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

“And the bathroom is upstairs?”


He nodded. “It is. My mother had an indoor bathroom put in when we moved here after my father died. My mother was a very modern woman, Mrs. Murphy. She was forward-looking in her ways. That’s why she jumped at the chance to have electricity installed in the house when it came to our part of the city. And look what it brought us.” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop tears.

“So do I understand that the police believe someone climbed in through an open upstairs window?”

“That’s what they said. I find it quite amazing, myself. We have a small backyard, but the houses behind look onto our back windows. Anyone might have seen a person trying to climb up the wall.”

“He came up the drainpipe, I suppose?”

“Drainpipe or the creeper. We’ve a creeper growing up the wall. That made it easier for him, damn him.” Then he blinked and shot me an anguished look. “I do apologize for my language, Mrs. Murphy. It is only my intense suffering, I assure you. Mother would never have permitted…”

“I quite understand, Mr. Daughtery,” I said. “No offense taken. So did the police have any suggestion as to why someone would have entered the house and killed your mother? Was it perhaps a burglar who saw you leave for work and assumed the house was empty? He climbed in and was startled to find your mother in her bath … and when she started to scream, he panicked and silenced her?”

“I suppose that might be plausible,” he said. “I can’t come up with any other reason.”

“She had no enemies that you can think of?”

He looked shocked. “Mrs. Murphy, my mother wasn’t always an easy woman. She could be critical of shoddy work. She sometimes fell out with the neighbors if they were too loud or behaved in a way she did not consider seemly, but one does not kill for such trivialities.”

Of course he was right. One did not kill unless there was a really good reason.

“I’m surprised that nobody heard her screams through an open window,” I said. “Did nobody hear her and summon the constable?”

“Nobody. The fiend must have silenced her instantly, when she was too terrified to scream.”

“Have there been any other similar crimes in the neighborhood? Any burglaries through open windows? Any other murders?”

“None that I’ve heard of. And one always hears of murders, doesn’t one?”

I stood up. “I shouldn’t take up any more of your time, Mr. Daughtery. I realize now that you don’t blame electricity for what happened. I was lucky to have caught you at home, wasn’t I? I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d just try to visit you, but in truth I expected you’d be at work. What sort of job do you do?”

He looked away from me. “I haven’t been able to work since my mother died. I’ve completely lost my nerve, Mrs. Murphy. When I go out, I see the face of a murderer in everyone I pass.”

“What was your profession until this?”

I could tell he appreciated the use of that word, rather than “job” “I received a first-class education, Mrs. Murphy,” he said. “My mother scrimped and saved to send me to Princeton, where my father went. She wanted me to go into one of the professions, preferably law. But I contracted rheumatic fever in my last year of college and it affected my heart. So I’ve had to take it easy ever since. I’ve been a private tutor for many years.”

“To the same family?”

He smiled. “Children grow up. I find that I stay with one family for five years or so, then the children go on to school or college. I was with my current family for three years. Two charming little girls, aged eight and ten. But of course they had to find a new tutor when I couldn’t return. So I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to face the world again. Actually I’m thinking of moving out of the city, to a small town, where life isn’t quite as dangerous.” He paused, staring at the clock on the mantel that was now chiming eleven. “There have been too many tragedies, Mrs. Murphy. Too much evil. Life should not be full of tragedy and loss.”

I held out my hand. “I wish you well, Mr. Daughtery. I hope you find peace in a new life.”

He took my hand. His was moist and unpleasant, rather like touching a dead fish. “You are very kind, but nothing can ever bring back my mother. I have nothing to live for now.”