Murder on Gramercy Park

by Victoria Thompson

  “Better now that two little boys have made it safely into the world,” Sarah replied with a smile.

  “Twins?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked, her wrinkled face brightening.

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “One was breech. I was afraid for a while he wasn’t going to make it.”

  “Oh, my, twins are so dangerous. I had a friend once who lost both of them. The cords got tangled or something.”

  Sarah nodded. She’d seen her share of tragedies. “These are fine now, though, and their mother, too.”

  “I’ll wager she’s hoping about now that these will be her last,” Mrs. Ellsworth predicted with a smile.

  Sarah thought she was probably right, although the tragedy was that women couldn’t make such a choice for themselves. The secrets of preventing pregnancy were passed around in guilty whispers, but anyone who tried to teach modem methods was subject to fines and even arrest.

  “I did want to warn you,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, distracting Sarah from her unpleasant thoughts. “I found some mouse droppings in the pantry this morning. And a mouse had been nibbling at my flour bag. You know what that means.”

  “That the mouse was hungry?” Sarah guessed good-naturedly.

  Mrs. Ellsworth shook her head, despairing that she would ever teach Sarah anything at all about the mysteries of life. “It means something evil is going to happen. Nibbling the flour bag means that.”

  Sarah felt reasonably certain something evil was happening at any moment of the day in a city the size of New York, but she didn’t want to be unkind to Mrs. Ellsworth by pointing that out.

  “The mouse droppings just mean that we have mice, of course,” Mrs. Ellsworth went on. “I set some traps, and you’d best do the same. They may go over to your place, too.”

  Mice were a continual problem in the city, where the waste from thousands of people was piled up in such a small area. Things were better since last year when the city had formed a street cleaning department that regularly attended to all the city streets. Until then, only wealthier neighborhoods that could hire private cleaners were regularly kept free of refuse and garbage. Some of the streets had been piled more than a foot deep with animal droppings and trash and the carcasses of dead animals. The street cleaners in their white uniforms and pith helmets looked like something out of an operetta, but they pushed their carts around the city at night and worked miracles with their brooms and shovels. So now the mice came inside, looking for richer territory to plunder.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Sarah said. “I’ll do that. Where are you heading?”

  “To the market,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, referring to the Gansevoort Market several blocks away where farmers brought their produce and meat to sell to the city’s residents. “Can I get anything for you?”

  Sarah thought of Malloy and wondered if she would see him tonight. They did have a lot of things to discuss. Or rather she had a lot of things she wanted to find out from him, since he’d probably been to the opium den by now. “I’d like to have a chicken, if you see any nice ones,” Sarah said.

  Mrs. Ellsworth smiled knowingly. “I’ll pick a nice plump one for Mr. Malloy. Do you need any potatoes to go with it?”

  “I think I have enough,” Sarah said, returning her smile.

  “Will you be home this afternoon? In case someone calls for you,” she added, lest Sarah think she was merely being nosy.

  Sarah started to say she would, but thought better of it. “I might go out in a little while,” she said. “To visit some friends, but I’ll be back by suppertime.”

  WHEN SHE’D FRESHENED up from her labors of the morning, Sarah put on her gray serge suit and a hat that was reasonably fashionable, and made her way across town once again to Gramercy Park.

  As always, she was struck by how lovely the square was. The houses surrounding it were a little ornate for her taste, but unquestionably comfortable and well tended. Edmund Blackwell must have felt that he’d finally achieved success when he moved his bride here. Never mind that he wasn’t paying for the house and couldn’t have dreamed of doing so. No one else knew that. As far as everyone was concerned, he was an equal to his wealthy and socially prominent neighbors.

  A maid opened the door, the same one who had admitted her before. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Brandt,” she said, dropping a small curtsy. “Were you wanting to see Mrs. Blackwell today?”

  “If she isn’t sleeping,” Sarah said.

  “Oh, no, she’s receiving visitors in the parlor,” the maid assured her. “I’ll show you right in.”

  “Is Granger ill again?” Sarah asked with some concern. The butler hadn’t seemed particularly grief-stricken over his employer’s murder at the time, but perhaps the strain of the past days had taken a toll.

