Murder On GramercyPark

by Victoria Thompson

  He didn’t know how she always managed to best him in these little verbal matches they played. Probably because he liked the way she grinned when she won.

  The chicken wasn’t dry at all, and she’d fried potatoes just the way he liked them. She’d even gotten some beer from her neighbor for him.

  “What have you been up to, Mrs. Brandt?” he asked suspiciously as she smiled smugly at his reaction to the meal.

  “I visited Mrs. Blackwell today,” she said.

  “Do you go there every day?” he asked with a frown.

  “Just about. I have to look after the baby, you know,” she added when he would have scolded her. “Do you know she hasn’t named him yet? He’s more than a week old and doesn’t even have a name.”

  “I’m sure she’s had other things to worry about,” he said to annoy her. “So you visited Mrs. Blackwell. What happened?”

  “She had another visitor already when I arrived.”

  “Dudley?” he guessed hopefully.

  “He’d apparently come to see the baby. The three of them were in the parlor together, alone.”

  “Very cozy,” Frank noted.

  “Especially because Amos Potter arrived right after I did. He was so desperate to see Mrs. Blackwell that I decided he should finally get the chance.”

  “I’m surprised that butler didn’t physically stop you from intruding on her,” Frank said.

  “Oh, I almost forgot: Granger is ill. He hasn’t been well for several days. Turns out he was just sick with guilt for not getting home first the day Blackwell was killed so he could’ve discovered the body instead of Mrs. Blackwell. Even the butler adores her. What is it about that woman that turns men into idiots?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said.

  She sniffed derisively, but she was too eager to tell her story to stop and argue. “Anyway, Granger was sick in bed with an upset stomach, so that little maid who let me in before was the only one guarding the door. It was easy enough to get past her with Potter.”

  “I guess Potter was surprised to see Dudley.”

  “Surprised? He was horrified. I told you the baby has red hair just like his. No one could miss the resemblance. Potter isn’t a fool. I’m sure he figured it out as quickly as I did, and he obviously knew that Letitia had had a lover before Blackwell. He asked a few leading questions and quickly determined Dudley was the man.”

  “That must have been a blow. He thought Letitia would be his now that Blackwell is gone.”

  “What was I just saying about her turning men into idiots?” she asked. “Potter couldn’t have Letitia if he were the last man alive on earth.”

  “You can’t fault a man for dreaming.”

  She just rolled her eyes. “Needless to say, Letitia wasn’t too happy to have Potter there-or me either, for that matter. She sent him on his way pretty quickly, and she tried to get rid of me, too, but I refused to leave.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment. I know how stubborn you can be,” Frank said, taking another bite of his chicken.

  “I’m not stubborn, I’m determined,” she insisted good-naturedly. “As soon as Potter was gone, I broke the news to them that Calvin Brown was dead.”

  “You did what?” Frank shouted, nearly choking on his chicken.

  “Oh, dear, was that the wrong thing to do?” she asked.

  “I told you, only the killer would know about the suicide note!” He couldn’t believe she’d ruined his plan already.

  “I didn’t tell them about that!” she said indignantly. “I just said he was murdered. They pretended they didn’t know who he was, but I could tell Dudley knew, at least.”

  “Of course he knew. I told him the other night.”

  “You did?” she asked, disappointed. “When did you see him? What did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t kill Blackwell or Calvin. What do you think he said?” Frank was remembering why he’d once vowed never to see Sarah Brandt again and certainly never to let her become involved in another of his cases.

  “Well, I think Letitia knew about him, too,” she said, still not showing any sign of understanding how she’d ruined the investigation. “She claimed that Blackwell had told her he’d been married before but his first wife had died young and that he didn’t have any children. She’s a good liar, so I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not.”

  Frank sighed. He would have known, but now he wouldn’t have the chance. “What else did you tell them?” he asked wearily.

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” she said defensively. “I just pointed out that if they didn’t know about Calvin, they both had a very good reason for wanting her husband dead.”

