I did as I was told, then sat up and sipped the chicken soup. It was delicious. “You are extremely good to go to all this trouble,” I said.
“No trouble. We women must help each other whenever we can,” she said. “The Lord knows that any man will flee from you as fast as he can at the least hint of sickness. I notice that even my own Ned will take a couple of steps away from the counter when a sick person comes into our drugstore, or find some excuse to be busy so that I have to wait on that particular customer.” She laughed merrily.
“I’m sorry, I never did find out why you came to see me in the first place,” I said. “Was it to bring me more information on our cause?”
“No, it was more personal than that, I’m afraid,” she said. “I want to engage your services.”
“Holy mother of God!” I couldn’t have been more surprised. “As a detective, you mean?”
She nodded. “Look, if you don’t feel up to discussing it this evening, I quite understand. I should leave you to sleep and come back when you are well.”
“Certainly not,” I said. “Now I’m intrigued. You should know that I was born curious and won’t rest until I know all the details.”
“Very well.” She smiled. “But first I should say that I work for my living. I have saved a little but my funds are limited. I don’t know what your fees might be, but I fear I might not be able to pay them.”
“My fees can be discussed when I hear the nature of your case and decide whether it is something within the scope of my agency,” I said. “I’m sure we can reach some kind of agreement that will not bankrupt you and will satisfy me.”
“Very well.” She perched at the bottom of my bed, her hands folded primly on her lap. “Let me first give you my background. My parents were missionaries in China. They died in a cholera epidemic when I was a baby. I was miraculously spared and brought back to America, where I was raised by a couple called Lynch. One of them was a distant relative of my mother—a second cousin, I believe. Anyway, they were good enough to raise me, and I called them ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle.’”
She paused and fiddled with the ribbon on her hat. “Aunt Lydia died when I was five. I remember her as pretty and gentle. She was much younger than Uncle Horace and was always of a sickly constitution. My image of her is lying in bed, propped up among pillows, her face as white as the pillows around her. After she died my uncle hired a series of governesses for me. He showed me no love or affection and actually went out of his way to avoid contact with me. Whether he blamed me in some way for his wife’s death, or whether his grief at her passing made him bitter, I can’t say. As I said, I was very young when she died.
“When I was about sixteen he called me into his study and said that he was going to do his duty and abide by my parents’ wishes that I go to Vassar, but I was to understand that this concluded his obligation to me. When I graduated it was up to me to make my own way in the world and I could no longer consider his residence as my home, nor expect any future financial assistance.”
“I suppose that seems fair enough,” I said.
She nodded. “Although he is a rich man and a small allowance would hardly make a dent in his cigar budget, and one might have thought that he would welcome some companionship in that big, empty house. He has a mansion on Seventy-ninth Street, just off Fifth Avenue, you know.”
“My, then he is wealthy.”
“Oh, indeed. He owns mills in Massachusetts as well as various other commercial enterprises.”
“I am told that it is not uncommon for rich men to have become rich because they don’t like to part with their money.”
“That’s true enough.” She laughed. “My uncle is a regular penny-pincher. I remember getting a severe dressing-down as a small child because I had scuffed the toes of my shoes by dragging my feet on a swing. ‘Do you think shoes grow on trees?’ he demanded. And I am stuck with Mr. McPherson at the drugstore—another skinflint. It is lucky that Ned is employed there too, or I’d never have been able to obtain the aspirin for you. Old McPherson would never give anything away.”
“Really, I have no wish to get you into trouble at work,” I said, attempting to sit up.
“Honestly, Molly. A packet of aspirin powder costs pennies. And Mr. McPherson can dock it from my wages if he so chooses. God knows he pays me little enough. If I had been a male assistant, he would have had to cough up at least five more dollars a week.”