Murder on St. Mark's Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “I’d like to talk to someone about my son,” Frank said, conscious he was speaking louder than normal. Or maybe it just sounded that way because the place was so quiet.

  “Sit down, please,” the young man said, although the “please” sounded more like “peas.” He indicated some chairs beside the door, and Frank took a seat while the boy disappeared into an inner office.

  In a few moments a round man with a shiny bald head and a fringe of black hair beneath it came bustling out of the inner office, followed by the young man.

  “Hello, hello,” he said, extending his hand as he approached Frank. “I’m Edward Higginbotham. May I help you?”

  “Frank Malloy,” Frank said, rising and taking the man’s hand. It was warm and sweaty, but then the day was warm and sweaty. “I’d like to talk to someone about my son.”

  “Your son is deaf?” Mr. Higginbotham said.

  “Yes,” Frank said, amazed at how much it cost him to admit it aloud. He’d already admitted it silently, but confessing to a complete stranger was more difficult than he could have imagined.

  “Well, then, come right in. I’ll be happy to answer all your questions, and I’m sure you have a few, don’t you?”

  He didn’t wait for Frank’s reply. Indeed, he didn’t seem to expect one. He was too busy bustling right back into his office. Frank followed obediently.

  The inner office was more elaborately furnished than the outer one. There was a rug on the floor and a nicely made wooden desk. The window looked out on an alley, but at least there was a window.

  “Please sit down and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Malloy,” Mr. Higginbotham said, taking his own seat behind the desk.

  Frank settled himself, and Mr. Higginbotham waited until he was comfortable to ask, “How old is your son, Mr. Malloy?”

  “He’s three. We just ... I didn’t realize he was deaf until ... just recently.”

  Mr. Higginbotham nodded sagely. “His mother didn’t notice anything peculiar?”

  “His mother died when he was born.” Another costly admission.

  Mr. Higginbotham looked suitably grave. “I’m sorry to hear that. Who cares for the boy, then?”

  “My mother.”

  “An elderly lady?”

  “She’s not so old.”

  “And did she not notice anything unusual about the boy?”

  “We thought he was feebleminded.” Yet another costly admission. Frank was starting to feel a bit sick to his stomach. “He didn’t understand what you said to him, and he didn’t speak.”

  “A common mistake,” Mr. Higginbotham agreed. “I could tell you stories about so many deaf children who were institutionalized as idiots when they were of perfectly normal intelligence. But you, Mr. Malloy, have avoided that fate for your son by recognizing his true condition. May I ask how you came to identify it?”

  “A ... a friend noticed. She brought it to my attention. I don’t spend much time with the boy because of my work. I’m a detective with the police department.”

  Mr. Higginbotham straightened a bit at this, although not enough to give offense. “I see,” was all he said. “And you’ve had him examined by a doctor?”

  “Yes. The doctor said he was probably born deaf. There’s nothing to be done for him.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Malloy, much can be done for him. We cannot make him hear in the usual sense, of course, but we can certainly educate him and teach him to communicate with others. We can even teach him a trade.”

  Mrs. Brandt had mentioned that, but Frank still found it hard to believe. “But if he can’t hear...”

  “May I do a little demonstration, Mr. Malloy?”

  Frank nodded.

  Mr. Higginbotham rose from his chair and went out of his office. When he returned a moment later, the young man from the front office was with him. “This is Alexander, Mr. Malloy.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Malloy said, wondering what the boy had to do with anything.

  “Pleased to meet you,” the boy replied. Malloy noticed that the “please” still sounded like “peas.”

  “Ask Alexander a question, Mr. Malloy,” Mr. Higginbotham suggested.

  “What kind of question?” Frank asked.

  “Any kind,” Alexander said.

  “How’s the weather?” Frank tried.

  “It looks like rain, doesn’t it?”

  Frank noticed the boy’s speech was a bit slurred. He’d never heard anyone speak quite that way before. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” Frank tried.

