Murder on Fifth Avenue: A Gaslight Mystery

by Victoria Thompson

  “Oh, Lizzie, I never thought of him,” Miss English said. “He was so polite, too.”

  Frank managed not to let her see how pleased he was to discover that she did know the mysterious Italian. “How did you meet him?”

  Lizzie glared at him much as Mrs. Devries had when he’d accused her of murder, but Miss English was blissfully unaware of her disapproval. “He called on me one day, didn’t he, Lizzie?” When she looked up, she realized her error. “Oh, dear, I wasn’t supposed to talk about him, was I?”

  “I’m sure Mr. Angotti told you not to mention his visit to Mr. Devries, but there’s no harm in telling me. What did he talk about when he visited you?”

  Chastened now, Miss English looked to Lizzie in silent appeal. “He wanted to warn her,” Lizzie said. “He told her a wild tale of how Mr. Devries wanted to do away with some woman, and he didn’t know but what it might be Lizzie.”

  “Was that what he meant?” Miss English asked, frowning prettily. “He talked so strange, never really saying anything outright. Seemed like he thought I should know what he meant without him really saying it. I thought he was just worried because I live here alone. You should’ve told me!”

  “And scare you to death? Not likely. I didn’t trust him anyways. I never do trust foreigners.”

  “What did he want you to do?” Frank asked.

  “He said I should protect myself,” Miss English said.

  “How were you supposed to do that?”

  “He said I should carry a knife, of all things, but I told him I couldn’t do that. I’d be afraid I’d cut myself.”

  “And she wouldn’t never use it on anybody anyway, no matter what they done to her,” Lizzie said.

  “Oh, my, did you know he tried to give me a knife? Is that why you thought I stabbed Mr. Devries?” Miss English asked.

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “But did you really mean I should ask him for help?” Miss English asked.

  Frank thought about how perplexed Angotti would probably be by a plea from Norah English. “Yes, I did.”

  SARAH HADN’T BEEN HOME LONG WHEN HER FRONT DOORbell rang. She’d been expecting a summons to a birth. One of her patients was very near her time, but she was surprised to find Malloy on her doorstep instead.

  “Was it Miss English?” she asked as she ushered him in.

  “No.”

  “Her maid?”

  “No.” He looked as discouraged as she’d ever seen him.

  “We must have missed something, then.”

  “I’ve been going over everything in my head all the way over here, and I can’t think of anybody else who had the chance to do it.”

  “Are you sure about Miss English and…What’s the other woman’s name?”

  “Lizzie. Yes. Miss English is just too simple to lie very well. If she knew anything at all, she would’ve told me.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Mr. Malloy!” Catherine cried, clattering down the stairs, with Maeve on her heels. She ran to him for a hug, and Maeve greeted him happily.

  The commotion drew Mrs. Decker from the kitchen, where Sarah had been telling her about the events of the morning.

  “Are you here to celebrate the successful completion of your case, Mr. Malloy?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Decker, I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said, a little dismayed.

  “How could I stay away when I knew you were questioning Paul this morning? Was it a nut pick, as you suspected?”

  “What’s a nut pick?” Catherine asked.

  “It’s a thing you use to eat nuts with,” Maeve said. “You come along now. The grown-ups need to talk in private.”

  Catherine tried a pout, but Maeve was unmoved. She took Catherine from Malloy’s arms.

  “When we’re finished talking, you can visit with Mr. Malloy, darling,” Mrs. Decker said. “Run along and play with Maeve now.”

  Sarah took Malloy’s coat, and the three of them returned to the kitchen, where she poured him some coffee and they settled themselves around the table.

  “I have to tell you, I’m horrified to discover that Lucretia poisoned that poor man,” her mother said.

  “I’m sorry,” Malloy said. “I know she’s a friend of yours.”

  “Not a friend any longer, I assure you. How could I ever speak to her again, knowing what she’s done? Are you going to arrest her?”

