The Edge of Dreams (Molly Murphy Mysteries Book 14)

by Rhys Bowen

  “You deserved to be punished for killing your father, surely?”

  “But I didn’t kill my father. That’s the whole point. I went into his study, stumbled over his body, and came running out to get help. But I was so much in shock that I started laughing. And I had blood on my hands. And I was the strange one, the pitiful one. Nobody believed me. So they all deserved to die. Just as you will die now because your husband was bent on convicting me.”

  As he talked he had been inching toward the door. Suddenly he leaped through the doorway and went to close the door. I flung myself at the door and sank the needle into his hand, pushing hard on the plunger. I heard him cry out as the door slammed shut with me inside. I stood there, again in darkness, my heart pounding. Would a small amount of curare in his hand be enough to incapacitate him? How long before it worked? Long enough for him to escape and activate the switch?

  I tried to turn the doorknob. The door resisted. I shoved with all my might, and it inched open. I saw that Edward Deveraux’s paralyzed body had been blocking it. He was lying like a broken puppet, his head and limbs at odd angles, his eyes wide open and staring at me. I gave him the briefest of glances as I stepped over him, then ran past him up a flight of steep steps, and opened a door into the passage.

  “Mabel!” I yelled. “Mabel, where are you?”

  Had he silenced her with curare? I ran from room to room, but they all lay in dusty silence. I pulled off one dust sheet after another, hoping to find her lying beneath one of them, but I didn’t. At least I knew now that he wouldn’t have killed her. He had rescued her from the house. He was planning to take her to South America. He believed, or wanted to believe, that she was his daughter.

  I made it up to the very top of the house. The upper floor was empty and bare. I came down again. Surely he wouldn’t have left her in a hotel room near the docks, unless he had drugged her heavily? I had no idea how long the effects of curare lasted. As I stood in the front hall, I noticed wires running along the floor to the front door. He had booby-trapped the house. Then a chilling thought came into my head. Had he had time to turn on the timer before he collapsed? Where was it? Could I disable it again, or would touching it only set it off? I went down the steps cautiously and was relieved to see him still lying there. I followed the wires down the cellar steps and found what had to be the bomb. There was an alarm clock attached to it and it was ticking. Did that mean…?

  I knew I had to get out now, but I couldn’t risk leaving Mabel here. I opened one door leading to a coal storage area. Then another containing a broom closet. Then at the back, there was a door that was locked, with the key still in it. I turned the key and came into a room lit by a high grating. A shaft of light fell onto a bed where a pale body lay. I ran over to her.

  “Mabel? It’s me. Mrs. Sullivan.”

  To my intense relief she opened her eyes, and I saw recognition in them.

  “I’ve come to get you out of here,” I said.

  “Where is he? He’ll find us.”

  “He’s lying unconscious at the moment, but we must be quick.” I noticed then that he had tied her to the bed frame. I fumbled with the knots, cursing at the amount of time I was taking, wondering if maybe this bed was also somehow rigged to explode if she tried to escape. At last she was free and stood up, tentatively rubbing her limbs.

  “It was awful,” she said in a trembling voice. “It was him, wasn’t it? He was the snake in my dream. I realized as soon as he came to my bedroom again. He bent over me and I knew. He was wearing something over his face before—a black mask, I think, so that all I could see were slits of eyes. Like snake’s eyes. Then he put something over my face, like he did the time before.” She looked at me, her blue eyes wide and terrified. “I used to go into my mother’s room when I had a bad dream. I’d curl up on the daybed in the corner. I saw him. I saw him come in the window, and he held something in his hand. I saw the whole thing, but I was too scared to move or cry out. When he was pouring some stuff around their beds, he noticed me.”

  “And he carried you to safety down the fire escape,” I said. “Come on, let’s see if we can get out of here.”

  Edward was still lying on the floor, his eyes wide and staring. I went and stood over him. I couldn’t resist it. “I’m taking Mabel now,” I said. “She wasn’t your daughter, you know. What an absurd notion.”

  Then I ran up the steps after Mabel, who was heading for the front door.

  “Don’t touch it,” I shouted, making her leap away. “It may have been rigged to explode. He’s got some kind of bomb downstairs. Let’s see if there are wires connected to the windows.” There weren’t. We slid one up, and soon we were both standing on the street, to the surprise of two passing women.

  I grabbed the first constable I could find. “Get Captain Sullivan immediately,” I told him. “Tell him Edward Deveraux is at Eighteen Ninth Street, but tell him not to break down the door. The house may be rigged to explode.”

