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

“What the devil do you think you’re doing,” shouted an angry voice. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”


“I’m sorry,” I began, then my mouth dropped open as the gentleman removed his driving goggles and I recognized him at the same moment he recognized me. “Daniel!” I exclaimed.

“Molly, what a damned stupid thing to do,” he snapped. “These machines go fast, you know. And they don’t stop on a dime. They’re not like horses.”

“I said I was sorry,” I snapped back, feeling foolish now as a crowd gathered. “The wind took my hat and I wasn’t about to lose it.” As I said this I stepped gingerly into the mud and retrieved the hat, which was rain-soaked and definitely the worse for wear.

“Climb up,” Daniel reached across to open the door for me, “and I’ll drive you home. You look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backward.”

“Thank you for the compliment, kind sir,” I retorted, and was about to say I’d rather walk. But common sense won out, of course, and I dutifully climbed up to sit beside Daniel in the automobile.

“What were you doing out in this rain without an umbrella?” Daniel said, still glaring at me angrily. “You have no business being out at all on a day like this. You’ve been seriously ill, Molly.”

“I was feeling better and, anyway, I had an assignment,” I said. “It was too good to turn down. And if you want to know, when I left home at seven this morning the sky was blue. And believe me, I’ve regretted the decision to wear my spring clothes every moment of the last half hour.”

Daniel looked at my angry face, with my hair plastered to my cheeks and drops running freely down my nose, and started to laugh. “I shouldn’t laugh, I know.” He attempted to stop smiling. “But you really do look like the orphan of the storm. Come here. Let me kiss that little wet nose.”

He pulled me toward him and kissed the tip of my nose, then put his hand under my chin and repeated the process on my lips. His mouth was warm against mine and I found myself climbing down just a little from my high horse.

“Right, let’s get you home and out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia,” Daniel said. “I have to be back at headquarters within the hour, though.”

He released the brake and put his foot on the accelerator pedal. The machine responded by coughing, bucking like a wild bronco, and then dying. Daniel muttered a curse under his breath and stepped down into the storm. “Now I’ve got to start the blasted thing again,” he said. I watched while he took out the crank, went around to the front of the vehicle, and cranked several times before the contraption coughed and sprang to life. Daniel hopped in smartly before it could stall again and we were off. I glanced at him and started to laugh. “Now who looks like the orphan of the storm?” I said triumphantly.

In a minute or so we had pulled up outside my little house in Patchin Place. It is a street some might describe as an alley, but I think of it as a charming backwater in Greenwich Village. Miraculously the rain chose the same moment to stop, and a patch of blue appeared between the dark storm clouds. Daniel climbed down and came around to assist me. I opened the door, put on the kettle, and went to change out of my wet clothes. There wasn’t much to be done about my sodden hair but at least the rest of me looked dry and respectable as I came downstairs again.

“Sometimes I despair of you,” Daniel said. “Sit down. I’ll make the tea.”

He took the kettle from the hob and filled the teapot. “You don’t have any brandy or rum to put into it, I suppose?”

“I don’t,” I said. “I live a very frugal life, as you well know.”

He smiled. “Pity. Well, at least this will be hot and sweet. Better than nothing.” He poured me a cup. “Get that down you, woman.” He looked at me with fond exasperation. “You haven’t an ounce of common sense in your body, have you? When you’re not risking your life by chasing murderers you’re risking it by not taking care of your health. This is not an ordinary influenza, you know. I can’t tell you how many funeral processions I’ve witnessed in the past weeks. One of our own men, a strapping lad of twenty-five, went down with it and was dead within three days. And yet you go running around in a storm when you should still be in bed.”

“I couldn’t turn it down, Daniel,” I said. “It was Macy’s department store. They were offering a handsome fee and it was a case their own store detective hadn’t managed to crack.”

“And were you successful?”

“I was. They thought they had a clever shoplifter, but it turned out to be a conspiracy of their own employees—a counter assistant who dropped small items into a passing trash bin and another accomplice who retrieved the items from the trash. I was lucky enough to spot a bottle of perfume disappearing from a counter.”