The Edge of Dreams(22)

“Going back to the meat packer—what do we know about him? He didn’t supply meat to the judge or any of the others, I take it?”

“He had married and moved to the city about a year ago. Until then he ran a butcher’s shop in the Catskills. From what his wife tells us, it was an extremely happy marriage, a second for him after his first wife died. A first for her, somewhat late in life, but they were both looking forward to a bright future.”

“If he was locked in the meat safe all weekend, didn’t she report him missing?” I asked. “Isn’t that suspicious?”

“That’s the thing. He had told her he was going up to Woodstock to visit his mother. She didn’t want to come, not being too fond of his mother. So she thought she knew where he was.”

“And she hadn’t recently taken out a life insurance policy on him?” I asked.

Daniel laughed. “What a gruesome little thing you are. Most women would have reached for the smelling salts at the very start of this conversation, not discussed it as calmly as if it concerned the price of sugar.”

“You know I’m not most women.” I turned back to the mirror to put a final pin in my unruly hair. Then something struck me. I put down the hairpins and leafed through the papers.

“There’s one missing,” I said, waving them triumphantly.

“What do you mean? You’ve read them all.”

I shook my head. “The murders are all about three weeks apart, right up to yesterday’s train crash, if we include that. But there wasn’t one in early August. Why not? Could that have been one murder he couldn’t pull off, or a note that somehow didn’t get delivered to you? Or was he off on vacation at the seashore?”

Daniel took the papers from me and examined them, frowning. “That’s an acute observation, Molly. But if there was one murder he couldn’t commit, how would we ever find out about it?”

“I don’t know, but it seems that’s your best chance of solving this,” I said. “Because at the beginning of August, somebody might have lived to tell the tale.”





Seven

Downstairs a clock chimed with a sweet, melodious ting.

Daniel stood up. “I should be going. The commissioner wants me at today’s briefing and will no doubt be annoyed that I’ve come up with nothing new.”

“Apart from the missing date in August,” I pointed out.

“That may have a perfectly simple explanation,” Daniel said. “It was devilishly hot. There were the usual summer epidemics in the city at that time. Our killer could have caught some disease and been too sick to carry out his planned murder. Or he could have decided to let the early-August victim live. Or it could be that he hadn’t actually planned these murders to be three weeks apart, and the dates were purely circumstantial.”

“I think he sounds like the sort of meticulous individual to whom dates would matter. It’s also important that several of these deaths, if not all, could have been ruled as accidents. Feebleminded Dolly stepping out in front of a tram; the overbearing mother accidentally knocking her lamp into the bath; the judge’s wife dying of gastric trouble; the butcher accidentally locking himself into the safe. Only your university student’s cyanide would have shown up as a deliberate murder.” I looked up at Daniel. “This is a game to him, Daniel. A game of cat and mouse, and he wants to make sure you stay on his trail.”

“You can say that again.” Daniel sighed as he walked toward the door. “He is enjoying taunting me, showing up my inadequacies.”

“All the more reason to figure out who might have a personal grudge against you. I think you should do as I suggested, and make a list of criminals who were convicted and executed thanks to you. My guess is that this is someone’s brother or best friend, seeking revenge on behalf of a dead prisoner.”

“But why is he including innocent people in his revenge?” Daniel lingered with his hand on the door handle. “Why would anyone gloat over pushing a simple old woman under a trolley?”

“That’s what you need to find out,” I said. “Either they are all random killings, or all but one are random killings, meant to hide the one instance in which he wanted a person dead. Or … he is enjoying sending you off on fools’ errands, or…” And I paused, considering this, “Or he has some kind of agenda and reason for wanting these particular people dead.”

“And me with no way of finding out why.” Daniel frowned, turned to go, then remembered something. “Oh, Molly, I meant to tell you. I did accomplish something positive this morning,” he said. “I stopped by Sloane’s and ordered two beds—one for the spare room, and a single one for the maid’s room upstairs. That way my mother can come to stay right away to take care of you, and she can help you look for a new servant. Perhaps you’d feel strong enough to make a list of the various sheets and pillows and things that we’ll need, and I can ask Wanamaker’s dry goods to deliver. The sooner our life is back to normal, the better for all of us.”