Oh Danny Boy (22 page)

I wasn’t sure how to answer that but was spared by the arrival of a sister.

“What’s going on in here?” she demanded. “I thought I heard raised voices. My orders were that this patient was to be kept absolutely quiet. No visitors at all. I’m not sure who you are, but be off with you.”

“I am the police officer in charge of the case Mrs. Goodwin was working on,” Quigley said frostily. “It is important that I speak with her as soon as she wakes.”

“She’s not likely to wake for some time,” the sister said. “She was in a lot of pain last night and is heavily sedated with morphine.”

“Was she badly injured?” I asked.

“And who might you be?”

“A close friend,” I said. I couldn’t go back to the sister lie
with Quigley standing there. “One who was supposed to meet her last night and came upon her too late.”

“Well, she’s not out of the woods yet,” the sister said, looking more kindly at me than she had at Quigley, “but she’s been extremely lucky. Apart from the head wound, which was fortunately only superficial, she’s got a couple of cracked ribs, some horrible bruising, but it seems she managed to avoid the horse’s hooves, which would surely have been fatal. With any luck she’ll be up and walking in a few days, praise the good Lord.”

“Oh, that is good news,” I said.

“But only if she gets her rest. Now out, both of you.”

“You’ll let me know when she regains consciousness?” Quigley asked. “It is very important to the case we’re working on.”

“I’ll let you know when she’s well enough to talk,” the sister said. She attempted to drive us out before her as if we were a flock of ducks.

I hesitated. “I brought her some flowers,” I said. “Would there be some kind of vase somewhere to put them in?”

“How lovely.” She leaned toward the roses and sniffed. “Reminds me of my girlhood. My father always grew yellow roses. Yes, there should be some jam jars in a cupboard. Go to the next ward and ask one of the sisters. Tell her Sister Mercy sent you.”

I thanked her and soon had my jam jar filled with water. Not the most attractive vase in the world, but it suited quite fine. It also gave me an excuse to go back into the room to put them on the bedside table. There was no sign of Sister Mercy, and I was just putting the jar down when Mrs. Goodwin gave a little sigh. I turned to her, and her eyes were open.

“You’re awake, that’s wonderful,” I said.

She stared at me, trying to place me, and I feared she might have lost all memory of who I was.

Then she gave a faint smile. “Molly Murphy. What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“Just fine until the morphine wears off,” she said. “Before
that I felt as if a herd of elephants had been dancing all over me. I was almost run over, wasn’t I?”

“You certainly were. The nurse says you were very lucky. You’ve got away with a couple of cracked ribs. The horse’s hooves must have missed you entirely.”

“Luckily I heard it coming, and I was able to fling myself aside at the last moment,” she said. “I think some part of the carriage or the shafts must have struck me in the side.”

“Were you able to see what kind of carriage it was?”

“It all happened so fast,” she said, “and it was dark and raining. And the vehicle itself was dark. That’s all I remember.”

“Was someone deliberately trying to run you down, do you think?”

“Oh, absolutely. The horse was at a full gallop and coming straight for me. The funny thing was that just before it happened one of the local urchins came and told me there was something odd in the gutter on the corner of Elizabeth Street, and that I should come and take a look at it. I found it where he said. It looked like a piece of red satin, halfway down a drain. I was just bending down to examine it when the horse came flying at me.”

“So you were lured there, and the man was waiting for you?”

“It seems that way.”

“Why? What had you discovered since we parted?”

“I’m darned if I know,” she said. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Maybe it will come to me, but as of now, I can’t think of anything. Of course my head’s still fuzzy with that morphine.”

“Do you think you could find the child again, and we could discover who sent him?”

Sister Mercy appeared in the doorway. “I thought I sent you home,” she said severely to me.

“I was just putting the flowers on her bedside table when she woke up,” I said. “Isn’t that wonderful news?”

“It certainly is. However, if you want her to make a speedy recovery, you’ll leave her to rest in peace.”

“I will,” I said. “I’m just going. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You could fetch my mail for me,” she said, after a moment’s thought. “We may have had a reply to my advertisement by now.”

“I’ll do that right away,” I said. “What is your address?”

