Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe's 1st Detective

FROM DARKNESS, EMERGED, RETURNED By ELIZABETH MASSIE

Peter is dead.

Dear, young Peter Garrett, the handsome fellow who delivered milk with his horse and wagon to all the flats along Riggs Road, dead. Murdered. Killed and dragged into an alley, as his horse Sue stood alone out on the street, pawing the ground, sniffing, and nickering.

My heart is broken, my mind spinning. For I loved Peter. I loved his voice, his face, and the way his large but elegant hands held the reins, patted Sue’s broad shoulder, tossed biscuit crumbs to dogs on the street, and ladled milk from the tanks into the jugs left on doorsteps. That someone would hate him enough to steal his life is beyond any sort of reason. That he is dead is beyond comprehension. It was the one bright spot of my life, watching him from my third-floor window, imagining that he might someday come up and carry me off to be his bride. No, we never spoke. We never met. But I knew that, somehow, he would find me and love me.

But such hopes and dreams shall delight me never more.

For Peter is dead. I can barely breathe with the horror of it.

I pull away from the window and fall into my little chair. I pick up my knitting, a partial scarf for my mother, then put it down again. I get up, pace the room barefoot. I have shoes in the bottom of the pie safe, but I don’t wear them except in the winter when it is cold, for I never go outside. My feet slap softly against the irregular wooden floor.

This room serves as my bedroom, parlor, and kitchen, collectively. It is eight feet by fourteen feet. We’ve one other room to our flat; it is eight by six and my mother’s bed is in there. She never closes the door, though, because she doesn’t like to sleep alone, and when the door is open it’s as if we are in the same room.

Back and forth I pace across an anemic puddle of summer sunlight, past the kitchen table, stove, and pie safe, my chair and cot, my mother’s chair and the little stand on which she keeps her Bible and the matches that light the gas-lamps at night. The front door is locked but the transom is open, and I can hear people out in the hallway and on the stairway talking, coughing. I can smell the pork and cabbage that Mrs. Anderson across the hall has put on for lunch. Flies, confused and excited by the thick scent, buzz in and out through the transom, seeking the source. I bat at several, but miss.

I return to the window, dabbing sweat from between my breasts with a loose fold of my blouse. Men down on the street are still discussing Peter’s murder. It happened only last night, during the thunderstorm, and the news is fresh. Fresh as fish caught off Coney Island and hauled on ice to Mr. Denny’s Meat Market. I bite the inside of my cheek so as not to cry. I put one hand to my temple to press away the pain, but it remains.

There is a police officer amongst the men, standing tall in his big hat and shiny badge. I push the window up a bit farther and stick out my head. It’s hard to hear over the other sounds down there — children running and squealing, the creaking of the rag man’s cart, a mongrel barking at his shadow in a puddle. But I catch bits of the conversation.

“So he was stabbed, was he?” This is Mr. McCary, who owns the hardware store.

“Clear through, you say?” This is Mr. Denny, the butcher. “Then dragged off behind some garbage?”

I cringe.

“Horrid, horrid.” This is Mr. Bruce, a hateful old gentleman as round as a beer barrel and red-faced as a tomato. He has no job, but enjoys the business of everyone else. I’ve spent many hours listening to this man from the vantage point of my window. My mother calls him a busybody, and indeed, he is. Mr. Bruce mutters, “horrid,” again, and smiles as if such a dreadful crime is enticing, thrilling. It looks as though he’s licking his lips.

The officer says something and the three men shiver and shake their heads. Mr. Denny mumbles and the officer replies, “We think it was done with a pistol. Bit of dark residue at the hole. Shot clean through, and we didn’t find the bullet.”

Mr. Bruce nods, and purses his lips. “We can’t have no criminal like that on the loose.”

“Not to worry,” says the officer. “We arrested the culprit we think done it. Ugly fellow, head like a crushed can. Had a gun on him, newly fired from the smell of it. Don’t speak no English, and he fought like a mad dog. Got him in the jail now. He didn’t confess, but we’ll get it out of him, don’t you worry.”

