Murder on Marble Row

by Victoria Thompson

  The voices ceased the moment the girl knocked, and Sarah didn’t wait to be summoned. She’d learned from Malloy that angry people often said things they later regretted, and she didn’t want to give any of them a chance to regain their composure.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully, pushing past the startled maid and stepping into the room. She found various members of the Van Dyke family staring back at her stupidly. Lilly Van Dyke stood in the center of the room. She had already donned her mourning dress of black bombazine in the latest fashion, but her face was an unbecoming shade of scarlet. Alberta also wore black, but much less stylishly, and the color only made her already pale face look ghastly. She also looked angry, although a silent determination held it in check. At the far end of the room sat Tad Van Dyke, holding his head and looking as if he might be sick at any moment. Sarah remembered the bottle of brandy he’d taken to his room and bit back a smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she lied.

  “Sarah, I’m so glad you’re here,” Lilly said to her surprise. “Maybe you can talk some sense into that policeman!”

  “What policeman is that?” Sarah asked, even though she was certain she knew.

  “Mr. Malloy,” Alberta said much more calmly. “Although I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Not necessary!” Lilly cried in outrage. “He brought that . . . that criminal right into our home! What’s to stop him from murdering the rest of us in our own beds?”

  “Criminal?” Sarah echoed in confusion.

  “Creighton,” Tad explained wearily, “Lilly, this is his home as much as ours, and he has a policeman guarding his room. He’s practically a prisoner.”

  “And even if he wasn’t a prisoner,” Alberta added, “he has no reason to harm any of us.”

  “No reason?” Lilly practically screamed. “He killed his own father!”

  “He most certainly did not,” Alberta cried, jumping to her feet. “And if you ever say that again, I’ll slap you!”

  Lilly stared at her incredulously. She could not have been more surprised if a chair had threatened her. Sarah hurried to defuse the situation.

  “Lilly, please sit down and tell me exactly what happened,” she urged, taking the woman’s arm and leading her over to the sofa. She sat down obediently, although she was still staring at Alberta as if she’d grown a second head. “I gather Mr. Malloy brought Creighton back here yesterday,” Sarah said, trying to draw her attention away from the stepdaughter.

  “Yes,” Alberta replied when Lilly simply frowned with distaste. “Creighton wanted to see me, so Mr. Malloy brought him here. Then Mr. Malloy got him to agree to help him find the person who . . . who killed Father.”

  “Did he use a mirror?” Lilly sniped.

  Alberta ignored her and sat back down again. “He was going to take Creighton to jail, to make sure he didn’t run away or try to warn anyone. I couldn’t bear the thought of Creighton in a place like that—”

  “I’m sure it’s no worse than the hovel where he lives with that . . . that woman!” Lilly insisted.

  “Please, Lilly,” Sarah said sweetly, “I need to hear the entire story.”

  Lilly sighed dramatically, but she kept her silence.

  Alberta cast her a venomous look, but she continued. “We discussed some alternatives, and we finally were able to convince Mr. Malloy that Creighton would be perfectly safe here, under a police guard.”

  “Why should we care whether he’s safe?” Lilly wanted to know. “We’re the ones in danger!”

  “Lilly,” Tad said as reasonably as a man with a hangover could manage, “as Alberta pointed out, Creighton has no reason to wish any of us harm.”

  “He most certainly does! We’re all heirs along with him. With us dead, he would have your father’s entire fortune!”

  “Not if he killed all of you,” Sarah was happy to inform her. “Murderers can’t inherit.”

  “She’s absolutely right,” Alberta said with an odd little grin. “He’d most certainly hire an assassin to do it.”

  Lilly made an unladylike sound of outrage and lunged to her feet. “You unnatural creature! No wonder no man ever wanted you!”

  The look Alberta gave her should have struck her dead on the spot, but Lilly was too angry herself to notice or care. Fortunately, Tad chose that moment to intervene. He pushed himself out of his chair and reached Lilly in two long strides.

