Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #7)

She got up and adjusted her bonnet. “Good luck in your hunting then, Miss Molly. Let me know what you find.”


We left the house together, she for her bed and I toward Grand Central Terminus. I stared impatiently out of the window as the train crawled through Manhattan and then crossed the bridge to the Bronx. It was a gray December day with mist hovering over the low-lying ground. I watched keenly as the marshes appeared in the distance to our right. The first of the marshy area must have been a good half-mile from the place where the motor car hit a tree. If Annie had been in the car, how had her body wound up in the marshes? Had the car been ambushed, knowing that it contained the loot from a burglary? In which case, had John Jacob also been shot and his body dumped into the nearest creek?

I shuddered and pulled my cloak around me, even though it was warm in the compartment. It is always tragic when a young life meets a violent end. John Jacob had seemed a likable young man and Annie Parker was a vibrant beauty. And yet someone had robbed and murdered at the Silverton mansion and all the evidence pointed so firmly to John Jacob Halsted. I just hoped I’d be closer to the truth by the end of this day.

We passed through Greenwich and then Bridgeport and finally came to New Haven. It was bitterly cold and the sidewalks were icy as I made my way toward the theater. I hoped I might find the manager in his office again, but the building was closed up and there was no sign of life. I walked around the back and discovered an alleyway with what was presumably a stage door. No luck there, either. I was just walking away when I heard a sound above my head. I looked up to see a woman taking in her laundry, farther down the alley. The garments were stiff with frost and crackled as she pulled them from the line. I called out to her and asked if she knew where the chorus girls from the theater lodged.

“Are you thinking of joining them?” she asked. “It’s an awful hard life, so they say.”

“It’s my little cousin I’ve come to visit,” I said. I’ve found that the mention of family members always reassures people.

She nodded and gave me directions with a clothespin still stuck in the side of her mouth. I came out of the alley and turned right at the Bank of Connecticut on the corner. The lodging house was on a dingy side street with scruffy children playing kick the can in spite of the cold. Their breath hung in the air like smoke. They stopped playing to look at me curiously as I went up the steps and knocked on the front door.

A slovenly middle-aged woman opened the door and stood staring at me with her hands on her hips.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Is this where the girls from the theater lodge?” she asked.

“Some of them, yes.”

“Did Annie Parker stay here?”

“Her? Don’t talk to me about her. She skipped off owing me a month’s rent, she did. If you’re a relative, I expect to be paid.”

“I’m not a relative,” I said. “I’m a private detective and we’re investigating Miss Parker’s disappearance.”

“Go on with you!” She shook her head in half disbelief. “What’s she supposed to have done?”

“Could I come in?” I said. “It’s freezing out here. I’d like to talk to some of her friends if they’re at home.”

“Where else would they be on a nasty cold day like this?” she said. “When these girls have a day off, they sleep. Come on then. Wipe your feet.”

I thought this last command was a little excessive, given the state of the floor, but I followed her into a shabby sitting room. There was the barest hint of a fire burning in the grate and two girls were sitting in armchairs with blankets around their shoulders. They looked up as I came in.

“This young lady wants to know about Annie,” she said. “She’s a detective.”

They shot me worried looks. “A detective? So it’s true then. She has done something bad?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “It’s possible. It’s also possible she might be dead, so anything you can tell me about her, and about that last night when she disappeared, would be most helpful. Do you happen to know if she went off to meet a young man that night?”

“She was a great one for the boys, Annie was,” the younger of the two girls said. She had a fresh-scrubbed face and looked not much older than fourteen. “And they sure liked her. You should see the gifts she got—flowers, candies, even perfume.”

“Did she have a special boy?” I asked.

“There was some guy who came to the stage door. She liked him. She said he was a big spender and she always had a lot of fun with him, and if she played her cards right she’d be out of this crummy place and living in luxury.”

“Did she tell you his name?”

The two girls exchanged glances. “We kind of thought it might be that Yale guy who robbed the mansion. Anyways, the police came and asked questions about him.”