Murder on Washington Square (20 page)

“If he was overcome with drink, nothing
could
have happened,” Sarah pointed out indignantly.

Malloy frowned in disapproval. She supposed he didn’t think she should know such an obviously masculine secret. “Our Mr. Ellsworth doesn’t seem to be aware of that.”

“If he doesn’t remember, then what makes him think he did anything?” Sarah demanded.

“Miss Blake told him all about it. Tearfully.”

Sarah groaned. “How could he be so stupid?”

“I’m afraid that’s a mystery I don’t have any hope of solving, so I’m going to content myself with just trying to figure out who killed her.”

“If she was an actress, at least we can find out some more about her. Someone will know her at the theaters. We could ask around.”

“Why?” Malloy asked with another frown.

“She might have had enemies before she ever met Nelson,” Sarah suggested hopefully. “There might be dozens of people she knew before who wanted her dead.”

Malloy gave her a pitying look.

“But it’s not very likely, is it?” Sarah admitted.

Malloy shrugged. “There’s always a chance. But I think Giddings is a better chance. He had very good reason to want Anna Blake dead.”

“Except he didn’t act like a killer that day he came to the house looking for her. He was genuinely distraught when he found out she was dead.”

“Or maybe he’s as good an actor as Anna Blake. He wasn’t home when I went to his house, so I didn’t get a chance to question him any more. I’ll try again tomorrow, and if he’s not home, I’ll find him this time.”

Sarah remembered something else. “Who do you think the young man was who visited Anna that night?”

“I think it was Giddings’s son, Harold. He knew about Anna, and he wasn’t happy about her. His family lost everything because of her. When Giddings got caught stealing from his law firm, he had to sell everything he owned to repay the debt, including their furniture.”

Sarah winced. “How humiliating. His wife must be devastated.”

“She’s hiding it pretty well, trying to keep up a good front for the boy, I guess. But she’s got to hate Anna Blake, too.”

“Oh, my, do you think
Mrs.
Giddings could be the killer?” Sarah asked with genuine interest.

“Women commit murder, too,” he reminded her.

She knew that only too well. “Did Mrs. Giddings strike you as a murderess?”

“Not really, but you can never tell about that kind of woman. They’re good at hiding their real feelings.”

Sarah could have given him a thousand examples of women of
all
kinds who were good at that, but she didn’t bother. “Mrs. Giddings probably wouldn’t have been out in the evening alone, though,” Sarah said, “and certainly not in Washington Square.”

“Anna wasn’t killed in the Square.”

“What do you mean? That’s where she was found,” Sarah reminded him.

“The coroner also told me that she walked a ways after she was stabbed. He could tell by the way she’d bled on her dress. She was stabbed somewhere else and was probably trying to get back home to get help when she collapsed in the Square.”

“So she could have been stabbed anywhere,” Sarah said, trying to figure out what this might mean. “Even someplace where she might have met Mrs. Giddings.”

“Or her son,” Malloy said.

Washington Square was just across the street, but they had to wait for a break in the steady stream of carriages and wagons to give them an opportunity to cross. The wind had started to stir up clouds of dust and dirt, and Sarah began to think this might not be an ordinary storm. While they stood there, squinting their eyes against the gritty wind, they heard someone calling Malloy’s name.

Malloy muttered something under his breath that might have been a curse when he turned and saw who was running toward them. “Even God took a day of rest, Prescott,” he grumbled when the gangly reporter reached them.

“I went to the boarding house where Miss Blake lived, and they said you’d just been there,” Webster Prescott said. He was breathless from running, and his fair face had pinkened from the exertion. He looked like a very tall child who had been chasing his hoop in the street. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Brandt,” he added with a gesture that might have been a tip of his straw hat if he hadn’t been struggling to hold it on his head. “How nice to see you again.”

Sarah could see the speculation in his eyes, but she wasn’t about to confirm or deny anything about her relationship with Malloy, especially when she had no idea in what direction he might be speculating. “It’s nice to see you, too, Mr. Prescott. I’ve been wanting to have a word with you about that story you wrote about Mr. Ellsworth,” she added grimly.

