“Can one do that?” I asked.
“Of course. If they want your business, they have to be amenable,” she said.
How different it was to have grown up privileged, I thought. In my childhood quilts were made and beds were stuffed with whatever odds and ends of fabric could be retrieved from cast-off garments. I don’t think my mother ever bought bed linens from a store in her life. Not that there were any stores close to our cottage on the wild west coast of Ireland.
I made my way slowly up the stairs and took off my dress before I lay down. I had opened the bedroom windows and lay there listening to the gentle cooing of pigeons on the rooftops, the roar of the city muted and distant. How peaceful it was here, I thought. And yet my house across the street had always seemed a peaceful haven too, until somebody had hurled a bomb through my window. Could it be true that at this moment someone was plotting to kill me? It seemed hard to believe. I had been one of several hundred passengers on a train that had somehow been diverted to the wrong route. Someone had made a mistake. It had to have been an accident, because there was no way that one man could have orchestrated and carried out such a complicated feat.
Thus reassured I lay back, letting my mind drift over Daniel’s complicated case. Unrelated victims from such different walks of life. Crimes that would never have been considered murders without the notes to Daniel. And at the beginning of August, someone might have lived who should have died. Fascinating. Had the killer slipped up once? Had that annoyed him? Or had he once decided to show mercy? If Gus really had studied long enough to have become an expert in diseases of the mind, maybe she could have come up with a profile for a man who would behave in this way. But I, with no such training, felt completely in the dark.
Then an idea came to me. My mind had wandered on to Sid’s impassioned speech about the suffragists and how she was trying to make them all work together. A group of people working toward a common cause.…Was it possible that Daniel was not looking for one man, but a group? Surely not politically or religiously motivated, since the victims were so diverse and so seemingly random. But what about a club, a secret society for which the initiation was to commit a murder? It was a horrible thought, but that might explain why the crimes were so different.
Secret society. I toyed with the words. One of the victims was a student at the university here. Wasn’t that the sort of thing with which rich young boys might amuse themselves? If I were looking into this investigation myself, I’d start with Simon Grossman. I’d find out whether he came from an affluent family and what circles he moved in. Because his death was the only one that was clearly a murder. Perhaps he had been part of the secret society but had objected to the killings—had threatened to go to the police and so had to be silenced in a hurry.
A group such as that could work together to derail a train. But then the question arose as to why they’d send their notes to Daniel. Still, I felt a glimmer of excitement as I lay back to sleep. It was that old feeling of being the hound and catching the first scent of the fox. And as soon as I was able, I’d go to that café, just south of Washington Square, and ask a few questions for myself.
Eight
It was not a restful sleep this time. I was in a dark and confined space, hanging over a cliff.
“Let go of the baby or we’ll all plunge to our deaths,” someone was shouting.
“I’m not letting go of my baby,” I screamed back, but he was wrenched from my arms. I awoke sweating, my heart pounding. It was a grim reminder that I wasn’t going to get over the train crash in a hurry.
When Daniel stopped by to visit later that evening, he reported that he had sent a telegram to his mother, asking her to come as soon as possible. And I, in turn, was able to tell him that I had arranged for Wanamaker’s to bring a selection of bedding to Sid and Gus’s house for my approval.
“What?” Daniel demanded. “Have you lost your senses, Molly? Has living with rich friends gone to your head?”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” I replied, feeling my own hackles rising. “You said you’d left it to me to select things like linens that women supposedly know about. Well, I’m about to select. And since I can’t go to the store, the store has to come to me.”
“Yes, but…” Daniel spluttered. “Asking a store to bring you a selection? You know they’ll only send their most expensive items. We are not rich, Molly. You know that. Besides, I’ve already asked my mother to bring any extra bedding she might have. My mother never throws away anything. I’m sure she has the quilt I had on my bed as a child among the many items stashed away in her attic.”