5

“THE MAID ONLY WORKS IN THE DAY, AND CATHERINE claims she was asleep when Anna left the house. She doesn’t have any idea what made her do it,” Sarah reported as she and Malloy walked back toward Washington Square. “Oh, and she must have left in a hurry because she didn’t take her purse with her. What did you learn from that fellow, what’s his name?”

“Giddings.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Gilbert Giddings.”

“He’s an attorney?” she asked, shamelessly peering at the card.

Malloy stuffed it back into his pocket and pretended to be annoyed. “So he says,” Malloy said.

“And he was also one of Anna Blake’s gentlemen friends,” she said when he offered nothing else.

“One of many, apparently,” Malloy allowed.

“Was he giving her money, too?”

“Yes.”

Sarah gave him an impatient look. “Malloy, you are the most insufferable… Do I have to give you the third degree to get information out of you?”

This ridiculous threat brought a small grin to Malloy’s face, but he said, “There’s nothing much to tell. Anna Blake told him some cock-and-bull story about how an uncle cheated her out of her inheritance-”

“But her mother was destitute when she died,” Sarah protested.

“Not according to Giddings.”

“That’s a different story than the one she told Nelson.”

“She needed a different story because she needed a different reason to go to an attorney than to a banker,” he pointed out. “Giddings took pity on her, gave her some money, and the next thing you know, she’s in a family way and needing more money than he can afford to give her.”

“Didn’t he offer to marry her?”

Malloy gave her a pitying look. “He’s already married.”

“Oh,” Sarah said, then remembered something. “Catherine Porter thought Nelson was married. She seemed very surprised to find out he wasn’t. Wouldn’t you think if a man was calling on a woman, you’d expect him to be single, not the other way around?”

“Unless you were planning to blackmail him.”

“Blackmail?” Sarah echoed in amazement.

“Yes, blackmail. That’s what Anna Blake was doing to Giddings, and what she was probably trying to do to Nelson, but it wasn’t going to work. Nelson wanted to marry her, not pay her off for her silence, the way Giddings was.”

“If that’s what she wanted to do, then why did she choose a bachelor like Nelson?”

Malloy shrugged. “Maybe she thought he was married. Catherine Porter apparently did.”

Sarah tried to make sense of it. “I guess we can ask Nelson.”

“We certainly can’t ask Anna Blake,” Malloy pointed out blandly.

Sarah ignored this provocation. “What did Mr. Walcott have to contribute?”

“Not much. He was out of town when Anna Blake was killed. Says he spends very little time at the house. He’s too busy spending his wife’s inheritance to bother with the comings and goings of her boarders.”

This didn’t make sense either. “If she has an inheritance, why do they take in boarders?”

“It wasn’t much, I gathered. Not enough to support them and pay for Walcott’s travels, at least. And he claims his wife likes cooking and cleaning for other people.”

Sarah made a rude noise at such a preposterous notion. “I’ll be interested to hear her side of that story. Where was she today?”

“Shopping, he said. I’ll go back another time and talk to her. What’s she like?”

Sarah considered. “Well groomed and nosy.”

Malloy raised his eyebrows at this assessment. “Your powers of observation amaze me, Mrs. Brandt. How would you describe Mr. Walcott?”

“Vain and selfish.”

“Why vain?” he asked curiously. Malloy had already given her the reasons to think him selfish.

“Did you see how carefully his hair was arranged? And how meticulous his clothes were? He spends a lot of time making sure he looks his best. He wants others to think as well of him as he thinks of himself.”

“Considering how much time you spent with him, that’s very impressive,” Malloy allowed.

“Oh, stop with the blarney, Malloy. You’re turning my head. And speaking of blarney, did you see the newspapers this morning?” she asked, outraged anew at the thought of them.

“I try to avoid reading the newspapers as much as I can,” he said.

“They said the most horrible things about poor Nelson! As far as they’re concerned, he’s another Jack the Ripper, slashing innocent women to death in the dark of night,” she said in disgust.

“What did you expect? They’re trying to sell papers, not get the facts right.”

“But they’re newspapers! Don’t they have an obligation to tell the truth? Mr. Pulitzer has devoted himself to uncovering scandal and corruption in society,” she said, naming the publisher of the World. “His paper is always crusading for one cause or another. Why would he allow his reporters to make up lies about innocent people?”

“That’s something you’ll have to ask Mr. Pulitzer,” Malloy said with a tolerant grin. “The fact is that newspapers will publish anything if they think it will make people buy papers. Look at that Italian woman who killed her lover, for instance.”

The story had sold millions of papers through her trial after she slashed her lover’s throat because he refused to marry her. “The press certainly wasn’t very kind to Miss Barberi,” she recalled, remembering the salacious details they had published about her.

“That isn’t even her name,” Malloy said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean her real name is Barbella. Somebody got it wrong in the beginning, and the rest of them picked it up. I asked a reporter once why they didn’t correct the mistake, and he said that Barberi sounded like barbarian, so it made better copy.”

“That’s horrible!” Sarah exclaimed.

“I’m not arguing with you. I’m just telling you what goes on. Let me guess what they said about Nelson. They said he’s an evil seducer who ruined an innocent young woman, got her with child, and then killed her so he didn’t have to support them.”

Sarah sighed. “One even suggested he’d killed her just because he got tired of her and wanted to find a new victim for his evil lusts.”

“Very imaginative. At this rate, the police are going to have to arrest him just so the public feels safe from a monster.”

Sarah groaned. “What are we going to do?”

“We are not going to do anything. You are going home to make sure Nelson and his mother stay safely in their house while I go back to Thompson Street and try to figure out who really killed Anna Blake before Bill Broughan decides to close this case by locking up Nelson Ellsworth.”

They’d reached Washington Square and stopped on the sidewalk at the southwest corner.

“What are we going to do about the newspapers?” Sarah asked.

Malloy looked pained. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? You do not have to do anything at all except worry about the Ellsworths.”

“Malloy, you know you need my help in this! I can get more information out of Catherine Porter and the maid. I just need to catch them when Walcott isn’t around.”

“Do you honestly think anyone will ever let you back in that house again?”

He might be right about that, so Sarah decided not to argue. “Then I can talk to the newspapers and try to get them to print the truth.”

“How are you going to explain your interest in Nelson Ellsworth’s welfare?”

“We’re neighbors!”

“You’re a woman, and he’s a man. You are no relation to him. You will be drawing the unpleasant attention of the press to yourself by trying to convince people he is innocent of killing a woman he seduced. Why would you do such a thing unless you were also his mistress?”

“No one will think that!” Sarah insisted without much conviction.

“Your mother would.”

Sarah glared at him, furious because he was right. Her mother would be very upset, but it wouldn’t be the first time Sarah had disappointed her. “I long ago stopped trying to please my mother.”