  He looked at me strangely, as if I might be off my head. “I’m his wife, Mrs. Sullivan,” I said, frustration building inside me. “I’ve just been held prisoner there, as has this young woman. Go on, man. Move. Do you want the whole street to go up? Do you want a murderer to go free?”

  He shot me a scared look and ran off.

  “Come on,” I said to Mabel. “Let’s take you home.”

  Thirty-five

  “Well, here you are,” Mrs. Sullivan said as I came in. “Just in time for the little one’s supper. He’s been no trouble at all. Have you had a nice day out?”

  “It’s been interesting,” I said, and I went over to give Liam a kiss.

  “Is Daniel not with you?” She looked around.

  “No. He has police work to do,” I said. “We may have caught the man he’s been looking for.”

  “Well, that’s good. All’s well that ends well,” she replied.

  I couldn’t tell her of my own fear—that Edward Deveraux would awake and escape, or that he would somehow make the house explode with Daniel in it. I sat, tense as a coiled watch spring, unable to eat, until he came home at ten.

  “Thank God,” he and I both said at the same time, falling into each other’s arms.

  “Did you catch him? He didn’t escape, did he? He was still there in the house where I left him? I sent the constable to find you. I told him how urgent it was.”

  “Edward Deveraux didn’t escape,” Daniel said. “We were too late. He’d set off some kind of explosive and it brought the house down, with him in it.”

  “I thought he’d set the timer on the bomb,” I said. “He’d rigged the house with explosives, you know. I was terrified you’d open the front door and be blown up.”

  “He took you captive? You escaped?” he asked, holding my shoulders fiercely. “What possessed you to go anywhere near him? You knew what he was capable of.”

  “I didn’t mean to go near him,” I said. “I saw that he was planning to sail to South America on the Queen of the Amazon tomorrow, and I wanted to see whether he had left his house or not.”

  “So you went there? Are you crazy?”

  “Of course I didn’t. I’m not stupid, you know. I stood across the street and observed the house. I chatted with a neighbor. She said she hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. Then I noticed one of his drapes was not quite closed, so I went to peek inside. That’s when he must have chloroformed me.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell the police and go home? Why take a risk yourself? You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “I know that. I came to see you at Mulberry Street, risking your anger, but you weren’t there. I left you a note. I thought I’d help by finding out if he had sailed yet, and when I found that a man matching his description was sailing for South America with his daughter, it began to dawn on me that Dr. Werner might be Edward Deveraux, and that he had Mabel with him. And I didn’t think I was taking a risk by looking at the outside of a house in broad daylight to see if it was still occupied.”

>   He was gazing at me with a kind of fierce tenderness. “Thank God you’re all right,” he said. “And Mabel too. If you hadn’t released her, she might not have survived.” He was still holding me, his fingers digging into my shoulders as if he wanted to make sure I was there and real.

  “He was the snake in her dreams, Daniel,” I said. “He carried her to safety when he torched her parents’ house. He wanted to believe he was her father.”

  “And was he?”

  “Of course not. Another of his delusions. But one thing he still swore, Daniel. He didn’t kill his father. Edward came upon his father lying there, bent to help him, and got blood all over himself. Everything conspired against him to make him seem guilty, but he was wrongly accused. That’s why he wanted revenge so badly.”

  “If he didn’t kill his father, who did?”

  “I’m thinking it had to be Marcus, didn’t it? One of the servants heard the father saying ‘You are a disgrace to this family.’ And we know that Marcus has always had expensive tastes.” Then I stopped and put my hand to my mouth. “Oh, Marcus,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Remember Edward sent you the note about going out with a bang?”

  “And he did.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “He said the rigging of his house was just a small-scale practice for the big one.”

  “So what are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that his final act of revenge would be to bomb the family bank.”

  * * *

  Men were dispatched immediately, and they found a large quantity of explosives in the bank cellar and a timer set to go off at ten the next morning—the moment that the ship was to sail. It was dismantled safely, and Marcus Deveraux, when pressed sufficiently by the police, told the truth about what had happened the day his father died. A horrible accident, he said. His father was furious with his debts. He came right up to Marcus, yelling, threatening, waving a sheaf of bills in his face. Marcus pushed his father away because he felt so threatened. His father tripped over the edge of the rug, fell, and hit his head on the fender. Marcus could think of nothing but getting away. He climbed out through the window. When he heard that Edward had been accused he said nothing, deciding that his life was more valuable to the bank and the family’s future than Edward’s. But he paid a large sum for Edward to be housed humanely and well.

  I related all this to Sid and Gus the next day while Liam played happily on their floor with their pots and pans.

