Oh Danny Boy (5 page)

I searched some more and was gratified to note that there was no portrait of Arabella in evidence, which just shows you of what base thoughts we women are capable. I was going through his chest of drawers, noting how neatly he kept everything folded, in contrast to myself who was messy by
nature, when I sensed, rather than saw, a movement behind me. I spun around, but nobody was there.

Too much imagination, I thought, but I felt as tense as a coiled watch spring. I was conscious of being alone in the big house, of being trapped upstairs in a back room with no way out. Cautiously I closed the drawer and turned around. Then I made my way back to the bedroom door. Again, with that sixth sense for danger, I felt a presence behind me. I spun around and this time I was sure that something had moved in the darkened bathroom beyond.

It crossed my mind that I might have surprised a burglar, helping himself to Daniel’s things when he was away. Then I reasoned that Mrs. O’Shea was hardly likely to have admitted a burglar. Daniel’s windows were shut and the only way in was through the front door and up two flights of stairs. Whoever or whatever it was, I wasn’t stupid enough to go and investigate. If someone was in there, I’d try to pretend I hadn’t noticed and simply leave. Afterward, I could keep watch to see who emerged.

All would have been fine, except that I glanced back once more just as I was leaving the bedroom. This time I saw him in the mirror. He was standing behind the bathroom door, a huge dark shape with one arm raised and holding some kind of weapon.

I turned and fled, blundering in my haste against the washstand that stood beside the door. Unfortunately my foot caught against one of the legs of the washstand. It teetered and fell, the china jug breaking as it crashed onto the floor, sloshing water over my feet and legs. I lost my balance and stumbled forward, expecting to feel that blow to the back of my head at any moment. When hands grabbed me, I attempted to struggle to my feet.

“You’ll not get away with this, you know!” I shouted. “Mrs. O’Shea is downstairs. I’ll scream and she’ll come running up here and her big sons with her.”

“It’s all right, miss. Take it easy. I’m not going to hurt you,” said a very deep voice. “Don’t be scared. Here, I’ll help you up.” And I was deposited on my feet.

I turned to look at my attacker.

“You were waiting behind the door to clobber me. I saw you in the mirror,” I said.

“I didn’t know who it was,” the man replied. “I heard someone come in, and I was ready to defend myself in case they were coming for me.”

Now I was able to breathe again, I took in the great bulk, the ugly face with its twisted, flattened nose, and I knew who he must be.

“It’s Gentleman Jack, isn’t it?” I asked. “Daniel sent me to find you. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Molly Murphy, a—a friend of Daniel’s.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Murphy,” he said, in that deep rumble, and extended a huge, meaty hand. The handshake itself couldn’t have been more gentle.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “And how come the landlady doesn’t know you’re in the house?”

“I’ve been hiding out,” he said. “I thought the police had been tipped off that I was in the neighborhood and were looking for me. Daniel gave me a key in case I needed it. I came to find him, but I don’t know where he’s gone. He hasn’t been home since I got here. I’ve been waiting for him to come back.” He sounded a little like a petulant child.

“He’s not likely to do that,” I said. “He’s in jail.”

“In jail? Because of me?”

“Partly,” I said and told him what I knew. “So you see,” I concluded, “somebody’s deliberately trying to get him in trouble.”

“Oh, no. That’s terrible. I’ll go to them and tell them it was all my fault. I was the one who asked him to set up the fight.” He had actually started for the door. I grabbed his arm. It was like gripping onto a rock.

“I don’t think that would do anybody any good. They’d arrest you too, more than likely.”

He must have seen the sense in this, because he changed direction. He went across to the window, moving with surprising grace for one of his size and bulk, pulled back the net curtain, and peered down at the street below.

“So I was right to run the other day. They were looking for me.”

“You’re lucky the police didn’t catch you here,” I went on. “They raided the place a few days ago and took away anything they could use against Daniel.”

“But why? Why would his pals do that? I thought he was a popular guy.”

“I thought so, too,” I said. “There is a rumor flying around that Daniel tipped off a gang to a police raid, and one of the officers got killed.”

“Daniel would never do that,” he said, shaking his big
bony head. “Daniel’s the best pal a guy could have. I’d trust him with my life.”

“I know,” I said, thinking privately that I was glad Daniel had proved trustworthy to somebody. I bent to pick up the pieces of the shattered jug and deposited them into Daniel’s rubbish bin. “So we have to get to work, you and I. We have to find out who might have put that money in the envelope and tipped off the commissioner as to where a bribe was being passed.”

“How are you going to do that?” he asked.

