Then there was a sudden breeze. The mist swirled, the clouds parted, and for a moment the moon shone down, throwing grotesque shadows down the alley. And for a second something sparkled. I ran to it just as the clouds came together again and we were plunged into darkness once more. I bent over behind a large coal bin. Then my hand recoiled as I realized what I was touching. The sparkling object had been a buckle on a shoe and the shoe was still on a foot.
Eighteen
Jacob, over here, quickly!”
He rushed to my side and dropped to his knees among the debris. “Oh, Gott. Oh, Gott. Oh, Gott!” he repeated over and over. “Help me, Molly. Move her carefully, she may still be alive.”
I said nothing, but the ankle I was touching was cold. She had been stuffed into a narrow area between the bin and a brick wall and it was hard to get her out. When at last we extracted her, her head lolled like a doll’s, her mouth open in a silent yell of surprise. I shuddered and looked away. Jacob put his arms around me. “Don’t look. It is too horrible,” he said. “Who could have done this terrible thing?”
I stood, twisting her bonnet nervously in my hands, then I recoiled as my hand touched something sticky. The outside of the bonnet was wet from the rain. It was the inside that was sticky. I bent to examine her head. Suddenly a bright light shone on us.
“What’s going on here?” a deep voice demanded.
“Thank God you have come, Officer.” Jacob got to his feet. “A young woman has been brutally murdered.”
“So it seems, sir.” The constable came closer, shining the light in our faces. The light was blinding and all I could see of the policeman was the silhouette of his distinctively shaped helmet. “You’d better both step away and put your hands up.”
“We didn’t kill her,” I snapped. “We’ve just found her. She was our friend. We’ve been looking for her.”
“Put your hands up, I said.” The flashlight waved up and down, its beam bouncing from the high brick walls around us. Then the flashlight focused on my hand. The policeman came closer. “What’s that on your hand?”
I looked at it. “It must be blood. We found her bonnet first, you see, and the inside is sticky.”
More feet came down the alleyway.
“Down here, Charlie,” the constable shouted. “I caught the pair of them, bending down over the corpse, they were. Get out your handcuffs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said as the second officer approached me, handcuffs at the ready. “I have just told you. This is our friend. We have been looking for her all evening because she didn’t meet me when she was supposed to. We feared that something bad might have happened to her.”
“Oh, and why was that, miss?”
“This is Miss Nell Blankenship, from a prominent family,” Jacob said quietly. “You must have heard of her. She writes—wrote articles for the newspapers. I am Jacob Singer. I worked as her photographer.”
“Oh, yes. The lady reporter. I’ve seen her name in the papers. Charlie, run and send a message to headquarters that we’ve got a murder on our hands. And in the meantime you two stay right where you are.”
“We wouldn’t dream of abandoning her,” I said. “We want to find out who killed her as much as you do. And if you think we had anything to do with her murder, you only have to touch her. She has been dead for some time.”
The other constable departed. I was suddenly very cold and hugged my arms to me, shivering. I was very conscious of my fingers sticking together and longed to wash that hand. I still found it hard to handle death and I was overcome with feelings of guilt. If I hadn’t asked Nell to help me, she’d never have been in this part of town. She would never have uncovered a fact that cost her her life. It was too much to hope for that she had left any hint as to what that fact might have been. I tried make myself think like an investigator. I got up and started to search the area.
“Hey, where are you going?” the constable asked.
“I was looking for her purse. I don’t see it.”
“She was probably bashed over the head for her purse. If she was foolish enough to be out alone in this part of town, what can you expect?” the constable said, with the ease of small talk. I decided to remain silent and not let him know that robbery may not have been the motive and she may not have been a random victim.
“What in God’s name was she doing in this part of town anyway?” the constable went on. “She must have known it wasn’t safe for a lady.”