They’d agreed to meet that night at sunset just beyond Bellevue’s gate. Una waited in the shadows of the narrow alleyway one building up from the nurses’ home. As soon as she heard the tread of horse hooves on Bellevue’s drive, she hurried out of cover, so when the night watchman opened the gate and Conor drove out, it would seem like she’d been waiting for him outside the home. Light glowed from the ground-level windows, softened by the gossamer curtains. Were the ladies playing whist? she wondered. Studying their notes from the morning’s lecture? Her chest squeezed as she thought of Dru. If what she did tonight earned her any goodwill at the hospital, she’d use it to get Dru readmitted to the school.
Conor slowed the ambulance just outside the gate. He’d insisted they take the wagon, rather than the streetcar, assuring her the drivers took such liberties all the time when they were off duty. “Gets ya where you’re going faster,” he’d said with a smile Una didn’t fully trust. But she hadn’t argued.
She inhaled slowly and crossed the street. Conor jumped down from the driver’s bench. He wore a grave expression, glancing around them with unsettled eyes. “You tell Miss Perkins or any of the other trainees about this?”
Una shook her head. “I didn’t want to needlessly alarm anyone.”
“Good.” He glanced about again. Daylight had all but drained from the sky, and the streetlamps had yet to turn on, leaving them to the gathering darkness. Conor’s shoulders relaxed, and he helped Una into the back of the wagon. The window coverings on either side had been unfurled and tied to the baseboards, so it was even darker within than without. She tripped over a medical bag before finding the bench and sitting down, trying not to flinch when he closed the back gate.
She flattened her hands on the bench to steady herself as the wagon lurched into motion. There was still time to abandon the plan. She could jump out now and . . . and what? Return to the streets and leave Dru and the rest of Bellevue in danger? The training program had given her a glimmer
of life beyond surviving. Of what it was like to care about people beyond herself. True, she’d ended up alone again. But that had been her own doing. Not Nurse Hatfield’s. Not Edwin’s.
She folded up her regret alongside her unease and stowed them both away. She needed a clear mind tonight. The streets grew more congested the farther they got from the river. Conor steered the ambulance around carriages and streetcars and lumbering mule carts, ringing the gong every so often to clear the way. They turned off Third Avenue onto a quieter street. A polished brougham and a worn-out hansom cab turned as well, but neither kept pace with Conor’s speed. Several turns later, Una noticed the cab was still there, now several blocks behind. Were they being followed?
She scooted to the edge of the bench and peered out above the back gate, trying to make out the cab’s passenger. The streetlamps had flickered on, casting pools of light over the road. But even with the illumination, the distance was too great to see more than a hazy outline.
The ambulance hit a pothole, bucking Una off the bench and nearly out the back.
“Sorry about that, Miss Kelly,” Conor called from the front. “You all right?”
“Fine!” she hollered above the grinding wheels and reseated herself a safe distance from the back. When she looked out again, the hansom cab was gone. Foolish to think that anyone had been following them. Only Barney knew of her whereabouts, and hopefully he’d already arrived at the room and secreted himself inside the wardrobe behind its false back.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the lodging house, an old, four-story building built of wood, sandwiched between two taller brick buildings. A noisy saloon occupied the cellar level.
“Ya sure about this?” Conor asked before opening the wagon’s back gate. “One-forty-four Baxter Street. That’s the address she gave me.”
He glanced toward the saloon, where an aproned bartender was carelessly emptying a spittoon onto the sidewalk beside the door. “Don’t seem like a place fit for a lady.”
“You forget I’ve seen worse at the hospital.”
“Maybe I should go up alone. Make sure there’s nothing amiss. You can’t be too careful when you’re dealing with this sort.”
“And leave me alone here in the carriage? I’d feel far safer if I were with you.” Una conjured a sweet smile and extended her hand for Conor to help
her down. “Besides, I don’t think the woman will talk unless I’m there.”
After helping her to the ground, Conor climbed inside the wagon and checked the lock on the supply box. “Most folks won’t steal from an ambulance,” he said over his shoulder, “but I wouldn’t put it past these gutter rats here.” He turned to clamber out and glanced down at the medical bag Una had tripped over. “Dagnammit. I thought I left this back at Bellevue.”
“They won’t be needing it, will they?”