The murderer had already been arrested? That surprises me. The cops on the beat in our neighborhood are hardly careful and often drunk. From tales my mother tells me when she returns home from her work at the clothing factory, the officers are happy to have the jail cells full, regardless of guilt. That keeps the alderman and police chief happy, thinking crime is being properly addressed. I find it highly improbable that Peter’s murderer has already been apprehended, due to the incompetence of the force and the interference of the rainstorm that ended just four hours ago.

I wish I could do something. My shoulders and arms sting with the wanting! I wish I could solve the murder, for I don’t believe the jailed immigrant did the deed. How terrible to be imprisoned wrongly and facing certain execution. And how terrible for a criminal to still be at large somewhere nearby and planning his next kill.

Yet I cannot leave our flat. Mother won’t allow it and the idea frightens me to the core.

I watch as the men fall away from one another, heading off in their own particular directions. I slump down at the window and try to think past the pain. Think.

Think.

Thinking is pretty much all I do, you see. Thinking, pondering, evaluating, considering. I may have a small world, but my mind is large. I read the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant consulting detective, and try to guess the perpetrator before the great man does. I enjoy the large and complex wooden jigsaw puzzles my mother buys for me whenever she finds a spare nickel. I savor poring over my mother’s accounting books and planning what she can spend each week for meals and fuel. I love creating new patterns of my own design that I knit into scarves and sweaters and leggings and stockings. Sometimes I count handfuls of rice grains from the lidded tin, or try to guess the number I spill from the tin onto the table top, because I like the order of numbers. I find fascinating the intricate water patterns on the ceiling, which, when I lay on my cot at night, I imagine into fanciful stories of fairies and dragons and knights and ladies.

My desire to untangle matters should not be a surprise, however. My last name, Dupin, means little to those here in Brooklyn, New York. But for those in France, the name would certainly bring awe. My great-grandfather was Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, a Parisian, a brilliant mind, a deep thinker who solved many mysteries. I like to imagine I take after him.

However, I, Molly Dupin, am wholly American, brought to this country from France in April 1893 when I was but two years old by my mother, Martha Dupin, a gentle, quiet, yet slow-witted woman who now works a sewing machine at the Louder Shirtwaist Factory to keep us fed and clothed. I am eighteen now, a grown woman, and yet, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve not stepped foot outside the apartment since I was a little girl. Peculiar to some, but it suits me. The world outside is dangerous, as exemplified by Peter’s murder last night. Miscreants, villains, thieves, molesters, killers. My mother rightly encourages me to stay inside. Every morning she kisses my cheek and says, “Be good, my Molly. Stay here and do your chores and I will be back soon.” Soon is twelve hours. They work the women to pieces at the factory. I would work there, too, if the world weren’t so treacherous.

And so I stay here, doing puzzles, knitting, thumbing through the account book or Holmes books or old magazines Mother finds scattered in the street and brings home to me or making up stories while gazing at the water stains overhead.

I sit in my chair again, pick up the knitting, then put it aside. I close my eyes and imagine all sorts of horrors surrounding Peter’s death, and in each one I am a heroine, saving him in the last moment.

In one moment I see Mr. Denny, distraught because Peter’s wagon ran over Mr. Denny’s beloved dog, Charlie, last week, crushing Charlie’s spine and causing Mr. Denny to break the dog’s neck to save it from suffering. I saw the crushing of the dog beneath the wheels, or rather I heard about it from the shrieks of some of the women in the street. So vivid in my mind, it is as if I were actually there, and so sad, about the dog and how Mr. Denny cried so pitifully. Peter, shocked and sorry, offered him a dollar to get another dog, but Mr. Denny refused. And so I imagine what transpired late last night. Most of the city is sleeping and Peter is driving his horse home through the rain. Mr. Denny waves at him to stop. Peter ties off the horse and enters the warm, dry meat market. Mr. Denny offers Peter a drink, which Peter accepts, but then Mr. Denny snatches up a meat skewer and makes to stab my young love clear through. But I rush into the shop and shove Peter out of the way just in time. Peter thanks me, then proposes marriage.

My heart pounds with joy.

