Murder in the Bowery

by Victoria Thompson

  * * *

  In the end they had to tie the old woman to a chair to keep her from attacking someone again. Robinson wasted no time sending a bystander to the Devil’s Den for a couple of his men. In the meantime, Frank found some rags and made a sling for Gino’s arm and rounded up some whiskey for the pain. The boy was holding up pretty well, all things considered.

  For his part, Robinson examined Arburn’s broken face, wiggling his smashed nose and exploring his crushed cheek with a probing finger, until Arburn admitted between screams that he had indeed found Freddie “Two Toes” Bertolli that night. He hadn’t believed Freddie’s claims that he hadn’t seen Black Jack at all the night Estelle died and had no idea Jack had killed Estelle. But when Two Toes admitted he thought Arburn had killed her, Arburn had choked the boy to death to ensure he never made that claim to another soul. When he heard that, Frank began to regret that he had conceded all retribution to Robinson.

  Once he had the information he wanted, Robinson said, “We don’t need the police for this.” By then the old woman had stopped struggling, but she watched through narrowed eyes as Robinson’s men half carried a bloody Arburn away, and she cursed Robinson eloquently. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m in your debt, Mr. Malloy,” Robinson said, “and yours, too, Mr. Donatelli. I’m sorry we haven’t met before now.”

  “I hope you’ll excuse me for not shaking hands,” Gino said with his usual spirit, even though his face was a little gray from the pain.

  “You don’t owe us anything,” Frank said. “All I wanted was justice for Freddie.”

  “And now you’ll have it. I’ve got a hansom cab waiting outside for you both,” Robinson said. “You’ll want to get that arm fixed up.”

  “What about . . . the others,” Frank asked.

  “We won’t need the police for them either. Please tell your lovely wife that I will take her information into consideration.”

  Frank nodded. “Before you make any plans for Horace Longacre, I suggest you consult his servants, Tom and Marie O’Day. They already have some ideas.”

  Robinson smiled mirthlessly. “Thank you, Mr. Malloy. I’ll be sure to do that.”

  * * *

  Frank hadn’t felt much like going into the office the following Monday. The summer heat still lay heavily over the city, and he had seriously considered not going in at all. But Gino’s mother and Sarah had conspired to make sure Gino took a few weeks off to rest after breaking his arm, so Frank thought he ought to open the office for a few hours, at least, in case a client appeared.

  The person who did appear wasn’t a client, though.

  “What have you done with Norman?” Miss Longacre demanded when she stormed into his office.

  Frank sighed. Black Jack Robinson must have dispensed his justice. “I haven’t done anything with him. Please, have a seat.”

  She plunked herself down into one of the visitor chairs in front of his desk and glared at him. “Just tell me where he is. I must warn you, I don’t have any money to pay a ransom with, but I’m told Horace has taken a turn for the worse, so I should have some very soon.”

  “You don’t need to pay a ransom. I told you, I have no idea where Norman is.” Which was perfectly true, as far as it went. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened. Norman went out yesterday, as he often does. He likes to walk in the park. But he never came home again.”

  “Have you asked his friends if they’ve seen him?”

  “No one has seen him,” she reported through clenched teeth.

  And no one ever would, Frank was sure. “Why have you come to me?”

  “Because I know you’ve had him arrested or something. He shouldn’t go to jail. He didn’t mean to kill Estelle. It was all a terrible accident, and he’s very sorry.”

  “I didn’t have him arrested. I didn’t tell the police anything.”

  “Then where is he?”

  Should he prepare her? It would be a kindness, he decided. “You say he’s very sorry. I’m sure it haunts him. He was very upset when he had to identify her body, I know.”

  “That was horrible. Norman is much too sensitive for an ordeal like that.”

  “Then maybe he decided he couldn’t live with it anymore.”

  Miss Longacre stiffened at that. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean lots of people decide they can’t live with something they’ve done, and they take their own lives.”

  “Suicide? Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s something to consider.”

  “Norman would never do a thing like that! He knows how much I depend on him.”

  Did everyone in the Longacre family think of only themselves? Of course they did. This woman in front of him was actually hoping to marry her son to his half sister. “You know him better than I do, but he might’ve had an accident or something. If you don’t hear from him for a few more days, you might check at the morgue, just to be sure.”

  “Are you trying to tell me he’s dead?” she asked, her voice high with terror.

  Frank cursed his clumsiness and wished Sarah were here to handle this. “Not at all. I really don’t know where he is, but people have accidents all the time in the city. If he didn’t have any identification with him, they might not have been able to notify you.”

  “Is that what they’re going to say? That he had an accident?”

  Frank decided not to make matters worse by responding. “How is your brother getting along?”

