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

“There you are then. I’m a professional detective, just like you. And I’m not trying to get rid of you, but I have to get dressed and out of here or I’ll never get my work done today.”


After he had gone I felt guilty, of course. He was obviously struggling with his current situation and probably needed companionship and reassurance. But then one of us had to earn some money and right now that person seemed to be me. I rushed upstairs to wash and dress, all the while trying to decide in which order I should tackle the many things I had to accomplish today before tonight’s dress rehearsal.

Probably my first task should be to find out if anyone held a grudge against Blanche Lovejoy or would want her show closed for any reason. I wasn’t quite sure how to do this until I realized that I knew people who were connected to the theater. Obviously, the first person on that list would be Oona Sheehan. It was she who had sent me to Blanche, after all. And then there was Ryan O’Hare, the flamboyant and completely outrageous Irish playwright. If anyone knew juicy gossip, it would be Ryan.

I wrote down both names in my little notebook.

Then I scribbled “buy greasepaint etc.” Oona would know where to do that.

But there was also my other worry—the mute girl in the hospital who could be transferred to an insane asylum any moment. What chance would she ever have of regaining her speech and her senses in that terrible place? Dr. Birnbaum was going to place advertisements in the New York newspapers and I had promised to speak to New York police matron Sabella Goodwin. In truth Mrs. Goodwin’s official title was matron, but the police had recently begun to use her as a detective in undercover assignments, in cases where a woman’s presence would raise less suspicion than a man’s.

I decided to go to her home, rather than to police headquarters, where my presence would be awkward, to say the least. I took out my pen, ink, and writing paper and wrote her a note, in case she wasn’t at home. It was hard to tell with her strange schedule. Sometimes she would be out on the streets all night and might just have returned. Then I washed and dressed and set off at a lively trot.

Mrs. Goodwin lived within walking distance from Patchin Place, on East Seventh Street, but over on the East Side near Tompkins Square. The neighborhood had a more refined air than Greenwich Village, with well-scrubbed front steps and well-dressed children playing in what remained of the snow in the park. Her home was a solid brownstone, with pots containing bay trees on either side of her front door. I knocked and was delighted to hear approaching footsteps. My bright smile waned, however, when a cross voice demanded, “Who is it?”

“It’s Molly, Mrs. Goodwin. Molly Murphy.”

The door opened to reveal Mrs. Goodwin, clad pretty much as I had been an hour previously: her dark hair, now tinged with gray, lying loose over her shoulders, her body wrapped in a large red flannel robe and slippers.

“Molly dear,” she said. “You’ve caught me at a bad time. I just got home after a night’s duty on the streets. I was literally halfway up the stairs to bed.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll go away and come back another time then. When it’s more convenient.”

“Was this just a social call, or something important?” she said.

“I had come to ask for your help,” I said, “but I can leave you the note I brought in case you weren’t home.”

She sighed. “Since you’re here, you’d better come in. I don’t suppose it will kill me to wait another half an hour before I go to bed.”

“If you’re sure,” I began but she frowned and dragged me inside.

“Now then, what is today’s great drama?” she said as soon as she had seated me in an armchair beside a well-banked fire. “You are well, I hope?”

Her look said volumes.

“Quite well, thank you,” I said hastily. “I’ve come to you about a baffling case.” And I recounted the whole story of the girl in the snowdrift.

“I know she is nothing to do with me,” I said, “but I want to see her safely home.”

Mrs. Goodwin was still frowning. “I’ll do what I can,” she said, “although it might not be as easy as you think to trace her next of kin. Girls run away from home all the time because they are in trouble, because they quarrel with their parents, or because they dream of the bright lights and the big city. Or they run away with a young man who subsequently betrays them and abandons them. As often as not they fall in with bad company and wind up on the streets.”

“This girl didn’t look like a prostitute,” I said. “Her style of dress was demure.”

“Not all girls in that trade look as if they are,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “If she was in a brothel that catered to a high class of clientele, she would dress appropriately. And there is a certain type of man who is attracted to the virginal and vulnerable. Do we know the state of her virginity?”