  “Stop it, Lilly,” he said sternly, taking her by both her arms and turning her to face him. “You’re hysterical.”

  She stared up at him in surprise, and her anger seemed to melt away into an expression unlike any Sarah had ever seen a mother give a son. Then, just as suddenly, she burst into tears and collapsed into his arms.

  Sarah stepped back, wanting to distance herself from what she thought she might have seen. From the corner of her eye, she saw Alberta turn away and walk to the window, her back unnaturally stiff and her shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow.

  “Oh, Tad, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Lilly was saying brokenly as she wept against Tad’s chest.

  He murmured words of comfort to her, caressing her back and shoulders warmly. Too warmly.

  “I’m going to check on Creighton,” Alberta announced to no one in particular. “I doubt anyone even thought to send him up any breakfast.”

  She walked out, leaving the door standing open. Sarah watched her, torn between staying to see what else she could learn about Tad and his relationship with his stepmother and going with Alberta to speak with Creighton. She finally decided she knew as much as she wanted to about Tad and Lilly’s relationship, and she followed Alberta.

  When she caught up with her friend in the third-floor hallway, Alberta was staring down in disgust at the policeman sitting outside Creighton’s room. He’d been provided a chair, and he was leaning back on two legs, head and shoulders resting against the wall, sound asleep and snoring softly.

  Alberta made a fist and wrapped loudly on the wall beside the patrolman’s head. He awoke with a start that almost sent him sprawling onto the floor. He caught himself just in time, at the cost of most of his dignity, and managed to scramble to his feet, losing his hat in the process.

  “Oh, sorry, miss,” he was saying in acute embarrassment. “Must’ve dozed off.”

  “I don’t suppose anyone brought my brother anything to eat this morning,” Alberta snapped.

  The cop rubbed his face as if trying to clear his head. “Not that I remember,” he admitted.

  She dismissed him with a contemptuous glance and went to the door. “Creighton, it’s me,” she said, knocking. “May I come in?”

  She waited a moment, but apparently received no response, “Creighton, are you awake?” she asked more loudly, pounding harder on the door to rouse him.

  “Sound sleeper, is he, miss?” the policeman asked, earning a black look from Alberta. The look she gave Sarah was different, though, and Sarah hurried over to the door.

  “Is it locked?” she asked.

  “No need, with me sitting right here,” the cop was saying as Alberta turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  “Creighton?” she called, her voice tinged with alarm. “Creighton, where are you?”

  The room was ice cold, and one of the windows stood wide open, the curtains stirring in the breeze.

  “No!” Alberta cried, and finally the officer realized something wrong.

  He pushed past the two women and, seeing the open window, ran to it. The bedroom was on the third floor. If he’d gone out . . .

  “Dear heaven,” Alberta whispered in horror.

  “Is he . . . ?” Sarah asked, not wanting to say the words but picturing Creighton’s broken body in the yard below.

  “Don’t see nothing,” the officer reported. “You sure he ain’t here someplace?”

  Quickly, he checked the bath and under the bed and the clothes press, every place where a grown man might be concealed. The room was empty.

  “
He . . . he didn’t jump?” Alberta asked incredulously.

  Sarah went to the window this time and looked out. The yard below was a small garden, neatly trimmed and readied for winter. Only a few dead leaves lay on the brown grass. Could Creighton have sneaked out the door past the officer? No, surely that would’ve awakened him. And if he’d gone out the door, why was the window open?

  Sarah looked down again. No one could have jumped three stories and not been seriously injured. She leaned out, looking for something, anything, that could explain where he’d gone. Then she saw it. A drain pipe ran up the outside wall between this window and the one in the bath.

  When she pulled her head back inside, Alberta was beside her, peering out over her shoulder. “I’d forgotten. He used to climb down there when he wanted to get away.”

