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

Gus frowned. “In the state she was in? She is an invalid. She requires constant attention, Molly. Who would want to undertake such a challenge? There must have been a very strong reason for hauling her off with them.”


I nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I just hope she’s still alive.”

“Why would anyone bother to kill her when she neither speaks nor recognizes anybody? One could say she was scarcely alive in her current state.”

“It could be a case of mistaken identity, I suppose,” Sid said. “Perhaps she resembled strongly the real Hungarian girl they were looking for.”

“Then why give a false address?”

Sid couldn’t answer that one.

“I am going to see my friend Mrs. Goodwin,” I said. “She works for the New York police. She may know what to do, because I certainly don’t.”

“We are going to have dinner with Elizabeth,” Gus said. “We should ask her opinion. She had handled some tricky situations during her career.”

“By all means ask her,” I said wearily.

Gus came over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “You did everything you could and more, Molly. If you hadn’t rescued her, she’d have been shut up in an institution by now.”

“Perhaps she would have been better off there.” I found that I was fighting back tears. I always find it hard to take when people are kind to me.

“And she never was your responsibility, you know,” Sid added. “You did a kindly act, but she is not yours to worry about.”

“All the same, I feel responsible,” I said.

Dr. Birnbaum gave an embarrassed sort of cough. “I should be going,” he said. “I am to meet some colleagues for dinner. Perhaps I shall refer the matter to them. We are a small fraternity. Surely one of us would hear if a fellow alienist was called out to treat a mute girl.”

It was about the best we could hope for. I collected the false address from my house and then set off straight for Mrs. Goodwin. I rapped on her door until I heard slow feet coming down the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, still bleary-eyed.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” I said, “but I couldn’t think where else to turn.”

“It’s a hazard of my profession,” she said. “You’d better come in.”

I went through into her warm kitchen and poured out my story to her. She sat nodding gravely. “So this girl may have been part of the robbery at the Silverton Mansion,” she said. “She may have been in the red automobile when it crashed.”

“In which case something awful happened to her. Maybe she escaped when Annie was shot.”

“Escaped from whom? That’s the question,” Mrs. Goodwin said.

“Is it possible that it was from those men who claimed to be her family? But why would they want to find her again?”

“Obviously to silence her because she might be able to identify them,” she said in her matter-of-fact way.

“Then we’d already be too late.”

“I fear that may be the case.”

“But where does John Jacob Halsted fit into all this?”

“Either he was part of the gang or rival thieves got wind of his big haul and set up an ambush.”

“In which case . . . ,” I began.

“He’s probably also dead.”

“This is terrible,” I said, “Is there nothing we can do?”

“You can give me a description of the two men who came to collect the girl. I can pass it around at police headquarters and see if it rings a bell with any of our officers. I take it you’ve told Captain Sullivan. He was always closely involved with the gangs.”

She saw me stiffen. “I’m not saying he was working with the gangs,” she said. “I think his innocence has been well proven in that matter, at least to me. But he has a better inside knowledge of the criminal classes in this city than any other officer I can think of.”

“I can tell you right now that he’ll not be persuaded to work with anything to do with the police force,” I said. “He’s very bitter and angry. But he is helping me on the John Jacob Halsted case and it does seem that the two are linked somehow. Very well, I’ll go and speak to him this evening.” I got up, then looked back at her and smiled. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest. And I appreciate everything you’re doing to help.”

“Glad to do it,” she said, “although if we are dealing with the criminal classes, I wouldn’t hold out too much hope that the girl is still alive.”

“No,” I agreed. “But I have to keep on trying until I’m sure.”





THIRTY-NINE