there is the money you promised me.”

  “Promised you?” She looked up with dramatic surprise.

  “When you asked me to deliver your luggage, remember? An extra hundred dollars?”

  She flushed prettily. “Oh, that. Of course. How silly of me. I’d completely forgotten.”

  Obviously, a hundred dollars was a mere trifle to her. She fished around in her purse, then gave me an embarrassed smile. “I appear to be out of checks,” she said.

  “You can mail it to me,” I said. “You have my address.”

  “Of course,” she said with relief, then looked around with impatience. “Yvette? What has happened to tea?”

  “Coming, Madame,” came a voice from far away. “They are sending it up in the service elevator at this moment.”

  “You see. Tea is on the way.” Oona patted the seat beside her again. “And while we wait, I have to confess that there was another reason I brought you here. I have another little assignment for you.”

  I might have known, I thought.

  “Oh, no thank you,” I said, jerking my hand away from her. “What is the phrase? Once bitten, twice shy.”

  “But it’s not for me, this time,” she said hastily. “It’s for my dear, dear friend Blanche Lovejoy.”

  “Blanche Lovejoy?” I asked. The name somehow rang a bell.

  “You must know Blanche,” Oona said. “Everybody knows Blanche. Her name is a household word.”

  “I haven’t been in New York long,” I said, feeling stupid. “Although I know I’ve heard the name.”

  “She is only one of New York’s best-known and best-loved entertainers. She was in A Country Maid, and Springtime Follies. Both of them huge hits.”

  Neither meant a thing to me, but then I hadn’t exactly had the money to go to the theater much.

  “She hasn’t had a show on Broadway for a year or so,” Oona went on, “but she has a new show opening this week at the Casino. Best location in town. She has high hopes for it, because frankly the leading roles don’t come so easily when an actress turns thirty-five.”

  “Sarah Bernhardt seems to have no problem,” I said. “I bumped into her going into the elevator. She must be over forty.”

  Oona laughed merrily. “Close to sixty, my dear. But then the divine Sarah is an institution. For the rest of us mere mortals our careers are over when we lose our looks. I have five more years, at best.” She gave a wonderfully dramatic sigh and put a hand to her breast.

  “And what will you do then?” I couldn’t resist asking. “I presume you’re accumulating a nice little nest egg.”

  “My dear, I shall marry well,” she said. “Before I’m too old I shall let some very rich man snap me up and spend the rest of my life in pampered luxury.”

  “Artie Fortwrangler, for example?” I asked, referring to a young man I had met on the ship.

  “Oh merciful heavens. So you bumped into Artie, did you? I don’t intend to be that desperate.” She laughed. “I was thinking more of a European. A duke maybe, or an Italian prince.”

  Yvette burst upon this scene of self-adoration with a curt. “Your tea, Madame,” putting the tray down so firmly that the teacups rattled. “Do you wish me to pour?”

  “No, thank you, Yvette. That will be all,” Oona said, waving her away.

  As she retreated Oona muttered, “I suppose French maids have a certain flair, but they always make one feel that they are doing one a favor and are being ill-used. Rose was so amiable.”

  I wasn’t going to allow her to slip back into reminiscences about Rose. “So to return to Blanche Lovejoy,” I said. “You told me she has a new play opening this week. Why do you think she needs my services?”

  Oona leaned closer to me, as if she didn’t want to be overheard. “Because, my dear, she thinks that the theater may be haunted.”

  “Haunted?” I couldn’t help smiling. “What does she think I could do about it? She needs a spiritualist if she wants communication with the dead.”

  “She believes the ghost is trying to ki
ll her. She wants someone from the outside to prove to her that she is not imagining things, that she is not going off her head. You can do that for her, can’t you?”

  SEVEN

  I came out of Hoffman House and paused to turn up my collar against the bitter chill of the wind that blew down Twenty-fifth. I was annoyed that I had come away empty-handed—I didn’t think that she’d post that check without more prompting, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I had half-promised Miss Sheehan that I would visit Blanche Lovejoy, and I had to admit that I found the assignment intriguing. Ghost hunting was something I hadn’t tackled before. But I already had a case I was working on for at least another week, which would be too late for Miss Lovejoy. That’s not to imply that she would have been killed by then. She had apparently invested a considerable amount of her own money in the venture and was threatening to close the show before it opened if she didn’t feel safe in the theater.

  Then there was the girl we had found in the park that morning. I knew she was no longer my business, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I had to make sure she was all right and safely home among her loved ones. And I was dying to know exactly what had happened to her. My mother had always warned me that my curiosity would be the death of me—if one of my other sins didn’t put an end to me first.

  So how could I possibly juggle two assignments at once? I couldn’t be in two places at once, that was sure. Miss Lovejoy would presumably be at the theater primarily in the evenings, which was exactly when I should be following Mr. Roth. What I needed was an employee. Then suddenly it came to me. I had the perfect person to work with me. Instead of mounting the steps to the Twenty-third Street El station, I kept walking on Twenty-third until I came to the brownstone where Daniel had rooms. His landlady, Mrs. O’Shea, was delighted to see me.

  “Why, Miss Murphy. You’re a sight for sore eyes, and that’s a fact. You’ll no doubt cheer the poor man up,” she said. “Grumpy and gloomy doesn’t describe it these days, does it?”

  “He’s going through a bad time,” I said. “Is he home?”