Murder on Amsterdam Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “You flatter me, Mr. Malloy. I assure you, I couldn’t possibly do what you are suggesting.”

  “Maybe not normally,” Frank agreed. “I think that normally, you just introduce people and let them make their own arrangements, but this time, you were making arrangements for yourself.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” His surprise seemed genuine, but Frank wasn’t fooled.

  “I mean that you needed help getting Ella Adderly out of the Wards Island Asylum, and Charles was so happy to show his appreciation for your help in getting him his new position that he was more than willing to get her released.”

  Adderly’s expression had gone from surprised to furious in just a few seconds. “I’ll thank you not to mention my cousin’s name. You have no right to discuss her private affairs.”

  “If they caused Charles Oakes to be murdered, I do.”

  “They did not, I assure you. If, as you imply, Charles did a service for Ella, then I had no reason to wish him dead and every reason to wish him well.”

  “So he did do a service for Miss Adderly,” Frank said.

  “And what if he did?”

  “We both know he did. He got a doctor to declare her recovered and release her from the Asylum.”

  “Please, it’s a hospital. And yes, Charles was kind enough to see that my cousin was released from that awful place.”

  “I was actually surprised to find out that it isn’t nearly as awful as I’d imagined. The doctor I talked to said they’re very modern in their treatments and that lots of their patients recover and return home.”

  “And that’s exactly what happened with Ella. When I realized she no longer needed to be there, I asked Charles to do the necessary paperwork to have her released.”

  As if to punctuate his statement, someone upstairs let out a shriek. Frank jumped, and he saw his own surprise reflected on Gino’s face. The young man was on his feet before Frank could decide how to react.

  “Who was that?” Gino demanded.

  Adderly sighed and took another long swallow of his whiskey. “That was Ella, as I’m sure you know. She . . . she often becomes agitated at this time of the day.”

  The men jumped again at the sound of a loud thump from the floor above.

  “Is she all right?” Frank asked in alarm.

  Adderly seemed unconcerned. “I have a woman who takes care of her. She can usually control her.”

  “But not always,” Frank guessed. “What happened the day of Charles’s funeral?”

  “She . . . she’d gotten out somehow in the middle of the night. Judith . . . Mrs. Burgun, I mean, was asleep, and Ella got her keys. We didn’t even know she was gone until we got up the next morning. We looked everywhere for her, but she had the whole city to hide in, and she’d had hours to do it.”

  “But you suspected she was going to attend Charles’s funeral,” Frank said, motioning to Gino to sit down again now that things had quieted down upstairs.

  “I hoped I was wrong, but you were there. You saw what happened.”

  “She said she was in love with Charles.”

  “She knew he was the one responsible for getting her out of the Asyl . . . the hospital. She was grateful. Too grateful, I’m afraid. She imagined herself in love with him, and she thought he returned her feelings. Ella never married, you see. Her late parents, my uncle and his wife, kept her very isolated. I suspect they knew early on that she wasn’t quite right, and they were trying to protect her from people who might want to take advantage of her.”

  “How did you get involved with Miss Adderly?”

  “Really, Mr. Malloy, this is none of your business. And before you try to argue with me, let me assure you that Ella’s situation has nothing to do with Charles. Once she left the hospital, he had nothing more to do with her.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that? I heard what she said at the funeral.”

  “Any contact with Charles Oakes was purely in her imagination.”

  “But you admitted yourself that she got out of the house without your knowledge the day of Charles’s funeral,” Gino said. “How do you know she didn’t get out at other times?”

  “I told you, I have a woman who watches her,” Adderly snapped.

  “And if Miss Adderly got out, do you think this woman would be likely to tell you about it?” Gino asked too politely.

  Plainly, Adderly hadn’t considered that possibility. “Well, even supposing she did, I don’t believe Charles would have met with her. He knew her . . . her condition.”

  “And yet he agreed to release her from the hospital,” Frank said. “And he got a doctor to declare her cured, too. I wonder why you went to all that trouble when she isn’t cured at all.”

  “She’s much better off in her own home than surrounded by strangers who also happen to be insane.”

  “But why did you want to bring her here where she doesn’t receive any treatment and where you can’t even keep her safely locked up?”

  This time Adderly jumped to his feet. “Really, Mr. Malloy, this is too much. I’ve already told you that Ella’s condition is no concern of yours and it certainly has no bearing on Charles Oakes’s death, even if he really was murdered, which I doubt.”

  “I have to admit, I am having a hard time figuring out why you’d want to harm him after he did exactly what you wanted him to do. I’m not too sure about Miss Adderly, though. You see, Charles first became ill when he was away from his house. We thought he’d been working at the hospital that day, but we recently learned that he seldom spent any time there. In fact, he hadn’t been there since days before he first got sick. So that means he was someplace else, but we don’t know where or who he was with. If we knew that, we might be able to figure out who poisoned him.”

  “I can tell you where he was,” a female voice said from the doorway. They looked up to see Ella Adderly standing there, looking exactly the way Frank had always imagined a madwoman would look. “He was with me.”