  Sarah turned to the officer, who had finally realized the magnitude of his problem. “You’d better tell Detective Sergeant Malloy that his prisoner has escaped.”

  FRANK HAD RETURNED TO VAN DYKE’S OFFICE THIS morning. Snowberger was anxious to get the mess cleared away, and no one could blame him for that. With Creighton Van Dyke safely under guard, Frank figured he could finish things up here and make Snowberger happy.

  Captain O’Connor had put two of his own men to work going through the rubble to find what they could. O’Connor had probably chosen his best detectives, but Frank could tell from looking at them that they’d likely spent most of their careers investigating the inside of saloons, venturing out on a case only when someone greased their palms with a fat reward. Frank found them standing around in the reception area talking with a third man he didn’t know.

  The detectives greeted Frank with suspicion. They knew he’d been assigned by Commissioner Roosevelt himself, and they resented him for that. The crime had happened in their precinct, and they’d want the glory—and the reward—for themselves if the case was solved.

  “Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy,” Frank introduced himself to the stranger and offered his hand, when the others gave no indication they would do the honors.

  “John Peterson,” the man said. He was in his forties, lean and fit looking with an intelligent face, unlike the paunchy detectives. “I’m an electrician. Captain O’Connor asked me to take a look at what you found and see what I could make of it. I was just explaining it to these gentlemen.”

  Frank hadn’t heard about them finding anything in particular, and neither of the other men would meet his eye. “Why don’t you show me and explain it to me at the same time?” Frank suggested. “These gentlemen can wait here and make sure no one disturbs anything,” he added with satisfaction.

  The two detectives glared at him, but he ignored them as John Peterson led him toward the stairs.

  “Some of the clerks have their offices down here,” Peterson was saying as they descended. “But the part of the building under Mr. Van Dyke’s office is used for storage. The furnace is also down there.”

  Frank followed him through a large room where about a dozen desks sat in neat rows. Only three young men were working there today. Tad Van Dyke wasn’t one of them. A door in the back opened into the room Peterson had described. The floor here was packed dirt, the walls rough. Two small windows seemed to be the only source of light until Peterson threw a switch and an electric lightbulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated. Now Frank could see that above them ran pipes carrying the steam heat to the rest of the building from the boiler.

  “I found the end of a wire in what was left of the cabinet that exploded upstairs,” Peterson explained. “I’ll show you when we go back up there. I followed where it had been threaded into the room from down here through the same hole the pipes go through.” He pointed to a spot on the ceiling where one of the many pipes entered the floor above.

  Frank could see a couple of wires had been inserted into the hole and where they followed the pipe along the ceiling. “Where do they go?”

  “Over here.” Peterson moved to the corner of the room where the shadows weren’t completely dispelled by the electric light. Still he could see what Peterson had found. On a ledge near the ceiling sat a four-cell electric battery, which was connected to the wires.

  “Was this hooked to the bomb somehow?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, the battery would have made the electrical charge that ignited the bomb.”

  “Was it hooked up to the cabinet door somehow so when he opened it, the thing exploded?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but I was wrong. Look here.” Peterson showed him more wires leading away from the battery and attached to a series of hooks. The wires disappeared through a carefully drilled hole in the outside wall.

  “Where does it go?”

  “Into the alley.” Peterson led Frank to the door on that side of the room. He threw the bolt and opened it. They stepped out into the alley and looked around. The building behind this one faced the next street, and the back wall of it had only a few windows on the upper floors that overlooked the alley. Even Van Dyke’s office had no windows on this side. He supposed millionaires didn’t like looking at alleys.

  Peterson pointed to where one of the wires came out through the wall. It ended in a loop.

  “Someone would have had to pull the loop here to set the bomb off.” He reached down to demonstrate.

  “No!” Frank cried in alarm, but Peterson only grinned.

  “It’s perfectly safe. The bomb already exploded,” he reminded Frank.

  Feeling stupid, Frank nodded.

