Murder on Marble Row

by Victoria Thompson

  “He didn’t need a job!” Alberta reminded her brother. “You said you’d take care of me, that I’d never want for anything!”

  Creighton gave her a look full of pity. “Poor Bertie.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me!” she practically shouted. “You’ve got to help Lewis! He didn’t do this terrible thing.” She whirled to where her younger brother still sat, his eyes glassy from drink. “You’re Lewis’s friend, Tad. You must know he couldn’t possibly kill anyone. Tell him!” She gestured wildly at Frank.

  To everyone’s surprise, Tad pushed himself purposefully, if a little unsteadily, to his feet. “Bertie’s right,” he said very clearly. “Lewis Reed didn’t kill Allen Snowberger.”

  No one had a chance to react because the parlor door swung open and Lilly Van Dyke stepped in. She’d done something to herself, Frank noticed at once. She looked almost matronly, with her hair pulled straight back into the kind of bun his mother wore. Her dress was dead black, without a ruffle or a frill to be seen, and she had clasped her hands in front of her modestly. Her chin high and her expression righteous, she looked straight at Frank.

  “Mr. Malloy, I want you to arrest Tad Van Dyke. He tried to rape me.”

  Everyone except Tad gasped in shock.

  “You bitch,” he said between gritted teeth.

  “What a horrible thing to say, Lilly, even for you!” Alberta said.

  “It’s true!” Lilly insisted. “Mrs. Brandt saw it, didn’t you?”

  Everyone looked at Sarah, and for the first time since Frank had known her, she actually looked embarrassed. She met his gaze for just a moment before she nodded slightly.

  “You see!” Lilly exclaimed in triumph.

  Tad lunged for her. “I should’ve killed you instead!” he cried before Creighton and Frank caught him. He put up a slight struggle, but he was too drunk to resist very much.

  “Get him out of here while I talk to Mrs. Van Dyke,” Frank told Creighton when Tad had finally stilled.

  “Come on, kid,” Creighton said, putting his arm around his brother as much for support as to restrain him. He led the boy from the room.

  Sarah closed the door behind them, and when she turned back, she glared at Lilly. “I don’t think you’ll want to press charges, Lilly.”

  “Why not?” Lilly asked virtuously. “You saw what he did.”

  “I also know why he did it.” She turned to Frank. “Lilly seduced Tad. She crawled into his bed one night and had her way with him.”

  “You . . . you harlot!” Alberta exclaimed in horror, using probably the worst word she could think of. “I hope you do go to court! I want Tad to get up on the stand and tell everyone what kind of woman you are!”

  Lilly’s cheeks turned scarlet, but she refused to be cowed. “It would be his word against mine.”

  “And you would be ruined by the scandal, but Tad would be excused as a naughty boy,” Sarah said reasonably.

  “Not after you tell what you saw,” she reminded her.

  Sarah simply shrugged. She hated the crime of rape, and she hated even more the men who claimed the woman had asked for it. But this time . . . “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what I did see,” she mused. “In fact, you might have fainted, and Tad was merely trying to help you.”

  “You liar! You know what he was trying to do!”

  “You won’t get any sympathy in this house,” Alberta informed her. “But since you think Tad is dangerous, you should move out immediately to someplace where you’ll be safe. I’ll speak to Creighton about it at once.”

  Lilly opened her mouth to reply, but she must’ve realized the implication behind Alberta’s words—she really had no right to live in this house any longer. She closed her mouth with a snap, turned on her heel, and marched back to the door. She threw it open so hard it banged into the wall, making the rest of them flinch.

  Instinctively, Frank turned back to Sarah. He was out of his depth here and needed some guidance on how to handle these high-strung rich people. Fortunately, she understood his predicament.

  “Katya lost her baby this afternoon,” she explained.

  Frank winced at the rush of memories. “Is she . . . ?”

  “She’s all right,” Sarah assured him. “But that’s why everyone is upset.”

  “And let’s not forget my fiancé has been arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, too,” Alberta reminded them sarcastically.

  Two murders, Frank thought, but he didn’t correct her.

