Murder in Murray Hill (Gaslight Mystery)

by Victoria Thompson

  “I don’t know, but I desperately want to see her.” Sarah turned to the maid. “Perhaps you could tell her that Sarah is here, the lady who helped her yesterday.” The maid’s eyes widened, but she scurried away obediently.

  “Please forgive my manners,” Mrs. Wolfe said, pulling a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve to blot her eyes. “I hardly know what I’m saying, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re related to Rose?” Sarah asked.

  “She’s my husband’s sister. She came to live with us last year, when their mother died. We were happy to have her. She’s been a wonderful companion.”

  “And was she happy to be here?”

  Mrs. Wolfe smiled wanly. “How perceptive you are. She didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. We tried to convince her that was ridiculous, but she . . . Well, like most women, she wanted a home of her own, I’m sure, but . . .”

  Sarah nodded. There was no use in mentioning how few young men would find a woman like Rose Wolfe attractive. Men got to choose, and they always chose the prettiest girl they could.

  “We found out she’d been corresponding with men who had advertised in the newspaper that they were looking for a wife,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “Zachary, my husband, was horrified. He forbade her to continue, but I guess the damage was done. When she didn’t come home one evening, we found a note she had left for us. She said that if she hadn’t returned, that meant she had eloped with a gentleman with whom she had been corresponding. We couldn’t understand why she would elope. If he was suitable to be a husband, why didn’t she just bring him here to meet us? Zachary would have given her a marriage settlement and everything.” She dabbed at her eyes again.

  Sarah had no intention of telling her why Rose hadn’t returned home that day, so she had no answers for her.

  After a few minutes, the maid brought the tea tray, and Mrs. Wolfe served them. Sarah drank hers gratefully.

  “Mr. Malloy,” Mrs. Wolfe said after they’d been served. “You said you are a private investigator. Do you get many cases of missing women?”

  “I’ve just started my business recently. I was a police detective before, and we saw our share, though.”

  “I wanted to report Rose’s disappearance to the police, but Zachary was afraid of the scandal. If she’d just eloped, there was no reason to involve the police, was there?”

  “Not if she’d eloped,” Malloy said.

  Mrs. Wolfe’s eyes filled again. “I knew she hadn’t. If she’d married, she would have let us know. I told Zachary that, but he . . . I think he just couldn’t allow himself to believe anything bad had happened to her, you see.”

  “I can understand that,” Sarah said, earning a frown from Malloy that she ignored. “You must have felt helpless when you had no idea how to find her.”

  “We . . . Well, I did. I put an advertisement in the newspaper. I didn’t tell my husband. It said that we wanted Rose to come home. I didn’t say her last name, of course, but I thought if she read the advertisements, she might see it and know it was from me. I used my name, Franchesca. It’s an unusual name, so she would have known who had placed it.”

  “I don’t think she saw any newspapers while she was . . . away,” Sarah said.

  “That man she was writing to, the one she was meeting. Do you know who he was?”

  Her anxious gaze darted back and forth between Sarah and Malloy. Sarah didn’t know how to answer, but Malloy said, “Yes.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, as if willing him to say more, but he did not.

  “He betrayed her, didn’t he? I was so afraid of that. He didn’t really want to marry her, did he? Or he changed his mind or something. What a horrible thing to do to an innocent girl.”

  Neither of them replied. Anything they said would be too much.

  “Do you know where he is? Zachary will want to deal with him, I’m sure. He can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” Malloy said.

  “No, you don’t,” a voice said. “He’s dead.”

  9

  Rose Wolfe stood in the doorway. She looked much different than the creature Sarah had released from that cage just yesterday. Her hair had been washed and tamed into a sedate bun. She wore a simple dress of sprigged muslin that hung loose on her because of the weight she’d lost while held captive. Still, her height and her bearing, proud in spite of everything, made her an imposing figure. Only her eyes hinted at the horrors she had endured.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded of them.

  Sarah and Malloy had both risen to their feet. Sarah resisted an urge to rush to Rose and embrace her. “We wanted to make sure you’d gotten home safely.”

  “How did you find me?” Her anger resonated in the room like a chime.

  Sarah glanced at Malloy, who glanced at Mrs. Wolfe. “I found your address,” he said, giving nothing away.

  “And have they told you everything, Franchesca?” Rose said in challenge, braced for the onslaught of whatever emotions Franchesca Wolfe would unleash if she had known the truth.

  “No, they have not,” Franchesca cried in frustration. “Nothing more than I already knew, at least. Please, Rose. I can’t bear seeing you in such pain and not being able to help you.”

  A spasm from that pain twisted Rose’s face, but she shook her head. She turned to Malloy. “Are you a policeman?”

  “No,” he said. Sarah could see how much it cost him to say that word, although she doubted anyone else noticed. “I’m a private investigator.”

  “Then you aren’t here to arrest me?”

  “Arrest you?” Franchesca echoed, appalled. “Why on earth would anyone want to arrest you?”

  “No,” Malloy said, ignoring Mrs. Wolfe.

  “But he is dead, isn’t he?” Rose asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Malloy said.