In another moment I see Mr. McCary, waving Peter down through the rain well after midnight, to tell him he’s noticed a wheel wobbling on the wagon and to say he has just the thing to fix it. Peter hasn’t noticed the wobble, but is tired and so perhaps Mr. McCary is right. Mr. McCary invites Peter into the hardware store where he grabs a long metal spike from his shelf of wares and plunges it toward Peter’s chest for bringing him soured milk that morning, milk that made him vomit for hours on end. Yet I come in again at the right moment, and push Mr. McCary away. The spike clatters on the floor and Peter catches me in his embrace. He tells me he loves me and we plan our wedding date.

The next moment I see a police officer patrolling the street in the pouring rain, bored and a bit drunk, tapping his stick against his thigh, hoping for trouble so he can smack someone on the ear with it. Peter steers his wagon home, exhausted from the long day, hunched down in the rain. The copper waves at him to stop. Peter draws his horse up, waits. The policeman says, “I said get down here now!” Peter frowns, but does as the officer asks. Then the copper punches Peter for no reason, and hits him with his stick. Peter punches him back and the stick goes flying away. The copper laughs, draws a pistol, and aims it at Peter’s chest. I am out on the street, and rush over to throw myself in front of Peter. “Don’t shoot!” I cry, and the officer scowls and staggers away, pistol hanging limply from his trigger finger. Peter hugs me, kisses me, caresses me so tenderly and completely. He says I will be his forever.

But Peter is dead. I didn’t save him.

I weep. I bury my face in my hands and pour out my anguish. If only I were brave enough to go down and outside, I would use my wits, the skills passed down to me by Auguste Dupin, and find the real killer. I would avenge Peter!

Lunchtime comes. I fix a cold biscuit with cold ham. I note that there is a glowing coal down in the stove, which is odd as we haven’t cooked or heated our rooms in several weeks. Maybe Mother has taken up smoking after I’ve gone to sleep, and hides her cigarettes in her purse. I spit on the coal until it winks out. Then I return to the window. I look down and watch as Mr. McCary stands just outside his shop door and shows a handful of nails to a potential customer. Mr. Denny’s meat market door is open. He’s inside sweeping, and I can see clots of wet dirt and small bits of fat and pinkish meat fly out onto the street with each whisk. Mrs. Anderson’s daughter, Katherine — likely the prettiest woman in our neighborhood, which irritates me for reasons I can’t quite fathom — tries to maneuver her way across the steaming street without stepping in a rain puddle. She fails, topples, and stomps down hard in the middle of one particularly muddy pool. Water splashes her skirt and she curses. The she marches angrily on, over to the butcher shop where she disappears. She loves mutton and pork. I don’t know how her family can afford so much meat as her father is a cripple from fighting in Cuba and he begs on the corner. Her brother, James, ran off last year to join the Navy against the wishes of his parents. From what I’ve heard through the transom, he’s never sent home one thin dime.

I sit in my chair in this blasted mid-July heat, my hair damp and clinging to my neck and forehead, and re-read “A Scandal in Bohemia” in an old issue of The Strand Magazine. My great-grandfather Auguste was so like brilliant Sherlock, and I often think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fashioned his character after Auguste. Had my great-grandfather still been alive, and had he been here, I would task him to help me solve Peter’s murder. I sorely wish I had the courage to go down, go out and investigate. If I were a man I would go by myself. I would be brave.

I get up and go to Mother’s room where I find her little looking glass. I study myself and imagine my appearance adorned in a cap and pipe. Perhaps I could dress as a man and go out in disguise. Maybe that would give me the courage to interview my suspects, to question them in oh, such subtle ways as to coerce the perpetrator into confessing.

But we’ve no men’s clothing.

I think I’ll ask Mother if she might steal some from a clothesline behind our building.

No, she is an honest and good woman. And if by chance she acquiesced, she would certainly be caught and arrested. She isn’t clever and cautious. And she is so simple, so innocent of mind and heart that she would die in jail. She wishes she were smart, I know that. She told me once that soon after I was born she had surgery on her brain to make her smart, but it didn’t work. It was then we left Paris and came to the States, with the assistance of one of her friends who had also decided to emigrate. Her friend found us this flat, helped Mother secure a job, then took a train to Chicago. Mother has a scar on her skull from the surgery where the hair doesn’t grow right.

I sit in my chair, pick up my knitting, put it down again. I can’t think of anything but Peter’s murder. I dump rice onto the table and try to guess how many grains there are, and then I count them. I’m off by twenty-four. Usually I’m a lot closer than that.

