The Lions of Fifth Avenue: A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

London, 1993

Why anyone traveled more than two time zones away was beyond Sadie’s comprehension. She’d woken up drooling and groggy as the flight attendants passed around breakfast trays with a deafening clatter. The slow trudge off the plane was followed by a long wait in line at customs.

The travel agent had found her a cheap fare that departed three days after she’d first brought up the idea with Lonnie, along with a reasonable rate at a bed-and-breakfast. Once there, she lay down for what was meant to be a twenty-minute nap and woke up six hours later, starving and confused. A restless night in her room attempting to sleep followed, before the lady who owned the B&B knocked on her door the next morning carrying a tea tray, chatting away in a singsong voice about rising and shining, when all Sadie wanted to do was go back to bed.

She’d wasted most of her first day asleep, and there were only four left, so Sadie pulled herself out of bed and took a long bath, washing her hair using the unwieldy spray nozzle and trying not to wet the lime-green floral wallpaper as she did so. Not an easy task.

The tube wasn’t at all like the subway in New York, where tokens were swallowed up by the turnstiles and off you went. Here, you had to prove you hadn’t traveled any farther than the zone you’d paid for, or so explained the irritable tube agent as Sadie bumbled her way through the turnstile, having misplaced her ticket. It was embarrassing, getting so much wrong, when she usually prided herself on getting things right.

She tried her best, eating sandwiches consisting of only a bit of cheese and a drippy tomato, drinking tea, figuring out which coins to leave for a tip. If she were with Nick, they might have had a good laugh at the myriad of differences between the two cultures. She missed him. She missed the library, the smell of old books, and her squeaky desk chair. The days when everything was in order, and she knew what to expect.

She was discombobulated—what a perfectly onomatopoeic word to describe her current state, all jumpy, confused, and tired. The city of London was discombobulated as well, the IRA having blown up a bomb-filled truck in the city’s financial district two weeks ago, killing one and injuring more than forty. It hadn’t deterred Sadie from coming, though, just as the bombing in the parking garage of the World Trade Center hadn’t changed the way she went about her day in New York. Although she had to admit she quickened her step as she passed by trucks—they were called lorries here—idling by the side of the road.

But Sadie’s shoulders began to drop and her mood lifted as she followed the map along the hilly streets of Highgate to the address that was on all of the correspondence from Laura Lyons’s estate. The air felt lighter here than the air in New York City, softer. She ended up in front of a redbrick town house with a manic rose garden out front, a crazy riot of white blossoms and thorny vines that looked vaguely sinister, like flowery barbed wire. She realized with a start that it was the exact location where Laura Lyons was standing in the photograph in Lonnie’s dining room.

Sadie knocked on the door. After a short wait, an older woman with high cheekbones and huge blue eyes opened the door.

“Hello, I’m looking for Miss Hilary Quinn,” said Sadie.

The woman didn’t answer right away, just stared. “That’s me. Who are you?” She spoke with a throaty croak.

“I’m Sadie Donovan. Laura Lyons’s granddaughter. I’ve been calling, trying to reach you, from New York. I thought I’d stop by during my trip abroad and introduce myself.”

Miss Quinn squinted at her suspiciously; then her eyes softened. “You look so much like her. Forgive me, I’ve been a little under the weather, and seeing you is something of a shock. Come in.”

The apartment took up the first two floors of the building, the lower one opening up to a large kitchen with a long wooden table in the center and a living room behind it that looked out onto another jungle-like garden. This was where Laura Lyons had written her essays. This was where she’d come up with her radical ideas and put them into words that had inspired generations.

And this was where Sadie’s mom, Pearl, had spent several years before returning to New York for college. Once again, Sadie felt a pang of guilt for not asking more questions. Then again, what child cares about their parent’s life before they were born? It’s not until it’s too late that the resonance of the earlier times, and how they echo through the next generation, are deemed valuable.

“Would you like some tea?” Miss Quinn moved stiffly toward the stove.

“Can I help? Please don’t if it’s a bother.”

“No bother at all.”

Sadie settled into one of the wooden chairs at the table. “When did you first come to work for my grandmother?”

“Back in 1935. Eons ago.”

“Did you know my mother, Pearl?” Even as she asked, she realized the math didn’t add up for their paths to cross.

