Murder on Washington Square

by Victoria Thompson

  How many women had she met in the city who had been victimized in just this way by men too selfish to consider anything except their own desires? Sarah might despise the weakness that made women prey to such deception, but even more, she hated the cruelty that took advantage of it.

  “We’ll find him, Mrs. Walcott,” Sarah promised. “I’ll get word to Mr. Malloy, and he’ll start the search.”

  “They could be anywhere by now,” Mrs. Walcott pointed out. “I’m afraid you’ll never be able to locate them.”

  She was right, of course. With a day’s head start and no idea even in which direction they had gone, there was little chance they’d ever be found. They could have even stayed right here in the city and disappeared into the teeming tenements without a trace.

  “Won’t someone be worried about you, Mrs. Brandt?” Mrs. Walcott asked as she dabbed at her eyes again. “It’s quite dark outside now. I feel guilty keeping you here, listening to my troubles.”

  “I’m used to being out at all hours,” Sarah reassured her. “And there’s no one to wait up for me. I’m a widow.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. You’re such a young woman.”

  Sarah waved away her sympathy. “You’re very upset. Can I get you something?”

  Mrs. Walcott dabbed at her eyes again. “I’d love some tea, but let me get it. It will give me something to do. I’m so tired of sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Please, just wait right here. I won’t be a minute.”

  When the landlady had gone, Sarah realized that the mention of tea had started her stomach growling. Except for the sausage sandwich she’d gobbled earlier today, she hadn’t eaten since . . . since Malloy had fixed breakfast for her. The memory sent a wave of heat washing over her, and she was very glad to be alone, because she had the terrible feeling she might actually be blushing.

  To distract herself from such unsettling thoughts, she got up and began to walk around the room, carefully examining every detail. For the first time, she realized that the room contained not one personal item. People usually had framed photographs of loved ones or a sampler or other mementos. Sarah remembered that the Walcotts had bought the house from an old man, and most of the furniture had been his. But surely they would have brought some of their own things with them. If they had, however, none of them were displayed here.

  Mrs. Walcott reappeared a few minutes later, carrying a tea tray. Sarah had been hoping she would include something edible, but the tray bore no cookies or other delicacies. She set the tray down on a side table, and proceeded to pour two cups.

  “Do you take milk?” she asked Sarah.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I hope you don’t mind. I sweetened the tea in the pot. I always do when I’m making it for myself, and I just forgot this time.”

  “That’s fine,” Sarah said. “I like it sweet.”

  Mrs. Walcott stirred Sarah’s cup, then handed it to her before filling her own.

  Sarah took a sip. The tea was extremely sweet, making her empty stomach clench with happiness. She wanted to gulp the whole cup at once, but good manners prevailed. Waiting until Mrs. Walcott was seated again, she asked, “Would you mind telling me what really happened the night Anna died?”

  Mrs. Walcott took a fortifying sip of her tea. “I wouldn’t mind at all, since I no longer have any reason not to. I was very upset with Anna that night.”

  “Because the Giddings boy came to the house?” Sarah guessed.

  “No, that was merely an annoyance. I was upset because I’d found Anna and my husband together that night,” she said bitterly. “I was furious, of course, and jealous and humiliated. I ordered Anna to leave. I know you’re thinking I should have been angry at Oliver, and I was, but I’m afraid I wanted to blame Anna for everything. She ran out into the night, and Oliver went after her. He wouldn’t tell me what happened between them, but when he returned, he had blood on his clothes, and he said Anna wouldn’t be coming back. He begged me to forgive him, and he promised he would never be unfaithful to me again.”

  “And you believed him?” Sarah asked incredulously.

  Mrs. Walcott’s pride was all that held her together. “I wanted to believe him, Mrs. Brandt. I know that makes me a fool, but he swore he’d never cared for her, not the way he cared for me. Of course, I didn’t know Anna was dead until the next morning, when the police came. I thought . . . Well, I don’t know what I thought. Oliver had left by then and asked me to say he hadn’t been home at all that evening. He didn’t come back for several days. I was afraid he’d never come back at all.”