I curl up on my cot and fall asleep.

He comes to me in a dream, or perhaps it is a vision. I can’t know. But it is my great-grandfather, Auguste Dupin. He is so young, and trim, with night-pale cheeks, and dark eyes that have a strangely vacant yet intense, haunting look. He does not even glance at me, but instead stares out the window, one fist tapping inside the open palm of the other. His brows furrow, twitch. He says, “Take all things into consideration, that you might comprehend most clearly that which has taken place. Consider the facts, great-granddaughter. Motive. Opportunity. Location. Think on these things without emotion, for emotion destroys concentration. You will find your answer.”

I stare at him and I want to ask him for help. My jaws do not work, however, and the only sound that issues from my lips is a pathetic and soft grunt.

I awaken to the sound of that grunting. I am sweating, and my great-grandfather, of course, is not there.

The puddle of sunlight has traveled across the well-worn rug, heading for the wall. It’s late afternoon. I go into Mother’s room and pull her steamer trunk from under her bed. She keeps two blankets in there as well as her winter clothing — woolen stockings, sweaters, several of the scarves I’ve knitted for her (the others she’s given away to people on the street, so that at least no one in our neighborhood has a cold neck come January), a few heavy skirts, and a ratty blouse or two. The trunk is locked to keep mice away. They love to find soft material on which to sleep and piss. Mother hides the key in various places around the flat; I pretend not to see as she moves it from one hiding spot to another. I let her have her fantasy that her simple deviousness will prevent rodents from finding the key, unlocking the trunk, and having themselves a party in her old skirts, or prevents me from finding it and then giving it to the rodents so we can all have a nap and a piss together on Mother’s clothes.

Today I find the key in the potato basket on the shelf over the stove and I unlatch the lock. I find the scarves, sweaters, winter cap, stockings with massive runs in them (I take them out; I’ll find time to mend them), Mother’s winter cloak, and gloves. Two skirts — which are too long for me as I don’t have my mother’s height — and a lacy scarf from her days in Paris. I take out one of the skirts and hold it up. I could snip and re-sew this into a shawl with a wide hood that would hide my face if I tipped my head down as I walked. I will still look like a woman, but a mysterious woman no one knows.

Back in my chair, the skirt in my lap, I rub my hands over the rough material. It smells old, yet there is also a faint sweetness to it. I wonder if that’s what Paris smelled like. I think I hear my great-grandfather whisper, “Think it through. Consider only the facts. Make your plan.” I whisper back, “I will.”

In my hooded shawl, I shall start with Mr. McCary. I will tell him that my sister sent me to ask him for her handkerchief back. He’ll not know what I’m talking about, of course, for it’s a lie, but a lie for a better purpose. I’ll then say he had best remember, for they had a romantic rendezvous last night here in his very shop after Mrs. McCary had gone upstairs to bed. Mr. McCary might then say, “No! I was not in my shop last evening. I had business elsewhere.” Ah-ha, I will think, but will not say. I will then demand to know why he is treating my sister so, pretending their night together never happened. I will scan the floor as I speak, looking for a trace of blood that was not cleaned up well enough before Peter’s dear body was dragged away to the alley.

My daydream is broken when I hear Mr. Bruce outside, shouting. I put the skirt down and hurry to the window. He is yelling at another man for bumping into him. The other man says, “Were you not so much of a hog, sir, I should not have knocked you with my shoulder.” Mr. Bruce is sensitive about his weight, and I’ve seen his face go from flour white to tomato red in a heartbeat. His anger and nosiness know no bounds.

Perhaps he killed Peter? Perhaps Peter offended him in some way, and Mr. Bruce knocked him down and stabbed him with the sharp tip of the walking cane he carries with him. Stabbed him clean through to the street.

I sit back down and pick up the skirt. My heart squeezes. Dear Peter. Is he in Heaven? I would think any just god would put him there, for any sin such a beautiful man might have committed on this Earth would surely be minor and forgivable.

I put the skirt down and pace the floor, back and forth in my bare feet. Mother will be home at seven and then we shall dine. After supper, she will read her Bible to me then retire to her room. When she is sound asleep, I shall tear apart the skirt then snip and stitch it into a shawl. Done soon after midnight, I shall venture out. I shall be my great-grandfather’s rightful descendant. Bright and sharp and determined.