“Nah, we got plenty of others. But I can’t leave it here. Some miscreant will have off with it before we reach the door. Guess we’ll have to take it up with us.” He grabbed the bag and climbed down.
A shiver worked its way down Una’s limbs. She didn’t believe for one second that he’d left the bag in the wagon bed by accident. Not when she knew what was inside, nestled among the other supplies: a tourniquet.
They passed by the door to the saloon, careful to avoid the sticky spatter of tobacco juice, and climbed a set of wooden steps to the building’s main entry. Inside, a tiny foyer branched off into a long, shadowy hall and another, unlit staircase. Between the two was a small desk with a middle- aged woman seated behind it.
“Good evening,” Una said to her. “We’re meeting someone here. A young woman by the name of Miss Bean.”
The woman looked up from the socks she was darning by the light of a candle and gave a high-pitched hiccup. “Bean, you say?” She hiccupped again.
Una nodded. Barney was to have paid the woman well—not only to secure a panel crib but to direct Una and Conor to it when they arrived. But her dull, glassy eyes and liquor-infused breath didn’t give Una much confidence. The woman looked from Una to Conor, who stood a few steps behind her. “I’m gonna tell you what I told the other feller. You break it or stain it, you pay for it. And if the coppers make a visit”—she paused for another hiccup—“everyone’s skin’s their own.”
Heat flooded Una’s face. She hoped Conor read it as embarrassment and not panic. “We’re here to see a lady, not a gentleman. A Miss Bean.”
The woman pursed her thin, wrinkled lips. “Same rules apply. Third floor, second door on the right.”
Una hurried up the stairs before the woman could slip up and say anything more. Conor followed. She stopped on the first landing and fished
in her pocket for a matchbook. The staircase was as dark and cramped as her old tenement. She lit a match and held it out to Conor.
His eyes narrowed for the flash of a second, and then he took it. She lit another for herself and continued up to the third floor. When they reached the room, Una knocked loudly and waited for several seconds, wanting to give Barney time to situate himself before they entered. Then she tried the doorknob. Unlocked, as expected. She opened the door a few inches and called inside, “Hello?”
No answer.
Una opened the door fully and peered in. The room was lit by a single wall lamp, its flue cracked and stained with soot. A wooden framed bed sat to one side. A threadbare rug, ladder-backed chair, and large, unvarnished wardrobe were the only other adornments. The wall facing the door held a small window that overlooked the street.
“Miss Bean must have stepped out for something,” she said, stepping aside to show Conor the empty room. “I’m sure she’ll be back presently. Shall we wait inside?”
He nodded and followed her into the room, closing the door behind them. He gestured for Una to take the chair, setting the medical bag down on the bed but not sitting himself. To do so would have been baldly suggestive. A gentleman killer, Una thought, though it didn’t make her any less nervous.
She watched him study the room. He crossed to the window, peered out, then walked to the wardrobe. Una held her breath as he opened the doors and looked inside. One half of the wardrobe was fitted with shelves and drawers. The other half, a tall cubby for hanging dresses and coats, was empty save for a few rusty hooks. It looked so much like any old wardrobe that Una began to worry the woman downstairs had directed them to the wrong room. Then she heard a soft creak. A louder sound followed—likely Barney’s knee or elbow knocking into the false panel. Una winced. It must be cramped as a pickle jar back there, tall as Barney was. And he certainly wasn’t the nimblest of men.
“Rats—they’re everywhere in the city,” Una said with a high, brittle laugh.
Conor shut the wardrobe. “That they are.” He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and leaned against the wall. He didn’t look as agitated as he had when they left Bellevue, his fair skin unflushed and posture easy. “Miss Bean, you said this woman’s name was?”
“That was the name she told me to use tonight, but I don’t trust it’s her real name.”
He nodded slowly.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Una said. “I feel better with you here. You’re doubtful, I know. A killer at Bellevue. To say it aloud makes me half doubt it too.” She smoothed her skirt, then folded her hands demurely in her lap and stared up at him. Time to lure him into confessing. Mr. Poe’s story had made it seem so easy. But that had been fiction. Here, face-to-face with a real killer, it proved far more daunting. She took a deep breath and continued. “If there were such a killer, what do you suppose he would look like?”
Conor shrugged. “I can’t say I know.”
“I imagine him a little man. Impish, really. Not ugly but plain. Someone you look upon and”—she snapped her fingers—“completely forget.”