  “I still find this hard to believe,” Gus said. “Think of it, Sid. We actually sat in a hansom cab with a murderer. With a man who had no compassion, no human feeling, and who took the most amazing risks. We are actually fortunate to be alive.”

  “Edward Deveraux had no reason to want to dispatch you,” I said. “I think he must have wholeheartedly enjoyed the thrill of being asked to treat a patient whose infirmity he caused in the first place.”

  “The man certainly did like taking incredible risks,” Sid said. “How could he possibly think he could pass himself off for the doctor? Did they look that similar?”

  “In age, build, and coloring, yes. And if the facial features differed, it didn’t matter. He made sure he smashed the doctor’s face before he threw him down into the chasm, and he smeared his own face with blood and mud, claiming to be in distress from the strangulation attempt. It was mentioned that he could hardly talk. That way it wouldn’t be noticed that his speech was different. And he claimed to be so upset by the whole thing that he refused to stay the night and departed immediately after giving his statement to the police. And the doctor wore a monocle. People are funny. They notice the little details, like the monocle and the beard. And if someone is clearly in distress, you don’t look at him too hard. Edward knew his psychology, all right.”

  “I suppose he must have been brooding and plotting for years,” Gus said. “And all that time dreaming about punishing those who had contributed to his wrongful conviction.” She looked up from her coffee cup. “I blame his brother. How could one live with oneself, knowing that he had condemned an innocent man to a life in a mental institution?”

  “I suppose one can understand,” Sid said. “Marcus had a promising future. His brother didn’t. Many young men might have done the same.”

  “And condemned his brother to a life that was no life?” Gus retorted. “I could never have lived with my conscience.”

  “Ah, but you are altruistic and tenderhearted,” Sid replied. “Marcus was self-centered.”

  Gus handed me a plate of macaroons. “And I am fascinated to know that Mabel’s dream all made sense,” she said. “The snake. The long sharp fingers were the needle. I must write to Professor Freud. He’ll be interested.”

  “And you can also tell him that there is such a thing as prophetic dreams,” I said. “Dreams that come to us as warnings. I dreamed of the basement room where Edward put me, and I dreamed of being paralyzed, so that I was forewarned when he came in with that syringe of curare.”

  “Ah, but Molly, you’re Irish. It’s only Celts who can do things like that,” Gus said. “I don’t think that an Austrian professor will change his thinking to include you.”

  And we laughed. Liam, not understanding the joke, looked up from the floor and laughed too.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The crash of the Ninth Avenue Elevated train happened on September 11, 1905, exactly as I have described it. A Ninth Avenue train, traveling at a speed suitable for a straight track, was diverted to the Sixth Avenue curve. Its speed was too great, and it plunged down to the street below.

  Both the locomotive driver and the signalman were interrogated, but both claimed innocence. The locomotive driver came under suspicion because there was union unrest, and they were planning a strike. He was briefly imprisoned, then released and fled the state, but died soon after.

  So the cause of the train crash was never established. Except in my book.

  And of course the excitement in the medical community caused by Sigmund Freud’s treatise on the interpretation of dreams is also real.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RHYS BOWEN is the author of the Anthony Award– and Agatha Award–winning Molly Murphy mysteries, the Edgar Award–nominated Evan Evans series, and the Royal Spyness series. Born in England, she lives in San Rafael, California. Visit her online at www.rhysbowen.com, or sign up for email updates here.

  Also by Rhys Bowen

  The Molly Murphy Mysteries

  City of Darkness and Light

  The Family Way

  Hush Now, Don’t You Cry

  Bless the Bride

  The Last Illusion

  In a Gilded Cage

  Tell Me, Pretty Maiden

  In Dublin’s Fair City

  Oh Danny Boy

  In Like Flynn

  For the Love of Mike

  Death of Riley

  Murphy’s Law

  The Constable Evans Mysteries

  Evanly Bodies

  Evan Blessed

  Evan’s Gate

  Evan Only Knows

  Evans to Betsy

  Evan Can Wait

  Evan and Elle

  Evanly Choirs

  Evan Help Us

  Evans Above

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

 
Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Historical Note

  About the Author

  Also by Rhys Bowen

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE EDGE OF DREAMS. Copyright © 2015 by Rhys Bowen. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Danielle Fiorella

  Cover photograph of woman by Shirley Green

  Cover photograph of Brooklyn Bridge © Image Source RF/Ditto/Getty Images

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Bowen, Rhys.

  The edge of dreams / Rhys Bowen.—First edition.

  p. cm.—([Molly Murphy mysteries ; 14])

  ISBN 978-1-250-05202-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-5335-5 (e-book)

  1. Murphy, Molly (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Serial murder investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6052.O848E34 2015