Oh Danny Boy (21 page)

I must follow it, I thought, and broke into a shambling run. My legs refused to obey me. I tripped, fell, and the smell of dog and refuse came up to meet me. As I sat there, with the world swaying violently, I realized that I was in no state to go to any hospital. They certainly wouldn’t let me see Sabella Goodwin, and I ran the risk of being arrested for intoxication. I had no wish to spend a night in a Jefferson Market jail cell ever again. I just prayed she was still alive, and that someone was with her if she imparted a dying message. Because she must have discovered something that made the East Side Ripper scared enough to take the appalling risk of running her down on a city street, with other people as witnesses. At least now we knew that the theory about the large, dark vehicle had been correct. Maybe she had spotted such a vehicle earlier and gone to investigate. Perhaps she could now identify it.

Somehow I made it home. I let myself into my house and crawled up to bed. I felt terrible—not just because of the effect of the gin, but because I had lost a woman I had come to admire enormously. More than that—my one ally had been taken from me. How could I possibly go on with this investigation alone? Then all at once I sat up in bed. It wasn’t my case, was it? Nothing we had discovered pointed to any connection between the East Side Ripper and Daniel’s imprisonment. He admitted he had just been assigned to take over with little to go on. And now with John Partridge’s link to
the racing syndicate, I even had a motive for him to have plotted Daniel’s arrest. So it didn’t matter if I was off the Ripper investigation. I felt relief but also annoyance. I didn’t like to leave things half-finished. Still, there wasn’t much I could do about it anymore. Quigley and McIver were hardly likely to share their findings with me.

About an hour after I’d gone to bed I woke from a half doze to a bad attack of cramps. I lay, hugging my knees to me as my insides were wracked with pain. At first I wondered if it was something I had eaten until I remembered the gin. Mrs. Butler had made me drink it for this very purpose. Mother’s Ruin, she had called it and given me a significant wink. I got up and paced around, hugging my arms to my stomach. Did this mean I was going to lose the baby, after all? I knew now with complete certainty that I didn’t want that to happen.

Please no, I prayed silently.

I went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea, then sat at the kitchen table, sipping the hot liquid and hoping for the cramps to subside. After a while they did seem to lessen in strength. I crawled back to bed and lay curled up in a ball. Eventually I must have drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke bright sun was streaming in through my bedroom window. Birds were chirping. I sat up and realized I had survived the night. The cramps had gone. My baby was still there. I felt like a new person. I had literally been given a new lease on life. I jumped up and almost ran down the stairs. I snatched a quick breakfast before making my way to Saint Vincent’s Hospital.

The sister at the reception desk was not the same one I had met before. She looked at me with horror.

“Visiting hours are posted on the wall over there,” she said. “We certainly don’t allow strangers tramping all over the hospital at seven in the morning.”

“But this is important. A lady was brought in here last night by ambulance. Mrs. Goodwin.”

“Ah yes, a terrible accident.”

“It was no accident, she was run down,” I said. “She’s a police matron, and she was on an important case.”

“And what is your interest in this?” she asked starchily. “Are you some kind of reporter?”

“I’m—” I was about to say I was on the case with her, then I changed my mind. “I’m her sister,” I said. “I got word that she had been struck by a runaway horse, but they couldn’t tell me any more.”

She looked at me with those piercing nun’s eyes that have made any number of young children blurt out sins. “Her sister, are you? I understand that she survived the night but remains unconscious.”

“Is there any chance I could see her? It might bring her back to consciousness to hear my voice.”

As I said this I was stricken with conscience. We had never discussed Mrs. Goodwin’s family situation. It was very possible that she had children who should be at her bedside, not a woman she hardly knew. Their voices might bring her back to the world of the living. Mine certainly wouldn’t.

It was of no matter. The sister shook her head. “She’s allowed no visitors until further notice. Doctor’s orders. Absolute peace and quiet, that’s what he said. I told the same to the policemen who came last night.”

“If I come back at visiting time, I’ll be allowed to see her then?” I asked.

“If she is allowed visitors and has regained consciousness.”

She made a motion to go back to her paperwork. I still hovered, reluctant to take no for an answer. She was still alive, that was good news. “And which ward is she in?”