  “Go back inside and watch how it works,” Peterson suggested.

  Frank went back in and let him pull the wire to show how it worked. When the loop was pulled, a bare part of the wire came in contact with a bare portion of the other wire inside making the necessary electrical connection. Even Frank could see the ingenuity of it. In spite of the explosion upstairs, the system still worked.

  Peterson came back inside. “Clever, isn’t it?”

  Frank frowned. “So the killer stood out there to set it off, but how would he know when Van Dyke was opening the cabinet?”

  Peterson shrugged. “I’m an electrician, not a detective,” he said with another grin. “I think you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

  Frank started doing just that. “Was the outside door locked when you came down?” he asked Peterson.

  “Yes.”

  It couldn’t be locked or unlocked from the outside. The person who set the bomb would’ve had to get into the basement and spend a lot of time there. Frank remembered that Tad worked just a few feet away from this room. He’d have easy access to it. So would others.

  Not yet convinced the killer hadn’t been an anarchist, however, Frank checked the windows. The first one was securely locked, but the second one had a broken latch. At first glance, it seemed secure, but closer inspection showed it wasn’t. A man could easily slip in that way.

  “Show me the wire you found upstairs,” Frank said.

  They passed the other two detectives still standing in the reception area. Frank resented the fact that they were just wasting time when there was so much to do. “What about Van Dyke’s secretary? What’s his name . . . Reed?” he snapped.

  “He’s all right,” one of them said dismissively, “They sent him home from the hospital.”

  “Get me his address, then. Somebody needs to talk to him.”

  Neither of them acknowledged the request, but Frank knew they’d be afraid to ignore it, no matter how much they might resent him. Frank and Peterson went on to Van Dyke’s office, and they must have realized they needed to hear whatever Peterson had to say, so they hurried after them, stopping short in the doorway.

  Even over the odor of the spilled whiskey, the smell of death was still strong here, and Frank didn’t blame them for not wanting to go in. Peterson didn’t hesitate, though. He went right over to the cabinet.

  “A waste of good liquor,” Peterson lamented, moving carefully through the shards of broken glass and amber puddles on the
floor. He showed Frank where the bare wire stuck out from the remains of the cabinet.

  “There were two wires downstairs. Where does the other one go?” Frank asked.

  “They both came into the cabinet here. See?” He showed Frank where the second wire came up with the pipe and had been laid along the floor right next to the wall, then started up the wall behind the leg of the cabinet and had been stuffed inside through a tiny crack. Shortly after it entered the cabinet, one of the wires appeared to have been broken off.

  “Where’s the other piece?” Frank asked.

  “Probably around here somewhere,” Peterson said. “Funny things happen when something explodes.”

  “You know anything about bombs?”

  “A little. I figure this one was made out of a pipe. There’s part of it.”

  Sure enough, among the rubble lay a short section of pipe. One end appeared to be sealed with a cap. The other was ragged and blackened. Frank picked it up. “A pipe?” he asked incredulously. “You can make a bomb out of that?”

  “You can make a bomb out of just about anything if you fill it with enough gunpowder,” Peterson said. “Looks like they used nails, too. You can see them all over the room.”

  Frank looked around again. He hadn’t paid too much attention before. He didn’t know a lot about bombs, and figured the small pieces of metal he’d observed were just parts of it. He found one halfway imbedded into Van Dyke’s solid mahogany desk.

  “When the bomb explodes, the nails fly like bullets, and they do a lot more damage. Van Dyke would’ve been standing right in front of it, so he got most of the blast.”

  “Tore his face clean off,” one of the other detectives offered.

  “How did the wires make it explode?” Frank asked, not wanting to think about Van Dyke’s last moments.

  “The battery would’ve sent a current of electricity along the wires when the killer pulled the loop downstairs, and the wires would’ve been hooked up to the bomb. That current would’ve ignited the gunpowder, the way a pistol uses a spark to make it fire.”