Song of the Silent Harp by BJ Hoff

have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up hut a memory
Of an ancient glory.
    P. H. P EARSE (1879-1916)
    New York City
    M ichael Burke loved New York—except, that is, in the winter. In the spring the city was a capricious, blood-stirring flirt of a lass, but in the winter she turned to a bad-tempered woman, spitting her nastiness and flaunting her ill breeding as if to put a man off. Her sky became a grim, pewter shield, her avenues teemed with dirty snow and frozen refuse, and her sullen harborwaters churned with ice and floating debris.
    January in New York meant driving snow and bitter wind, and today had brought a relentless attack of both. It was still snowing hard as Michael turned down Pearl Street and headed toward home. He pulled the collar of his greatcoat higher about his throat, feeling uncommonly relieved that his watch was over.
    He was tired, bone-tired. Fridays were always the worst of his week, but this one had been even more trying than most, with two murders, a series of knifings, and a vicious attack on Sal Folio, the grocer—all within the last three hours. One of the murder victims had been a newsboy, a small, scrawny lad who routinely turned over his wages to one of the countless gangs that ran the streets day and night. More than likely a member of that same gang had done the killing, but since the incident had gone unobserved, the chances of ever catching the murderer were slim indeed.
    It was becoming increasingly difficult these days for the police force to make any real mark on the wave of violent crime sweeping the city. The force had grown appreciably, but was still far too small for a city of New York’s size. Until ’44, there hadn’t even been a professional police force—merely two constables, a small group of appointed marshals, and a “watch” made up of men who patrolled the streets at night. Even with the significantly larger new force of day and night policemen, the city’s lawlessness remained out of control. Jails were badly overcrowded, laws remained inadequate, and widespread corruption existed throughout the entire legal system.
    More and more these days, Michael found himself angry and frustrated with his job, discouraged one minute and furious the next at the way the entire force seemed to be losing ground to the criminals. Even worse, a rising number of Irish immigrants were to be found among the thugs roving the streets. Hundreds of his own were fast becoming the very kind of predators from which they’d thought themselves to be escaping when they’d fled the auld sod. Once they found the golden streets of their dreams to be paved with garbage instead of gold, and once they learned that the good jobs were seldom if ever available to anyone whose name began with Mac or O in front, they often turned on the city with a vengeance and seized whatever they could from her.
    A bitter root was taking hold in the leprous tenements these days, a rootMichael knew would yield even more hatred and a vast new crop of crime and corruption. It had been bad before, but never more so than in the months since Ireland and other parts of Europe had been devastated by famine. They were coming by the thousands now, arriving hungry and ill and desperate, and neither New York nor any other American city was prepared to handle the problems the people brought with them. The streets were filled with a variety of races and nationalities, and there seemed to be no end to the continuing flood of immigrants deluging the shores of the East.
    Michael’s eyes took in his surroundings. A crush of people crowded along the gaslight-lined streets. Nobody seemed aware of the lateness of the evening or even the bitter wind and stinging snow. There was such a busy, noisy stream of bodies, he felt certain every nation in Europe must be represented somewhere amid the throng. Over there was the fez of a Mohammedan; just ahead the brimless hat of a Persian; farther up a