Murder On GramercyPark

by Victoria Thompson

  Sarah watched from the small window of Dudley’s room. She couldn’t see the street from here. The view was of the back of the opposite buildings and the small patch of ground in between where outhouses squatted and clotheslines stretched, crisscrossing the open space like a massive cat’s cradle. One by one, the lights of the other buildings blinked out, gradually obliterating even the poor view she had. The sounds of the house quieted, too, as the other tenants either went to bed or went out to prowl on this Saturday night.

  Too bad she hadn’t thought to bring a book to read, although reading by the light of the single candle in Dudley’s room would have been difficult. About all she could hope was that she would somehow fall asleep sitting up in the straight chair as Dr. Woomer had done earlier.

  Just when she was giving serious thought to waking the landlady to ask for bedding to make herself a pallet on the floor, Dudley groaned again. This time Sarah didn’t wait for him to ask for water. She took it to him and helped him drink his fill. His color looked a little better, but he was still dangerously weak.

  “Mr. Dudley, can you hear me?” she asked. He was probably ready for some more morphine.

  “Where… am I?” he asked, blinking at her as if trying to focus on her face.

  “You’re in your rooms in your lodging house. Do you remember what happened?”

  “No, I… I’m hurt,” he said in surprise.

  “Someone stabbed you while you were asleep.”

  “Someone stabbed me?” he asked in disbelief. “Who would want to do that?”

  Sarah could think of several people who might want to dispose of him, in addition to the person who actually had tried to, and was surprised Dudley couldn’st, but she said, “Don’t think about it now. Is the pain very bad?”

  He winced. “A little,” he admitted.

  She fixed him another dose of morphine. Fortunately, he didn’t ask her what it was, so she didn’t have to lie. Considering his experiences with Letitia’s morphine addiction, he might not want to take it if he knew.

  “There now, you’ll feel better in a few minutes. Just try to get some rest. Could you eat something?”

  “No, I… No.” He closed his eyes, and Sarah thought the drug had started to work and he was asleep, but after a while he said, “Letitia.”

  Sarah thought he might be dreaming, but his eyes were open again, and he looked alarmed.

  “What about Letitia?” she asked, wondering if he’d realized someone had wanted him dead because of her.

  “Does she know? About me, I mean? She’ll be worried.”

  Sarah couldn’t help wondering just how worried Letitia would really be, considering Malloy was going to tell her he was dead. “Mr. Malloy went to see her,” Sarah said. “I’m sure he’ll tell her that I’m taking care of you.”

  That lie didn’t seem to comfort him. “She’ll be very upset. She isn’t strong, you know,” he confided. “And she’s so afraid.”

  “What is she afraid of?” Sarah asked, wondering if she should encourage him to talk. As his nurse, she should let him rest. But if she didn’t let him talk now, he might not get another chance, and the morphine would be taking effect soon.

  “She’s afraid of everything,” he said. “And everyone.”

  “Her husband?” Sarah asked curiously. “Did he abuse her?”

  Dudley shook his head impatiently. “He suspected she was taking morphine again. He wouldn’t permit it.”

  “She told me he searched her rooms,” Sarah remembered, “so she couldn’t keep any in the house. That’s why she had to go to the opium den.”

  “She was worried about the baby,” he said.

  “She had a right to be. Her baby could have died,” Sarah said, feeling the outrage all over again.

  “No, not that. Mr. Fong said the baby would be fine. She was afraid… when the baby came…” His voice trailed off, and he closed his eyes again. The morphine had begun its work.

  Sarah stood there a moment, watching him to make sure he wouldn’t awaken again while she tried to think of what else Letitia might have been afraid. When the baby came, he’d said. What more could she have feared? Dying in childbirth? It was an understandable fear. Or maybe she was afraid that Blackwell would realize he wasn’t the baby’s father.

  Sarah heard footsteps in the hallway. Someone was moving quietly toward Dudley’s room, but no one could move silently in this house because of the squeaky boards in the old flooring. It must be Malloy, at last, and she could show him what she’d found. She’d just set the bottle of morphine on the bureau as the door opened.

