Murder on Washington Square

by Victoria Thompson

  “Mr. Ellsworth had nothing to do with Anna Blake’s murder,” she tried shouting above the din.

  “How do you know?” one of them asked. “Was he with you that night?”

  “Why are you trying to protect him?” another called.

  Malloy was right, she thought in disgust. There was no way to convince these jackals of the truth. They were only interested in uncovering a scandal—or inventing one. She shoved her way through them and up her front steps and into her house, slamming the door behind her.

  Once inside, she went to the window to see what they would do. Deprived of their latest prey, they returned to their vigil at the Ellsworths’ front stoop, waiting for a new victim. Poor Mrs. Ellsworth, held prisoner in her own home. Nelson, at least, had gotten himself into this mess with his poor judgment, but his mother had done nothing at all. Sarah wondered if they had enough food or if they needed anything. At least their captivity meant they hadn’t been able to get out to buy a newspaper and had been spared that outrage.

  Sarah went to her own pantry and found a few potatoes, half a loaf of stale bread, and a bag of beans. She’d shop for them tomorrow, if Malloy still hadn’t solved the case by then. In the meantime, at least they wouldn’t starve. Throwing the food items into a market basket, Sarah went to her back door and checked to make sure no reporters had taken up a vigil in the alley. Finding the way clear, she hurried next door and banged on the door.

  Mrs. Ellsworth peered out before letting her in. “Oh, Mrs. Brandt, thank heaven you’re here! I’m half insane with worrying. Has Mr. Malloy found the killer yet?”

  “Not yet,” she said, “but I’m sure it won’t be much longer.” Malloy wouldn’t thank her for the lie, but it was all she had to offer. “Where’s Nelson?”

  “Up in his room. I think he’s a little embarrassed about everything that happened, and he’s also mourning that poor girl. He really cared for her. And when he saw what they wrote about him in the newspaper . . .” Her voice broke.

  “How did you see a newspaper?” Sarah asked in dismay.

  “Mr. Holsinger across the street brought one over this morning, before the reporters got here.”

  “How thoughtful of him,” Sarah said sarcastically.

  “Oh, he wasn’t being kind,” Mrs. Ellsworth assured her. “He was furious that Nelson had brought a scandal into the neighborhood. He wanted to know what we were going to do about it.”

  “What did he have in mind?” Sarah asked in astonishment.

  “Heaven knows,” Mrs. Ellsworth said with a sigh, sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs. She looked as if she hadn’t slept much the night before, and Sarah wanted to check her pulse and her heartbeat to make sure she wasn’t truly ill. Perhaps she’d bring her medical bag when she came the next time.

  Sarah set her market basket on the table. “I didn’t know if you had any food in the house, but I knew you couldn’t go shopping, so I brought over what I had.”

  “That’s kind of you, but neither of us feels very hungry, I’m afraid.”

  “You can’t stop eating. You’ll make yourself sick. How are you feeling?”

  Mrs. Ellsworth looked up at Sarah through bloodshot eyes. “Frightened,” she said. “What if Mr. Malloy can’t find the real killer, and they arrest Nelson? He could be executed!”

  “Don’t think that way! Malloy will find the killer, and if he doesn’t, I will. Nelson will never go to jail,” she promised rashly.

  Mrs. Ellsworth smiled sadly. “You are such a good friend, Mrs. Brandt.”

  Sarah returned her smile. “As I recall, you’ve been a good friend to me, too. Now let’s peel these potatoes and see if we can’t get some hot food into the two of you.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth found a knife, and Sarah took it from her and began to peel. “Which newspaper did Mr. Holsinger bring you?” she asked after a moment.

  “The World,” she said with a frown of distaste. “I wonder if it was written by that rude young man who told us Nelson had been arrested.”

  “It seems likely,” Sarah said, remembering him only too well.

  “He looked like such a nice young man, but . . . Can you tell me, Mrs. Brandt, are the things he said about Nelson true?”

  “I’m sure very little of it was true,” Sarah hedged.