“It’s 429 East Seventh, just past Tompkins Square. It’s a brownstone with two bay trees in pots outside.”

“That’s easy enough,” I said. “Do you have the key?”

“There’s one in my purse, wherever that is.” She tried to look around, then sank back with a sigh of pain. “Why don’t you ask my neighbor for the spare? Mrs. Oliver. At 431. She keeps a spare, just in case.”

“All right. And what else can I do for you? Are there any family members you’d like me to contact—anyone who should know you’re in the hospital?”

She shook her head sadly. “No one at all, my dear. I have a sister in Ohio, but apart from that, nobody anymore. My husband was killed, as you know, and I lost my only child to diphtheria.”

She gave me a questioning glance and I could tell what she was asking. Was I still pregnant?

“I did visit your friend Mrs. Butler last night,” I said, “but I changed my mind.”

“Ah.” She closed her eyes and grimaced. “The painkiller is wearing off, I see. I feel literally as if I was kicked by a mule.”

“I’ll send for the doctor,” Sister Mercy said. “He’ll give you another dose, and I know he plans to strap your ribs today, which will help with the breathing.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow then,” I said, touching her hand gently. “Is there anything I can bring you? Some grapes? Oranges?”

She patted my hand. “You just take care of yourself,” she said. “Stay away from the Lower East Side.”

“I will.”

“Promise me you won’t go there alone.”

“Very well. I promise.”

As I left I heard Sister Mercy saying, “A nice young friend you’ve got there, Mrs. Goodwin. A real saintly girl.”

If she only knew, I thought, with a grim smile.

I decided to wait until the afternoon mail delivery before I went to Mrs. Goodwin’s house. I’d have liked to question the constables who escorted Mr. Partridge on that fateful day, but I had promised Mrs. Goodwin I wouldn’t go to that part of town alone. Given her current precarious condition, I couldn’t break a promise right now. Besides, I suspected that Mr. Partridge had chosen the route with one purpose in mind. And now he was planning a visit to The Tombs—was that just to gloat over Daniel, or did he have a more sinister purpose in mind there, too?

I looked up at the clock on the mantel. I didn’t really have time to visit Mr. Atkinson and convince him to take me to The Tombs today if I wanted to be at Mrs. Goodwin’s house in time for the afternoon mail. I’d have to leave that for tomorrow morning. A stiff breeze was blowing off the Hudson, and I retrieved my line of dry laundry before starting the long walk across town, past Cooper Union to Tompkins Square. The rain, followed by the breeze, had brought the temperature down and the walk was not at all unpleasant. It gave me time to think. I’ve always found walking was great for putting my thoughts in order.

I was anxious to see if any answers to the advertisement had come in the mail yet. If the dead girl we saw yesterday was not a prostitute, then it was possible that some of the others weren’t, either. If so, where did this monstrous killer meet the girls and persuade them to go with him? I decided
Detective Quigley’s theory was a good one—he trolled the streets in his carriage, looking for likely victims. Maybe he offered them a ride; maybe he simply grabbed them off the street. If we received letters from one particular part of the city, we’d be able to start hunting him down in earnest.

Mrs. Goodwin’s house was in a pleasant, established neighborhood, just beyond a square with a green and leafy park in it. The front steps were well scrubbed, the brass door knockers well polished. The children who played hopscotch or whipped their tops on the sidewalks were well cared for. I got the key from the neighbor, who was most upset to hear about Mrs. Goodwin’s accident.

“That poor dear woman has devoted her life to the service of others, and look where it’s gotten her,” she said. “And her man before her, too. He was one of the best, and he was struck down in his prime.”

She handed over the key with no difficulty, and I was about to put it into the lock when the door swung open. This was strange, and I hesitated for a moment. There was no sign of forced entry around the lock, however, so I decided there had to be a reasonable explanation. Either Mrs. Goodwin herself had left in such a hurry that she hadn’t quite closed the door and today’s strong wind had blown it open again, or she had another friend or neighbor who had been entrusted with the key.

“Hello?” I called, standing in the narrow front hall. “Is anyone there?”