  But her visitor wasn’t Frank Malloy.

  Amos Potter stared back at her, even more surprised than she.

  “What the…?” he began, and then he saw Dudley lying on the bed. “He’s not dead!” he cried. He turned on Sarah, furious. “Malloy lied! He’s still alive!”

  “No thanks to you,” Sarah said. “I found your key, the one from your watch fob. You must have lost it in the struggle.” The one she’d seen him fiddling with time and again.

  “Where is it? Give it to me!” He started looking around frantically, and Sarah instinctively felt her pocket where she’d put it for safekeeping.

  Seeing the gesture, he lunged for her, but she was too quick for him, knocking over the chair as she dodged. He stumbled over it but managed to catch her arm.

  “It’s too late!” she cried, struggling to break free. “Malloy already knows!”

  “No, he doesn’st! He has no idea, or he never would’ve let me go tonight!” He caught her other wrist, and for a moment they grappled, Sarah scratching and clawing, Potter trying to reach the pocket of her skirt where she’d hidden the Phi Beta Kappa key.

  Finally, it occurred to her to scream, so she did, as loudly as she could.

  Potter started, but she’d only distracted him for a moment. He released one of her hands and grabbed for her pocket, but she drew back her free hand and boxed his ear. The pain, she knew from her medical training, was excruciating and could even cause deafness. Potter howled, flinching and releasing her other hand in reaction.

  This time she lurched for the door, wondering vaguely why no one had yet come to her rescue. She’d taken only one step, however, when she came up short. Potter had grabbed her skirt. She heard the stitches at her waistband starting to pop. In another moment the fabric would give, but he might well overpower her before that. Then she saw the broom leaning against the wall where she’d left it. With one burst of strength, she threw herself at it. She felt her skirt giving at the waist and heard the rending of the fabric, and then her hands were on the broom.

  Taking no time to think or to aim, she simply swung it as hard and as fast as she could. The wooden handle struck solid flesh, and Potter grunted, but he was on her again, too close for swinging. Almost without thinking, she drew the broom handle back and lunged toward Potter as he lunged toward her, meeting him with the handle aimed squarely at his midsection.

  His gasp told her she had struck home. He went down in a heap, his face working furiously as he struggled, in vain, for breath. She only had a moment, she knew, so she gave him one more whack on the side of the head, just for good measure. If he was stunned, she’d have a bit of extra time.

  As Potter lay poleaxed in a heap on the floor, Sarah snatched up her medical bag and dug down for a roll of bandages. In a matter of moments she’d tied Potter’s hands behind his back, and by the time he finally succeeded in drawing a full breath, she was binding his ankles just as securely.

  “You… tried… to kill… me!” he said breathlessly.

  “That’s funny coming from someone who’s killed two men and tried to kill a third,” Sarah said, using her considerable skill at bandaging to make sure Amos Potter wouldn’t be able to work himself free before Malloy turned up. “I only knocked the wind out of you. There’s a place right here,” she said, giving him a playful punch that made him whimper. “It’s called the solar plexus. It drives the breath right ou
t of you. You think you’re dying, but you aren’t really hurt at all.”

  “I didn’t kill… two men…” he gasped.

  “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Potter,” Sarah told him cheerfully. “It’s plain as day. You killed Dr. Blackwell for heaven only knows what reason, probably something to do with his wife, and then you tried to convince Mr. Malloy that young Calvin had done it and killed himself out of remorse. Except you botched the suicide note-”

  “But Malloy didn’t find the note!” he exclaimed.

  Sarah smiled. “Malloy said only the killer would know about the note,” she told him triumphantly.

  Potter moaned, but whether from pain or despair, Sarah couldn’t tell.

  “And then you tried to kill poor Dudley because you didn’t want Letitia marrying him after you’d gone to so much trouble to make sure she was free,” Sarah concluded.

