Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

I wonder how people can be taken in by that, I thought, shuddering with revulsion, but a portion of the crowd was already lining up and paying good money to go inside. I allowed myself to be swept onward past the India Pavilion, where a live elephant stood at an arched gateway. I’d never actually seen a real elephant before and just stood and stared until the crowd swept me along once more. Then more dancing girls, this time straight from the Moulin Rouge in Paris. The picture outside showed a girl dressed in corsets, fishnet stockings, and not much else, kicking up legs in a most unnatural fashion.

I felt safe walking along the real Bowery, but I didn’t feel entirely safe here, even though I was among so many people. I felt myself being watched from dark alleyways between booths where unsavory types loitered. I clutched my purse to me and decided I’d come far enough. Those seething, sweaty crowds, squealing children, and blaring music were all too much for me. I knew I had to get out of there or faint. The search for the casino would have to wait for another day. I pushed through the crowd and made my way back to the relative civilization of Surf Avenue and an elevated train station. I had a carriage to myself on the train back to the city.





EIGHTEEN




Monday morning’s post brought no message from Daniel or from his attorney. I dressed in my business suit, even though the day promised to be too hot for it. If I were to pose as Dr. Birnbaum’s assistant, I wanted to look the part of a bluestocking. So my hair was wrestled into a bun and tucked beneath my hat again. I wished I owned a pair of a bluestocking’s round wire spectacles to complete the picture. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to learn or accomplish by going with Dr. Birnbaum to visit the police officers, but at least it would give me the opportunity to see who had taken over Daniel’s case and hopefully find out what they had learned so far. Maybe I would get a feeling for whether these men might be sensitive to Daniel’s cause—or the opposite.

Dr. Birnbaum was waiting for me at the corner of Canal and Mulberry. He was dressed today in a dark suit and homburg hat and looked every inch the somber physician.

“Miss Murphy.” He clicked his heels in that European way and gave me a polite bow. “I have serious reservations about what we are about to do. For one thing it goes against the ethics of my profession, and for another I am concerned that you will hear things never intended for a woman’s ears.”

“Are there no women medical students at your hospitals, Doctor?” I asked.

“One or two, yes. But I have always considered it a strange choice of profession for a woman.”

“I consider it a very natural profession for a woman,” I said. “Do women not spend their entire lives taking care of others? Is it not part of our very nature to want to heal and help?”

“Put that way, yes.” He nodded agreement. “But our profession has its seamy side—the blood, the infections, the operations, gangrene—one would not want one’s sister to experience sights that I have seen. And today’s discussion—a man who has repeatedly molested and mutilated young women…”

“I’ll handle it,” I said. “I have to handle it. If my friend dies in jail, it would be my fault.”

“Then he’s lucky to have such a noble and devoted friend as yourself,” Birnbaum said.

Damned right he’s lucky. The phrase went through my head even though I didn’t utter it out loud. Ladies, after all, never swear. We walked side by side up Mulberry Street. Tenement windows were open because of the heat. Bed linens were airing, babies crying, neighbors shouting to each other across the street, while below pushcart vendors called out their wares. It was the usual cacophony of noise. I hardly noticed it anymore, but I saw Dr. Birnbaum wince.

“The conditions here in the slums are deplorable,” he said in a low voice. “Such crowding can only lead to disease and violence. When you put too many rats together in the same cage, they start to eat each other.”

I looked up at him. “So are you suggesting that our mass murderer might be from these streets himself? Not necessarily an outsider who hired the streetwalkers and then lured them to their deaths?”

He looked surprised at my suggestion. “All things are possible,” he said, “although the murderer would need some privacy and time to kill and disfigure his victims. That would make an attack on these streets almost impossible. You see for yourself that there is much activity here. And in such crowded quarters it is necessary to sleep in shifts. I suspect that someone is awake and alert for most hours of the night.” He paused as we had reached the square brick building that housed police headquarters. “We shall know more when we meet the officers. Until then, idle speculation is pointless.”