The Edge of Dreams (27 page)

“In Switzerland?” I asked. “That’s a long way from home.”

“He praised it highly—the mountain air, the healthy food, the outdoor life. They would all contribute to making Mabel receptive to treatment and restoring her to full health.”

“I suppose she has inherited money,” I said. “What did her aunt think?”

“She was rather startled by the whole thing. She wanted time to think it over. I don’t think she cared for Dr. Werner. After he had gone, she said there was something about him she didn’t take to. Maybe he was just too supercilious. And Mabel was agitated after seeing him too. I think she overheard what he said about the clinic in Switzerland. So we’ll have to wait to find out what happens next.”

As I tucked Liam into his crib for his afternoon nap, I thought over what Gus had just told me. At least Dr. Werner had discerned that the girl was deeply troubled and needed an alienist to bring her back to sanity. His testimony should prevent Lieutenant Yeats from arresting her at the moment. And if she was taken to Switzerland, then she would be out of the grasp of the American law. So that would be a good thing. However … I paused, considering. Switzerland. So far away. So different from her home and everything she was used to. How would she handle the loneliness and isolation, and who would take her there? Not Mrs. Hamilton, with her four lively sons and a husband to look after. Surely there was a suitable clinic closer to home—in the countryside, out of the city, where her family could visit her, and the attendants spoke her own language. And if no qualified alienist could be found, then her family’s money could pay for one to come across from Vienna.

I decided to suggest this to Sid and Gus when I saw them again. I realized Mabel would be in danger from Yeats if she were closer to home, but I thought the testimony of a qualified doctor would prevent him from doing anything until she was cured. And in the meantime, she would be one less worry on my mind. I paused and told myself firmly that I was wrong to be worrying about her in the first place. She wasn’t my concern. Mrs. Hamilton had asked for assistance from Gus, not from me. And yet, as always, I wanted to know the truth. Somebody had drugged or killed Mabel’s parents and then set fire to their room. Who hated them enough to do that? And if Lieutenant Yeats didn’t stretch his investigation beyond Mabel, who would ever find the cold-blooded murderer who was walking free?

I was tempted to visit the Hamilton household myself, to talk to the servants who had escaped from the burning house, but I realized it would be more sensible to wait—not just so that my own recovery could continue, but so the autopsy could be performed and might reveal a substance that was used to drug Mabel’s parents.

Liam whined and wriggled in his crib, bringing me back to reality and the claims of everyday life. “Time to sleep,” I said gently and patted his back, humming his favorite lullaby. His eyes fluttered closed. His thumb came into his mouth and he lay there, looking like a cherub from an old painting. So sweet. So vulnerable. It was hard to believe that he’d grow into a boisterous, noisy youngster like Mrs. Hamilton’s sons, or a tough and scruffy lad like Nuala’s boys. I wondered if Thomas had had any success in finding out who had paid a boy to deliver the note to the police headquarters.

I sighed with frustration. There was so much I wanted to do. I wanted to help Daniel with his investigation (and I must confess, I wanted to find something that the police had somehow overlooked, as much for my own satisfaction as to help my husband). I wanted to help solve Mabel’s case too. But I was no longer a detective. I was a wife and a mother, and I was recovering from injuries. I would have to be patient. And patience was a virtue I had never really learned.

I tried not to think. I tried to play with my son and with Bridie. We built towers of blocks and knocked them down. Liam’s laughter echoed through the house and did me a power of good. But I had another bad dream that night and hoped that Dr. Werner would find time to send me some medicine, as he had promised. I remembered he had expressed concern and said that concussions should not be taken lightly. Perhaps I should be heeding his warning and not filling my head with worries. It turned out that Mabel too had another dream that night. Mrs. Hamilton sent around a note to Sid and Gus the next morning.

When Gus came to my front door just as we were finishing breakfast, I thought it would be to say that she had just bought croissants from the French bakery and I was invited to coffee. Instead, she held only an envelope in her hand, and her face was full of concerned animation.

“Listen, Molly,” Gus said. The envelope in her hands flapped in the wind that swirled down our small backwater. “This just arrived from Minnie Hamilton.” She removed a sheet of paper from the envelope and tried to hold it steady while she read. “She says that Mabel had a terrifying dream last night. They heard her screams and she was cowering in the corner, saying ‘Why is the world upside down?’ and ‘Why does it smell so sweet?’ When they woke her up she looked at them and said, ‘The snake spoke to me. He spoke to me.’

