Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

The two women glared at each other. I stepped between them.

“Thank you so much. What a lucky lady Mrs. Goodwin is to have such a kind neighbor as yourself,” I said. “Why don’t you go home and have a rest. You must be worn-out.”

“Well, I have been on my feet all day,” the neighbor conceded and left.

“Odious woman,” the nurse muttered. “Comes in here, bossing me around as if I was the hired help. And bossing the poor invalid, too.”

“How is she?” I asked.

“Go upstairs and see for yourself,” she said.

I climbed the stairs and found the supposed invalid sitting in a chair beside her bed.

“Well, this is good news,” I said. “I’ve brought you some grapes.”

She smiled. “It was a case of get well or have to suffer those two women going at it hammer and tongs,” she said. “Getting well seemed the safer option.”

“Are you sure you’re not rushing things?”

“Well, my side feels as if a mule kicked it, and my head aches when I try to stand up, but other than that I’m right as rain,” she said. “And I can’t abide wasting time lying in bed. Now, tell me everything. I was worried when you didn’t return yesterday evening.”

“I wanted to set things in motion as quickly as I could,” I said, and recounted my visits to the morgue and Dr. Birnbaum. “But I don’t want to give Letitia Blackwell’s family grief for nothing, so I’d really like to have the hair samples examined before we hand this information over to that police captain.”

“And I’d really like to interview the families involved before the police get at them,” Sabella Goodwin said.

“I don’t see how I can do that for you,” I said. “You told me yourself that I would get in terrible trouble if I went prying without proper authority, and you won’t be well enough for a while yet.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

“How can you think that you’d be able to take trams and trains and be jostled by crowds?” I said. “You’d be risking even greater damage to yourself.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “It just happens that my late husband’s brother runs a small garage and repair shop in Brooklyn. And he happens to own an automobile of sorts. I’ve never seen it actually run, but it would be better than trying to fight the crowds or hoping a cab will turn up.”

“But even an automobile won’t spare your sore ribs,” I said. “I really think you should put your own health first at this moment.”

“I am putting myself first,” she said. “If we can present all the facts to Captain Paxton, one step ahead of those arrogant young men, then my superiors will have to take me seriously. It won’t hurt your reputation as a detective either.” She held up her hand as I went to speak again. “And frankly I’d rather put up with a bit of bone shaking in an automobile than listening to those two women all day. I thought we might take a trip out to Brooklyn tomorrow and see if Bert can spare the time to run us around. Are you up for it?”

She gave me a determined, defiant stare. “I’m up for it whenever you are,” I said.

“Good. Then that’s settled.”

So it seemed to be. I must say I was anxious to speak to the girls’ families and see if they could give us any hints to the identification of the young man who might have lured two girls to their deaths. Of course maybe I was jumping to conclusions here. Maybe each girl was grabbed or lured away by the Ripper before they ever got to their assignation—snatched up into a passing carriage, maybe. In which case we had little hope of tracking him down, unless history repeated itself and this time there were witnesses.

Arabella Norton was swift to act and by that evening a parcel had been delivered to my door. It contained a silver locket that encased a strand of golden hair. I delivered it to Dr. Birnbaum and entreated him to go to work on it as soon as possible.

It felt as if we were poised on the brink of finding out one way or the other. However, if my suspicions were confirmed, it would bring no relief but only heartbreak. It was not an en-viable task that lay ahead of me and I lay in bed wondering why I felt compelled to see it through. I wasn’t a police matron, hoping to make my mark as a detective. And I’d be no nearer to releasing Daniel. Yet I knew that Mrs. Goodwin was counting on me. She needed me more than ever in her current condition. Of my own current condition I chose not to think.

Early on Saturday morning I arrived at Mrs. Goodwin’s house and found a cab waiting for us.

“I decided I would be foolish to risk my ribs on the tram over the Brooklyn Bridge,” she said.

“But a cab, isn’t that an awful expense?” I blurted out.