In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,90

was poisoning her before he could treat her. So Daniel first. I jumped onto a streetcar as it moved off from its stop, causing the conductor to yell at me. “Danged foolish thing to do, young woman,” he growled. “Don’t you know you could get yourself killed that way?”

“Sorry, I’m in a hurry,” I replied with a rueful smile.

I didn’t think Daniel would be at home at this hour, but there was just a chance he might have the day off or have been working all night. Besides, I’d rather face Mrs. O’Shea than police headquarters. The landlady greeted me, looking somewhat distracted and disheveled. Her hair was unkempt and her apron needed changing. “Oh, Miss Murphy. I’m sorry. I must look a sight but I’ve been up all night with the children. The captain’s not here.”

“Then I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said. “And I’m sorry to hear the children are still sick.”

She tried to smooth down her hair. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” she said. “It’s that ringworm on top of everything else that’s driving them crazy. I’ve had to make mittens for them to stop them scratching.”

At that moment the door opened and a child came running out. It was half dressed in petticoat and camisole and the amazing thing about it was that it was almost bald.

“Geraldine, whatever are you thinking,” Mrs. O’Shea said in a shocked voice. “You can’t let people see you like that. Get back inside this instant.”

“I thought it was Captain Sullivan,” Geraldine said with a pout. “He promised he’d bring me some of that sour candy.”

“Children!” Mrs. O’Shea shook her head as she pushed Geraldine back into the room and closed the door.

“What’s happened to her hair?” I asked, staring at the closed door almost as if I could see through it.

“It’s the ringworm medicine. It makes their hair fall out. The doctor says it will grow back again just fine.”

“What’s in the medicine that has that effect?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know, my dear. It’s what the doctor prescribed for them. I had it made up at the pharmacy on the corner of Broadway.”

“Thank you, Mrs. O’Shea.” I beamed at her.

“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” she said, looking at me oddly.

I hurried along Twenty-third to Broadway and into the pharmacy there. “You made up a ringworm medicine for the O’Shea children,” I said, realizing that the words were coming out in a torrent. “What was in it?”

The druggist stared at me as if I was a crazy person.

“My dear young woman, I could not possibly discuss a patient’s prescription with you.”

“But it’s very important,” I said. “A matter of life and death, in fact.”

“Really?” He looked almost amused.

“I have a friend whom I suspect is being poisoned,” I said. “I need to know what there is in the medicine you made up to counteract ringworm that would make the hair fall out.”

“That, young lady, would be in the inclusion of thallium.”

“And is thallium a poison?”

“Deadly. It can kill in relatively small doses. We have to make sure when we handle it that we wear gloves and a mask. It can be absorbed through the skin and inhaled too, you know.”

I looked around the dispensary. “Do you happen to have a telephone?”

“I do not. I have no interest in these newfangled ideas,” he said, and indicated that he was going back to his work.

“Do you happen to know who might have a telephone near here? One that I could use for a matter of great urgency?”

“As I said, I have no interest in these ridiculous contraptions. Now, if you will excuse me, I have orders waiting to be filled.” And he went back to his work.

I felt angry, frustrated, and so tense that I might explode any minute. I now knew that thallium was the ingredient that made hair fall out and that it was a deadly poison. I wondered how hard it would be to detect whether thallium had been added to that face cream. I jumped back on the Broadway trolley and rode it, fuming with impatience as it stopped at the corner of every city block, all the way down Broadway, until I was at police headquarters.

“I need to speak to Captain Sullivan. It’s very urgent,” I told the constable who was manning the front desk.

“I’m sorry, miss, but the captain is out on a case. Can I see what other detectives are here at the moment?”

“No. That won’t do at all,” I said. “If you can