“Mrs. Hamilton asked her, ‘What did he say?’

“‘He said, “You are mine.”’”

Twenty-four

Sid came out to join us and we debated what the words might mean, but we could come up with no reasonable explanations.

“‘Why is the world upside down?’” Sid said. “Well, her world is upside down now, isn’t it?”

“And I wonder what might have smelled sweet?” Gus asked.

“They did find her curled up in the back garden,” I said. “Maybe she found herself among some sweet-smelling flowers and was surprised to find herself there.”

“That’s good, Molly.” Gus nodded. “But the snake saying, ‘You are mine.’ That is definitely disturbing.”

“We’ve talked of the snake representing her own darker thoughts, haven’t we?” Sid ventured. “Could this be hinting that her evil nature is taking over?”

“How horrible,” Gus said. “Don’t let’s think that of Mabel. I want another explanation.”

“I feel so sorry for her, living with these dreams for so long now,” I said. “I’ve had bad dreams that are not nearly as terrifying just since the accident, and I find them most distressing. Hers have gone on for how long? Over a month, wasn’t it?”

“Since the beginning of August,” Sid said.

Gus looked at my face. “What is it, Molly? You’ve thought of something?”

“No, nothing really,” I muttered. “Nothing important.” Because of course I couldn’t tell them that this fire and Mabel’s parents’ deaths might have been caused by the same man Daniel was after.

But how then did it explain Mabel’s miraculous escape unscathed, not down the stairs, but out through the fire escape? Was I just wishing her to be innocent because of her sweet and innocent appearance?

I returned home, and we were in the middle of having tea at four o’clock when the front door was thrown open violently, sending a gust of wind down the hall.

“Mercy me, who can that be?” Mother Sullivan asked, half rising from her chair.

“Only me,” Daniel called back. He came into the kitchen, looked around the table, and nodded with satisfaction. “I see I’ve timed my arrival perfectly. Mother’s made one of her seed cakes.”

“Sit down, boy, and I’ll find you a cup,” she said, going to the shelf before I could do or say anything.

“I won’t say no,” he replied. “As usual I had no time for lunch, and I’ve just come from the morgue. I walked all the way to get that smell out of my nostrils.”

“It never really goes away, does it?” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it the first time.”

“Children—we’re at the table,” Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed, as she banged Daniel’s cup and saucer down firmly onto the table. “Your conversation would turn the stomachs of half of New York. I’m just glad you don’t move among the Four Hundred, or you’d be banned from their company for life with such talk.”

Daniel chuckled. “My wife was not made for drawing room chatter,” he said. He cut himself a large slice of cake and took a bite, nodding with satisfaction.

“What are you doing home so early?” I asked. “Don’t tell me they’ve given you an afternoon off?”

“They haven’t. I came straight from the morgue because I thought you and your friends would want to know.”

“If the talk’s to be about morgues and dead bodies, could you please carry it on in another room?” Mother Sullivan said. “I wish to enjoy my tea.”

“I don’t want to hear about dead bodies either,” Bridie said. “I’ll have nightmares.”

Daniel got up. “Very well. Come along, Molly. Into the study.”

I followed him and he closed the door behind us. “Very interesting autopsy,” he said.

“Of the Hamilton girl’s parents?”

He nodded. “I wangled myself an invitation, since the pathologist is an old friend of mine. Yeats declined to attend. I think he felt it would offend his delicate nature.” He grinned.

“And you found something?”

“It’s not conclusive yet. It will need further testing, but my pathologist friend worked in South America as a young doctor. He thinks the muscle tissue shows evidence of curare having been administered.”

“Curare?” The word meant nothing to me.

“It’s a poison made from vines in South America. The natives tip their arrows with it and fire it at animals they are hunting. It doesn’t kill the animal, but it paralyzes it so that they can dispatch it at their leisure.”

“How horrible. How would anyone get his hands on curare, unless he too had been to South America?”

“I understand that there is some interest in it now among the medical community. Experiments are being done to see if it can be used as a possible anesthetic,” he said.

