Murder on Gramercy Park

by Victoria Thompson

  “So your father ran Peter out of town, and then Dr. Blackwell came to cure you,” Sarah said, hurrying the story along. She already knew this part.

  “But Peter saw my name on the poster, and he just wanted to make sure I was well. He still loved me, you see, and he hadn’t been able to make any inquiries about me without drawing my father’s attention to him. He only wanted to make sure I had recovered!”

  Sarah nodded again. “Of course he did.”

  “When I saw him in the audience, I almost fainted. I could hardly finish my speech. He told me later that’s when he knew I still loved him. I was desperate to see him privately, but I had no idea how to find him. But I didn’t have to worry about that because he was able to find me.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t too difficult. Dr. Blackwell was famous.”

  Letitia ignored the mention of her dead husband. “Peter sent me a note and asked me to meet him somewhere. He just wanted to talk to me, to find out if I had forgiven him. He’d felt so guilty for leaving me and for having caused my accident. Or at least he always blamed himself, even though it wasn’t really his fault.”

  “And so you met him. Weren’t you worried about being seen?”

  “Of course! That’s why we ...”

  “Why you what?” Sarah asked when she hesitated.

  “I couldn’t risk Edmund finding out, and it was the only place we could meet without being seen,” she said defensively.

  “And where was that?”

  “The ... Mr. Fong’s establishment,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “An opium den?” Sarah asked in surprise.

  “They’re very discreet,” Letitia insisted.

  “I’m sure they are,” Sarah said.

  “After that ...” Letitia began, but her voice broke again.

  “I know you must have been very lonely and unhappy,” Sarah said, remembering what the nurse had told her. “I understand that Dr. Blackwell was very busy and was hardly ever at home.”

  “It wasn’t that. He just never loved me,” she informed Sarah indignantly. “Not at all! He only married me so that I would have to keep speaking at his lectures.”

  “He told you that?” Sarah asked in surprise.

  “Not in so many words, but I’m not completely stupid. It was obvious. He never even ... after the first few months he didn’t ... I had my own room, you see, and he didn’t ever come to visit me ...”

  “I understand,” Sarah said, trying to imagine how a man could neglect a wife as lovely as Letitia. And there was one other thing she didn’t understand. “If that was the case, wasn’t he the least bit suspicious when he found out you were with child?”

  Her face twisted with a grief Sarah could only imagine. “That’s what proves how little he cared for me! I was so frightened for him to find out. I was certain he would know the truth and that he would throw me out of the house in disgrace. But he didn’t even suspect! He had no idea how long it had been since he’d shared my bed or that he couldn’t possibly be the baby’s father. He was only annoyed because my condition would make it impossible for me to appear at the lectures for several months. That was the worst part of all! He never even dreamed I’d been unfaithful to him!”

  Sarah found herself sympathizing with Letitia a little, although she knew many women who had far more unhappy lives and who still didn’t feel the need for either morphine or adultery to escape them. Sympathy would get her more information, however, so she allowed herself to feel it.

  “Were you just going to allow Dr. Blackwell to believe the baby was his and go on as you had been, seeing Dudley secretly?” she asked doubtfully.

  “I didn’t know what else to do!” she wailed, dissolving in tears again. “I was afraid Edmund wouldn’t divorce me. He still wanted me to speak at the lectures, and if he knew I wanted to leave him ... Well, if we’d divorced, he could have kept the baby, even though he wasn’t the father. Or at least he would have used that threat to keep me from leaving him. I know he would, just to punish me and force me to do what he wanted.”

  Sarah was very much afraid he might have. The law certainly allowed him to. A woman could be divorced and put out in the street, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and never allowed to see her children again. At the very least, Blackwell could have used the child as leverage to keep Letitia in line. He believed he needed her to promote his cures, and he wouldn’t have let her go easily.

  Letitia was sobbing again, and Sarah didn’t have the heart to press her any further. She’d already learned what she needed to know anyway.