  “You’re wrong,” Potter warned her. “About everything. You’ll never prove a thing.”

  Sarah didn’t bother to reply. She got to her feet and tried to examine the damage to her skirt. “I’m going to have to send you my dressmaker’s bill, Mr. Potter,” she said as she tucked the damaged garment up as best she could. “You’ve seriously damaged my gown.”

  This time he didn’t reply, although his glare was rather eloquent.

  She righted the chair and sat down to wait for Malloy. She knew they wouldn’t have to prove Potter had committed the murders. By the time Malloy was finished with him, he would gratefully confess to everything. She almost felt sorry for him until she remembered poor Calvin Brown, who had died so needlessly for another man’s stupid obsession.

  Sarah listened to the silence in the house and realized that still no one had come to her aid. “Where is everyone?” she asked of no one in particular.

  “They’re either out or they’re drunk,” Potter said in disgust. “How do you think I got in here without anyone seeing me?”

  And how else could he have attacked Dudley without drawing any attention? she realized.

  “I’m very uncomfortable,” Potter tried after a few minutes.

  “It could be a lot worse. Just be glad you aren’t dying of arsenic poisoning,” she said sweetly.

  After that, he didn’t say a word until Malloy finally clumped up the stairs nearly an hour later. He actually swore when he saw Potter lying trussed on the floor of the tiny room. Then he looked around before finally settling on Sarah again.

  “Where’s Moran?”

  “I sent him to find you.”

  He seemed relieved. “So he was the one who did this,” he determined, indicating Potter lying on the floor.

  “Oh, no,” Sarah assured him. “I figured out Mr. Potter was the killer, and I sent Officer Moran to find you. Then Mr. Potter came back to find his key and-”

  “At least tell me Dudley helped you,” he begged.

  “Mr. Dudley is hardly in any condition to exert himself,” she pointed out. “Besides, I didn’t need any help. Mr. Potter really doesn’t have much imagination as an adversary, although he did tear my skirt,” she added, remembering.

  Malloy looked like he might tear something of Potter’s. “He laid hands on you?” he demanded, outraged.

  “He was trying to get this away from me,” she said, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing the key she had found under Dudley’s bed. “I found it when I was cleaning up. He must have lost it in the struggle with Dudley.”

  Malloy’s face lit with understanding. “That’s what was bothering me about him this evening. He kept fiddling with his watch chain, but the key was gone. He must have noticed it then.” He turned back to Potter. “Is that what happened?”

  Potter simply stared back, refusing to answer. Malloy had no patience for stubborn felons. He gave Potter’s kneecap a gentle kick.

  Potter howled in pain again.

  “Is that what happened?” Malloy asked again. “You realized you’d lost the watch fob here and came back to get it? You must’ve figured the room would be empty by now. We wouldn’t leave a dead body lying around very long, would we? How about a civil answer, Potter?” he added, preparing to issue another stroke of persuasion.

  “Yes, yes,” Potter said quickly, before Malloy could administer any more blows. “I noticed it was missing. I knew if you’d found it, you would have arrested me when you came to my flat tonight. All I had to do was come back here and retrieve it, and you’d never connect me with Dudley’s death.”

  “Except Dudley isn’t dead,” Malloy pointed out. “And you attacked Mrs. Brandt and tore her dress. I don’t have much respect for a man who’d do something like that.”

  “I didn’t hurt her!” he exclaimed frantically. “I only tried to get the key from her. She was the one who attacked me!”

  Malloy considered Potter’s current condition for a long moment before turning back to Sarah. “You have to tell me how you did this.”

  She shrugged, it had been nothing at all. “A broom handle to the solar plexus.”

  “The what?”

  “Solar plexus. Right here.” She pointed. “One blow and the person is incapacitated for a short period of time.”

  Plainly, this came as no surprise to him except for one thing. “How would you know something like that?”

  Sarah gave him a smug smile. “There are things I know about the human body that would astound you, Malloy.”