  Sarah took another sip of the tea, and this time the sweetness was cloying, making her feel slightly nauseated. That would teach her not to eat. “I suppose all of this happened later in the evening,” Sarah guessed. “After Miss Porter went to bed.”

  “Yes, I’d retired myself, but something awakened me. When I saw Oliver wasn’t in bed, I went looking for him, and . . . that’s when I found him with Anna,” the other woman explained, her eyes clouded with the painful memories. “I was grateful Catherine slept through the whole thing. There was certainly no reason to air our dirty linen in front of her. Now, of course . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Now you probably wish you had,” Sarah guessed.

  “Perhaps if she’d known Oliver’s true character, she wouldn’t have run away with him,” Mrs. Walcott said sadly. “Of course, I realize he was probably dallying with her all along, too.”

  “Did your husband admit to killing Anna?” Sarah asked, hating to cause the woman more pain, but knowing it was necessary. “Did he tell you how it happened?”

  “Is your tea too hot?” she asked suddenly, her tone oddly insistent. “Or did I make it too sweet?”

  Too sweet. A memory stirred, the faintest of warnings. Sarah looked down at the cup, trying to remember, but a sudden disturbance distracted her. Someone was yelling outside, and several dogs began barking furiously. “What on earth?” she asked, quickly setting her cup and saucer down. She almost missed the table, and the cup teetered dangerously before Mrs. Walcott caught it.

  “It’s nothing to be alarmed about, just those stray dogs,” Mrs. Walcott said reassuringly. “We can’t seem to get rid of them.”

  But someone was calling Sarah’s name, the person who was shouting over the barking dogs. She was sure of it. She stood up, but she must have risen too quickly, because she felt dizzy. Something is wrong with the tea! her mind cried, but she couldn’t seem to focus on what it might be.

  “Mrs. Brandt! Get out of there! Come quick!” the voice was calling, and Sarah responded instinctively, moving toward the door.

  Mrs. Walcott grabbed her arm to stop her, but she shook her off. “Someone needs help,” she said, her words sounding oddly slow to her own ears.

  “Mrs. Brandt! Get out of there!” the voice was screaming, desperate now. It was vaguely familiar, the panic unmistakable.

  Mrs. Walcott grabbed her again, her hands amazingly strong, like a man’s. Sarah shoved her away, panic making her stronger, too. The woman hit a table, lost her balance, and fell, but Sarah couldn’t stop to help her. She had to get to the voice.

  She was running now, through the house, toward the kitchen, even though her feet felt as if they weren’t even touching the ground. The dogs, she knew, were in the backyard. They wanted to get in the cellar. Wasn’t that what had happened in her dream? She was so confused. She only knew she had to get to the backyard.

  The gaslights were on in the kitchen. She saw the back door and made for it. Mrs. Walcott was behind her, shoes scuffling on the bare floor as she ran to catch up. Sarah threw open the door and launched herself out onto the porch. She caught one of the posts to keep from falling headlong down the steps.

  Vaguely aware that Mrs. Walcott had followed her onto the porch, Sarah concentrated on trying to make sense of what she saw in the backyard. Harold Giddings was waving a stick, trying to chase away a pack of stray dogs who were, in turn, trying to get past
him into the open cellar doors. He was alternately screaming at the dogs and screaming for Sarah.

  An elderly woman, in her nightclothes and carrying a lamp, stood peering at the curious scene from the next porch. Other lights were coming on, and people were starting to shout complaints about the disturbance.

  “Harold!” Sarah shouted over the din, and the boy looked up.

  “Mrs. Brandt! There’s somebody dead down there!” he cried, pointing toward the open cellar doors.

  She leaned forward so she could see into the opening. Someone had lit a lamp in the cellar, and there she saw a large brown dog, the one she herself had tried to shoo away the other day. He was digging furiously, and down in the hole he had dug was what appeared to be a mass of red hair.

