Murder In Chinatown Read Online Free PDF Page A

would be out, sweeping her front steps while she kept an eye on everything that happened on Bank Street. But Mrs. Ellsworth’s steps had gone unswept most days in the months since Sarah had brought Catherine home from the Mission. Mrs. Ellsworth now had better ways to spend her time.
    The moment Sarah pushed open her front door, she heard the sound of running feet. Catherine appeared almost instantly, running full tilt from the back of the house, through the front room that Sarah used as her office, and straight into Sarah’s arms. Hugging Catherine’s small body tightly, Sarah once again understood Minnie’s desperate fear. She inhaled the sweet scent of the child’s hair and brushed her lips across the satiny cheek. How could a mother bear the pain of losing a child? Surely, nothing else could be so terrible.
    “We were about to give you up,” Mrs. Ellsworth said good-naturedly.
    Sarah looked up to see that her neighbor had followed Catherine at a more sedate pace. Maeve, the girl who served as Catherine’s nursemaid, was behind her, smiling a greeting. They had most likely been working on something in the kitchen. Mrs. Ellsworth was teaching them the fine art of homemaking.
    “Is everything all right?” Mrs. Ellsworth added. Sarah saw the unspoken question in the older woman’s eyes. When Sarah was gone for a long time on a delivery, it usually meant something had gone wrong.
    “Oh, yes,” Sarah assured her, still holding on to Catherine’s hands as she straightened. “A healthy baby boy. I stayed because there was some trouble in the family. A young girl went missing, and they all went to look for her, so there was no one to take care of the new mother.”
    “They found the girl then?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked.
    “No, they didn’t.”
    “Was she a little girl?” Maeve asked, her young face clouded. She, too, had been a resident of the Prodigal Son Mission when Sarah recruited her. Her parents had put her out on the streets when they’d deemed her able to fend for herself. Sarah had never asked what she’d been forced to do to stay alive until she’d found the safety of the Mission.
    Catherine squeezed Sarah’s hands, and Sarah looked down to see the concern in her eyes, too. Catherine was no more than five years old herself, but she’d also known the terror of being alone. It had made her mute.
    “The girl is almost your age, Maeve,” Sarah said. “She’ll be sixteen next month.”
    “Well, now, you can tell us all about it in a minute,” Mrs. Ellsworth said brusquely. “But first, come on into the kitchen where we can get some food into you. You look wrung out.”
    “I am,” Sarah agreed and allowed Catherine to take her by the hand and lead her back the way they’d come, into the warm comfort of the kitchen.
    They’d been making pastry. Several empty pie shells awaited filling, and flour and sticky dough covered the entire tabletop. Maeve quickly cleaned a spot at the table, and Catherine brushed flour off one of the chairs for Sarah to sit.
    “I can scramble up some eggs, if that’s all right,” Mrs. Ellsworth was saying. “Not fancy, but it’s quick.”
    “That’s fine. I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake,” Sarah said, sinking down into the chair Catherine had prepared for her. Catherine climbed up into her lap and laid her head against Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah held her close, reveling in the feel of her small body.
    Mrs. Ellsworth started preparing the eggs while Maeve continued to clean off the table. She scrubbed a little harder than necessary, Sarah noted, and her face was fixed in a troubled frown.
    “What is it, Maeve?” she asked.
    The girl looked up, stopping her work for just a moment before returning to it with a vengeance. “I was just thinking about that girl. Why’d she run off, anyway? Did they beat her or something?”
    “No, they didn’t beat her,” Sarah said. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but she remembered the way Minnie had held her