  9

  One glance at Adderly’s face told Frank how horrified he was to see Ella in his parlor. Poor Judith Burgun was probably going to need a new position very soon, and she wouldn’t be getting a reference from Virgil Adderly.

  Before Adderly could take any action to usher Ella out, Frank was on his feet and striding forward to greet her. “Miss Adderly, it’s so good to see you again.”

  “I know you,” she said, smiling with obvious delight. She wore a slightly faded housedress, and her hair had been carelessly braided and hung down her back. “You were going to take me to see Charles.”

  Behind him, Adderly made a strangled sound.

  “That’s right, I was, but I was told you were indisposed and couldn’t go.”

  Miss Adderly frowned like a thwarted child. “I wasn’t indisposed. They just say that so they don’t have to take me anyplace. They make me stay home all the time. Sometimes I want to go back to the hospital. At least there we got to walk outside sometimes.”

  A woman appeared in the doorway behind Ella. She appeared to be in her forties and had the harried look of someone frustrated beyond bearing. Her hair was coming out of its pins and falling into her eyes. She made a futile effort to tuck some of it back into place as her gaze took in the scene. “Miss Ella, you know you aren’t supposed to go anyplace without me,” she said gently. She smiled uncertainly at Frank. Then she saw Adderly glaring at her and her smile vanished. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Adderly. She pushed me down and by the time I got back on my feet, I didn’t know which way she’d gone.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Burgun, is it?” Frank asked.

  The woman nodded, surprised Frank knew her name.

  “I was hoping I’d get to see Miss Adderly while I was here.”

  “Virgil,” Ella said, “did you offer our guests some refreshment?”

  “Ella, you need to go b
ack to your room now,” he said. “You know how upset you get when we have company.”

  “I’m not upset. I’m just sad because Charles died and nobody will let me see him. He was my very dear friend,” she told Frank, who nodded.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Frank asked.

  Adderly groaned, but Ella didn’t appear to notice. “Yesterday, I think, or maybe the day before.”

  She sounded very certain, although Charles Oakes had been safely in his grave well before that. “And where did you see him?”

  “Here, of course. He came to call. He was very concerned about me, you know. He knew I didn’t belong at the hospital. He told me that. He said he was going to let me go home. All I had to do was talk to the doctor.”

  “And did you?” Frank asked.

  “Yes. He asked me all kinds of silly questions, and he didn’t like any of my answers. I could tell by the way he kept wrinkling his forehead. I told him if he didn’t like my answers, he should ask different questions, but he said he didn’t have any different questions. I thought that was sad, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “It’s very sad. Did you ever give Charles some refreshment when he came here to call on you?”

  “Malloy, this is ridiculous,” Adderly said. “Oakes was never in this house.”

  “He was, too!” Ella cried. “He came to see me every day.”

  “He did come one time,” Mrs. Burgun said, surprising everyone.

  Adderly rose uncertainly from his chair. “He did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When was this?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know,” the woman said, her gaze darting uncertainly back and forth between Frank and Adderly.

  “Yes, you do,” Frank said. “When was he here?”

  She glanced warily at Adderly, who was probably glaring at her and wondering how quickly he could find someone to take over watching Ella if he fired her. “I . . . About a week ago, I’d say. One day’s much like another here. Sometimes I lose track.”

  “Do you go to church?”

  She seemed startled by the question. “When I can.”

  “Did you go last week?”

  “Yes, I . . . Mr. Adderly watched Miss Ella.”

  “Was it before or after you went to church that Mr. Oakes came to call?”

  She frowned, and for a minute he thought she really wouldn’t be able to tell him. Then she said, “It was Saturday a week ago.”

  The day Charles had first gotten sick. “How did Mr. Oakes look to you?”

  “He was beautiful,” Ella said. “Such a beautiful man. I told him so and made him blush.”

  Frank didn’t smile. “Besides being beautiful, did he look sick?”

  “Not at all,” Ella said, but Frank was looking at Mrs. Burgun.

  “Not that I noticed. He . . . he said he thought he might’ve done the wrong thing when he let Miss Ella out of the hospital.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Adderly said, angry again. “Even if he thought so, he wouldn’t have confessed it to you.”

  “He didn’t say it to me,” Mrs. Burgun said, stiffening defensively. “He said it to Miss Ella.”

  “He was so kind to me,” Ella said. “He thought I was beautiful, too. We were going to get married and move far, far away from here.”

  “He never said no such thing as that,” Mrs. Burgun said, “but he did say he thought Miss Ella should be in the hospital so they could help her.”

  “Did you offer Mr. Oakes some refreshment?” Frank asked Mrs. Burgun.

  “Miss Ella had them make some tea, but I don’t think he drank any of it.”

  Adderly gave a bark of laughter. “Of course he didn’t. He never drank anything but the finest whiskey, unless he couldn’t get the finest whiskey, and then he’d drink any kind he could find.”

  Frank glanced at the decanters on the sideboard. “Did he drink any of Mr. Adderly’s whiskey?” he asked Mrs. Burgun.