And outside alone.

Alone for the first time in my life.

I dump rice out on the table and guess the number. I’m off by thirty-seven this time. Where is my focus? My nerves have me careless. I can’t be careless. My great-grandfather warned me against emotion.

Back in my chair, I pick up my knitting, rub the soft cream-colored yarn then put it down again. I draw up Mother’s skirt to my chin and close my eyes. Behind my lids I see Peter and me, standing in a church overlooking the sea. The preacher declares us husband and wife. I run my hands up and down the fabric.

Then stop.

There is a key deep in the skirt pocket. I take it out and frown. What, now, has Mother locked up? Something I don’t know about, clearly. She won’t be home for another hour or more, so I return to her room.

Nothing is hidden under her mattress or pillow. There are no loose panels in the walls. I search the drawers of her small bedside dresser, and in the bottom I find her wooden jewelry box. I’ve seen this box many times, have seen Mother take out the cheap earrings and necklace and hold them to herself in memory of the old days in France. But that is all there is in the box. I know she locks it, but have thought it only habit. She knows I would never take those things from her.

I put the box on Mother’s bed and sit beside it. The key does indeed open the box, and inside are the necklace and earrings. Nothing else, save the old newspapers that line the sides and bottom to hold down the splinters. I put the necklace to my own throat and wonder if I will ever have a chance to dress up in something such as this.

Something printed on the newspaper catches my eye, and I carefully pull it up out of the box, unfolding the yellowed, brittle page.

It is a Parisian newspaper, dated June 14th, 1890. I am fluent in French, and so read the story with initial curiosity then a growing, gnawing ill-ease. It is a report of a brutal murder. A man who left a brothel in the late night-hours was bludgeoned and stabbed to death. His shoulders were smashed and his skull crushed, then his heart stabbed clear through. The weapon, which was found in a thatch of weeds, was the leg of a chair, sharpened into a spike at the end and tempered by fire to brutal strength. It was the fourth such murder, and the authorities believed they were close to capturing the killer.

The killer, they were quite certain, was a woman.

I unfold the other papers. The three other, earlier murders are described, all with similar results, with beatings and fatal stabbings. They suspect the weapon is a sharpened, tempered stake. They suspect a small man or a woman in a fit of uncontrollable rage.

All took place in the neighborhood of Route de Pierre Froide. My mother’s neighborhood.

My hands shake as I fold the paper back and tuck it down in the box. I replace the jewelry, lock the box, and put it in my mother’s bedside table. I hurry out to my chair, fold my hands, and try to think.

But I don’t like the dark thoughts that well up.

What I think is impossible.

I hear my great-grandfather whisper, “Consider the facts.”

She is on the stairs, coming up a full twenty minutes early, huffing and thumping and muttering to herself as she often does. Quickly I ball up the skirt and shove it beneath my chair behind my sewing box. Mrs. Anderson’s door scrapes open and Mother says, “Good evening.” Mrs. Anderson returns the greeting, then I hear our neighbor take the stairs down. A key rattles our lock. Our door swings open.

“Molly,” says Mother with her slightly lopsided smile. “Have you had a fine day?” She is tall and thin, and limps a bit. Her hands are chewed from laboring in the factory.

I open my mouth. Then snap it shut. Then open it again to say, “Peter Garrett is dead.”

“Oh, yes. I know. Poor Peter. I heard the talk. Sad. So sad.” She takes off her summer cap and puts it on the ear of her chair. She unfastens the top button of her dress, fans her chest, and pours a cup of water from the pitcher on the kitchen table. She drinks it noisily. “Have you not made us a supper, Molly? I’m so tired.”

“It’s too hot to cook, Mother,” I say. “It’s summer, remember. Let’s have some cheese and bread.”

Mother nods.

“Much too hot to heat the stove,” I continue. “I wonder why anyone would do that when the air is so stifling?”

Mother shrugs vaguely, sits down in her chair, which has all four legs, and rubs her arms. “So much work today,” she says. Her voice is so light, so childish. So innocent. “Delia got mad at me for looking at her for too long. She said I stared. I didn’t think I stared, but maybe so. Sometimes I just forget that I’m looking. My mind wanders. I don’t want to cause trouble. I don’t like trouble, Molly.”

