The Edge of Dreams (13 page)

“It is always crowded in here. These young layabouts, they would rather sit here and drink my coffee than go to their classes. Wait, I find a table for you.” And before I could stop him, he ejected two boys who were sitting in a corner.

“Oh, no really,” I protested.

He shook his head. “They have been here over an hour, nursing one cup of coffee. Not good for business.” He raised his voice to them. “Go on. Off with you. Your papa expects you to be studying, not wasting time here.”

“But we were discussing a philosophy paper, Fritz. Working hard, I swear,” one of them said, although I could tell from his grin that this hadn’t been the case. I decided that their corner table would be an ideal site to observe, and I took a seat at it as they gathered up their books. As Fritz departed to get my coffee, I gave them a friendly smile.

“Tell me,” I said. “Do you come here every day?”

“When we can afford it,” one of them said.

“I don’t wish to sound morbid,” I said, “but were you by any chance here when that student was killed?”

“You mean the duel last year?” one of them said, his face lighting up. “Wasn’t that something?”

“Ye Gods. I half expected to have my head slashed off,” the other agreed. “Those guys were insane.”

“No, I meant Simon Grossman, the young man who drank the poisoned coffee,” I interrupted before they got carried away by their description.

Their eyes opened wider then. “So it was poisoned!” one of them said. “We often wondered, didn’t we, old sport?”

The other nodded. “They never said anything. Let us think that he’d had a fit or something, but I always thought there was something fishy.”

“Did you know Simon Grossman?”

“Saw him around from time to time, but didn’t have any classes with him. You’d often see him here or in a tavern, usually with a young lady, of questionable virtue, one might say.”

“He liked to enjoy life, that’s for sure. That’s why it was such bad luck that he croaked like that. And you say it was deliberate? Or did he take his own life?”

“If he enjoyed life, why would he want to take it?” I asked.

They looked at each other before one of them said, “Well, one did hear,” the chubbier one began, glancing around to see who might have been in earshot, “that Simon had run up gambling debts. He didn’t want to tell his old man, naturally. His father thought the sun shone out of Simon’s head, you know. Anyway, Simon tried to cadge money from a couple of our friends, but they were broke themselves.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think someone who loves life would kill himself over debts. And certainly not with cyanide. It’s a beastly painful death.”

“Cyanide, was it?” The two boys exchanged a horrified glance.

“So I understand,” I said.

One of them was looking at me cautiously now.

“That’s right, it was utterly beastly,” the other boy said. “We were sitting at our usual table in the corner here and there was suddenly this tremendous fuss—table knocked over, broken crockery, coffee everywhere, and someone thrashing around on the floor.”

“Someone said, ‘He’s having a fit,’ and then someone else said ‘He’s dead. My God, he’s dead.’”

“Tell me,” I said, “was the café really full at that time? Did you notice anyone who wasn’t usually here, anyone hanging around the tables, or anyone who left as soon as all the commotion started?”

“Why this morbid curiosity?” the one who had been eyeing me curiously now asked. “Are you a newspaper reporter? Because it’s old news now, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m a friend of Simon’s family,” I said, “and they are still angry that his killer hasn’t been apprehended.”

“I presume they’ve checked with the Italians?” the chubby one said. “The ones who run the tavern with the gambling parlor in the back, down on Bleecker Street? They’re a wild lot, and if Simon owed them money…”

“I don’t think cyanide is their chosen method,” I said. “A knife in the back, perhaps?”

The two young men were now looking at me with horror, and I realized that respectable women don’t usually go in for this type of conversation.

“So you didn’t notice anyone behaving suspiciously, or anyone leaving in a hurry? You didn’t see someone who might have been a member of the Italian underworld?”

One of them shrugged. “To tell you the truth, we were chatting with some other fellows and only turned around when we heard the crash. And it was pretty crowded at the time—fellows coming and going and waiting for tables.”

“But in answer to your question,” the other said, “I didn’t see anyone who stood out, I’m sure. Everyone looked like a regular student. I think we’d have noticed, just the way we noticed you come in, if there had been someone unusual.”

The chubby one nudged his friend. “We have to go or we’ll be late for class again.”