  Malloy hesitated for a long moment, then said, “That’s up to your husband.”

  “Why on earth would it be up to Felix?”

  “Mother, have you ever known any of your friends to be arrested for anything?”

  “No, but none of them have ever committed a murder, either.”

  “Mrs. Decker, it’s very difficult to bring a rich person to trial.”

  “Why?”

  Malloy gave Sarah a pleading glance.

  “Because,” she said, “many judges and others in authority are willing to accept bribes to lose the paperwork or drop the charges.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “But it’s true.”

  “What will become of her, then?” her mother asked.

  “That may actually be up to you,” Sarah said.

  “Me? What can I do?”

  “You can tell your other friends what she did. She may not go to prison, but you can make sure she never goes anywhere else, either.”

  “Oh!”

  “Unless your husband has a better idea,” Malloy said.

  Sarah’s mother considered this for a few minutes before she said, “But we still don’t know who killed Chilton. Did the mistress do it, Mr. Malloy?”

  Malloy glanced at Sarah. “No, and her maid didn’t either. I’m afraid I came here to tell Mrs. Brandt that I was wrong about everybody, and I’m on my way to report to your husband that I failed, Mrs. Decker.”

  “You can’t give up!” her mother said. “There has to be a solution.”

  “Mother is right,” Sarah said. “And if you were really ready to give up, why did you stop here first?”

  “For some coffee and some sympathy,” he said with a small smile.

  “You’re welcome to my coffee, but I’m not ready to give you any sympathy yet.”

  “Heavens, no,” her mother said. “But I would be more than happy to help if you’ll just tell me what I could do.”

  “Could you convince your husband he really doesn’t want to know who stabbed Chilton Devries?” Malloy asked.

  “This is no time for joking, Mr. Malloy. We must put our heads together and figure out who the guilty party is.”

  Malloy turned to Sarah. “I wasn’t joking.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Just tell us what Miss English said to convince you she’s innocent.”

  “It wasn’t what she said so much as how she answered my questions. I hadn’t ever told them how Devries died, and I pretended I thought she’d accidentally stuck him with something.”

  “A nut pick?” her mother said.

  “I didn’t come right out and say it. I wanted her to tell me what she used.”

  “And she denied it?” her mother said.

  “She denied stabbing him or doing anything to anger him. Seems Devries punched her once when she talked back to him—”

  “Punched her? You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m perfectly serious, Mrs. Decker. He punched her in the face so hard she couldn’t chew for a week, she said.”

  For the first time Sarah could remember, her mother was speechless.

  “I can see why she wouldn’t have dared to stab him,” Sarah said.

  “And if she did, she would’ve had to do some real damage or else risk him hurting her even worse than he did before.”

  “Oh, I see,” her mother said. “She couldn’t just hurt him enough to make him angry. She’d have to kill him or disable him because he’d turn on her if she didn’t.”

  “And whatever actually injured him was too small to disable him an
d took a long time to actually kill him.”

  “So whoever attacked him risked his anger,” her mother said.

  “His anger and his retribution,” Sarah said.

  Her mother gave her a small smile. “Now I believe you when you say you don’t enjoy this. How frustrating!”

  They sipped their coffee, each lost in thought for a few moments. Then Sarah said, “What else did you find out from Miss English?”

  “She’s sold off most of the furniture in the house, including all the nut picks.”

  Sarah grinned. “Did you ask her that?”

  “I asked about the nut bowls. They were silver, but not solid silver, she informed me, so she didn’t get much when she sold them. I told her Paul Devries knows about her. I figure sooner or later, he’ll get around to evicting her. She’s trying to find a new protector.” For some reason he smiled at this.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “I just remembered, I told her to ask Salvatore Angotti for help.”

  “Why would she go to him?”

  “Because he’d called on her.”

  “Angotti? Whatever for?”

  “To warn her that Devries wanted some woman killed.”

