Murder in the Bowery

by Victoria Thompson

  “Ladies first. Tell us about your visit with Penelope.”

  “Oh, we had another interesting visit today as well, but you’ll have to hear about Penelope first,” Sarah said. She told them what Penelope had said about living on an allowance from Horace, and Penelope’s reaction to hearing that Estelle was pregnant and to Sarah’s theory that Norman was her son.

  “But she didn’t actually admit that he was,” Malloy said.

  “No, and I don’t think she ever would, but I’m sure it’s true. It would explain everything.”

  “Including Longacre giving her an allowance,” Gino said. “I doubt he’d be willing to support his sister if she’d just decided to take in somebody else’s kid, but if he knew it was her child, he might feel obligated.”

  “Knowing Longacre, I don’t think he’d feel an obligation,” Malloy said, “but he might do it to placate her, so she didn’t cause him any trouble.”

  “How could she cause him trouble without ruining her own reputation?” Maeve asked.

  “She couldn’t,” Sarah said, “but she could hardly be more of a social outcast than she is now, and any scandal would also touch her brother. He’d want to keep his listing in the Social Register, and they drop you pretty quickly if there’s a scandal in your family.”

  “Did Penelope have any idea who the father of Estelle’s baby was?” Gino asked.

  “Only that she was sure it wasn’t Norman, although that might’ve just been wishful thinking. He was certainly close enough to Estelle, at least. But,” Sarah added, “she did say if I wanted to know who the father of Estelle’s baby was, I should ask Horace.”

  “Which I did,” Malloy said, “and he claimed he didn’t know either. All right, so who else did you visit today? I thought you were just going to take Maeve to see the house.”

  Sarah nodded to Maeve, indicating she should be the one to tell. “We saw Will Arburn.”

  “What? How did you manage that?”

  “Someone—he said it was a child—ran to tell him two females were breaking into Mr. Robinson’s house, so he came to deal with us.”

  “And how did he deal with you?” Gino asked grimly.

  Maeve shook her head at his disapproval. “Not very well. He claimed he didn’t know the house had been sold.”

  “Which he wouldn’t have if Robinson is still mad at him about hiring a private detective without telling him,” Malloy said.

  “That’s exactly what we said to him,” Maeve happily reported. “And then we accused him of killing Estelle and Freddie.”

  “You did what?” Gino asked, horrified.

  “Isn’t that what you would have done?” Maeve asked.

  They all knew it was, so Gino was spared from admitting it.

  “And what did he say when you accused him?” Malloy asked.

  “He denied it, of course, and Mrs. Malloy thought he was telling the truth, and so did I, but of course he’s probably a good liar, so we couldn’t be absolutely sure. He also told us Estelle wanted to marry him.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” Malloy asked.

  “It’s possible,” Sarah said. “Maeve and I can’t figure out why she would want to be involved with him unless she was desperate to get married and was willing to settle for just anyone.”

  “Because of the baby, you mean?”

  “We don’t know if she even knew she was pregnant when she took up with Arburn,” Sarah reminded them, “but it does seem that she wanted to escape the Longacre household, and marriage to anyone at all might have seemed the only way out.”

  “But Arburn claimed he didn’t care anything about Estelle and certainly didn’t want to marry her,” Maeve added. “He says he was glad when Robinson took her away, so why would he be jealous or want to kill her? And then he suggested we should talk to Norman if we want to know who killed her.”

  “Norman?” Malloy echoed. “Did he say why?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But I think we need to see him anyway, don’t you?” Sarah said. “He might know more about Estelle than anyone else. He spent a lot of time with her, after all.”

  “We need to make sure Penelope isn’t around when we talk to him, though,” Malloy said.

  “Of course. So what did you find out from Raven, Gino?” Sarah asked.

  “He and Freddie were definitely the ones who found Estelle in the trunk. Or rather, Freddie was. He came to Raven and claimed he’d found a trunk and needed help. He acted like he didn’t know what was in it, but Raven said he was very nervous, and Raven noticed some hair sticking out of the lid, so he knew before they opened it there’d be a body inside.”

  “If he noticed it, then Freddie probably did, too,” Maeve said. “He probably would’ve recognized it as Estelle’s hair, too. That would explain why he got scared and ran away from the killer.”

  “If he was the one helping the killer carry the trunk,” Malloy said. “But maybe he did just find the trunk in the alley. He would’ve recognized it, and if he saw the hair sticking out, he would have guessed it was Estelle’s.”

  “So we still don’t know anything for sure,” Gino said with a sigh.

  “Did Raven tell you anything else?” Malloy asked.

  “Just that Freddie was scared and asked to stay with Raven for a few days. We already knew that. What did Longacre say?”

  “Not much. He accused me of taking Estelle’s body, and I think I convinced him I didn’t. He said he wants to be buried beside her.”

  Everyone groaned. “That settles it,” Sarah said. “No one is going to tell him where she is.”

  “Indeed. He also said he didn’t allow Estelle to be courted, so she didn’t have any official suitors. He didn’t know Estelle was pregnant, and he was pretty upset to hear it. He was sure Norman wasn’t the father, but he had no idea who could be. I let him know I thought Norman was Penelope’s son, and he didn’t deny it. I wondered why she’d want Norman to marry Estelle since they were first cousins, and he said it didn’t matter because he never would have allowed it.”