I stood listening but heard no kind of movement. I went on into the house, leaving the front door open, just in case. There was no mail of any kind on the front door mat, which was disappointing. I suppose I should have left again straightaway, but my curiosity got the better of me. I went down the hall into a meticulously scrubbed kitchen, complete with a row of gleaming copper pans hanging over the stove. I then conducted a brief tour of the front parlor, with its furniture covered in dust sheets, then the back parlor, which she obviously used for day-to-day living. The furni
ture in here was well-worn, and over the mantelpiece there was a framed photograph of a man in police uniform. I stood looking at it for a moment. Her husband had been taken from her, but she still carried on his work. That was noble enough. What was even more noble was that she had become my friend. She had every reason to hate Daniel as the man supposedly responsible for her husband’s death, and thus to hate me, working to secure Daniel’s release; but somehow she had believed me enough to trust me. Not only that—she had gone out of her way to help me.

I glanced around the room, and my gaze alighted on a piece of paper, sticking out from under the armchair. It was so unlike Mrs. Goodwin to leave anything untidily that I bent to pick it up. It was a new envelope. I decided to return it to the oak secretary nearby. When I opened the front of the secretary I gasped. The papers inside it were in complete disarray. Somebody had gone through her papers and then stuffed them back anyhow.

I froze, suddenly realizing the implication of this. He or she could be in the house at this minute, going through the rooms upstairs. I crept back to the front door.

“I’ll be going then,” I called out loudly and closed the front door behind me. Then I went as far as the street corner, stood out of sight, and waited. And waited. After a while nobody had appeared. I was tempted to go back and see if anyone had been through the upstairs rooms, but I was also a little hesitant to do so. Then I saw the mailman, coming up the street from the other direction. So the mail here was delivered later than I had anticipated. There might still be a letter for us today. My desire to see what the mail was bringing overcame my reluctance to go back to the house. I had just plucked up courage to go back inside when I noticed a constable coming toward me from around Tompkins Square. I ran over to him.

“You know Mrs. Goodwin who lives on this street?”

“I should say so. Old Whitey was a good mate of mine.”

“Did you hear she’s in the hospital, run down by a horse and wagon?”

“I heard, at the station this morning. Do you know how she’s doing?”

“Better than we could have hoped. She’s regained consciousness and is alert and talking.”

“Well, that is good news, miss.” He beamed at me, pausing to take out a handkerchief and wipe sweat from his round face before giving every intention of continuing his beat.

I put a hand on his arm to detain him. “Mrs. Goodwin has just sent me to her house to pick up the mail and there are signs that somebody has been in there, poking around in her desk. I didn’t go upstairs, in case somebody was still up there. I don’t think they are, but the police should know.”

“Somebody broke in?”

“No, there was no sign of a break-in, but the front door was open.”

“You don’t say. Don’t you worry, miss. I’ll keep an eye on the place in the future,” he said.

“No, it’s more than that, Constable. Mrs. Goodwin was working on the East Side Ripper case. I think the detectives in charge of that case should know, Officers Quigley and McIver. Do you know them?”

“Quigley and McIver? Stationed at headquarters, no doubt.”

I nodded. The mailman had now reached Mrs. Goodwin’s front door, and I watched him push something through the mail slot.

“I’m going back to that house now to collect the mail that’s just been delivered,” I said. “Could I ask you to take a look and make sure nobody is hiding upstairs?”

“Very good, miss,” he said, but he didn’t look at all happy about it.

“I’m sure there’s nobody there,” I said. “I left the house at least half an hour ago and nobody has come out since; but just in case, I’d rather have a big, strong constable with a club along with me.”

He accompanied me down the street, trying to appear confident and resolute, his hand grasped on his billy club. I opened
the front door, picked up the letter that was lying on the mat, and let him into the house. Then I followed him up the stairs.

“There’s no sign anyone’s been up here, miss,” he said, having checked both bedrooms and the large wardrobe. “Maybe you imagined it.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Someone has rifled through her desk, all right. Come and take a look for yourself. The officers in charge should know about it.”

“Very good, miss,” he said. “I’ll pass along the word.”

