Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

As we entered through the main doors and stood in the foyer, I was assaulted by my memories, some pleasant, some not so—Daniel questioning me here when I was still a suspect in the murder on Ellis Island, my first meeting with Arabella in Daniel’s office, Daniel giving me a good ticking off after my first encounter with Monk Eastman—Daniel’s presence was so much a part of the very walls of this place, I half expected to see him come running down the stairs as I looked up.

Instead a very different young man was coming to meet us. He was tall, immaculately dressed in a summer suit, light brown hair parted in the middle, a pleasant, well-bred face. You’d never have taken him for a policeman in a month of Sundays. He was hurrying down the stairs with an expression of worried concentration on his face. A few paces behind him was a second man, more like Daniel in his appearance. He was good-looking in a dark, brooding sort of way, rather like drawings I had seen of the romantic poets. He was dressed in an official dark blue police uniform, which made him look rather dashing.

“Dr. Birnbaum?” The first of the officers held out his hand, even before he reached us. “How good of you to come. I am Detective Quigley. This is my fellow detective Jock McIver. We have been assigned together to this wretched case, in the hope that we can put a stop to it before there is flat-out panic on the Lower East Side. So any help or insight that you can give us will be much appreciated. However, I’m afraid that something rather pressing has come up. A fifth body was discovered on Elizabeth Street early this morning. McIver and I are actually on our way to the morgue. Will you accompany us? Your opinion on what you see will be most valuable.”

Dr. Birnbaum gave an embarrassed cough and half turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have brought my assistant with me, to help me by taking notes. Miss—”

“Fraulein Rottmeier,” I said, having given some thought to a name this time, then imitating the doctor in the curt little bow. “I study in Vienna with Dr. Birnbaum.”

Detective McIver was looking at me with half-amused interest. “A lady doctor,” he commented, as if I was a strange specimen.

Quigley shook his head sadly. “I regret, fraulein, that I couldn’t possibly allow a young lady to accompany us to the morgue, however qualified she is. What she would see there would be too disturbing.”

“I assure you I am not of delicate disposition,” I said, in an accent as close to Birnbaum’s as I could muster. I had practiced before the mirror the previous night.

“No matter. Even bringing in an outside doctor is likely to cause raised eyebrows,” Quigley continued. “I apologize, fraulein, but I’m sure Dr. Birnbaum will give you a detailed account later. Now, if you will excuse us, we have a carriage waiting.”

He nodded in his refined, serious manner. McIver was still eyeing me with not entirely wholesome interest. So these were the two men that Daniel had mentioned. Both of them good cops who were also ambitious and might not want to jeopardize their careers by sticking their necks out on his behalf. I was furious that I wouldn’t be present to observe and ask the occasional question, although in a way I was relieved that I was not going with them to the morgue. I wasn’t at all sure my insides would hold up to what I might see there.

“This latest victim follows the pattern of the others?” Birnbaum fell into step beside Quigley as they made for the front door.

“So we are to understand. We were both off duty last night and unfortunately the body had been removed to the morgue by the time we were called in.”

“The only difference is that this one was still alive,” McIver added, lowering his voice as if he didn’t want me to hear.

“Still alive? But she was mutilated like the others?”

“So we understand,” McIver went on. “The constable who found her noticed she was still breathing and had her rushed to the nearest hospital.”

“And was she able to speak—to name her killer?”

“Unfortunately no,” McIver muttered. “She muttered some word and then died. Mercifully, of course.”

They emerged onto the street and Quigley snapped his fingers at a waiting black police carriage.

“I will report back to you later, fraulein,” Dr. Birnbaum said, turning back to me.

“Very well, Doctor.”

He clicked his heels, bowed, and climbed into the waiting vehicle. I watched them go, seething with frustration. Yet another occasion on which my sex had barred me from participating. The two detectives had not even bothered to ask if I was a fully qualified doctor, and I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had been. I was not to be allowed to join in their men’s world.