In a Gilded Cage (8 page)

“Very interesting,” I said.

“So what does she want you to do for her?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You should know better than anyone that a professional detective can’t discuss her case,” I said. “My visit to her shouldn’t take too long, as I have little to report so far. So if you’d like to take me out tomorrow evening, when you return from your mother’s house?”

“You could cook me dinner again,” he said hopefully. “I have eaten on the run for the past three weeks. I long for home-cooked meals. And if you want me to keep saving up to buy you a house . . .”

“All right. I suppose I could cook dinner again,” I agreed.

“Wonderful. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Give my regards to your mother,” I remembered to say as I left.

Nine

O
n Sunday afternoon I made my way to Emily’s room on the Upper West Side. It was a delightful spring day and people were out in their Sunday best, strolling in squares amid the bright green of new leaves, or just sitting on stoops, their faces upturned to the warmth of the April sun. I rather wished that I had taken Daniel up on his invitation and gone with him to Westchester to see his mother. It would have been a delightful train ride, and we could have strolled in her large back yard or sat on her lawn drinking lemonade. But I was a professional woman and I’d made an appointment with a client. A man wouldn’t have broken it because of the weather, so why should I?

The twin spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral glowed bright in the clear air, and I experienced that twinge of guilt that I had missed mass that morning. Even though I had not been to church in years and felt little love for the Catholic religion, those of us brought up as Catholics have been indoctrinated to believe that you go to hell if you miss mass. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to really shake it off.

Emily lived on the third floor of a rooming house. I suppose if it had been the Ansonia, around the corner, one would have described it as an apartment hotel, but this warranted no more than the rooming house description: tired brown linoleum, creaky stairs, that lingering smell of drains and an old woman’s face that peeped out of a door on the second-floor landing. I knocked and the door was opened by a rather flustered-looking Emily, with her hat in one hand and a hat pin in the other.

“Molly!” She sounded surprised.

“Hello. I promised I’d call ’round with news on Sunday afternoon for you.”

“Oh mercy me. So you did. I was so upset at the thought of going to Mrs. Hartmann’s funeral that I didn’t properly take it in. And frankly I never expected you to have anything by this Sunday. You must be a miracle worker. Come on in, do.”

She led me into what could only be described as a depressing room. Every attempt had been made to brighten it up. There were net curtains at the window, rugs on the floor, pillows on the daybed, but they couldn’t hide the brownish wallpaper, the dark wood trim, and the window that faced the back of another equally dreary building. Emily must have read my thoughts. “Pretty dismal, isn’t it?” she said. “But then I’m hardly ever here during the daytime, and it’s so convenient and cheap, too. I’m trying to save every penny I can.”

“You’ve made it very nice,” I said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt. “Very homey.”

“Do take a seat,” she said, indicating her one upholstered chair. “Can I make you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you. I just ate luncheon,” I said.

She perched on the daybed, opposite me. “I had been living in a ladies’ residential club until recently, but it was expensive, and I tired of all the chatter and gossip and pettiness. You can imagine, can’t you, all those unmarried ladies living under one roof? Little notes saying, ‘Please make sure you dispose of tea leaves properly. Tea cups belong on the left of the cabinet. Do not hang stockings to dry in the bathroom.’”

“I can imagine,” I agreed.

She was looking at me, her face alight with expectancy. “So you’ve something to tell me already?”

“I don’t want to raise your hopes too much,” I said. “I’ve no answers for you yet, but I have located a man who wrote a book on missionaries in China. It seems that they were all massacred during the uprising three years ago.”

“Ah yes,” she said. “The Boxer Rebellion. We read about it. I paid particular interest because of my parents. When the horrific tales trickled in, I kept thinking that it could have been me.”

“The writer lives in Pennsylvania,” I said. “I’m not sure if he was a missionary himself, but I have written to him and he will definitely be able to put me in touch with other missionaries. I expect a reply any moment. And I have found where your Aunt Lydia was born.”

“Excellent. You have been busy,” she said.

Then I became aware of the hat she still held in her hands. “You were on your way out,” I said. “I shouldn’t keep you.”

She blushed. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.”

“Ned decided to forgo the weekly visit to his mother?”

“Oh no.” She smiled. “He’d never do that. He idolizes that woman. She is in poor health, you see, and she relies on him for everything. They are particularly close.”

“Did his father die?”

A troubled, almost embarrassed, look crossed her face. “Not as far as I know. He has no father—at least none that we know of. He was an illegitimate child and his mother will never speak of his father. She was cast out, you see, and reared him in terrible poverty. He’s done very well to educate himself. He’s remarkable, really.”

“So you’ve mentioned before,” I teased.

She blushed again. “Actually I’m on my way to take tea with a dear friend,” she said. “Fanny Poindexter. She and I were roommates in our freshman year at Vassar. She was Fanny Bradley then, of course. She married Anson Poindexter the moment we graduated and now she’s a respectable and rich married lady.” She looked up suddenly as the thought struck her. “Why don’t you come along?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to intrude in a meeting between old friends. I’d just be in the way.”

“No, not at all. Fanny is having an afternoon “at home” at her place. Other young women will be there. You’d enjoy it, I’m sure. And Fanny would be tickled pink to meet a lady detective.”

So I was to be brought along as a novelty! I was about to refuse, but then I decided that it might indeed be amusing to meet other women with lively minds. “Very well,” I said. “I accept your kind invitation.”

“Splendid.” She jumped up. “Just wait until I can make this wretched hat sit straight on my head. Oh, why wasn’t I blessed with good hair?”

“You have striking hair,” I said, and indeed she did. It was black and lustrous and today was worn in a thick, smooth roll around her face.