  “No doubt,” he said, thumbing back his bowler hat in amazement. “Even still, you’re lucky he didn’t hurt you, and Dudley, too, for that matter. What were you thinking, sending Moran off like that?” He sounded exasperated, but not really mad.

  “I never thought about Potter coming back here. Why should he, if he thought Dudley was dead? In any case, no harm done.” She smiled again.

  He didn’t smile back. Plainly, he thought a lot of harm had been done, or at least could have been. “What about Dudley? How’s he doing?”

  “He’s sleeping. Morphine,” she added as an explanation.

  “Good for him.” He turned back to Potter, who had been listening avidly, probably hoping Malloy had forgotten about him. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me about killing young Calvin, now would you?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he insisted.

  Malloy glanced at Sarah, trying to determine how far he could go without incurring her displeasure or arousing her distaste. Probably not far enough, he judged, and turned back to Potter. “You know, I really liked that boy. He had a lot of guts coming to New York to find his old man. If you’d just stuck with Blackwell and Dudley, I wouldn’t feel quite so strongly about this case, but the boy’s death really bothers me. Lucky for you, Mrs. Brandt is here, so I can’t ask the kind of questions I’d like to. But don’t worry, I’ll call for a wagon and take you down to the station, where we can talk in private about everything.”

  Malloy’s mild tone didn’t fool Potter. The mention of the station house made his eyes widen. Sarah knew she should disapprove of Malloy’s methods, but she had also been fond of Calvin Brown. His killer deserved whatever Malloy saw fit to give him.

  “Will you be all right here while I go find a call box?” Malloy asked her.

  She gave him a pitying look, not bothering to remind him she’d been perfectly fine without him up until now.

  He went out, muttering to himself.

  16

  As FRANK HAD EXPECTED, BY THE TIME HE GOT Amos Potter into the bowels of the Police Headquarters building, he was white with terror. The noises and the smells were horrible enough, but seeing the derelicts and bums being dragged in, bloody and broken from their earlier encounters with police on this busy Saturday night could turn a strong man’s stomach. Amos Potter was not a strong man.

  Frank had hauled him into one of the basement interrogation rooms, shoved him into one of the chairs, and closed the door behind them with a decisive slam. Potter sat there fairly trembling, his eyes stretched wide.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “I’ll tell
you whatever you want to know.”

  “Do you still deny that you stabbed Peter Dudley?” he began pleasantly. “Bearing in mind that Mrs. Brandt found your watch fob under his bed and that Dudley will most likely identify you when he comes to.”

  “I… Yes, I must admit that, I suppose. I mean, I did, of course,” he clarified at Frank’s frown of disapproval.

  “And exactly why did you think it was necessary to dispose of Mr. Dudley?” Frank asked.

  Potter took a moment to consider his response. “A lady’s reputation is at stake here, and-”

  “I already know that Dudley is the father of Letitia Blackwell’s baby, so you can forget protecting her,” Frank informed him.

  Potter’s neck reddened, but he managed to maintain what little was left of his dignity. “I believe that he was trying to convince Mrs. Blackwell to marry him.”

  “A bit late, by my reckoning, but so what if she did?”

  Potter seemed shocked. “Don’t you understand? It would be scandal enough if she remarried anyone so quickly after Edmund’s death, but as soon as people saw him and… and the child…”

  “I understand the baby bears a striking resemblance to his father,” Frank said.

  Potter sighed. “Even if the red hair were merely a coincidence, it would be remarkable. People would assume the worst, regardless of the truth.”

  “And in this case, the truth is the worst,” Frank reminded him.

  Potter looked as if he’d like to defend Letitia’s honor, but he refrained. “Letitia would be a laughingstock, her reputation ruined. She would be shunned in polite society.”

  Frank could think of worse fates, like being stabbed to death, but he said, “So you felt it was your obligation to murder Dudley and protect her from this fate worse than death.”

  Potter didn’t appreciate his sarcasm, but he held his ground. “I can’t expect you to understand, but this is the only life Letitia has ever known. She would be devastated if she were to be excluded from society.”