  “He got better, but then he got worse again,” the girl told her. “Mrs. Wilson says it’s the dyspepsia.”

  “Does he get it often?” Sarah asked.

  “Not that I ever heard,” the girl said. “He never was sick a day that I knew of until poor Dr. Blackwell died.”

  Sarah had been right to suspect the strain was telling on the man to whom the responsibility of running the entire household would have fallen. “Do you know if he’s seen a doctor?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am. Mrs. Wilson, she’s the housekeeper, she told him to, but she says he’s too stubborn to go.”

  Sarah knew Mrs. Wilson would probably have a fit if she knew how freely the little maid was sharing the private business of the household with a stranger. Still ... “I’d be happy to speak with Mr. Granger and see if perhaps I can’t give him something to help his stomach.”

  “Can a midwife take care of a man?” the girl asked in confusion.

  “I’m also a trained nurse,” Sarah explained, managing not to smile. “And stomachs are pretty much the same, whether they belong to a man or a woman.”

  The girl’s eyes widened at this fascinating observation. “I’ll go ask Mrs. Wilson right now.” She was halfway down the hall when she remembered her manners. “Oh, please have a seat while you’re waiting!” she called back, then scurried away.

  Sarah sat down on the bench in the hallway. She glanced at the closed parlor doors, wondering who Letitia might be entertaining in there. Well, she’d find out soon enough. And if it was Peter Dudley, as she suspected, they would appreciate not being interrupted for a while longer, she was sure.

  Mrs. Wilson was a tall, skeletal woman of middle years. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her washed-out eyes stared at Sarah from dark hollows. “Peggy shouldn’t have told you about Mr. Granger’s condition,” she said, giving the girl, who had followed at her heels, a reproving look.

  Peggy dropped her gaze, suitably contrite.

  “I’m sure she was only trying to help,” Sarah said. “I am a nurse, and there’s no need for him to suffer if I can help him. Probably it’s just the unfortunate events of the past few days upsetting him. I’m sure I can prepare something that will help.”

  Mrs. Wilson still did not look pleased, but she said, “All we can do is ask him if he’d like to see you. If you’ll come this way, to the servants’ quarters.”

  Sarah followed her to the back stairs, which led up to a section of the house where visitors typically never went. The walls here were plain, the floors bare, and the furnishings utilitarian. Mrs. Wilson went to one of the doors along the hallway and knocked.

  “Mr. Granger? It’s Mrs. Wilson. I’ve got Mrs. Brandt here, and she’s a nurse. She says she might be able to make you feel better. Can we come in?”

  For a moment they heard nothing, and then a groan and a crash, as something fell and smashed on the floor.

  Without waiting for permission, Mrs. Wilson pushed open the door and hurried in. Sarah was close behind her.

  The room was sparsely furnished, and neat to the point of austerity, except for the unmade bed where Mr. Granger lay, wearing his trousers and an undershirt. He’d tried to get up and knocked a tray of food onto the floor
.

  “Good heavens, Granger,” Mrs. Wilson exclaimed. “Look at this mess. I’ll get one of the girls up here to clean this up. And you haven’t eaten a bite today, have you?” she added, examining the mess on the floor.

  The food looked as if it had been sitting for several hours, and Granger’s face was pale and his eyes held the unfocused look of someone in pain.

  Mrs. Wilson summoned one of the maids to clean up the spilled food and continued to chasten him for not taking better care of himself. Mr. Granger’s dignity was badly compromised in the process, but by the time everyone else had gone and the room restored to order, he seemed not even to care about that.

  “I don’t need a nurse,” he told her crossly from the chair into which he’d moved during the commotion. He’d pulled on a shirt for the sake of decency, but hadn’t had the energy to button it.

  “Perhaps you don’st,” Sarah said, not pointing out how haggard he looked or how sick he’d obviously been. “But I’m probably a better judge of that than you.”

  Brooking no nonsense, she quickly examined him, asking a series of questions about his current condition.