  “But was that poor girl with child, like the paper said? Nelson won’t talk about it at all. I think he’s trying to protect me, but the truth can’t be any worse than what I’m imagining.”

  “She’d told Nelson she was with child,” Sarah said, deciding that telling the truth was really the only way to protect her friend. “He thought perhaps she might be mistaken, so he asked me to visit her to make sure.”

  “What a cad!” she exclaimed in outrage. “I’d never expect my own son to behave so unchivalrously! To seduce an innocent girl was bad enough. He should have offered to marry her at once!”

  “He did,” Sarah assured her. “But for some reason, she didn’t want to marry him.”

  This shocked Mrs. Ellsworth as much as it had Sarah. “Why on earth not?”

  “According to Nelson, she didn’t think she was good enough for him or something. At least that’s what she said. Nelson is a modest man, and he was afraid she just couldn’t stand the idea of being married to him.”

  “That’s ridiculous! Nelson is a fine catch, and a girl in her position would marry a hunchbacked imbecile, in any case, just to give her child a name.”

  Sarah could only agree. “I don’t pretend to understand any of this. I’m just repeating what I was told. Nelson thought that if there wasn’t a child, Anna wouldn’t be forced into a marriage she didn’t want.”

  “So he asked you to make sure,” Mrs. Ellsworth guessed. “And did you?”

  “No. Miss Blake wouldn’t even speak with me. And the next day she was murdered.”

  “No wonder they think Nelson did it,” the old woman sighed. “A man who didn’t want to be forced into marriage kills his paramour in a fit of rage.”

  “Nelson would never have a fit of rage,” Sarah reminded her.

  “Oh, Mrs. Brandt,” she cried, burying her head in her hands. “What are we going to do?”

  Sarah only wished she had an answer. “Malloy will find the killer,” she tried again.

  “But if he doesn’t, Nelson will go on trial, and the newspapers have already convicted him. Remember what happened to that Italian girl? The one who killed her lover? She only did what any woman would have done in her position, and the newspapers made her out to be the devil incarnate!”

  “Not every woman in her position would have slashed the man’s throat in a public place,” Sarah reminded her.

  “But don’t you agree she was justified? He’d seduced her and then refused to marry her and called her names in front of all those people and then said he was sailing back to Italy to leave her in disgrace. But when the newspapers got through with her, she was a wicked vixen who’d killed an upstanding gentleman for no reason at all. And that’s what they’re doing to Nelson!”

  “But don’t forget, they’re giving that girl a new trial, and this time the newspapers are telling the truth about what happened.” Indeed, they’d painted the victim as black this time as they’d painted Maria Barberi the first time.

  “Only because some rich woman championed that girl’s cause and got her a new trial. Unless someone champions Nelson, he’s going to die.” Mrs. Ellsworth’s wrinkled face crumbled in grief and then she was sobbing into her hands.

  Sarah took the woman into her arms and offered what comfort she could, but even as she patted the bowed shoulders, she knew she had to do more. She had to do what Mrs. Ellsworth had said and what Malloy had warned her against, because if she didn’t try to save Nelson Ellsworth, he very likely would be executed. And how would she comfort his mother then?

  Frank found the law firm of Smythe, Masterson and Judd in a building uptown identified only with a small brass plate. Apparently, people who needed the services of these
gentlemen knew what they did and where to find them, so they didn’t need to advertise.

  Inside, the offices were furnished richly, in dark masculine colors with none of the feminine frills so common in private homes. Paintings of men hunting adorned the walls above overstuffed chairs, and the place smelled of expensive cigars.

  The clerk seemed a little alarmed when Frank walked in. Like most people, he recognized Frank immediately as a policeman, even though he wore an ordinary suit of clothes and should have been indistinguishable from thousands of other men in the city. People always knew, though, and Frank had long since given up trying to fool anyone. He usually found that actually worked to his advantage.

  “May I help you?” the young man asked.

