Murder in Murray Hill (Gaslight Mystery)

by Victoria Thompson

  A few minutes later, Frank made his escape. He hated giving Mr. Livingston false hope, but whatever happened, he’d need time to grow accustomed to it. Even if Frank managed to rescue the girl, she’d never be the same. No woman ever was after something like that.

  On that thought, he headed down the street toward the El. He’d drop the letter off at the newspaper, then stop by the park to see if anyone there this morning remembered seeing Grace Livingston.

  Apparently, not many people got up early to place advertisements in the newspaper, Frank observed, walking straight up to the counter, where only one lone customer conferred with a clerk. The other clerks were working at the desks lined up behind the counter, and only one looked up when he rapped on the counter to get their attention.

  “It’s the copper,” the clerk said, springing to his feet and hurrying over. The others followed, coming close so they wouldn’t miss a word. “Did you find him yet?”

  “Is your boss in?”

  “Mr. Snodgrass!” the clerk called, and the prim little man emerged from an office located back behind the desks. “That copper is back.”

  Frank resisted the urge to grab the fellow by the lapels and teach him some manners.

  “May I help you?” Snodgrass asked a little breathlessly. “Have you found him yet?”

  “No, and I’ll never find him if this is how your people are going to act when he shows up.” Frank gestured to the gaggle of clerks unabashedly listening to every word.

  “Get back to work,” Snodgrass snapped, sending them scurrying to their desks again. “I apologize, Mr. Malloy.”

  “You’ll have to do more than that. A young woman’s life is at stake here, maybe more than one. If your clerks let Pendergast know somebody is looking for him, we’ll never see him or the girl again.”

  “They won’t say a word to him, I promise you,” Snodgrass said, his face flushing with outrage.

  “They don’t have to say a word. All they have to do is stare at him the way they’re staring at me right now.”

  Snodgrass jerked his head around and caught them all hastily getting back to work. “I will make sure that—”

  “Don’t bother. I want to speak to whoever is in charge.”

  “I’m the editor of the advertising—”

  “No, I mean who’s in charge of the whole paper. Is Pulitzer in?”

  “Good heavens, you can’t expect to—”

  “I can expect to have your job if you don’t let me speak to somebody in charge.” The threat was meaningless, but Snodgrass had no way of knowing that.

  A few minutes and several whispered conversations later, Frank was escorted to a plush office on one of the upper floors of the enormous building. The office was so far from the presses in the basement, he couldn’t even feel their rumble anymore.

  “Now what’s this they’re telling me about a woman being kidnapped?” the well-dressed man behind the huge, shiny desk demanded. It wasn’t Pulitzer, who was in Europe, but one of his underlings, Brisbane.

  Frank told him how Milo Pendergast had used the newspaper to lure young women and how he had recently taken Grace Livingston.

  “And what am I supposed to do about it? I run a newspaper. I can’t control what people do when they advertise.”

  Frank sat back in the comfortable leather chair provided for visitors and gazed out the large windows at the city below. “Well, now, Mr. Brisbane, I was going to suggest that if you got your staff to cooperate, I’d give you an exclusive on the story of how we rescued an innocent woman from the clutches of a fiend. But now I’m thinking you might not want anybody to know this Pendergast used your newspaper to kidnap young females.”

  “I most certainly would not! People would stop advertising with us altogether!”

  Frank nodded, hoping he looked thoughtful and not as angry as he felt. “I’m also thinking that every other newspaper in town would want that story. They’d probably run it on the front page, how this evil seducer of women used the World to trap his helpless victims but their editors wouldn’t lift a finger to help catch him.”

  Brisbane turned an unbecoming shade of purple. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “I know lots of reporters, Mr. Brisbane. In fact, they camp out in the building right across from Police Headquarters every day. I could just shout out the window, and they’d all come running.”

  For a minute, Frank thought Brisbane might be choking on his own bile, but when he could speak again, he said, “What do you want me to do?”

  Less than an hour later, Frank left the imposing World building, confident that several of Brisbane’s most trusted editors would be spending their days in the advertising department to make sure no one noticed Milo Pendergast when he finally showed up to collect his mail. As a bonus, he had also extracted a promise that Maeve’s letter would be the only one found in Pendergast’s box whenever he did finally show up.

  Now all he had to do was wait.

  • • •

  Frank had no luck in the park, so he returned to Police Headquarters to report in and find something else to fill his time while he waited for Milo Pendergast to pick up his mail.

  Tom, the doorman at Police Headquarters, gave Frank an uncharacteristically stiff smile in response to his “Good morning.”

  “Is something wrong?” Frank asked.

  “Oh no, sir. Everything’s fine.” But he didn’t quite meet Frank’s eye.

  Still puzzled by Tom’s odd behavior, Frank strolled into the lobby. Ignoring the newly arrested felons on the benches lining the walls, he nodded to the desk sergeant and headed for the stairs.

  “Malloy!”

  Frank turned back to the desk sergeant. “What is it?”

  “Chief O’Brien wants to see you.”