“Excuse us.” They nodded to me. “I hope they find the guy who did this. Everyone seemed to like Simon Grossman, even if he did enjoy his vices. Who’d do a foul thing like that?”

I wished I knew. I tried to chat with Fritz after that, but he hadn’t seen any suspicious strangers, and he told me he had been so busy pouring coffee that he too had only looked up when the table crashed over. I did take from him the names of the students who were sitting with Simon, but was told they were his regular group of pals, with whom he met at the café every morning. I suspected that Daniel would already have grilled them and discovered nothing, and I didn’t think that they’d reveal to a strange woman any incriminating facts about Simon Grossman. As I paid my bill and walked out, squeezing between tables, I saw how incredibly easy it would be to drop poison into a coffee cup while the occupants of the table were engrossed in conversation. But I had also learned that an outsider, an Italian gang member, for example, would have been noticed in the café. So whoever did this was likely one of them.

And it was only when I was crossing the street on my way home that I realized I might have been reckless to go out like this. Not because of my delicate health, but because the killer might have been watching my house and caught sight of me.

Daniel would not be pleased, and I decided to say nothing of my visit to the café, at least for now.

Twelve

There was no sign of Daniel all day. The delivery boy brought the food, and I had just finished stacking it in the pantry when a hansom cab turned into Patchin Place. It stopped only a few yards into our little backwater. Drivers didn’t like to come any farther, as it was hard to turn and even harder to back up the horse. I had been watching from the parlor window—a real lace-curtain twitching Irishwoman for once—and saw the cabby helping down my mother-in-law from the seat. Then my heart gave a leap of joy, because I saw the cabby swinging down young Bridie. She was the child I had brought from Ireland when I came to New York, and she had been abandoned by her father and brother when they went to work on the building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama. No news had come from them in quite a while, making me wonder whether they were still alive. One heard awful things about the conditions and the diseases down in that hellhole.

My mother-in-law had taken in Bridie to train her as a maid, but had grown fond of her and now seemed to be raising her to be a young lady. Either way, she had blossomed into a sweet young girl, almost twelve years old, and I was delighted to see her. I went to the front door to meet them.

“Mother Sullivan, how good of you to come,” I said. “And Bridie too. What a lovely surprise.”

“I thought she might be useful minding the baby,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “And it’s lonely for her up at the house with just Martha to talk to. And of course she pestered me until I agreed she could come.”

Bridie gave me a sheepish smile. “I didn’t pester. I asked nicely. I didn’t want to miss out on seeing Liam.”

“Only Liam, I notice.” I grinned as I ruffled her hair. “You’d no real desire to see me then?”

Bridie came over and hugged me fiercely.

“Careful, child. Molly’s been injured.” Mrs. Sullivan touched my shoulder as if I was made of porcelain as she leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “But you, my poor dear girl. What a terrible thing to have happened to you. When we read about it in the newspaper I said to Martha ‘I just hope nobody we know was riding on that train.’ And then we got Daniel’s telegram. It’s a miracle you’re still alive, saints be praised.”

“Yes, it is a miracle,” I said. “I almost got in the car ahead, but there was a man coughing and I didn’t want Liam to catch a disease. That was the car that plunged down and so many people were killed. I was in the car that hung down over the edge. We would have fallen all the way to the street as well, but we came to rest against the side of a building.”

“Awful!” she exclaimed again. “And Daniel says you’ve broken ribs?”

“Either cracked or bruised, not broken,” I said. “But they certainly hurt enough when I try to do anything like pick up Liam.”

“Of course they would. Well, I’m here now.”

Mrs. Sullivan turned to the cabby who was struggling with a large trunk. “Bring that up to the house, will you?” she said. The cabby gave a sigh as he heaved it onto his shoulder and followed us. I opened the front door.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” I said. “Please do come in. I’m afraid the house isn’t quite ready yet, but Sid and Gus have lent me some items so we’ll get by for now.”

“They are still living across the street then?” She shot a disapproving glare at their house. “Last thing I heard they were off gallivanting in Europe.”