  “Did he confess?” Sarah asked.

  “Not yet,” he replied.

  “Not yet?” Alberta echoed. “Why not? Didn’t you have time to beat him thoroughly enough?”

  The accusation stung, but Frank refused to react. “He admitted he went to Snowberger’s apartment yesterday to ask him to give him his job back. The doorman saw him. He also admitted Snowberger refused.”

  “That doesn’t mean Lewis killed him!” Alberta argued.

  “Alberta, would you leave me and Mr. Malloy alone for a moment?” Sarah asked suddenly. “I want to talk to him about Mr. Reed.”

  Alberta looked uncertainly at them both. “He didn’t kill anyone,” she repeated.

  “Of course he didn’t,” she said to Frank’s surprise. “Please, just give me a chance to talk to Mr. Malloy.”

  Reluctantly, but with a slight glimmer of hope, Alberta excused herself and left them alone.

  “He admitted he went to see Snowberger,” he reminded her when the door had closed behind Alberta, “and he’s the only one who could have done it.”

  “I know you’re sure about Lewis, but no one else is.”

  “No one else would be happy about my other suspect, either,” he pointed out.

  “I know, but if you’re going to upset people anyway, we better be sure you’ve got the right man. Tad had a good reason to kill Snowberger, too,” she said. “And did you hear what he said to Lilly? He said he should’ve killed her instead.”

  Yes, he had heard that. He’d almost forgotten in all the excitement.

  “He said something similar to Lilly this afternoon, too,” she said, “and again to me later when I saw him by chance. I think he may be trying to confess.”

  “But he didn’t leave the house yesterday,” he reminded her.

  “No one saw him leave the house, but I think I figured out how he could have done it without anyone seeing him.”

  “He already said there’s no drainpipe outside his room.”

  Sarah smiled slightly. “He also said he wasn’t as adventurous as Creighton, and climbing back up a drainpipe is very difficult. No, I think he got out over the rooftops.”

  Frank looked up, not because he expected to see anything but because he was trying to picture the outside of the Van Dyke house. “How would he get up there?”

  “The Van Dykes have a rooftop garden. There are stairs leading to it right next to Tad’s room.”

  “I saw those stairs,” Frank remembered. “I thought they were for the servants to get up to their rooms on the fourth floor.”

  “No, the servants’ stairs wouldn’t be so close to the family’s bedrooms,” she explained, making him feel like a fool for not realizing that. “Tad could’ve slipped out and back in again without anyone noticing. The houses are close enough together that he could have crossed to a building with a fire escape or a ladder. I haven’t looked, but I’m guessing you’ll find one nearby. Mischievous boys usually manage to locate things like that early in life.”

  Frank thought back to what had happened in the moment before Lilly had barged in and made her accusation against Tad. Alberta had asked Tad to vouch for Reed, and he’d acted very strangely. Frank could still see the way he’d gathered himself and stood up and insisted Lewis Reed hadn’t killed Snowberger, as if he were positive he couldn’t have done it.

  There was only one way he could be so positive.

  “I’m going to have a talk with young Mr. Van Dyke,” he told her. She only nodded, but she
looked relieved.

  Frank remembered where Tad’s room was from when he’d been up here putting Creighton under guard several days ago. He didn’t bother to knock. He opened the door to find Tad slumped in a chair with Creighton down on one knee before him, as if he were proposing. The bed was unmade, and the room littered with discarded clothing and empty liquor bottles of various sizes and shapes. Tad hadn’t exaggerated when he’d claimed to be drinking his father’s liquor supply. He must’ve forbidden the maids access as well.

  Creighton looked up at the intrusion and rose to his feet. “I’ve been trying to get him to tell me what happened between him and Lilly, but nothing he says makes sense,” he explained.

  “Don’t worry about that. She isn’t going to bring charges against him. Could I speak to your brother alone, Mr. Van Dyke?”

  Creighton instinctively moved closer to Tad and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I think I should stay. Tad isn’t himself, and he might say something—”

  “Go away, Creighton,” Tad said wearily. “I need to talk to Mr. Malloy. I need to make this right before Reed and Bertie get hurt any more.”