Those eyes were fixed on me again in an innocent stare, but she understood all right. She was thinking that I’d find my way there the moment her back was turned, which had obviously been my intention. “She’s under observation at the moment. I can’t say which ward she’ll be transferred to if and when she awakes.”

I stood looking down the long, white-tiled hallway. Nuns floated up and down it in pairs, gliding almost like ghosts.
There were too many of them for me to slip past unnoticed. I’ll have to find myself a nun’s outfit, I thought, as I admitted defeat. I remembered Paddy Riley’s complete wardrobe of disguises. I needed to start my own.

Back home I experimented with bedsheets and my one good tablecloth, but I couldn’t come up with anything that looked like a believable Sister of Charity. If only they wore simple veils, like the nuns at Saint Finbar’s at home, I might have gotten away with it. Now all I could do was wait.

The midday post brought a letter from J. Atkinson, attorney at law. He assured me that Daniel’s case was progressing nicely. However, if I had come up with new information that might be pertinent to the case, would I please drop him a note to share it with him. He didn’t think an interview with Daniel himself could be arranged at this time without jeopardizing his own position and responsibility.

“Damn you,” I muttered. Not words I’d have said out loud to anyone, but they felt good in my own kitchen. If he really was working for Daniel’s enemy, wouldn’t he just love me to deliver everything I’d found out so that he could report it to his boss. If I’d found out anything important, it would then be suppressed. If I had found out anything important, my own life could be in jeopardy.

Wait a second, I thought. Such drama! What had I found out? Not much, except that Mr. Partridge might have been part of the racehorse-doping scandal and he was visiting The Tombs in the near future. Interesting facts, but to be shared with Daniel alone. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that, if Atkinson wouldn’t get me into The Tombs, and it wasn’t visiting day until the end of the month.

The other interesting fact to be shared with Daniel was that someone had tried to kill Mrs. Goodwin and might well have succeeded. That was surely important, but the police were already onto it, questioning witnesses even as I arrived on the scene.

I did my household chores, which had been neglected for the past week, hung out a line of laundry in the backyard, and had some of my homemade soup. I felt better today and
had an appetite. One small blessing to be enjoyed. Then the moment I had washed up, I went back to Saint Vincent’s. I was going to get in to see Mrs. Goodwin this afternoon by hook or by crook.

On my way I stopped off at the Jefferson Market and bought a bunch of roses. As I approached the hospital, I saw two policemen emerging and recognized one of them. His face lit up in recognition when he saw me. “Why, Miss Murphy. What a lucky coincidence. I’ve been wanting to contact you for the past few days, but the wife had mislaid your new address.”

“Have you been to see Mrs. Goodwin?” I asked. “Is there any news on her condition?”

“You know Mrs. Goodwin, do you?”

“I do. She’s a friend.”

“And a fine woman,” he said, his big face a mask of grief. “Her late husband Whitey and I started on the force at the same time. What a tragic accident.”

I nodded and thought it wiser to feign ignorance of the true circumstances.

“And how is her condition?” I asked.

“I’m told she’s holding her own but still hasn’t regained consciousness, I’m afraid.”

“I’m on my way to visit her now,” I said. “Do you think they’ll let me in?”

“You can tell them that Sergeant O’Hallaran gave you permission, if you think it will help,” he said. “There’s a constable stationed at her door.”

“I appreciate it. I tried to see her this morning, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“They want her to have complete peace and quiet,” he said, “so they’re forbidding most visitors. Now tell me, is there any news on Captain Sullivan?”

“Nothing good,” I said, conscious of the other policeman standing beside him and not wanting any snippets of gossip to get back to headquarters. “I’m still praying.”

“You wanted to know who was assigned to take over the cases Captain Sullivan was working on,” he said.

“I’ve found out some of it for myself,” I said. “Detectives Quigley and McIver are in charge of the East Side Ripper case. They were in charge of it before Captain Sullivan was ordered to take over, so I gather. And about the other case—the racehorse-doping—”

“The same pair,” he said. “They were Sullivan’s protégés. He thought highly of them. Young officers with a bright future. I’ve no doubt they’ll do a fine job on both cases—as good as the captain himself could have done.”

