I had been putting off making any decision, hoping that Seamus would be fit enough to return to work and that he’d find a good place for his family. Now it seemed that he might never be fit enough to return to hard manual labor. Which meant it was now up to me to rescue them from a Lower East Side hellhole and a dragon of a cousin. I gave a big sigh. Life seemed to be one perpetual roller-coaster—up on top of the hill one minute, then rushing downward to the depths the next.
I should never have started thinking about roller-coasters either. Instantly my mind whisked me back to happier times, when Captain Daniel Sullivan had taken me to Coney Island. I smiled now at the memory of it. Daniel had expected me to scream, faint, or cling onto him as we rushed down into the depths. Instead I had laughed, loudly. The next time we began a descent, he had kissed me and we had hardly noticed when the car reached the bottom. I turned off that memory hastily. No good would come of dwelling on that part of my past. Besides, it all seemed blurred and dreamlike, as if it was something I had read about in a book.
I glanced around the cell. Quiet had fallen. The young girl beside me slept like an angelic child. Heavy snores were coming from the bosomy lady on the floor. I closed my eyes and drifted into uneasy sleep.
The rattle of a billy club along bars woke me. First gray light was coming in through a high window. It was cold and drafty in the cell. The door was opened briefly and a tray of tin mugs full of a hot dark liquid was shoved inside. I took the mug handed to me. It was coffee, at least I think it was. I longed for a warming drink, but my gaze fell on the bucket in the corner, which one of the women was now using noisily. There was no way on God’s earth that I was going to follow suit. I put the mug down untouched and wondered how long it might be before the sergeant arrived and I would be released. I opened my purse, which I had clutched in my arms all night, and took out my comb. At least I would try to look respectable when they came for me.
A little later I heard deep voices and the tread of heavy boots echoing as they came down the hall.
“The house behind Tom Sharkey’s saloon, you say. They work for the Dusters then, Harry?” I heard a voice saying.
“Couldn’t say, sir. Nobody’s questioned them yet. You can take a look for yourself and see if you recognize any of them. Down here on the left.”
The footsteps came closer. A balding uniformed sergeant stood in front of our bars and behind him stood a taller, slimmer man with unruly dark curls that escaped from under the derby he was wearing. If I’d have had time, I would have pulled my cape over my head. His gaze fell on me as I shrank into the corner and wished myself elsewhere. “Holy Mother—what about this one, Harry? What’s she in for?”
“Not sure, sir. Found loitering on the street, late at night, as I understand it. Couldn’t give a proper explanation of herself. My boys thought she might be a lookout for the Dusters, seeing as where she was stationed.”
“Did they now? Well, isn’t that interesting?” The man’s dark eyes flashed with amusement. “Bring her out, Harry. I’ll question this one myself.”
“Out you come then.” The sergeant motioned me to the door. “Not you girls. Stay well back or you’ll get my nightstick on your knuckles.”
“Good-bye, dearie. Good luck. Don’t let that scum scare you.” The wishes echoed after me as I walked beside the sergeant down the hall. Another door was opened. I was shoved inside.
“Now behave yourself and answer the captain’s questions and you’ll come to no harm.”
The door shut behind us and I looked up into the captain’s face.
“You hear that,” he said, his eyes holding mine. “You’ll come to no harm if you just obey me.”
“Very funny, Daniel,” I said. “I suppose you think it’s most amusing that I had to spend the night in a room full of loose women.”
I watched him suppress a chuckle. “No, I’m sure it wasn’t funny at all for you. You do get yourself into the most impossible circumstances, Molly. What was it this time?”
“I was minding my own business, observing a house on East Twelfth Street, when two of your great clodhopping constables grabbed me and hinted that I was an escaped prostitute.”
This time Daniel Sullivan did smile.
“As if I look like a floozie!” I snapped. “I told them I was an investigator, observing a house, but they wouldn’t believe me. They laughed in my face. They thought I was working for some gang, scouting out a place to rob, if you please. I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”
Daniel put his hands on my shoulders. “Hold your horses, Molly. They were quite within their rights, you know. They have orders to bring in any suspicious persons and I’m sure you seemed suspicious to them.”
“If I’d been Paddy, they’d have turned a blind eye and walked on past.”
“Of course they would. Everyone knew Paddy.”