  “Eggs and bacon and bread with jam,” he said with a smile. “I live at home with my mother. She feeds me well.”

  Something was wrong with the boy’s voice, but Frank couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “What kind of work do you do here?” he tried.

  “I’m Mr. Higginbotham’s clerk.”

  The word was so garbled, Frank could only guess that he’d said “Higginbotham.” He had to listen carefully to the boy, but he could understand what he was saying, even if he had to guess at some of the words.

  “Why is Mr. Higginbotham making you talk to me?” Frank asked, looking at the gentleman in question.

  “Because I’m deaf,” Alexander said rather proudly.

  Now Frank knew they were playing a trick on him. “Then how could you understand my questions?” he challenged.

  “I read your lips.” The boy grinned proudly.

  “Read my what?” Frank was very confused.

  “Alexander has been trained in speech reading, Mr. Malloy,” Higginbotham explained. “By watching the way your lips move, he can divine what you are saying. Even though he can’t hear your words, he can understand them.”

  “But he can talk, too.” Not perfectly clearly, of course, but well enough to make himself understood. Frank had thought deaf people were also mute.

  “Yes, we trained him in speech as well. That is what we do here at the Lexington Avenue School. You may have been to other schools where they use different techniques—”

  “No, I haven’t,” Frank said, still looking at the boy as if he were a wonder. Because, of course, he was. A deaf person who could speak and understand, if not exactly hear, words was a wonder of wonders to Frank.

  “Well, ahem, we use the oralist methods here,” Higginbotham went on to explain. “We force the students to rely on speech reading and speaking to communicate. Then they are able to make their own way in the world.”

  Frank was still looking at the boy. “Are you sure he’s really deaf?”

  “Quite sure,” Higginbotham assured him with a smile.

  “Oh, yes,” Alexander said, still grinning at Frank’s confusion. “I had scarlet fever when I was five. That made me deaf.”

  “So you weren’t born deaf,” Frank said.

  “No, but I am deaf now.” He seemed almost proud of the fact.

  Frank was still mystified. He looked at Higginbotham. “How can he just look at my lips and know what I’m saying?”

  “It takes years of training,” Higginbotham said, “but you are fortunate to live here in the city. Your son is a bit young for our school just yet, but when he’s older, he can come here as a day student, just the way he would attend an ordinary school. The students who live in the country have to board with us, but we feel they do better if they can live at home with their families.”

  “And you think you could teach my son to talk and to read people’s lips?”

  “We’d have to test him, of course, but assuming he is of normal intelligence, then yes, I think we could.”

  8

  WHEN SARAH GOT BACK FROM THE GANSEVOORT Market, carrying her bags of produce, the next morning, Mrs. Elsworth was waiting for her. She was pretending to sweep her front stoop, as usual, of course, but she was really just keeping herself outside where she could observe the activity of the street.

  “Is the corn in yet?” she asked when Sarah greeted her.

  “I saw some, but it didn’t look very go
od. It’s too early, I’m afraid.”

  “I do so enjoy fresh corn,” Mrs. Elsworth said wistfully. “And of course, I always make the corn dollies out of the sheaves.” She donated these dolls to the various orphanages in the city. “The dollies bring good luck if you make them out of the sheaves of the last corn of the harvest, but living in the city, how on earth can you find such a thing? Sometimes I think we’ve become too civilized, Mrs. Brandt.”

  Sarah thought of the four dead girls and knew she could have argued the point, but she didn’t. She didn’t have the heart for it at the moment.

  “You don’t look quite yourself this morning,” Mrs. Elsworth observed. “I hope nothing is wrong.”

  “I’m just tired, I think.”

  “You have been out quite a lot lately. It’s not baby business either, is it? Are you helping that nice detective with another case?”

