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

“You only upset her,” Mrs. Hamilton said angrily. “After all that she’s been through, do you want her mind to snap completely?”


Gus stepped out between the policeman and the girl. “Officer Yeats,” she said. “I am Augusta Walcott, a friend of the family. I have also just returned from Vienna where I have been studying the problems of the mind with Professor Freud. I can tell you quite categorically that it would not be at all unusual for someone to experience complete amnesia after such a traumatic event. If you want Mabel to remember what happened that night, I suggest you let her recover in complete peace and tranquility. In her own time, she may be able to tell us more. But she certainly won’t if she’s being bullied and threatened.”

“Listen,” Yeats said. “I can have her taken down to the Tombs and kept there until her memory returns, if I like.”

“On what charge?” It was my turn to step forward now.

“A charge of arson, ma’am. Setting fire to a house with the intention of doing away with her parents.”

“And what proof do you have of this, other than the fact that she escaped and they didn’t?” I tried to control my anger.

“I don’t need proof,” he said. “Let’s just call it a gut instinct. Oh, and the fact that everyone else in the house, even the ones who escaped, had blackened clothing and faces and singed hair. And Mabel showed no sign of having been in a fire at all. So this leads me to believe that she got out before the fire started. The question then would be why? And how did she know there was going to be a fire?”

I glanced across at Mabel, who was looking away, her eyes screwed tightly shut. I took a deep breath. “I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of the child. We are only causing her more distress. Miss Goldfarb has just told you that she has been studying with leading alienists in Vienna. If anyone can break through the girl’s amnesia, she can. Why don’t we give her time to do her work, and then we might know the truth, rather than stabbing at it in the dark?”

He heard my Irish accent and frowned. “And are you another old friend of the family?”

“Actually no,” I said. “I am an old friend of these two ladies, who invited me to come with them today. They thought I might be useful because my husband is a colleague of yours in the police force.”

“Oh, yes?” There was that hint of a smirk again.

“Captain Sullivan,” I said, and I noticed with great satisfaction that his smirk vanished.

*

“What an obnoxious man,” Sid said as we rode home in a cab. “It was all I could do not to hit him.”

“I felt the same way,” I said. “I was so delighted to tell him that my husband was his superior in the police department.”

“That probably saved that child’s bacon,” Sid said. “You heard what that policeman said. He was all ready to haul Mabel off to the Tombs. Such barbaric behavior. One wonders how someone like that ever got promoted to lieutenant.”

“I’m afraid the police department rather rewards aggressive bullying,” I said. “Daniel is one of the exceptions, but then you should see him when he’s dealing with a gang member. He’s quite frightening. I hardly recognize him as my husband.”

“Yes, but Daniel would never bully a frightened child,” Gus said. “The poor little thing is so fragile to start with.”

“Of course he does have a point,” Sid said.

We looked at her sharply.

“Well, if you were in his shoes, you would have to wonder, wouldn’t you? Why was she the only one who showed no signs of having been in the fire?” When we didn’t answer, she continued, “You think she has buried the horror of that night deep in her subconscious, don’t you, Gus? But if she got out before the fire, would she have experienced any horror? She would never have seen her parents burned.”

“Unless something had happened to her parents first,” I said slowly. They both turned to me. “I suppose we have to consider that it’s just possible she did kill her parents, then set their room on fire, exiting down the fire escape outside their window.” I shook my head quickly. “I don’t want to believe that, and I find it hard to believe, but we do need to find out what made her leave the house unscathed by the fire.”

“But she loved her parents,” Gus said. “You could tell from the way she talked about them. Her father called her his Princess Mabel. Her mother braided her hair. She is devastated by their death.”