Oh Danny Boy (26 page)

It turned out that Dr. Birnbaum was lodging at the Hotel Lafayette, on University Place, the very same place where Ryan O’Hare himself had rooms. Well, that explained how they had met! I was glad it was a short walk as I had been up since before dawn and had already put in a full day’s work. My feet flagged on the hot sidewalks, and I looked longingly at the fountain in Washington Square, from which came delighted squeals of small boys splashing merrily. The sound of their voices brought back a whole string of happier memories—Bridie and Shamey had played in that same fountain until they were detected by me and brought home in disgrace. Now I wondered when I would see them again.

Lost in thought, I almost walked right past the Hotel Lafayette, until I glanced up and saw the striped awning over its dining room window, giving it a gay continental appearance. The clerk inside confirmed that Dr. Birnbaum was indeed staying there, and could probably be found in his room at the moment. I was deemed respectable-looking enough to go up as they didn’t seem to have a room-to-room telephone system. The doctor’s room was on the top floor of three, overlooking University Place. I heard the sound of laughter as I tapped on the door. It was opened by none other than Ryan, dressed, for him, in ordinary city attire—white tailored shirt, light trousers, no frills, no Buddhist robes.

“Molly, what a delightful surprise,” he said. “We were ex
pecting some German friends of Fritz’s but you’ll do equally well. Come on in.”

He ushered me into a comfortable suite with plush armchairs, table, and writing desk at one end, a bedroom area at the other. It was meticulously neat, with no clutter other than a pile of books. Dr. Birnbaum was sitting at the desk. He got up in a hurry as I came in and looked rather awkward at finding me there—possibly because he was entertaining Ryan in his rooms.

“Miss Murphy,” he said, clicking his heels and bowing. “To what do we owe this honor?”

“I have a favor to ask, Dr. Birnbaum. It’s about the case we’ve been discussing. The murdered girls.”

He eyed me warily. “I hope you don’t wish to be my assistant again. That was rather embarrassing for me.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll not embarrass you again. You’ve kept abreast of what is happening, have you?”

“Ah yes. I read that they plan to exhume the other girls who were murdered.”

“They did so today. I was present.”

“And how did you manage this feat? I can’t picture those two officers inviting you along for the ride.”

“They didn’t even know I was there.” I caught Ryan’s eye, and we exchanged a grin.

“
Gott im Himmel,
you never fail to astonish me, Miss Murphy.” Dr. Birnbaum mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “Please do be seated. Ryan, will you please pour our guest a glass of wine?”

I took the armchair offered.

“No wine for me, thank you,” I said, as Ryan picked up the bottle, shrugged, and poured himself a glass. “I’ll not detain you for more than a moment. You have probably also heard that these girls might not have been prostitutes at all, but ordinary, respectable young women dressed up to give the appearance of that kind of person.”

“Extraordinary,” he said. “Our killer has gone to a lot of trouble. And why, I ask myself? If he wanted to abduct young women and kill them, why not do so and hide their
bodies? Bury them under the floorboards, drop them into a lake, dig graves for them in a forest. The chances of their ever being found would have been slight. So why advertise them and go through all this pretence?”

“Maybe because prostitutes don’t matter?” I suggested. “If the murdered girls are thought to be ladies of the night, then nobody will care too much who is killing them. Perhaps this is what the killer thinks.”

“Didn’t I tell you she was a bright girl, Fritz?” Ryan asked. “The flower of Irish womanhood.”

I decided he had already attacked that wine bottle before my arrival. He was at that expansive stage of drunkenness we Irish go through. Morbidity would come next.

Dr. Birnbaum stroked his blond beard reflectively. “Possible. Although there is something here that I can’t quite grasp. Something is not true to type, or at least to any type that I have come across. A brutish man who violates a girl and then kills her so violently and yet displays all the characteristics of a mind cunning enough to have baffled the police until now. He’s reckless enough to take extreme risks, yet well behaved in his daily life so that he is not suspected. It is almost as if we’re dealing with two people. This kind of split personality is most fascinating to me. I can’t wait to meet him.”