  “What do they have to do with this?” Creighton asked in alarm. “You see,” he said to Frank, “he isn’t making any sense. He’s had too much to drink.”

  “Or not enough,” Tad said with a bitter smile. “Creighton, get out of here before I throw you out. I’ve got some business with Mr. Malloy, and I don’t want you here.”

  “You can wait out in the hall,” Frank offered. “I don’t think this will take long.”

  Torn between Tad’s wishes and his own duty to protect his brother, Creighton hesitated for a long moment before making his decision. “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” he told Tad. With one last warning glance at Frank, he started for the door.

  Because he was looking at Frank, he didn’t notice the empty bottle sitting on the floor beside Tad’s chair, and he kicked it over. For a second he must have considered stopping to pick it up, but then he realized how silly it would be to right one bottle in the midst of all the chaos, and he let it lie.

  The moment he was gone, however, Frank walked over and picked it up. It was a bottle of French brandy. A very fancy bottle. A bottle with real gold trim. Just the kind of brandy bottle everyone had said Gregory Van Dyke was giving Allen Snowberger as a gift on the day he died.

  15

  EVERY NERVE IN FRANK’S BODY CRACKLED TO LIFE, BUT he knew better than to let Tad know he’d recognized the bottle. He set it down on the table beside Tad’s chair. The boy didn’t seem to notice.

  “What did you want to talk to me about, Tad?” Frank asked, figuring he’d give the boy the opportunity to clear his conscience.

  “Lewis didn’t kill Snowberger,” he said, managing to sound more sober than he was. “You have to let him go.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Tad took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because . . . I know. He couldn’t kill anyone.”

  Frank glanced around and saw a straight-backed chair nearby. He retrieved it, brought it over to face Tad, and straddled it. “When did you figure out that you could sneak out of the house by going over the roof?” he asked casually.

  Tad’s eyes widened in surprise. For a second, he looked as if he was going to deny it, but then his shoulders slumped in resignation. “I was about fourteen, I guess. How did you . . .? Oh, Sarah,” he remembered.

  “Is that how you got out yesterday without anyone seeing you?”

  Tad closed his eyes. He could deny it. He could deny everything. The temptation was almost irresistible, but he managed to overcome it. When he opened his eyes again, the fear and the wariness were gone. “Yes. I didn’t leave right away. Too bad I didn’t, because I would’ve run into Lewis at Snowberger’s place. If he’d seen me there, I might not have gone through with it.”

  “Lewis was gone by the time you arrived?”

  “No. I’d waited until the doorman took someone up in the elevator, and then I went up the stairs. When I got to Snowberger’s apartment, I heard him and Lewis inside arguing. He was saying terrible, insulting things about Bertie, and finally, Lewis couldn’t stand it anymore and left. I hid until he’d gone, and then I went and knocked on the door.”

  Automatically, he picked up the glass from the table beside him, but it was empty. Frank took it gently from his fingers. “Better wait until you’re finished with your story,” he advised. “What happened when Snowberger let you in?”

  Tad’s hands curled into fists. “He opened the door right away. I think he expected that Lewis had come back for one more try. When he saw it was me, he laughed.”

  “Why did he laugh?”

  Tad’s face darkened at the memory. “He knew about me and Lilly. She told him, I guess. And he knew she’d chosen him. Maybe he thought I’d come to beg him not to marry her or something. I don’t know, but he just kept laughing.

  Then he turned and walked away. He left me standing there, like I didn’t matter. After what he’d done, I couldn’t . . . Well, I couldn’t let him get away with it.”

  “Was that when you picked up the poker?”

  Tad was staring past Frank now, remembering. “I wanted to hurt him. I didn’t mean to kill him. I’d just gone there to confront him and tell him I knew what he’d done. I wanted to see him punished, but dying was too easy. So I looked around for something to hurt him with, and I saw the poker.” He shuddered slightly at the memory.

  “After you hit him, why didn’t you just leave him there?”