  When the sobs died down to sniffles, Sarah asked, “Would you like me to call your maid?”

  “No, I ... Let me get myself under control first,” she said, dabbing at the last vestiges of her tears. “Oh, Mrs. Brandt, what am I going to do now?”

  “Well, as you pointed out, you are no longer a married woman. You are free to do whatever you wish, and if you wish to marry Dudley, there is nothing to stop you.”

  “But my father would never allow—”

  “Your father really has no control over you anymore,” Sarah reminded her.

  “But Peter is practically penniless,” she pointed out. “How could we live?”

  Plainly, Letitia had grown more practical with the passage of time. She probably hadn’t even considered this the first time she’d eloped with Dudley. “I’m sure Dr. Blackwell must have left you some money,” Sarah said, managing to conceal her disapproval. How could Letitia even think about money? But perhaps she was only being critical of Letitia because she herself had turned her back on wealth and social position to marry a “penniless” doctor.

  Clearly, Letitia hadn’t thought of having a possible legacy. “Of course! And there’s this house, too. I never liked it, and Peter and I won’t need anything so grand, in any case. I could sell it and buy something smaller.”

  Sarah bit her tongue. No one had yet told Letitia that the house had merely been a loan from a grateful patient, a patient whose husband wanted the widow to vacate the property immediately. “You don’t need to make any decisions just yet,” Sarah said. “I believe Mr. Potter has been taking care of your husband’s business affairs. I’m sure he can tell you exactly what your situation is.” Better he than I, she added silently.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Potter is very capable,” Letitia recalled, and Sarah was glad Potter couldn’t see the indifference in her eyes when she spoke of him. “He’ll take care of everything, I’m sure. He always does.”

  And meanwhile, Sarah would make sure Malloy took care of questioning Peter Dudley to find out if he had an alibi for the afternoon when Dr. Blackwell was murdered.

  WHEN SARAH TURNED down Bank Street, she could see Mrs. Ellsworth sweeping her front stoop. She called out a greeting when she was close enough, and Mrs. Ellsworth pretended to be surprised to see her.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brandt! Have you been delivering a baby?”

  “Not today,” Sarah replied with a smile.

  “That’s good,” she said as Sarah stopped beside her porch. “I dropped my scissors this morning, and they landed point down and stuck in the floor!”

  “That’s too bad,” Sarah said. “I hope it didn’t leave a bad mark.”

  “Oh, my, that’s the least of it! Don’t you know that when scissors stick in the floor, it’s an omen of death? Dear me, the last time I had an omen like that, some poor girl you knew died.”

  Sarah remembered and shivered. “I’m sure it was just a coincidence,” she said, as much to convince herself as to reassure Mrs. Ellsworth. “In a city this size, people die every day, you know.”

  “That’s true, of course,” Mrs. Ellsworth agreed. “And I’m always happy to be wrong about something like that. Are you and Mr. Malloy working on another case together? I saw him coming to visit you last night.”

  “Yes, and he enjoyed your pie very much,” Sarah told her. “Actually, he’s trying to find out who killed my husband.”

  “Is he?” she exclaim
ed, excitement lighting her wrinkled face. “Does he have new evidence?”

  “I’m afraid not, but he’s looking through Tom’s old files to see if he can find someone who might have been angry with Tom or had a reason to want him out of the way.”

  “I’m sure he won’t find anything like that,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “Dr. Brandt was such a fine man. How could anyone not wish him well?”

  “That’s nice of you to say,” Sarah said, but she couldn’t help thinking that while Tom truly had been a fine man, he was also dead, and someone had killed him. It might have been a random act of violence. Such things happened in the city frequently. But if it was, then there was little possibility anyone would ever be brought to account for the crime. Sarah didn’t like to think herself vindictive, but she wanted someone to pay for having ended her husband’s life.

  “That reminds me, did you see that article in the Sunday magazine?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked. “The one about that new photography called X ray? It made me wonder what Dr. Tom would have thought of such a thing.”