He didn’t seem to sense her anger. “My editor was very pleased with it, too. We sold out of last night’s edition, and I ran a longer piece this morning. Now I need some more information, and I thought I might get it from Miss Blake’s landlady.”

“But she sent you packing,” Malloy guessed.

Prescott wouldn’t admit such a thing. “She said you had just questioned her and warned her against speaking to the press.” He managed to appear offended.

“And you thought you’d get some information out of me?” Malloy asked incredulously.

Prescott smiled guilelessly. “No, but I thought Mrs. Brandt might be willing to share some with me.”

“I certainly am not!” Sarah informed him. “I told you Nelson Ellsworth was
innocent
, and you twisted everything I said to make him sound guiltier than ever!”

“But after what I revealed about Anna Blake, he’ll never be convicted,” Prescott argued. “Most of the other papers have also started reporting that Anna Blake was a seductress who tried to ruin Ellsworth. By the time he goes to trial, there won’t be a man in the city who’d judge him guilty.”

“But he shouldn’t go to trial at all!” Sarah fairly shouted. “He didn’t kill her!”

Prescott opened his mouth, no doubt intending to say something even more infuriating, but Malloy interrupted him.

“Anna Blake was not expecting a child,” he said.

“She wasn’t? How do you know?” Prescott asked in amazement.

“The coroner told me, and he should know. She was only pretending to be distraught about her condition, but that was pretty easy for her, because she also happened to be an actress.”

Sarah wanted to slap him. Why was he telling this traitorous reporter anything at all, much less information they’d gathered with such difficulty?

“An actress?” Prescott repeated, pulling a notebook out of his pocket. He snatched the pencil from behind his ear and had to remove his hat and tuck it under his arm because he no longer had a free hand with which to hold it while he wrote. “Where did she perform?”

“I don’t know. That’s up to you to find out, but it shouldn’t be too hard. You probably have a lot of friends in the theater.”

“Was Anna Blake her stage name?” Prescott asked, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

“That’s something else you’ll have to find out on your own.”

“How did you discover that she was an actress?” Prescott asked.

“I’m a detective,” Malloy reminded him with only a trace of irony. “Finding things out is my job.”

“What else do you know about her that you’re not telling?” Prescott asked, including Sarah in the inquiry.

She almost told him what she thought of his cheekiness, but Malloy grabbed her elbow in a bruising grip to silence her.

“I know I’m going to start telling any other reporters who ask me everything I just told you, so if you want to scoop them, you’d better get busy.”

Prescott’s pink face split into a triumphant grin. “Thanks, Malloy. Mrs. Brandt,” he added with another quick tip of his hat as he placed it back on his head, and he vanished into the crowd of people leaning against the wind while they waited to cross the street.

“Why did you tell him about Anna being an actress?” Sarah demanded, now almost as angry with Malloy as she was with Prescott.

“To get rid of him. We don’t want him following us around. He might tip off the real killer once we start getting closer. And if he and the rest of the press are nosing around the theaters, they won’t be bothering the Ellsworths.”

“But what if Anna’s killer is someone she knew at the theater?” Sarah asked indignantly.

“Then maybe he’ll get frightened and make a mistake, and I’ll catch him. But chances are it was somebody from Anna’s present life who killed her. She was living very dangerously, after all. When you start ruining men’s lives, you make people desperate. One of those people got desperate enough to kill her.”

Suddenly, there was a break in the traffic, and Malloy fairly dragged her across the street, somehow managing to dodge the piles of horse droppings that had accumulated since the street cleaners had finished their duties early that morning. When they had arrived safely on the other side, in the Square, they paused for breath, turning their backs to the wind, and Malloy released her arm. Sarah rubbed her elbow and glared at him, but he wasn’t paying attention.

“Someday somebody’s going to figure out a way to control that mess,” Malloy said, frowning back at the sweating, swearing drivers and their rigs that had once again closed ranks behind them.

“Are you going to see Giddings now?” she asked.

He gave her one of his looks. “Even God got a day off,” he repeated.

She felt a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry. You’re right, you should take some time and spend it with Brian. How much longer until he gets the cast off?”

