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“I don’t think it’s very likely,” he admitted, “but that might not be enough to keep him from frying.”
She winced. “Then we have to find out who really killed her. Are you investigating the case?”
“No, Broughan has it.”
“Oh.” Her expression fell. She knew Broughan. He’d helped Frank out one time on a case she’d been involved with. “He won’t be much help, will he?”
“He won’t be any help. I had to promise I’d get Ellsworth to confess before he’d let me take him home.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes, oh dear,” Frank agreed. Then he remembered one more thing he needed to deal with before he left. “Were you just teasing me before or do you really know something about this case that I need to know?”
“Oh, I’d almost forgotten. Sit down, and I’ll tell you about my meeting with A
Frank pushed the dirty dishes away and sat back down at the table. “I’d been meaning to ask you about that,” he said in a tone that should have warned her he was angry, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or else she didn’t care.
“Nelson sent me a note and asked me to meet him at Washington Square.”
“Wait, stop right there,” Frank said. “He sent you a note? Why didn’t he just come to your front door if he wanted to talk to you?”
“Because his mother would have wanted to know why he was talking to me. You know she doesn’t miss a thing that happens on this street. So I met him at the Square on Monday afternoon.”
“Where in the Square?” Frank asked, thinking this sounded too familiar.
She hesitated. “By the hanging tree,” she finally admitted.
“Right where this A
“So it appears.”
“That’s interesting. Go on.”
“We met, and he told me about A
Frank frowned. “Did he want you to do something to the baby? To get rid of it?”
“Oh, no! I think perhaps he was hoping she wasn’t expecting at all. That would have solved all his problems. But if she was, he wanted me to offer her assistance and reassure her, I think. Maybe even convince her to marry Nelson.”
“Now that’s the part I don’t understand. Why would a woman in her position not want to marry the man who’d ruined her?”
“I didn’t understand that either,” she said, “until I met A
“What were you expecting?”
“I thought she’d be young and i
“But Ellsworth was fooled.”
“Oh, yes, completely. And when Nelson introduced me, she became hysterical. At first she insisted on believing that I was Nelson’s fiancée who had come to denounce her. He finally convinced her I was a midwife, and then she started accusing him of bringing me there to kill her baby! Can you imagine? She wouldn’t listen to anything he said, so finally, I left him there to comfort her and went home.”
“You’d think she’d be happy to find out you weren’t Nelson’s fiancée,” Frank said.
“Yes, you would, but she actually seemed disappointed. It was as if she wanted me to stand in the way of their love.”
“If she didn’t want to marry Nelson, what did she want?”
“She wanted money. A thousand dollars, so she could go away and not bother Nelson again.”
“Where on earth would Nelson get a thousand dollars?” Frank had been saving for years to amass enough money to pay the $14,000 bribe necessary to get promoted to Captain, and he knew how difficult it was to come by an extra $1,000. That was a goodly portion of Nelson’s a
“I don’t think he could have gotten that much money without a great deal of sacrifice,” she said, “but that doesn’t matter now.”
“Oh, it matters a great deal, Mrs. Brandt,” he contradicted her. “Because if she was blackmailing him and he couldn’t pay, he had a perfect motive for murder.”
4
FRANK WALKED SLOWLY FROM WASHINGTON SQUARE TO A
The first thing he usually did when investigating a crime was to ask the neighbors what they saw and heard and if they knew any gossip that might help identify the guilty party. In this case, the people who might have seen A
The house where A
Although she’d been unable to find suitable employment, she’d managed to find the three to five dollars a week she would need for room and board here, or else they would have thrown her out of the house. Frank already knew Nelson Ellsworth had been paying her rent, but she’d lived in this house before he came along to rescue her. This meant she’d had some source of income before Nelson. Supposedly, she and her mother had been pe
But the person who answered the door wasn’t the landlady or even a lady at all. The man was of medium height, thin but with a slight paunch underneath a stylish waist-coat. A short, neat beard covered the lower half of his face. He wore a well-fitted suit, as if he had just been going out.
“Another policeman,” he said with disgust. People always seemed to know Frank was a cop.
“Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy,” Frank said by way of introduction. “And who would you be?”
“Oliver Walcott,” he replied with a long-suffering sigh. “And I’ve already told the police everything I know about poor A
“Then it’ll all be fresh in your mind,” Frank said pleasantly, forcing his way past Walcott into the front hallway. The place was well furnished and cleaner than most such houses.
“I was just going out,” Walcott protested.
“I won’t keep you long.” Frank wandered into the parlor, glancing around and taking in every detail.
Left with no choice, Walcott followed but pointedly did not offer Frank a seat. He took one anyway, on the sofa.
“You’re the landlord, I take it,” Frank said.
“My wife and I, yes,” Walcott said.