“Oh, Mr. Singer. I didn’t notice you standing there,” Gus said. “Were you part of this amazing exploit?”
“He was there at the fire, looking for me, worried sick,” I said.
“You can’t imagine how powerless and wretched I felt, watching the building go up in flames and being kept away by the fire crews,” Jacob said. “And then she was one of the last girls to come down from the next building. I don’t ever want to go through that again.”
“He wants to marry me,” I said in response to Sid’s raised eyebrow.
“And do you want to marry him?” Sid’s voice sounded sharp. “Not that I am against the principle of marriage for the rest of the world, but . . .”
“I think I might,” I said, smiling shyly at Jacob.
“Could do worse, I suppose.” Sid gave Jacob an appraising glance. “At least he won’t try to put you into a glass case like a stuffed bird.”
“I don’t know about that.” Jacob laughed. “It may well be the only way of keeping her out of trouble.”
“You do have a point there,” Gus agreed. “She does seem to attract trouble, I’ll agree. Molly dearest, you haven’t told us how you came to be involved in a fire in the first place.”
We sat at the kitchen table, sipping brandy, while I told the whole story of the fire.
“I must be confused, but I don’t quite see how Katherine comes into a fire at Mostel’s. I thought she left there weeks ago,” Gus said.
“I ran away from Michael and Sadie hid me in Mostel’s attic,” Katherine said.
“You ran away from your husband because he ill-treated you?”
“No, he didn’t ill-treat me, but I couldn’t stay with a coldblooded murderer.” She filled in the gaps, including what she knew about Nell’s murder. It can’t have been easy for her and Sid and Gus nodded with sympathy.
“One thing I don’t understand,” Sid said. “If you were married, then there’s nothing much your father could have done about it, is there? He couldn’t have forced you to come home.”
“I asked that same question,” Jacob said.
Katherine sighed. “I lied about my age. I lied about almost everything to get married. For all I know the marriage isn’t valid at all. But it wasn’t myself we were worried about, it was Michael. I knew he was with the freedom fighters in Ireland and that was one of the things that made him attractive to me. I thought it was wonderful to be passionate about a just cause. I mean, we English really have no right to rule Ireland, do we?”
She looked at me as if wanting my personal forgiveness.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You were born to it. You didn’t choose it.”
“Go on about Michael,” Sid said. “You say he was a freedom fighter.”
“I knew that he loved danger, but I thought that he was also noble and good. After I married him I found out that he loved violence. He had killed a police officer when the police tried to break up a demonstration. He was proud of it. And I found out something else too—he only married me as a way of getting his hands on some money and leaving Ireland in a hurry.” She put her hands over her mouth and sat fighting with emotion for a moment, then composed herself again. “I have been such a fool,” she said.
“So Michael was scared that he could be sent back to Ireland to stand trial for killing a policeman,” I said.
“Of course. And then this second killing. I couldn’t abide it any longer.”
“So you ran away from him.”
“Not at first,” she said. “He told me that I’d be an accessory to the murder. He’d tell everyone that it was my idea and that I had egged him on, so I’d hang with him. I didn’t know what to do. Then—then something else happened.”
“Another murder?” I asked.
“In a way,” she said. “One of the reasons I agreed to marry Michael and flee to America with him was because I was expecting his child. I knew how ashamed my parents would be and I couldn’t face them. After Michael killed that young woman, I miscarried. It was awful—and you know what Michael said when it was all over? He said, ‘Well at least that’s one stroke of luck, isn’t it? Now we won’t be saddled with a brat.’ ” She gave a big, shuddering sigh. “I had just lost my baby.”
Without warning she began to cry, hiding her face in her hands before mastering herself again. “I promised myself I wouldn’t give in to self-pity,” she said.
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Katherine, you’ll be safe now,” I said.
“You’re going to turn me over to my father.”
“You don’t want to go home?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “I hated that life—the boredom was awful. Hunting and parties and then over to London for more parties and inane chatter. I don’t ever want to go back to that.”
“Your parents are very worried about you. I understand your mother is an invalid.”