  “And if they did, they had a good reason, too,” he reminded her.

  “So either way, they’re still good suspects. Unless Mr. Fong gave them an alibi,” she remembered.

  “He didn’t.”

  “He didn’t?” she asked with delight.

  “Mr. Fong is a good businessman. He doesn’t know anything about his clients, including their real names. And he certainly doesn’t make note of their comings and goings. That saves him the trouble of being involved in unpleasant things like murder investigations. You should follow his example,” Frank pointed out.

  She just gave him one of her looks. “There was one unfortunate result of my visit this afternoon,” she admitted.

  “I’ve already counted more than one.”

  She wasn’t the least bit repentant. “When I pointed out that Letitia’s marriage to Blackwell wasn’t valid, Letitia decided to inform her father that she was going to marry Dudley immediately. I guess she doesn’t feel the need to mourn a bigamous husband any longer, and she mentioned something about her child needing a father.”

  “Her father will be pleased to hear that. He offered me a thousand dollars to arrest Dudley as the killer.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a reward,” he said a little defensively, “not a bribe.”

  “It’s not a bribe unless Dudley is innocent. Does he really think he’s guilty, or does he just want to get rid of Dudley? And when did you see Symington?”

  He didn’t feel he needed to explain his activities to her. “I think he wants to get rid of Dudley and hopes he’s the killer.”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “A thousand dollars is a lot of money. Some detectives would make sure Dudley was found guilty whether he was or not.”

  “Do you think I’m one of them?” he asked, stung.

  She was so surprised he knew she hadn’t even thought of this. “Of course not! I know you better than that! But Symington doesn’t. I was just thinking he must believe he’s made sure he’ll be rid of Dudley and have Blackwell’s murder settled, too. What an evil man!”

  Frank felt a pang of guilt. Sarah Brandt was sure he wouldn’t take a bribe to convict an innocent man, but he knew his honesty was inspired only by the fear of seeing disappointment in her eyes. In his own way, he wasn’t any better than Maurice Symington. “Maybe Symington thinks Dudley is really guilty. In any case, he’s just trying to protect his daughter.”

  “He’s done a poor job of it so far. First he lets her get involved with Dudley and nearly elope with him, then he gives her to that charlatan Blackwell, and all the time she’s using morphine. Heaven help her if he’d been neglecting her!”

  She was right, of course. “Maybe Dudley really did kill Blackwell, though. He’s still a good prospect.”

  “And so is Symington,” she reminded him. “Maybe he’s trying to make sure you don’t look any farther than Dudley. That way, he’d get rid of Dudley and save his own neck in the process.”

  “Do you think a man like Symington would do his own killing?”

  She considered this for a moment. “Probably not. On the other hand, maybe killing Blackwell was an accident or a crime of passion. He hadn’t planned it, and when it happened, he had to cover it up. He couldn’t trust anyone else to keep his secret, so
he had to kill Calvin himself, too, and try to convince the police the boy was Blackwell’s killer.”

  “Blackwell’s death wasn’t an accident or a crime of passion, either,” Frank reminded her. “He was sitting at his desk, calmly writing a letter, while his killer snuck up behind him. He probably didn’t even know his killer was there until he got shot.”

  She frowned. She didn’t like being wrong. That was too bad. “So we’re back to Dudley.”

  “Or Letitia,” Frank said. “Wouldn’t you like for her to be the killer?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “but even if she was, she’d never be convicted. Can you imagine a jury of men sentencing her to death? They’d all fall in love with her and let her go free in the hopes that she’d marry one of them out of gratitude.”

  Frank had to bite his lip to keep from smiling at that picture. “But she’d probably marry Dudley. Wouldn’t that be punishment enough?”

  “It would be for me, but for some reason she seems to love him. I wonder what she sees in him.”

  “Don’t ask me. Maybe she likes having a man she can control.”

  She considered this. “I think you may be right, Malloy. She lived with a controlling father all her life, and she wanted someone who’d let her do what she wanted.”

