“Not silly,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “But maybe overly concerned.”
I turned to look as the minister arrived and the mourners began to gather around the gravesite. I picked out Anson Poindexter, then I froze. Bella was standing beside him, her hand on his arm. As she looked up at him a momentary glance passed between them. I had seen that look before. It was a look exchanged by lovers.
Eighteen
Now I was really confused. Could I have made a mistake about Anson and Mademoiselle Fifi? Had his real mistress been right here, under my nose all the time? They moved apart instantly but I had seen enough to be sure. And Bella had been to visit her poor sick friend during the week. Perhaps she had brought something with her—some calves’ foot jelly, a special tonic? And taken the vessel back with her afterward? But then I shook my head. That was ridiculous. Why would Bella want Fanny dead? She wasn’t free to marry Anson.
The ceremony continued. I watched Fanny’s family—her mother hidden beneath her veil and yet her carriage proud and erect, her father staring out toward the Hudson, his face stoic. I felt for them—their beloved only child, with a life so full of promise ahead of her, taken from them. And all the money in the world couldn’t save her.
The final blessing was concluded, the coffin was carried into the vault, and the mourners drifted away.
Emily was already tugging at my arm. “Can you come with me to see Dorcas now?” she whispered. “Mr. McPherson won’t know how long this ceremony has taken, so I can probably be away for another half an hour. And Dorcas’s house is on the way.”
I no longer knew what to think. I still didn’t have Emily’s overwhelming conviction that her friend had been murdered or that Dorcas was now in grave danger. As I tried to look at it logically I could see that Anson Poindexter did have a strong motive for wanting Fanny dead. If she had divorced him, he would have lost her money and his current, very pleasant, lifestyle. But I couldn’t see why he would want to kill Dorcas, unless she had discovered something at Fanny’s house that made her suspect him. In any case, in was better to know the truth and to ease Emily’s fears. And it was a lovely bright morning and I had nothing better to do.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll come with you—or would you rather that I went alone?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Didn’t it occur to you that both Fanny and Dorcas really might have caught this horrible influenza and you might not want to expose yourself to it again? I, on the other hand, have had it.”
Emily smiled. “My dear Molly. I work in a drugstore. Every day I serve people who are coughing and sputtering all over me. If I haven’t caught anything yet, I’m not going to. Besides, Dorcas is a friend from college. I have to do everything I can to save a Vassar sister.”
So we left the cemetery together and soon found ourselves on the east side of the park.
“I see that Dorcas married well too,” I said, as we passed one impressive mansion after another, some with carriages waiting outside and liveried footmen standing beside them. Crisply starched nannies pushed baby buggies and led well-scrubbed toddlers by the hand. I wondered if one of the passing buggies contained little Toodles, Dorcas’s baby son. “But I thought she married a professor.”
“She did,” Emily agreed, “but a professor from an old New York family. So she has the best of both worlds—an intelligent husband and the money to enjoy life.” She smiled, then went on, “Now that I recall, hers was a real love match. He was a student at Columbia, and they met at a dance. And they don’t own one of these mansions—they live with her in-laws.”
As we walked I noticed Emily suddenly quicken her pace, striding out and staring straight ahead. It took me a moment to register that we were passing her old home. Maybe soon I’d be able to settle her mind with the truth about her parents. We went up the front steps of a square, gray stone house and were admitted by a butler.
“Please wait here and I shall inquire if Mrs. Hochstetter Junior is feeling well enough to receive visitors,” he said.
We waited in an impressive entrance hall decorated with shields, swords, and various strange weapons brought back from foreign parts. It seemed that the Hochstetters were a much-traveled family. At last the butler reappeared. “She would be delighted to see you. Please follow me.”
He led us up a broad central staircase and ushered us into a grand but old-fashioned bedroom, liberally decorated with knickknacks. In the midst of china statues, brass vases, artificial flowers, and a cage containing a stuffed bird, Dorcas lay, propped up on several pillows. Her eyes were sunken and she looked flushed but she held out her hand to us.
“Emily, Molly. How very kind of you to come to see me.”