Murder on Sisters' Row

by Victoria Thompson

  “She’d had a conversation with that woman Amy, the one with the baby that you rescued a few weeks ago, and another with Mrs. Spratt-Williams. Can you think of anything she might have talked to them about that would have upset her?”

  “Of course not. Well, I can’t actually speak for the girl, I’m afraid. I only saw her very briefly the day we rescued her from that house where she worked. I haven’t seen her since, although Mrs. Spratt-Williams mentioned the other day when I saw her at church that she wasn’t doing very well. Many of them don’t, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” Frank said. “Why is that?”

  “I’ve never understood it myself,” he admitted. “You’d think they’d be so glad to be freed from their horrible bondage that they’d be grateful for whatever they received. Not all of them are, though. They don’t like wearing cast-off clothes, and they get bored with the simple pleasures of ordinary life. Some of them are addicted to drink or opiates, and they get surly when we don’t allow them to indulge anymore. But the worst trouble comes when we tell them they must find a job and learn to support themselves.”

  “Are they lazy?”

  “Oh, no, it’s not that. They just can’t be satisfied with the frugal lives they must lead. Jobs for women don’t pay very well, I’m afraid. Most employers assume the girls live with their families and are just helping out until they find husbands. As soon as they marry, they have to quit their jobs and make room for the next batch of girls. No one expects them to support themselves on what they can earn in a factory, but these girls have to.”

  “I see. That would be discouraging.”

  “You have no idea. The work is hard, too, which is another deterrent. After a few months, many of the girls are back on the street, trying to supplement their meager incomes. Word always gets back to their employers, and they lose the factory job, and then . . . Well, they must go back to their old lives or starve. I don’t know what the answer is.”

  “Better-paying jobs for women would help,” Frank said.

  Quimby must not have heard him. “So you see, Vivian was used to the girls at the house complaining. She wouldn’t have been surprised by that, much less upset by it.”

  “What about her conversation with Mrs. Spratt-Williams?”

  Quimby made a little grunting sound of disgust. “They were always squabbling about something, the way women do.”

  This piqued Frank’s interest. “Anything in particular?”

  “Oh, Antonia—that’s Mrs. Spratt-Williams—she was always trying to ignore the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “The rules we abide by as tenants in the United Charities Building.”

  “What rules did she ignore?”

  “She didn’t like reporting the women we helped. They keep track, you know. All the charities keep a list of the people they help so nobody can get help from more than one charity. Antonia didn’t think that was right, but she could never convince Vivian. We had to abide by the rules whether we liked them or not.”

  So, nothing to inspire a murder there. Frank moved on. “Did you know this girl Amy claimed that a man named Gregory had fathered her baby?”

  From the look on his face, he hadn’t. “Good God! Did Vivian know that?”

  “I believe this Amy made a point of telling her. She named the baby after him.”

  Quimby sucked in his breath with a hiss.

  “Do you think it’s possible Mr. Van Orner really was the baby’s father?” Frank asked.

  The color rose in Quimby’s plain face. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because rumor has it that Mrs. Van Orner started her rescue house because her husband liked to visit prostitutes.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Vivian knew my interests lay in helping the less fortunate citizens of our fair city, and she asked me to help her. She said God had laid it on her heart to help these fallen sisters, and I didn’t question her further about her motivation.”

  “But you knew about Mr. Van Orner.”

  He pressed his lips together until they were white. “I have heard rumors,” he finally admitted.

  “So you think it’s possible Van Orner fathered Amy’s baby?”

  “The girl worked in a brothel. How could she possibly know?”

  “I have no idea, but she might’ve made that claim to Mrs. Van Orner. Do you think that would have upset her enough to make her leave without Miss Yingling?”

  “I’m sure it could have, although as I said, it’s difficult for me to imagine Vivian getting upset over anything.”

  “What about something Mrs. Spratt-Williams might’ve said?”

  “Good heavens, no. They were the closest of friends.”

  “You just said they argued all the time.”

  “I believe I said they squabbled. They weren’t fishwives. They didn’t argue. They simply disagreed on that one issue. I hardly see what any of this has to do with Vivian’s death. You haven’t even said what kind of foul play was involved.”

  “We think she was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned! Are you insane? Who would have poisoned her?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  He considered this for a moment. “Well, I can assure you it wasn’t Mrs. Spratt-Williams.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because ladies might disagree, but they never argue and they never, ever poison each other.”

  SARAH LOOKED AT MRS. SPRATT-WILLIAMS. “ARE YOU sure no one knew about Mrs. Van Orner’s flask except Miss Yingling, her husband, and you?”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure at all. “Of course, I can’t speak for her servants. Servants know so much more than we ever tell them, don’t they? I suppose they can’t help overhearing and seeing things, no matter how careful we try to be.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Sarah said, hoping to encourage her. “Some of her servants may have known.”

  “Her maid would have, I’m sure. We can’t hide anything from our maids.”

  “No, we can’t,” Sarah agreed, remembering the days so long ago when she’d had a maid.