  Rose closed her eyes and swayed. All three of them rushed to her aid and, in spite of her protests, soon had her seated on the sofa. Franchesca perched beside her, chafing Rose’s wrists until Rose pushed her hands away. She lifted her white face to where Sarah and Malloy stood over her.

  “Franchesca, would you leave us? I’d like to speak to Mrs. . . .”

  “Brandt,” Sarah supplied.

  “I’d like to speak to our guests alone.”

  Mrs. Wolfe looked crushed. “You don’t have to protect me, Rose. Whatever happened—”

  “Yes, I do,” Rose said. “Please respect my wishes.”

  Sarah could see how difficult it was for Franchesca Wolfe to leave her sister-in-law’s side. Plainly, she cared for Rose very much and truly only wanted to help. Perhaps eventually Rose would be able to accept her help, but not yet. Not today.

  “If you need me . . . I’ll be nearby,” Mrs. Wolfe said, her unshed tears almost choking her as she fled before they fell.

  The instant the door closed behind her, Rose covered her face and began to sob quietly, her shoulders shaking with the force of her grief.

  Sarah took the seat beside her, aching to offer comfort but not sure how welcome her efforts would be. Malloy moved to the other side of the room, obviously willing to leave this to Sarah. While she waited, Sarah noticed that Rose wore slippers instead of shoes, and her feet appeared to be bandaged. If only she’d waited a few more minutes, she would have had her shoes. But of course, she couldn’t have known that.

  After a few moments, Rose lowered her hands and scrubbed the tears from her face with her sleeve, like a child. “Thank you for not telling her.”

  “It’s not our place,” Sarah said.

  Rose stared at her for a long moment, as if taking her measure. “What were you doing there yesterday? How did you find me?”

  “We were looking for the other woman who was there. Did you know about her?”

  “Oh yes. I knew he’d brought
in someone new.”

  “New?”

  “She hadn’t been there long. There was another woman before her, though. I knew about her, all right. Sometimes when he . . . did things to one of us, he’d make the other one watch.”

  Sarah winced. Every time she thought she’d heard the worst, she found out she hadn’t. “Do you know what happened to her? Or even what her name was?”

  “I don’t know her name. She didn’t talk. She . . . she’d been there awhile before I got there, and something was wrong with her. You could tell. Her eyes were . . . blank. Like she didn’t know what was happening to her anymore. Even when he hurt her, she didn’t react. He said she was no good to him anymore. He wanted us to be afraid of him, I guess, and she wasn’t showing any emotion at all.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She just wasn’t there one day, and then the new woman came. I heard her screaming and begging, so I knew she’d just gotten there. You said you were looking for her.”

  Sarah winced again, but she forced herself to go on. “Her father had gone to the police when she didn’t come home. They figured out that she had gone to meet Pendergast, but of course they had no idea where he’d taken her, so we set a trap for him.”

  “We?” Rose said, glancing at Malloy across the room.

  “Mr. Malloy is my fiancé. I’ve helped him with some cases before,” Sarah said, thinking this was enough information to explain the situation. “We wrote Pendergast a letter, as if we were a young woman answering his advertisement. Luckily, he replied almost immediately and set up a meeting.”

  “But he didn’t go out yesterday.”

  “No. He must have suspected something, because he sent his friend, Vernon Neth, in his place. We followed him, and . . . well, eventually, he led us to you.”

  “That was Neth, then? The one who came in and started arguing with him?”

  Sarah tried not to show her excitement. Rose had just confirmed Grace’s account of a man arguing with Pendergast right before he was killed. “You heard them arguing? Even from the cellar?”

  “He started shouting as soon as he came in the door. I heard that part. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he was angry.”

  “And you’re sure it was another man and not Andy?”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t Andy. It was someone who knocked on the door, and Andy was already in the house.”

  “Do you know when he left? Andy, I mean. Because he wasn’t there when we arrived.”

  “No, but if there was trouble, I’m sure he’d run. So you know who the man was?”

  Sarah glanced at Malloy, who nodded slightly. “Not for sure. Do you know Neth?” Sarah asked.

  “Not by name. He’d bring men home sometimes, but I never knew their names.”

  “Did you see him? The man who was arguing with Pendergast yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “Tall fellow,” Malloy said. “Thin, with brown hair. Going bald.”

  Rose shrugged. “I try not to remember them.”

  “Rose, we know what Pendergast did. We know how he tricked women into his house and what he did to them after. You don’t have to tell us anything else.”

  “How do you know all that?” she asked in alarm.

  “The other woman, Grace. She told us.”

  Another spasm of pain flickered across her face. “Is she . . . all right?”

  “She’s back with her family, but they’ve left the city, because the police have threatened to arrest her for killing Pendergast.”

  Her eyes widened with outrage. “And what if she did? After what he did to us . . .”

  “The police might say she was there willingly,” Sarah said.

  “What? How could they think such a thing?”

  “She hasn’t told anyone her story. Anyone else, I mean, and certainly not the police. As you can imagine, she isn’t anxious for it to become public.”

  “It would help if we knew who did kill Pendergast,” Malloy said. “Then we could give the police the real killer and they’d leave Grace alone.”