“I’ve no idea. Talk to the gang member to start with. Ask him who gave him the envelope.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay.” He frowned at me. “What envelope?”

“The one that had the money in it.”

“Oh yeah. That one. And why were they giving it to Daniel again?”

“I just told you. It was just supposed to be a list of names, not a bribe. Someone put the money in there.”

“Who?” he asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I said, my temper rising with my voice.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t remember things too good these days. They say I got myself clobbered one too many times in the head, and they might just be right. I get these headaches something terrible, and sometimes I see double.”

I had heard the term
punch-drunk
before, but I had never seen a living example of it in front of me. Jack Brady’s speech was even a trifle slurred and his ugly, misshapen face screwed up in concentration.

“Then why in heaven’s name do you want Daniel to set up another fight for you?” I blurted out before I had time to think. “Haven’t you been battered enough?”

“I need the money, miss,” he said. “I ain’t never been good with money. When I had it, I spent it. Once I had a diamond the size of a nickel in my stickpin. That’s when they used to call me Gentleman Jack. But I haven’t fought in a while and now it’s all gone again.”

“There are other ways to earn money apart from fighting,” I said.

He shook his head. “I ain’t never been smart, miss—what did you say your name was?”

“Murphy,” I reminded him.

“I ain’t never been smart, Miss Murphy. If I hadn’t been good with my fists, I’d have wound up as a laborer, sweating my guts out for a dollar a day. When I fight, I’m somebody.”

Somebody with an addled head, I thought, but didn’t say out loud. Instead I pulled out a chair from Daniel’s dining table for him.

“Well, your first job is to help me get Daniel out of jail. Take a seat and let’s think this through.”

He sat, his big frame too large for the chair, which creaked as he lowered himself onto it. I meanwhile took a dishcloth from Daniel’s kitchen and started mopping up the spilled water. Sometimes physical work helps with thinking, I’ve found.

“Now you and Daniel were planning this fight. How far along in the planning were you?”

“He was getting some guys to put up money and find us a place the police wouldn’t raid.”

“The list in the envelope was of potential backers for the fight,” I said. “So which gang was organizing it?”

He scratched his head, looking like an overgrown monkey at the zoo. “I don’t think he ever told me the name of the gang. He just said some guys he knew were going to get it set up.”

“He never mentioned the Eastmans, for example?”

“He may have done. The name don’t mean nothing to me. I’m not from New York.”

“And had you fixed where the fight was going to take place?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think they got the place fixed. Out on some island.”

“Some island?” That certainly narrowed it down—anywhere along the Atlantic Coast.

“An island close to New York City?”

“Oh yeah. Just outside the city, Daniel said.”

The only islands I knew about were Blackwell’s in the East River, home of a female prison institution; Ellis, home of the immigration depot; and the small rock on which the Statue of Liberty stood. Hardly suitable sites for an illegal boxing match. “Staten Island?” I asked, remembering another name I had heard.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t that one.”

“Try to think, Jack. You want to get Daniel out of jail, don’t you?”

He screwed up his eyes. “Some animal,” he said at last. Then a beaming smile transformed his ugly face, making me see that he had once been rather handsome. “Coney Island, that was it.”

“Coney Island, of course,” I said. As I said the words, I remembered going there once with Daniel, during those blissful days before I found out the truth about Arabella. I wrenched my mind back from a clear image of riding the roller coaster with Daniel’s arm holding me tightly around my shoulders. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So the fight was going to be on Coney Island. Do you know when?”

He shook his head. “They had to wait until they got enough backers to come up with the money.”

Obviously that had been what Daniel had been working on. I got to my feet and went through to the kitchen again to wring out the rag in the sink. “I wonder whether any of the New York gangs have influence as far away as Coney Island?” I said, thinking out loud rather than talking to Jack. He obviously knew no more than I did. “It might have been a member of an entirely different gang that Daniel was meeting that day. We’ll have to ask him before we do anything.”

“I did meet one guy,” Jack said, as I came back into the room. “Daniel took me to meet him. Funny-looking little thing, he was. Comical, you’d say. Crazy about birds. Had a stupid live pigeon sitting on his shoulder.”

“Monk Eastman!” I said, feeling a chill of fear shoot through me. “He’s not as comical as he looks. He’s the head of the Eastman gang. So you met with Monk. That must
mean that the Eastmans are at least involved. Do you remember where this meeting took place?”

Jack frowned with concentration again then shook his head. “I don’t know my way around the city that well. When I came to fight last time, I stayed at the Astoria. I had money then. I was world champ.”

