The Edge of Dreams (37 page)

My nose picked up the smell—sweet, cloying, and somehow familiar—a fraction of a second before everything went black.

Thirty-four

I opened my eyes to darkness. I was lying in a dark and confined space. It smelled damp and musty. As I lay there, I heard a rumbling sound that set objects rattling, and I could feel it in my bones. I knew exactly where I was. I was in the place of my dream. But I was definitely not asleep. And unlike in my dream, I could move. I turned my head. I noticed a faint chink of light coming from under a door. And when the rumbling came again, I identified it. I was in the basement of number 18, and the new subway line ran close by.

That sweet, cloying smell was still in my nostrils, and I recognized it too. Chloroform. I had encountered it before. And the murderer had obviously used it on Mabel the night he killed her parents, making her ask “Why does it smell so sweet?” in her dream. I was about to sit up when I heard movement outside the door. The handle turned. I lay still and closed my eyes. Light flooded in from beyond the door. From under my lashes I watched the tall, thin figure come into the room. He came right up and stood there, looking down at me. He bent over me. I could sense his breath on me. And I knew that he had been Mabel’s snake, probably wearing a mask of some sort, bending over her to see if she was asleep. I willed myself not to twitch or move a muscle, keeping my breathing slow and regular. Then I saw that he held something in his hand. It was a syringe, and I knew then what he planned to do, and why I hadn’t been able to move in my dream.

He bent low over me, and I couldn’t tell whether he wanted to make sure I was still under the influence of the chloroform, or whether he was gloating over having taken me so fortuitously. He felt my arm, then to my horror, he started to lift up my skirt. I had not expected this behavior from him, until I realized that I was wearing a wool jacket, too thick to plunge a needle through, and he was going for my thigh instead. I waited, watching my skirt lifted higher and higher. I could hear his breathing quicken as if this act excited him. He raised the syringe, positioning the needle. I summoned all my strength and without warning, delivered a mighty kick to his midsection. I must have struck lucky or had more force than I expected, because he doubled over, gasping, and the needle flew from his hand, clattering to the stone floor. I leaped up, going after it. Although he was still gasping he lunged at me. I kicked the needle across the floor, threw myself after it, and bent to pick it up. He grabbed at me but only got hold of my skirt. I wrenched myself away. I heard a ripping sound, unnaturally loud in that confined and echoing space, and he came away with torn muslin in his hand as my own hand closed around the syringe.

I stood up, triumphant, as I turned to face him. He stopped short and took a step away from me, still holding his middle and gasping for breath.

“Well, Mr. Edward Deveraux, we meet at last,” I said.

“How did you know?” he asked. “How did you find out?”

“People don’t often change their personality,” I said. “Dr. Piper spoke warmly of Dr. Werner. He called him ‘a fine man.’ But the Dr. Werner I met was a curt and unpleasant individual, with no bedside manner. And all the murders were so clearly linked to Edward Deveraux, it made sense that you were alive somewhere. Then I realized that you planned your escape as soon as you heard that Dr. Werner was coming to visit the institution, and you realized he resembled you in build and appearance. You started growing a beard. You developed an interest in birds because he was a keen bird-watcher. You took him for a walk to the one part of the estate where you could kill him easily. When he looked up for the hawk’s nest, you hit him over the head with a rock, switched clothes with him, then hurled him down onto the rocks—having first smashed in his face so that he would not be recognized. Dr. Piper mentioned that you had trimmed your beard in anticipation of the doctor’s arrival. You smeared yourself with mud and blood to indicate a struggle, and so that the facial differences between you would not be noticed, and you double-checked the placing of the monocle in the little mirror you carried for that purpose—am I correct?”

He was looking at me with narrowed eyes, like a snake. “You’re intelligent, for a woman,” he said. “Too bad I didn’t get rid of you in that train crash.”

“Who were you aiming for—Marcus or me?” I felt surprisingly calm now, feeling the coldness of the glass syringe against my palm.

“Marcus, of course, but when I found you were on board, well, you were an added treat. Too bad you didn’t take the sleeping mixture I left for you at the hospital, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“That was you? Funny. I sensed danger then. I often do. I’m Irish. We have the sixth sense.”

