The Edge of Dreams (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #14)

“Sometimes I feel that we’re going nowhere. Do you know there is even a thriving Anti-Suffrage League now?” Sid didn’t look up from slicing a loaf of bread. “Actively working to block our every move. Disgusting, I call it. Our movement will only succeed if we all dedicate ourselves to the cause, not when it suits us, but wholeheartedly. Anyway, I’ve finally managed to round up enough women to hold a meeting here tomorrow night. I hope you’ll attend if you feel up to it.”


“I fully intend to,” I said. “However much my husband is against the idea.”

“Most men are.” Sid sighed. “Many women too, unfortunately. They think we should allow ourselves to be guided by the superior intellect and worldly ways of our menfolk. Utter rot, of course. I’ll put my intellect and worldliness up against that of a man any day.” She looked up, realizing she was waving the bread knife in a dramatic manner and chuckled.

“How convenient that I’ll be here tomorrow night and not have to invent a reason to attend your meeting. However shortsighted Daniel can be, I don’t like to deceive him or go behind his back.” I paused, then added, “Even if he did go behind mine by inviting his mother and buying beds without consulting me.”

Gus joined us and we had a lively discussion over lunch on the frustrations of the suffrage movement and the shortsightedness of most men. Afterward Sid carried Liam upstairs for his nap and insisted I take one too.

“We’re going shopping this afternoon, Molly,” she said. “Is there anything we can get for you?”

“Nothing, thank you,” I replied. “Unless you’d like to pop into Wanamaker’s and buy linens for my house.”

“Of course. Give me the bed sizes and I’ll be happy to do it.”

“I was only joking, Sid,” I said. “Daniel told me to make a list and he’d have Wanamaker’s deliver. I’d rather like to have bed linens in place before his mother arrives or she’ll be buying what she wants.”

“Well, sheets are no problem, are they?” Sid said. “But you’ll need pillows. Feather pillows. And do you have mattresses for the beds? Make sure you get a feather mattress for your bed. Your mother-in-law and the maid can sleep on horsehair.” And she grinned.

“It seems rather overwhelming at the moment,” I said.

“I told you we can lend you enough sheets to start you off. But you should select your own blankets and quilts. Choose your color and then tell Daniel that Wanamaker’s can send over several for you to choose from.”

“Can one do that?” I asked.

“Of course. If they want your business, they have to be amenable,” she said.

How different it was to have grown up privileged, I thought. In my childhood quilts were made and beds were stuffed with whatever odds and ends of fabric could be retrieved from cast-off garments. I don’t think my mother ever bought bed linens from a store in her life. Not that there were any stores close to our cottage on the wild west coast of Ireland.

I made my way slowly up the stairs and took off my dress before I lay down. I had opened the bedroom windows and lay there listening to the gentle cooing of pigeons on the rooftops, the roar of the city muted and distant. How peaceful it was here, I thought. And yet my house across the street had always seemed a peaceful haven too, until somebody had hurled a bomb through my window. Could it be true that at this moment someone was plotting to kill me? It seemed hard to believe. I had been one of several hundred passengers on a train that had somehow been diverted to the wrong route. Someone had made a mistake. It had to have been an accident, because there was no way that one man could have orchestrated and carried out such a complicated feat.

Thus reassured I lay back, letting my mind drift over Daniel’s complicated case. Unrelated victims from such different walks of life. Crimes that would never have been considered murders without the notes to Daniel. And at the beginning of August, someone might have lived who should have died. Fascinating. Had the killer slipped up once? Had that annoyed him? Or had he once decided to show mercy? If Gus really had studied long enough to have become an expert in diseases of the mind, maybe she could have come up with a profile for a man who would behave in this way. But I, with no such training, felt completely in the dark.

Then an idea came to me. My mind had wandered on to Sid’s impassioned speech about the suffragists and how she was trying to make them all work together. A group of people working toward a common cause.…Was it possible that Daniel was not looking for one man, but a group? Surely not politically or religiously motivated, since the victims were so diverse and so seemingly random. But what about a club, a secret society for which the initiation was to commit a murder? It was a horrible thought, but that might explain why the crimes were so different.