Murder on Gramercy Park

by Victoria Thompson

  “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.”

  “You 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.

  “Dudley, can you hear me?” Frank asked, patting his cheeks to rouse him. “Who did this? Did you see who did this?”

  Dudley’s eyes flickered, and his lips moved, but he only managed to groan very softly before going still. At first Frank feared he was already dead, but his regular, if shallow, breathing reassured him. He’d just passed out. Nothing to do now but wait and hope Dudley came to one more time before the doctor, whoever he was, managed to finish him off.

  When he finally appeared, Dr. Woomer looked like he would do just that without half trying. An ancient, gin-soaked fellow in a shabby, stained suit, he looked like he’d been on an all-night bender, and smelled like it, too.

  Frank’s expression must have betrayed his opinion, because the doctor said, “Don’t worry. I was doctoring before you were born, and I’m better when I’m drunk.”

  Maybe he just thought he was better, Frank thought, but he said, “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Help me get him up on the bed. I’m too old to be crawling around on the floor.”

  The lodger who had fetched the doctor had followed him upstairs and stood outside the door, still staring curiously. He was a cadaverous man of indeterminate age who wore only a yellowed undershirt and trousers drooping because his suspenders dangled at his hips. Frank wondered that they hadn’t fallen off during his trip to get the doctor.

  “Get over here and give us a hand,” Frank ordered him, and he came, however reluctantly.

  Between the three of them, they managed to get Dudley back up on the bed. The landlady would be charging for a lot of ruined sheets.

  “Now let’s see what we have here,” the doctor said.

  Frank explained what he’d observed of Dudley’s wounds. The doctor made his own assessment, turning Dudley with Frank’s help. “Most of these’ll just need a few stitches. This one here, though, that’s the bitch.”

  “Did it hit his heart?”

  “How should I know?” the doctor said sourly. “Think I can see through flesh and bone?”

  Frank gave him a look.

  “All right,” the doctor relented. “Looks like it missed the heart. The lung, too, though God only knows how. He’d be dead by now if there was a hole in either one of those organs. Still, he’s lost a lot of blood, and there’s plenty of other stuff in there tha
t could be sliced. All I can do is close him up and hope for the best.”

  “Just try to keep him alive until he can tell me who did this,” Frank said.

  “He a special friend of yours?” the doctor asked, opening his bag and rummaging for the tools he needed.

  “No, but whoever did this killed two other men, and I did care about one of them. And I also don’t like people getting away with murder.”

  The doctor gave him a funny look out of red-rimmed eyes. “There’s a reward, I guess,” he remarked to no one in particular.

  Frank tried not to be insulted. The doctor couldn’t be helped for his opinions of the police, which were, Frank had to admit, well justified. “If he lives to tell me who did this, I’ll share it with you,” Frank offered.

  The doctor’s eyes lighted. “I’ll do my best.”

  As Woomer worked, Frank introduced himself. “You ever know a Dr. Tom Brandt?” he asked idly after the doctor had worked in silence for a bit.

  Woomer looked up in surprise from drawing a stitch through Dudley’s flesh. “Tom Brandt? Young fellow?”

  “That’s the one,” Frank confirmed. “Got himself murdered about three years back.”

  “Has it been that long? God, I’m getting old.”

  “What kind of a man was he?”

  “Tom? The best there was, I guess. Never heard anybody say a word against him.”

  “Somebody didn’t like him,” Frank pointed out. “Or he wouldn’t be dead.”

  “He wasn’t killed by somebody who knew him,” Woomer said.

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “It’s only common sense. Tom wasn’t the kind of man who made enemies.”

  This wasn’t exactly what Frank wanted to hear. Not only did it make it harder to figure out who’d killed him, he certainly didn’t like the idea that Sarah Brandt had been married to a near saint. Not that he was trying to compete or anything, but still... How could any other man compare?

  “What did people say? When he died, I mean.”

  “That it was a shame. Had a young wife, if I remember. He did a lot of good, too. Never turned anybody away just because they couldn’t pay his fee. It’s a wonder he didn’t starve.”

  Just what he needed, more evidence of Tom Brandt’s perfection. “I mean what did people say about how he died?”

  Woomer was threading catgut into his needle for more stitches. He squinted and concentrated for a moment until he found the hole. When he’d gone back to stitching, he said, “I heard he got robbed. I figured somebody robbed him for whatever he was carrying and killed him, probably because he didn’t have anything much. Happens often enough, you want to know the truth.”

  Frank knew it only too well. “You didn’t hear any rumors? Maybe somebody had it in for him?”

  “Tom? Not likely,” Woomer scoffed. “How come you’re so interested in a man got killed over three years ago?”

  Frank didn’t think it was any of his business, but he’d been friendly enough. “A friend of his asked me to look into it. See if I could find anything. The killer was never caught.”

  “Never will be, you ask me. You’re wasting your time.”

  “It’s my time,” Frank pointed out.

  Woomer looked up and studied Frank for a minute. “This friend of Tom’s wouldn’t be his widow by any chance?”

  This really wasn’t any of his business. “How’s he doing?” He gestured toward Dudley.

  Woomer chuckled to himself, not fooled by the sudden change of subject. “He’s not complaining. And he’s still breathing.”

  “Will he live?”

  “For a while. After that, who knows?”

  Frank would take what he could get. Woomer finished up the last of the stitches and wrapped a bandage around the worst of the wounds. Frank had to admit his work was neat and apparently competent.

