Bless the Bride

daring kind of guy could climb up the carving on the side of the building and in through the balcony.”
    “Then that would rule out the missing bride, wouldn’t it?” I said. “A woman out alone on the street—especially a Chinese woman—would surely have been noticed.”
    “That’s true enough.” He paced around the roof, head down like Sherlock Holmes, hoping to find a clue of some sort. He straightened up and pointed excitedly. “Look at those small footprints. Your runaway bride, huh? She did come this way, after all.”
    “If she lived in this house, then she might have been up on the roof at any time,” I pointed out. “She probably slept up here and she might have wandered around at times.”
    “Not near the edge like that. It’s not natural.”
    “She might have been looking for a way to escape.”
    “Hey, would you look at that—I was right!” He pointed excitedly at the adjoining rooftop. “See that. It looks like a scrap of white fabric, caught on the brickwork. What’s the betting she tore her dress when she jumped or climbed across.”
    “That could just as easily be a scrap of laundry that blew away in the breeze,” I said. “Besides, this doesn’t make sense. If the young woman fled and can’t be found, do you really think she’d risk coming back to the place she fled from? And do you really think a delicate little Chinese girl would climb up there and make that leap? I know I wouldn’t.”
    He sucked in a breath and nodded, grudgingly. “Yeah, you have a point there, Miss Murphy. I’d sure like to make her the one who killed the old guy. Perfect motive. Shipped from her homeland against her will. Doesn’t want to marry him, so the only way out is to kill him. That would satisfy the tongs nicely.”
    “I’m sure there are other people with a good motive,” I said.
    He looked at me strangely. “You seem mighty keen to prove it’s not a girl you’ve never even met.”
    “I’m just trying to think things through logically,” I said, trying to keep my face from turning red and my expression suitably distant. “And logic tells me that a delicate young girl wouldn’t want to come back here once she’d fled and certainly wouldn’t have the strength to kill a man and hurl him down to the street.”
    He paused long enough to take this in; then he said, “We need to find her anyway. Maybe she can shed some light on this business.”
    “She’s been gone a week now,” I said. “She could be anywhere—miles away.”
    “When O’Byrne gets back, he can take down her particulars. And we have her photograph downstairs. We’ll put out a bulletin for her. It should be easy enough to spot a Chinese woman. Not too many of them in New York, are there?”
    “If she hasn’t already left New York,” I said.
    “Then someone will have spotted her on a train. We’ll find her, don’t you worry. Ten to one she paid someone to do the dirty deed for her—those bigger footprints, maybe.”
    “Paid someone? She’d just arrived from China. How would she have gotten her hands on any money?” I demanded.
    “Stole it from the old guy. Stole something and pawned it.”
    “I’ve already tried all the pawnshops,” I said. “She hasn’t pawned anything.”
    “You’re a thorough little thing, I’ll give you that,” he said. “Too bad you’re not a man. I could use you at the precinct.”
    “You already have some female detectives,” I said. “Mrs. Goodwin is a friend of mine.”
    “They are just glorified matrons,” he said. “They might be useful at times, but the last thing we want is women on the force.”
    I was wise enough not to pursue this subject. Captain Kear and I were not going to see eye to eye about women.
    “Where the devil is O’Byrne with that interpreter?” he snapped. “Surely he can find one damned person who can translate for us?”
    Again I was about to chide him for his offensive language in front of a woman, but thought better of it. I had been so used to Daniel, who always watched his language in front of me and apologized if he uttered a curse word by mistake. Clearly this captain was not Daniel’s equal in refinement or intellect. Standing on that windswept rooftop in this alien part of the city, a feeling of longing for Daniel swept through me. I was so glad this case was over and I wouldn’t have to deceive him when I saw him again.
    Captain Kear had gone ahead of me to the stairwell and began to descend. I hurried to catch up