I stood still, staring past him into the backyard, where the wind was swirling fallen leaves, trying to make sense of this. “So the doctor thinks that someone injected Mabel’s parents with curare, and then set fire to their bedroom?”

“It would seem that way.”

“But that means…” I paused, letting the full horror of this sink in, “that they could have been awake but paralyzed as they were burned to death. That’s monstrous, Daniel.” I put my hand up to my mouth, breathing deeply before I could say the next words. “And it’s all too possible that Mabel witnessed this. No wonder it has driven her to the brink of madness—to watch one’s parents burned, and to know you can do nothing to help them.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?” he said, looking at me with tender concern.

“Now you have to believe what I suggested—that the man who set the fire is the same one you are seeking,” I said. “To kill in this manner. This man is a fiend and must be stopped.”

“I suppose I must agree that the fiendish nature of these murders might possibly indicate the same man. But I still come back to the absence of a note.”

“Perhaps he did send a note, and it got lost in the mail,” I suggested. “Perhaps he went to post the note at the main post office and noticed your men, watching, and lost his nerve.”

“Then why not have it delivered by hand, as the last two have been?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But one thing makes me very happy. It now doesn’t seem likely that Mabel killed or drugged her parents and set their room on fire. There is no way that a young girl could get her hands on this curare or know how to administer it.”

“Then let’s hope the evidence is conclusive,” Daniel said. “For your sake as well as hers.”

I sank onto the nearest chair as if the burden of all this knowledge was suddenly too much for me. “What happens to Mabel now?” I asked. “Would it be right to try and bring her memory back? Or would the memory of that scene be too much to bear?”

“I’m not an alienist,” he said. “We’d need to get a professional opinion. But if it would help identify a killer, then I’m afraid it would have to be done, whatever the consequences to her sanity might be.”

“Poor child,” I said. “I can’t decide whether it would be better to know the truth or to continue to be haunted by these nightmares.”

“In the end it’s always better to know,” Daniel said. “But we’ll do nothing in a hurry, I promise you that.”

“There is another thing that we can be thankful for,” I said. “It means that this crime is now part of your investigation, doesn’t it? You’ll take over and Lieutenant Yeats will no longer be able to torment Mabel.”

“I expect he’ll still be involved,” Daniel said, “but now working under me.”

“Which means he can’t do anything without your permission. No dragging Mabel off to the Tombs, or even threatening it.”

He nodded, holding out his hand to pull me to my feet. “All the same, he comes with powerful friends in the right places, Molly. I’m highly aware of that. The commissioner may be glad that he now has someone to report on my failings.”

“You’ll solve the case and they’ll all be impressed,” I said, slipping my arm through his. “This may be the one link that we needed to start to make sense of this.”

“As always I admire your optimism,” he said, “but it does give me more people to question, and a renewed drive to stop this man. If he is capable of such heartless evil, then he can’t be allowed to kill again.”

We went back to the kitchen then and enjoyed the rest of our tea without a single mention of unsuitable subjects. I felt unreasonably happy and energized—happy that Mabel did not have a hidden dark side, and energized that I had been able to fill in one piece of the puzzle. Although, we hadn’t proven the connection yet, and how a staid middle-class couple could be linked to the simple woman and the student was still a complete enigma.

“You must interview the Hamiltons’ former servants, Daniel,” I said, as he prepared to return to work. “Find out if the Hamiltons had any enemies or secrets. Servants always know everything. I did have Sid and Gus ask Mrs. Minnie Hamilton, Mabel’s current guardian, if she could think of anyone who might have wished them harm, but she couldn’t. She said that Bertie was an affable, harmless sort of fellow, devoted to his family, without any vices that she knew of.”

When Daniel had gone, I took out a map of New York and stuck pins in the sites where the murders had occurred. But I saw no pattern to them at all. They weren’t equal distance apart, they didn’t share the circumference of a circle around a given point. Nothing. Completely random. I got up and paced the room. I could no longer keep out of this. Now that I suspected what the same monster had done to Mabel’s parents, and how Mabel was suffering because of it, I had to do whatever I could to help find him. My trip to Brooklyn had revealed no new clues, as far as I could tell. No links to the other deaths. But I should still go forward with my plan to visit the next of kin of the other victims. Perhaps one of them would reveal something that gave us the link we needed. As to my own aches and pains, I’d grin and bear them.