“I know that.” I think I know that.

We sit at the table and have our meal of cheese and bread. As much as I try to remain composed, Mother senses something. “Molly, are you ill?”

I don’t know how to answer. I just eat and clear the dishes and wash them in the bin and put them away. Mother sits in her chair and opens her Bible then waits for me to sit to hear her read. She doesn’t read well, or fast, but this is our nightly ritual.

“What should I read, Molly?” Mother looks at me with her simple eyes, her simple smile.

I hesitate then whisper, “What does the Bible say of murder?”

Mother looks startled. “Why it is a sin, Molly. Whoever kills sins against God Himself.”

“I thought so.”

Mother struggles with my question and the cool attitude I’ve pulled on. I look for something in her eyes that I’ve not looked for before. A keenness? A dangerous spark? If it is there, she hides it well. I have never feared my mother… until now.

I get up, look out of the window. Peter will never again drive Sue up and down the road, never again deliver milk.

Then I speak before I can stop myself. “I found a key in your skirt pocket.” Turning, I see her still in her chair, holding her Bible, head tilted in confusion.

“Skirt?”

“The key that opens your jewelry box.”

“My necklace and earrings,” she says. “Did you want to wear them?”

“Now where would I wear them?”

“Consider the facts,” whispers Auguste in the depths of my ear.

“I don’t know, Molly, but I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

Mother, did you find some piece of wood yesterday, bring it home in your skirt, and then… I press my hand to my forehead against a pain that is building up like a foul blister. “Mother, why did we come to America?”

“I don’t know. Let me think.” She squints at the wall then says, “Oh, yes. It was better to come here. Better than Paris.”

“Why? What was wrong with Paris?”

Mother looks at the floor, her face scrunched up as if she is really trying to remember. It looks so sincere. “It’s a bad place. Bad things happened.”

Oh, God. “What bad things?”

“I…” She rubs her eyes with her fists then stares at me. I see little more than a child there, yet there must be more.

“Tell me what you remember.”

“I was in trouble.” Mother begins to cry. Silently, though, as if watching one of Edison’s films. “I didn’t want any more bad, Molly.”

“What bad?”

“You’ll hate me.”

“What bad?”

“You’ll hate me!” Mother screams. I’d never heard her scream before.

I take a breath and wipe my forehead, which is clammy and wet. I try to speak kindly, as knotted as my stomach and throat are in this very moment. “Mother, what bad?”

Mother gets up, wringing her hands, goes into her bedroom, comes back out, paces to the window then sits in her chair. Her brow is furrowed and her mouth screwed up. “I don’t want you to hate me, Molly!”

“I don’t hate you. Did you… did you kill anyone?”

Mother’s head drops and she nods. Merciful Christ!

“Did you kill four people?”

She nods. “I believe I did, Molly.”

For several full minutes I can’t speak. My cool and calculating brain is suddenly sluggish and fogged. Mother cries. I sit and stare at her.

Then: “Why did you kill them?”

“I got mad. They made me mad!”

“Did you kill Peter?”

“What?” She looks up.

“Did you kill Peter Garrett?”

Mother blinks as if someone has shone a bright light in her face. She frowns and bites her lip, before looking toward the window. “Dr. Burckholdt was a nice man. He made me better, Molly. He fixed my brain.”

“What? No, no. You said he tried to make you smarter, but it wasn’t successful.”

“I didn’t tell you the truth, Molly. It was the only time I lied to you. I wanted him to make me… to make me simple. And he did.”

I stomp my foot. “You make no sense! Now answer me, Mother. Did you kill Peter Garrett?”

Mother links her fingers. It’s as if she hasn’t heard my question. “I was like my mother. She was like my grandmother. We were oh, so fancy, don’t you see? Fancy women. Perfume. Necklaces. Wine and music. The men liked us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… we let men have us. Have their way with us. For money. Please don’t hate me, Molly!”

My teeth are on edge now, but I push ahead. “You were a prostitute?”

“A what? Oh, yes. A whore. I never told you. Don’t hate me, Molly.”