  This was not an unusual request, but suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and the very air in the room seemed to quiver with expectation. Frank glanced around and realized every cop within sight had stopped what he was doing to stare at him.

  They knew.

  Slowly, as eagerly as he would have climbed the scaffold steps to his own execution, Frank climbed the stairs to the second floor and the office of the chief of detectives. The cops he passed paused to watch him, their eyes guarded and mistrustful.

  They all knew.

  Finally, he reached the second floor. He knocked on O’Brien’s door, and a voice impatiently bid him enter.

  O’Brien looked up from the piles of papers on his desk and frowned. “Shut the door.”

  Frank did.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what, sir?”

  O’Brien was a mild-mannered man, God-fearing and normally patient, but not today. “Don’t act stupid, Malloy. You’re many things, but you’re not stupid. The money. When were you going to tell me you’re a millionaire?”

  “I’m not a millionaire yet.” Without waiting to be asked, he gingerly sat down on the straight-backed chair in front of O’Brien’s desk.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I haven’t seen a cent of the money yet.”

  “But you’re going to. You’re going to be richer than a Vanderbilt, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  O’Brien sighed in exasperation. “But you’re going to be rich enough that you don’t need to work here anymore.”

  This is what Frank had been dreading. “I suppose.”

  “And I suppose that you won’t be able to work here anymore, not another day. Not with every cop on the force envying you and hating you. You see that, don’t you?”

  He did, of course. He probably would’ve felt the same way about anybody who suddenly found himself almost as rich as a Vanderbilt through no fault of his own. “How did you find out?”

  “Is it supposed to be a secret?
”

  “No, but it’s not exactly public knowledge either.”

  “It will be soon. Some reporter got wind of it. He’s going to break the story.”

  Frank thought about the way he’d just strong-armed the editor at the World. Still, that would be fast work. “Which newspaper?”

  “The Sun.”

  But the World would pick it up and sensationalize it even more after the way he’d treated Brisbane an hour ago. That reminded him of Grace Livingston. “I’m in the middle of a case. A young woman is missing . . .”

  “Tell whoever’s around to pick it up. Here’s your pay packet, although I don’t guess you really need it now, do you?”

  Frank took the envelope, thinking how he’d never imagined leaving the police force like this. He’d expected to retire as an old man and get a gold watch, and his friends would have a party for him and tell stories about the cases he’d solved and . . .

  “I’m sorry to lose you, Malloy. You’re a good man, but millionaires aren’t cops.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  A small crowd had gathered outside O’Brien’s office, but they instantly dispersed when Frank stepped out. Nobody made eye contact with him. He walked down the hall to the detectives’ room. Several men were lounging there, feet up on the desk and cigars smoldering in their teeth while they lazily traded lies.

  All conversation ceased abruptly when Frank came in. Their hostile gazes told him they’d already begun to hate him. “I’ve got a case. A missing girl. Who wants it?”

  For a long moment, nobody moved. Frank thought he was going to have to get mad, but finally, Bill Broghan dropped his feet to the floor and said, “I’ll take it.”

  Frank wouldn’t have picked the old drunk to handle any of his cases, but Broghan was probably the only volunteer he was going to get. Frank pulled the letters and clippings out of his pocket and placed them on the desk in front of Broghan. As he started to explain what he knew and what he had discovered, the rest of the detectives silently stood up and filed out. Frank ignored their cold stares, and Broghan looked after them with an ironic smile.

  “They’ll never forgive you, you know,” Broghan said when they were alone.

  “I know. I’ll probably never forgive me either.”

  That made Broghan’s smile even wider. “Still, they say a million dollars makes up for a lot of unhappiness.”

  “Do they? I’ll let you know if it’s true. Now, about this girl . . .”

  When he’d finished telling everything, Broghan shook his head. “You know we’re not going to find her, don’t you? Girls like that, they never go back home. End up in a bawdy house, too ashamed to face their families.”

  Frank didn’t want to argue. “Like I said, I’ve got a girl who’ll meet this Pendergast character. I’ll let you know when he answers her letter.”

  But Broghan shook his head again. “She won’t want to be found. You mark my words.”

  Frank was tired of marking people’s words. “I’ll let you know.”

  He started the long walk out, his footsteps unusually loud in the hallway. Of course, every other time he’d walked down this hall, all the other people there and in the adjoining offices had been busy working and talking and moving around. Today, they were just there, waiting and watching, as he made his way out of the building where he’d worked for so many years. He made a point of looking each one of them in the face, and they had the good grace to look away. Envy wasn’t a very honorable emotion, but they’d turn the anger they felt at themselves on him, so he didn’t bother to speak to anyone. Men he’d known for over a decade turned away. Even the shackled felons in the lobby downstairs were silent as he passed.

  Tom opened the door for him and gave him a little salute as he stepped outside. “We’ll miss you, Mr. Malloy.”

  “Thank you, Tom. I expect I’ll miss you, too.”

  “Think about us now and then, won’t you?”

  Frank smiled at that. “Oh, I’ll think about you more often than that.”