  “Servants can take offense, too,” Mrs. Spratt-Williams confided. “I’ve seen it happen. They can be spiteful and vengeful over the slightest little things.”

  “Was Mrs. Van Orner harsh with her servants?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. But if one of them took a notion . . . Well, I’m sure she never did anything intentionally, but you know how they are.”

  Sarah tried to imagine a maid, having been chastened for not dusting thoroughly enough, pouring a bottle of laudanum into her mistress’s liquor bottle. She decided not to tell Mrs. Sprat-Williams how ridiculous that would be. “Could anyone else at the rescue house have known about Mrs. Van Orner’s little vice?”

  Mrs. Spratt-Williams thought this over carefully. Sarah tried to figure out why she needed to do this. Was she trying to fairly judge who might have discovered Mrs. Van Orner’s secret? Did she know someone had and was she trying to decide whether to betray that person? Or was she thinking about something else entirely? “As I said, Vivian never let anyone see her drinking from her flask, but she was always leaving her purse lying about. Someone might have opened it, looking for money or what have you, and found the flask. Even a simpleton could figure out what it was for.”

  “Did she leave her purse lying about yesterday?”

  Mrs. Spratt-Williams opened her mouth to reply and caught herself. “I was going to say yes, because that’s what she usually did, but I didn’t really notice,” she said after a moment. “I’m sure Miss Biafore would know.”

  “Do you know where she usually left her purse?”

  “In the hall, on the table. Anyone could have found it there.”

  She was right, of course. “Do you remember seeing her purse when you met with Mrs. Van Orner in her office?”

  “No, I don’t. It must have been out in the hall, as usual.”

  “So you asked her not to t
urn Amy out of the house and then you left? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is. I had an engagement that evening, and I needed to get home.”

  “Do you think your suggestion made Mrs. Van Orner angry?”

  She had to think this over, too. “I wouldn’t say angry. Vivian was impatient with me. Yes, that’s it. She didn’t want to discuss Amy. I can’t say I blame her, but really, I was only trying to help.”

  “Did Mrs. Van Orner speak with anyone else after you left her?”

  “I have no idea. I already told you, I went home. This is all so distressing. Poor Vivian. I don’t know what we’ll do without her.”

  “I hope you’ll decide soon. The women living at the rescue house are very worried.”

  “I’m sure they are, especially poor Amy. Of course she may not be as concerned now that Vivian is dead.”

  “She isn’t concerned at all. She packed up this morning and left.”

  MR. QUIMBY HADN’T BEEN MUCH HELP, SO FRANK wasn’t expecting Mr. Porter to be either. He was surprised to find him living in a ramshackle house south of Washington Square, in a once fashionable neighborhood that was slowly changing over into rooming houses. A harried maid answered the door, and she didn’t seem at all disturbed to find a police detective asking for her master.

  As he waited in the front hall for the girl to announce him, he could hear childish screams and lots of thumping coming from upstairs. After a few moments, a man with thinning hair and a thickening waist came hurrying down the hall from a rear parlor, pulling his suit coat over an unbuttoned vest.

  “Mary said you’re with the police,” he said in alarm when he reached Frank. “Has something happened?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you that Mrs. Vivan Van Orner died under suspicious circumstances yesterday,” Frank said.

  Porter blinked several times, trying to make sense of Frank’s statement. “I knew she died, but nobody said it was suspicious. Miss Yingling should have warned us!”

  “She didn’t know,” Frank said.

  A loud crash from upstairs made both men jump.

  “The children are getting ready for bed,” Porter explained. “Let’s go into the parlor.”

  This was the formal parlor, reserved for guests and kept in pristine condition, even though the furnishings were starting to show their age. No fire had been laid, and a distinct chill hung in the air. Porter offered Frank a chair by the cold fireplace and took one opposite.

  “What’s this about Mrs. Van Orner now?” he asked, leaning forward. “There must be some mistake.”

  “No mistake, I’m afraid. Mrs. Van Orner died in her carriage yesterday afternoon as she was traveling from the rescue house to her home.”

  Porter shook his head, his expression inexpressibly sad. “Miss Yingling just told us she died. I couldn’t imagine why. I still can’t believe it. She was never sick a day in her life.”

  “Have you known her all her life?”

  “Oh, yes. Our families were great friends. We saw each other in church and at parties, everywhere really.” He shook his head, lost in memories.

  Frank couldn’t help comparing the Van Orner home to this one and wondering why, if their families had been so close, Porter’s position in life was now so much less prosperous than the Van Orners’. “Did you ever court Mrs. Van Orner?” he asked, probing to see if he could find some romantic rivalry that might have soured through the years.

  He looked up in surprise. “Heavens, no! We were children together. Nothing kills romance quicker than remembering how somebody looked in short pants. Besides, Vivian had higher aspirations. Once Van Orner noticed her, no one else had a chance.”

  “How did you get involved in her charity work?”

  “She asked me to help her several years ago. She needed some men to go with her into a bad part of town. I told her I wouldn’t be much help if she was set upon by ruffians, but she wasn’t concerned about that. As it turned out, she needed a man to knock on the door of a brothel and pretend to be a customer. She thought I would be perfect for that, and as it turned out, she was right. I’ve been helping her ever since.” He seemed very pleased with himself.

