“They don’t always think that.”
“Yes, they do, even when I’m wearing a tailor-made suit. Do you know how much this suit cost?”
“I’m sure it’s just your imposing manner.”
Malloy made a rude noise and let the subject drop. “Did you find out anything from those women?”
“I asked if they were here earlier and if they’d noticed anything out of the ordinary, but they didn’t even reply. This is going to be much more difficult than I expected.”
“I could have told you that. Colored people in this city learn pretty quickly that the best way to stay out of trouble is to keep quiet, and even that doesn’t always work.”
“But we’re trying to help.”
“They don’t know that. They probably think you want to blame one of them for making those women sick.”
“That’s what Jenny Oakes warned me about. She said Daisy would think she was being blamed for Charles’s death, no matter what we told her. If only I’d gotten to talk to her.”
“She probably wouldn’t have told you any more than she told Gino.”
“We’ll never know now, will we?”
He sighed. “No, we won’t.
• • •
The next morning, Sarah set Maeve and Catherine to the task of packing a basket of food for the Reverend Nicely. As she’d lain awake last night, too distraught over the tragedy she’d seen at the Nicely house to sleep, she’d decided she had to go back this morning. She would check on Isabel and enlist the Reverend Nicely’s help in questioning the women who had been at his house on Sunday to care for the sick women. He was probably the only one who could discover what they knew, since she was sure none of those women would speak to her, and they certainly wouldn’t tell Malloy anything either.
Malloy would probably want to go with her, but she would have to go alone if she had any hope of finding out the truth.
“I could go with you,” Maeve said as they were wrapping food for the basket. “So you wouldn’t be alone and Mr. Malloy could stay with the workmen.”
“Who would look after Catherine?” Sarah asked.
Catherine grinned. “Mrs. Ellsworth.”
“Did you two already discuss this?” Sarah asked.
Maeve smiled innocently. “Of course not, but when I go someplace, Mrs. Ellsworth always watches Catherine.”
“She gives me cookies,” Catherine said.
“We’ll see,” Sarah said, thinking she’d keep it as an option if Malloy simply refused to let her go alone.
• • •
Frank and Gino were in the kitchen discussing Gino’s fruitless visits to the various pharmacies yesterday and making their plans for the day when Frank heard the oddest sound. “What was that?”
“It sounded like a doorbell,” Gino said.
Frank made his way down the hall toward the front door, and sure enough, he heard it again. It really was a doorbell. He threw the door open to find Sarah, Maeve, and Catherine on the stoop.
“The doorbell works,” he said.
“Yes,” Maeve said. “I had one of the workmen fix it yesterday. And did you know they finished the bathroom? It just needs a good cleaning now.”
Frank stood back while the females entered. He felt a little stunned.
Gino greeted Catherine warmly, Sarah politely, and Maeve shyly.
“Did Brian already go to school?” Catherine asked him.
“I’m afraid so. What are you going to do today?”
“Eat cookies with Mrs. Ellsworth.”
Frank gave Sarah a questioning look.
“I need to go see Reverend Nicely and check on Isabel,” she said. “Maeve said she’d go with me, so you don’t have to leave the house.”
“Gino and I were going to find Mrs. Peabody’s nephew to see if we can figure out all the places Charles Oakes was the day he first got poisoned. I was going to ask if you could stay here with the workmen, but now . . .” He eyed Maeve, sure he’d never really seen her clearly before.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“Because I don’t think I ever really appreciated your talents, Maeve. You’re going to stay here with the workmen today, and maybe we can get them to finish with the house before New Year’s.”
Maeve started to protest, but Catherine beat her to it. “I wanted to eat cookies with Mrs. Ellsworth.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Ellsworth can bring cookies over here,” Frank said. He turned to Sarah. “As for you going to see Reverend Nicely—”
“I can go alone,” she said. “I’ll be less intimidating that way.”
“Gino can go with you,” he said, not liking the idea of her going off to that part of town by herself.
“Don’t be silly. Gino looks as much like a policeman as you do. Nobody will tell me a thing if he’s with me. The person who killed those women won’t be down there today, I promise you. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
Frank tried pointing out that no one in New York City was ever perfectly safe, and Sarah pointed out that she wouldn’t be in any more danger today than she was on any other day, and in the end, he had to admit she should probably go by herself.
Maeve and Catherine stayed behind to supervise the workmen, although they were both pouting. Frank and Gino went in search of Percy, and Sarah set out for the Reverend Nicely’s house.
• • •
When Sarah arrived at the church and climbed the outside staircase, she found the door still standing open to the warm breeze. She knocked on the doorjamb. “Hello?”
A woman came out of Isabel’s room. It was the woman she had first met yesterday. She didn’t look happy to see Sarah. “What do you want?”
“I brought some food,” Sarah said, holding up her basket to prove it, “and I thought I’d check on Isabel. How is she doing?”
“She’s doing just fine. We don’t need your help anymore.”