  His heart thudded in his chest as he walked down Mulberry Street, not daring to look back. He needed to see Sarah. He’d have to make one stop along the way, but then he’d see her. She wouldn’t understand, not really, but she’d listen.

  • • •

  The girls had just taken the cakes out of the oven when someone rang Sarah’s doorbell. Catherine’s little face crumpled in disappointment.

  “Maybe it’s not a baby,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

  “If it is, we’ll save you some, Mrs. Brandt,” Maeve called after her as she went to answer the door.

  Sarah swallowed her disappointment. She couldn’t help thinking that when she and Malloy were married, she’d never have to drop everything to go deliver a baby. The knowledge should have thrilled her, but how many times had she been grateful her life had a real purpose? Her parents might be glad she was going to return to the kind of life she’d known growing up, a life where women were cosseted and safe, but she also knew most women in that world were bored and unhappy, too.

  She was so lost in thought that at first she didn’t realize she recognized the shadowy figure visible through the glass. “Malloy,” she said when she’d thrown open the door. But her smile froze when she saw the expression on his face. “What’s happened?”

  “I got fired.”

  “From the police? Whatever for?”

  “They found out about the money.”

  Before Sarah could even register this amazing statement, Catherine exploded out of the kitchen and raced into Malloy’s arms. Maeve and Mrs. Ellsworth quickly followed. The next few minutes passed in greetings and in reporting to Malloy how they were making strawberry shortcake and would he like to have some? He readily agreed, only to be told by a solemn Catherine that the cakes were still too hot, so they’d have to wait awhile.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I need to talk to Mrs. Brandt about something, so by the time we’re done, the cakes should be cooled down enough. Mrs. Brandt, maybe you’d like to go for a walk with me.”

  “I, uh . . .” Sarah considered the possibility of having a private conversation here with Mrs. Ellsworth and the girls lurking nearby, and said, “Let me get my hat.”

  A few minutes later, after Sarah had changed into something more appropriate for the street, she and Malloy set out down Bank Street, heading toward Washington Square.

  “How did they find out?” Sarah asked as soon as they were safely away from the house.

  “A newspaper reporter went to Headquarters asking questions about me. O’Brien didn’t give me any details, just that the fellow works for the Sun. I’m guessing it’ll be in the paper soon.”

  “I suppose it is an interesting story.”

  “For people who don’t have anything important to think about, I guess.”

  “And they just fired you for that?”

  “You should have been there. Every cop in the place was staring at me like I was a sideshow freak at the circus.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She tried to think of something more to say, but words couldn’t take away the hurt he must have been feeling at being so unceremoniously booted out of a job he’d done all his adult life. He looked so beaten, she wanted to put her arms around him, but that would be highly improper on a public street. She settled for touching his arm. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow as they continued down the street. “Are you going to be all right? I know you haven’t gotten the inheritance yet, and—”

  “I went to see the attorney today. He said they’re still selling off the various businesses, but he put some money into an account for me to use in the meantime.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah. He said he hoped it would be enough to last a month or so until everything is settled.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “It’s ten thousand dollars.” />
  Sarah smiled at his consternation, somehow managing not to laugh out loud. Ten thousand dollars was more than two years’ salary as a police detective. “Oh my.”

  “I thought I’d buy you an engagement ring.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Only rich people bothered with engagement rings.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, if you insist, that would be very nice,” she allowed. She was going to have to get used to being rich again.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” he said when they had crossed MacDougal Street and reached the edge of Washington Square.

  “It means everything will change,” she said, trying to imagine things she hadn’t even thought of yet.

  “It means I have to tell my mother.”

  “I suppose you do, because if she finds out from the newspapers . . .”

  “My life won’t be worth living. So I have to tell her today.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Frank frowned. “Are you sure you want to be there? My mother is bad enough when she’s happy, and I don’t think this news is going to make her very happy.”

  “I’m sure. She’ll be worried about what our marriage will mean to her and Brian, and I want to be there to answer her questions.”

  He frowned. “What will it mean to her and Brian?”

  They’d reached a bench, and Sarah stopped. “That’s what we need to sit down here and discuss.”

  A remarkably short time later, Frank and Sarah got up and started walking back to her house, having made some of the most important decisions of their lives.

  • • •

  Frank enjoyed the strawberry shortcake, but he enjoyed eating it with Sarah, Maeve, and Catherine even more. By the time they’d gotten back to Sarah’s house, Mrs. Ellsworth had discreetly taken her leave, which Frank found remarkable. She must have been dying to know what he and Sarah had discussed, and yet she’d decided to wait until she could wheedle it out of Sarah tomorrow. That showed remarkable restraint, Frank thought, for a woman whose life revolved around knowing everything about her neighbors.

  After a simple supper of cold ham and biscuits, Frank and Sarah made their way over to Frank’s flat on the other side of town. He hadn’t let himself think about what his mother was going to say to his news. She might be pleased or horrified or something else entirely. Of only one thing was he certain: She was not going to like the way her life was going to change.