“No. It’s not that.” Birdie attempted a step forward but stumbled. Jasper ran to her and put an arm around her waist, and she cried out sharply in pain. “Oh God,” she moaned.
Allene summoned up her courage and went to her side. Birdie could no longer stand up, and Jasper supported her with his arms so she wouldn’t collapse. They helped lower her to the floor, where she sat propped up in Jasper’s arms. Now they could see her complexion. It had a greenish cast, and her face was shiny with perspiration.
“I fainted in the bathroom,” Birdie mumbled. “I . . . I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious. And my leg, God, it hurts so much. Like someone sawed it in half.” She grimaced and looked out the window. “What time is it? Is Holly all right?”
“Holly is fine. She’s at home.” Allene touched Birdie’s face, but it wasn’t feverish. Clammy, if anything.
“Why are you two here?” Birdie asked weakly.
“To find you. I have news about my uncle,” Jasper said.
“And I have news . . . that is, no news . . . about my father,” Allene added, disappointment coating her words with iciness. “But that’s for later. What happened to you?”
She stared at her leg and clenched her jaw for a moment. “I . . . I think it’s broken,” Birdie admitted.
“Goodness, well, that would make me faint too. How on earth did such a thing happen? Did you fall?”
“No. I didn’t do a thing. Only walked to the bathroom.”
Allene shook her head. It didn’t make sense.
“Come, let’s get her home,” Jasper said, and he bent to help her up, but she gasped in pain again. He gingerly lifted the hem of her dress. Her shin had a sharp bend where it shouldn’t, and darkness discolored her skin beneath her stocking.
“Oh God. I can’t bear to move it,” she said, clutching at Allene’s hand. “What shall I do?”
“We’ll need a splint,” Jasper said. “She’s right, this leg is busted.”
“Or we could call an ambulance,” Allene suggested.
“No, no ambulance. Please! I want to go home to Holly,” Birdie pleaded.
“And we’ll never get one anyway. They’re all too busy picking up the . . .” He paused, and added, “The people with influenza.” Allene was sure he had almost said, Too busy picking up the dead, but checked himself in time.
Jasper and Allene nodded to each other. The electricity had been shut off, but luckily the low moon had risen and flowed through the windows with enough illumination to work by. Jasper found a piece of wood used as a divider between painting stations, and Allene searched for something to tie Birdie’s leg to the splint.
She went to the office, trying the doorknob, but it was locked. She heard a creak from inside the room. She held her breath, listening intently, but heard nothing except for Jasper’s soothing murmurs as he fitted the splint under her leg and Birdie’s whimpers of discomfort. The room, with all its eerie preternatural luminescence, seemed to watch her.
Finally, she decided to tear the lining of her dress but couldn’t after several tugs. Jasper took the skirt hem in his hands and lifted it to his teeth to tear the fabric, which it did with a satisfying zipping noise. With one strip, he helped Allene tie the splint firmly to Birdie’s leg, as Birdie cried out in agony.
“Talk to me,” Birdie said between gasps as Allene struggled to tear off another piece. “Tell me about what you found. Anything to take my mind off this.”
Jasper stopped fiddling with her splint and pressed his lips together in a grim line. “My uncle wasn’t drunk—well, not that drunk. And none of the cuts from the glass killed him. He was poisoned.”
Birdie’s whimpers were silenced, and Allene stared at him. Neither looked surprised. They were beyond that now.
“How?” Allene asked. “What was it?”
“Wood spirits. His stomach was full of it. He’d been distilling it for some time and was hoping to use it as an additive in bottles he was going to sell, so they would seem stronger than they were. But it’s poisonous.”
“Did he know how poisonous it was?” Birdie asked.
“Yes, he knew. I did too,” Allene admitted. Birdie and Jasper stared at her, and she explained. “I almost drank some by accident at your apartment. Your uncle told me what it was. Methyl alcohol. With the right apparatus it’s easy as pie to distill it from wood chips.”
“You’re right,” Jasper said. He seemed relieved that Allene would understand such things. “He hoarded wood.”
“Why would your uncle drink the stuff, if he knew it was poison?” Birdie wondered aloud.
“That’s the thing. He wouldn’t. He drank some of it once, and he was sick as a dog.” He closed his eyes. “That’s why the glassware was broken. Someone must have forced him to drink it against his will.”
“Oh, goodness gracious.” Allene covered her mouth and went silent for a minute. It took effort for her to speak again. “I wish I could say I had information to help. I couldn’t speak to my father about the insurance policy. He’s isolated himself and won’t let me in his room because of his influenza.”
“Good. You should stay away from him,” Jasper warned.
“That’s uncharacteristically caring of you,” Allene teased. When Jasper shot her a look, she sobered. “Well. I can definitely go into his office files and see if the insurance paperwork shows anything strange.”
“Good idea. Of course, there are those letters,” Birdie added. She winced as Allene tied another sash around her knee. “They’ve got to be linked. We’ve all received letters now.”
“Yes, and they’ve made me an orphan. Again,” Jasper noted grimly.
“Me too,” Birdie said. “And Holly.”
Allene was silent for a moment. Her eyebrows shrugged closer together. “I don’t understand. Florence didn’t mean anything to me.” She added hastily, “I’m sorry she’s dead, of course, but I didn’t care for her.”
Jasper and Birdie were silent when Allene spoke her realization aloud.
“I’m not an orphan. Not yet.”
CHAPTER 24
“What did you say?” Jasper asked Allene.
Suddenly, her face blanched in the pale moonlight of the room. Jasper figured her father was at home, convalescing and safe. Or was he?
“We have to go back home,” she said, panic contorting her features. “Now.”
Dawlish couldn’t drive home fast enough. Birdie sat with her broken leg cradled gently on Jasper’s lap, but every bump in the road made her gasp in pain. Jasper had never seen her like this, so utterly unraveled, biting her lip so viciously it puffed out dark pink and bruised by the time they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Father won’t be expecting callers,” she muttered. “No one in the house would have any reason to hurt him—he pays their wages, for goodness’ sake!”
“Money doesn’t guarantee love or fidelity, does it?” Birdie commented. Allene shot her a murderous look, and Jasper leaned forward.