The Edge of Dreams(45)

He looked around, suddenly taking in the three of us. “Hello, what have we got here?” he said. “Having a little party, are you? And your aunt saying you were too weak to receive visitors.” He smirked. I took an instant dislike to him.

“I think she meant outsiders,” Sid said, glancing across at Mrs. Hamilton. “That doesn’t apply to family and friends.” She went across to him, extending her hand. “I am Elena Goldfarb. Mrs. Hamilton was at Vassar with us. We are old, old friends.”

“Lieutenant Yeats,” the blond man said. “New York police. And I’m glad to see that Mabel is now well enough to receive old, old friends of the family. Being among old friends may well have jogged her memory, eh, Mabel?” He looked from one of us to the next. “So has she decided to confide in any of you what happened on the night of the fire?”

“Lieutenant Yeats,” Mrs. Hamilton said severely. “How many more times do I have to tell you that the child remembers nothing?”

“Conveniently for her, so it would seem,” he said. “So your memory hasn’t returned yet, Mabel? You still don’t know how you came to be lying on the ground, apparently asleep, while your house was burning?”

“I told you, I don’t know.” Mabel’s voice trembled. “Why don’t you believe me? Why do you keep coming back like this? Make him go away, Aunt Minnie.”

“You only upset her,” Mrs. Hamilton said angrily. “After all that she’s been through, do you want her mind to snap completely?”

Gus stepped out between the policeman and the girl. “Officer Yeats,” she said. “I am Augusta Walcott, a friend of the family. I have also just returned from Vienna where I have been studying the problems of the mind with Professor Freud. I can tell you quite categorically that it would not be at all unusual for someone to experience complete amnesia after such a traumatic event. If you want Mabel to remember what happened that night, I suggest you let her recover in complete peace and tranquility. In her own time, she may be able to tell us more. But she certainly won’t if she’s being bullied and threatened.”

“Listen,” Yeats said. “I can have her taken down to the Tombs and kept there until her memory returns, if I like.”

“On what charge?” It was my turn to step forward now.

“A charge of arson, ma’am. Setting fire to a house with the intention of doing away with her parents.”

“And what proof do you have of this, other than the fact that she escaped and they didn’t?” I tried to control my anger.

“I don’t need proof,” he said. “Let’s just call it a gut instinct. Oh, and the fact that everyone else in the house, even the ones who escaped, had blackened clothing and faces and singed hair. And Mabel showed no sign of having been in a fire at all. So this leads me to believe that she got out before the fire started. The question then would be why? And how did she know there was going to be a fire?”

I glanced across at Mabel, who was looking away, her eyes screwed tightly shut. I took a deep breath. “I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of the child. We are only causing her more distress. Miss Goldfarb has just told you that she has been studying with leading alienists in Vienna. If anyone can break through the girl’s amnesia, she can. Why don’t we give her time to do her work, and then we might know the truth, rather than stabbing at it in the dark?”

He heard my Irish accent and frowned. “And are you another old friend of the family?”

“Actually no,” I said. “I am an old friend of these two ladies, who invited me to come with them today. They thought I might be useful because my husband is a colleague of yours in the police force.”

“Oh, yes?” There was that hint of a smirk again.

“Captain Sullivan,” I said, and I noticed with great satisfaction that his smirk vanished.

* * *

“What an obnoxious man,” Sid said as we rode home in a cab. “It was all I could do not to hit him.”

“I felt the same way,” I said. “I was so delighted to tell him that my husband was his superior in the police department.”

“That probably saved that child’s bacon,” Sid said. “You heard what that policeman said. He was all ready to haul Mabel off to the Tombs. Such barbaric behavior. One wonders how someone like that ever got promoted to lieutenant.”

“I’m afraid the police department rather rewards aggressive bullying,” I said. “Daniel is one of the exceptions, but then you should see him when he’s dealing with a gang member. He’s quite frightening. I hardly recognize him as my husband.”