“Keep that one until I tell you to let him go,” Frank said, indicating Giddings.
Giddings blinked, still rubbing his head. “I thought you were going to let me go,” he said.
“Didn’t anybody ever warn you that liquor makes you stupid?” Frank asked, then turned away. He needed some fresh air.
From her parents’ house on Fifty-Seventh Street, Sarah took the Sixth Avenue Elevated Train down to Twenty-Sixth Street and walked over to Bellevue Hospital to visit Webster Prescott. As she’d feared, he was in a fever and didn’t seem to know who she was. She forced some soup down his throat and bathed him with cool water. Then she put some hot compresses on his wound, to draw out the inflammation that was poisoning him. When she left, he seemed to be sleeping more comfortably. She told the nurses she’d be back to check on him later, hoping that would motivate them to give him better than average care in the meantime.
She’d posted the letter to Prescott’s aunt that morning. With any luck, the woman would receive it in the afternoon mail and be over to visit him tomorrow. Until then, Sarah would keep a close watch on him. Breathing a silent prayer for his recovery, she left the hospital and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when she realized she had no idea what to do next.
Malloy, she knew, was going to find Mr. Giddings’s son and try to get him to confess to Anna’s murder. Sarah should have been relieved. Once the murder was solved, they could concentrate on solving up the embezzlement at the bank and clearing Nelson’s name once and for all.
But she didn’t feel relieved. She’d never met this boy, but for some reason she couldn’t believe he’d killed Anna Blake. And she also couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d left something undone. She thought she knew what it was, too. She’d never gone back to the Walcott house to question Catherine Porter or the maid again. They must know more than they’d told her that first time. The maid hadn’t been there, of course, but Catherine had. And she’d been Anna’s friend, or the closest thing she’d had to one, at any rate. Maybe, if pressed, Catherine could provide a possible reason why Anna might have gone out to the Square that night. Sarah couldn’t shake off the feeling that once she knew that reason, she would understand what had happened to Anna Blake. Or at least she’d have a clue as to who might have killed her. And why.
Pulling her cape more tightly around her, Sarah set off toward the Second Avenue Elevated for a quick trip downtown to the Walcott house.
All the way down on the train, she tried to decide what she should ask the women if she was fortunate enough to get in to ask them anything at all. Catherine might not be home, or the maid might not admit her. If the Walcotts were home, they might throw her bodily into the street. Without Malloy, she had no official reason to question them, and they would surely know it. In fact, she was probably foolish to even consider this. On the other hand, she couldn’t just go back to her house and wait. She had to do something.
With some trepidation, Sarah climbed the steps to the Walcotts’ front door and knocked. After what seemed a very long time, the door opened, and the maid looked out to see who was there.
“Good morning,” Sarah said, not really sure it was still morning but willing to take the chance. “Is Miss Porter in?”
The maid was frowning, trying to place her. Sarah smiled benignly, praying she wouldn’t be able to. Finally, the girl said, “You’re that lady what was here before about Miss Blake. You come with that policeman.”
Sarah managed not to flinch. “That’s right. Miss Porter asked me to call when I was by this way again,” she lied.
The girl looked doubtful, but she said. “Come in, please, and I’ll see if Miss Porter’s at home.”
Sarah stepped inside, as bidden, but the maid left her standing in the hallway instead of inviting her to have a seat in the parlor, silently telling her she might not really be welcome. Of course, the maid knew perfectly well whether or not Catherine Porter was at home. What she’d meant was that she would check to see if Miss Porter was at home to Mrs. Brandt. If Miss Porter didn’t wish to see her, she would simply instruct the maid to say she wasn’t at home. It was a convenient fiction that saved people from having to be overtly rude but still allowed them some control over their social lives.
Sarah wasn’t quite sure what she would do if Miss Porter refused to see her. She could always force her way past the maid and go upstairs and find the poor woman, cowering in her room. Such an approach was hardly likely to result in Sarah being able to elicit information from Miss Porter, however. She was smiling at the thought when she heard the maid coming down the stairs again. To Sarah’s relief, Catherine Porter was right behind her.
She did look wary, Sarah noted, so Sarah smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “Good morning, Miss Porter. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“What do you want?” Catherine Porter asked when she was halfway down the stairs, not bothering with the usual social niceties.
A very good question, and one Sarah didn’t dare answer truthfully. “I was hoping you would have a few minutes to visit with me. We’re still trying to find out who killed poor Miss Blake, and I thought perhaps you might be able to help.”
“I already told everyone, I was asleep when she went out that night,” she said defensively. She came down a few more steps, though. Sarah could see now that she wore a housedress and her hair wasn’t done, so she hadn’t been planning on going out or receiving visitors.
Sarah knew Catherine was probably lying about having been asleep, since Anna had left the house in the early evening, but she decided to work up to that question. “I thought perhaps you’d overheard Anna’s argument with the young man who came to see her that evening,” she tried. She glanced at the maid, who was still hovering, unwilling to miss this conversation, although she should have discreetly withdrawn by now.