  “I understand Mrs. Van Orner used her own money to support the rescue house.”

  “Yes, she had an inheritance from some relative, I think. She used that for it. Van Orner wouldn’t give her a penny to help harlots. Those were his own words. I’ve heard him say them myself. So she used her own money and asked her rich friends to help her, too.”

  “Did you help her?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I’ve got six children, Mr .... I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Malloy.”

  “Mr. Malloy, I’ve got six children. I inherited my father’s business, but I haven’t been as successful as he was at it. We manage, but . . . To tell you the truth, one reason I agreed to help Vivian was because I thought it might do me some good with Gregory’s friends—that’s her husband.”

  “Did it?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. Gregory’s embarrassed by her little hobby, as he calls it, and he doesn’t have any use for me or the rest of Vivian’s helpers.”

  “But you still kept helping her.”

  “Yes. As I said, we’re old friends.” Another crash made them both jump, even though this one was a bit muffled. “And it gives me an excuse to be out of the house,” he added.

  Frank could readily understand why.

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to harm Mrs. Van Orner?”

  “Oh, dear, I almost forgot why you’re here. I keep forgetting Vivian’s dead. She’s the last person in the world you’d expect to die. She had so much still to do, you know. And now you tell me someone . . . Are you telling me someone killed her?”

  “It appears that she was poisoned.”

  “Good God, you don’t say! I can hardly credit it. Why would someone want to do a thing like that?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

  He gave the matter some thought. “Some of the madams were quite angry with her, as you can imagine.”

  Frank didn’t have to imagine. He’d seen Mrs. Walker in person. “I don’t think any of them would have had access to her, though.”

  “You said she was poisoned. How did it happen?”

  “Someone put laudanum in . . . in her drink.”

  Mr. Porter stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment, and then his eyes grew wide. “In her flask, you mean? Oh, dear heaven, of course that’s what you mean.”

  “You knew about her flask?”

  “Oh, yes, we all did. All of us who worked with her, that is. We pretended we didn’t, or at least we never said anything to her about it. Who am I to judge, after all? Any woman who had to live with Gregory Van Orner could be excused for just about anything that helped her through the day.”

  Frank’s brief encounter with Van Orner confirmed that opinion. “I know Mrs. Van Orner had made a lot of enemies in the city, but none of them would have had access to her flask yesterday.”

  “Oh, my, you’re absolutely right. But that means someone who . . . Are you saying someone in the rescue house poisoned her?”

  “Someone who had access to her flask at some time yesterday,” Frank corrected him.

  Porter nodded. “I see. So it might have been someone at her home, too.”

  “I have to consider all the possibilities. Her husband asked me to investigate, though.”

  “He did? I wonder why.”

  “Maybe he wants the guilty person punished.”

  “So I guess that means he’s not the guilty person. More’s the pity, although I don’t suppose you’d arrest a man like Gregory Van Orner no matter what he did, would you?”

  They both knew the answer to that question, so Frank saw no reason to respond. “Do you have any idea who might want to harm Mrs. Van Orner—either in her home or the rescue house?”

  “Besides Gregory, I don’t know—not that he really cared enough to murder her, of c
ourse, but I’m sure he’s not particularly grieved at her death either. Maybe one of the women we’d rescued. Sometimes they get very angry. Vivian did what she could for them, but she couldn’t keep them forever. They have to learn to make their way in the world.”

  “Do you know of one in particular who was unhappy?”

  “Not really. I don’t even know who’s living at the rescue house now. I haven’t seen Vivian in over a week, at least.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Oh, no. I’m very busy with my business and my family responsibilities. She only called on me when she had a rescue at a brothel, and that rarely happened, I’m afraid. It’s very dangerous, you see.”

  Frank took a chance. “What do you know about Miss Yingling?”

  “Miss Yingling? Why do you ask?”

  “I just thought it was strange that she lived with the Van Orners.”

  Mr. Porter smiled slightly. “I thought it was strange, too, considering the rumors about Gregory.”

  “What rumors?”

  Porter leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “That he enjoyed the company of harlots.”

  “What does that have to do with Miss Yingling?”

  “Oh, didn’t you know? Tamar Yingling was the first whore Vivian ever rescued.”

  SARAH ARRIVED HOME TO FIND MRS. ELLSWORTH HELPING the girls with supper. They were full of questions about her day spent helping Mr. Malloy, but she couldn’t answer them fully until they’d tucked Catherine into bed for the night.

  Sarah took the opportunity to read Catherine a bedtime story. When she came back downstairs, Mrs. Ellsworth and Maeve were sitting around the kitchen table, chatting while they awaited her return.

  “I already told Mrs. Ellsworth all about how Mr. Malloy came to get you this afternoon,” Maeve said as Sarah took a seat at the table with them.

  “He must have been desperate indeed,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “I know how much he hates having you involved in his cases.”

  “He wasn’t happy about it this time either, but he needed to question the women who live in the rescue house, and they don’t allow men inside.”