  “Should he go to the hospital?” he asked when the doctor was finished.

  Woomer frowned as he started packing up his instruments. “Wouldn’t do him any good. He’s likely to catch something there and die from that. Besides, moving him at all right now might kill him. He’s pretty weak.”

  “I can’t leave him here alone,” Frank complained.

  “Does he have any family? Somebody who could nurse him?”

  “What kind of care would he need?”

  “Every kind,” Woomer said. “He won’t even be able to get up to relieve himself. That hole in his chest might bleed inside, too. Might be bleeding even now.”

  “So he needs a nurse,” Frank said.

  “That would be best. A mother would be second best.”

  “I don’t have any idea where to find him a mother,” Frank said. “But I do know where to get him a nurse.”

  SARAH DECIDED SHE was no longer going to be surprised at anything Frank Malloy did. This was the second time he’d summoned her to help him in this case, and she dearly longed to tease him about it. If she did, however, he might never call upon her again. Helping with his cases was far too interesting to take such a chance, no matter how much fun it would be.

  The patrolman who had delivered Malloy’s message had given her no other information beyond telling her Malloy needed a nurse and to come to this address. The lodging house was a step up from a flophouse, where men paid a nickel to sleep in a hammock or a cot or even on the floor for a night. This place at least provided a private room and probably a meal or two a day, but not much comfort beyond that.

  Sarah judged that the landlady, who opened the door, was probably a retired prostitute who’d invested her money wisely in this house to support her in her old age. She looked Sarah up and down, withholding her approval.

  “You the nurse?” she asked around the cheroot dangling from her lips. Ashes had spilled unnoticed down her ample bosom.

  “Yes,” Sarah said, offering no other information. “Is Mr. Malloy here?”

  “Upstairs,” the woman said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward the stairway. “End of the hall.”

  So much for the social amenities, Sarah thought in amusement. Malloy was waiting for her in the doorway of the room, looking grim.

  “Who is it?” she asked. “And what happened?”

  “It’s Dudley. Somebody stabbed him,” he said, admitting her to the room.

  An older man sat in the one chair of the room, his head drooping to his chest, dozing. Sarah thought he looked vaguely familiar, but she went immediately to the bed where Dudley lay amid the bloodstained sheets. His face was pale, but he seemed to be breathing easily. “How bad is it?” she asked.

  Malloy kicked the chair leg, jarring the older man awake. He shook his grizzled head and rubbed his hands over his face. He hadn’t shaved in a day or two, and the stubble glistened silver on his cheeks. He blinked bloodshot eyes at her, and Sarah immediately recognized the signs of chronic alcoholism. She also recognized the man.

  “Dr. Woomer,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

  He gave her a sad smile and nodded. “Too long. You’re looking well, Mrs. Brandt.”

  “I am well, thank you,” she said, not returning the compliment. “How is Mr. Dudley doing?”

  “He’s alive,” he said, rising stiffly from the chair. “No thanks to whoever attacked him.”

  He shuffled over to the bed and pulled down the top sheet so Sarah could see Dudley’s chest. “Somebody took after him with a knife. Didn’t know what they was doing, so most of the wounds hit bone and aren’t deep. This one here is the worst. Don’t look like it hit the heart or a lung, since he’s still alive, but it’s worrisome. He lost a lot of blood, too.”

  Sarah nodded. She gave Malloy a questioning look.

  “Dr. Woomer here thinks Dudley needs a nurse to look after him for a few days,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d take the job.”

  Would she? He knew perfectly well she was more than willing to remain involved with the case. Sitting beside an unconscious man who might well die hardly seemed like an ideal oc
cupation for someone who wanted to find a killer, but she also knew Dudley had most likely been attacked by the same person who’d killed Blackwell and Calvin Brown. When Dudley regained consciousness—assuming he did—Malloy would want someone there he could trust to hear anything he might have to say. Sarah wanted to be that person.

  “I’ll be happy to assist in any way I can,” she said, managing to sound merely cooperative. Malloy wasn’t fooled, but probably Woomer was. “Unless I’m called out on a case, of course, but we’ll worry about that if it happens. Just tell me what care he’s going to need.”

  “That’s good of you, Mrs. Brandt,” Woomer said, scratching his chin. He quickly told her what Dudley’s condition was and what he wanted her to do. Then he gathered his things and started to leave.

  “Who’s going to pay me for this?” he asked Malloy when he was ready to go.

  “Mr. Dudley is,” Malloy said, and he paid the doctor from a worn wallet he pulled from Dudley’s suit coat. Woomer seemed relieved.

  They both waited a few moments, until Dr. Woomer was on his way down the stairs, before speaking, lest they be overheard.

  “I guess this means Dudley isn’t the killer either,” Sarah said.

  “Unless he figured out some way to stab himself in the back,” Malloy said in disgust.

  “Was he able to give you any information at all?”

  “No, although it looked like he was trying to say something before he passed out. The doc gave him some morphine, too, so it’ll be a while before he’s awake again.”

  “Morphine,” Sarah said, thinking of all the trouble this drug had caused. She sighed. “Who could the killer be now? We shouldn’t have too many suspects left.”

  “No, killing Dudley isn’t something any of Blackwell’s clients would think of doing, even if they knew anything about him, which they wouldn’t. They’d have been satisfied with casting suspicion on Calvin. And killing Dudley would eliminate him as a suspect, in any case.”