“And I can’t wait to catch him,” I said. “It makes me sick to think of those poor girls, imagining they were about to meet an admirer, only to be lured to their deaths.”

“An admirer, what is this?” he demanded.

I told him everything Mrs. Goodwin and I had found so far.

“Going to meet a boy?” He looked perplexed. “I find it hard to believe that we are dealing with a boy here. A young man kills in the heat of passion. He would then be likely to panic and try to hide the body at all costs. These deaths are coldly calculated and the whole execution of the plot carried through to perfection. No, I do not think we are dealing with a boy.”

“Then how were the girls lured to their deaths? At least two of them took risks to meet with a young man. He must
have been attractive and exciting enough for them to risk their parents’ wrath.”

Dr. Birnbaum shook his head. “I can’t answer that. But what did you want me to do for you?”

“I wondered if you would be able to match up hair samples for me? I have obtained a strand of hair from one of the dead girls. I hope to obtain hair from the girl’s home, from a locket or a hairbrush, and I wondered if you would have the means to examine it under a microscope.”

“I always travel with a microscope,” he said. “It is not the biggest or best model, however. I could give you a preliminary answer, but to make a detailed analysis, we would have to go to a good laboratory. I am sure the police must have this facility. Why not take the hair to them?”

“I intend to,” I said, “but I would like to confirm my suspicions first.”

“Very well,” he said. “Did you bring the hair sample with you?”

“No, it’s still at my house. Now I know that you will do this for me, I’ll try to obtain a hair from the girl’s home. I’ll do that in the morning.”

“In the meantime, I have no wish to rush you or to appear discourteous,” Birnbaum said, “but we expect the arrival of some friends from Freiburg University any minute and we go to dine with them tonight.”

I got up. “I’ll be on my way, then,” I said. “And I thank you for your help.”

Ryan remained sprawled in the chair, eyeing his wine-glass, as Dr. Birnbaum ushered me out.

I was exceedingly weary as I came out onto University Place, but I made a supreme effort and dragged myself across to Broadway to catch the trolley car north to Gramercy Park, where I hoped to find Arabella Norton. I wasn’t looking forward to sharing my suspicion with her, but it had to be done. The sooner we arrived at the truth, the better.

As I stood outside Miss Van Woekem’s house on that lovely square, the first thing I heard was the sound of voices
and laughter. Then I saw movement behind the lace curtains and realized some sort of large function was taking place. Hardly the right time to disturb Arabella. So it was a case of the trolley back home again, a quiet supper, and an early night. I slept peacefully and was disturbed by no strange dreams.

In the morning I repeated the trip to Miss Van Woekem’s. Knowing a little of the behavior of girls from Arabella’s background, I suspected that breakfast for her would never be before nine at the earliest. So I timed my arrival for ten, hoping to fit in between breakfast and leaving for the first shopping expedition of the day or fitting at the dressmaker. I was in luck. I requested to speak to Miss Norton, presented my card—although the maid knew full well who I was—and was shown into the drawing room. Arabella was sitting at her aunt’s desk writing letters. She jumped up when she saw me.

“Miss Murphy. You have news for me?”

“I may, Miss Norton,” I replied, “although I fear it will not be the news you want to hear.”

“Bad news? The worst?”

“I may be wrong. Let us hope so.”

She motioned to the sofa. “Please forgive my lack of manners. Do sit down. May I call the maid to bring you some coffee?”

I had to admit that ladies of Arabella’s class were exceedingly well trained in manners. I declined her offer, knowing that she was dying to hear the news.

“You’ve read of the string of murders they call the East Side Ripper attacks?”

“Yes, but they are all—ladies of low morals.” She flushed at the mention of them.

“Not all,” I said. “Some of them have proved to be ordinary working girls, whom the killer has dressed and painted to look like”—I spared her sensibilities—“such ladies.”

“But surely this can have nothing to do with Letitia? She wouldn’t have been anywhere frequented by—such girls. By her clothing and her manner she would never have been mistaken for a common girl.”