  She glanced at Adderly again. “He might have.”

  “Of course he did,” Adderly said with a nasty smile. “That’s why the one decanter was almost empty when I got home that night. I thought you’d been sampling it, Judith.”

  The woman huffed her offense.

  “He asked if he could have a drink,” Ella said. “He felt a chill coming on, he said, so I gave him a glass of whiskey. He was a guest, Virgil. You can’t deny a guest your hospitality.”

  “Or my whiskey either, I guess.”

  “Which decanter was it?” Frank asked him.

  “What does that matter?” Adderly asked.

  “I don’t know that it does, but that’s the day Charles Oakes first got sick, so that’s also the day he first got some arsenic. If he got it here . . .”

  Adderly looked over at the sideboard in horror. “I don’t know. I don’t remember which one it was.” Adderly put his hand on his stomach as if checking to make sure all was well.

  “Do you remember, Mrs. Burgun?”

  “Of course not. They’re all just alike.”

  Adderly looked over at where Gino had set his still-full glass. “That’s why you didn’t drink any, isn’t it? Neither one of you drank any.”

  “Of course not,” Frank said. “I didn’t even know Oakes had been here.”

  “Then why didn’t you drink it?” Adderly’s voice had grown shrill.

  “I don’t drink when I’m working. I like to keep my wits about me.”

  Adderly laughed mirthlessly. “That’s rich, Malloy. And you just sat there and let me poison myself.”

  “Why would you poison yourself, Virgil?” Ella asked.

  “He wouldn’t,” Frank said. “Not on purpose. Miss Adderly, tell me, did you put anything into Charles’s drink the other day?”

  “I put whiskey in it,” she said sweetly. “That’s what he said he wanted.”

  “Can you show me which bottle you poured it from?”

  “One of those, I think.” She tipped her head from side to side as if trying to get a better view of them. “This one, I think.” She walked over and tapped the one from which Adderly had poured their drinks. “It’s such a pretty color, isn’t it? All golden in the sunlight.”

  “Adderly, I’d like to take some samples from these bottles and have them tested.”

  “Of course,” he said. He was sweating now, and his face had lost all color. “Judith, get some jars for Mr. Malloy.”

  She scurried off, leaving the rest of them to stare at each other.

  “Miss Adderly, were you angry at Charles Oakes?” Frank asked.

  “No, not at all, or . . . Well, at least not very much.”

  “So you were a little angry at him,” Frank said.

  “He was so nice to me at the hospital, and I told him he could call on me, but he didn’t come, not for ever so long. I was lonely, you see, and he was such a beautiful man. I knew if he came, he’d fall in love with me. I knew he would. It would be just like in the stories Mama used to read to me.”

  “And when he finally did come, you couldn’t help but be mad because he’d taken so long to visit.”

  “I don’t like to say I’m mad,” she said solemnly. “It means insane, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have said you were angry. Were you angry enough to want to hurt him, Miss Adderly?”

  “I wanted him to be sad, the way I’d been sad, waiting for him to come.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “What . . . what if she really did poison it?” Adderly asked. “What if she poisoned me?”

  “If you get sick, call a doctor and tell him you might have taken arsenic,” Frank said. “The good news is that Charles didn’t die the first time.”

  Adderly did not look reassured. He looked a little green, in fact.

  �
�Why did you want Miss Adderly released from the hospital so badly?” Frank asked, since they were still waiting for Mrs. Burgun to return with the jars.

  “That’s none of your business,” he said, but he didn’t sound quite so outraged anymore.

  “It must involve money,” Gino said. “It’s always about money, isn’t it?”

  “Almost always,” Frank agreed. He glanced around the room as if trying to judge what the upkeep of a place like that would be. “Maybe there isn’t as much money in doing favors for people as I thought.”

  “What will happen to me if I did get poisoned?” Adderly asked, oblivious to their speculation.

  “You’ll vomit, I think.”

  “You’ll be very sick,” Gino added.

  Adderly laid a hand on his stomach again.

  “Miss Adderly, is this your house?” Frank asked.

  “Of course it is. I live here.”

  “No, I mean do you own it?”

  “My parents own it.”

  “I thought your parents were dead.”

  She frowned, confused for a moment. “Oh yes. Sometimes I forget.”

  “So now you own it.”

  “I suppose I do. They told me my parents left everything to me.”

  “Ella, it’s vulgar to talk about money.” Adderly now looked a little angry in addition to being totally terrified.

  “I know. Mother always said so, but we weren’t talking about money. We were talking about the house, I think. Wasn’t that what we were talking about, Mr. . . . I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

  “Malloy.”

  “Mr. Malloy. You seem like a very nice man. But you aren’t beautiful like Charles.” She looked over at where Gino stood. “Now he’s beautiful and so young.”

  “He’s poor, though,” Frank said, trying not to smile at the horrified look on Gino’s beautiful face. “He’d have to marry a woman with money of her own.”

  “I have money of my own. My parents left everything to me. I just told you that.”

  “How did your parents die, Miss Adderly?” Frank asked.