Murder on Marble Row

by Victoria Thompson

  “He . . . he climbed out the window and escaped,” the Goo-Goo explained.

  Frank was sure this must be a bad dream. “He was on the third floor! He’d kill himself!”

  The Goo-Goo’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed loudly. “He . . . uh . . . he climbed down some kind of drain pipe, looks like.”

  Frank managed to get the rest of the story from the fellow without scaring him to death, although it was a near thing. Fortunately, the officer he’d left guarding Creighton Van Dyke was nowhere to be found, or Frank might have had to shed some blood.

  He went upstairs and burst into the parlor without bothering to let the maid announce him or even to knock. The room’s three occupants looked up in wide-eyed surprise. He mentally dismissed the son and the stepmother and turned to Miss Alberta Van Dyke, the only one likely to give him an intelligent answer. “Where is he?”

  Her face was blotched from crying, making her even more unattractive than she usually was, but she stared back at him defiantly. “I have no idea. You can’t think he’d confide his plans to me.”

  “You’re the one who knew where to find him before,” Frank reminded her.

  “I knew where he lived because I’d taken him money.”

  “Alberta!” Mrs. Van Dyke exclaimed in outrage. “How could you? Your father had forbidden us to have any contact with him!”

  Alberta cast her stepmother an exasperated glance, but she said to Frank, “Mrs. Brandt and her mother went to look for him.”

  “What?” This time Frank did bellow, frightening the women and making Tad Van Dyke grab his head. Frank remembered the bottle of brandy he’d taken with him when he’d retired last night. With difficulty, Frank checked his temper and moderated his voice. “Did you say Mrs. Brandt went to look for Creighton?”

  Alberta nodded, reluctant to speak again for fear of inspiring another outburst.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Back to Creighton’s flat,” she admitted, equally reluctantly. “Her mother went with her.”

  Frank had been certain he’d misunderstood this part of it. “Mrs. Decker went to the Lower East Side with Sar . . . Mrs. Brandt?”

  “Sarah did try to talk her out of it,” Tad offered hesitantly.

  Frank wanted to punch something. What could have possessed Sarah to drag her mother along with her when she was looking for an escaped anarchist who might also have killed his own father? He didn’t bother to ask himself why Sarah would have even gone on such an errand in the first place. He already knew she had a remarkable lack of good sense where her own safety was concerned.

  “Miss Van Dyke,” Frank said with all the control he could muster, “why did they go to Creighton’s flat?”

  “Because that’s the only place they knew to start looking for him,” she said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. “Sarah was going to see if Katya was still there, and if she was, of course she might know where Creighton is. If not, Sarah said she’d met a friend of Katya’s who’s a midwife, and Sarah thought that, well, perhaps she would help.”

  Frank thought that was highly unlikely, but he didn’t bother to say so. It wasn’t Alberta Van Dyke’s fault that Sarah Brandt was acting like a nitwit. He drew a deep, calming breath and let it out in a sigh. “If I find out any of you helped him escape, I’ll have to—”

  “Don’t bother threatening us, Mr. Malloy,” Alberta said indignantly. “We had no idea he intended to escape, and we wouldn’t have helped him in any case. He’s much safer here than with those horrible people who killed Father.”

  “On the contrary,” Mrs. Van Dyke said, “I can’t imagine he’s in any danger from those people at all. The fact that he escaped from here proves he’s guilty. Even if he didn’t plant the bomb himself, I’m sure he planned it.”

  Frank let his gaze rest expectantly on Tad Van Dyke. Might as well get everyone’s opinion while he was here. The boy still looked a little green from his overindulgence, but he met Frank’s gaze steadily. “My brother turned his back on everything he ever knew to take up with those people, and no one else stood to gain from my father’s death.”

  “You and your sister and Mrs. Van Dyke stood to gain,” Frank reminded him.

  The boy shook his head. “We never wanted for anything when Father was alive, but he’d cut off Creighton’s allowance. Father would’ve made sure he never got another penny until he came back home, too. How was he supposed to support that woman and her friends? That’s why she seduced him in the first place, you know. They saw him as their golden goose.”

