“My goodness, it was hours later. Almost five o’clock. There I was, right on the very same bench. Like I was Sleeping Beauty, gone for a long nap and never been missed.”
“Were you injured?”
“I-I didn’t know. There’s no cushion on that old bench, so I was stiff as a board. And awfully dizzy still, with a terrible headache. Must have been that stuff he had on the cloth. The doctors think it was chloroform.”
“But nothing broken?”
“How many times have they had me to X-ray, Mr. Pridgen? MRIs and all these other fancy tests.”
“I’m going to ask you something very personal, Miss Eliot. Sergeant Pridgen has explained what my job is, why Mercer and I work together,” I said. “We need to know whether this man touched any part of your body before you lost consciousness.”
Jane Eliot sat up straighter and talked more seriously. “Now, why would anybody want to do
It was the specifics I had to establish, whether she wanted to hear them or not.
“What had you been wearing, Miss Eliot? Can you tell us that?”
“Pridgen knows. A housecoat, like this one, but light green. They button up the front so it’s easier for my arthritic shoulders than lifting over my head.”
“And was your clothing disturbed?”
“Hard to disturb a wrinkled housecoat, isn’t it?”
“Do you have any sense that this man might have touched your breasts?”
She put one arm to her chest and chuckled. “They were right where I left them, Alex. He didn’t have anything to do with them.”
“And your undergarments? Did you have any type of underwear on?”
“These young men probably don’t remember the word ‘girdle.’ I wear a firm girdle, and support hose for the circulation in my legs. Might take a construction crew to get through all of that.”
“I’m glad to know that you weren’t molested,” I said, “and that nothing was broken. Do you have any idea why someone would want to break in to your home?”
“I’ve been sitting here going on four days. Plenty of time to think about it,” Jane Eliot said. “He was either just a fool, or he broke in to the wrong apartment.”
“Do you have any valuables there?” I asked. “Has anyone had a chance to see what was missing?”
“I taught elementary school till they put me out to pasture at sixty-five. Fourth grade mathematics. Multiplication tables and time tests-everything that became obsolete with the new math. I’m at an age at which I give my possessions away, Alex. Never had the money for fine things, and don’t like the clutter. Had a sweet set of porcelain dolls people brought me from all over the world, but I gave them to my niece years ago.”
“No cash that you kept in the house? No jewelry?”
“I was wearing the only piece of gold I own. Couldn’t have missed it if he was looking for something pricey to steal. It’s bright and shiny, and practically the size of an alarm clock,” Jane Eliot said. “Show her, Pridgen.”
He walked to the bedside table and picked up the watch, noting its heft before passing it to me. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Eliot. If you had cracked the bum over the head with this, he’d have been a goner.”
“Wish I’d thought of it then,” she said. “It’s a man’s watch, Alex. It was given to my father after fifty years at his job. The big size-and the large numbers-suit me well. I’ve worn it ever since he’s been gone.”
“Fifty years,” Pridgen said to Mercer. “Today most guys would be lucky to get a bologna sandwich and a pat on the back after working someplace half a century.”
I examined the striking face of the old timepiece. The famous French maker’s name written on the dial added value to the watch, which appeared to be made of solid gold.
“He obviously missed the opportunity to take this-it’s such a beautiful keepsake. I’m sure that would have been a terrible loss to you. Were there any other things like this that you had hidden away? Any reason for him to ransack your rooms?”
“Not a blessed thing for him to find, I promise you.”
I turned the watch over in my hand and read the inscription on the back of it.
I had begun to think the connection to Tina Barr was a coincidence. But now my adrenaline surged.
“Miss Eliot,” I said, “your father worked for the library?”
“Started there right out of high school, Alex, as assistant to the chief engineer.”
“And you, did you have any direct association with the place yourself?”
“My dear, I was born in the New York Public Library during a snowstorm in 1928.”
“Not literally?”
“Yes, quite literally, young lady. There was an entire apartment within the library where the chief engineer and his family lived, till they threw us out. Needed the room after the Second World War. Until I went off to college, Alex, the public library was my home.”
THIRTY-FOUR
“Have I tired you, Miss Eliot?” I asked. “I think you’ve triggered some information that can help us figure out why you were attacked.”
“I’m just getting warmed up for you. Do go on. I’d like to be helpful.”
“A girl was murdered this week. A conservator who used to work at the library but was involved with private collectors most recently.”
“I heard something about it on the radio this morning. Terribly sad.”
“Mercer and I have been all through the library. No one said anything about an actual apartment within it. Is that what you mean?”
“In 1908, even before the library opened, a man named John Fedeler was named chief engineer. There was a seven-room apartment built for him to live in with his family, and when it came time for him to retire eighteen years later, that’s when my father got the job and we moved in.”
“What was it like then?” I asked.
“Quite a spectacular space, really, especially coming from a tenement in Hell’s Kitchen, where my parents had lived. It was an enormous duplex, with an entrance on the mezzanine floor, facing the central courtyard of the building. All paneled in the finest walnut. Big fireplaces and leather armchairs that my mother used to sit in at night, reading to us.”
Jane Eliot seemed to delight in her reminiscences. “It’s where I was raised, Alex. We were the envy of all the children at school.”
“What’s become of that apartment, do you know?” I asked, as Mercer drew his chair in as close to her as mine.
“I get invited back every few years, a bit like a dog and pony show, to some of those luncheons. The president occasionally puts me on display as the only baby ever born inside the place,” Eliot said. “But the whole apartment is broken up now.”
“What’s it used for?”
“The top floor, where we children lived, that’s all become administrative offices. There was a wonderful spiral staircase, so we could go up and down without entering the library hallway. I suppose that’s still in place. Our kitchen is the reproduction center-Xeroxing and that kind of thing. And the family living chambers are where some of the special collections are sorted out.”
“You’re saying the apartment was self-contained, is that right?” Mercer asked. “But were you allowed into the library itself?”
“That was the great fun of it, of course. I mean, we always had to wait until all the offices were closed for the evening, but gradually, as time went by, Father let us have the run of the place. After dark, mostly, when it was quite spooky, full of great shadows that came from the streetlights outside, and an eerie quiet that settled over the enormous hallways.”
