The state of my little garret room wasn’t as horrifying as the niggles in my stomach had insisted it would be. The rug had been removed along with the body and the maid told me in a few well-chosen words how many buckets of hot water she’d hauled upstairs before the floorboards were saved from ruin.
My quilt was gone and a coverlet added. The wallpaper had been scrubbed, but the print had begun to fade before the bloodstains. They would have to re-paper.
The sunset poured through my open window and cast the room in pink light. I sighed and removed my hat, hanging it on a hook in the wall. Things on my bureau had been knocked about. My green celluloid vanity set was jumbled. I opened a drawer to put my gloves away and realized its contents were also in chaos.
I flipped on the light and began to tidy in earnest, keeping noise to a minimum so as not to disturb downstairs.
The Prosts were beside themselves, as much as the immovable bedrock of society could be moved. Mrs. Prost knew they were the subject of conversation for miles and fretted that she was compelled to wait for tomorrow before she could call on the neighbors and set the rumors straight. Dr. Prost had snapped his newspaper and frowned into it, his only words upon my humble return being, “They say it isn’t your fault, Miss Brown. But I’m shocked all the same.”
A brief, cold supper in the kitchen had been all I could manage before disappearing upstairs.
On my knees, I straightened the last drawer and closed it. Something winked at me from beneath the bureau feet. A thin gold chain slid into my hand. I held it up to the light. A small oval St. Christopher’s medallion hung from it. The police must have thought it was mine. They hadn’t taken it, so it couldn’t belong to the dead man.
I sat back on my heels and considered things. Someone—no, two men—had climbed up to my window and entered this room and fought. The thief killed the policeman and left. I stood up and peered out of my window. Only a very coordinated person would attempt the climb. Someone light on his feet, which made sense for a burglar.
I glanced around the room. They hadn’t left it. I’d seen my tiny slip of paper flutter to the floor when I opened my door. The thief had looked through my things and found nothing, of that I was certain. The last of my pocket money had been spent in the subway, so unless he was after my petticoats, he had been frustrated.
And waited here behind the door? For me?
I tried to picture it. The policeman watches the thief climb in. The thief does not return. The house is silent, empty, but not for long. They both must have known someone would return eventually. What if it had not been me? Would the thief have simply climbed back out the window and tried again another day?
Suddenly, I stood up. Was he going to come back? Certainly not after the house had been filled with police all afternoon. I swallowed hard, turned the light out, and stepped slowly to the window. Nothing moved in the dark yard behind the house. A dog barked in the distance and a ship’s bell rang out.
The policeman must have climbed up after the thief, concerned that he was robbing the safe downstairs, not wanting to try the door for fear of giving himself away, maybe thinking he could catch him in the act. Perhaps the policeman didn’t realize the thief was still in the room until it was too late.
Too late.
I wrapped my arms around myself. The captain’s voice whispered in my ear. What did I have worth killing for?
The house was quiet with sabbath rest. I slipped the medallion on its chain into my pocket and removed my shoes. In stockinged feet, I silently left my room and crept down the small set of stairs to the second floor and turned in at the first door.
Thick carpet muffled my steps as I crossed the library to the ceiling-to-floor bookcases. I found my way by what night light poured through the tall windows. After two years of classes here with the boys, I could’ve moved around the room blindfolded. The slim, oversized journal slid from its spot between Jules Vernes and Rudyard Kipling. My only treasure.
Papa’s last notes.
I crept to the large table in the center of the room and opened the pages. They were full of indecipherable sketches and notes. Papa had never stopped inventing. I could picture Papa in his study, poring over books and papers. He’d laugh if I tried to tidy for him.
He’d scoop me up in a bear hug, his smoking jacket scented with pipe tobacco and peppermint. Then, we’d read about scientific discoveries, medical practices, or the intricacies of steam engines.
“Such a pomposity,” Mama would say in her pretty accent. She wasn’t opposed to my unorthodox education so long as it was returned to the shelf when it came time to marry.
A handful of letters shuffled onto the table. Condolences from colleagues. I’d read them only once before stashing them into the back of the journal. Dr. Prost hadn’t sent me a letter when the news came about Papa. He’d offered me a job instead. Although I was grateful, even that act of generosity had reached its limits.
Frowning at the envelopes, I wondered if they held any value to a thief. Most of Papa’s peers weren’t on speaking terms with him at the end, but that wasn’t his fault. Jealousy was an evil mistress.
I was named for Papa’s mother, Loveda Europa Brown. She was a schoolteacher. She died when Papa was eight and his father sent his only child to his aunt to study in New York. He graduated high school with honors, then came to Massachusetts to sit for the entrance exam for West Point.
Papa walked into the wrong room and ended up taking the four-day entrance exam for the Naval Academy instead.
The rest was history, as he scored the highest of the applicants and didn’t want to waste the effort or opportunity. He ended up a Naval officer. But he was famous for his inventions.
Over the course of his adventures, Papa applied for patents on his wild ideas, retired from the military to work for Mr. Thomas Edison for a year, then left to pursue his own electric imagination. Papa opened his company in 1884 and immediately had a new electric motor on exhibit.
That had been the last time Mr. Edison spoke to him. Mr. Edison had been Papa’s hero, but I suspected the sentiment had not been reciprocated. There were arguments over who got credit for which piece of inspired innovation. Accusations flew. The fierce competition cast a shadow over the light they both brought into the world.
The race to be first, as Papa told me later, involved every scientist on earth.
I could hear Papa saying, “The millionth patent has been filed in the Patent Office. Can you imagine? A million brilliant ideas!”
His large hands on my small ones. His booming laugh. His piercing gray eyes. His bushy beard tickling when he kissed me goodnight.
“Look to the future, darling girl!” he always said.
I always wished, in hindsight, that’d I’d given him another hug. An extra moment to remind him how much I loved him instead of rolling my eyes. He was a force to be reckoned with.
None of my letters were from Mr. Edison. Westinghouse, yes. Tesla. Brush. Sprague. I smiled in spite of myself. Papa had met Mr. Pasteur, Mr. Morse, Mr. Bell, and even Mr. Stanley, whose name graced the side of every Thermos full of hot coffee. I wondered why he hadn’t invited the Wright brothers to tea. Some day, I was going up in an airplane.
I pulled the medallion from my pocket and dangled it over the journal.
“What do you want with this?” I asked it. “It’s as complicated as hieroglyphics and twice as old. I doubt you’re the sentimental type.”
Footsteps in the hall passed outside the closed door and I gathered everything up and slipped the journal into the bookcase. Once the house was silent again, I returned to my room with no one the wiser.
The first thing I did was close the window and draw the curtains. The heat would become unbearable, but I could sleep in an oven so long as I knew I was sleeping alone.
Less than five minutes later, I had to admit I was wrong. Lying in bed, I remained surrounded by ghosts of the past, phantoms of the future, and the creeping, spine-tingling horror of what had happened in my room mere hours ago.
I recited the multiplication tables to myself until I fell asleep.