  Sarah knew she shouldn’t burden Mrs. Elsworth with such things. “Something like that,” was all she said. She wished her neighbor good morning and went on into her own house. She’d just finished putting her purchases away when someone knocked on her back door. Somehow she wasn’t surprised to find Mrs. Elsworth there. She held a plate covered with a napkin.

  “I baked a cake yesterday, and it’s more than Nelson and I can eat, so I thought you might help me by taking some.” Nelson was Mrs. Elsworth’s son. He was a banker and was seldom at home to eat much of anything.

  “Thank you so much,” Sarah said sincerely. “Why don’t you come in, and we’ll share it. I can make some tea.”

  A few minutes later the two women were sitting on Sarah’s back porch, enjoying the coolness of the morning shade and Mrs. Elsworth’s fluffy white cake.

  “This is delicious,” Sarah said.

  Mrs. Elsworth waved the compliment away. “Now, tell me what’s bothering you. And don’t try to pretend it’s nothing. I saw that young woman you brought home the other night. She’s the same one who left you the message, isn’t she? I hope she’s not with child. She’s so young ...”

  “It’s not that. She’s ... well, a friend of hers was murdered and—”

  “Murdered!”

  “I didn’t want to involve you in this,” Sarah said. “It’s not a very pretty story.”

  “Do you think I haven’t been shocked in my life?” Mrs. Elsworth asked, a little offended. “I could probably tell you stories that would curl your hair. Now, you look like you need someone to confide in, and I’m right here.”

  Sarah knew she would probably regret doing this, but she told Mrs. Elsworth the story of how the four girls had been beaten to death, probably by the same man. And she told her what Luisa’s sister and friend had said about the man named Will.

  “It seems as if Coney Island is the place where he met at least two of the girls, then,” Mrs. Elsworth observed.

  “Yes, it does. And from what the girls told me last night, he may have bought Luisa a gift there, just as he bought Gerda the red shoes.”

  “Red shoes,” she said, her disapproval obvious. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to find where those shoes were purchased, now should it? I wouldn’t imagine too many places sell such a thing.”

  She was right, of course. Why hadn’t Sarah thought of it? More to the point, why hadn’t Malloy thought of it? He was the professional detective. They should go back to Coney Island and find the shop that had sold the red shoes and ... But when Sarah tried to imagine Malloy returning to Coney Island, she realized she was probably wasting her time. Malloy wouldn’t go back to that place unless he was chained to a team of wild horses and dragged.

  And when she thought about it some more, she realized she didn’t need Malloy anyway. It’s not like she was going to be looking for the killer himself, just a simple clue. She wouldn’t be in any danger. But it would be nice to have an escort all the same. Someone who knew his way around Coney Island. Someone who could tell her things about the place that Malloy wouldn’t know. Someone like Dirk Schyler.

  “What are you thinking?” Mrs. Elsworth asked.

  “I’m thinking I should visit some old friends. I haven’t seen them in much too long.”

  THE OLD FRIENDS would have to be approached delicately, of course. Sarah had given the matter a lot of thought, and there was only one way she could insinuate herself back into the social life she’d left behind all those years ago, which she would have to do if she hoped to encounter Dirk Schyler again. She’d have to ask her mother for help.

  Sarah’s parents lived on Fifty-seventh Street, just off Fifth Avenue, in a row of Italianate brownstones occupied by the upper crust of New York society. The Deckers had been born to wealth and privilege as the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of the area, called Knickerbockers, after the style of britches they had worn in the old days, by those who wished to disparage them.

  Sarah had dressed carefully for the occasion, knowing her mother would be worried if she saw her daughter in her regular work clothes. She probably thought Sarah lived in abject poverty, when in fact, her profession earned her a comfortable living. Of course, her mother’s idea of “comfortable” would not be the same as Sarah’s.

  It would have made more sense to wait another day, since it was raining when Sarah got up that morning, but she knew if she allowed herself time to think, she might not go at all. In any case, the rain was warm, hardly likely to give her a chill. And it might well keep other visitors away. Sarah was hoping for a private meeting with her mother.