  “Your brother didn’t expect to profit from your father’s death because he thought your father had disinherited him,” Frank said.

  “Did he?” Tad said with a trace of surprise. “Well, I guess he might have been afraid of that, but Father was a patient man. He fully expected his prodigal son would eventually see the error of his ways and return home, begging for forgiveness. And he wasn’t one to waste money having a lawyer to change his will if he was certain Creighton would come to his senses.”

  Frank looked at the women. “Is that true?”

  Mrs. Van Dyke seemed bored with the entire conversation. “I have no idea. My husband didn’t confide his business to me.”

  “Miss Van Dyke?” Frank prodded.

  “He didn’t confide in me, either,” she said, not meeting his gaze.

  “But you must have a theory on the matter. Was your father the type of man to write one of his children out of his will?”

  Alberta didn’t want to answer, and Frank sensed that was because her reply would implicate Creighton even more. He was right. “What Tad said is . . . true,” she said reluctantly. “Father was certain that cutting off Creighton’s allowance would bring him crawling back home again. And of course, he had no expectation of dying before that happened.”

  “Exactly,” Tad said with a trace of smugness at being judged correct by his older sister. “You can check with his attorney to be sure, but Father wasn’t the type of man to engage in empty gestures. There would be no point in disinheriting Creighton unless Creighton knew it was going to happen so he could repent from his evil ways and prevent it.”

  They had a point, and as certain as Frank had been that Creighton was innocent, the evidence was mounting against him. Trouble was, he didn’t know where the man was, and Sarah Brandt and her mother had already set out after him. He felt a headache coming on.

  “I’ll leave some officers here to guard the place, and if Creighton comes back—”

  “He won’t,” Alberta assured him. “You must know that as well as we do.”

  “Then if he sends you a message of any kind, let me know immediately.” Alberta opened her mouth to protest, but Frank raised his hand to stop her. “I know it’s unlikely, but you’d be amazed at the stupid things people do in situations like this. Oh, and I’ll need the name of Mr. Van Dyke’s attorney—to check on his will.”

  When he had the necessary information, Frank used the Van Dykes’ telephone to contact Captain O’Connor and suggest he put one of his detectives to work learning the terms of Gregory Van Dyke’s will. If Creighton was disinherited, he wouldn’t have much of a motive for killing his father except revenge, but if he stood to inherit a sizable sum of money, it might draw him out of hiding to claim it. With his family name behind him and the money to hire a good attorney, he might just be able to walk away from a murder charge.

  If he was guilty at all. But Frank reminded himself that the man had escaped from custody. Innocent men seldom did such a foolish thing.

  Frank put the officers still at the Van Dyke house on notice that there would be hell to pay if they let anything else untoward happen there. Confident he’d left the family as safe as they could be, he started down the stairs to the front door. If he was very lucky, he might be able to catch up to Sarah Brandt before she got herself—and her mother—into trouble.

  Then he heard the maid scream.

  7

  TO HER CREDIT,
MRS. DECKER REFUSED TO BE shocked—or at least to show that she was shocked—by anything she saw as they walked through the streets lined with peddlers’ carts and strewn with garbage and clogged with people of all ages and descriptions.

  “This is the place,” Sarah said as they approached one of several identical tenement buildings. Her mother hesitated only a moment before following her inside.

  “Why is it so dark in here?” Mrs. Decker asked in alarm as the front door of the building closed behind them, cutting off the only source of light.

  “Because there aren’t any windows in the stairwell. I suppose they could put in gas, but it would be very dangerous to burn the jets in the hallways with no one to watch them.” Sarah couldn’t see her mother’s expression, but she could imagine her horror at the thought of what a fire could do to a place like this. “Be careful on the stairs.”

  Sarah took her mother’s arm and led her to the stairway. They climbed in silence up to the flat where Creighton and Katya had lived. Not surprisingly, no one answered her knock, but the door opened readily when she turned the knob.