For some reason, Catherine glanced at the maid, too, as if looking for reassurance. “Is Mrs. Walcott at home?” she asked the girl.
“No, ma’am. She went out early. Said she wouldn’t be back for a while,” the girl replied.
Catherine came down the rest of the stairs. “I guess I could spare a few minutes,” she allowed. “Although it won’t do you any good. I don’t know anything that will help.” She glanced at the maid again. “Go back to work. It’s all right.”
The maid nodded reluctantly, then slipped away down the hall. Catherine Porter led Sarah into the parlor and closed the doors behind them. When she turned, Sarah instantly saw the change in her. The last time they had met, Catherine had been worried, but now she looked almost frightened. Her face was pale and lines of strain had formed around her mouth. Her youth and health had been her most appealing features, but those seemed to have faded, leaving her worn and lifeless.
“I don’t know anything about Anna’s death,” she said before Sarah could even think of which question she wanted to ask first.
“You said you were asleep when Anna left the house that night. What time do you usually retire?”
“I don’t know. Nine o’clock. Or ten, maybe. I don’t pay attention. I go to bed when I’m tired.” She walked over to the sofa and sank down wearily.
“You go to bed after dark, though,” Sarah guessed, taking a seat opposite her.
“Sure. I’m not a farmer,” she said derisively. She was lying, then, about having been asleep when Anna left the house, which meant she’d also been lying about not knowing why Anna had left.
“I guess you got in the habit of staying up late when you worked in the theater,” Sarah tried.
“You have to,” she said. “The plays are at night, and by the time you get changed and out of the . . . Wait, how did you know I worked in the theater?” Her eyes widened, and she looked wary.
“You told me,” Sarah reminded her, smiling with what she hoped was reassurance. “Your friend Irene said you and Anna and Francine were all actresses.”
“Irene,” Catherine scoffed. “She’s no friend of mine.”
; “Was Francine a friend of yours?”
“I knew her, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did you live here when she did?”
“She left before I came.”
“Where did she go?” Sarah asked, wondering if this Francine might be able to tell her anything.
“I don’t know. Some place in the country. She got a rich man to take care of her, so she left.”
Sarah could just imagine. Most likely, the “rich” man was no longer rich, nor was he spending time with Francine anymore. “Is that what you were planning to do? Find some rich man to take care of you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Catherine pointed out. “Lots of women do it!”
Lots of women in every class did it, Sarah would have to admit. Becoming a rich man’s mistress, or his wife, was one of the few opportunities women had of escaping poverty. Sarah didn’t feel like discussing this with Catherine, however. “Did Mr. Walcott court you the way he courted Anna?” she asked to change the subject.
“I don’t know what you mean.” This time the fear in her eyes was too real to mistake. “Mr. Walcott is . . . he’s a married man.”
“Married or not, he used to hang around the theater, waiting for Anna and bringing her flowers. Did he do that for you, too?”
Catherine glanced at the parlor doors. Was she worried that someone might be eavesdropping? Or was she worried about something else? “He just . . . he offered me a place to live. That’s all. He said he ran a respectable boarding house and I’d like it here.”
“Because you could entertain your gentleman callers upstairs with his approval?” Sarah asked mildly.
Catherine didn’t like these questions. “I told you, this is a respectable house.”
“Not according to the men who used to call on Anna Blake,” Sarah said. “They were both permitted above stairs with the full knowledge of the landlords. I can’t say for certain what went on in Anna’s room, but I do know that both gentlemen in question believed they had gotten Anna with child. This would indicate to me they were intimate with her.”
“That was Anna, not me,” she insisted.
Sarah decided not to press the issue. “Did you see the young man who visited Anna the night she died?”
“Yeah, but I never saw him before. He wasn’t a regular . . .” She caught herself and quickly added, “I mean, he’d never been here that I ever saw.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. Young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Looked like a common laborer, if you ask me. Mary didn’t want to let him in, but he pushed his way past her and started shouting for Anna.”
“Didn’t you ask her who he was?”
Catherine glared at Sarah. At any moment she might realize she didn’t really have to sit here and answer these questions. Sarah had no authority at all, but she didn’t betray any hint of that. She glared right back at Catherine determinedly. Finally, she said, “Anna said he was Mr. Giddings’s son.”
“Who was Mr. Giddings?” Sarah asked, managing to conceal her feeling of triumph and hoping Catherine wouldn’t remember that Sarah had been here the morning Giddings had come looking for Anna.
“One of her . . . a friend of hers. He helped her with some . . . some business matters.”
“I see,” Sarah said, seeing more than that. “And what did the boy want with her?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t my business.”
“Did he go upstairs with her?” Sarah asked, remembering that the coroner had said she’d been with a man shortly before her death.
“Not likely! Not the way they was fighting!”
“They were arguing? What about?”
“I wasn’t listening on purpose,” she said, defensive again, “but he was shouting. It was hard not to hear what he was saying.”
“And what was he saying?”
“He wanted her to leave his father alone. He said there was no more money. I think . . . he said something about her giving the money back, I think. And he . . .”
“He what?”
“He said . . .” Catherine took a deep breath. “He’d kill her if she didn’t.”
