“He would sing at night, in bed. I’d say, ‘Henry, that’s bad luck!’ and he would kiss me and say that whenever he was next to me he just couldn’t help it, he had to sing. That was the kind of man he was. But, he gambled.” She began to fan herself more quickly. “And then he started to drink, Mr. Driscoll. My mother and my sisters told me then that I had better divorce him because it could only mean trouble, but I didn’t have the heart to, or the strength. He didn’t get drunk the way some people do, you see. Alcohol affected Henry in a different way. It made him gentle and kind. He’d come back from some tavern and tell me that he had never seen such a beautiful place as our home. Our home!” Mrs. Cramer shook her head. “It was a terrible little hotel room, and we owed three months’ rent on it because of his gambling, and Mrs. Gottlieb would not speak to me. We had no furniture, no lovely things. But to Henry it was beautiful!

“He’d ask me to drink with him, too, Mr. Driscoll, and that was the shocking thing. ‘Come on, Laura,’ he would say, ‘join me. You’ll see things straight, for the first time. The ugliness will all go away! You watch, a few snorts, and we won’t have any problems. The bills will vanish! Mrs. Gottlieb won’t exist! And the whole world will be a wonderful place!’ He talked that way. Of course, I never touched a drop, and I have my mother to thank for that.”

“About Adam,” Driscoll said, glancing again at Peter Link. “If you would—”

“Henry,” said Mrs. Cramer, “got so that he was drunk almost every night of the week. Nothing bothered him, nothing at all! I’d ask him for money to pay the grocers and he’d cry and plead for my forgiveness, because, of course, he wouldn’t have a penny left. And that is the way it went for months. I couldn’t begin to count the times he promised he would straighten up and get a job and stick to it, but finally I told him I did not believe him any more, and that is when he stopped crying and making promises. Mother told me to leave him at once. She told me to come home where I belonged—we lived in Washington, my mother and sisters, and I’d gone to Chicago for a lark. I thought it would be fun to work as a secretary, so I went to a school. But I could never seem to learn much. That is when I met Henry.”

Ed Driscoll folded his pad resignedly and replaced his pencil. “Yes, Mrs. Cramer,” he said. “Please go on.”

“Would you gentlemen like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”