I let him out again, not entirely convinced he’d take this seriously. I suspected he put it down to female hysteria. I was dying to take a look at that letter. I shot the bolt across the front door, just in case, then carried it through to the kitchen. It was simply addressed to “MG” at her address. The postmark was Queens. I turned it over in my hands a couple of times, knowing full well that it wasn’t addressed to me and I should wait until Mrs. Goodwin herself opened it. Then finally curiosity got the better of me. If it was a letter we were hoping for, then Mrs. Goodwin would want to know about it as soon as possible. If not, then there was no rush to deliver it to her. I ripped it open.

It was written in a rounded, rather childish hand, but neatly, with no blots.

I stared at it with growing excitement. She had gone to meet a boy at Coney Island. It had to be connected with the disappearance of the other girls. I had learned something else important too—she had gone to meet a boy. We were dealing with a young man, attractive enough to make girls want to take risks to meet him.

I wanted to show this to Mrs. Goodwin straightaway, but I knew I had no hope of making it past the platoon of guard nuns once more this evening. I’d just have to be patient and wait until morning. By that time the morning post would have arrived as well, maybe bringing us more letters. I was just putting the letter back into its envelope when I heard a noise at the front door. I stood in the kitchen doorway and saw the door handle start to turn. Of course the bolt held the door firm. The door handle then jiggled, and the door was shoved with considerable strength.

My heart was racing. If he found that he couldn’t get in through the front door, would he just go away or try to break in? I went and looked out of the kitchen window. Breaking in through the rear of the house would be almost impossible. There was a tiny square of yard, fenced off from other yards and with the wall of another house at the rear. So he could hardly climb in that way. I had to make sure I got out safely and went to find that constable again. I decided I’d bluff it out.

“There’s someone at the front door, I think, Bessie,” I called in my best Irish accent. “Would you go and see who it is?”

Then I crept into the front parlor and peered through the lace curtains. There was nobody to be seen. Now the horri
ble truth dawned on me that he might be crouched down by those potted bay trees, out of my line of vision from this window, waiting for me to come out. I stayed safely out of sight behind the curtains and waited. Then I spied a welcome sight—the constable was making his rounds again, coming along the other side of the street. I unbolted the front door, glanced in both directions, saw nobody, then ran to intercept him.

“He was here again,” I gasped.

“Who was, miss?”

“The man who broke into Mrs. Goodwin’s house. He tried to get in at the front door, but I’d bolted it from the inside.”

“A man, miss? Can you describe him?”

“I didn’t see him,” I said impatiently. “I looked out through the window, but I didn’t see him.”

“I’ve been standing on that corner over there for the past fifteen minutes and haven’t seen any men on the street. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, I’m very sure. The door handle jiggled,” I said. “Then he shoved the door hard, trying to force it open. He must have escaped while you were making your rounds.”

“Maybe,” he said.

Another idea struck me. “Have there been any vehicles passing on the street?”

He frowned. “Not recently. There was a delivery on the square earlier. And the butcher’s boy came by on his bicycle.”

Bicycle, I thought. Somebody could make a hasty getaway on a bicycle.

“Any other bicycles?”

“Not that I noticed,” he said. “Look, miss, I think you’re getting a bit overexcited about this—possibly because you’re upset about your friend’s accident. Why don’t you go home and have a nice lie down and a cool drink.”

There was nothing more to be done today, so I accepted his suggestion. “You will keep an eye on the place, and you will report it to the right people?”

“I’ve already done so, miss,” he said. “So don’t you worry. Nobody’s going to break into the house again.”

I collected the letter and locked the front door. Of course I couldn’t bolt it from the outside, but it was the best I could do. Besides, he’d already been through Sabella’s papers. I couldn’t think of anything else in the house that might be of interest to him. So why had he come back this afternoon? Had he come back because he knew I was there? This wasn’t likely. How would he know I had any connection with Mrs. Goodwin or that I’d be sent to pick up her mail? Then I took this one stage further: Was the mail the reason he had come? He had seen the advertisement in the newspapers and wanted to make sure the letters that could incriminate him never got to Mrs. Goodwin. Possibly there had been letters in an earlier post that were now in his possession.

I made a resolve to come back early tomorrow morning in time to intercept the first post of the day before I went to see Mrs. Goodwin in the hospital. One thing I was sure of was that we were on the right track. Something we were doing had definitely gotten him rattled.