  “He’s still dying, I hope. I tried to visit him. I need to know if he’s changed his will now that Estelle is dead. I should inherit everything now, you know. But they wouldn’t let me see him.”

  That seemed odd. “Marie wouldn’t have turned you away unless your brother told her to.”

  “Marie isn’t there anymore. It was someone I didn’t know. He claimed he was taking care of Horace now.”

  Robinson hadn’t wasted any time. “I see. Well, I don’t know what to tell you then.”

  “You can tell me where Norman is, but I can see you aren’t going to help me.” She stood up and left in a huff before Frank was completely out of his chair.

  He sat back down wearily. He really shouldn’t have come to the office today. And maybe he should go over to Bellevue to see if they had any unidentified bodies there. He was still trying to decide when Black Jack Robinson showed up.

  * * *

  “You must have been surprised to see Robinson,” Maeve said. They were all sitting on the back porch, enjoying the cooling evening air after the children were in bed. Gino had joined them for dinner and had basked in the attentions of the ladies, who were most solicitous of his comfort, finding cushions to support his arm and offering him every delicacy they could find in the house. Even Frank’s mother had made a fuss.

  “I was surprised,” Frank admitted. “But Robinson thought I’d want to know what he’d done.”

  “And did you?” Sarah asked archly.

  “Not at all, but I knew you’d be curious.”

  They all laughed at that, knowing he was just as curious. The laughter died quickly, though, because they also knew what Robinson had come to report.

  “Are they all dead?” Gino asked.

  “Arburn and Norman are, but he wanted you to know he did show Norman some mercy,” he told Sarah.

  His mother made a huffing noise to demonstrate her disbelief, but he ignored it. “Norman was chloroformed before they dropped him into the river. It will look like a suicide, Robinson assured me, although I don’t think that will be any comfort to Penelope.”

  “But it will keep the police from investigating,” Sarah said, “so she should appreciate that.”

  “Is it better to have a son who committed suicide or one who committed murder?” Maeve asked.

  “No
t much of a choice,” Frank’s mother muttered, and he had to agree.

  “Actually, Miss Longacre had already visited me this morning. It seems Norman never came home yesterday, and she thought I’d had him arrested. I suggested he might not have been able to live with himself, but she didn’t like that idea much.”

  “And what about Arburn?” Gino asked. “I hope he didn’t get any mercy.”

  “I didn’t ask for details, and Robinson didn’t offer any, except to say that Arburn’s body might also turn up in the river.”

  “He got what he deserved,” Maeve said.

  Frank nodded. Nothing would really give Freddie justice, but at least his killer had been punished. “And he also is making sure Horace Longacre gets what he deserves.”

  “Is he planning to kill him?” Sarah asked. “That would actually be a mercy, since he’s already dying.”

  “Which is why he isn’t going to kill him. I didn’t tell you, but Tom and Marie O’Day—they’re all that’s left of Longacre’s servants,” Frank added for those who didn’t know, “were planning to leave him as soon as he got to the point where he couldn’t care for himself anymore. That was going to be their revenge for what he’d done to Estelle. I suggested that Robinson consult with them before deciding what to do.”

  “And did he?” Sarah asked.

  “He did. He sent his attorney in as well to see what Longacre’s will said. He’d pensioned them off in the will, and left everything else to Estelle. The attorney explained that since Estelle had died before him, the estate would go to Horace’s surviving next of kin.”

  “Which would be Penelope,” Sarah guessed.

  “Yes, although I think she’s going to be disappointed. Horace wasn’t a very good manager, and he’s not leaving much except the house and his yacht.”

  “Didn’t she expect Norman would be rich if he married Estelle?” Maeve asked.

  “That’s what she said,” Sarah said. “I imagine she could sell the house and the boat and continue to live as she has, very comfortably, although I’m sure that’s not what she dreamed of.”

  “What about those servants?” his mother asked. “What’ll happen to them?”

  “Like I said, they’ll get a nice sum that will provide a pension for them. Robinson said he’s going to see they keep getting paid until Longacre dies, and in the meantime, he’s put his own man in the house to make sure no one comes to comfort him.”

  “That should please everyone who knew Longacre,” Sarah said, “although it’s little enough to repay the suffering he caused his sister and his daughter.”

  “Which is why there’s a hell,” Frank’s mother said, earning a startled look from Maeve and an amused glance from Gino.

  “Maybe that’s why Robinson has decided to reform,” Frank said.

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

  “Remember when we went to see him the last time, he’d been meeting with his attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s decided to sell off all his businesses. He’s already rich, and now he wants to be respectable.”

  “That was why he wanted to marry Estelle,” Sarah said, remembering. “He thought she would do that for him and they would be accepted into society.”

