“For God’s sake, woman. Slow down!”
Allene smirked. She and Birdie fetched the chemicals from the storeroom while Jasper built the apparatus. Before long, they’d reached the final step. Allene was the one who dripped the acid into the flask. It darkened to the deep midnight blue of a winter’s night.
“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Allene breathed. “Absolutely beautiful.”
“What is it?” Birdie asked.
Jasper suppressed a smile. “It’s definitive proof that Florence was poisoned.”
CHAPTER 12
Birdie felt transfixed by the intense opaque blue coloring in the flask. She imagined tipping the flask over, dipping a finger in, and smearing the cream-painted walls with it, like a child. Meanwhile, her left cheek thrummed with an incessant, blossoming pain. That damned toothache had come back with a fiery vengeance in the last twelve hours. She’d hid it well from Allene, but it was starting to demand her full attention. She bit her lip hard to focus and said, “Now what do we do?”
“Oh. What about the broken glass? We should test that too, right?” Allene asked.
Jasper thought for a moment. “We should. But we don’t have time. Barston will be back soon to close up.”
“Perhaps I could try to test it myself. But in any case, we can’t keep this to ourselves. We know she didn’t die naturally,” Allene said.
“So we tell people. The police. Her family.” Jasper ticked off a list as he began to clean up the equipment they’d used.
“And Father,” Allene added doubtfully. She certainly didn’t seem excited by the prospect.
“And we still don’t know who could have killed her,” Birdie said. “Florence certainly wasn’t well liked.”
“That’s being kind. If her father weren’t so rich and so well connected, she’d never have been invited anywhere. Florence was . . .”
“Not nice?” Jasper offered.
“Repellent,” Allene said. “So everyone on the guest list is a suspect. But there are a few that feuded with her more often than not. Grace Howland is one. Oh, and Benjamin Winthrop! And—”
“So we have somewhere to start,” Jasper said. “Maybe you can speak to them. When is the funeral?”
“Friday,” Allene answered. “Maybe it won’t be such a bore as I’d expected. Imagine the hurricane of gossip! I wonder what the Howlands and Winthrops will say if I suggest that someone purposely killed her off to ruin my party. I can read a guilty look like anybody, I’m sure.”
Birdie clutched her throat. “Allene! How could you say such a thing in public?”
“Because I can!” Her eyes danced with merriment. “I’m a Cutter and I’m practically a Biddle. That is one powerful social brew, and everyone knows it. No one will be anything but obsequious. Besides, I might shock people into telling the truth.”
Birdie and Jasper were left to nod in agreement. “Jasper and I ought to go as well,” Birdie noted, rubbing her cheek. “Though I doubt anyone would care if we did. What do you think, Jasper?”
“I’ll leave it to you, Birdie. I am your servant.”
Birdie saw Allene’s face tighten. She probably wished everyone were her servant, after all. After a breath, she asked, “Will you tell the people here?”
“I’ll speak to Dr. Gettler first.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“I’ll speak to Father,” Allene said. “Which will not go well, but we must figure out how best to bring it up with Florence’s parents.”
Birdie’s footing felt unsteady, and the throbbing in her jaw was spreading upward to her temples. She felt a flush of fever.
The three of them exited the pathology building and quietly left the Bellevue campus. Another ambulance had driven up, and they walked away from its bright headlamps.
“I wonder if influenza has landed in Manhattan yet,” Allene said absently, staring at the ambulance.
“Don’t be silly. The grippe never hits until the fall. It’s only August,” Jasper said.
“But I read in the papers—”
Jasper shushed her, and in his expression, Birdie could see his own limited time telescoping in front of him. If the rumors were true, the next draft would lower the eligible age to eighteen. “There’s only one little war right here that we need to pay attention to. With one casualty. Florence.”
Birdie and Allene nodded. The streetlights cast yellow blobs that illuminated the cobblestones and sidewalk. Allene took her reticule back from Birdie and began pawing at the bottom of it. It reminded Birdie of a dog scratching for a buried bone.
“Father will be furious with me for coming home so late. I’ll have to find a taxicab somehow.” She jiggled the reticule, finding only a gilded tube of lipstick and her lighter. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m broke. I gave it all to that man in the morgue!”
Jasper held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. He’s got all my dough too.”
Birdie sighed. She opened her satchel and procured two nickels. That was all she had. The rest of her money was kept in a crock in the kitchen cupboard, and there was still more hidden from her mother where Birdie had sewn it into her mattress. That was for Holly, and Holly alone. She handed one five-cent piece to Allene.
“Here, Allene. You can get home with this. Jasper, you’ll have to walk. I’m taking the subway myself.”
“What am I to do with one coin?” Allene demanded. Birdie couldn’t answer because the question was so utterly stupid. Jasper raised an eyebrow at Allene and started pointing in directions. Allene turned in a circle, bewildered.
“You’ve got your luxurious choice of streetcar, subway, or the El. You can’t afford a taxicab with five cents.” He bowed in the darkness. “Ladies, thank you for a stirring evening. I’ll see you both at the funeral.” He shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets and began walking down First Avenue. It was obvious, even in the dim light, that he was grinning ear to ear.
“Birdie!” Allene looked at her helplessly.
“I’m sorry, Allene. I must get home to Holly, and you and I are going in different directions. There’ll be a trolley stop within a block or two.”
“But my clothes! My shoes!”
“We’ll exchange them soon enough. You have a spare outfit or two, I daresay. Good-bye. I’ll see you at the funeral.”
She gave Allene a helping smile, but that was all she could manage. She heard Allene start to speak—there was complaint and irritation and helplessness in that tiny squeak—but nothing followed. Allene looked this way and that before walking west, guided by the street lamps and the tepid half-moon.