  “I’d like to see Gilbert Giddings,” he said, offering no other explanation. He didn’t want to say anything that might get Giddings in trouble later if he’d had nothing to do with Anna Blake’s death. He didn’t want to get himself into any trouble either. Antagonizing an attorney unnecessarily made about as much sense as poking a bear in the eye with a stick.

  The mention of Giddings’s name, however, only seemed to alarm the clerk more. “Please wait . . . uh, have a seat and I’ll . . . I’ll be right back,” he stammered as he hurried off into the rear offices.

  Frank hardly had time to sit down before the clerk was back. He seemed a bit calmer, and he escorted Frank down a hallway to a large office at the far end. Frank was extremely impressed that Giddings commanded such magnificent accommodations until he realized the man behind the desk was not Gilbert Giddings.

  The clerk made his escape without introducing him.

  “I was looking for Giddings,” Frank said.

  “I know. Wilbur told me,” the man behind the desk said. He was an older man with just the slightest bit of white fuzz left on his round head. He didn’t stand, probably because it was an effort to wrestle his equally round body up out of the oversized chair in which he sat. Or else because he didn’t think Frank was worth the effort. He also didn’t invite Frank to sit. “I’m Albert Smythe, the senior partner here. Perhaps I can help you instead.”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy with the New York City Police,” Frank replied, “and only Giddings can help me.”

  “Then you have wasted your time coming here, Mr. Malloy. Mr. Giddings is no longer employed here.”

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  6

  FRANK DIGESTED THIS INFORMATION. GIDDINGS HAD given no indication of this earlier today. He had, however, offered his business card without protest, probably because he knew Frank wouldn’t find him here. “That’s interesting,” Frank said, betraying no reaction. “I don’t suppose you know where he is now employed.”

  “I do not believe he is employed anywhere,” Mr. Smythe said.

  And if he was, Smythe wouldn’t have told a policeman, Frank thought, but he said, “I need to speak with him on official business. Even though he no longer works for you, maybe you could help me locate him.”

  “I am not in the habit of assisting the police,” he said without the slightest compunction.

  “That’s a shame,” Frank replied, not offended in the least. “You see, I need to speak to Giddings about the murder of a young woman who may have been carrying his child. If he’s arrested for the crime, I might be annoyed enough by your lack of cooperation to make sure the newspapers mention the name of your law firm as his employer.”

  Smythe’s bloodless lips tightened and a slight flush rose on his flabby, white neck, but he betrayed no other outward sign of his true emotions. “You are an expert negotiator,” he allowed grudgingly. “You should have been an attorney.”

  Frank couldn’t help a small grin. “My mother wanted me to have a respectable profession.” Since police work was considered completely disreputable by people like Smythe, Frank wouldn’t have been surprised to be summarily thrown out.

  But Smythe merely nodded his acknowledgment of the barb. “Wilbur will help you find Giddings’s address.”

  He must have given some sort of silent signal, because at that moment the clerk knocked and came into the office, a questioning look on his young face.

  “Please provide this gentleman with Mr. Giddings’s home address, Wilbur. Good day to you, sir,” he said, dismissing Frank.

  “I’ll remember your assistance,” Frank promised.

  “I’ll be happier if you forget you ever heard my name,” Smythe said and went back to reading the papers on his large, shiny desk.

  Wilbur escorted Frank back to the front office and bid him be seated while he found the information Frank wanted. A few moments later, the boy handed him a sheet of expensive, watermarked paper bearing the neatly printed address of a house in the genteel neighborhood near Gramercy Park.

  Frank carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket, taking his time as Wilbur continued to wait apprehensively. Maybe he was afraid Frank would arrest him or something. He felt like shouting “Boo!” just to see the fellow jump, but somehow resisted the urge.

  Out on the street, Frank checked his watch and found that he still had time to stop by the Giddings home before going to his own flat for supper. Giddings’s house was on his way home anyway.