  Red hair. Irish girl. Francine. Moved to the country.

  Sarah wanted to scream, but the sound lodged somewhere in her chest. Behind her, someone gasped, and she turned to see Mrs. Walcott. Except her cap had come off in the struggle, and now Sarah could see what it was about her hair she’d been trying to hide. It was cut like a man’s. Now she was Mr. Walcott without the beard!

  And whoever she was, she was running away. No, Mr. Walcott was running away, and he was the killer!

  Something in Sarah seemed to explode, flooding her with fury. Somehow she forced her sluggish body to move, and then she was running down the hallway after Walcott. “Help me, Harold!” she screamed, praying he heard her. Remembering the hands that had tried to hold her from answering Harold’s call, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to restrain Walcott by herself, but she’d do it as long as she could.

  The woman’s skirts impeded Walcott’s progress enough that Sarah caught him as he was opening the front door. Not knowing what else to do, she threw both arms around his waist and fell to her knees. She wasn’t sure if she’d intended to do that or if her knees had simply given out, but her dead weight had stopped him, so she hung on for dear life, still screaming for Harold to help her.

  Walcott struggled fiercely, and something struck her in the temple, sending stars streaking across her vision, but she didn’t let go. She wouldn’t let go, not until someone came to help. She wasn’t going to let Walcott get away with murder. Then Walcott was falling, and someone else was there. Arms and legs, thrashing around, and a stick rising and crashing down. Then everything was still.

  17

  SARAH PRETENDED SHE DIDN’T HEAR MALLOY SWEARING when he was out in the backyard, looking in the cellar. She held the cool cloth to her bruised forehead and closed her eyes, wondering if the dizziness was from the blow she had taken or from the opium in the tea.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Brandt?” Harold Giddings asked solicitously.

  “Yes, thanks to you,” Sarah said, opening her eyes to smile up at him. She was sitting at the table in the Walcotts’ kitchen. “Have I told you how glad I am you followed me here?”

  “At least three times,” Harold said, taking a seat opposite her. He rubbed his eyes as if trying to erase a vision. “I don’t guess I’ll ever get that picture out of my mind. The dog digging down in the cellar and all that hair. That poor woman didn’t hardly have any skin left on her face.”

  “The memory will fade in time,” Sarah said, recalling some of the terrible things she’d managed to push to the back of her memory. “Why did you go in the backyard anyway?”

  “After I followed you here, I thought somebody might see me if I was on the street, so I went around back. The cellar doors were open and there was a bunch of dogs in there, digging at something. I could smell something dead, so I figured it was an animal. I scared most of them off, but that one wouldn’t pay me any mind at all. I couldn’t see much, but then the kitchen lights came on. Then I could make out a lantern sitting on the cellar steps. I had to wait until the person left the kitchen. Then I lit the lamp and saw what they’d been digging up . . . Well, that’s when I started yelling for you to get out of there.”

  “Thank heaven you did. She was trying to poison me. I guess I would’ve ended up down in the cellar, too.” Sarah shuddered at the horrible thought. Another terrible thing she would have to make herself forget.

  “That’s exactly where you would’ve ended up,” Malloy said, coming in from outside. He was angry, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d almost gotten herself killed. “It would’ve been crowded though. Walcott’s already got two people down there, and we found Catherine Porter’s body in her bedroom. She was wrapped up, ready to go down as soon as it got dark. Walcott already had the hole dug.”

  Sarah felt the gorge rising in her throat, but she swallowed it down, determined not to be sick in front of Malloy. She was already humiliated enough. “Poor Catherine.”

  Malloy made a rude noise. “Poor Catherine? She was probably blackmailing some unfortunate man just like Anna Blake was.”

  He was right, of course, but she certainly hadn’t deserved to die for it. And nobody deserved to be buried in a cellar. “Wait, did you say two bodies were already buried in the cellar?” she asked.