“No. Laura sometimes talked about her daughter in the States but never went to see her, and the girl never came here.”

“Did she ever say why? Was there a falling-out?”

Miss Quinn shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Sadie waited, but the woman didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. Maybe Sadie was being too direct, too American. She tried a softer approach. “It’s been wonderful, the way Laura Lyons is finally being appreciated for her work.”

“These days, I get legions of Lyons fans wanting to know more about her, about her life,” sniffed Miss Quinn. “Knocking on my door first thing in the morning, asking for a tour.” That explained her reticence.

“I’m a fan, but I hope you realized it’s more than that. Although I do have questions.”

Miss Quinn poured the tea into teacups and sat across from Sadie. “Hoping for something for your exhibit? Is that why you’ve really come?”

So she’d listened to Sadie’s telephone messages. But Miss Quinn’s words were in no way an invitation. They were a warning.

“It’s my field. So of course I’m interested in anything that might have been left behind.” There was no point in mentioning that an early draft of a Laura Lyons essay might be the only thing to save what was left of Sadie’s reputation. “But honestly, as her granddaughter, I’d love to know more about what she was like.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“I assure you, I don’t want to be a bother. My mom was close-lipped about her mother, and Laura Lyons was such an iconic figure. You can understand, can’t you?”

Miss Quinn seemed to gather her thoughts. “She was quiet, not a chatty sort. Careful, but generous.”

That was a start. “I’m sorry I never knew her.”

“You look just like her, almost gave me a heart attack at first. That hair. But it’s more than that, it’s your eyes, too.”

“And we both love literature, of course. I quite like the idea of taking after her. We both were married, and then embraced an independent life.” She pushed aside thoughts of Nick. “Forging ahead alone.”

Miss Quinn’s lips pursed, like she was going to say something but thought better of it.

The look in her eyes brought Sadie up short. “Did Laura fall in love again later?”

“No. What a silly question.” Displeasure dripped from Miss Quinn’s words. The woman was hiding something.

“No beaus or mad affairs?” Sadie couldn’t help but dig further.

“Of course not.”

“Huh. I mean, I would think it would be natural for a talented, successful woman like her to find someone later in life.” Sadie waited, but Miss Quinn didn’t elaborate. “Can I ask, why didn’t she want to leave any of her papers behind?”

“Why should she?” Now she really had Miss Quinn’s back up. The interview was going downhill, fast.

“As a curator, what writers leave behind in the way of early drafts, diaries, or notes interests me greatly. I’m curious as to why Laura Lyons refused to leave anything for posterity.”

“She said she wanted the work to stand on its own, and not have it watered down by rough drafts or snippets scrawled on envelopes. The work, she said, had been distilled to its essence, so nothing further was necessary.”

“So her directive was to destroy everything after her death?”

Miss Quinn pointed to the hearth in the living room. “I did it right there, the day after.”

Sadie stared into the hearth, horrified. Her entire professional life she’d collected, preserved, and revered notes and letters. To think of all those clues to a life gone, up the chimney, turned into ash.

What a terrible loss. Sadie wanted to shake this woman and make her understand that it was nothing to be proud of, what she’d done.

“You’re judging me, I can see that,” Miss Quinn said.

“No, of course not.” But the words rang false, even to Sadie’s ears. In her eagerness, she’d pushed too far.

“I think you better leave.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. Please, I’ve come all this way. My mother recently passed away, and I’ve been under pressure at work . . .” She trailed off, uncertain of what more to say. “Could we start again? Please?”

But the woman remained unmoved by Sadie’s pleas. The interview was over.

Sadie returned the next morning. And the next. She knew Miss Quinn was there, lurking just behind the front door, and figured she’d show her that she wasn’t about to give up.

At night, she sought out the London music venues she’d only read about: the Blue Note for some acid jazz, the sonorous voice of Leonard Cohen echoing through the Royal Albert Hall, and the pounding beats and pulsing lights of the Four Aces. But the energy that normally coursed through her body as she ventured out into the night wasn’t there anymore. She felt tired, yes, but also spent. Like the beat of a bass drum would no longer serve its purpose as a way of losing herself, hiding from herself.

On her final day, she stopped by Miss Quinn’s place again. The front curtain fluttered as she stepped around the rose brambles that encroached upon the front walk, but again, there was no response to the bell. This was madness, really. What had her grandmother been thinking, to put such a selfish ninny in charge of her estate?

