Authors: Rhys Bowen
“I’ll write the letter now,” Daniel said, “if you’d be good enough to make me a quick bite to eat before I go back to work.”
With that he went through to his desk in the front parlor that had now become his study, and I went to my rightful place in the kitchen, trying to put aside thoughts that a woman’s lot in life was not a fair one. I made him a cold beef sandwich and some pickled cabbage, and was pouring him a glass of lemonade when he returned with the letter.
“This can go out with the three o’clock mail if you’ll take it to the post office for me.” He sat and worked his way quickly through the sandwich. “I may not be home until late tonight,” he said.
I pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. “Difficult case?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Several at once, that’s the problem. I like to devote all my energy to one thing at a time, not to be running hither and yon. But the powers that be have saddled me with something I’d rather avoid.”
“Maybe I can help,” I suggested. “If you’d care to discuss them with me.”
He shook his head. “Nothing to discuss. No clever murderers to be outwitted. Just various types of petty crooks making life unpleasant for the populace.” He pushed his plate away. “Very nice. Thank you, my dear. And you will make sure that letter gets to the post office, won’t you?” He kissed my forehead and was gone.
I cleared away the remains of the meal and looked at that letter lying on the table. I didn’t have to mail it, did I? But then I realized that I did. There has to be trust between husband and wife, however abhorrent it was to me that the task of finding my servant was being left to his mother. I glanced at the fruit bowl and saw that we were down to a single plum. Fruit was one of the things I’d been craving recently so I decided to treat myself to some peaches if I had to go out. I pinned my straw hat to my flyaway hair, put on my cotton gloves, and out I went.
The heat came up from the cobbles to hit me, almost as if someone had opened an oven door. I hugged the side of the alleyway that was in shade and made my way slowly to Sixth Avenue. I went into the post office and dropped the letter into the outgoing mail slot. I was about to leave when a large florid man leaned across the counter toward me.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, “but weren’t you the young lady that used to collect the mail for P. Riley Associates?”
“That’s right,” I said, P. Riley Associates being the name of the small detective agency I had inherited after the murder of Paddy Riley. “But that agency is no more and the post office box has been closed.”
“I know that,” he said. “It’s just that a letter came in addressed to that establishment only a week or so ago, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it, no forwarding address having been left with us. So it’s still sitting there and I thought that maybe you’d know where to deliver it. Hold on a minute and I’ll fetch it for you.”
He disappeared into a back room and then returned, panting and red-faced, but triumphantly waving an envelope. “Here you are. So maybe you’ll see that the right party gets his mail then.”
“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”
With the letter in my gloved hand I went out into the heat of Sixth Avenue. I walked until I was standing in the shade of a sycamore tree before I stopped to examine it. Of course I knew that P. Riley Associates was no more, and that I had promised Daniel I would give up all such nonsense when I married him. That meant that I should throw the letter straight into the nearest rubbish bin. But then I told myself that it might be a belated payment for services rendered long ago and I couldn’t risk throwing good money away. I looked at the envelope and saw the stamp with King Edward’s head on it. From England then. I opened the envelope and found no money but a single sheet of cheap lined paper, such as one would find in an exercise book. I also saw from the address at the top that the letter came not from England but from Ireland, from County Cork.
Dear Sir or Madam:
We are but simple folk and can’t pay you much money, so if you’re one of these big swank detectives then I’m thinking you’ll not want to be bothered with the likes of us. But we’re more than a little worried about our niece Maureen O’Byrne. She sailed for New York on the
Majestic
out of Queenstown just under a year ago, hoping to make a better life for herself in your country. Indeed things seemed to fall into place instantly for her. She hadn’t been there more than a week or two when she wrote to us saying that she’d landed herself a good situation as under-parlormaid with a Mrs. Mainwaring and she hoped soon to be sending money home when she’d paid off her passage.