  “You’re right, that’s not much,” Sarah said.

  “But I also talked to Marie.”

  “That awful maid of Longacre’s?”

  “And her husband, who seems like a very nice man.”

  “What on earth did they have to say?” Sarah asked.

  Malloy turned to Maeve and Gino. “Sometimes servants won’t talk about their masters, or at least they won’t say anything bad. Marie is about the rudest maid I’ve ever seen, though, so I thought she might be willing to talk.”

  “And her master is dying, so she doesn’t have to stay in his good graces much longer,” Maeve said.

  “So I asked them both what they knew about Estelle. They confirmed that she didn’t have any suitors and that Norman was the only young man who came to the house.”

  “So they didn’t tell you anything new,” Gino said.

  “Yes, they did. They told me they knew Estelle was going out to meet a man, and they also told me that Longacre knew she was going out alone.”

  “He knew she was meeting someone?” Maeve asked.

  “I don’t know what he suspected, but they said he could see her leaving from his bedroom window. He must have known something wasn’t right.”

  “But he didn’t stop her,” Sarah said.

  “No, and I found out one more thing that’s very interesting. It seems Mr. Longacre sometimes still goes out, when he feels up to it, and the last time he went out is the night Estelle was killed.”

  “We hadn’t even considered him because we thought he was too sick,” Gino said.

  “But would he have been able to carry her body and the trunk down the stairs and through the alley?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know, but after I talked to Robinson, I worked out what I think happened the
night Estelle died,” Malloy said. “See if this makes sense to you. Estelle left home and went to the flat. She’d sent Robinson a telegram, asking him to meet her there at six o’clock, but he was out of town and didn’t get the telegram until around nine.”

  “Is that how they normally set up their meetings?” Sarah asked.

  “No. I gathered that they had regularly set times they would meet. In fact, they were supposed to meet the next day. Sunday afternoon was their regular time, he said. He also said they usually met during the day, so it would be safer for her to come to that part of town.”

  “That makes sense,” Maeve said. “Mrs. Malloy and I were wondering how she managed to get there safely.”

  “So for some reason Estelle needed to see Robinson that night, for something that couldn’t wait until the next day.”

  “But why?” Gino asked.

  “Maybe she just realized she was having a baby and wanted to tell him,” Maeve said.

  “But why not just wait until the next afternoon?” Sarah asked. “One day wouldn’t make any difference. And it can’t have been convenient for her to get out to send the telegram either.”

  “So for whatever reason, Estelle went to the flat that night. She had a key and let herself in to wait. Then she had a visit from someone she wasn’t expecting.”

  “Her killer,” Maeve said. “But why would she let him in?”

  “Maybe she thought it was Robinson,” Gino said.

  “Or maybe it was someone she knew and wasn’t afraid of,” Sarah guessed.

  “Whatever the reason, she let him in. Then something happened. Maybe an argument, or maybe he just came there already intent on killing her. Now she’s dead and he has a body to dispose of.”

  “But why bother?” Gino asked. “It’s not like she’s lying on the street where anyone can see her or might’ve seen him. Nobody even knew he’d been there, so all he has to do is leave.”

  “And yet he puts her body into a trunk that’s in the bedroom,” Malloy said.

  “And somehow carries it down the steps,” Gino said.

  “Not yet, because it’s still daylight. Somebody might see, and everybody knows that’s Black Jack’s flat, so they’d question why he was taking something out of it.”

  “Maybe, or maybe they’d remember seeing him with a trunk and when Estelle went missing, they’d make the connection,” Gino said.

  “So he just leaves her there?” Maeve asked.

  “That’s my theory. He leaves her there in the trunk for a while, probably waiting for it to get dark. Jack Robinson gets home and finds the telegram around nine o’clock. He goes straight over to the saloon, but she’s not there. He’s sure he looked in the bedroom, and he’s pretty sure he would’ve noticed if the trunk was gone.”

  “And it’s just gotten dark by then,” Sarah said. “So the killer hasn’t had a chance to move the trunk yet anyway.”

  Malloy nodded. “Jack goes downstairs and asks the bouncer and the bartender if they saw her or if she left a message, and they both say no. The bartender told me he heard some noises from upstairs later, though, after Jack left. He didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

  “So that was the killer coming back for the trunk,” Gino said.

  “I think so. He would’ve had a hard time carrying it by himself, so he must’ve either brought help or maybe he got Freddie to help him.”

  “Because Freddie would’ve come back to the flat to sleep by then,” Gino said.

  “And he must have seen whoever moved the trunk, because why else would someone have killed him?” Sarah said.

  “And now we know that Longacre went out that night,” Malloy said.

  “He could have followed Estelle,” Gino said.

  “But could he have carried her body away?” Sarah asked.

  “And why would he want to?” Maeve asked.

  “Because he wanted to be buried beside her,” Malloy said.

  “And he killed her because he didn’t want anyone else to have her,” Sarah said. “Especially not someone like Jack Robinson.”

