In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,19

tulips. Women below were beating rugs, scrubbing steps. It was spring cleaning time. Which reminded me that I should be doing a little of the same myself. I put that thought aside. I had done enough housekeeping during my formative years to cure me of any desire for extra tasks. My mother had died when I was fourteen and I had taken care of three untidy brothers and an equally untidy, ungrateful father. I resolved to ask Sid about her Italian window washer.

The train stopped at Seventy-third and I alighted. The hotel was a block to the north on Broadway. As I reached the corner, I paused to admire the imposing new building called the Ansonia, now almost complete. In fact, I stood like the little country bumpkin that I still was, staring up as its amazing seventeen floors rose up into the sky, all richly decorated in carved stone and tipped with turrets like a French chateau. I understood that it was to be an apartment hotel, a temporary home for the very well-to-do. If all the hotels around here were of that class, then my missionary couple were not the humble Christian folk I had taken them for.

Of course, when I located the Park View hotel, not a stone’s throw from the glorious Ansonia building, I had to take back my uncharitable thoughts. It was a severely simple establishment with a plain brick façade and only a sign over the front door advertising its presence. And “Park View” was definitely a misnomer. It was, at most, five stories high, and could only have a glimpse of the park from its roof.

I opened the door and found myself in a dreary lounge with a couple of faded armchairs, a brass spittoon, and a tired aspidistra. The woman who appeared at the sound of my feet was the sort of harridan who seems to flourish as a landlady.

“Yes?” she said, with little warmth in her voice. “Can I help you?”

“You had a couple to stay here a few weeks ago. A Mr. and Mrs. Hinchley. They were missionaries from China.”

Her face softened just a little. “Ah, yes. Lovely, refined Christian people they were, too. They held a prayer service after dinner one night.”

“I need to contact them rather urgently,” I said. “I wondered if they gave you their home address.”

“And what would this be about, miss?” she asked.

“I’m here on behalf of a dear friend,” I said. “Her parents were missionaries in China at the same time as the Hinchleys. She has questions she needs to ask them.”

“Fellow missionaries from China, were they?” I had clearly won her over. “I’d really like to help you, miss, but I’m afraid I can’t. When they left this establishment they were going to take the train clear across the country, prior to sailing for China again out of Vancouver.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I’m sorry, miss. And sorry for your friend, too.”

“Would you happen to know which of the missionary societies they were with?”

“I’m afraid not. In this line of work you don’t get a lot of time for idle chatter. They were honest, sober folks and they paid their bill. That’s usually good enough for me.”

I bade her good day and came out of the hotel feeling distinctly annoyed. Back to square one. I had hoped to show up on Emily’s doorstep on Sunday with her whole case solved. She had been so impressed with my profession that I wanted to live up to her expectations. I had to admit now that I was being unrealistic. My experience as a detective has always been one step forward and two back, mostly paths that lead nowhere, and failure always a possibility.

So what was my next line of inquiry? Find out the names of all the missionary societies and get in touch with them. I wasn’t sure how to do this, having never been inside a Protestant church in my life. Would their pastors know of such things? At least it would be a place to start. I walked down Broadway looking for a church. It had always struck me that there was a church on every street corner in New York, but of course when I wanted one, I walked several blocks without seeing a spire.

I was becoming increasingly irritable when I passed a bookshop and paused to look in its window. I have always had a love of books. In fact if I ever came into money, the first thing I’d buy would be a