  “Or someone who would do what she wanted.”

  “The only question now is did she want him to kill Blackwell.”

  Frank considered this. “Maybe I’ll ask him just that.”

  14

  FRANK THOUGHT HE SHOULD JUST WAIT AT THE Blackwell house for Dudley to show up. The former schoolmaster was probably visiting Letitia daily now, but he didn’t want to deal with the scheming widow. He went, instead, to the bank where Dudley worked. It was Saturday, so he’d only be working a half day.

  Seeing no need for discretion, he went inside. He wanted Dudley to know he was waiting for him to get off. He’d be more cooperative if he worked himself into a state wondering what Frank wanted from him. But when Frank looked around, he didn’t see Dudley behind the bars of any of the teller windows. He’d only been standing there a moment, looking in vain for Dudley, when the guard approached him.

  “Something I can do for you?” the man asked, obviously recognizing him as a policeman and wanting to avoid any disturbance. Frank couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing what he was.

  “Is your manager here?” Frank asked in a tone that invited no questions.

  The guard made his way hastily to a rear office, and in another moment a nattily-dressed man with a flower in his lapel anxiously approached Frank, the guard faithfully following at his heels.

  “Could we handle this discreetly?” the manager asked, looking around nervously to see if anyone was disturbed by Frank’s presence. No one wanted a cop snooping around at a bank. It gave customers the wrong idea.

  “I was looking for Peter Dudley,” Frank said.

  “Dudley?” the man asked in surprise. “Whatever for?”

  “Just send him out, will you?” Frank said impatiently.

  The man glanced around again, making sure they weren’t being overheard. “He isn’t here.”

  “What do you mean? Doesn’t he work here anymore?”

  “Yes, of course he does, but… He didn’t come in this morning.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. He didn’t send word.”

  “Does he do this a lot?”

  “He wouldn’t still work here if he did,” the manager sniffed. “He’s always been very reliable.”

  Frank felt the back of his neck prickle. Something was wrong. It could just be that Dudley had decided he didn’t need this job anymore if he was going to marry Letitia. That was probably it. A man who’d seduce and elope with a young girl of good family probably wouldn’t hesitate to walk out of a job like this without giving notice either.

  “I’ll just go check on him, then,” Frank said. “Make sure he’s all right. You know where he lives?” he added. Dudley was probably with Letitia, but just in case, he needed the man’s address.

  “I most certainly do not know where he lives!” the bank manager said.

  “Then find somebody who does,” Frank said with a friendly smile. “I’ll wait right here until you do.”

  MOST ROOMING HOUSES were sad, smelling of cabbage and unwashed bodies, but the one where Peter Dudley lived was sadder than most. Paint was peeling off the front door and one of the shutters hung askew. The woman who owned the place was a slattern in a dirty apron, with a thin cigar dangling from her mouth. She even had a hint of a mustache.

  “How should I know if he’s here or not?” she demanded when Frank asked after Dudley. “Do I look like his mother?”

  Frank was in no mood for this. He’d already been to the Blackwell home. The butler, who appeared to be recovered from whatever illness he’d been suffering, had informed him he hadn’t seen Mr. Dudley that day. As usual, he hadn’t been very friendly about it, either.

  “Just take me up to his room,” he told the landlady. “And bring a passkey. If he’s not there, I’ll still want to take a look around.”

  The woman grumbled, but she complied. Frank followed her laborious progress up the steep, narrow stairs, taking care not to slip on the debris that had accumulated since the last time the steps had been swept. Frank figured it had probably been a year or more since a broom had touched them. Ahead of him, the landlady’s broad backside looked like two small boys fighting under a blanket. Frank tried his best not to watch the disturbing sight.

  At last they reached one of the rear rooms, which lay down a stuffy, narrow corridor. The landlady knocked loudly. “Mr. Dudley, you in there?”

  Frank nudged her out of the way and pounded even louder. “Dudley, it’s the police. Open up!”

