“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy with the New York City Police,” Frank replied, “and only Giddings can help me.”

“Then you have wasted your time coming here, Mr. Malloy. Mr. Giddings is no longer employed here.”

6

FRANK DIGESTED THIS INFORMATION. GIDDINGS HAD given no indication of this earlier today. He had, however, offered his business card without protest, probably because he knew Frank wouldn’t find him here. “That’s interesting,” Frank said, betraying no reaction. “I don’t suppose you know where he is now employed.”

“I do not believe he is employed anywhere,” Mr. Smythe said.

And if he was, Smythe wouldn’t have told a policeman, Frank thought, but he said, “I need to speak with him on official business. Even though he no longer works for you, maybe you could help me locate him.”

“I am not in the habit of assisting the police,” he said without the slightest compunction.

“That’s a shame,” Frank replied, not offended in the least. “You see, I need to speak to Giddings about the murder of a young woman who may have been carrying his child. If he’s arrested for the crime, I might be annoyed enough by your lack of cooperation to make sure the newspapers mention the name of your law firm as his employer.”

Smythe’s bloodless lips tightened and a slight flush rose on his flabby, white neck, but he betrayed no other outward sign of his true emotions. “You are an expert negotiator,” he allowed grudgingly. “You should have been an attorney.”

Frank couldn’t help a small grin. “My mother wanted me to have a respectable profession.” Since police work was considered completely disreputable by people like Smythe, Frank wouldn’t have been surprised to be summarily thrown out.

But Smythe merely nodded his acknowledgment of the barb. “Wilbur will help you find Giddings’s address.”

He must have given some sort of silent signal, because at that moment the clerk knocked and came into the office, a questioning look on his young face.

“Please provide this gentleman with Mr. Giddings’s home address, Wilbur. Good day to you, sir,” he said, dismissing Frank.

“I’ll remember your assistance,” Frank promised.

“I’ll be happier if you forget you ever heard my name,” Smythe said and went back to reading the papers on his large, shiny desk.

Wilbur escorted Frank back to the front office and bid him be seated while he found the information Frank wanted. A few moments later, the boy handed him a sheet of expensive, watermarked paper bearing the neatly printed address of a house in the genteel neighborhood near Gramercy Park.

Frank carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket, taking his time as Wilbur continued to wait apprehensively. Maybe he was afraid Frank would arrest him or something. He felt like shouting “Boo!” just to see the fellow jump, but somehow resisted the urge.

Out on the street, Frank checked his watch and found that he still had time to stop by the Giddings home before going to his own flat for supper. Giddings’s house was on his way home anyway.

Most nights he worked too late to see his son before the boy went to sleep. For too long, he’d used his job as an excuse to completely avoid the anguish that seeing Brian caused him. Not only was the boy’s existence a constant reminder of the mother who had died giving him life, but his pitiful condition was a painful affront, proving how helpless Frank was at the hands of fate.

Sarah Brandt and her meddling had changed all that. Everyone else had branded Brian a feeble-minded cripple, but she saw what no one had ever noticed. She’d shamed Frank into taking the boy to see a surgeon who had operated on his club foot, with a promise Brian would be able to walk when he was finished. Then she had seen the intelligence glimmering in Brian’s bright blue eyes when no one else had bothered to look for it, and she had realized that his mind was fine, except for being locked inside of a body that couldn’t hear. Soon Frank would make a choice about what kind of training he was going to get for the boy, but he’d decided to wait until his foot was healed before making any more changes in Brian’s young life.

Of course, he might have just been using that as an excuse. If the truth were told, it wasn’t the boy he was so worried about upsetting. His mother was difficult in the best of times, and now she was frightened. She wanted what was right for Brian, of course, but she didn’t agree with Frank about what that might be, especially if it meant Frank didn’t need her to care for the child any longer. Nothing he said made much difference, so arguing with her was frustrating and annoying. But he’d tolerate her tonight for the boy’s sake. In some ways it was a blessing Brian couldn’t hear.

Frank took the Third Avenue Elevated Train downtown and got off at Twenty-Third Street. He couldn’t help noticing how different this area was from the neighborhood where he lived, just a few blocks south. The city was like that, changing character almost from street to street, the comfortable middle-class living cheek-by-jowl with the desperately poor and the obscenely rich. As bad as things were in the city, with people being killed every day for a few coins and homeless children starving or freezing in every nook and cranny, he wondered that it wasn’t worse. If the poor ever decided to rise up, their sheer numbers would overpower those who considered themselves the powerful ones in the city.

If that ever did happen, which side would Frank be on? he wondered as he found the Giddings home in the middle of a row of neatly kept homes. Unlike similar homes located below Washington Square, such as the one where Anna Blake had lived, all these houses still held only single families. No boardinghouses or brothels here. Giddings had done quite well for himself at Smythe, Masterson and Judd. Until recently, that is.

Frank climbed the front steps, noticing they hadn’t been swept in a day or two. Giddings’s servants were poorly disciplined. Frank made a loud clatter with the brass knocker and waited. Although he’d made enough noise to rouse the dead, no one responded the first time or even the second time he pounded the metal against the shiny plate. Finally, he saw one of the front curtains move as someone looked out, and he gave the knocker another determined try, hoping to convince whoever was inside that he wasn’t leaving until someone answered the door.

At last the door opened a crack, just enough for someone to peer out.

“Who are you and what do you want?” a woman asked.

If this was a maid, she was poorly trained. “I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy from the New York City Police, and I’m here to see Gilbert Giddings.”

His tone told her he would force his way inside if necessary, and the door opened a bit farther. Now he could see the woman, and she wasn’t a maid. Her clothes were simple, a white shirtwaist and black skirt, which meant she could have been the housekeeper, except Frank knew she wasn’t. She held herself too stiffly, and her manner was too polished, too commanding, for her to have been a servant.

“Come inside before my neighbors hear you,” she said sharply and stepped aside to admit him.

The moment he entered the house, he knew something wasn’t right. It had a cold, empty feeling. A glance around told him why-it really was empty, or very nearly. The entry had no furniture or carpet, and when he glanced into the front parlor, he saw that it, too, had been cleared. It wasn’t the newness of a house recently inhabited, either. He could see where carpets had lain on the floors and bright places on the wallpaper where pictures had once hung.

“Mr. Giddings isn’t here,” she said.

Frank turned his attention back to the woman. “Are you Mrs. Giddings?” he guessed.