  The maid who opened the front door recognized Sarah, even though it had been a while since her last visit. “Good morning, Mrs. Brandt,” she said with a curtsy. “Please come in while I see if your mother is at home.”

  Since this was Elizabeth Decker’s usual morning “at home,” when she was free to receive visitors, Sarah was fairly certain of being received. The maid showed Sarah into the parlor, which had already been prepared in expectation of callers. Sarah was happy to see her plan had worked and she was the first arrival.

  Her mother came in a few moments later, her face flushed with pleasure. “Sarah, my dear, what a happy surprise!”

  Sarah could see the questions in her mother’s blue eyes, and the silent reproach. She’d promised at their last meeting that she would come for tea one day when her father was home. She had not seen him in over three years, and her mother was anxious for a reconciliation. Sarah wasn’t quite as anxious, so she had dodged the issue by simply not having the time to call.

  “You don’t have to try to make me feel guilty,” she told her mother as she kissed her cheek. “I know I broke my promise, but I’ve been so busy...”

  “Too busy to give a few hours to your family?” her mother asked.

  “No, too cowardly,” Sarah confessed.

  Her mother frowned. “Your father isn’t an ogre, Sarah. He loves you very much.”

  Of course he did. But he’d loved her sister Maggie just as much, and Maggie was dead because of his stubbornness and pride. Sarah wasn’t sure if she was ready to cope with her father’s kind of love again.

  “I’ll see him soon. The first afternoon I have free,” she promised.

  “Perhaps we should set a date so you won’t forget again,” her mother suggested, leading her over to one of the sofas so they could sit down.

  “Yes, perhaps we should,” Sarah agreed vaguely. Then, before her mother could do so, she said, “Mother, I need your help.”

  This had the desired effect of distracting her completely. “My help? Whatever for?”

  “I know this will sound strange, but I’d like to see Dirk Schyler.”

  “Dirk?” Her mother’s surprise instantly gave way to pleasure. “Of course! Oh, Sarah, this is wonderful!” As she had expected, her mother completely misinterpreted her interest in Dirk. “What made you think of him after all these years? Well, no matter. He’s perfectly suitable, exactly the kind of man your father and I would have chosen for you!”

  Exactly the kind of man they would have chosen fo
r her if she’d given them the opportunity, was the unspoken message. Sarah’s parents had never approved of Tom Brandt, but she hadn’t sought their approval or needed it. “Please don’t make any wedding plans just yet,” she told her mother with a smile. “That’s not the reason I want to see him.”

  Her mother was a little surprised, but then she thought she’d figured it out. “Oh, of course not! We wouldn’t want him to think you were seeking him out or pursuing him, would we? Nothing is more likely to discourage romance than apparent interest from the female. But don’t worry, I will be perfectly discreet. I’m sure that seeing you again will be more than enough to spark his interest, though. His parents have been quite disappointed that he hasn’t married yet. He’s well over thirty, you know. They’ve put him in the way of every eligible young woman in New York, but he never even seems to notice them.”

  Sarah was fairly certain she knew why. Dirk Schyler’s interests lay elsewhere. He didn’t want a respectable wife taking note of his comings and goings.

  Although she should have dampened her mother’s enthusiasm for a match between her and Dirk Schyler, she knew that would only defeat her purpose. Her mother would be disappointed when nothing romantic developed between her and Dirk, but her mother had survived other, larger disappointments and would survive this one as well. In the meantime, her matchmaking instincts would motivate her to get the two of them together at the earliest possible moment.

  “Can you think of any social engagements coming up at which you might encounter him?” Sarah asked.

  Her mother considered. “Not really. He doesn’t regularly attend the usual functions anymore. I suppose I could organize a small dinner party and invite him, though,” she finally decided.

  “That would be perfect,” Sarah said.

  But her mother wasn’t finished. “I could organize a dinner party, but of course, your father would have to host it. And that would mean that you must see him first.”