  “Were you here to see Mrs. Blackwell?” he asked with a worried frown when she was finished. “Is she ill?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Sarah said, not mentioning that the lady of the house was actually receiving visitors at this very moment. “I really came to check on the baby.”

  “This has been so hard on poor Mrs. Blackwell,” he said. “Finding her husband like that must have been a shock.” He put his hand to his head, as if the thought of Letitia’s grief was more than he could bear.

  “Women are frequently much stronger than men give them credit for being,” Sarah said by way of comfort.

  “Not Mrs. Blackwell,” he protested. “She’s one that needs protection. She tries to pretend she’s strong. The way she visits the sick and gives so much of her time to looking out for others not as fortunate as she is, it’s an inspiration. But she’s really as delicate as a flower. She needs somebody to look after her. I can’t tell you how many times she’s thanked me, right out like that, for doing little things for her.”

  Sarah wanted to gag. What was it about Letitia Blackwell that made absolute fools of men? Even the butler was under her spell!

  “It’s nice to hear a servant praising his mistress,” she said tactfully.

  “Even that day her husband died, she thanked me for making sure all the servants left the house so he wouldn’t be disturbed. She wouldn’t leave herself until she was sure everyone else was gone, just like he wanted. She’s always thinking about other people first, that’s Mrs. Blackwell.”

  Sarah could have destroyed his image of his mistress by revealing that instead of visiting the sick, as he believed, Mrs. Blackwell had spent her afternoons with a lover, using the money her husband gave her for charity on morphine. But he probably wouldn’t believe her. That was the nature of the spell women like Letitia cast.

  “Mr. Granger,” she said instead, changing the subject to more pressing matters, “I believe you aren’t really seriously ill. I think you’re just suffering from a nervous stomach, probably because you’re under too much strain at the moment. This has been just as hard on you as it has on Mrs. Blackwell—”

  “Oh, no!” he insisted. “It’s not the same at all! She should never have seen her husband’s body. I should have been here first. I should have found him. How will she ever recover from such a shock?”

  “But she did find her husband’s body. You can’t change that,” Sarah pointed out, “and there’s no use blaming yourself either. You didn’t know the doctor was going to be murdered that afternoon, and you didn’t know Mrs. Blackwell would come home early either. If that’s what’s been causing you so much misery, you need to put it out of your mind, Mr. Granger. It’s making you ill, and you won’t get any better until you make up your mind about it.”

  “Are you saying I worried myself sick?” he asked doubtfully.

  “I’m fairly certain that’s true. The responsibilities of your position with the doctor dead have probably made things even more difficult, too. You can’t do much about that, but you can stop worrying about Mrs. Blackwell. She’ll recover and go on with her life. And if you’re sick, you won’t be any help to her, now will you? She shouldn’t have to be concerned about how the house is being managed with everything else she has to deal with,” she added, playing on his weakness.

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said.

  “You should,” Sarah told him. “I’m going to give you some ideas to be kinder to your stomach, but the most important thing is to stop blaming yourself for things you couldn’t help. Do you think you can do that? For Mrs. Blackwell’s sake?” she tried when he looked unconvinced.

  “I can do no less,” he said finally.

  Sarah managed not to roll her eyes. “You should watch what you eat for the next few days,” she said, and gave him all the commonsense rules for someone with a bad stomach, along with a remedy to ease his digestive difficulties.

  When she was satisfied that Granger had accepted her plan for his recovery, she went back downstairs, thinking she’d have to share this story with Malloy. If Letitia was able to inspire this sort of devotion in the hired help, it seemed very likely someone close to her would have happily murdered her husband to protect her. Perhaps that person was visiting her even now.

  Just as Sarah reached the front hallway, eager to discover who Mrs. Blackwell’s caller might be, the maid was opening the door to yet another visitor: Amos Potter.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Potter,” Sarah said, setting her medical bag down on the floor near the parlor door.

  “Mrs. Brandt, what brings you here?” he asked anxiously. “Nothing wrong with Mrs. Blackwell, I hope.”