Then again, she probably hadn’t counted on dying so young.

She rapped hard on the door, waited a beat, then knocked again. “Miss Quinn, it’s Sadie again. Sadie Donovan. I would love to talk to you.”

Outside the gate, a woman pushing one of those old-fashioned prams walked past, pursing her lips at Sadie’s racket.

Sadie gave her a fake smile and kept on. “Miss Quinn, are you in there? I’m fairly certain you’re in there.”

Still, nothing. She’d be heading back to New York with nothing to show other than a T-shirt with the Union Jack on it for Valentina. She put her back against the door and slid down to the stoop, watching the fog roll by like a parade of ghosts. It felt good to just sit and be and not have to think.

“Here’s the deal, Miss Quinn.” She spoke out to the air, to the garden, to no one in particular. “I’m going to be honest with you. I do want something out of you, it’s true. I’d love to get my hands on something, anything, of Laura Lyons’s that I can show my boss and we can put up in the exhibit. You see, my job is on the line, for a number of reasons—none of them to do with my qualifications, I assure you, I’m the best librarian in the institution, by far—but my people skills, you might say, could use some polishing. Really, we have a lot more in common than you’d think. My grandmother, our ability to successfully tune other people out and go about our business. Hats off to you, I say.”

She heard a bump on the other side of the door. Miss Quinn was there listening to every word. She straightened up. “There’s been a series of thefts of books at the library, and I have to find out who did it and fix that situation. It turns out that there were thefts during Laura’s time there as well, and I want to know if there’s a connection, any connection. Or if she said anything about them to you.”

The door opened unexpectedly, and Sadie almost fell into the foyer. She twisted around and looked up at Miss Quinn, who from this angle seemed fierce, staring down at her with those frosty blue eyes. “Come in.”

More tea, more sitting at the kitchen table, but this time Miss Quinn took some biscuits with jam centers from a tin and put them on a plate. “Where are you staying?”

“In Bloomsbury.” Sadie nibbled on a biscuit. “Delicious. My mother used to make these.”

“Laura used to brag about her daughter’s skill in the kitchen.”

Progress.

“My mother was an excellent baker. She passed away in late March.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“I’d read in the biographies that my grandmother died during a German raid on London, a bombing during World War II, but not much more. Did it happen nearby?”

For a moment, it seemed as if Miss Quinn was going to shut down again. But then she gave a slight shake of her head, as if rousing herself. “She’d gone into town, to visit her friend Amelia.”

Something about the way Miss Quinn said the name gave Sadie pause. There was a softness to it. She’d been fond of her.

“Amelia?”

“Yes. Dr. Amelia Potter, the public health advocate. She was quite famous, in her time.”

“What did she do?”

“She made sure the poor received decent medical care. Saved thousands of lives, improved thousands of others.”

“And she and Laura were close?”

“Very close.”

It all clicked. Amelia and Laura had been more than friends, Sadie was certain of it. It explained Miss Quinn’s defensiveness to Sadie’s earlier questions about Laura’s love life. She took a deep breath. “Can I ask, were they lovers?”

Miss Quinn looked down at her hands.

“If they were, I think it’s a fine thing,” commented Sadie.

“It’s not to be discussed.”

“Maybe back then, but times have changed. Or at least, they’re changing. If they were close, I think it’s wonderful.”

Miss Quinn regarded her with a raised eyebrow, as if she were assessing Sadie’s worthiness. When she finally spoke, the words tumbled out, her relief at disclosing a long-held secret palpable. “It was wonderful. They were a beautiful pair. They first met in New York, and although they kept separate residences, they rarely spent a night apart.”

All this time, Sadie had imagined she was modeling her life after Laura’s, keeping her focus on her work, when in fact Laura had been in a relationship for decades, one that easily could have imperiled her reputation and livelihood if the truth were discovered. Yet Laura had pursued who she loved regardless, while Sadie had refused even the possibility of love after her divorce.

Sadie leaned forward. “It means so much that you protected them. I can understand why you would, as you wanted her legacy to be about her work. Were they together, at the end?”

“I’d told her not to go to Amelia’s, that it wasn’t safe, but she insisted. She always had a strong will.” Miss Quinn stared out the window into the front yard. “She stayed late, as she sometimes used to. A German bomb dropped, and the building toppled over onto both of them.”

