“Now I've heard everything. Paddy hated women. He wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot pole.”
“Ah, well, he didn't actually touch me,” I said, “but he liked me well enough. I was helping him around the office. He was showing me the tricks of the trade.”
I could see this sinking in. “So it was Paddy who taught you how to throw that cape over someone's head?”
“No, I invented that for myself when I couldn't find anything I could use as a weapon.”
“It was quite effective.”
“Not effective enough. You still got me.”
Daniel stared at me long and hard, then shook his head. “So you were serious when you said you were going to be an investigator.”
“I'm always serious. And I don't toy with other people's affections either.” I had recovered my equilibrium enough to remember that I shouldn't be glad to be talking to Daniel.
“Molly, I'm really sorry,” he said. He reached out to touch my arm. I shrank away. “I wasn't trifling with your affections. Everything I felt for you—feel for you—was genuine.”
“And yet you're betrothed to another woman. So what were you waiting for, enough money to set me up in a quiet little flat somewhere as your mistress? I hear it's all the rage in polite society. But I wouldn't know. I'm only a peasant girl. Where I come from, if you dally with a woman's affections, you're expected to marry her.”
“Damn it, Molly. You know it's not like that.” He reached out to grab my arm. I neatly sidestepped away.
“What other choices are there? Unless you're about to drag me out west with the Mormons where they can have two wives, although I can't see Miss Arabella Norton in a covered wagon, somehow.”
I thought I saw the twitch of a smile on his lips. “If you'd let me try to explain.”
I brushed him away. “Either you're betrothed or you're not. It's as simple as that. And if you are betrothed to another woman, then there is no place for me in your life.” He tried to say something but I held up my hand. “If you want to explain something, you might tell me why you were creeping in here like a thief in the night, frightening me out of my wits.”
“Ah, good question/' he said.
“And the good answer is?”
He looked at my face and laughed. “All right, you've caught me. I was snooping. Paddy was doing a spot of work for me, on the quiet. I was distressed to hear he had been killed, so I thought I'd come by to take a look for myself. Wolski doesn't take kindly to interference.”
“But you're his superior officer. Why didn't you take the case yourself?”
“I'm in the middle of another investigation and I wasn't on the spot, so Wolski was assigned to this one. I can't officially step on his toes.”
“I wish you would,” I said. I pulled out the chair and was about to sit on it when I remembered the blood and hastily stood up again. “Sergeant Wolski seems to think that Paddy deserved to be killed because he worked with both the police and the gangs. He thinks it was a revenge killing.”
“He confided all this to you? You've become his righthand woman too?”
“I happened to be here when he arrived. I was the one who found Paddy.”
“You found him dead?”
“Dying. The killer was still here, hidden in the back room, just like I was just now.”
“Holy Mother,” Daniel muttered. “He could have killed you too.”
“Easily. I thought Paddy was asleep, you see. I heard a noise and went to investigate. He knocked me over, like you did, only a little more violently, as you can see from the bruise on my face, and made his getaway through that window.”
He reacted as if he had only just noticed the bruises. He took my chin in his hand and turned the discolored side toward him, wincing as he touched the swollen area around my lip. “I seem to make a habit of meeting you after men have beaten you up. You live a charmed life, my dear.”
I moved hastily out of reach of his touch. “I must have been a cat in a former existence,” I said breezily. “Don't they say cats have nine lives?”
“You've already used up several of yours,” he said. “Be careful.”
He was looking at me tenderly again, which I found distinctly unnerving. “Don't worry. I plan to be.” I brushed a last speck from my skirt and straightened my blouse. “So what is it you were looking for?”
“I don't know, really. I just wanted to take a look for myself, to see if Paddy had left any notes on—” He broke off.
“On what?”
“On the little matter I'd asked him to check into.”
“His cases are all in that file cabinet. The police didn't bother to try to open it.”
He looked at the open cabinet, the files on the floor and then at me. “Oh, no,” he said. “You weren't getting any stupid ideas about investigating this yourself, were you?”
“I just thought I'd see if there was anything the police had overlooked and they should know about. That's all.”