Bless the Bride

away.
    Then another hand grabbed my arm. “You poor dear woman,” a voice said. “Have no fear. I’ve come to save you. Yes, there is salvation in the Lord. Come back to the mission with me and I’ll help you break the bonds of the devil’s drug.” I could vaguely make out a trim shape of woman in a gray outfit and old-fashioned gray bonnet. “Come on,” she said again. “Let me take you to the mission. I promise you won’t regret it. The Lord has sent me to find you and lead you on the road to recovery.”
    I wanted to laugh. I wanted to tell her I was Molly Murphy, private investigator and about to be married to a respectable police captain, but again my mouth made only animal-like sounds. One thing was clear. I didn’t want to go with her. Had to find Daniel and tell him … I couldn’t remember what I had to tell him, but it was important.
    She was just trying to drag me away when I heard another voice. “Miss Murphy! Holy Mother of God, it’s Miss Murphy, Albert. What has happened to you, my dear? Albert, take her arm. We must get her into the house.”
    And I was half carried in through a front door. “Are you sick, my dear? Has someone attacked you? Your dress is all torn.”
    I tried to tell her with my useless lips, again producing only the incomprehensible words one makes when half asleep.
    “Looks to me as if she’s been drugged,” a male voice said.
    “Then we’d better leave her to sleep it off,” said the woman’s voice. “Wasn’t it lucky that the wind got up and we came back from the picnic early, or who knows what might have happened to her?”
    Someone put a cup to my lips and I sipped water.
    “It’s coffee she needs,” the male voice said. “If coffee can cure a hangover, it should help with other drugs, shouldn’t it?”
    They lay me down and tucked a blanket around me. “It’s all right, my dear. You’re quite safe now,” the woman said.
    I closed my eyes. Quite safe now. I knew there was some reason I shouldn’t sleep, but it had gone again. I closed my eyes and retreated into dreams.

Thirty-three
     
     
     
    It was the smell of coffee that aroused me. It crept into the peaceful landscape in which I was residing until my brain formed the word “coffee” and I came to consciousness. Aileen Chiu was standing in front of me, holding a cup.
    “I let you sleep it off,” she said, “but I guess you’d now like a nice cup of coffee to clear your head.”
    “What time is it?” I asked.
    “A little past nine in the evening.”
    “That’s terrible,” I said as memory returned. “I’ll be too late.”
    “Too late for what?”
    “To stop him from crossing the border and getting away.” I sat up, closing my eyes as the world swung around. “The murderer,” I added. “Can you send someone to police headquarters and get Captain Sullivan?”
    “Why yes, I’ll send my son, Joe, right away,” she said, “but what’s this about a murderer?”
    “The man who killed Mr. Lee. He dragged me into an opium den and drugged me while he got away,” I said.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she muttered, crossing herself. “You poor dear. What an experience. You’re lucky to have escaped with your life.”
    “Yes, I am,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words how true they were. I was alive and soon Daniel was going to come and all would be well—except that I’d slept so long that Monty Warrington-Chase would be in Canada and nobody would bother to pursue someone who killed Chinese people. At least Sarah would be safe now—an awful thought struck me. Had he taken her with him?
    I sipped the coffee, feeling normality returning. I was conscious of voices, a door slamming; then I lay back again until I heard a voice I recognized. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
    And Daniel burst into the room. He dropped to his knees, enveloping me in his arms. “Thank God,” he murmured, burying his face in my hair. “Thank God. I was going out of my mind with worry. I’ve had men combing the city for you.” And then as he held me away I saw that his eyes were moist with tears. “Where the devil did you get to? I thought I told you to go straight home and wait for me.”
    “I intended to,” I said. “I was on my way home when he grabbed me.”
    “Who grabbed you?”
    “Monty Warrington-Chase,” I said. “He committed both the murders, Daniel.”
    “Monty? What the deuce did he have to do with Chinatown?”
    “Opium addict,” I said. “Lee Sing Tai