  “What are you doing, Sarah?” her mother asked in horror. “You can’t just walk into someone’s home!”

  Sarah paid her no attention. She glanced around the cold kitchen where she had first encountered Creighton and Katya and their friends. Someone had cleared away the remnants of the meal they had been eating, washed the dishes, and put them neatly away on the shelves. She called out, but no one answered. A quick check of the other two rooms proved the place was empty. And deserted. She saw no clothing or personal effects anyplace, and the straw-stuffed pallets that served as beds had been stripped of their bedclothes.

  Mrs. Decker was waiting for her in the doorway, looking both apprehensive and outraged at Sarah’s behavior.

  “They’ve gone,” she reported.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “They took their clothes.”

  “They left the dishes,” Mrs. Decker pointed out.

  “Probably because they were too bulky to carry.”

  “Then we’ll never find them.” She sounded a bit relieved, and Sarah had to bite back a smile.

  “If you have friends, someone will know where you are,” Sarah said confidently. To her mother’s dismay, she stepped back out into the hallway and began pounding on the doors of the other flats on that floor until she found someone who spoke enough English to direct her downstairs to Emma Goldman’s flat.

  By now Sarah was certain her mother deeply regretted accompanying her on this expedition, but she had no choice except to follow as Sarah made her way back down the darkened staircase to Emma Goldman’s door.

  They didn’t have to knock. Miss Goldman was waiting for them in her open doorway, and she didn’t look pleased to see them.

  “Mother, this is Miss Emma Goldman,” Sarah said, overlooking Miss Goldman’s scowl. “Miss Goldman, my mother, Mrs. Felix Decker.”

  Sarah figured her mother had never been introduced to a Russian Jewish midwife before, but she gave no indication she found it strange. “Miss Goldman,” she said as if they were in an uptown parlor.

  “Felix is a strange name for a woman,” Miss Goldman remarked, sizing Mrs. Decker up through her spectacles.

  “It’s my husband’s name,” Mrs. Decker said, a bit shocked that Miss Goldman wouldn’t know this.

  “Why would you give up a perfectly good name—what is your name? Your real one?”

  “Elizabeth,” Mrs. Decker said, now sounding defensive.

  “Why would you give up a perfectly good woman’s name to take a man’s name?”

  “That’s the custom here,” Mrs. Decker explained carefully, probably thinking Miss Goldman, being from Russia, didn’t understand American ways. “A woman takes her husband’s name when she marries.”

  “Is the same everywhere,” Miss Goldman informed her. “That does not make it right. A woman who marries gives up her freedom. She is a fool!”

  “Miss Goldman,” Sarah said quickly, before her mother could respond and turn Miss Goldman’s odd opinions into an argument. “We’re trying to find Katya and Creighton.”

  “You should know where he is. Your policeman took him away,” she reminded Sarah.

  “He escaped last night. We think—”

  “Escaped!” a voice echoed from within the flat.

  Miss Goldman snapped something that sounded like a warning in Russian, but it was too late. Sarah had recognized the voice, and even before she could say so, Katya came running out of the back room.

  “What do you mean? Where did he go?” she demanded of Sarah.

  “Detective Sergeant Malloy left him at his father’s house, locked in his room with a police guard, but he climbed out a window and got away,” Sarah explained. “I thought for certain he would have come back here for you.”

  Katya looked stricken. “He did not come here.”

  “Do not listen,” Miss Goldman said. “It is a trick.”

  “It isn’t a trick,” Sarah insisted. “What would I have to gain by making up a story like this? Katya, we have to find him before the police do. Now that he escaped, they’re sure he’s guilty. Where would he have gone?”

  She shook her head in despair. “Here, to me,” she said, near tears. Plainly, she thought he had deserted her.

  “No, he wouldn’t want to bring the police here and put you in danger,” Sarah said.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t be discussing this in the hallway where anyone might overhear,” Mrs. Decker said, surprising them all.

