“And there’s more. Here’s a piece of broken glass from Jasper’s apartment. It was near his uncle when he died. And this too.” She pointed to a small tin of pastilles. “This was the only thing Andrew carried in his pocket. He left one of his tins at our home last week.” Birdie reached for them, but Allene stayed her hand. “Don’t touch them. We don’t know for sure yet, but they might be poisonous.”
Birdie didn’t know what to say. Would the items speak out loud and scream the truth? Would the answer to all their questions strike Allene’s mind with a bolt of brilliance? She waited as Allene touched one item, then another, before finally puzzling it out aloud. “Andrew said he killed everyone but Florence. And now he’s dead. I don’t understand. Maybe Jasper will tell us more once he’s done with Andrew’s autopsy.” She pursed her lips like a duck. “It’s like there are two loose ends on a story that barely makes sense. The beginning . . .”
“And the end,” Birdie finished, before yawning. “I’m so tired, Allene dear. Maybe we could talk about this more tomorrow? Or you could bring all these things to the police? Surely they’ll help you. But right now, you’ve had such a fright with Andrew and the morgue—you’ve had so much excitement. You need to rest.”
Allene smiled, but disappointment drew the corners of her mouth down. “Of course. And I’m keeping you awake. I’m so sorry.”
Allene carefully packed all the evidence back into the box and sat it on her vanity. She tucked Birdie into bed, offering her some medicine, but Birdie refused.
Clear mind, Birdie thought. For whatever time I have left, I want a clear mind.
When Allene switched off the light, Birdie pretended to sleep, if only to make her friend feel better. But in the darkness, Allene tossed and turned. From beneath her almost-closed eyelids, Birdie watched Allene carefully peel away her covers and silently leave the bedroom with the cigar box in her hand.
CHAPTER 31
Allene stole downstairs with her treasures carefully in hand. The Cutter house was sound asleep, and it seemed an altogether different country in the dark. She went to the sitting room and inhaled the quiet, waiting. For what, she didn’t know.
Sleep was impossible. The puzzle gnawed at her insides. Dawn had yet to break its peachy gold onto the city’s horizon, and the stars outside the salon room window twinkled merrily despite the violence and sickness spread over the world.
Allene took inventory of the fallen. Hazel. Jasper’s Uncle Frederick. Andrew. Florence.
And then there were the other casualties. Lucia. Oscar. George. The two young maids whose names she’d only just learned—Ellen and Dora. Father’s previous butler, Stephen, who was in Belgium and thankfully still alive, but for how much longer? Her cousin, Clarence, somewhere south of Soissons. He’d been hospitalized for influenza too, but so far, alive. It hurt her, the details.
“Too many. There are too many,” Allene said to herself. It had to stop. Why wouldn’t it stop? As she sat on the divan by the window, there was a sharp rap on the window glass.
“Mercy me!” she yelped, and jumped up, nearly dropping the box. She peered out the window and saw Jasper standing before the polished window with one hand in his trouser pocket. It was so dark, she could hardly make out his expression. He motioned to the iron door that led to the enclosed garden.
Allene scurried over to open the french doors and stepped into the night air. The paved paths were partially obscured with fallen leaves, and the moss tickled her toes. Carefully pruned boxwoods stood sedately against the walls, and the creeping vines held their ivy leaves stubbornly, not quite ready to relinquish the waxy green to the coming winter. The dahlias had faded and died. The peach tree had browned, with all its sweet fruit plucked, preserved in the kitchen pantry. The peach pits within had probably been burnt into charcoal to filter out mustard gas at some disputed barricade.
Allene quietly unlocked the black gates where Jasper was waiting.
“What are you doing here?” She wished she’d brought a shawl; her robe was whisper thin.
“Can’t sleep. I have news.”
“Let’s go inside and talk. It’s so cold.”
“Let’s stay out here. I can’t stand being indoors right now. After the morgue, I need to smell nothing but fresh air for a while.” Jasper shrugged off his coat and draped it over Allene’s shoulders. His tobacco-warm scent curled around her neck, and they sat down on a cast-iron bench. Dead leaves swirled about their feet, and the faint light of the moon illuminated their skin. “Why are you awake?”
“How could I sleep?” she responded simply. She hugged his coat closed around her chest but still hung on to the cigar box. “Birdie just fell asleep, but we were talking too.”
“How is she?”
Allene didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything good to report, and Jasper understood her silence.
Finally, he said, “I can’t believe she’s gotten so sick. Doesn’t seem right that you could dodge influenza by being lucky and the war by being a woman, and still have no chance.”
“Nothing we do is guaranteed, is it? What if there is no armistice? You’ll get called to Camp Upton soon enough, Jasper. And then you’ll be gone too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He took out a cigarette.
“I’d light it for you, but I left my Wonderliter at the factory. I’ll probably never get it again.”
“You saved my hide with that trick.” He reached into his pocket for a match. Before he lit it, Allene sniffed the air.
“Do you smell smoke?”
Jasper’s hand holding the match paused in the air. “Are you trying to get me to stop smoking?”
Allene shook her head. “Never mind.”
He struck the match, and the flame warmed Allene’s face. He shivered. “Living isn’t always such a hoot. Have you ever been jealous of the dead? That they have no worries anymore?”
“Stop it, Jasper.” She put her hand on his. They were both cold now. He put his arm around her shoulders, trying to warm her.
“What’s this?” He pointed to the cigar box.
“I’ll show you in a second. First, tell me what happened at the morgue after I left.”
Jasper leaned back and stared up at the sky. It was inky black, and the stars were crisp and shining. The sickle moon was sharp enough to draw blood.
“Arsenic,” Jasper said.
“So it’s true.” She blinked, but tears still came. They warmed the skin of her face as they rolled down. It wasn’t right for them to feel so good. “Did they test the pastilles they took out of the tin?”
“Yes. That took a little longer, but after we found it in his tissues, we found it in the candies too.”
“Couldn’t he taste it?”
“I don’t think so. The amount in the pastilles wasn’t actually very high. And the results of the autopsy showed his kidneys and liver were affected.”
Allene shook her head. “I’m no doctor. What does that mean?”
“It means he was poisoned over a period of time, not just recently.”
“That’s obvious. He always blamed it on something else. First it was bad beef, and then the flu . . .” She covered her mouth.
“What?”
“What if Birdie is being poisoned by arsenic too?”