Mr. Tomlinson sat back in his chair with a thump. “Good God.” He hadn’t even noticed the profanity spoken in my presence. “Lillian wants a divorce? I can’t believe it.” His eyes narrowed. “So if you are working for my wife, why exactly have you come to see me?”
“Because I don’t like it, that’s why,” I said. “I’m not the sort of person who enjoys snooping for sordid details. I’ve been watching you for a couple of weeks now, and you seem like a gentleman to me. Quite the opposite of another chap I was watching who was with a different floozie every night. So it seemed to make sense to lay it out straight in front of you. If your wife wants a divorce, why not behave like a gentleman and agree to give her one? That way we will all be spared a lot of embarrassment.”
He continued to look at me through narrowed eyes then he started laughing. “You’re a rum one all right, Miss Murphy. I have to admit you’ve caught me completely off guard. I had no idea that Lillian wanted a divorce. We haven’t had the happiest of marriages for some time, owing to her illness, of course.”
“Mrs. Tomlinson is ill?”
He sucked through his teeth before answering. “She thinks she is. She takes to her bed at the slightest excuse and we have a constant procession of doctors coming to the house. I know she thinks I’m not sympathetic enough but God knows I’ve tried. She complains I’m never home, but who’d want to stay home with a wife who spends the evening taking patent medicines and then retires for the night at eight?” He stopped suddenly, as if he realized he had said too much. “I’ve stuck it out so far because I was raised to do the right thing, but by God, if she wants a divorce, I will be happy to grant her one.”
“Is there anyone—another woman?” I couldn’t resist asking. “I’ve been following your movements and I’ve not found one yet.”
“So now you’re getting me to do your work for you?” A spasm of annoyance crossed his face, then he laughed again. “You really are delightfully refreshing, Miss Murphy. They always say your countrymen have a touch of the blarney, don’t they?” He straightened a pile of papers on his desk before he looked up again. “If you really want to know, there is one young woman I would have approached, had circumstances been different. But, as I say, I was brought up to do the right thing. I have thrown myself into my work and put thoughts of other women aside.”
I left John Baker Tomlinson’s office with a warm glow of success. Now both the Tomlinsons would get what they wanted. Lillian would be free of a husband who paid no attention to her and John would be able to court the woman he admired. I always knew that the forthright approach was best. All that time Paddy had wasted, lurking in dark alleys and trying to take incriminating pictures, while I had brought my first divorce case to a happy conclusion without any effort!
I stopped off at the post office on the way home to buy a stamp, so that I could send my advertisement to Dublin. I was about to leave when the postal clerk, a florid man with mutton chop whiskers, called me back. “Aren’t you the young woman who worked for Paddy Riley?”
“That’s right.”
“Letter just came for J. P. Riley and Associates,” he said and produced it. I thanked him and put it in my purse, although I was dying to open it. Once I was safely in the street, I ripped it open.
The letter was typewritten. “Mr. Max Mostel requests that you call on him at your earliest convenience, regarding a matter of great delicacy and confidentiality.”
The address was on Canal Street—a seedy area of commerce, factories, and saloons. Another divorce case? In which case, a strange address for a client. But he had called it a matter of some delicacy. The difference was that a man had written to me this time. And in all the other divorce cases in Paddy’s records, the clients had been women. This in itself made it appealing. More appealing was the fact that it represented the possibility of enough money to rent a place of my own.
Sid and Gus were out when I returned to Patchin Place, probably doing the morning shopping at the Jefferson Market opposite. I hurried up the stairs with a sigh of relief. I sat at my desk and wrote a letter to the Dublin Times. “Lost touch with your loved ones in America? Private investigator will make discreet inquiries. Reuniting families is our specialty.” I didn’t mention the sex of the private investigator, nor that I had never actually reunited a family. I asked for long-term advertising rates and promised to send payment by return of post. Then I went downstairs again and deposited the letter in the mailbox at the end of the street. I looked up to see Sid and Gus bearing down on me. Gus’s arms were full of flowers. Sid carried two over-flowing baskets.
“Look, Gus, she’s up and awake and looking so much better. We have been having such fun, Molly. Gus has been buying up the entire market.”
“I wanted oysters, but Sid wouldn’t let me, even though I told her there was an R in the month so it should be fine.”