She thought about him the entire carriage ride back to campus. The past few hours had torn down the barrier between them, and he didn’t feel like an enemy anymore. He felt like a powerfully attractive man, and that was even more dangerous.

14

Gwen worried about Patrick and his mother throughout the following day, even though one of the research assistants had telephoned to report that Mrs. O’Neill was doing well.

It wasn’t enough for her. Late in the afternoon, she returned to Patrick’s apartment, drawn as if by a lodestone and needing to know more about how both O’Neills fared. She brought Lorenzo because the Five Points was a frightening place and looked even worse in the daylight. Its streets were a chaotic tangle of shouting vendors, honking horns, and barking dogs. Her carriage lurched over potholes, and the cramped, tightly packed buildings felt oppressive. The building where Patrick lived was clean, but the walls were dingy from smoke stains and so thin that the noise from outside leaked in.

She knocked on Patrick’s door, and Hiram answered. “How is Mrs. O’Neill?” she asked.

“Holding her own,” the research assistant said, stepping aside to let her and Lorenzo enter. “She’s sleeping, and so is Patrick.”

The front room looked like a tornado had blown through, with bedding, dirty dishes, and remnants of lunch littering the space. Gwen instinctively began tidying up. It was hard, since there was no running water in the apartment, but she folded the bedding and stacked the dishes. Dr. Haas helped and provided her with a full report about Mrs. O’Neill’s progress.

There was almost nothing left in the apartment to eat. She’d seen dozens of vendor carts on the street below, hawking sausages, kippers, boiled ham, and catfish pie. None of it sounded appetizing, but she sent Lorenzo down to buy enough for everyone’s dinner. She eyed the dirty dishes but wasn’t sure how to wash them without a sink.

“There’s a pump down the hall,” Hiram said. “I’ll go fill a pitcher.” Before he could leave, an abrupt banging on the door startled them both.

“O’Neill, you in there?” a gruff voice demanded.

Gwen hurried to the door so the obnoxious knocking wouldn’t wake Patrick or his mother.

“Hush!” she scolded the gangly old man on the other side of the door. “There’s a sick woman in this apartment, and that rude pounding is entirely unnecessary.”

“Rude pounding?” the man repeated. “I’ll give you a rude pounding if you don’t tell me where O’Neill is. He missed our appointment this morning, and I’m his most important client.”

She stilled, recognizing the man from the courtroom yesterday. “Are you Mick Malone?”

“That’s me. Is O’Neill here or not? He missed our meeting.”