His eye twitched. It was working.
“I don’t imagine him very intelligent either. How could he be if a silly little woman figured him out?”
“Maybe Miss Bean doesn’t know as much as she thinks,” he said, his neck and ears beginning to color, the brogue slipping back into his voice. “If she knows anything at all. It takes a clever man to hide such a thing for so long.”
“Or maybe he just got lucky.” Una stood and went to the window. The street outside was dark and empty, save for an idling cab and a few drunks staggering from one saloon to the next. She could hear Conor breathe from clear across the room, each inhale faster and more raucous than the one that proceeded it. Like a boiler ready to explode. Ready to confess. Barney better be listening. “Regardless, he’s certainly of a very low class. Dirty, ill- bred, unrefined. A bastard.”
Instead of an angry outburst, Una heard a soft click. She turned around and saw Conor had locked the door. “That’s not a very polite thing to say, Miss Kelly,” he said, his voice low and even. He stole toward her as casually as a man out for a Sunday stroll.
Una’s throat squeezed shut, trapping the air in her lungs. She shimmied away from the window and tried to smile. “Miss Bean might be startled to find the door locked,” she managed to squeak out. “Perhaps we should—”
“Miss Bean isn’t coming.” He yanked the window curtains closed.
“Of course she is.” Una straightened her shoulders and started toward the door. Conor had hold of her arm before she’d taken two steps. His grip was like a bear trap, his fingers metal teeth biting into her skin. He muscled her back into the chair.
“You should have let things be, Miss Kelly,” he said, standing over her. “I told ya as much that day on the lawn, but ya didn’t listen.”
Fear scrambled Una’s thoughts. She’d give her front teeth for a pair of brass knuckles. A billy club. Hell, even Barney’s stupid tie pin. Barney. He was still inside the wardrobe. She had to keep Conor talking, get his confession, but how?
“Conor, if you’ve done something, hurt someone, you’ve got to come clean. I know you couldn’t have meant to do it.”
“Me?” He walked to the bed and unfastened the clasp on the medical bag. “Me! What makes you think I’ve done anything? Did Miss Bean tell ya that?” He chuckled, rummaging through the bag. He wouldn’t hurt me, Una reminded herself. Would he?
“Maybe it was that red-haired drunkard who told ya.” He pulled something from the bag. Not the tourniquet but an ivory-handled trocar. “We’d met before, she and I, in a back alley only half a dozen blocks from here.” He strolled the length of the room, dragging the pointed tip of the trocar along the wall. The scraping noise made her skin prickle with gooseflesh.
“You killed her because she was a drunk?”
“Not just a drunk but a thief and whore!” His voice rattled the lampshade, troubling the flame. He stopped, ran the metal shaft of the trocar through his fingers, sighed. “But no, I didn’t kill her. Not for that.”
He took two quick steps to the wardrobe, then flung open the doors and kicked the back panel. It swung around on its pivots. Before Una could react, he plunged the trocar into the dark cubby beyond the panel. Barney howled and stumbled forward. Conor stabbed him again. And again. Blood spread like an ink stain through Barney’s shirt and jacket. He clutched his chest and gasped for breath as if he were drowning.
Una stood, grabbed the chair, and hurled it at Conor. It splintered across his back, and he staggered forward, dropping the trocar. She caught Barney’s eye just as he collapsed, a mix of fear and bewilderment in his wide pupils. He toppled out of the wardrobe, landing with a thud on the
floor. Una hurried to his side, kicking the trocar across the room before bending down to examine him.
His lips had a dusky hue, and his respirations came fast and ragged. He coughed, spitting up frothy, blood-tinged sputum. He had a wound in his upper arm and two in his chest. One appeared superficial. The other hissed with each breath. Likely as not, the trocar had punctured his lung.
Una clapped a hand over the wound. She needed to dress it with oilcloth and get him to the hospital. But even with the ambulance waiting outside, the idea seemed impossible. How would she get him downstairs? What about Conor?
Conor.
She glanced up. The impact of the chair had knocked him forward into the wall. He stood slumped in the corner now, rubbing his head.