“Do you sense danger now, Mrs. Sullivan?” he asked. “You should.”

“I believe I’m the one with the power at this moment, Mr. Deveraux,” I said. My voice sounded more confident that I really felt. “I know what’s in this syringe. You were planning to do to me what you did to Mabel’s parents, weren’t you?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “I set fire to them. But I rigged up this house to explode after I leave. It was a sort of small-scale practice for the real thing. I like to get my details right. Everything has to work smoothly. And by the time the house goes up, Dr. Werner will have been at sea for two days.”

“You’ve failed in one little detail,” I said. “The ship radioed that you were not on board. And I also happened to find out that a Mr. Edwards was sailing to South America with his daughter. Couldn’t you have come up with a more creative name?”

His eyes narrowed. “You might have the syringe, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m closer to the door. There’s no way out of here, you know, and once I’ve set the timer, there is no stopping it. You’ll hear the ticking until
boom
. It will be too late.”

He smiled then. It was the smile of evil, such as I had rarely seen before.

“Why has it been so important to you to ruin so many lives?” I said. “Once you escaped from the asylum, you could have taken the next boat to Europe, and nobody would ever have found you.”

“Because those people sentenced me to a life of hell,” he said. “That stupid maid and my own tutor who gave evidence against me, that doctor who certified me as insane, the ridiculous judge, trying to be nice. They deserved to be punished.”

“You deserved to be punished for killing your father, surely?”

“But I didn’t kill my father. That’s the whole point. I went into his study, stumbled over his body, and came running out to get help. But I was so much in shock that I started laughing. And I had blood on my hands. And I was the strange one, the pitiful one. Nobody believed me. So they all deserved to die. Just as you will die now because your husband was bent on convicting me.”

As he talked he had been inching toward the door. Suddenly he leaped through the doorway and went to close the door. I flung myself at the door and sank the needle into his hand, pushing hard on the plunger. I heard him cry out as the door slammed shut with me inside. I stood there, again in darkness, my heart pounding. Would a small amount of curare in his hand be enough to incapacitate him? How long before it worked? Long enough for him to escape and activate the switch?

I tried to turn the doorknob. The door resisted. I shoved with all my might, and it inched open. I saw that Edward Deveraux’s paralyzed body had been blocking it. He was lying like a broken puppet, his head and limbs at odd angles, his eyes wide open and staring at me. I gave him the briefest of glances as I stepped over him, then ran past him up a flight of steep steps, and opened a door into the passage.

“Mabel!” I yelled. “Mabel, where are you?”

Had he silenced her with curare? I ran from room to room, but they all lay in dusty silence. I pulled off one dust sheet after another, hoping to find her lying beneath one of them, but I didn’t. At least I knew now that he wouldn’t have killed her. He had rescued her from the house. He was planning to take her to South America. He believed, or wanted to believe, that she was his daughter.

I made it up to the very top of the house. The upper floor was empty and bare. I came down again. Surely he wouldn’t have left her in a hotel room near the docks, unless he had drugged her heavily? I had no idea how long the effects of curare lasted. As I stood in the front hall, I noticed wires running along the floor to the front door. He had booby-trapped the house. Then a chilling thought came into my head. Had he had time to turn on the timer before he collapsed? Where was it? Could I disable it again, or would touching it only set it off? I went down the steps cautiously and was relieved to see him still lying there. I followed the wires down the cellar steps and found what had to be the bomb. There was an alarm clock attached to it and it was ticking. Did that mean…?

I knew I had to get out now, but I couldn’t risk leaving Mabel here. I opened one door leading to a coal storage area. Then another containing a broom closet. Then at the back, there was a door that was locked, with the key still in it. I turned the key and came into a room lit by a high grating. A shaft of light fell onto a bed where a pale body lay. I ran over to her.

“Mabel? It’s me. Mrs. Sullivan.”

To my intense relief she opened her eyes, and I saw recognition in them.

“I’ve come to get you out of here,” I said.

“Where is he? He’ll find us.”

“He’s lying unconscious at the moment, but we must be quick.” I noticed then that he had tied her to the bed frame. I fumbled with the knots, cursing at the amount of time I was taking, wondering if maybe this bed was also somehow rigged to explode if she tried to escape. At last she was free and stood up, tentatively rubbing her limbs.

