“Of course I'm all right. Why shouldn't I be?”
“I heard there was a fire at Paddy Riley's place. Then I went to your old address and Mrs. O'Hallaran said you'd moved out and she'd no idea where you'd gone. I thought something might have happened to you.”
“I'm very well, as you can see, thank you, Captain Sullivan,” I said. “I have a new life and a new group of friends and I'm very happy.”
“So you've given up this crazy notion of being a detective,” he said. “I'm so glad. I can't tell you how worried I was that you might try and get involved in Paddy's murder yourself.”
“Have the police solved the case, then?”
“It's possible they never will,” Daniel said, “and it's also possible that there's a dangerous element involved. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever find any proof now. But it's definitely not the kind of thing I'd want you mixed up in.”
Ryan poked his head around the door. “Come on, Molly. What's keeping you? If you delay me from my garret any longer, it will be all your fault if the play's not finished.”
“Coming, Ryan,” I said.
I could feel Daniel looking at me. “I have to go,” I said. “So nice to meet you again, Captain Sullivan.”
Ryan put an arm around my shoulders and escorted me from the cafe. I didn't look back to see Daniel's reaction, but I permitted myself a broad smile. The fact that my heart wasn't aching must mean that I was truly getting over him.
As we walked back toward Washington Square, Ryan kept his arm draped over my shoulders, and I did nothing to dissuade him. But my talk with Daniel had reminded me that I had been neglecting the task I had set myself. What better moment to glean some facts from Ryan than during an unguarded moment when we were strolling in the company of others.
“Tell me, Ryan,” I began casually, “someone said that you might know Angus MacDonald, the millionaire's son. Is that true?”
A brief spasm of annoyance crossed his face. “Used to know,” he said.
“So you're no longer friends?”
“We parted amicably enough,” he said. “He a little less amicably than I, but that's usually the way it goes. I told you how I am, I fall in and out of love so quickly, and leave behind me a trail of broken hearts.”
I think the world stopped turning for a second as I tried to digest what I had just heard. Ryan was still chatting away easily. “Poor old Angus took it rather hard, but I always shy away when it's getting too serious. To tell you the truth, I can't stand the thought of having another human being dependent on me—besides, there was a rumor that his wife might be divorcing him and you know how I abhor scandal. Think what harm it would do to the new play. It would have been an absolute disaster. You know how positively puritanical New Yorkers are.”
The blood was pounding through my brain. With my sheltered upbringing in Ireland, it had never crossed my mind that Angus MacDonald and Ryan O'Hare had been more than friends. I think I had heard whispers and insinuations that this kind of thing happened, and my parish priest had once preached an incomprehensible sermon about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but it had never been part of my world. So it was really true that a man could fall in love with another man! I took this idea one stage further and felt the flood of embarrassment turning my face crimson. It came to me with a shock of realization that Gus and Sid might also be more than friends. I remembered their amused glances when I suggested that Gus still had plenty of time to find a suitable husband, and my bewilderment that there was only one luxuriously decadent bedroom in the house. Now I considered it, they were, to all intents and purposes, a married couple.
I managed to attempt a normal conversation until we left Ryan outside his hotel. And when Gus asked me, “Molly, darling, is something wrong?” I replied that I must have drunk too much coffee and it had given me a headache. Then they were both most solicitous and insisted that I lie down in a darkened room with an ice pack on my forehead.
I lay there, hearing their conversation and laughter coming up from the garden below. My thoughts were still in turmoil. How stupidly mortified I felt that I had believed Ryan might be attracted to me. Now I examined his behavior in the cold light of reason, I saw that he was equally friendly to everyone. To flirt, to put an arm around a shoulder, to kiss on the cheek were part of his nature. I had deceived myself in hoping for too much.