Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

I changed into my cooler and less-constricting summer muslin, then departed on the hunt again. Another hot and muggy day, with thunder threatening over New Jersey. Flies and mosquitoes hummed around me, and I wished I had been like the fashionable ladies and bought myself a hat with a veil. I decided that the Herald was closer and by claiming to be from the Ladies Decency League again, sent by Mrs. Astor, I had the stern-faced woman in archives promising to search out all references to John Partridge for me. She even promised them by the next day.

By the time I came out of the Herald Building, those storm clouds had grown into impressive thunderheads. The first fat drops were spattering onto the hot granite blocks of the street. I had thought of doing a thousand and one other things, including visiting some of those hotels in search of Letitia, but now, without an umbrella, I made directly for home.

I was halfway down Patchin Place when the heavens opened and in the few short steps to my front door, I was soaked to the skin. I hung my dress to dry, made myself a cup of tea, and was overcome with weariness. I lay on my bed, listening to the rumble of thunder, getting closer by the minute. I should be making plans, I told myself. Instead, in spite of the flashes and crashes outside my window, I fell deeply asleep.

I awoke to another loud rumble. It was dark as night outside and apparently the storm was still going on. Then I realized that the noise I was hearing came from my front door and not the sky. I scrambled into my skirt and shirtwaist as my muslin was still soaking wet and ran down the stairs. Outside, the rain was still coming down heavily but under a large, black umbrella stood Sid and Gus.

“Oh, you’re home. We’re so glad,” Sid said, already stepping in through the front door and shaking out the umbrella behind her. “Did you get caught out in this awful storm? We did. Soaked to the skin, both of us. I made Gus take a bath so that she didn’t catch cold.”

“I’m fine,” Gus said. “I’m not really a delicate little flower, you know. I’m quite hardy, in spite of appearances.”

“Would you like a glass of lemonade or some tea?” I asked.

“Thank you, but we’ve just had coffee,” Gus said. “You know Sid can’t exist for long without her Turkish. We came to tell you what a fun and jolly day we’ve had.”

“Doing what?”

“Playing at sleuths.” Sid beamed, pulling out a chair at my kitchen table. “Finding out about the missing Letitia as we promised we would. Molly, now I see why the profession is so attractive to you. I felt like such a conspirator, slinking around and asking clever questions.”

“Did you find out anything?” I asked, my heart sinking a little at the thought of Sid and Gus acting the part of sleuths.

“Nothing really important, I regret,” Sid said. “We found out that when Miss Blackwell comes to town with her mother, she always stays at the Brevoort, just a stone’s throw from us.”

“The Brevoort,” I echoed. A nice-enough hotel, but not on the level of the Plaza or the Astoria, where I am sure Arabella would have stayed. That presumably meant that Letitia was not as rich as Arabella’s family. Which, in turn, meant that no young man would be trying to get his hands on her fortune.

“But we couldn’t find any hotel where Miss Blackwell registered alone recently,” Gus said. “Of course, she might have used an assumed name, but we did describe her from the photograph.”

“We thought that maybe Mrs. Blackwell stayed at the Brevoort because it is within easy reach of the settlement house and the Lower East Side,” Sid said. “One can walk the distance with sturdy shoes on. They speak very highly of Mrs. Blackwell there, by the way. One of their most devoted patrons and workers.”

“And what about Letitia?” I asked.

“She comes quite regularly with her mother,” Sid said, “and once or twice with her fiancé. The comment was that they made a lovely couple and seemed quite enraptured with each other.”

“The settlement workers were expecting her to come and help them the day she disappeared,” Gus said. “They were planning an outing for the children to Coney Island the next day. Miss Blackwell was supposed to be one of the chaperons, and there was to be a final planning meeting that day. They were annoyed when she didn’t arrive.”

An outing to Coney Island? Until this moment I hadn’t seen any connection between Letitia and the murdered girls, but at the mention of the name, I felt my skin prickle. Letitia had been scheduled to go to Coney Island—but not until the next day. Letitia hadn’t actually gone there. Everything seemed to revolve around that place—and yet how could the murder of a prostitute, a prizefight, a doped horse, and a children’s outing be linked? It had to be one of those strange coincidences that haunt us in our lives—or maybe it was my Irish temperament seeing portents where there were none.

“What is it, Molly?” Gus asked.

“Nothing. It just startled me that an outing to Coney Island was planned. Everything I do seems to be somehow linked to that place. And yet I can see no connections.”