  Sarah managed not to groan. “As a matter of fact, I understand that Mrs. Blackwell is well enough to receive visitors today. I was just going in to see her. I’m sure she’d be delighted to receive you, too,” she lied without remorse.

  As she had expected, Potter was thrilled at the prospect of meeting with Letitia at last. “I wonder if she would be up to speaking with me privately. There are matters of some delicacy I need to discuss with her as soon as possible.”

  He was fairly trembling with anticipation of such an audience.

  “I’m sure she needs to consult with you as well,” Sarah said shamelessly. “Shall we go in?”

  “I should announce you, ma’am,” the maid said, wringing her hands as she obviously remembered the last time when she’d failed to do so, with such disastrous results.

  “Nonsense,” Sarah said recklessly. “I don’t need an introduction, and Mr. Potter is practically a member of the family.”

  Before the maid could protest again, Sarah pushed open the parlor doors.

  It was difficult to say who was more surprised. Peter Dudley, who had been sitting on the sofa with Letitia, jumped to his feet. Letitia gasped aloud and nearly dropped her baby, whom she was holding gingerly. Amos Potter gasped, too, although Sarah wasn’t quite sure what had surprised him more—the presence of a strange man in Letitia’s parlor or the picturesque family tableau they made, with both father and son’s coppery hair glowing in the afternoon sunshine.

  Sarah felt a stab of guilt. She had merely intended to embarrass Letitia by allowing Potter to catch her with Dudley. She’d never expected them to have the baby there. Now, of course, Potter would figure out the whole sordid story in a moment, unless he was far less intelligent than Sarah had judged him to be.

  “Amos,” Letitia exclaimed, clutching awkwardly at the baby so he wouldn’t fall to the floor. She had not developed much confidence in handling him yet, probably from lack of practice.

  Sarah hurried to assist her, but Dudley beat her to it. He took the baby from her arms and cradled him awkwardly. Which was, unfortunately, the worst thing he could have done. If there was any chance Potter hadn’t noticed the resemblance between them befor
e, he couldn’t miss it now. The two redheads were no more than a foot apart.

  “Letitia,” Potter said in a somewhat strangled voice. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman. Is he a ... a close relative of yours?”

  Bless him, Potter was still clinging to a last shred of hope.

  The baby, probably feeling insecure in Dudley’s uncertain grasp, began to wail. Dudley tried bouncing him, which only made him cry louder.

  “Amos, this is Peter Dudley. He ... he’s an old family friend,” Letitia lied, raising her voice to be heard above the baby’s squalling. “Mr. Potter is ... was Edmund’s business partner,” she added to Dudley.

  Sarah stood back for another moment, observing everyone’s reactions. She told herself this was what Malloy would have done, if he were here, although she doubted he would have enjoyed the scene quite as much as she was. But then, he felt sorry for poor, sweet Letitia, too. Men.

  Finally, she’d had her fill, and she stepped forward and took the baby from Dudley’s arms. She crooned to him, and his cries quieted instantly. No one but she seemed to notice the child at all now. She was relieved to see that he seemed to be gaining weight. His little cheeks had filled out, and his arms were developing dimples.

  “It ... it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Potter,” Dudley said without much enthusiasm, extending his right hand now that he was no longer encumbered with the baby.

  Potter pretended not to notice his hand, or the rest of him either, for that matter. He turned all of his attention to Letitia. “You’re looking well, Letitia,” he said. His voice was strained, but he managed a smile for her.

  She favored him with one in return. It was the kind of smile women like Letitia were trained from birth to offer in uncomfortable social situations. If a woman was pretty enough, she could get herself out of almost anything with that smile. This situation would certainly be a test of its effectiveness. “I’m feeling much better, thank you, Amos. It’s kind of you to call. Won’t you sit down?”

  Potter hesitated a moment. He obviously wanted to take a seat beside Letitia on the sofa, but Dudley stood in the way. He’d have to shoulder him aside, and although he might want to do that, he decided to concede defeat and took the chair on her other side. Dudley sat back down on the sofa, although he was probably sitting a little farther away from Letitia now than he had been before Sarah and Amos came in.