It was like pulling teeth. I was getting more and more tired and frustrated. Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn’t had lunch yet, and it must be well past lunchtime.

I got up. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” I said. “Does Daniel have any food in the house?”

“He had some but I’ve eaten most of it,” Jack said. He followed me into the kitchen. The pantry shelves were indeed bare. There was a small wedge of cheese under a glass dome, some shriveled onions and carrots, and half a loaf of bread. “It will have to be bread and cheese then,” I said.

It was edible, barely, but it stopped the sick feeling of hunger.

“I’ll tell Mrs. O’Shea, the landlady, that you’re staying here,” I said. “Maybe we can ask her to bring in more supplies when she does her own shopping.”

“I’d be much obliged, miss. I need to keep my strength up right now if I’m going to fight. I usually have a dozen eggs at a time and steaks the size of a dinner plate.”

“I don’t know who would be paying for those,” I said. “I don’t have that kind of money to give you, and I don’t know where Daniel keeps his money.” I put down the glass of water I had been drinking. “It seems to me the first thing for you to do is to talk to Monk Eastman. He knows you. He’s helping set up a fight for you, so you’ll be quite safe with him. He has every reason in the world for wanting you alive and well.”

“You want me to go out and find this Monk person?” A look of alarm shot across his face. “But what if the police are on the lookout for me?”

“You could put on some kind of disguise, if you’re really worried,” I said.

“I don’t think it’s that easy to disguise me,” he said
apologetically. Of course I had to agree with him. Stick a beard or false eyebrows on him and he’d be even more conspicuous than he was now. Too bad it wasn’t winter, when he could at least have huddled under a cloak and broad-brimmed hat. In summer shirtsleeves everyone in the world would recognize him.

“You’ll have to take that chance, Jack,” I said. “I can’t go looking for Monk Eastman. I tried that once before, and I’m not sure what might have happened to me if the police hadn’t broken into the Walla Walla.”

“The what?”

“The Walhalla Hall. It’s a social club on Canal Street. Locals call it the Walla Walla. It’s where the Eastmans are often to be found. I expect we could come up with the money for a hansom cab fare between us. Take a cab right to Walhalla Hall and ask to speak to Monk. They’re bound to recognize you, so you won’t come to any harm. When you speak to Monk, tell him about Daniel. Find out, if you can, if it was a member of his gang who met with Daniel and who gave him the envelope. Find out if Monk knows anything about the bribe and exactly where Daniel was arrested. See if he has any suspicions of his own as to who might have planted the money. Have you got that?”

“Not exactly, miss. I’m not sure what envelope we’re talking about.”

“Saints preserve us,” I muttered. “I’ll write it down for you. You can read out the questions.”

“I don’t read and write so good, miss,” he said.

Not the brightest button in the box, Daniel had said. A definite understatement. Wonderful, I thought. Daniel is putting all his hopes on a man who can’t think straight or remember anything for more than a minute. Even if he finds Monk Eastman and asks the right questions, he’d forget the answers by the time he came home. The only alternative was for me to go with him and I was loath to do that.

“I’ll write down the questions and you give the piece of paper to Monk,” I said. “Then have him write down the answers, or, if he doesn’t want to risk doing that, ask him to do
what he can to clear Daniel’s name. Maybe he’d be prepared to tell the police that Daniel had never been in the pay of the Eastmans or never taken a bribe from him.”

Even as I said this, I realized that it was a long shot. From the one encounter between Monk and Daniel that I had witnessed, I had detected little love between them. Monk would probably be delighted that there was one senior police officer less to make his life a misery. Our only hope lay in Gentleman Jack and the fight. Monk would want it to take place; and if he needed Daniel to complete the arrangements for it, he might help spring him from jail.

“Tell Monk you’ll not fight unless Daniel is freed,” I said to Jack.

“Very good, miss. I’ll tell him,” Jack said, giving me that strangely ingratiating smile.

I took a piece of notepaper out of Daniel’s desk, dipped the pen in the inkwell, and started to write. “I’m putting down a list of all the questions that Monk could maybe answer,” I said. “Do your best for Daniel, Jack. If you don’t help him now, then nobody else can.”

“I’ll do my best for him, miss,” he said. “I swear it. Should I go now?”

“Better wait until this evening,” I said. “Walhalla Hall is usually deserted during the day. Even if Monk isn’t there tonight, somebody will know where to find him in the neighborhood.” I opened my purse. “Let’s see if we can come up with the cab fare there and back.”

I had about a dollar in change. Daniel’s desk and a jar on his mantelpiece produced another dollar.