  “You make him sound like a spurned lover,” Maeve scoffed.

  “I’m afraid he is.”

  Everyone gaped at Sarah, speechless for a long moment. Finally, Maeve said, “Do you think he . . . ?”

  Sarah nodded. “We’ve been trying to figure out who could have fathered Estelle’s child, but there’s one man we haven’t considered who was always in that house and who always had the opportunity to be alone with her.”

  “That’s horrible,” Gino murmured.

  “But it would explain why she was so desperate to get away from her father that she’d be willing to marry someone like Will Arburn,” Maeve said.

  “And especially Jack Robinson,” Sarah said. “It would explain a lot of things.”

  “But how did he manage the trunk?” Gino asked.

  “He’s got a very big manservant who might’ve helped him with the trunk,” Malloy said.

  “All right,” Gino said, “but how did he find Freddie? How did he even know who he was?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe Freddie’s death wasn’t connected with Estelle’s after all and he was killed by someone else entirely. Or maybe Longacre got lucky and found him by accident.”

  “But you said that night was the last time Longacre left his house,” Sarah said, “so he couldn’t have killed Freddie himself.”

  “He might’ve had someone else do it, or like I said, maybe Freddie wasn’t killed because of this. We need to go back to the Longacre house and ask some more questions,” Malloy said.

  “Are you going to ask Longacre if he raped his daughter?” Sarah asked, shocking Gino with her boldness. “Because he’ll certainly deny it. There must be another way to figure it out.”

  “Maybe Penelope knows what went on in that house,” Maeve said.

  “Or the servants, if they’ll admit it,” Gino said.

  “Or maybe Jack Robinson knows,” Malloy said.

  “Do you think Estelle would have told him?”

  “I think he knows something. He acted strangely when I asked him if he knew why Estelle hated her father so much. He said he didn’t, but I was sure he was lying. I guess I should talk to him first, before I see Longacre, so when I accuse him, I already know.”

  “And I should go with you,” Sarah said.

  “Absolutely not!”

  Sarah glared at him the way he always glared at her when he was trying to intimidate her. It never worked on her, and it looked like it wasn’t going to work on him either.

  But then he said, “Why do you think you should go?”

  “He was very gentlemanly when I met him. I think he’s a little in awe of women he considers ladies, and I believe he’d answer my questions while he might not answer yours.”

  “She’s right,” Maeve said. “I think he’d do anything Mrs. Malloy asked.”

  Malloy didn’t care for that one bit, but he said, “All right, we’ll try it, but Gino will go along and wait outside, so if Robinson doesn’t behave himself, I can send you home.”

  “What about me?” Maeve said.

  Malloy looked at her for a long moment. “You’re a nursemaid. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Can I resign as your nursemaid, then?”

  “No.” Malloy turned back to Sarah. “Should we try to see Robinson this evening?”

  “Do you think he’ll be at home? I don’t know what kind of schedule a gangster keeps.”

  “I think he’s still mourning Estelle, so he probably isn’t going out much. He might be on the telephone, so I’ll try to telephone him to see if he’s home. If I can’t reach him, we’ll go in the morning.”

  * * *

  “This would be so much easier if you had a motorcar,” Gino said, helping Sarah down from th
e hansom cab and leaving Frank to manage himself. Gino had followed them to Robinson’s house in a separate cab, since there was room for only two in each. And now he’d sent his own driver on his way, while Frank asked his to wait. Gino took a seat in the remaining cab, prepared to escort Sarah home again if necessary. Early-evening shadows were growing long in the streets, and the heat of the day was slowly dissipating, so the horse and driver were pleased to find a shady spot to rest.

  The Malloys were expected, and a maid opened the door almost instantly after Frank knocked. Robinson was waiting for them in the parlor. The room, like all the others in this house, reflected the good taste of the previous owner and his ancestors. Robinson’s clothes were impeccable, and he looked much less drunk and grief-stricken than he had on Frank’s first visit. “Mrs. Malloy, what an unexpected pleasure,” he said.

  “Thank you. I’ve been wanting to offer my condolences. I’m afraid I didn’t really do that at our last meeting.”

  “I appreciate your concern. Malloy, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. I hope you have some news for me.”

  “Not yet, but I have a few more questions. When I have the answers, I’ll be much closer to having the information you want.”

  “Then let’s sit down. I’ve asked my maid to bring us some iced tea, but if you’d prefer something else, I’m sure we can provide it.”

  Frank and Sarah agreed iced tea would be a refreshing novelty. Not many people in New York served it. When they had been served and the maid was gone, Robinson said, “All right. You said you had questions for me.”

  He looked at Frank, but by previous agreement, Sarah was the one who began. “Mr. Robinson, I know you cared very much for Estelle. You told me you wanted to marry her, which I believe proves your true feelings for her. I know it must be difficult for you to speak of her at all, but especially about things in her life that were unpleasant.”

  Robinson’s expression hardened but not with anger, as Frank had expected. “But you’re going to ask me about something unpleasant anyway, aren’t you?”

  “I’m very sorry, but I also know you want to find out who killed her, and we need this information in order to do it.”