“Week after next.”

She could see the worry deep in his dark eyes. “He’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll go with you to the doctor’s if you’d like. And if I don’t have a delivery,” she added.

He looked uncomfortable with her offer. She supposed he wanted her to go with him but didn’t want to admit it. “Are you going home now?” he asked instead.

“For a while. I’m having supper with my parents this evening.”

He glanced up at the threatening sky. “Better leave early if you want to get there. And remind Nelson not to leave the house yet. I’ll be over to see him after I’ve talked to Giddings.”

They parted company, and Sarah again walked past the spot where Anna Blake had died. But not where she had been attacked, she reminded herself. That had happened somewhere else. She couldn’t help thinking that if she could discover where, she’d also know who the killer was.

 

The rain started long before Sarah was ready to go uptown, and when she had an opportunity to check the newspaper, she discovered that the storm was actually a hurricane that had moved up the coast. The winds were howling, but Sarah’s mother had sent word that their carriage would come to fetch her and that she should come prepared to stay the night if necessary. Plainly, her mother wasn’t going to let a mere act of God cheat her out of her daughter’s company!

Sarah dressed carefully for the evening. She didn’t care about trying to impress Mr. Dennis, but she didn’t want to embarrass her mother. Elizabeth Decker placed great importance on appearances, and for all Sarah knew, so did Richard Dennis. The suit she’d bought this past summer at Lord and Taylor wasn’t the height of fashion, but at least it was presentable.

When she was satisfied that she wouldn’t shame the Decker family name, Sarah wrapped herself in a cape to ward off the rain that had begun and stole over to the Ellsworths’ house for a brief word with Mrs. Ellsworth.

“What are you doing out in this weather?” the old woman scolded Sarah when she opened her back door to admit her. “And I can see you have an engagement! Is it with Mr. Malloy?”

Sarah couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “No, I’m going to visit my parents this evening.” She decided not to mention the purpose of that visit so they wouldn’t be disappointed if she wasn’t successful in saving Nelson’s job. “I just wanted to let you know that Mr. Malloy is still working hard on the case. He asked me to remind Nelson not to leave the house, and to tell you he’d be stopping by as soon as he spoke to one of the suspects tomorrow.”

“Oh, dear, I’ve had a tingling in my left eye all day today. That’s not a good sign, you know. The right eye means good fortune, but the left eye . . . Well, I don’t know how much more bad news I can bear.”

She looked as if she might weep, and Sarah wanted to offer at least some sort of comfort. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any to offer, and if Mrs. Ellsworth knew what Webster Prescott had written about Nelson lately, more than her eye would be twitching. “Just stay out of sight. You know Mr. Malloy will take care of everything,” she promised rashly. “It won’t be much longer.”

Mrs. Ellsworth let her go without any protests, which worried Sarah more than anything else. Ordinarily, the old woman liked nothing better than company, Sarah’s in particular. She only hoped that when she returned home again, she’d be able to assure the Ellsworths that Nelson’s job was secure. It wouldn’t solve all their problems, but it would remove at least one worry.

 

Sarah’s mother greeted her with concern. “I had no idea the storm would get so bad,” she said when Sarah entered. The maid had taken her cloak, although she was hardly wet, having spent so little time out in the rain. “I hope you’re planning to stay the night.”

“I’ll have to. I couldn’t bear to make your driver and horses go out again in this weather,” Sarah said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Dennis decides not to come out at all.”

“He’ll be here,” her father said, confident of his power to influence. He seemed pleased to see her. With her father, it wasn’t always easy to tell, but he did kiss her forehead and refrained from saying anything remotely critical during the half-hour they sat in the back parlor and chatted before Mr. Dennis arrived. Sarah had visions of her mother lecturing him earlier today on being nice to her so she’d come back to visit more often.

Finally, and against all odds, the maid announced Mr. Dennis. Her father rose to greet him, and as soon as he entered the room, Sarah understood exactly why her parents had been so cooperative in arranging for her to meet him. Unfortunately, it had nothing at all to do with helping Nelson Ellsworth.