The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

If Wong was surprised that morning to see on the doorstep of No. 5 Gramercy Park the men called Robbie Allen and Harry Kidder, who’d brought Miss Esther home after the bank robbery, and with them the tall and attractive young woman named Henrietta de Grout, he gave no indication. He was pleased, however, to see that Robbie Allen only stayed long enough to make flirting eyes at Miss Esther before he went on about his business.

Henrietta de Grout wore a long, green velvet coat with a high collar, white lace ruffle, fur cuffs, and flowing skirt. Pinned to her lapel was an elegant gold watch. Her thick dark hair was rolled, framing her oval face, ending in a topknot surmounting her head. She had removed her hat for the photograph. Standing close beside her, Harry Kidder looked handsome and serious in his broad-shouldered, black, single-breasted suit, high collar and narrow grey silk cravat, held in place by a diamond stickpin.

Because the photograph was to be in honour of the couple’s engagement, Esther had put aside her Kodak and rolled film for her more reliable Scovill and the glass plates and fine lenses.

“Please stand perfectly still.” After Esther focused the lens, she inserted a glass plate into a holder and placed it in the back of the camera. “Ready?” she said. “Do not move, please.” The light was perfect, the weather benign.

“Ready.” Miss de Grout’s husky voice was steady, sure. She had a casual grace, standing there close beside her man.

Esther made the picture.

It felt right. But she removed the plate, inserted another and made one more picture.

* * *

Robbie Allen strolled down towards Union Square. On Fifteenth Street, he looked in the window of Tiffany’s, where Harry had bought Henrietta a gold lapel watch and, for himself, a diamond stickpin. Bought, no less. Damn it all, they’d lost their voodoo.

Harry had anyway. He was all wrapped up in Henrietta and being a father, and now he was talking about ranching. In New York.

Goddam, in the old days they would have just held up Tiffany’s and cleaned it out.

He had the itch, same as he’d felt as a boy in Utah. Still, there was time. He couldn’t push Harry too hard just now. Another couple of weeks wouldn’t hurt, while they saw a few vaudeville shows and enjoyed some of the night life. They’d taken rooms again at Missus Taylor’s boarding house on West Twelfth Street, so they could celebrate the New Year and shoot the moon. Next week he’d get himself to the steamship lines on the East River and buy those tickets to South America.

He passed the Union Square Bank, which was open again; no sign that a robbery had ever happened. Those two had done another bank and gone to ground. Where were the bastards? He’d like to get his hands on them, all right.

All this thinking made his throat dry. He headed to Joe’s Bar, a tavern on Union Square they’d been frequenting since they arrived in the city.

The streets were crowded with shoppers, workmen, servants carrying packages. Robbie was deep in thought. He failed to notice the two men on the opposite side of the street, who had stopped to talk.

These two men were studying the scene of the first crime at the Union Square Bank, when one said, “Look there, Dutch. If we didn’t know they travelled together, I’d say that fellow there fits the description of Butch Cassidy.”

“Yeah, Coz. Him and everyone else in city clothes and a derby. Cassidy has a moustache.”

“Easy enough to shave off,” Bo said.

“Forget it. You’re clutching at straws. The shooters got away. The Pinkerton girl had a bagful of bank bills. She was with them, or not with them. They got cover from the kids in the tenement. And we have egg on our face.”

16

January, 1902: Bo Clancy and Dutch Tonneman had once again been summoned to the Police Commissioner’s office. There was a new commissioner, all the more reason for the two inspectors to be summoned.

Neither Dutch nor Bo wore top coats. Though milder than usual, it was still winter, but the new commissioner, Colonel John Partridge, preferred unlit hearths. “Good for the brain,” he was known to say — and often. Too much heat wore him down, made him irritable. Therefore, to suit his taste, the interior of 300 Mulberry Street was like a block of ice.

On the staircase Bo took several pulls from the small flask he kept in his inside pocket. He knew Dutch well enough not to offer him a nip while they were on the job.

The welcome they received was sour, and weighed down by glares and reproaches, and no invitation to sit. Dutch wondered: did the Commissioner think they were tainted by the corruption surrounding the old Tammany regime? If so, he should know better. He and Bo were Roosevelt men. Rough Riders to the core.

“Report.” The Commissioner had set down his cigar when they came into his office. It smouldered in the large ashtray on the Partridge’s neat desk.

Bo had the rank; it was his place to answer. “No bank robberies in the past three weeks.”

“And,” the Commissioner replied, “no cases of sunstroke in Manhattan.”