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

Sid looked at me as she put down her coffee cup. “Yesterday you started to ask her something about sleepwalking, Molly. What were you going to say?”


“I was about to suggest that she might have gone into her parents’ room and knocked over a lamp in her sleep, or even tried to light the gas, and, being asleep, when something went wrong and flames shot up, she’d gotten out down the fire escape without waking.” Then I shook my head. “But that’s not possible, is it? She’d wake if she saw flames.”

“I suppose it might be possible,” Gus said. “If she is prone to episodes of deep sleepwalking. I gather such sufferers can do amazing things without waking. But that still doesn’t explain why her parents didn’t leap up immediately once they were conscious of the flames.”

“I thought of that too,” I said. “And also, I didn’t want to lay an additional burden on Mabel by suggesting she might have caused the fire in her sleep. But I’m as curious as you are about why the parents didn’t escape. Something must have prevented them. And if they were found in their beds, it really does suggest that someone had drugged them or even killed them first.”

Gus sighed. “So you are really in agreement with that beastly detective, and believe that Mabel killed her parents and then started the fire to cover up her deed?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “We have to examine the possibility that somebody else killed her parents.”

“But there were only two maids and a cook in the house, and one of them also was killed in the fire. The other two were burned.”

“Then we have to consider an intruder,” I said. “Daniel says he’ll try to suggest that the bodies should be exhumed and an autopsy take place. But you could do something for me if you go to see Mabel today—you could find out her father’s profession. Whether he had any known enemies, or feuds within the family. Ask tactfully, please, but we need to know whether Mrs. Hamilton suspects that someone had a reason to see Mabel’s parents dead.”

Sid looked up excitedly as she put down her coffee cup. “So what you are suggesting is that Mabel might have witnessed her parents’ murder. And what she saw was so horrible that she has shut the memories of it deep inside her head?”

“I am considering that it could be a possibility,” I said.

“The snake.” Sid looked at Gus. “Is it possible she really did see a snake? Someone brought a poisonous snake into the room and induced it to bite both parents?”

“How horrible.” Gus shivered. “Can snakes be trained to bite on command? Wouldn’t the parents have woken and cried out if a great snake had struck at them?”

“If someone else was in the room,” I began, trying to picture the scene, “he could have repositioned their bodies in their beds before he set the room on fire.”

“But that leaves another question,” Sid said. “If Mabel saw this, why didn’t he kill her too?”

“He didn’t see her,” Gus suggested. “She tiptoed away and escaped down the fire escape. Perhaps she feigned sleep so he wouldn’t harm her. Perhaps she really passed out with terror.”

I looked at Gus and nodded. “That sounds possible,” I said. “And I had another idea. I wonder if anybody ever questioned the firemen. Did they see anybody running away? Or anything else they thought of as unusual?”

“When firemen are summoned to a fire, Molly, their one thought is to put it out,” Sid said. “They don’t automatically play detective like you. If someone was hiding in the bushes or walking away casually down the street, or even standing there watching the flames, they’d never have noticed.”

“You’re probably right.” I sighed. “But all the same, I think I’ll go and talk to them. Just in case.”





Sixteen

I thought about taking a walk to the fire station, or even seeing if I felt up to taking Bridie to see her relatives, but my mother-in-law was adamant that I should not move all day. I was fed my lunch and sent back to bed. Sid and Gus returned later that afternoon, just as I was waking from a nap. I heard thunderous knocking on the front door, then Sid’s voice and my mother-in-law saying in a firm and disapproving voice, “She’s asleep. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later.”

I tried to sit up and get out of bed rapidly, but these were things that still could not be done in a hurry without a good deal of pain. I had just swung my legs over the side of the bed when I heard the front door close again and watched Sid and Gus crossing Patchin Place to their own front door. Although I was dying of curiosity, I forced myself to wash my face and tidy my hair before I went downstairs.

“I suppose that knocking at the front door woke you?” Mrs. Sullivan said. “It was those two ladies from across the street pestering you again. You’d think they’d nothing better to do than come bothering you all day.”