  Sarah glanced around and saw several of the other doors on the floor opened a crack so people could hear what was going on. Sarah had caused enough of a disturbance that everyone in the building was probably trying to eavesdrop. “Or I could send for Mr. Malloy, and he could take you down to Police Headquarters to—”

  “Come inside,” Miss Goldman said in exasperation. She slammed the door behind them with more force than necessary.

  This flat was far more comfortably furnished than the one Katya and Creighton shared. Miss Goldman had skirted the sink with brightly colored fabric, and a tablecloth adorned the table. Some framed pictures of unfamiliar landscapes hung on the walls, and the dishes on the shelves were of much better quality than the mismatched ones upstairs.

  “She knows nothing,” Miss Goldman informed them. “She cannot help you.”

  “Who would help Creighton?” Sarah asked Katya. “Who would he go to?”

  Katya shook her head, looking anxiously at Miss Goldman for guidance.

  “Katya, you said something about your brother when I was here before. Would he help Creighton?”

  This terrified Katya, who sank down in one of the kitchen chairs as if her legs would no longer hold her. “Misha would not do this thing!”

  “Do you mean he wouldn’t help Creighton or he wouldn’t kill Creighton’s father?” Sarah asked. “That’s what Creighton thought, wasn’t it? That your brother and his friends had planted the bomb.”

  She was shaking her head again, but Miss Goldman had had enough. “Stop this. She knows nothing. Leave her alone.”

  “If Creighton finds your brother first, he might not wait for an explanation,” Sarah warned her. “And if Creighton is charged with killing his father, his attorney would probably try to blame it on your brother to get him off. Tell me where to find him before it’s too late!”

  “He might be at the First Street Saloon,” Miss Goldman said in disgust before Katya could reply.

  Sarah frowned. She didn’t trust the woman. “How do you know he’d be there?”

  “He is always there,” Katya said. “He lives with us, but only to sleep and sometimes to eat. He meets his friends there, and they talk . . . about politics.”

  “Where is this place?” Sarah asked.

  “Fifty-one East First Street, between First and Second Avenues,” Miss Goldman said grudgingly.

  Sarah looked at Katya. “Don’t try to run away,” she warned her. “I
’m sure Creighton will come back for you when he can.”

  Katya didn’t seem so sure. Her life probably hadn’t taught her that hope was often rewarded.

  “She will stay here,” Miss Goldman assured her. “She cannot run away because of the baby.”

  “If I find Creighton, I’ll tell him where you are,” Sarah promised. “Thank you for your help,” she added to Miss Goldman, who just glared back at her.

  Sarah ushered her flabbergasted mother out of the flat.

  “Honestly, Sarah, wherever did you learn to speak to people that way?” she asked as they made their way down the dark stairs.

  Sarah decided not to tell the truth, that Frank Malloy had trained her by example. “Good manners wouldn’t have helped in that situation, Mother. I got the information I needed and that’s the important thing. The saloon isn’t far from here. If Misha Petrova isn’t there, someone might know where to find him.”

  “You can’t mean you intend to go to a saloon by yourself, Sarah!” her mother gasped in horror.

  “Of course not, Mother. You’re going with me.”

  FRANK RACED DOWN THE REST OF THE STAIRS TO THE foyer, where he found the maid trying to hold an unsteady Lewis Reed upright. The man looked ghastly, as if all the blood had drained out of his body and left him perfectly white. A small trickle of blood was sliding down the side of his face from beneath the bandage over which he’d carefully and awkwardly placed his derby hat.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” Frank nearly shouted as he went to relieve the maid of her burden. The instant Frank took Reed’s weight, she scampered away, nearly weeping with fright.

  “What’s going on here?” a man demanded, and from the corner of his eye, Frank saw the butler hurrying from a nearby doorway.

  “Help me get him upstairs, will you?” Frank said to the butler.

  “Mr. Reed?” the butler said in amazement when he’d recognized the visitor. He quickly moved to help support Reed.