  A door at the other end of the hall opened, and a curious face peered out, but Frank ignored the other lodger. He pounded once more and, still hearing nothing, said, “Open it.”

  Grumbling again, the landlady started searching through the keys on her large ring, looking for the correct one. After a couple of incorrect choices, she finally got the lock to turn and pushed the door open.

  “I’ll wait here to lock it back up when you’re finished,” she said, scowling at him.

  Frank stepped into the room, and instantly the smell of death overwhelmed him. Dudley lay crumpled on the floor in a tangle of bloody bedclothes. Cursing, Frank hurried to him. In the doorway, the landlady started screaming and swearing, and Frank could hear footsteps running down the hallway. The curious face was coming to see what had happened.

  Dudley was still in his nightshirt and had apparently been attacked while he was sleeping. The bedclothes were pulled half off the bed and had wrapped around his legs as he struggled. His nightshirt was torn and soaked in blood, front and back. Frank started to turn him over, and he moaned.

  “Oh, Lord in heaven, is he still alive?” the landlady cried.

  “Just barely,” Frank said after a quick examination. “Send somebody for a doctor. Right now!” he shouted when nobody moved.

  “Get Woomer!” the landlady said to the lodger. “You know where he lives. Tell him to hurry!”

  Frank heard the pounding of feet going down the stairs, but he was too busy assessing Dudley’s wounds to pay much attention.

  “What happened to him?” the landlady asked, coming closer but not close enough to help.

  “From the looks of it, somebody stabbed him,” Frank said. “Hand me that towel over there,” he added, pointing to a peg where a ragged towel hung.

  “You’re not getting my good towels all bloody!” the landlady told him indignantly.

  Frank gave her his most evil glare. “Don’t make me knock you down and take your petticoats,” he warned.

  She yelped in outrage, then stomped over to where the towel hung and snatched it from the wall. “I’ll charge him for this, I will. I can’t afford to be wasting towels on something like this.”

  “Yo
u can’t afford to let one of your tenants die on the premises,” Frank informed her, pressing the towel to the oozing hole in Dudley’s chest. Out of spite, he jerked the sheet the rest of the way off the bed and used that, too.

  She made a horrified sound, deep in her chest.

  “Put this on his bill, too,” Frank said. “And if he dies, good luck collecting.”

  Pushed beyond endurance, the landlady flounced out of the room, leaving the door standing open.

  Frank was still trying to determine the extent of Dudley’s injuries. He appeared to have been stabbed several times, both in his back and in his chest, but only one wound was very deep. Stabbing someone in the torso was risky at best, as Frank had learned from years of observation. There were all kinds of bones in the upper body. Unless you used a slender blade and knew just where to aim, you were more likely to hit one of them than not. The result would be a shallow gouge, painful but hardly fatal.

  Sure enough, the wounds on Dudley’s back were ugly but only bone-deep. His attacker must have come into the room and tried to kill him while he lay sleeping on his stomach. The pain would have awakened him, and he’d apparently struggled for his life. Now that Frank noticed, his left hand was bleeding from a gash across the inside of the fingers, as if he’d tried to grab the knife and gotten sliced instead. The attacker had landed three good blows on Dudley’s chest; the first one slid along his collarbone and the second had gouged the center of his chest. Neither had been powerful enough to break through the bones and had, like the ones in his back, produced ugly but only superficial wounds.

  The attacker must have been getting frantic by then. Dudley would have been struggling like a madman. Fear would have given both of them unusual strength. Finally, the attacker had struck a vulnerable spot and driven the knife between two ribs. Chest wounds like this one were serious stuff. Dudley wasn’t dead yet, but he likely would be soon. Frank’s only hope was to get him to name his killer before he died.

  Dudley’s body was cold, in spite of the relative warmth of the morning, so Frank pulled the blanket down from the bed and tucked it around him. Then he pulled down the lumpy pillow and stuffed it under the man’s bloody head. The landlady would have a fit, but Frank was actually looking forward to her annoyance.