“This way,” he said, steering me up the stairs. I dragged my feet as much as I dared, and a new wave of terror swept over me. Upstairs was the hotel. That was a key reason Joe Mulligan’s was particularly popular with the whores of Chicago: convenience.
His hand was locked around my arm like an iron cuff. He didn’t relax his grip at all, even while using his other hand to unlock the door of a room that I assumed to be his. My throat was dry, and my head swam. Damn it, damn it. I’d disguised myself as a prostitute to crack the case, believing it the best, if not the only, way to achieve my aim. Now, unless a miracle happened, I’d have to choose between certain exposure and an unthinkable act. Blue Eyes was clearly expecting me to follow through on my disguise. Unless I wanted to give up all hope of ever gaining the confidence of Heck Venable and prying loose his secrets, I’d have to deliver on my unspoken promise and do what prostitutes do.
With one more tug, he pulled me inside the room and shut the door.
Chapter Two
Someone Has to Be First
Only three days before, I’d knocked on the front door of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency offices on Washington Street and, hearing no answer, swung the door open to step inside. I could feel the perspiration collecting like rainwater between my shoulder blades, trapped under the charcoal shirtwaist I’d selected to convey seriousness. I knew he wouldn’t consider me if I looked frivolous. He might not consider me anyway.
It was a muggy, sun-soaked day outside, but in here, it was dim. A neat, white arrow painted on the wall pointed me up a set of stairs. No wonder no one had heard my knock. The stairs were narrow and rickety, and they carried me up into the unknown.
Three floors above the steaming Chicago pavement, I took a moment to wipe my brow before I knocked on the inner door. An indeterminate reply—was it go ahead or go away?—came through the door in a muffled bass. I heard the answer I wanted and went inside.
Nearly the entire room was taken up with a heavy oaken desk the size of a draft horse, dwarfing the man who sat there. I knew him in an instant. Allan Pinkerton. Twenty years my senior, with thinning reddish hair and a full beard, looking very much like the portraits I’d seen in the newspaper, alongside stories of daring exploits that brought dangerous criminals swiftly to justice.
A decade before, as a cooper harvesting wood for barrels from the dense forests outside Chicago, he’d stumbled onto a counterfeiting operation hidden among the trees. He reported it to the authorities and won himself a position in the city’s police department. In his version of the story, the work suited him but the politics didn’t, and after a handful of years, he opened his own private detective agency. He’d been publicizing his many successes ever since. If he had failures too, neither the Tribune nor the Daily Journal was quick to say.
I waited for a moment to catch his attention, but he was scribbling furiously in a ledger. Too busy to waste his time on me? Fully unaware of my presence? It couldn’t be the latter, and I wouldn’t accept the former. At last, I cleared my throat.
When he saw I was a woman, he stood. We took each other’s measure in a long moment.
It seemed fitting that he’d been a cooper, so closely did he resemble a barrel. Solidly built but not gone to fat, despite his age. Shirtsleeves rolled up, exposing freckled, thick forearms and meaty hands that would have looked more at home on an ax handle than a fountain pen. In the heat, he’d shed his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, where it hung crookedly, like a dark flag. My attention settled on one last, essential detail—his look of impatience—and I braced myself to make my claim.
“Mr. Pinkerton, my name is Kate Warne,” I said, trying to sound like a woman who had never perspired in her life. “I’ve come in answer to your advertisement.”
“Advertisement?”
I unfolded the newspaper in my right hand, belatedly noting a black smear on my gloves from the cheap ink. I spread the paper over the desk and pointed to the words.
OPERATIVES REQUIRED—for Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. Intelligence and tenacity required foremost. Generous salary commensurate with personal danger. Apply in person to Mr. Allan Pinkerton, Washington St. at Dearborn St., Chicago.
Impatiently, he asked, “I see. On whose behalf?”
“My own.”
“You,” he said, saturating the word with disbelief. “You want to apply for a position as a detective?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“See, now, Miss…”
I supplied the name. “Mrs. Warne.”
“Mrs. Warne,” he said, his Scottish brogue extending the sounds of my name into an oddly appealing hum. “Women are…not encouraged to apply.”
I jabbed at the newspaper with my finger again. “The advertisement doesn’t say.”
“Because it doesn’t need to. I have never hired a female detective, and I don’t mean to start today.”
For just a moment, I faltered. Perhaps he really would turn me away. A rivulet of perspiration made the plunge from my shoulder blades down the small of my back, pooling under the lacing of my corset.
“Someone has to be first,” I said with all the force I could muster.
Blessedly unaware—I hoped—of my physical situation, Pinkerton rubbed one freckled forearm absently and put on a look of concern.
“Brass tacks, ma’am. Detecting is dangerous work. Criminal. Violent. How could I place a delicate female such as yourself in harm’s way? How could I explain such an outcome to your husband?”
“My husband is dead.”
He blinked at that, but it took him only a moment to recover, and he mumbled the usual empty condolence. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
“You needn’t be,” I said bluntly. “One can only lose things of value. But I did not come to talk to you about Charlie. I came here for work.”
A new light came into his eyes. It gave me hope. “Any children?” he asked.
“No.”
“Other family?”
“Parents, once,” I said. “We are no longer close.”
“Did they disapprove of your marriage?”