  “Why would he do that when he knew Mrs. Richmond was the one he wanted killed?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think maybe Devries didn’t tell him who the woman was at first. Angotti has a lot of people working for him, and he knows some of the men who work for Devries’s business, so maybe he found out Devries had a mistress and assumed she was the one. Whatever his reason, he warned Miss English.”

  “What a curious man,” her mother said.

  “He certainly is,” Sarah said. “He warned Mrs. Richmond, too.”

  “He’s very gentlemanly,” Malloy agreed, only a little sarcastically.

  “And how nice he didn’t actually kill her,” Sarah said.

  “He’s even nicer than that. Not only did he tell Miss English that Devries might want her dead, he tried to give her a knife to protect herself with.”

  Something stirred in Sarah’s memory. “What kind of knife?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  Her mother leaned forward. “Sarah, what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that we originally thought Devries had been stabbed with a stiletto, the kind of knife Italians use.”

  “Miss English didn’t accept the knife,” Malloy said. “And if she had, she probably would’ve stabbed herself by accident.”

  “But also Angotti went to see Terry Richmond. What if he offered to give her a knife, too?”

  14

  “THE MEDICAL EXAMINER SAID A STILETTO WOULD’VE MADE a bigger wound,” Frank said.

  “What if it was smaller than a stiletto?” Sarah said. “If you were giving a woman a knife to protect herself with, she’d need to carry it around. It would have to be pretty small.”

  “And you think he gave a knife like that to Mrs. Richmond?” her mother said.

  “I don’t know, but he could have. If he offered it to Miss English, he probably offered it to Mrs. Richmond, since by then he was sure she was the one Devries wanted killed.”

  “And Mrs. Richmond certainly had good reason to hate Devries,” Malloy said.

  “But when could she have done it?” Sarah asked. “I thought you’d accounted for everyone Devries saw that day.”

  “Let’s figure it out. He got home from Miss English’s house around nine o’clock. He left there around eleven, went to see Angotti, and left there around noon. He got to his club in the middle of the afternoon. Nobody really noticed the exact time, but let’s say two thirty.”

  “Was that enough time for him to visit Mrs. Richmond in between?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s enough time for him to have visited someone and gotten himself stabbed.”

  “You’re forgetting that Chilton was undressed when he was stabbed,” her mother said.

  “That does complicate matters,” Sarah said. “I can’t imagine Mrs. Richmond being in a situation like that with Devries.”

  “Especially because Mrs. Richmond lives in a boarding-house where gentleman callers are only allowed in the parlor under the watchful eye of the landlady,” Malloy said. “Besides, I asked the landlady if Devries had ever been there, and she said no.”

  “Maybe the landlady was out when he called,” her mother said.

  “Mrs. Richmond would have feared for her life, seeing Devries after what Angotti had told her,” Sarah said.

  Malloy was thinking. “If she’d stabbed him when he was trying to kill her, he wasn’t likely to tell anybody about it, either.” Malloy rose.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah asked.

  “To talk to Mrs. Richmond.”

  “Oh, my,” her mother said. “You aren’t going to arrest her, are you?”

  “Not if she stabbed him in self-defense.”

  “Then why even ask her?” Sarah said.

  Malloy looked down at her, his expression as solemn as she’d ever seen him. “I have to find out who stabbed Devries and how, so I can tell your father what happened.”

  Sarah would have protested, but her mother grabbed her arm as Malloy left the kitchen.

  “He does have to tell your father,” she said. “He has to prove himself.”

  “He doesn’t have to prove himself to me!”

  “I told you this was some kind of a test,” her mother said fiercely. “I don’t pretend to understand what goes on in men’s minds. They’re so very different from us. They’re so very unreasonable and strange, and they always think the wrong things are important, but we aren’t going to change them. We just have to take them as they are, and Mr. Malloy believes he must prove something to your father. Perhaps you’d best go with him. Mrs. Richmond might not tell him the truth of what happened between her and Chilton, especially if Chilton was naked at the time.”