“Go on.”

“My mother got mad easy. She hit me when she got mad. She hit other people, too. She didn’t care if she hurt someone then. Or if she killed someone. She killed a man once, and a woman who made her mad. She never got caught. But she was a sinner. God hated her, I know!”

“Yes.”

“Her mother was the same way. Marie Dupin. That was my grandmother’s name. She was a whore, like all of us. She had a temper. She could be nice. Then in a second would hurt someone. Or kill them. I saw her kill a man once with a knife. The other whores threw him in the river so nobody found out. She didn’t remember killing him, but she did. I saw it. Oh! I had nightmares after that, Molly. I might not remember a lot of things. But I remember that.”

I clench my fists, one inside the other. I don’t want to hear this. But I have to. I am smart. I am not like my mother. I like to put information together, to figure things out. It makes me special.

“Mother…”

“Marie got a baby in her… got my mother in her… from Auguste Dupin. He didn’t visit us often at the brothel. But when he did, he liked my grandmother best.”

I feel anger stirring in my gut. It is hot like the worst of a summer’s day. “You told me my great-grandmother and Dupin were married. But now you say Dupin was only my great-grandmother’s customer?”

Mother hangs her head again. She starts to pick at a loose thread on a bodice buttonhole. “I wish they had been lovers, or married. She took his last name, anyway. Who would care what a whore called herself?”

“Mother.” I speak slowly through clenched jaws. “Did you kill Peter Garrett?”

Mother shakes her head violently. “No! No! I got my brain fixed, I told you! I was smart like my grandfather one time. Smart like you! But I was also like my mother and grandmother. I got mad like them. And when I did I didn’t always know what I was doing. I killed men who made me angry.”

Consider the facts…

“With a chair leg that had been sharpened and tempered in fire.”

Mother grimaces. “When you were born I loved you. You were the only person I ever loved. Molly, don’t hate me, please!” She picks more furiously at her buttonhole, and I know it will need mending along with the torn stockings. I don’t know that I’ll do the mending, though. I think I hate my mother now.

“Mother, did Peter make you angry? Were you upset that I loved him? Did you think I’d leave you?”

Mother looks at me. “I didn’t know you loved him.”

My breathing grows rapid. So do my heartbeats.

Mother shakes her head. “I didn’t want to kill any more, Molly. If the Paris coppers caught me they would kill me. Chop my head clean off! What would happen to you, you were such a little thing? I found out about Dr. Burckholdt. A man who operated on brains of people to make them better. To get rid of the bad. The sin. Some of them died, but I wasn’t scared. I didn’t care if I died. Better die than kill! Dr. Burckholdt visited Paris. I went to see him. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I let him have me. A trade. He said all right. He liked me. Thought I was pretty. When it was over my memory wasn’t so good. I wasn’t so good with numbers anymore. I got lost a lot. The women at the brothel didn’t like me anymore. They made sport of me. But I never killed anybody again. I promise I didn’t.”

I get up and lean on the window.

“I never ever killed again,” Mother repeats.

I look down at the street. Light is fading fast and heavy clouds are gathering. I hear Mother, still whimpering, go into her bedroom. This time she closes the door.

Mr. Denny stands outside his shop, smoking a cigar. Mr. Bruce is beside him, talking about something I can’t quite make out. Probably about Peter Garrett’s murder and the man they arrested for the crime. A cat laps at a muddy puddle in the middle of the road. It looks like it might rain again tonight.

I hear Mrs. Anderson in her flat across the hall, fussing at Katherine for staying out so late. Katherine, the prettiest woman in our neighborhood, who flounces and tosses her head oh, so haughtily. I saw her kissing Peter a couple of days ago. He laughed and kissed her back before he drove on in his milk wagon.

A dreadful heat that has nothing to do with summer stings the back of my mind.

I go to the pie safe and look down at my shoes. They are coated in mud.

I sit in my chair, pick up my knitting, and make a row with the large wooden needles. The first few stitches of the cream colored yarn are spotted with a gray, ashy residue and dried flecks; something crusty, reddish.

Consider the facts, great-granddaughter.

How terrible for the immigrant to be imprisoned wrongly and facing certain execution.

Yes. Yes.

But how much better for me.