“Good idea. We can certainly do that, can't we, Gus dear,” Sid said. “I wish we'd managed to get a better look at him. I'd love to apprehend him and make him pay for my cut lip and your bruises, Molly.”
“This isn't a game, you know,” I said. “This man is a violent killer. I was lucky that I heard a floorboard creak last night or I would have suffered Paddy's fate.” I touched Sid's arm. “Promise me you will be discreet and careful. And don't mention my name.”
Having extracted promises from them, I set off for the house on West Eighth Street. When the door was opened by the old European woman, she stood there shaking her head.
“Not here no more,” she said. “She gone.”
“Gone—gone where?”
She shrugged. “Home. She gone home.”
“Do you know where her home is?”
She shrugged again. “Chicago, maybe? Somewhere over there.” She pointed vaguely in a direction that may have been west.
“Do you have an address for her?”
Yet another shrug.
Not much help. Now I would have to think of another way of identifying my attacker. The logical thing would be to ask Ryan. He must know at least some of the people in Emma's group, although… I stopped short, standing poised at the curb about to cross Eighth Street. What if Ryan himself was involved? RO with LC. I shook my head in disbelief. Ryan—dear, sweet Ryan somehow involved in planning my death? It was too absurd to think about. And yet the first incident had happened in the darkness at his theater. He had claimed he didn't know I was there, but he could have known. And he had arrived at our front door not long after I got home. Was that to check if I had made it home safely?
“Absurd,” I said out loud. “Rubbish.”
I had been alone with Ryan on several occasions, including the other night after we left Emma. If he had wanted to kill me, there would have been ample chances. A quick shove under the hooves of a passing carriage would have been enough. But instead he had insisted on escorting me home safely. Besides, I didn't want to believe he was involved.
I wasn't sure what to do now. Maybe Sid and Gus were right and there was no alternative but to go to the police. I should meet with Daniel. He would know what to do next. Of course, he'd be furious with me that I had continued to poke my nose into this case after he had specifically forbidden me to get involved. But a lecture from Daniel would be preferable to winding up stabbed in a dark alleyway. I knew I would never feel safe until my attacker was caught.
If only I had some kind of evidence to present to Daniel. Apart from Paddy's little black book which I had deciphered, all I had were hunches and suppositions. And the fact that I had recognized my attacker—that he thought I was spying on him. Not much to go on. Of course, when the photos were ready, I might indeed have something worth showing.
I decided to take the bull by the horns and went straight to the photographer's shop on Broadway. I knew a week had not yet passed, but if I stressed the urgency to him, maybe he'd be understanding and work on those photographs right away. He greeted me with an unfriendly “Oh, it's you” as I came into the shop.
“Sorry to trouble you, but I just wondered …” I began.
“If the photos were ready yet?” he finished for me. “Been ready for days. You made such a fuss that I thought you'd be back here pestering me long before this.”
He pulled open a drawer below the counter and took out an envelope. “Here you are,” he said. “That will be one dollar, on account of the rush job.”
“One dollar?” I demanded, horrified at such extortion.
“Do you want them, or don't you?” The man pulled open the drawer again, ready to replace the photographs. Hurriedly I paid him and stepped outside. A gray morning had become progressively grayer, and now raindrops were spattering on the pavement. I stepped under the awning above the butcher's shop next door and carefully removed the prints from their folder. They weren't exactly photographic masterpieces—most of them dark, and blurred as well. I recognized Lord Edgemont leaving the house on Gramercy Park with a glamorous lady who had to be the famous Kitty. Then there was a snapshot of them entering what was presumably Delmonico's. There was also one taken in their private dining room, but it was too dark and blurred to identify either of the shadowy forms at the table apart from Kitty's outrageous hat.