13
SARAH GAPED AT HER. THIS WAS EVEN MORE INFORMATION than she’d wanted to get. “Are you sure that’s what he said?” she asked, still not wanting the Giddings boy to be guilty of the crime.
“Yeah, because Anna started laughing, and he said something like she’d better believe him or she’d be sorry.”
Sarah hadn’t been trained as a detective, but that sounded like pretty good evidence to her. “And then he left?”
“Yeah, Mr. Walcott told him to leave, and he did.”
“Did you say Mr. Walcott? I thought he wasn’t home that night.”
Catherine looked confused and then frightened again. “Did I say that? No, I meant to say Mrs. You’re right, he wasn’t home that night. Mrs. Walcott asked him to leave.”
“And what time was this when he left?”
“I don’t know,” Catherine complained. “Early in the evening, I guess. Right after supper.”
“And you went to bed immediately?”
“No, I told you, it was still early.”
“So Anna didn’t leave the house right after that?”
“No, we played checkers for a while, the two of us.”
Sarah managed to conceal her surprise. This wasn’t what Mrs. Walcott had said. “Did she seem upset by the argument she’d had with the boy?”
“Not a bit. Nothing much upset her, even though . . .”
“Even though what?” Sarah prodded.
“Well, Mrs. Walcott . . . She was mad about the boy coming to the house. She didn’t like disturbances. Yelling and carrying on, she says that’s low class.”
“Did she say anything to Anna about it?”
“Not that I heard. She isn’t one to air dirty linen, you know? That’s how she always says it. No use airing our dirty linen in public. She’d wait ’til I was gone to say something, if she did.”
“And you think she did that night?”
Catherine shrugged. “Like I said, I was asleep. I didn’t hear anything.” She wouldn’t meet Sarah’s eye.
Sarah was starting to get a little impatient with Catherine, but she tried not to let it show. “Did Anna get a message that evening?”
“Not that I know of.”
Sarah was confused now. “So Anna was still here when you went to bed?”
“That’s right. Anna never would go to bed until real late. Then she’d sleep late in the morning, just like when we worked in the theater. I told her it’s hard on the complexion to stay up half the night, but she wouldn’t listen. Anna wouldn’t listen to nobody.”
“Was Anna in the habit of going out alone at night?”
Catherine looked at her like she was crazy. “Only whores go out on the street at night. Anna didn’t want to be taken for no whore.”
“Then why did she go out that particular night?”
“I don’t know, I tell you! I wish I did. Then people would stop bothering me. All I can tell you is that she did, and she got herself killed.”
“And what’s going to happen to you now?” Sarah asked.
Fear flickered in Catherine’s eyes again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you going to keep entertaining your gentlemen friends the way Anna did?”
“That ain’t none of your business,” she said. At last she jumped up from her seat on the sofa. “I’ve told you everything I know. Now you’d better leave here before Mrs. Walcott gets back.”
“Why? Don’t you think she’d like to see me?”
“She don’t like talking about Anna, especially since that reporter came here snooping around the other day.”
Sarah felt a warning prickle on the back of her neck. “Was it Mr. Prescott? From the World?”
“I didn’t hear his name.”
“A tall fellow? Young? All arms and legs?”
“I guess,�
� she said with a shrug. “He was asking about Anna being in the theater and all. Mrs. Walcott sent him packing, and she told me and Mary not to let any more reporters in. There’ve been a lot of them come by, wanting to know all about Anna, but we never tell them nothing.”
“If a lot of reporters have been here, why did that particular one annoy Mrs. Walcott?”
“This one barged right in past poor Mary, without so much as a by-your-leave. Mrs. Walcott threatened to call the police on him,” Catherine said. “In fact, now that I think on it, I shouldn’t be talking to you at all. How do I know you’re not working for some newspaper? This could be a trick.”
“I assure you, I don’t work for a newspaper. I’m a midwife. That’s why Nelson Ellsworth brought me to meet Anna Blake in the first place,” Sarah reminded her.
Catherine waved this away. “I don’t know about any of that. All I know is, you better go now.”
Sarah rose to her feet, but she wasn’t quite finished. “Do you remember what Anna was wearing that night?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d like to find out how she was dressed when she went out the night she died. That could tell me who she was going to meet.”
“How could what she was wearing tell you anything?” Catherine asked.
“If she was dressed carefully, she was probably going to meet a lover,” Sarah said. “If she dressed hastily, she might have been in a hurry. Can you remember?”
“I only know what she was wearing last time I saw her.”
“Could you tell from looking at the clothes in her room what she wore to go out that night?”
Catherine cast one anxious glance at the door again. Could she actually be frightened at the prospect of having Mrs. Walcott catch her talking to Sarah? What kind of a relationship did she have with the landlady? Before she could pursue that thought, Catherine said, “I can look at her things. They’re all there in her room. Mrs. Walcott won’t let anybody touch them. It’s not like Anna’s going to need them or anything, is it?” she grumbled, opening the parlor doors and leading Sarah up the stairs.
Murder on Washington Square Page 23