  “Yes, I saw it. I’ve heard about it, too. I suppose it would be very helpful to be able to see inside someone’s body.” She thought about Brian Malloy’s foot and wondered what an X-ray photograph of it would show.

  “Although,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, “I think some things are better off left a mystery. If there was something bad inside of me, I don’t think I’d want to know about it.”

  “X-ray photography isn’t likely to be able to do that anyway,” Sarah said. “It’s not very exact and the pictures aren’t very clear. It may very well be just an experiment that has no practical purpose.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “It seems kind of indecent to go looking inside of people like that.”

  Sarah bit back a smile.

  “Will Mr. Malloy be coming back soon?” Mrs. Ellsworth said, catching her by surprise. “I’d be happy to donate another pie for his enjoyment.”

  “I’m sure he would appreciate that. He may stop by later, if he can. Like me, he can’t always be sure when he’ll be free.”

  “I guess crimes and babies make their own schedules, don’t they?” Mrs. Ellsworth observed.

  “That they do,” Sarah said. “You have a lovely evening,” she added as she made her way to her own front porch.

  After eating her supper, Sarah was sitting by her front window, mentally composing a note to Malloy telling him she had some important information and needed to meet with him right away, when she saw him coming down the street.

  Mrs. Ellsworth saw him, too, and he had to stop and make small talk with her for a few minutes. Ever since Mrs. Ellsworth had saved Sarah’s life, she had taken a great interest in hearing about the crimes Malloy was working on. Unfortunately, Malloy studiously avoided telling her about any of them, which Mrs. Ellsworth found extremely frustrating.

  As soon as he could, Malloy extricated himself from her and made his way to Sarah’s door. She was waiting for him as he came up the steps. “Did she offer you some pie?” Sarah asked as he entered the house.

  “No,” he said, removing his hat. “She’s probably going to bring it over later. She thinks I’m a saint for trying to solve your husband’s murder. Did you have to tell her that?” He was pretending to be annoyed.

  “It was either that or let her think you’re courting me. Which would you prefer, Malloy?” she asked with some amusement.

  He frowned as he pretended to consider his options. “If she thought I was courting you, she might not come over and bother us,” he pointed out.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Sarah replied. “Come in and have some coffee before you get started. I’ve got something very interesting to tell you.”

  He rolled his eyes, but he followed her into the kitchen and sat down obediently at the table.

  “I found the redheaded lover,” she told him smugly when she’d poured his coffee.

  He almost dropped the cup. “You what?”

  “That’s what you told me to do,” she reminded him. “The only problem is that he’s the same fellow she eloped with before—Peter Dudley. They were running away together when her horse threw her, and she was injured.”

  “He’s the schoolmaster, then?”

  “That’s right. It appears that Mr. Symington didn’t have him killed, just discharged. I’m sure he figured Letitia would never encounter him again, so having him murdered was a needless expense.”

  Malloy ignored her sarcasm. “How did she encounter him again?”

  “He went to one of Blackwell’s lectures. He apparently saw Letitia’s name on the poster and wanted to see how she was. He must have felt terribly guilty because she’d been hurt, and then he hadn’t been able to find out if she’d ever recovered. He’d lost his position and come to the city, so he hadn’t had any contact with her at all until then, according to Letitia. He works in a bank or something now.”

  “And he has red hair,” Malloy said, sipping his coffee thoughtfully.

  “Extremely red hair. But even if he didn’st, Letitia admitted he was the baby’s father.”

  “She just told you, right out?” Malloy marveled. “I know priests who can’t get confessions like that!”

  Sarah tried to look modest. “I think she just needed to confide in someone. Someone who wouldn’t judge her, that is.”

  “She deserves to be judged,” Malloy said flatly.

  “Perhaps, but Blackwell wasn’t without guilt either. He only married her because she wanted to stop doing the lectures. He pretended to be in love with her, and he used his considerable charms to convince her he was. But as soon as they were safely married, he didn’t even bother to ... uh ... to share her bed.”

