It had been in plain sight all this time, folded neatly atop an imposing leather-bound dictionary, but I hadn’t noticed it through all the junk. Ivory white, immaculately stitched, the irises as delicate as spring, the glove as light as nothing.

“Where did you find this?” I said, and for the first time, she was rattled. Not frightened, not shaken—simply confused.

“That? Barman at Merrill’s found it under one of the tables.”

“Why did he bring it to you?”

“He thought it was one of mine. The brand on the wrist. The fool didn’t know a thing about leatherwork. I was an artist with leather. Whoever made this was an oaf. The stitches are too small, straight, and boring, the leather too thin. It’s a dainty glove. It wouldn’t last a season. My gloves were made to survive.”

“Then you didn’t make this for Copeland to give to his wife?”

“No.”

“What about this one?” I showed her the awful glove, the one I’d stolen, the troublemaker.

“That,” she said with undeserved pride, “is one of mine. Older than you, and in much better shape. I told you, I made them to last.”

“You didn’t think it peculiar, finding a glove identical to one you sewed in the last century?” I was shouting. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I didn’t think I could stop. “With the same pattern, the same color, the same brand?”

“Why would I worry about a silly thing like that?”

“Can I take it?”

“Why should I mind? It’s only a glove.”

“It could be very valuable to me.”

An ounce of leather, and I could extract myself from my obligation to Mrs. Copeland. I could give her what she asked for, and absolutely nothing more. No answers. No peace. But I would be released.

Instead, I poured another drink, and asked the question.

“How did my father die?”

“First you accuse me of killing Galen, and now this?”

“I didn’t say you killed him. I asked how he died. You were a . . . part of his life until the very end. Surely you have a theory.”

“I always assumed he threw himself into the river or under a train. His mind was diseased.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

“Until . . .”

“Last night. I saw the shadows come alive. I saw . . . something kill the man who shot Fournier. What if they killed my father too?”

“Oh, girl, don’t be stupid. That’s just superstition.”

“It’s what I saw.”

“Then I’d be worried, because madness is hereditary. What do you remember about the day he died?”

“He was supposed to meet me at the Polo Grounds. Instead, he was on Forty-Eighth Street, going over an old crime scene.”