Cooper frowned. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means I can box and handle a knife, pistol, and slingshot with ease. And not that I’m proud of this, but I wouldn’t be above hair pulling if someone tries to harm me.”
“You can box?” Ann asked.
“She’s actually quite good in the ring,” Ivan admitted. “She’s got a right hook that leaves a mark.”
Cooper’s eyes widened. “You’ve been in the boxing ring with her?”
“I’m the one who taught her. We box several times a week.”
Ann wrinkled her nose. “But I’ve never seen you and Eunice box before, and I live in the boardinghouse.”
Ivan waved that aside. “Eunice bought an old warehouse on Greenwich Avenue about six months after we arrived in the city. She didn’t want to let her skills go rusty in case whoever murdered her grandfather came looking for her. We also take our pistols out to a practice range a few times a week, but not the one the agents use down by the Battery.”
Cooper settled a frown on Eunice. “It almost sounds as if you’ve deliberately not allowed anyone at the agency to learn about yourskills, which is odd since you asked me to begin those physical exertion and weapon classes months ago.”
“It would have been tricky to explain why a widow knows how to knock a man out with a single punch,” Eunice said. “Now that you’re aware of my skills, though, and the ladies know my secret, I’ll be more than happy to lend my fighting expertise to your lessons. I’m sure many of our agents will enjoy learning how to box.”
“Indeed we will,” Ann agreed, sitting forward and looking out the window. “But additional talk of boxing will need to wait. We’ve arrived at the docks.”
After the carriage pulled to a stop a moment later, the door opened and Elsy Evans, Ann’s sister, who was dressed as a male coachman and was the agency’s main driver when she wasn’t working her other position as a paid companion, stuck her head into the coach. She held out her hand to her sister, and after Ann stepped from the carriage, Eunice followed, her gaze settling on a group of shabbily dressed women standing on the dock, waiting to board a rather derelict-looking boat.
It did not escape her notice that there were three policemen standing close to the women, having been hired, no doubt, to make certain the potential new inmates didn’t cause trouble on the boat ride to the island.
“I’ll have to say good-bye for now from here,” Cooper said, retreating back into the carriage. “That’s Officer Bockert over there, and he knows me.” He caught Eunice’s eye. “Ivan and I will follow you on another boat, just as we planned. We’ll be able to gain entry to the asylum, although it’ll be tricky for us to get inside the buildings since we’re supposed to be new groundkeepers. But at least we’ll be on site.”
“I’ll come looking for the two of you at some point,” Ann said. “But we have to go. They’ve begun boarding.”
Eunice readjusted her veils, gave a few experimental sobs, then turned to Ivan, who was looking more concerned than ever. “Don’t look so worried. I can take care of myself, and besides, I have every confidence Ann and I will be perfectly fine.”
CHAPTER
Eight
Four hours later, Eunice was convinced they were going to be anythingbutfine.
Shifting on a bench that was incredibly uncomfortable, Eunice glanced to the three women sitting beside her, wishing there was something she could do to alleviate the worry stamped on their faces.
From the moment she and Ann had disembarked from the horrid boat that had taken them across the river to Blackwell Island, Eunice had realized this case might be far more difficult than she’d been expecting.
For one, she’d not been anticipating that the head nurse would immediately balk at allowing Ann to remain by Eunice’s side. Instead, she’d insisted Ann hie herself off to hall number eight to assist with getting the inmates from that hall into a bath. Ann, having no choice but to comply, took her leave, whispering to Eunice that she’d be back soon, and hopefully with the news that she’d managed to locate Mrs. Mills.
Ann’s departure had left Eunice in the care of Nurse Grady, a hard-looking woman who didn’t seem to have a compassionate bone in her body. Nurse Grady had rounded up the three other women who’d been on the ship along with Eunice and marchedthem through an entrance hallway that was cold, uninviting, and didn’t do a thing to put a person at ease. Nurse Grady then ushered them into an equally cold and sparsely furnished waiting room, where they were told to sit on the hard bench and wait for the arrival of a doctor who would do an initial assessment on each of them.
When Eunice had stated the obvious—that she’d already been given an assessment by two other doctors—Nurse Grady had taken her roughly by the arm, shoved her onto the bench, and ordered her to keep quiet. As an obvious incentive to obey that order, the nurse gave Eunice’s arm a hard pinch, one she took as a warning that there would be repercussions if she didn’t comply with the nurse’s orders.
She’d never been fond of people who used their power for intimidation, which was exactly why, after Nurse Grady quit the room, she’d begun to question the three women left with her instead of keeping quiet. Their stories were more than disheartening.
Tillie Turney was a woman of about thirty, who’d been at Bellevue hospital for an entire month, recovering from an exhaustion illness she’d procured while working in a shirtwaist factory. She’d had no idea she was being sent to an insane asylum, nor did she show any sign of mental instability. But here she was, terrified to think that she may soon find herself committed as an insane woman, her terror only increasing after Nurse Grady told her she’d need to resign herself to her plight, since it was rare any patients were ever released.
Mrs. Edmund McGuinness was another woman who didn’t appear to have lost her wits, but when questioned about why she was at the asylum, Mrs. McGuinness merely shrugged and said her husband had been responsible for having her deemed insane after she couldn’t control her anguish over the death of their infant daughter four months before. After disclosing that, Mrs. McGuinness had not spoken another word, sitting stiffly on the bench as tears trailed down her cheeks.
The third woman waiting with Eunice was Louise Schanz,or at least that’s what Eunice thought she said her name was. The woman spoke not a word of English, only German, and seemed completely bewildered by her surroundings. When she’d tried to ask Nurse Grady questions in German, the nurse had dismissed her out of hand, claiming the woman was obviously demented, even though Eunice was convinced the poor woman simply couldn’t make herself understood because she didn’t speak the language.
Unfortunately, when Nurse Grady reentered the room and Eunice suggested it might be prudent to have an interpreter summoned, the nurse gave her another pinch and quit the room again, returning a minute later in the company of the doctor they’d been waiting on for hours.
Trepidation mixed with a great deal of curiosity flowed through Eunice when Nurse Grady called her name, or rather called out Eunice Hickenbottom, the name she’d decided to assume, and told her the doctor would examine her now.