  Malloy choked on his coffee. She should have waited until he wasn’t drinking to tell him that. She knew he didn’t like discussing such things, especially with her.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as he coughed.

  He nodded and kept coughing for a few more minutes. Finally, he was able to speak again. “She told you that, too?” he asked incredulously.

  “As I said, she needed to unburden herself. The strangest part is that when Letitia turned up with child, Dr. Blackwell didn’t even realize he couldn’t be the father. That’s how little attention he paid to her. She must have been terribly lonely and unhappy.”

  “I guess committing adultery made her feel better,” Malloy scoffed.

  “I’m not excusing her, Malloy. I’m just explaining.”

  “All right, then explain why she didn’t leave Blackwell for the schoolmaster after he found her again and they discovered they were still in love.”

  “That’s easy. Divorce is extremely difficult and expensive. Letitia’s father was hardly likely to finance one for her, and she and Dudley had no means of their own to do so. Besides, if she did divorce Blackwell, he could keep her child.”

  “Why would he want a baby that wasn’t his?” Malloy asked skeptically.

  “He probably wouldn’st, but he could legally keep the child, and even the threat of that would be enough to prevent Letitia from leaving him. Then he could make her life even more miserable than it already was, and she wouldn’t dare complain. And Blackwell could force her to continue appearing at his lectures.”

  Malloy needed no more than a moment to see the significance of this information. “But if Blackwell was dead, the lovers could be together with no other problems.”

  “I believe you already pointed that out to me,” Sarah reminded him, “which is why you assigned me the task of finding the redheaded lover in the first place.”

  “I didn’t really expect you to find one,” he admitted.

  “I didn’t either,” she admitted right back. “But now that I have, you have another suspect in Blackwell’s death.”

  “Do you think this Dudley could have done it?”

  Sarah considered. “He’s certainly devoted to Letitia. And he wasn’t above bedding another man’s wife. Did I tell you they met
at an opium den for their trysts?”

  “Good God.”

  “He also eloped with an innocent young girl against her family’s wishes. I think he’s extremely foolish, maybe even foolish enough to commit murder and try to make it look like suicide, especially if he thought it was the only way to protect Letitia.”

  “A schoolmaster might be smart enough to think of the suicide thing, too. A good way to avoid suspicion. If there’s no murder, nobody will be looking for a killer, and he can come courting the widow afterward with no one the wiser.”

  “Murder would solve another problem as well,” Sarah said. “Letitia was concerned about living on a bank employee’s salary until I reminded her she would inherit her husband’s estate. She wouldn’t have gotten anything at all if she divorced him.”

  “She won’t get anything now, either,” Malloy said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Blackwell didn’t leave any estate.”

  Sarah frowned. “I know he didn’t own the house, but surely he had something put aside.”

  “Not a penny, according to Mr. Potter, who seemed pretty upset about it himself. Turns out he was supposed to be a partner in the business and get half of everything. He even thought he owned half of the house.”

  “Oh, my,” Sarah said, giving herself a moment to absorb this. “If Dudley and Letitia didn’t know this, as they apparently didn’st, then it wouldn’t rule them out as suspects, but it also gives Potter another reason to murder Blackwell, besides being in love with Letitia. He thought he would inherit some money, too.”

  “Money that he’d use to pay me a reward for finding the killer,” Malloy suggested mildly.

  “Oh, yes, I keep forgetting about that. I guess I’m going to have to give up on making Mr. Potter the killer,” Sarah said.

  “I understand the temptation,” Malloy said with a grin. “He’s a hard man to like, especially when he keeps insisting poor Calvin Brown killed his father.”

  “That is tactless of him,” Sarah agreed. “Oh, wait, I just thought of something else. If Letitia’s marriage to Blackwell wasn’t valid, then she wouldn’t have needed a divorce to marry Dudley.”