  Tad ran a hand over his face. “I knew he was dead, and if the police knew he was murdered, you’d try to find out who did it. I didn’t want to go to prison for killing him, and I didn’t want someone else to, either. I tried to think of a way he could’ve died that wouldn’t make you try to find a killer.”

  Frank debated telling Tad that Snowberger hadn’t been killed by the blow, but he decided not to. If the boy realized he’d hung a living man, he might not be able to bear it. Besides, who’s to say Snowberger wouldn’t have died as a result of the head wound anyway?

  “You were very clever,” Frank said instead. “You almost fooled me.”

  “But I didn’t,” he pointed out sadly. “You almost scared me to death, though. I was tying the sheet to the chandelier when you started knocking on the door. My heart nearly stopped in my chest.”

  Too bad Frank hadn’t sent the doorman for the key then. He might’ve saved Snowberger’s life and Tad’s freedom.

  “Now you know,” Tad was saying, “so you can let poor Lewis go and arrest me.”

  “Are you going to confess to killing your father, too?” Frank asked mildly.

  Tad’s bloodshot eyes widened in surprise. “Of course not! I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Then Lewis Reed is still in trouble, because he had the best reason of all to want your father dead.”

  Tad shook his head. “He might have, but he didn’t do it. Why do you think I went to confront Snowberger? As soon as I realized he and Lilly had been having an affair and were going to be married, I knew—Allen Snowberger killed my father!”

  WHEN MALLOY WENT UPSTAIRS, SARAH WENT TO FIND Alberta. She’d gone to the back parlor, where she sat alone, rereading Lewis’s letter as tears ran down her cheeks. She looked up hopefully when Sarah came in, but the hope died when she saw who it was.

  “He says he’s sorry for all the hurt he’s caused me,” she said in wonder. “As if his own suffering doesn’t matter at all.”

  “We often find it easier to bear tragedy ourselves than to see the ones we love bearing it,” Sarah said. If this was true for Lewis Reed, he must be in agony, knowing the woman he loved would have to choose between bearing an illegitimate child or marrying an accused murderer.

  “He’ll be cleared,” she said, as if trying to convince herself. “He must be! They can’t execute an innocent man.”

  Sarah was sure it had happened more times than she wi
shed to know about, but that wouldn’t comfort Alberta. Neither would the only alternative she had to offer.

  “In order to clear Mr. Reed, Mr. Malloy will have to find the real killer,” she began, feeling her way cautiously.

  “He should have done that in the first place,” Alberta replied angrily. “If he had, poor Lewis would be a free man.”

  “The real killer must be someone who had a personal grudge against your father and Mr. Snowberger.”

  Alberta frowned. “Of course, that goes without saying.”

  “That’s why Mr. Reed seems like a good suspect, even though we know he couldn’t possibly have killed anyone,” Sarah added. “But who else would have had a grudge against them?”

  “Many people, I’m sure,” Alberta said. “Men don’t become rich without making some enemies. At least, that’s what Father used to say.”

  “But how many businessmen are blown up by their enemies?” Sarah asked, hoping to lead Alberta’s thinking toward a more personal motive. “Murder is usually motivated by the kind of passion we only feel for the people close to us. Who might have felt that kind of emotion for both men?”

  Alberta obviously hadn’t considered this before. “You mean the passion of love?”

  “Or hate. Jealousy and greed, too. The things that drive people to desperation and despair.”

  Alberta nodded slowly. “I can see why Mr. Malloy would believe Lewis capable of murder,” she admitted grudgingly. “We were certainly desperate and despairing before Father died.”

  “Family members are often cruel to each other. Creighton actually had to leave the house,” Sarah reminded her.

  “He and Father were always at loggerheads,” Alberta remembered. “A father wants his son to grow up to be his own man, but when he challenges the father’s authority . . .” She shook her head sadly at the memories.

  “I suppose Tad was beginning to do that as well,” Sarah tried.

  But Alberta wouldn’t concede that point. “Tad was spoiled,” she said decisively. “Father got impatient with him, but they never quarreled the way he and Creighton did.”