“I would agree with you, except for one thing, Miss Norton. One of the bodies possessed the most impressive head of pale blond hair. Now I do realize that one of the girls reported missing by her family is from Swedish descent and may also have such magnificent hair, but I thought the coincidence too striking to ignore.”

“But how—where could Letitia ever have been mingling with common people?”

“As to that, you said yourself that she helps her mother at a settlement house. The strange thing is that all these girls had something in common. They had all just been to Coney Island.”

Arabella gave a relieved laugh then. “There you are, then. Letitia would never have been to such a low-down place. We talked of it once and both agreed that it could hold no attraction for us.”

“But she was due to go there the day she disappeared. She was to plan an outing for the settlement house children the next day.”

“But she never arrived in the city. Her fiancé waited for her for hours.”

“What if she had taken an earlier train? What if she had somehow missed her fiancé at the station and gone to Coney Island that day to meet her doom.”

“Don’t.” She put a hand to her mouth. “What you suggest is too horrible. You say you’ve seen the body? Did it—did it look at all like her?”

“I can’t tell you that,” I said. I was about to mention the face, but stopped myself quickly. “And in truth I didn’t see the body. I was too much of a coward. But the body had been buried in the ground for some time. Her hair is the only way we have of identifying her.”

“You can identify her by her hair?”

“If we can find one of Letitia’s hairs at her home, a doctor will try to match the two samples under a microscope.”

“Amazing,” she said. “I am sure Letitia’s family will be able to find any number of her hairs. A locket, maybe, or the hats she wore, or even a comb she left behind. I’ll telephone
them today and have the hairs sent down by train. With any luck we’ll know, for sure, before I depart for Europe on Monday.”

“It would be unfortunate for you, if you had to leave with such terrible news hanging over you,” I said.

“But better than not knowing.”

I nodded.

“And what news on Daniel?” she asked. “You are still working on his behalf? Is he out of that horrible jail yet?”

“I’m afraid not. I have made some progress, but I don’t think it’s going to get us anywhere.”

“You’ve found the person who was out to discredit Daniel?”

“I think I have, but it’s no use,” I said. “It’s the police commissioner himself, the one on whose evidence they will convict Daniel.”

“What reason does he have to hate Daniel so?”

“He may be involved in a horse-doping scandal that Daniel was investigating.”

“But surely such a minor scandal wouldn’t make anyone go to such lengths,” she said.

“He prides himself on his moral rectitude. Perhaps he couldn’t bear that any hint of scandal should tarnish his reputation.”

“Then why not just have Daniel removed from the case and put another officer in his place—one who wasn’t so competent?”

She had a good point there.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know. All I know is that time passes, and I can see no way of securing Daniel’s release.”

“But why is he in prison if he hasn’t even been tried yet?” Arabella asked. “I don’t know much about these things, but couldn’t he just pay them bail and they’d let him go?”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “Because he has been accused of having ties to a gang, his assets have been frozen. He doesn’t want to ask friends or family because he doesn’t want word to get to his father, who is quite ill.”

“Daniel does have his noble side then, after all,” she said, “but in this case it’s rather silly of him, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think he’d ever forgive himself if his father had a heart attack because of him. It wasn’t too bad when there was hope of setting him free in the near future, but the longer this drags on, the more it seems that…” To my horror tears started trickling down my cheeks. I turned away but not quickly enough.

Arabella came over to me and put her hand awkwardly on my shoulder. “My dear Miss Murphy, please do not distress yourself. I’m sure everything will be all right. The truth will come out. They won’t let an innocent man languish in jail.”

“But they will,” I said. “Who will believe me? Who will believe Daniel against the word of a powerful man like the commissioner of police?”

At that moment the door opened and Miss Van Woekem came in.

“Molly Murphy!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here?” She took one look at my tear-stained cheeks as I quickly tried to wipe away the tears with a handkerchief. “Although I hardly think it was wise to come here with my goddaughter in residence, knowing your sentiments about each other. I hope you two haven’t been at each other’s throats.”

“Oh, but Godmother, that’s all in the past,” Arabella exclaimed. “Miss Murphy and I are now the dearest of friends. She came because she had news for me in a quest of mine.”