  Most nights he worked too late to see his son before the boy went to sleep. For too long, he’d used his job as an excuse to completely avoid the anguish that seeing Brian caused him. Not only was the boy’s existence a constant reminder of the mother who had died giving him life, but his pitiful condition was a painful affront, proving how helpless Frank was at the hands of fate.

  Sarah Brandt and her meddling had changed all that. Everyone else had branded Brian a feeble-minded cripple, but she saw what no one had ever noticed. She’d shamed Frank into taking the boy to see a surgeon who had operated on his club foot, with a promise Brian would be able to walk when he was finished. Then she had seen the intelligence glimmering in Brian’s bright blue eyes when no one else had bothered to look for it, and she had realized that his mind was fine, except for being locked inside of a body that couldn’t hear. Soon Frank would make a choice about what kind of training he was going to get for the boy, but he’d decided to wait until his foot was healed before making any more changes in Brian’s young life.

  Of course, he might have just been using that as an excuse. If the truth were told, it wasn’t the boy he was so worried about upsetting. His mother was difficult in the best of times, and now she was frightened. She wanted what was right for Brian, of course, but she didn’t agree with Frank about what that might be, especially if it meant Frank didn’t need her to care for the child any longer. Nothing he said made much difference, so arguing with her was frustrating and annoying. But he’d tolerate her tonight for the boy’s sake. In some ways it was a blessing Brian couldn’t hear.

  Frank took the Third Avenue Elevated Train downtown and got off at Twenty-Third Street. He couldn’t help noticing how different this area was from the neighborhood where he lived, just a few blocks south. The city was like that, changing character almost from street to street, the comfortable middle-class living cheek-by-jowl with the desperately poor and the obscenely rich. As bad as things were in the city, with people being killed every day for a few coins and homeless children starving or freezing in every nook and cranny, he wondered that it wasn’t worse. If the poor ever decided to rise up, their sheer numbers would overpower those who considered themselves the powerful ones in the city.

  If that ever did happen, which side would Frank be on? he wondered as he found the Giddings home in the middle of a row of neatly kept homes. Unlike similar homes located below Washington Square, such as the one where Anna Blake had lived, all these houses still held only single families. No boardinghouses or brothels here. Giddings had done quite well for himself at Smythe, Masterson and Judd. Until recently, that is.

  Frank climbed the front steps, noticing they hadn’t been swept in a day or two. Giddings’s servants were poorly disciplined. Frank made a loud cl
atter with the brass knocker and waited. Although he’d made enough noise to rouse the dead, no one responded the first time or even the second time he pounded the metal against the shiny plate. Finally, he saw one of the front curtains move as someone looked out, and he gave the knocker another determined try, hoping to convince whoever was inside that he wasn’t leaving until someone answered the door.

  At last the door opened a crack, just enough for someone to peer out.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” a woman asked.

  If this was a maid, she was poorly trained. “I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy from the New York City Police, and I’m here to see Gilbert Giddings.”

  His tone told her he would force his way inside if necessary, and the door opened a bit farther. Now he could see the woman, and she wasn’t a maid. Her clothes were simple, a white shirtwaist and black skirt, which meant she could have been the housekeeper, except Frank knew she wasn’t. She held herself too stiffly, and her manner was too polished, too commanding, for her to have been a servant.

  “Come inside before my neighbors hear you,” she said sharply and stepped aside to admit him.

  The moment he entered the house, he knew something wasn’t right. It had a cold, empty feeling. A glance around told him why—it really was empty, or very nearly. The entry had no furniture or carpet, and when he glanced into the front parlor, he saw that it, too, had been cleared. It wasn’t the newness of a house recently inhabited, either. He could see where carpets had lain on the floors and bright places on the wallpaper where pictures had once hung.

  “Mr. Giddings isn’t here,” she said.

  Frank turned his attention back to the woman. “Are you Mrs. Giddings?” he guessed.

  She seemed reluctant to reply, but finally, she nodded once. She might have been an attractive woman if her face hadn’t been so bloodless and pinched. Plainly, she was under a great strain and had summoned every ounce of her courage and strength to bear up under it.