“My dear man, I can tell you are not a theatergoer. My new play opens tonight at the Pfeiffer Theater, in precisely one hour and forty minutes. So if you'd be good enough to let me get back to my company before the curtain goes up—”
“There won't be any play opening tonight,” the policeman growled. “Have you no sensitivity, man? Our President has been shot. Nobody knows if he's going to live or die. The whole exposition is shut down. And we're not done with you yet, by a long way.”
“But you can't seriously think that I am in any way involved.” Ryan managed a light laugh. “My dear man, would I do anything to jeopardize a new play on which I have spent the last year working? My whole reputation is at stake.”
“Take him away,” the policeman motioned to a guard standing behind us. “Put him back in the cells. The feds will want to question him when they get here.”
“I'm a citizen of the British Empire, as is this young lady,” Ryan said. “It should be quite obvious that we have no interest in what happens to your President.”
This wasn't the right thing to say at this moment either. The policeman aimed a kick at Ryan's backside. “Get him out of my sight!” he shouted.
He was taken from the room, leaving me alone with the two interrogators.
“Miss Molly Murphy?” One of them was staring at me with interest. I reminded myself that this was no time for smart remarks. I had to watch every word I said and not get riled. My only chance was to play the helpless and injured female.
“Yes, sir.”
“How did you come to be mixed up in this?”
Over the past few months I had become adept at lying. What story should I tell them to get myself out of there? I fished around but my brain would not cooperate. “I was working for a private detective in New York,” I said. “He was killed. I managed to find the identity of his killer—it was the man who shot the President. My employer had overheard a conversation in which Mr. Czolgosz tried to persuade Mr. O'Hare to join him in an act of anarchy. When I discovered he had gone to Buffalo, I feared the worst.”
“Why didn't you go to the police?”
“Oh, but I did. I went to see Captain Daniel Sullivan of the New York Police Department, but he wasn't there, so I left him a letter detailing everything I had found out. He must have read it and contacted you by now, surely?”
“I know of no Captain Sullivan,” the man growled.
He stared at me with the same intensity with which he had looked at Ryan before dismissing him.
“You Irish are known to be a lot of rabble-rousers and lawbreakers, aren't you?” he sneered. “Bunch of anarchists, the lot of you.”
“Anyone who was an Irish anarchist would have his work cut out for him driving the English from our land,” I said. “We'd have no need to travel abroad to find a cause.”
As I said this I realized what a hornet's nest of trouble he'd stir up for me if he decided to contact Ireland. Nobody in America knew that I had fled from Ireland after I killed a man. I would just have to bluff it out. My eyes held his.
There was a long moment of silence, during which the clock on the wall ticked loudly. Then the older of the two detectives opened the door. “Go on. Get out of here,” he said.
“I'm free to go?” I asked hopefully.
“Not by a long chalk,” he said. “I'm not satisfied with any of this. It smacks of an anarchist plot to me. We'll be checking up on you and Mr. O'Hare very thoroughly— and that might just take days or weeks. Harris!” he barked.‘Take this woman to a new cell, away from Mr. O'Hare. We'll see which of them cracks first.”
He grinned at me unpleasantly as I was led from the room.
The new cell had a plank against one wall and a bucket for a commode. I desperately wanted to go, but as there were only bars at the front of my cell, and I was thus visible to anyone who walked past, I sat on the plank with grim determination. After the heat of the day, I couldn't stop shivering. What would happen to me? It was obvious that Daniel was still away and hadn't received my letter. And even if he did finally get it, what good could he do? He had no authority in Buffalo, and these men seemed to be determined to find me guilty.
I sat in half-darkness. A small barred window opened onto file street outside and I could hear an angry crowd milling out there. They were ready to riot, which must be why the police were so anxious to conclude their investigation quickly and needed to produce scapegoats. I hugged my arms to myself and wished I had a shawl. There would clearly be no mercy for someone who shot the President of the United States. I felt almost sorry for Leon, but even more sorry for Ryan and me. This is what I get for meddling, I told myself. What stupid idea had ever convinced me that playing at detective might be a suitable profession?