“Did she wake up?”
Plainly, the woman didn’t want to give her any information at all, but she said, “She asked for her mama.”
How horrible, Sarah thought. “May I come in and examine her?”
“I don’t know what Reverend Nicely would say about that,” the woman said.
“Where is he? Can we ask him?”
“He’s right here,” the Reverend Nicely said, coming out of the other room. He was just shrugging into his suit coat. “It’s nice of you to come, Mrs. Brandt. Sister Mary, why don’t you take that basket from Mrs. Brandt and get her a cup of coffee?”
Mary accepted the basket Sarah handed her, although she made sure Sarah knew how much it offended her.
“I just heard Isabel woke up,” Sarah said.
“I don’t know about that,” Nicely said with a sad frown. “She was asking for her mother, but I’m not sure she was really awake.”
“Would you mind if I examined her?”
“Please do.” The Reverend Nicely let her into Isabel’s room. “The ladies have been looking after her faithfully. They said you told them to give her milk, and when they ran out of milk, they started giving her water.”
“That was exactly the right thing to do,” Sarah said. She opened her medical bag, took out her stethoscope, and examined the girl. Her heartbeat seemed stronger than it had yesterday, and her lungs were still clear. She tried shaking her gently. “Isabel? Can you hear me?”
The girl moaned.
“Reverend Nicely, why don’t you try? She may respond to a familiar voice.”
He stepped forward eagerly. “Isabel, dear, wake up now. It’s time to wake up.” When he tried to shake her shoulder, she shrugged away.
“Look, she’s responding,” Sarah said. “Shake her again.”
He did, and he called her name and told her to wake up over and over until her eyes fluttered open.
“Papa,” she said hoarsely, “I’m tired.”
“Praise God,” he cried, his eyes welling with tears. “Isabel, my sweet, sweet girl.”
“Let me sleep,” she whispered, but he sank down beside her on the bed and took her in his arms, praising God for a miracle.
Sarah wasn’t sure it was a miracle yet, but at least she’d come out of her coma. If they could get her to eat, and if the poison hadn’t damaged her body too much . . . Too many ifs for Sarah to rejoice just yet, but it was the first good news poor Reverend Nicely had gotten in almost two days, so Sarah let him enjoy it.
Mary came to the door, and when she saw Isabel was awake, she also started praising God. “I’ll go spread the word, Reverend Nicely,” she told him. “Everybody’ll want to know right away.”
Sarah went to the kitchen and sorted through the various foodstuffs that the Reverend Nicely’s parishioners had brought. She found a jar of soup, so she poured a bit of it into a cup and snatched up a spoon. She’d try to get some of this into Isabel before she fell asleep again.
Isabel hadn’t wanted to stay awake, but her father helped Sarah keep her roused until she’d swallowed at least a few spoonfuls of the rich broth. When she’d drifted off again, exhausted from the effort, Sarah made herself useful by unpacking the basket she had brought while the Reverend Nicely sat beside Isabel’s bed, talking to her even though she gave no indication that she could hear him.
Sarah had imagined that she would ask him to go with her to visit the women from his congregation so they could question them about what they’d found in the Nicelys’ house that might have contained the poison. Seeing him now, she realized it would be cruel to ask him to leave Isabel’s side just yet. At least he could tell her the names of the women who had been there, or maybe she could convince Sister Mary to give her the names. Maybe Sister Mary would even go with her and introduce her to the women so Sarah could ask her questions herself. No sooner had she thought of this idea than she discarded it. Sister Mary wasn’t going to help Sarah do anything. And the other women wouldn’t tell her anything, she was sure. She tried to think of some other way to find out what they needed to know, but she couldn’t come up with a single thing.
She was starting to wonder if she should just give up and head back home when she heard someone running up the stairs outside. She was on her feet when Sister Mary burst in, breathless and panicked.
She froze when she saw Sarah, and for a moment Sarah thought the woman was going to order her to leave again. Instead she said, “Thank heaven you’re still here. My girl’s sick just like Sister Rose and Sister Isabel. Real sick. Can you come?”
12
“I thought you said these fellows spend all their time at their clubs,” Gino said as they made their way to Sixth Avenue to catch the elevated train uptown. “What makes you think we’ll find him at home?”
“Because it’s morning. These rich boys who don’t have anything useful to do spend their nights drinking and their mornings sleeping.”
“And you’re sure he still lives in his mother’s house?”
Looking up Mrs. Peabody’s sister in the City Directory had been the easy part of this. “No, but if he doesn’t, we can probably get somebody there to tell us where he does live.”
The maid who answered the door at the Littlefield house looked confused when Frank asked for Percy Littlefield, but not because she didn’t know where he was. “He . . . He don’t get up until past noon usually.”
Frank gave Gino a smug glance. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wake him. I have some very urgent news for him about one of his friends.”
“I don’t know,” she said, plainly concerned she would get in trouble if she disturbed young Percy.