“Yes, they just came home recently from Vienna. Miss Walcott has been studying with Professor Freud.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Not that awful man who says that all we think about is…” She lowered her voice and said, “S-e-x.”

“I can spell, you know,” Bridie said. “But you never told me what sex is.”

“Later, dear,” Mother Sullivan said. She turned back to the cabby. “You might as well take that upstairs to my room.”

“I’m a cabdriver, not a footman or a delivery boy,” he said. “I’ll leave it in the front hall. You can do what you like with it after that.”

“And I was going to give him a good tip too,” Mother Sullivan said as the cabby stomped away and I closed the front door behind him.

“Now, where’s that adorable grandson of mine?” she asked.

“He’s asleep on my bed. His crib is still at the apartment where Daniel’s been staying. He’s supposed to pack up our stuff and have it delivered, but the Lord knows when he’ll find time to do that. He’s been awfully busy lately.”

“When is that poor boy not busy?” she said. “Working himself to the grave, that’s what he’s doing. You must persuade him to leave the police, Molly. I’ve told you we have friends who would be only too glad to help him get into politics.”

“But he loves what he does, Mother Sullivan. He’s not designed for a life of leisure, you know that.”

She sniffed. “You’re right about that. Just like his father.”

I showed her the newly furnished parlor and then took her upstairs to the bedrooms. She didn’t seem particularly impressed, but then I realized that everything looked just as it once was to her. She had never seen my house burned and in ruins. She had no idea of the work it had taken to bring it back to how it was. And as I looked at it myself I felt ashamed that I had criticized Daniel for doing it all without me. It had been a mammoth task for him and one undertaken with love. I’d tell him that as soon as he got home.

At our bedroom door Mother Sullivan stopped short, as Liam lay blissfully asleep on top of the eiderdown. “Oh, I see you already have the bed made up,” she said. “Daniel told me you’d no bed linens. That’s why I brought the trunk with me.”

“Oh, these are only borrowed from my neighbors, in case you’d not brought the bed linens with you but had them sent by a carter service,” I said quickly. “And we’ll need to make up a bed for Bridie, since I didn’t know she was coming. There’s a bed up in the old maid’s room, Bridie, love. You can have a room to yourself.”

“You can get the linens you’ll need from the trunk and make up the bed yourself, Bridie,” Mrs. Sullivan said. As soon as Bridie was out of the way she turned to me. “She’s getting to an age when I’m wondering what to do with her, Molly.”

I glanced out of the door to hear Bridie rummaging around in the trunk. “Why, she’s not proving to be difficult, surely?”

“Quite the contrary,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “She’s turned into a grand little helper. I’m concerned about her future, that’s all. I’ve taught her to read and write and do sums, but I’m thinking she needs more education if she’s going to make her way in the world. She’s as smart as a whip and the local school only goes up to sixth grade. Besides, it must be boring for her with only Martha and me for company. So I was thinking maybe she might stay with you for a while, and attend a proper school. Meet children of her own age. And to pay for her keep she can help you out around the house, until you find yourselves a new maid. She’s good with Liam, isn’t she?”

“She is, and there would be no need to pay for her keep. I’d be delighted to have her with me. But what about you? Won’t you miss having her around?”

“I’ll miss her, all right. But I have to think of her, not me. I may not be around forever and I want her to be able to make her way in the world. Maybe she can become a teacher. She’d like that, I know.”

“I think it’s very sweet and generous of you,” I said, and gave her a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll need to talk to Daniel and see what he says, but surely he couldn’t object.”

“We won’t mention it to Bridie until it’s all settled,” she said, “and she can come up to me in the vacations, can’t she?”

“Of course.” I turned back to the bed, where Liam was now gazing at us sleepily. “Oh, look, Master Liam has finally woken up. It’s your grandmother come to visit us, young man.”

“Isn’t he the birthday boy today?” she asked. “I could have sworn it was the fourteenth? I’ve a little something for him in the trunk—Martha’s made him a new sailor suit and we’ve bought the hat to go with it and proper little leather boots now that he’s walking.”

“That’s grand. How kind of you,” I said. “And we’ve decided to have a proper celebration when I’m well and we’re properly set up in the house.”