washed over her, yet she did not break her sister’s stare. “I do not need your approval. He’s just an acquaintance, Mamie.” An acquaintance that made her heart race.
Mamie said nothing and the two of them watched each other for a long minute. Justine thought for certain her sister would guess the identity of the escort, blurt it out in front of Frank, but Mamie finally looked away. “I need to visit with Louis Sherry to finalize these details,” she told Frank. “I’ll see you later.”
He came over and kissed her cheek. “Indeed, you shall.”
Mamie walked past Justine on her way toward the door. “This discussion is not finished,” Mamie said softly. Then her sister disappeared into the corridor.
Ready to move on to another topic, she turned to her brother-in-law. “How may I assist you?”
“Come with me to see Mr. Solomon. He thinks he has another wife deserter for you, if you feel up to it.”
Justine sighed inwardly. She wished these sorts of cases were rare, but they were not. She’d barely solved Mrs. Gorcey’s problem when now she had another missing husband on her hands. “Of course. What do you know?”
They went down the hallway and turned left where the other offices were located. “Husband is missing,” he said. “He could have deserted the family or been kidnapped to work on a ship headed out of port. We aren’t sure which, but legally there’s nothing we can do. Maybe you’ll have luck in finding this husband, as you did with the others.”
He knocked on a door. “Come in,” a deep voice called.
They went in and found a woman sitting across from Mr. Solomon. She was young, perhaps twenty or so, and wearing a faded gray cotton dress. She cradled a baby on her lap and a small child fidgeted in the chair next to her. She began to rise, but Mr. Solomon said something in German and the woman relaxed.
“Miss Greene, Mr. Tripp, this is Mrs. von Briesen.” He made the introductions in German for his client. Frank excused himself, off to other duties, and Justine came to stand near Mrs. von Briesen.
“Guten tag, Frau von Briesen.”
The other woman smiled slightly and returned the greeting. Mr. Solomon then spoke to his client in German. When he finished, she nodded and he explained to Justine, “I let her know that I would repeat the conversation for you in English.”
“Very good.”
Mr. Solomon began speaking to Mrs. von Briesen, pausing every two or three sentences to speak in English. “We know her husband visited the World Poolroom in the Bowery on the nineteenth of June. We believe he encountered a group of peter players who drugged and robbed him, then put him on the street.”
Justine winced. Peter players used chloral hydrate in drinks to knock out unsuspecting saloon patrons, leaving the mark completely vulnerable. It was an awful, horrible thing to do.
Mr. Solomon went back to speaking with his client in German. Justine picked up some words here and there, but she mainly watched Mrs. von Briesen for clues. There weren’t any, unfortunately. The other woman showed no reaction, her expression stoic throughout the report. The older child was quiet as well, listening and observing, while the baby slept peacefully on his or her mother’s lap.
“We do know,” Mr. Solomon said in English, “that some of his things turned up at one of the nearby pawnshops. From there we lost track of Mr. von Briesen. He may have been thrown onto a ship leaving the harbor, or he could be living under an assumed name in another part of the city.”
Mrs. von Briesen spoke and Mr. Solomon began a lengthy exchange in German with the other woman. Justine waited patiently, her mind spinning with how to locate Mr. von Briesen. The poolroom was likely her best bet, to see if anyone recalled what happened after von Briesen was put out on the street. Otto Rosen, the society’s head investigator, was thorough, but Justine often had luck in speaking with the girls in the area, the streetwalkers and serving girls. She had a knack for finding men who didn’t wish to be found.
With an apology, Solomon turned to Justine. “She asked why the authorities could not be contacted to find him.” He lifted his shoulders. “I wish I could answer that myself.”
Justine knew why. It was because men ran the world. Devoting police time and resources to locating husbands who had decided to desert their wives was considered a waste. Many officers had