Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs…” I said, when I could get a word in edgewise, “but we’re wondering if anyone in this apartment was up and around at five this morning, which was when the poor girl was dumped on the street.”


“Up and around?” she glared at me, her lip curled up scornfully. “With a man who has to be at his shift digging the subway by six, and a couple of girls off to the sewing shops, I don’t know where we’d be if I wasn’t up and around by five.”

“So was it possible you might have seen something from your front window? You have a good view of the street.”

“Oh sure. And I’ve the time to sit behind my lace curtains, sipping my morning coffee, and peeking out at the world, haven’t I? It’s like a zoo in here, in the mornings. Crazy. The man’s yelling for his boots and his breakfast at the same time. Me father wants something else, and the girls want their lunch pails. No, I can safely say that I didn’t look out of the window. Not until we heard the commotion.”

“And what happened then?”

“The kids rushed to the window, and the police had arrived and they were in the process of carting her off to the morgue, I suppose. Several of them were lifting her into the back of a Black Maria and off they went.”

“But you didn’t hear or see any carriage come down the street before that. A carriage, not a hansom cab.”

“Carriage, you say?” She sniffed. “Can’t say you see too many carriages down this street. If a gentleman wants a visit to one of the houses here, he comes incognito, on his own two feet, or in a cab at best. It’s not likely he’d have his coachman drop him off.” She sneered again. “And if he can afford a coachman, then there are better and cleaner houses up around Forty-second Street, so I hear. And even fancier ones on Fifth Avenue itself.”

This, of course, was true. I thanked her. “And if anyone does remember anything about this morning, any of your neighbors saw a carriage stop, or a man behaving suspiciously, then here’s my card. One of the children can find me, I expect, and there will be a tip for him.”

“What are you, a lady detective?” she asked.

“Something of the kind. Helping the police to stop these horrible killings.”

“About time. I worry for my own daughters. Fifteen and seventeen they are; and if they were coming home on a dark night, who’s to say the brute might not mistake them for that kind of woman?”

“Who’s to say indeed?” We nodded at each other with understanding. “You wouldn’t catch me walking here alone and in the dark.”

“What’s all this commotion? Can’t a man have a moment’s peace anywhere?” a rasping voice demanded and an old man came into the room. He was bent over like a shepherd’s crook. “Who’s she?” he demanded. “Not the rent collector again?”

“She’s been asking questions about the streetwalker who copped it today.”

“What for?”

“Lady detective, apparently.”

I looked at him. He stared back with bloodshot, tired eyes.

“You didn’t happen to see anything yourself, did you?” I asked. “This morning, around five?”

“I was sleeping like a babe, up on the roof,” he said. “I always takes a cot up on the roof in this weather. Can’t sleep, packed in like sardines down here. They’d all sleep better too, but she won’t let the kids up on the roof, just in case something happens.”

“Up on the roof?” I asked. “And you didn’t hear any of the commotion when they found the girl?”

“Oh yes, when they found her. Shouts and whistles and horses galloping up.”

“But you weren’t woken by galloping hooves earlier? A carriage, maybe?”

He shook his head. “Galloping hooves? This ain’t the Wild West, lady.” His skinny body shook with silent mirth. “The brewer’s dray and the occasional hansom cab. Black Maria whenever they decide to raid one of the houses or one of the clients gets a little too lively. That’s about it.”

“So a carriage and pair might have woken you?”

“Might have. Didn’t.”

“To tell you the truth,” his daughter said, stepping back into the conversation, “you could have knocked me down with a feather when the kids said there was a body down there because the police have been camped out on that corner since the first body was found on the street. How your carriage got past the police, I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” I said, resolving to find out which officers had been assigned to the corner this morning and whether they might have been dozing on duty and not wanting to admit it. Mrs. Goodwin had similar thoughts when I met her to compare notes. “These young men are not all as dedicated as we’d like them to be. But I was here myself this morning. That’s what baffles me.”

“Could she possibly have been thrown from an upstairs window or a roof?” I suggested. “The tire tracks might be just coincidental.”

She looked up at the rooftops, considering. “I suppose it’s possible.”