  Rose stared at Malloy for a long moment, then turned back to Sarah. “So you came here to ask me if I know who killed him?”

  “No, we came to make sure you were all right,” Sarah said.

  “You could have come yesterday.”

  “I didn’t realize Mr. Malloy had your address until an hour ago. As soon as I did, we came straight here.”

  “And now that we’re here,” Malloy said, “we wondered if you had any idea what happened to Pendergast.”

  “And what you can tell us about Andy,” Sarah added.

  Her lip curled in distaste. “Andy? That little snake.”

  “Yes, we know all about him,” Sarah said. “But he wasn’t at the house yesterday when we arrived, and we only found out about him today. Could he have killed Pendergast?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I was locked in the cellar, as you will recall.”

  “But you did hear Pendergast arguing with someone.”

  “And I told you, I didn’t see who it was, and I don’t know what happened to him. I didn’t see anything. And now I’m very tired. I know you’ll understand if I ask you to leave.”

  Sarah wanted to argue. She wanted to convince Rose Wolfe that she had to help them, but how could she insist that the poor woman continue to tell them about the worst horror she had ever experienced? Besides, she knew full well that Rose had been caged in the cellar, so how could she have seen anything?

  “Thank you for seeing us,” Sarah said, rising. “If you think of anything or if you just want to . . . Well, if I can help in any way.” Sarah fished one of her calling cards out of her reticule and offered it.

  Rose looked at it as if she were offering a cup of poison, and Sarah pointedly laid it down on the tea tray instead.

  “I’m glad you got home,” Sarah said.

  Rose refused to meet her eye, so Sarah made her way to the door. Malloy fell in behind her, and the instant she opened it, Franchesca Wolfe jumped up from where she’d been sitting in the hallway.

  “Thank you for allowing us to visit,” Sarah said before Franchesca could ask a question they didn’t want to answer. “Rose is tired, so we’ll be going. If you need anything or Rose does, please send for me.” She gave Mrs. Wolfe another of her cards, then hurried on, not waiting for the maid and not allowing Franchesca Wolfe time to gather her wits.

  The maid caught up with them in time to hand Malloy his hat and open the door for them. Out on the sidewalk, Sarah turned to Malloy.

  “What do we do now?”

  “I think you should go home. You’ve done enough for one day.”

  “I haven’t done much at all.”

  “You’ve dealt with two women who have been to hell and back, not to mention you helped them escape from hell yesterday. I think you should go home. Spend some time with Catherine. Let Mrs. Ellsworth tell you some gossip. Tell Maeve what’s happened. Get some rest.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “I’m going back to Pendergast’s house to see if I can find this Andy fellow. He probably knows who Pendergast was arguing with, at least.”

  “It was probably Neth, you know. He was gone for a while after Mr. Livingston confronted him. It’s logical he went to tell Pendergast and naturally he’d be furious at being used as bait like that.”

  “Which is why that’s the first thing I’m going to ask Andy when I find him.”

  “What will Broghan think about that?”

  “Nothing, if he never finds out.”

  “And if he does?”

  He smiled grimly. “They can’t fire me.”

  “They can arrest you.”

  He smiled. “Yes, but I realized now I can afford to bribe them, so I’m not going
to worry too much.”

  Malloy put her in a cab, and Sarah watched him turn and start off in the opposite direction and wished she could go with him. But he was right, she was exhausted. Not so much physically tired as emotionally wrung out. She needed to spend some time not thinking about the horrible things she’d learned these past two days. She only hoped she could.

  • • •

  By the time Frank reached Pendergast’s neighborhood, he was wishing he’d gone home with Sarah. He’d been through everything she had, plus he’d been insulted by Broghan after being unceremoniously booted off the police force. He’d earned a quiet evening at home, too, and he’d take one just as soon as he’d made this attempt at locating the mysterious Andy.

  If this Andy was smart, which Frank doubted, he would have hightailed it out of Pendergast’s house and the city as well as the state, just to make sure he wasn’t involved in any of the backlash from Pendergast’s murder. Even if he hadn’t killed the man himself, and on the off chance that he also didn’t know who had, he was at the very least involved in holding all those women captive. Only a fool would come back to the very house where those crimes had taken place.

  In Frank’s experience, however, most criminals were fools at best and idiots at worst, so he fully expected that Andy would not disappoint him.

  But if Andy had returned to Pendergast’s house, he wasn’t answering the door. Frank knocked and then pounded and even tried the door, but it was locked tight, as were the back door and all the windows he could reach. He kept looking up at the windows, clearly visible in the evening light, but he saw no sign of life, even though he had the uncomfortable sensation he was being watched. Finally, he took his own advice to Sarah and went home to see his son. He’d try again tomorrow, and after that . . . well, after that, he’d do something else.

  • • •

  So I don’t suppose Malloy found Andy,” Sarah said.

  “He probably would’ve come by to tell you if he had,” Maeve agreed.

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. Catherine was fast asleep upstairs, and Sarah had just finished telling Maeve about her eventful day, although she had skimmed over the more horrific details of what the women had suffered at Pendergast’s hands. She didn’t think Maeve needed to know the true depths of depravity to which the man had sunk.