Men of No Property (66 page)

Vinnie gave his chair to his wife. “What is it you want me to do, Norah? Defend Dennis I cannot.”

“I can see that now,” she said.

“Did Dennis ask it?”

“No. But he didn’t tell me not to when I told him I was comin’. And I wanted to tell you about Peg, and you, too, Mrs. Dunne, for she took a great likin’ to you. She was goin’ back to work today at the Broadway Theatre. I saw the letter myself to prove it. She’d not a drop taken since the summer until last night. I was that proud of her…” Norah almost broke then, skewering Vinnie with her words.

Priscilla leaned forward and touched her hand to Norah’s clenched fist. “And aren’t you proud of when and how she died, Mrs. Lavery?” she said very softly.

“I am, God have mercy on me.”

Norah sipped a mouthful of tea and asked when Mr. Farrell’s funeral would be and from where he would be buried. Peg would be buried in the morning, and from the church, having been deemed mad at the time of her suicide. A few minutes later Vinnie sent out for a cab. He and Priscilla went to the door with her.

“I am very sorry, Norah,” he said again.

“Listen to me, Vinnie Dunne, and then you can do what your conscience as well as your grief and your righteousness tells you: if Dennis was proud of what he had done, he’d not’ve needed my help to boast it.”

She went down the steps without faltering, and never looked back.

“And if he expected his freedom,” Priscilla said when Norah was out of sight, “would he accept you as counsel at all?”

“You are getting to speak like the Irish,” Vinnie said, “as well as acquiring their logic.”

But before the night was spent he went to visit Dennis in the Tombs. On the way he heard the newsboys out with their first extras: DEAD MAN WINNING ELECTION. How the Irish loved their martyrs.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Series and the Julie Hayes Series; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.

Born in Chicago in 1916, she grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Illinois and graduated from college into the Great Depression. She found employment as a magic-show promoter, which took her to small towns all over the country, and subsequently worked on the WPA Writers Project in advertising and industrial relations. During World War II, she directed the benefits program of a major meatpacking company for its more than eighty thousand employees in military service. She was married for forty-seven years to the late Harry Davis, an actor, with whom she traveled abroad extensively. She currently lives in Palisades, New York.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1956 by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Cover design by Tracey Dunham

978-1-4804-6058-4

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com