  “But—”

  “Hurry, before he leaves without you.”

  Sarah needed only another moment to decide her mother was right. She jumped up and hurried out to find Malloy buttoning his coat.

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Why?”

  She gave him a pitying look. “Terry Richmond isn’t going to tell you how she came to stab Chilton Devries in his naked back. She might not tell me, either, but at least I have a chance with her. Now go upstairs and tell Catherine you have to break your promise to visit with her while I change my clothes.”

  By the time Malloy came back downstairs, Sarah was ready. They set off into the afternoon chill. Walking was the fastest way to Mrs. Richmond’s boardinghouse, and they traveled most of the way in silence.

  Sarah’s heart ached when she saw the house where Garnet’s mother had taken refuge. How humiliating it must have been for her to receive her daughter in so humble a place, and how infuriating to know Chilton Devries had put her there.

  Malloy knocked on the door, and they waited for what seemed a long time for someone to answer. The slatternly woman who opened the door looked Sarah up and down with cautious approval before glancing at Malloy. She didn’t approve of him at all.

  “What are you doing here? And who’s this you’ve brought with you?”

  “Mrs. Brandt, I’d like to introduce the landlady, Mrs. Higgins,” Malloy said with a trace of irony.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Higgins,” Sarah said with her best smile.

  Mrs. Higgins glared at them both. “She ain’t here.”

  “Mrs. Richmond?” Sarah asked.

  “If that’s who you’ve come to see.”

  “Yes, it is, but perhaps you could help us. We just need a little information.”

  “I ain’t in the business of giving out information.”

  “I know, but it’s so important. We’re concerned that Mrs. Richmond might be in danger.”

  “It’s nothing to me if she is.”

  “It will be if the trouble comes to you
r house,” Sarah said with what she hoped was a convincingly worried frown.

  “I don’t want no trouble!”

  “Then answer the questions,” Malloy said, earning another glare.

  “Mrs. Higgins, we just need to know if, by any chance, you were out of the house last Tuesday afternoon.”

  “On a Tuesday? Not likely. That’s the day I iron. I’m here and on my feet all day.”

  “Then no one could have visited Mrs. Richmond that day without you knowing it,” Sarah said.

  “No, they couldn’t, but even if they had, she wasn’t at home herself that afternoon.”

  Sarah glanced at Malloy and saw her own surprise mirrored on his face. “She wasn’t? Do you know where she was?”

  “She don’t consult with me, you understand, but I remember particular because she acted so funny.”

  “What do you mean, funny?”

  “I mean strange and upset and maybe a little scared, and in an all-fired hurry, too. It started when she got the telegram.”

  “A telegram? Who was it from?”

  “She didn’t say, but I guess she thought it was from her daughter. We ain’t on the telephone, so when her daughter wanted to send her a message, she’d send a telegram. Waste of money, if you ask me, but I seen how her daughter dressed, so I guess she don’t care about wasting money.”

  “But you don’t think this telegram was from her daughter?”

  “Not unless it was real bad news. She got all white and went running upstairs, and in a few minutes she came back down with her coat on and ran out.”

  “What time was this?”

  “How should I know? Early afternoon, I guess. I was ironing, not watching the clock.”

  “After lunch?” Sarah prodded.

  “Maybe, but not long after.”

  “How long was she gone?”

  “Most of the afternoon. She was back for supper, but she hadn’t been here long.” The woman gave Sarah a considering look. “Say, do you know where she went? Or what was in the telegram? I been wondering.”

  “No, I don’t. Do you happen to know where Mrs. Richmond is now?”

  “Went to see her daughter. She got a telegram, as a matter of fact, asking her to come. They had the funeral for that Devries fellow yesterday. She went to that, too. I guess she’s trying to worm her way in over there now. Who wouldn’t?”