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

He patted my hand. “Molly, the eternal optimist.”


We were rattling across the railway bridge that separates Manhattan Island from the area to the north known as the Bronx. There were signs of new housing developments springing up but the railway line soon veered off to the right and crossed a desolate stretch of marshland at the edge of Long Island Sound. Black channels wound between snow-covered flat stretches of marshland, with dried rushes sticking up along the banks and the occasional sorry-looking tree, bent by the prevailing wind. It presented a bleak, wild scene so close to the city. It made me shiver, just looking at it, and I found myself wondering if John Jacob Halsted had crashed his car anywhere near here and had wandered off to perish in this bleak expanse.

“I don’t see the road,” I said. “Does it also cross the marshes like this?”

“It goes farther inland to cross into Manhattan,” Daniel said, “but it will join the train tracks later on and more or less skirt the coastline all the way across Connecticut.”

“I was wondering where Miss Van Woekem’s nephew ran his motor car into a tree,” I said. “If he hasn’t turned up yet, it’s possible he was dazed and wandered off into an inhospitable area like this one.”

“I’m sure the police would have noticed if any tracks led away from the vehicle,” Daniel said, “but that is certainly something we should investigate further. I’ll see if I can persuade one of my acquaintances to lend us an automobile for a day. That way we could retrace the route he took.”

“It does seem strange, doesn’t it? A student at Yale, from a rich family, one understands. Why would he want to steal, and especially why would he want to steal from a friend?”

“Sometimes privileged young men like that do things as a lark, or because they have drunk too much or experimented with some kind of drug.”

“But not shoot one of the servants in the process,” I said. “That sounds more like a hardened criminal. And you don’t really think he could be mixed up in the other robberies that have taken place along this route, do you? Breaking into a bank, robbing a pay wagon?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Daniel said. “I don’t know the boy myself. But I do know that even the best families can produce a wrong’un from time to time. Maybe he is weak and easily misled. Maybe he has run up terrible debts and was desperate to find a way to repay them.”

“I find it very perplexing,” I said. “Especially as Miss Van Woekem described him as a gentle boy. Natures do not change however desperate one is. I do not think a gentle person could kill with so little thought.”

Daniel nodded. “I tend to agree with you. Maybe he was not alone. He could have worked with a more violent partner. We’ll just have to see what facts come to light today.”

We left the marshes behind and moved into more civilized countryside. Here the land was cultivated, tamed into fields with trees and hedges between them. Cows and horses stood in the snow around bales of hay. Smoke curled from the chimneys of solid farm houses. On our right we caught glimpses of the water. We passed icy ponds with skaters testing their luck. Buggies were leaving white-spired churches. It was the land of Currier and Ives and I gazed at it with satisfaction. I had rarely been out of New York and I enjoyed these occasional forays into a world that I knew so little about.

The train stopped in one old brick town after another: Greenwich, Bridgeport, and at last we came into New Haven. My first impression, as we came out of the train station onto Union Street, was of a well-laid-out town of fine brick buildings, built around squares. On a Sunday it had a deserted feel to it, with closed shops and empty streets. One got the impression that the whole town was taking a snooze after a big Sunday lunch. There was little evidence of snow here and we walked with ease through the town, following the directions we had been given to Yale University.

Yale’s ornate tower was unmistakable and we headed straight toward it. The university almost took my breath away, seeing it for the first time across a green park. The only equally impressive sight of my comparatively sheltered life had been my first views of Dublin and Trinity College. But these buildings, in their red hues of brick, were warmer and for some reason this made them seem older and more distinguished. Again the campus had a deserted feel to it, apart from the occasional student hurrying off with books tucked under one arm. We stopped a passing student and asked where John Jacob Halsted roomed. He looked at us with distaste, thinking us to be reporters or morbidly curious, no doubt.