“It was awful,” she said in a trembling voice. “It was him, wasn’t it? He was the snake in my dream. I realized as soon as he came to my bedroom again. He bent over me and I knew. He was wearing something over his face before—a black mask, I think, so that all I could see were slits of eyes. Like snake’s eyes. Then he put something over my face, like he did the time before.” She looked at me, her blue eyes wide and terrified. “I used to go into my mother’s room when I had a bad dream. I’d curl up on the daybed in the corner. I saw him. I saw him come in the window, and he held something in his hand. I saw the whole thing, but I was too scared to move or cry out. When he was pouring some stuff around their beds, he noticed me.”

“And he carried you to safety down the fire escape,” I said. “Come on, let’s see if we can get out of here.”

Edward was still lying on the floor, his eyes wide and staring. I went and stood over him. I couldn’t resist it. “I’m taking Mabel now,” I said. “She wasn’t your daughter, you know. What an absurd notion.”

Then I ran up the steps after Mabel, who was heading for the front door.

“Don’t touch it,” I shouted, making her leap away. “It may have been rigged to explode. He’s got some kind of bomb downstairs. Let’s see if there are wires connected to the windows.” There weren’t. We slid one up, and soon we were both standing on the street, to the surprise of two passing women.

I grabbed the first constable I could find. “Get Captain Sullivan immediately,” I told him. “Tell him Edward Deveraux is at Eighteen Ninth Street, but tell him not to break down the door. The house may be rigged to explode.”

He looked at me strangely, as if I might be off my head. “I’m his wife, Mrs. Sullivan,” I said, frustration building inside me. “I’ve just been held prisoner there, as has this young woman. Go on, man. Move. Do you want the whole street to go up? Do you want a murderer to go free?”

He shot me a scared look and ran off.

“Come on,” I said to Mabel. “Let’s take you home.”

Thirty-five

“Well, here you are,” Mrs. Sullivan said as I came in. “Just in time for the little one’s supper. He’s been no trouble at all. Have you had a nice day out?”

“It’s been interesting,” I said, and I went over to give Liam a kiss.

“Is Daniel not with you?” She looked around.

“No. He has police work to do,” I said. “We may have caught the man he’s been looking for.”

“Well, that’s good. All’s well that ends well,” she replied.

I couldn’t tell her of my own fear—that Edward Deveraux would awake and escape, or that he would somehow make the house explode with Daniel in it. I sat, tense as a coiled watch spring, unable to eat, until he came home at ten.

“Thank God,” he and I both said at the same time, falling into each other’s arms.

“Did you catch him? He didn’t escape, did he? He was still there in the house where I left him? I sent the constable to find you. I told him how urgent it was.”

“Edward Deveraux didn’t escape,” Daniel said. “We were too late. He’d set off some kind of explosive and it brought the house down, with him in it.”

“I thought he’d set the timer on the bomb,” I said. “He’d rigged the house with explosives, you know. I was terrified you’d open the front door and be blown up.”

“He took you captive? You escaped?” he asked, holding my shoulders fiercely. “What possessed you to go anywhere near him? You knew what he was capable of.”

“I didn’t mean to go near him,” I said. “I saw that he was planning to sail to South America on the
Queen of the Amazon
tomorrow, and I wanted to see whether he had left his house or not.”

“So you went there? Are you crazy?”

“Of course I didn’t. I’m not stupid, you know. I stood across the street and observed the house. I chatted with a neighbor. She said she hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. Then I noticed one of his drapes was not quite closed, so I went to peek inside. That’s when he must have chloroformed me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell the police and go home? Why take a risk yourself? You’re lucky to be alive.”

“I know that. I came to see you at Mulberry Street, risking your anger, but you weren’t there. I left you a note. I thought I’d help by finding out if he had sailed yet, and when I found that a man matching his description was sailing for South America with his daughter, it began to dawn on me that Dr. Werner might be Edward Deveraux, and that he had Mabel with him. And I didn’t think I was taking a risk by looking at the outside of a house in broad daylight to see if it was still occupied.”