“He won’t thank you for turning us away, I guarantee. He’ll want to hear this news immediately,” Frank lied.
She looked both of them over with a disapproving eye. She was probably wondering what an Irishman and an Italian wanted with the young master. “I’ll ask his valet, but I can’t promise he’ll come down to see you.”
She let them in the front hall and left them standing there. The Littlefield house wasn’t large enough to have a receiving room, but the neighborhood was fashionable and the house expensively furnished and well kept. Left alone, Percy would probably run through the family fortune in a few years, but for now, his mother seemed to be in control.
The maid was gone a long time, and she didn’t look happy when she finally returned. “Come with me, please,” she said, and led them upstairs to a room that had probably been young Percy’s father’s study. Several overstuffed chairs were grouped around the hearth, and the air smelled faintly of cigar smoke and dust. After another long wait, Percy Littlefield finally made his appearance. He glared at them through red-rimmed eyes, his face chalky white above his hastily donned suit. He hadn’t bothered with a necktie and his vest was buttoned crooked, but his shoes seemed to be on the right feet. He’d wet his blond hair and combed it down, but one spot on the side of his head where he had slept on it wrong had refused to be tamed. It was gradually springing back up in defiance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Percy demanded when he saw them. He was a stocky young man with a florid complexion and obvious bad manners.
Frank introduced himself and Gino. “We need to ask you some questions about Charles Oakes.”
“Charles? Is that the friend you were supposed to tell me about?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s dead, and I already knew that. And what could you possibly want to know about him?”
“Who poisoned him, for one thing.”
Percy blinked several times, as if trying to bring Frank and Gino into focus. “What do you mean, poisoned?”
“Somebody poisoned him with arsenic. Didn’t you wonder why he died so suddenly?”
Percy scratched his head. “It did seem strange.”
“Maybe you should sit down, Mr. Littlefield,” Frank said.
“I could use a drink first,” he said.
“I’ll get you one.” Gino scrambled to do so, having already located the decanters on a sideboard.
“Help yourself to one, too,” Percy said as he sank down unceremoniously into one of the chairs. His manners were improving slightly.
Gino brought him a glass with a generous quantity of amber liquid in it. Percy gratefully took a gulp.
“Who told you Charles was poisoned?” he asked while he waited for the whiskey to do its work.
“The coroner. It seems somebody was giving him arsenic for several days. The first time was the Saturday before he died. Did you see him that day?”
He needed a moment to remember. “I think so. He was at the club.”
“What club is that?”
“The Devil’s Dogs.”
“Interesting name,” Frank said.
“It’s all in fun,” Percy said.
Frank could imagine. “So you saw Charles Oakes that Saturday?”
“Yes, he came in and we were playing cards for a while, but he left early. He felt sick.”
“Did you see if he had anything to eat while he was there?”
He gave Frank a withering look. “We don’t go to the club to eat.”
“I see. I guess he was drinking, though.”
“We were all drinking.”
“Were you all drinking the same thing?”
“I don’t know. The waiters were serving us.”
For a second Frank thought maybe a waiter, angry at some slight, could have slipped something into Charles’s glass, but then he remembered Charles had gotten his fatal dose at home. No waiter could have given him that one. “Do you know where Charles had been that day, before he came to the club?”
“No, I don’t.” He rubbed his forehead and took another sip of whiskey. “What are you getting at? Do you think somebody at t
he club poisoned poor Oakes?”
“It’s possible.”
“No, it isn’t. Everybody liked him, and he owed everybody money. Why would anybody want to kill him?”
A good question, Frank thought. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Can you think of any reason why somebody would want to harm him?”
Percy sipped his whiskey and considered. “He’s been . . . I don’t know how to say it, but he’s seemed kind of sad lately.”
“Sad? What do you mean?”
“I said I don’t know. He just . . . Well, he was worried, I think.”
“About what?”
Percy shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “Trouble with the wife, seemed like.”
“What kind of trouble?” Frank asked, remembering that Charles had recently started sleeping in his dressing room.
“I don’t know and I didn’t ask. It’s none of my business, is it?”
He was right, of course, but Frank couldn’t help wishing he’d been nosier. “What did he do that made you think he was sad?”
Percy grinned without humor. “You know what they say about drowning your sorrows.”
“So he was drinking heavily?” Frank remembered what Sarah had reported Mrs. Peabody saying about Charles’s drinking habits.
“He always drank. We all do. But lately there’s been more . . . I guess you’d say purpose to it. He even took to carrying a flask, so he could have a nip when we were on our way to the theater or something.”
Was his marriage enough to worry him that much? What else could have been bothering him? Frank remembered he’d regretted releasing Ella Adderly from the Asylum. “Was he worried about anything to do with his job at the hospital?”
“I told you, I don’t know.” Percy’s patience was running low.
“Who would know?”
Percy glared up at him. “Charles would know. Ask him.”
• • •
Sarah could hardly believe what she was hearing. “What do you mean, she’s sick?”
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