The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“He pulled back the white cloth that was over the basket. She rushed forward and then she stopped dead and said, ‘That’s not my baby.’”

“Then she got quite hysterical,” Sid continued. “The police were trying to calm her and telling her that she’d forgotten what her own child looked like and all babies look alike, but she was quite insistent.”

Gus leaned closer. “She said, ‘My baby is beautiful. Everyone says so. This baby is ugly. Take it away. I don’t want to see it again.’”

“And she was right, wasn’t she, Gus?” Sid said with the hint of a smile. “The baby was a homely little creature, all red and wrinkled the way some babies are, like little old men.”

“How strange,” I said. “What can have happened? Do you think they kidnapped more than one baby at once and mixed them up?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Gus said. “The woman and the policeman got into the wagon and went off with the baby, so we can’t report what happened next.”

I went on home, and started to prepare Daniel’s supper. But I found it hard to do the task at hand as I felt quite sick with worry about what Sid and Gus had told me. I knew it didn’t concern me and was none of my business, but I couldn’t get the woman’s face out of my mind. Surely any woman knows what her own child looks like. What would happen now? And more to the point where was her baby?

I held off from cooking dinner until about eight and was rewarded at eight-thirty with the sound of the front door opening.

“You’re home. What perfect timing,” I said, going to greet Daniel. “I’m so glad. I’ve made you liver and bacon because I think you need building up and…” I broke off. “What’s the matter?” He looked as if he might explode with anger any second.

I went up to him, touching his lapel gently, “Daniel, what on earth is it?”

“I have been betrayed by my own wife, that’s all,” he said in a clipped voice he was fighting to control. “Exposed, made to look a fool. Betrayed.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “I have never done anything to betray you.”

“Come into my study. We need to talk.” He was glaring at me in a way that made me feel almost sick. He took my arm and manhandled me into the front parlor.

“Let go, you’re hurting me,” I shouted angrily. “I don’t know what this is about, but you are behaving like a boor.”

“Sit.” He pushed me down to the sofa. I was actually rather frightened. I’d never seen him like this, but I certainly wasn’t going to let him see it.

“All right,” I said. “In what way am I supposed to have betrayed you?”

“Because you failed to mention to me that you knew your brother Liam was in town and failed to mention that you had been meeting secretly with him, when half the police force in New York has been looking for him.”

“Just a moment,” I said, now as angry as he was. “Who exactly told you I had had secret meetings with my brother?”

“You were seen with him, Molly.” His voice was rising now, loud and frightening. “Talking together on the corner of Broome and Elizabeth. While I’ve been trying to catch him, you’ve been undermining my efforts and warning him off, haven’t you?”

“I have absolutely not been undermining your efforts.” I was shouting too now. “If you’ll listen for a minute, I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

“Go on.” He sat opposite me, arms folded and still glaring. I took a deep breath, fighting to remain calm and reasonable. “Remember you told me you wanted me to cancel my request for a maid with the employment agency? I went back there to tell them I didn’t need their services after all, came out into the street, and the first person I bumped into was my brother. I was stunned, as you can imagine. I tried to greet him the way you’d greet a long-lost family member, but he made it quite clear that I was the last person in the world he wanted to see and my meeting him was putting him in danger. I told him he was stupid to be here and to go straight back where he came from. We parted. I haven’t seen or contacted him since. End of story.”

“You could have mentioned it to me,” he said, more quietly now.

“I could have. I chose not to for Liam’s sake. He is my brother, after all.”

“Did he tell you what he was doing here?”

“He told me nothing. As I just said, he wanted nothing to do with me and told me to forget I’d ever seen him. I tried to give him my address, but he wouldn’t take it. I guessed he was probably over here to raise funds for the Republican cause.”

There was a long silence then he said at last, “I’m sorry. I should not have behaved in that way.”

“No you should not,” I said.