She had not given us an address to write to, so we could only wait for more news. Well, we waited and waited but heard nothing more. So now a year’s coming up and we’re concerned about her welfare. She was always a good girl and devoted to her uncle and me, as we were her closest relatives since her poor mother and father died. Something must have happened to her, or she would have written, I’m absolutely sure. Even if she couldn’t send any money she would have at least written a note at Christmastime.
As I said, we are not wealthy folks and I have no idea what your usual fee might be, but we’ve a little set aside for our funerals and we’re willing to do what’s necessary to learn about our Maureen. Anything you can do to help will be appreciated. Please reply to the above address and God love you for your efforts.
Yours faithfully,
E. M. O’Byrne (Mrs.)
P.S.
I have enclosed a picture of Maureen to help you with your inquiries. As you can see, she’s a pretty girl, dainty, almost fairylike. We used to tease her that she was a changeling as we’re all heavyset and dark in the family except for her.
Two
I stood staring down at the picture of Maureen. It had obviously been cut from a family group and showed her stiff, uneasy, and unsmiling; her hands folded in an unnatural position. Her hair was light, but it wasn’t possible to tell the true color. I slipped the picture back into the envelope then reread the letter. By the time I had finished reading, my head had started buzzing with ideas. The missing girl had done something she was ashamed of and didn’t want them to know. She’d run off with an unsuitable man, or she’d been sacked from her situation in Mrs. Mainwaring’s household and didn’t want to write until she had found herself a new post. If I could locate this Mrs. Mainwaring, no doubt this matter could be solved quickly. It shouldn’t be too hard—Mrs. Mainwaring must be a lady of some substance if she ran a household big enough to employ more than one parlormaid. And I knew people who moved in those circles. The first person to try should be my old friend Miss Van Woekem—she knew the Four Hundred personally. Or maybe some of my friend Emily’s Vassar pals, or of course Gus came from a most distinguished Boston family who would have connections in New York. It wasn’t definite that the lady lived in New York, but given that the girl landed here and found a situation immediately, one could surmise …
A horse and cart lumbered past, the poor horse with his head straining forward and breathing heavily as he attempted to drag a dray piled high with barrels. The clop of hooves and the rumble and rattle of the cart so close to me broke my train of thought and made me step back hastily from the curb. Then I realized that it was no use surmising. I would not be taking on this case. I had given up my detective business and promised Daniel that I would never again involve myself in stupidly dangerous situations. As hard as this was for me, I could see his point of view: I had narrowly escaped death on several occasions. I’d even suffered a miscarriage once that I had never found the courage to tell him about. He had been unjustly jailed at the time and in no position to marry me. As these thoughts passed through my mind I admitted that I had experienced some very dark hours. I had taken stupid risks. I was lucky to be alive and to be married to the man I loved with a bright future ahead of me.
I’d take the letter home, show it to Daniel, and ask if he knew of any reputable private detectives who might want to take on the job. I stopped at my favorite greengrocer on the corner of Ninth Street and bought a pound of peaches and some salad for Daniel’s supper, since it would be too hot to think of cooking much. I looked longingly at those peaches in my basket, tempted to eat one on the spot, but reminded myself that the respectable wife of a well-known police captain does not behave like a street urchin. Instead I joined the throng attempting to stay in the shade under the elevated railway tracks, and was trying to avoid being bumped and jostled when I heard my name being called.
I stepped out into the sunlight, looked up, and saw a delicate vision in pale lilac waving at me. She seemed almost unreal, so out of place among the drab colors of the sturdy housewives and laborers that I had to look twice before I recognized her. It was Sarah Lindley, fellow suffragist friend of Sid and Gus. In spite of the fact that she came from an upper-class and wealthy family she was not only passionately involved in the suffrage movement but had been volunteering at a settlement house in the slums of the Lower East Side. She looked both ways and dodged between a hansom cab and a big black carriage to come to me.
“Molly, how lovely to see you,” she said, giving me a delicate kiss on the cheek. “And how well you look. Positively blooming. How many months to go now?”
“Two and a half,” I said, “and it can’t go by quickly enough for me. I find this heat unbearable.”