Una grabbed Barney’s hand and placed it over the wound where her own hand had been. “Keep pressure there.” She scrambled across the room to the medical bag. There was oilcloth inside and maybe something she could use to fend off Conor if he tried to attack again. She rifled frantically through the bag. A brown medicine bottle caught her eye. Morphine. Buried under other supplies, she found a syringe and hastily plunged the needle into the bottle. She’d just finished drawing up the morphine and grabbed hold of the bag’s carrying strap when a hand enmeshed in her hair, yanking her backward and throwing her to the floor. The tattered rug did little to cushion her fall. Pinpricks of light flashed across her vision as her head struck the ground. The syringe rolled from her hand.
A heavy weight settled over her midsection. Her eyes focused enough to see Conor straddled atop her, pinning her down. She tried to wriggle free, but Conor’s knees tightened around her. He laughed.
“You’re quite the woman, Miss Kelly. I liked you. I really did. But you couldn’t mind your damned business.”
She felt the strap of worn leather in her palm and realized that though she’d lost the syringe, she still had hold of the medical bag in her other hand. Her fingers tightened around the strap.
“I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why,” he continued. “A nice girl like you. Then it struck me when I saw your face in the match light as we were coming up the stairs.” He reached down and clasped his hands around her throat, depressing her windpipe. “Ya always did look familiar.”
Una swung her arm with all her strength, smashing the bag against his head. He toppled off her. She rolled onto her hands and knees and upended the bag. Gauze, needles, forceps, medicine bottles, scissors, and other supplies spilled onto the floor. She rummaged through them, finding the scalpel just as she heard Conor groan, and staggered to her feet. When he lunged for her, she slashed him with the blade. It nicked his shoulder and cut a deep gash along his chin. An inch or two lower, and it would have caught his carotid.
As it was, though, he barely flinched. She tried to swipe again, but he caught her hand, bending it back until she dropped the blade. Una kicked and clawed, but after a moment’s struggle, Conor was on top of her again. He reached for something amid the mess of medical supplies as she tried in vain to push him off her. When she saw the cloth band with its brass buckle and screw, Una froze.
Conor unfurled the band and loosened the screw. “For years, I ferried boot scum like you to Bellevue. Thieves and whores and drunks. Roughs, gamblers, immigrant filth, opium fiends.”
“Please, Conor, murder is a cardinal sin, you imperil your soul by—” “Greed, lust, wickedness—these are the sins God hates!” His voice was
high-pitched and eyes wild.
Una spread her arms, feeling atop the rug for the scalpel . . . oakum . . . strips of flannel . . . suturing thread . . . Then something sharp pricked her finger. She strained her eyes to the far corners of their sockets to see what it was. Not the scalpel blade but the needle and syringe she’d filled with morphine!
She tried to grab it, but it rolled beyond her reach just as Conor looped the tourniquet around her neck. Una stretched out her hand. Her fingers brushed the glass but couldn’t grasp it. He threaded the end of the cloth band through the buckle and cinched it so tight that only a narrow stream of air could escape her lungs.
Panic surged through Una’s veins, clouding her thoughts. A few more turns of the screw and she would be completely unable to breathe. She stretched her muscles and sinews until they ached, reaching out again. Her finger brushed the syringe, guiding it into her palm with determined effort.
Conor twisted the tourniquet screw another quarter turn, almost completely closing off her airway. Her lungs burned, and her hands trembled and tingled. Finally, she secured the syringe in her grasp, pressed her thumb against the plunger, and raised her arm.
Conor noticed her movement. He released the screw and lunged to snatch the syringe from her hand. She evaded his clumsy attempt and drove the needle into his arm, pushing down the plunger before he could swat her away.
She waited, but nothing happened. Conor yanked the syringe from his arm and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. The sound of the glass breaking was muffled by the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Her vision swayed, each breath a mere trickle of air. She felt Conor’s hands fumbling with the tourniquet, as if he couldn’t find the screw. Then, without warning, he collapsed on top of her, his body limp and heavy.
Una tried to shift him off, but her oxygen-deprived limbs were too weak. A pounding noise reverberated through the room, shaking the floor beneath her. At first, Una thought it was the throbbing of her pulse about to burst in her head. Then, the pounding was replaced by a crack. Conor’s weight lifted off her, and the tourniquet loosened around her neck. Air rushed into her lungs, burning as it coursed through her windpipe. She blinked, struggling to see the figure moving about the room—Barney? Conor? She felt exhausted, her lids growing heavier. After one last blink, her eyelids closed completely, and she succumbed to the darkness.
