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

“Not exactly my cup of tea, thank you,” Daniel said. He tapped my arm. “I think I had better be making my way home, Molly. It’s getting late.”


“Oh, all right, Daniel.” I held his sleeve. “Look, won’t you reconsider and come to the costume party with me tomorrow? We’ve had so little fun recently. We didn’t even manage to go skating in Central Park.”

“I—I’m afraid I have to go home this weekend, Molly,” he said. “My father’s health is not improving and I can tell that my mother is worried about him.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to come to a party with my friends, aren’t you?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m concerned about my father, Molly. I have to go home.”

“Very well. Then you’d better go home, hadn’t you?” I said coldly. “Give my regards to your parents. Or haven’t you told them about me yet?”

“I’ve hinted,” he said, glancing across at Sid and Gus still standing there at their front door. “But now is not exactly the time to spring something on them.”

“Of course not. Well, in that case, thank you for bringing me home, Captain Sullivan.”

He looked at me, went to say something else, then his gaze turned to Sid and Gus. “I bid you goodnight, ladies. Goodnight, Molly,” he said and walked away without any kind of farewell kiss.

“I fear your brave captain doesn’t enjoy our company the way you do,” Gus said.

“Too bad for him,” I replied. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”





THIRTY-SEVEN

The party on Saturday night was noisy, crazy, and a lot of fun. Ryan came as the Scarlet Pimpernel and Elizabeth, aka Nelly Bly, appeared as Huck Finn. She commented that she might as well use her hard-won expertise in passing as a small, ragged boy. I was Jane Eyre, not because she was my favorite literary character—although I did like the way she threw a book at her cousin—but because I owned the plain sort of clothes a governess would wear.

“What a pity Captain Sullivan isn’t here,” Gus said. “He’d have made a lovely Mr. Rochester.”

“What a pity indeed,” I thought, still annoyed that Daniel ran a mile from having anything to do with my friends. He had probably had no intention of going home this weekend until he wanted an excuse to get out of the party. Did he really believe that our future together would only include friends of his choosing? I pushed the uneasy thoughts aside and enjoyed myself thoroughly. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed an evening so much.

It was strange to have a whole Sunday to myself. It was even stranger to wake up on Monday morning with nothing really to do. Even the house was in good order, thanks to Mrs. Tucker, who had done more than her share of dusting and polishing while she had been with me. I had been complaining about having too much work to do, but now I drifted around the house, bored and annoyed. I thought of paying a visit to Daniel to see how his father was faring, but then decided against it.

Then it came to me that I should let Mrs. Goodwin know the outcome of the story with the mute girl, after she had taken such an interest and worked on my behalf. I didn’t expect to find her at home on a working day, but I wrote her a note and asked her to stop by at her earliest convenience so that I could tell her the latest in this saga. I had scarcely made it back home myself when she showed up on my doorstep.

“I was thinking of you today, as it happened,” she said as I invited her inside and seated her in my best armchair. “I’ve just come from the morgue, where I was taking a look at a young woman called Annie.”

My heart leaped alarmingly. “Annie? It wasn’t my girl, was it? You remember how she looked—elfin face, lots of chestnut hair?”

Mrs. Goodwin looked surprised. “She is no longer with you then?”

“No, some Hungarian men came for her.” I related the entire story.

“And you were not happy to let her go?”

“Of course not,” I said. “At least, I suppose I am happy for her that she’s among her own people. It’s just that I expected her wits would have returned and she would have recognized them when they spoke to her. But she didn’t.”

“It doesn’t always work that quickly in such cases,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “If the brain has suffered considerable trauma it needs time to heal.”

“And now you’ve got me worried that she might have met a bad end.”

Mrs. Goodwin smiled. “You can rest easy. This girl was quite different. Pretty, pale, blonde little thing from what we can tell—she had been in the river for a while.”

“The river?”

“East River. She was pulled out close to Ward’s Island. Who knows where she went in. She could have floated with the current from farther north.”

“I see,” I said. “How did you know her name was Annie? Did a family member come forward to identify her?”

“No, it was easier than that. Her undergarments had her name inked on them. Annie P.”

I started. “Annie P? That couldn’t be Parker, could it?”