  “Yeah. The one Harold found was the red-haired girl who used to live here.”

  “That must be Francine. Walcott told the other girls that Francine had found a rich husband and moved to the country,” Sarah remembered. “Were there other girls before her?”

  “One that I know of. The lady next door told me her name was Cummings or something.”

  “Is she the other body?”

  “No, it’s a man. Probably the old man who owned this house. Walcott told people he’d sold out and moved away, but apparently, they’d killed him and put him in the cellar.”

  Sarah groaned.

  “Does your head hurt?” Harold asked. “He hit you before I could get to him.”

  “Let’s hope he knocked some sense into her,” Malloy said without the slightest trace of sympathy.

  Harold glared at him, but he didn’t notice. He was heading down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah demanded.

  “To see if Walcott has recovered enough from Harold’s strong right arm to answer a few questions.”

  “I’m going, too!” Sarah said, jumping to her feet. She was instantly sorry. She hadn’t drunk very much of the tea, thank heaven, but enough to dull her senses. That, combined with the elbow she’d taken to her temple, was enough to make her wish she’d risen more slowly from her chair.

  “Suit yourself,” Malloy said, but he didn’t wait for her.

  “I’ll help you,” Harold said, taking her arm. “I want to hear what happened, too!”

  Walcott was sitting in the parlor, hands tied in front of him and looking foolish wearing the housedress with his masculine haircut. A uniformed policeman stood guard over him. Someone had tied a bandage around his forehead, where Harold had struck him with the stick he’d been using to frighten the dogs away. He looked a little woozy and very angry.

  “It’s late,” Malloy was saying, “and I’m tired, so please don’t make me exert myself, Walcott. Just tell me the whole story, and that cut on the head will be the worst thing that happens to you tonight.”

  Walcott was trying to look bored, but when he saw Harold and Sarah come into the room, his expression hardened. “You,” he said. “This is all your fault!”

  At first Sarah thought he was addressing her, but then she realized he was glaring at Harold. “Because he came here to the house?” she guessed.

  “Anna was a fool!” Walcott said. “She was never satisfied. I told her over and over again not to be too greedy, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Is that why you killed her, Walcott?” Malloy asked. “Because she was greedy?”

  “No,” Walcott said, turning his anger on Malloy. “Because she was stupid.”

  “How was she stupid?”

  “First she wouldn’t be satisfied with what Giddings could afford to pay her. She made him steal from his company, which drew attention. If they’d pressed charges against him, we would have had the police here in an instant, askin
g all kinds of questions. And then she picked Nelson Ellsworth. That was the stupidest thing of all.”

  “He was a mistake, wasn’t he?” Sarah guessed. “Because he wasn’t married.”

  “She was supposed to check!” Walcott shouted. “She just asked some kid on the street who lived in the house. She didn’t bother to find out that the Mrs. Ellsworth who lived there was his mother!”

  “So that’s why you were so angry with Anna,” she said, earning a black look from Malloy, which she ignored. “Because she’d chosen a man who couldn’t be blackmailed and because she’d drawn attention with Mr. Giddings.”

  “She was causing too much trouble, and she wouldn’t stop,” Walcott said coldly. “I had to get rid of her before she ruined us all.”

  “Is that why you killed Francine, too?” Sarah asked. “Because she was causing trouble?”

  “No, because she got sentimental.” Walcott gave her a condescending glare. “One of her gentlemen friends killed himself, and she started feeling guilty. She even started talking about doing penance for her sins and maybe even going to the police, so I had to silence her.”

  “The way you silenced the old man who owned this house?” Malloy said.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Walcott said. “The old man wasn’t supposed to die. I’d thought of this foolproof way to make money, and I needed a house. Ellie knew about this old man who had one.”

  “Who’s Ellie?” Malloy asked. “Is she buried in the cellar, too?”

  Walcott gave him an irritated glance. “Ellie Cunning-ham, and no, she’s not buried in the cellar or anywhere else. I met Ellie when we were in a play together and—”