“How awful. For you as well.”

Miss Quinn looked over at Sadie. “Thank you for saying that.”

Sadie saw the situation from the older woman’s point of view. She’d done as she’d been instructed, protecting her employer’s legacy, and then, once Laura Lyons became a household name, been scorned for it. “Thank you for taking care of her estate. My brother and I appreciate it.”

“I wish she’d been alive to see how far she’s come.”

“To see how far ahead of her time she was, you mean.”

“That’s right.” Miss Quinn gave Sadie a slight nod. “I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else, since you’ve been asking about her writings. And I’m only telling you this because you’re her granddaughter. A few months before she died, when the entire city was on edge and no one knew what the future held, she told me that she’d written one essay to be saved for after her death, and that she’d give it to me one day, but not yet. She said it told the truth, and that for now she always carried it with her.”

“The truth?” repeated Sadie. “It wasn’t on her when she was found?”

Miss Quinn waved a hand. “I went through all her belongings. Combed all the pockets of all her coats, her dresses. There was nothing tucked away in a secret lining.”

“Did she ever mention her husband, my grandfather?”

“She never spoke of him, and rarely spoke of her children, but it wasn’t from lack of emotion. I got the impression that it was too much emotion that stopped her. She was focused on whatever she was working on. Laura was at times joyful, always quick-witted. But she didn’t talk about her life in America.”

“So she never talked about a robbery at the library in New York?”

“No.” But Miss Quinn’s answer was careful, measured. “What was stolen?”

“A number of rare books. Probably the most important work was Poe’s Tamerlane. It was really valuable, and one of the first things that went missing, back when Laura and the family lived there.”

“Poe. Her favorite.”

“She told you that?” Sadie put down the cookie she’d just picked up.

“One time, I remember we were at a Christmas party given by the family down the street. A husband, wife, two children, a boy and a girl. Laura had gotten quite drunk, which was not like her, and was staring up at this bookcase that covered one entire wall. In her hand was a volume of Poe’s collected poetry, and she turned to me and said she loved Poe best.” Miss Quinn paused, as if deciding whether to continue. “She grew very mysterious, sort of playful, and she said she knew one that was hidden away, in a place where no one would find it.”

“One—meaning a book by Poe?”

“She laughed. She told me that the book was exactly where it should be, yet exactly where it should not. I asked her what she meant by that, but she got teary and changed the subject. I remember this well because I’d never seen her cry before. She was a controlled woman.”

Where it should be, yet where it should not.

In a library, was the answer to the first part. What if the answer to the second was somewhere inside the old apartment, where they had lived? What if Laura Lyons knew her husband had stashed the stolen book somewhere close by, somewhere safe? That would be the most obvious, and easiest, hiding place. Maybe under an old floorboard or in some old cupboard. With all the boxes and detritus piled up since the rooms had been turned into storage, it was possible that anything hidden had remained undisturbed in the intervening years.

Miss Quinn finished her tea. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help to you.”

“No, it’s nice to hear about her.”

“I hope you’re able to secure your job.”

“Me, too.”

They parted with Sadie promising to keep in touch.

Back at the bed-and-breakfast, she remembered with a start that it was Lonnie’s birthday, and gave him a call to wish him well, filling him in on what she’d learned. “I’m eager to get back into the old apartment and see what I can find,” she said.

“You’re dealing with recollections from many years ago, but I hope it leads to something. I take it you’re ready to come home?” he asked.

“I am. It was good to get away, I’m glad I went. I feel like I can handle whatever’s coming down the pike now.”

“I’ve got your back.”

“Thank you. And happy birthday, big brother.”

After a long flight home, Sadie threw down her luggage and fell into bed, dreaming of sirens blaring, of bombs going off, and of fire. She woke to the sound of her phone ringing and answered with a groggy “Hello?”

“Sadie, it’s LuAnn.”

She checked the clock, seven in the morning. “LuAnn? What is it?”

“Is Valentina with you?”

Sadie shot upright. “No. Why?”

She waited for LuAnn to say more, but the only sound was a strange inhalation, like she was unable to catch her breath. Like she was underwater.

“What is it? What’s happened?” Sadie demanded.

“She’s missing.” A pause, another choked cry. “Valentina’s gone.”