  “Would it have worked?” Maeve asked.

  “There’s a lot of new money in the city nowadays,” Sarah said. “It won’t buy you friendship with the old families, but if you’ve got enough of it, you can make your own respectability.”

  His mother said, “If Francis can do it, anybody can.”

  “Ma!” he protested, but everyone laughed because it was true.

  “Let’s talk about something more pleasant now,” Sarah suggested. “Maeve has hired the contractors to work on the new maternity hospital.”

  “When will it be ready?” Gino asked, his eyes dancing with mischief because everyone knew how hard it had been to get the Malloys’ house refurbished.

  “They said it will be ready by Christmas,” Maeve said, “but I told them it had to be done by Thanksgiving. I don’t think they take me seriously yet.”

  “They will,” Gino said.

  * * *

  That night, when they were alone in their rooms, Sarah stopped brushing her hair when Malloy came back from his dressing room, ready for bed. “I’ve been remembering my conversations with Penelope Longacre. I’m afraid I missed some things. She’d been trying to tell me about Estelle, or at least point me in the right direction.”

  “I think we all missed some things along the way.”

  “This was so obvious, though. She said that the reason Horace never remarried was because ‘he had the girl.’ Those where her exact words. I took it to mean he had only wanted a child, so he didn’t need a wife anymore.”

  “And that was apparently true, although not for the reason you thought.”

  “No, incest isn’t the first reason I think of for anything, I’m happy to say. She also told me to ask Horace if I wanted to find the father of Estelle’s baby. Nothing could be clearer than that.”

  “But I asked him, and he claimed he didn’t know,” Malloy reminded her.

  “I just feel like I should have done more.”

  “You did what you could,” he said. “I think what you really want is to save Estelle, and it’s far too late for that. She was dead before you ever knew she existed.”

  “You’re right, I do. I look at Maeve and I think of all the young women in the city with no one to help them.”

  “You can’t help them all. You have to accept that.”

  “I know, and we have the Mission and soon we’ll have the hospital, too.”

  “By Thanksgiving, if we can believe Maeve,” Malloy said with a grin.

  She smiled back. “Yes, and we’ll save some of them.”

  “That’s enough regret for one night. Come to bed now. I’ll make you forget everything else.”

  And he did.

  Author’s Note

  I found a lot of really interesting historically accurate things to include in this book, so here are my explanations to save you the trouble of asking, “Did this really happen?”

  The newsboys did strike both the World and the Journal in late July of 1899, and Kid Blink was one of the leaders of the strike. They managed to halt the sale of those papers not only in New York City but all over the East Coast. They didn’t get William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer to lower the cost of their papers to the newsboys, but they did get them to agree to buy back any unsold papers, which was a huge victory. The story was dramatized in the movie Newsies, which contains many historical inaccuracies but is a fun movie to watch.

  The newsboys and newsgirls—yes, some girls sold newspapers, but there weren’t nearly as many newsgirls as newsboys—could rent a bed for the night in one of the Newsboys’ Lodging Houses located in the city. As I explain, the children often preferred to sleep on the streets, but when the weather was bad, they appreciated having the option, although they had to pay for the privilege.

  The Orphan Trains were also real. From 1854 to 1929, over a quarter million children were placed on the Orphan Trains and taken out West, where they were “put up” for adoption, literally put up on a stage for people to see so they could choose the child they wanted. Many of these stories ended happily, with children finding loving homes. Other children were abused and exploited, and a few returned to New York permanently.

  The Orphan Trains and Newsboys’ Lodging Houses were operated by the same charity, so the orphans were often recruited from the lodging houses. The newsboys, most of whom had no families or had been abandoned by their families, looked after one another, and they even paid for one another’s funerals, as I depicted in this book. Their greatest fear was dying unmourned and being buried in a pauper’s grave.

  Finally, Bowery tours were also real. Rich “swells
” could pay a guide to take them on a tour of the rougher parts of the city. Often the people they observed in the gambling dens, saloons, and brothels were merely actors, since real people don’t appreciate being gawked at and were likely to demonstrate their disapproval by attacking the gawkers. It was sort of like reality TV before we had TV: It looked real but it wasn’t exactly real.

  If you’re wondering about the way the telegrams were worded, why there was no punctuation and why I didn’t use the word stop to indicate a period, here are the answers. Early telegrams had no punctuation because Morse code did not include a code for periods and commas. Only later, when World War I made it absolutely necessary to have clarity in military orders sent via telegram, was the word stop used to indicate the end of a sentence.

  I hope you enjoyed Murder in the Bowery. Please let me know how you liked it. You can contact me through my website at victoriathompson.com, or follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/Victoria.Thompson.Author, or on Twitter @gaslightvt.

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