“So you think it’s a better idea to lock mad people away in asylums, rather than try to find out what’s ailing them and try to help them?” I asked. “I’ve been in one of those places. They are the closest thing to hell you could find.”
“You were in an asylum?” she asked nervously. “For what reason?”
“I was trying to trace a missing girl, back when I ran my detective agency,” I said. “I discovered her there, quite sane but put there by evil people.”
“Mercy me,” she said.
“Anyway, Professor Freud might have some strange ideas, but a lot of good will come from the study of the mind, I feel sure. And lately he’s turned his attention to the study of dreams. He’s written a treatise on dream interpretation. Gus has been telling me about it. It sounds fascinating.”
Mother Sullivan laughed. “The old Irishwomen were always interpreting dreams when I was a girl. Dream of a black cow and you were going to come into money or get married or something. That kind of rubbish.”
“They did the same where I come from,” I said. “They reckoned some people could dream the future—and maybe they were right and some people could. We always prized ourselves on our second sight. But this is different. Gus says that we sometimes express what is troubling us in our innermost souls through symbols in our dreams.”
“I dream that I’m flying,” Bridie chimed in. “I’m flying and I’m looking for water and I’m going really fast because I know it’s a long way, but if I can only spot the water, I’ll be all right.”
“I think even I can interpret that one,” I said. “You’re looking for the Panama Canal and hoping to see your father and brother.”
“Looking for Da and Shamey? Maybe you’re right, Molly,” Bridie said. “I’m that worried about them. I do wish they’d write to me. Just once.”
“I’m sure they will, when they get somewhere they can post a letter,” Mrs. Sullivan said kindly, but she shot me a look telling me to leave this subject alone.
I thought about suggesting to Bridie that we pay a visit to her disreputable relatives in case they had any news, but it didn’t seem the right moment to do so. I was sure Daniel would forbid such an outing at the moment and besides, I hoped to pull off a satisfying little coup. Even as I said this, I felt ashamed of myself. I’d be using Bridie to score a point and prove to Daniel that I was just as good a detective as he. Why must I still see myself in competition with him? I wondered. Shouldn’t I be content to be a wife and mother?
“So Augusta has been analyzing this girl’s dreams, has she?” Daniel asked. “Any luck?”
“No, Mabel wouldn’t tell us much. Just something about a large snake, and its eyes, and how it loomed over her. She was terrified.”
“Do you think there was an element of insanity there? You thought before you saw her that perhaps she’d killed her parents.”
“I wondered how she managed to escape from a fire when they didn’t. Now I’m even more confused. Apparently she showed no signs of ever being in the fire—no blackened face or singed garments, nothing. And the fire escape was right outside her parents’ bedroom. So I have to think that something must have happened to them to make them unable to climb out of their window. But as to Mabel killing her parents—I find that hard to believe. She seems like such a sweet, gentle creature, and she clearly loved them both.”
“During my fifteen years in the department,” Daniel said as he reached out for another slice of bread and began buttering it, “I have found it impossible to tell who looks like a murderer and who doesn’t. Little old ladies who calmly poisoned their siblings or their lodgers. And seemingly sane young people who did away with their parents, then absolutely denied it against irrefutable evidence. What do the police think?”
“Don’t get me started on the police,” I said angrily, as I held my fork poised in midair with a mouthful of fish on it. “An unpleasant young lieutenant is in charge, and he’s convinced that she killed her parents and is only feigning amnesia. But he was such a bully that I’m afraid I took an instant dislike to him.”
“Really? What is his name?”
“Yeats,” I said. “He looks awfully young, and he seems to possess no skills when it comes to dealing with the general public. He was rude to each of us.”
Daniel smiled. “Ah, yes. Yeats. I know about him. His father is a big wheel at Tammany and the boy is destined for politics. I agree. He is an unpleasant little toad, far too keen to make his mark quickly. But then I suppose I was that way myself when I first started. The desire to get that first conviction in a murder case is very strong, as you remember, Mother.”