In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,9

of similar experiences in cells came back to me. I remembered the bucket in the corner. Surely these girls would be even more sensitive than I and refuse to use it. I just hoped we weren’t held for too long.

“In here,” one of our attendants barked, and opened a cell door with a giant key. He pushed six of the women inside, then stopped the seventh from entering. That door clanged shut and he repeated the process in the next two cells. I was among the last group. Sid and Gus were not with me. Emily was. Apart from her, the girls in my cell looked as if they were about to expire from fright.

“Don’t worry,” I said, sounding braver than I felt. “I have experienced this before and lived to tell the tale.”

“You’ve been in jail?” They were looking at me as if I were a different species of animal.

“Unfortunately yes. I work as a private detective and I’ve been arrested for what the police considered loitering, when I was, in fact, observing a house. Had I been a man they would never have thought twice about me. But a woman standing alone on a sidewalk at ten o’clock at night has to have evil intentions.”

“That is so unfair,” one of the girls said.

“Have you not noticed everything about our lives is unfair?” a tall fair girl demanded. “We are at the mercy of our fathers and then our husbands. If a woman tries to make her own way in the world she is judged as odd and a troublemaker.”

“Nellie Bly seems to have managed that hurdle,” I pointed out. “Nobody could have behaved more outrageously than she and yet she is happily married and accepted in society.”

“But look at what she has achieved,” the fair girl said. “How many of us would be prepared to put our lives on the line in a mental institution or expose corruption in the women’s prisons?”

I didn’t like to say that I had done both. “Her actions should be a beacon of hope to the rest of us,” I said. “And it won’t hurt when we come before the magistrate tomorrow to mention that we know her.”

“How long will they keep us here, do you think?” the frail one with the trembling voice asked.

“Overnight probably. Courts are not in session on Sundays.”

“Overnight? What will my family think when I do not return home? They will be so worried.”

“We’ll try to get word to your families,” I said. “We can at least hope that we will be rescued before too long.”

“Rescued? By whom?”

I didn’t want to raise any false hopes. “They may have noticed that some of you have influential names and not wish to embarrass your families,” I said.

“It’s a pity there are no really important names among us,” Emily said. “I tried to persuade Fanny Poindexter to join us, but she was afraid of upsetting her husband.”

“Her father’s name would certainly have caused them to think twice about arresting us,” the tall, fair one said, “but I found it was impossible to recruit married women to our cause. They are all under their husbands’ thumbs.”

Our conversation lapsed into silence. There wasn’t enough room on the wooden plank bench for us all to sit comfortably but it was cold and damp down there and we were glad to huddle together for warmth. I realized that I was feeling rather frail myself at this point. I had only had a piece of bread for breakfast and the clammy dizziness of my illness had returned.

“I wonder what time it is,” I said.

“The time? It is one-thirty.” To my absolute envy one of our group unbuttoned her jacket and revealed a dinky little cloisonné watch pinned to her blouse. I hoped to own such a thing myself someday. If I received more commissions like the Macy’s one—a sobering thought came to me. If this incident was reported in the papers and my name was mentioned, it could possibly harm my business prospects. Oh dear. Lack of forward thinking has once again gotten you into hot water, Molly Murphy.

I was just in the midst of this thought when an angry male voice echoed down the hallway.

“Holding them in the cells? On what grounds? Are you out of your mind, man? Where are they?”

The voice came nearer, along with rapidly advancing footsteps, and to my delight Daniel’s face appeared outside my cell. “Molly, what the devil?” he exclaimed. “Can I not leave you alone for two seconds