“I know. Isn’t it just awful.” She brushed an imaginary strand of stray hair back under her lilac straw hat.
“Surely you could escape from it,” I said. “Don’t your folks have a country estate? Or weren’t you supposed to be making a European grand tour?”
“Already accomplished, my dear,” Sarah said, linking her arm through mine as we started to walk together. “We went in May. France, Italy, Germany, you name it, we were there. Every art gallery and palace in creation. All very lovely, but not a single prince or count asked for my hand so mama came home most disappointed.”
I glanced at her and we exchanged a grin. “I don’t imagine you’re in any hurry to marry after what you went through last year, are you?” I asked. Her last fiancé had turned out to be what we would have called a rotter who came to a bad end.
“Exactly,” she said. “And I want to be like you. I want to marry for love. Mama is all for a good match, but I don’t see why one should be unhappy for one’s whole life just to have a title or a castle or something.”
“So what are you doing in this part of the city?” I asked.
“Coming to pay a call on your dear neighbors,” she said. “I haven’t seen them since I came back from Europe and I’m dying to regale them with all my stories. I know they’ll love to hear about the fat German count who trapped me in the hotel elevator in Berlin and tried to kiss me.”
“How disgusting. What did you do? Scream for help?”
“Absolutely not, my sweet. I stuck the tip of my parasol into his foot. With considerable force. You should have heard him howl and hop around.”
I laughed. “Sid and Gus would be proud,” I said, “but I’m afraid you’ve come on a wasted journey. They are not home. They went to stay with Gus’s cousin in Newport.”
“Oh, the dreaded Roman mansion.” She laughed. “I wonder what made Gus endure that again? I thought she couldn’t stand that particular cousin.”
“I gather they were prepared to suffer the cousin for the sake of sea air,” I said. “It really is devilishly hot in the city. As I said I’m surprised you haven’t escaped.”
“Devotion to duty,” Sarah said. “One of our volunteers at the settlement house is getting married so I promised to take over her shifts.”
“You’re still working at the settlement house?”
“I am. It’s hard work, but it brings me great satisfaction to be able to make a difference in the lives of those people. We’ve expanded our educational programs and we’re teaching so many poor mothers about hygiene and good nutrition. That’s become my little pet project, actually. I love going out into the tenements and helping people. You’d be amazed how many mothers haven’t the slightest idea about how to look after their babies—they let the little dears crawl around on absolutely filthy floors and put anything they find in their mouths and they even give them rags soaked in gin to keep them quiet.”
“You’re doing a wonderful job,” I said.
She wrinkled her little button of a nose. “Mama doesn’t see it that way. I have to endure a constant barrage of comments about my chances of marriage slipping away and the bloom fading on the rose and the horrors of impending spinsterhood. But frankly, Molly, I’d be quite happy not marrying and doing this kind of work all my life. What’s so wrong with it?”
“It isn’t what your mother had planned for you, that’s what,” I said. “Every mother wants her daughter happily married and lots of grandchildren. You should see how excited Daniel’s mother is about the arrival of the baby.”
“And your mother? I presume she’s still at home in Ireland?”
I shook my head. “My mother died when I was fourteen. My father’s dead too. I have a brother who was part of the Republican Brotherhood, hiding out somewhere in France, and a younger brother still in Ireland but that’s all. No real family anymore.”
She touched my arm. “Poor Molly. How sad for you.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. “I’ve got Daniel, and Sid and Gus have become like family to me. I’m so sorry they’re not at home. I don’t know when they plan to return. Would you care to come to my place for a cup of tea or a lemonade since you’re in the neighborhood?”
“How kind of you. I’d love to.”
We turned, arm in arm, from Sixth to Greenwich Avenue and from there into Patchin Place, teetering on the cobbles in our dainty shoes. The house was now uncomfortably hot so I led Sarah though to our tiny square of back garden, where I had set a wrought iron table and two chairs in the shade of a lilac tree, then brought out a jug of lemonade and a plate of biscuits I had made a few days previously. Sarah clapped her hands and laughed in delight.