“And the men assigned to escort the police commissioner that day he saw Daniel?”

“Officers whose normal beats were in that area. McCaffrey, Doyle were with him for the first part and then Jones and Honeywell took over.”

“And who designed the route?”

“I understand the commissioner just wandered where he wanted. He asked to see the Eastman headquarters and Walhalla Hall and where the bodies of the murdered girls had been found. That’s about it.”

And somehow he knew when Bugsy was going to meet Daniel, I thought. Or somebody knew. Or somebody had bribed one of those four men. At least I had four new names to check out now, something new to work on.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said. “I’d better get in to see Mrs. Goodwin now.”

“If she comes to, tell her we were here. O’Hallaran and Hendricks and we’re wishing her all the best,” he said.

“I will.”

The other officer nodded to me. O’Hallaran waved and they continued on their way, while I went into the hospital.

“Visiting hours are not for another twenty minutes,” said the same woman at the reception desk, “and if you’ve come to see Mrs. Goodwin, I’m afraid…”

“Sergeant O’Hallaran said that he has given me permission to be with her,” I said, trying not to look triumphant.

“I see.” She sniffed her disapproval. “She’s in Mercy Ward. That’s up the stairs and along to the end of the hallway.”

I climbed the stairs and made my way past one ward after
another until I came to the end. I saw immediately which room Mrs. Goodwin was in. A young constable stood outside the door. I repeated the message from Sergeant O’Hallaran and added that I was her sister for emphasis. I wasn’t going to risk being turned away this time.

“She has someone with her right now,” he said, “but I suppose it’s all right for you to go in if you’re her sister.”

He opened the door for me. It was a big ward, but the area close to the door had been curtained off with screens so that Mrs. Goodwin was in a private tent. As I came in a man was standing by the bed, leaning over the patient. He straightened up as he heard me approaching and turned around. It was Detective Quigley.

“What are you doing in here? They were told no visitors.” He frowned as he tried to place me and couldn’t right away.

“I’m a particular friend of Mrs. Goodwin’s,” I said, not daring to use the sister lie with him, “and Sergeant O’Hallaran said he was sure it would be all right and might do her good to see me.”

“Very well.” He was not looking pleased. “Although as you can see, she’s still unconscious. I’ve been with her most of the morning, hoping she’d regain consciousness and be able to tell us something. When you came in, she groaned in her sleep, and I thought she was trying to mutter a word.”

“It’s really tragic,” I said. “I admire her greatly.”

I moved past him until I was standing beside the bed. Sabella Goodwin lay, pale and white as the sheets around her. There was a bandage around her head and ugly bruises along one side of her face. It was hard to tell if she was alive or dead.

I perched on the edge of her bed and took her hand. “Sabella—Mrs. Goodwin? It’s Molly. Molly Murphy, your partner in crime. I need you to get well quickly.” I said it brightly although her hand felt cold and limp, as if she was already dead.

“Just a minute,” Quigley said sharply. “I remember now. Last time I saw you was with that German doctor. He introduced you as fraulein something. You’re not German. What’s the big idea?”

I tried to do some pretty fast thinking, wondering how much he should be told, seeing that we were essentially on the same team. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I attached myself to Dr. Birnbaum that morning against his will, because I was—interested in this particular case. My friend Mrs. Goodwin told me about it, and I was trying to do what I could to help.”

“Why?” He eyed me coldly. “Mere curiosity?”

Should I tell him the truth about Daniel? After all, Daniel had been his mentor until recently. I decided against it, not knowing what unfriendly ears were waiting back at police headquarters, or even whether Quigley himself was secretly glad that Daniel was out of the way.

I decided on another lie. “I’m—something of a student of psychology myself. I was trying to give Mrs. Goodwin some insights that might help her with the case. I had discussed it with Dr. Birnbaum.”

“Mrs. Goodwin’s assignment was limited to patrolling the streets and keeping an eye open for suspicious activity,” he said. “She is not a detective. Neither are you. Whatever she has been doing has already almost cost her her life. And who knows if your bumbling amateurism has already hindered the investigation? I suggest you both stay out of our way and leave the work to trained professionals.”