Emily made a face. “But it’s so horribly straight and refuses to take a curl. I can have it in curling papers all night and in the morning it drops like a limp rag again.”

“I suppose we’re never thankful for what we’ve got,” I said. “I just wish my own hair could be tamed and wasn’t this awful flaming red.”

“Oh, but it’s such a magnificent color,” Emily said. “Quite startling.”

‘I’d rather be a little less startling sometimes,” I said. “It’s hard to blend into a crowd.”

Emily stuck a last hat pin into her hair with a fierce jab. “There,” she said. “Now we can go.”

We set off, arm in arm in the spring sunshine. “You’ll adore Fanny,” Emily said. “Everyone does. We had such a good time together at Vassar. I was the shy girl who had been raised by governesses and had no social graces, and she had traveled to Europe and knew how to dance and had the most fashionable wardrobe you could ever imagine. I was in awe of her but she took me under her wing.”

“And now she lives close by?”

“She has an apartment in the Dakota, but they are having a house built out on Long Island so they can be among the fashionable set.”

“How nice to have money,” I said.

“It is she who has the money,” Emily confided. “She is a Bradley, of Bradley Freight and Steamship. He has the name. He comes from a distinguished old family, you know. Came over on the
Mayflower
, I believe. But they must be happy about an infusion of Bradley cash. Anson is an ambitious young lawyer, so I expect he will do very well for himself. A good match all around.”

We approached the park, which was glowing in leafy splendor. I looked at it longingly, wondering if it would be rude to leave Emily to her friend and go for a walk beside the boating lake. Emily held firmly to my arm as we turned onto Central Park West, and I couldn’t think of a polite way to extricate myself. A doorman in impressive livery opened the front door for us. An elevator page took us up to the ninth floor. I tried to remember if I had ever taken an elevator this high before. This was still a new experience for me and I still didn’t trust them completely. I’d observed the cable going up and down, and it seemed rather thin to be supporting a large iron cage.

Anyway, such anxieties were put aside as we reached the ninth floor and the operator opened the door for us with a smart salute. We could hear laughter coming from behind the door at the end of the hallway. A maid let us in.

“Madam is in the drawing room,” she said, unnecessarily, as a good deal of noise was coming from that direction, and led us in.

“Miss Boswell and Miss Murphy, madam,” she said.

We entered a large, light room with windows looking out over the park and beyond. A group of young women was assembled around a brocade chaise on which a gorgeous creature reclined. She looked like a china doll, dressed in delicate baby blue, flaxen curls framing her face. It was almost as if the young women had posed in that grouping for a picture, or rather an advertisement for some kind of cosmetic product in the
Ladies’ Home Journal
. They looked up at the maid’s announcement, making me instantly aware of the plainness of the outfit I was wearing and the unruly state of my hair.

The gorgeous creature swung herself upright and came toward Emily, arms open wide. “Emily, my dear. You came! I can’t tell you how delighted I am. It’s been an age.”

They embraced. “And how well you look,” Fanny went on. “I think that young man must be good for you. You are positively glowing.”

“That is from the brisk walk, Fanny,” Emily said. “And I’ve brought a friend along to meet you. Miss Molly Murphy, from Ireland, also a working woman like myself, but with a far more interesting job, as you will hear.”

“Miss Murphy?” Fanny stretched out a delicate white hand to me. “I am delighted you could come. Any friend of Emily’s has to be a friend of mine. May I call you Molly?”

“Please do,” I said as she gave me a most charming smile.

“Do take a seat and let me complete the introductions: Alice, Minnie, Bella, and Dorcas.”

A healthy-looking woman with light ginger hair moved over to make room for me on an ottoman, giving me a wary smile. I sat and Fanny continued, pointing at my benchmate. “Alice is an old school friend, now also married and living in the city, Minnie and I were in Europe together. We attended a dreadful academy in Paris for a summer, didn’t we, Minnie, my sweet?”

Minnie was more angular, with a long nose. “We did. There were cockroaches and the Mamselle was a regular tartar.”

“But we endured and survived,” Fanny said. She put a hand on the shoulder of a worldly looking young woman with red lips and circles of rouge on her cheeks. “Bella is a new friend I have met through Anson’s business partners and Dorcas needs no introduction to you, does she, Emily?” Fanny turned to me. “Dorcas shared a suite of rooms with us at Vassar.”

“And helped us with our Latin translation,” Emily added. “So what are you doing now, Dorcas? Were you at that recent reunion that everybody is raving about?”

“Alas, no.” Dorcas looked up with a serene smile. “I couldn’t leave my darling Toodles.”

“Toodles?” Emily asked.

“Actually, his official name is Thomas Hochstetter the Third, but Toodles he seems to be at the moment, and he is only two months old.”

“You’re a mother. How wonderful.” Emily beamed at her.

“Yes, it is wonderful, but I suspect my reading will be limited to Peter Rabbit for the next decade or so.”

“And to think that we always expected you to wind up as a professor and write brilliant articles,” Emily said.

“I’ve done the next best thing,” Dorcas answered serenely. “I’ve married a professor at NYU. He’s a brilliant man.”

The maid returned, pushing a trolley that contained a silver tea service, delicate china cups, and a splendid cake stand of various cakes.

“So now we are all happily married,” Fanny said. “Except you, Emily. You have to hurry up and join the club. How is this young man of yours progressing?”

“He’s doing really well,” Emily said. “He’s an absolute whiz when it comes to inventing new preparations.”

“Preparations?” Alice asked.

“Emily’s young man is a druggist,” Fanny explained.

“Just an apprentice at the moment,” Emily cut in. “I work for the same apothecary, behind the counter. Mr. McPherson wouldn’t let a woman near the actual drugs.”