“Forgive me, Letitia. I forgot myself,” he said, finally giving her the apology she was demanding. “It’s just… You look so well, it’s hard to remember you are so lately recovered from your confinement.”

“I’m not recovered,” Letitia informed him. “In fact, I’m surprised Mrs. Brandt isn’t taking me to task for being up at all.” She gave Sarah a challenging look, which Sarah returned with a smile. She was still standing by the parlor door, waiting for a maid to come and take the baby.

Sarah thought of several things she could say in reply, but all of them would have gotten her banned for life from the Blackwell home. “I’m sure you are the best judge of your ability to entertain visitors,” she demurred.

This pleased Letitia for some reason. “Yes, you’re right,” she said, and turned back to Potter. “Thank you so much for coming to see me, Amos, but I’m afraid I’m growing quite tired and will have to bid you good afternoon.”

Potter’s face fell. “I… But I need to speak with you privately,” he reminded her almost desperately, “about matters of grave importance.”

“Not today. I couldn’t possibly deal with anything important. Could I, Mrs. Brandt?” she asked in challenge.

“Certainly not,” Sarah replied obligingly. She still needed access to the Blackwell home if she was going to find the killer, and Letitia’s favor was the only entrée she had.

“There, you see? I hope you will call again in a few days,” Letitia said to Potter, who could no longer ignore the fact that he was being dismissed.

He got reluctantly to his feet, then looked suspiciously at Dudley. “Mr. Dudley, perhaps we can share a cab,” he suggested.

“Please allow me to say my private farewells to my dear friend Mr. Dudley,” Letitia said. “And he doesn’t need a cab, in any case. He lives very close by.”

“How convenient for you,” Potter said coldly, then turned to Letitia and tried to muster up some charm. “I’m so glad to see you,” he said, bowing over her and reaching out, expecting her to give him her hand.

She did so, but with little enthusiasm, and she let him hold it only for an instant. He was visibly disappointed.

“I’m afraid my business cannot wait much longer. I will call on you again tomorrow,” he said, brooking no argument.

Letitia did not reply. Everyone knew she didn’t have to receive him if she didn’t want to, so he could call all he wanted. “Good afternoon, Amos.”

His anger evident in every move, Potter nodded stiffly to Dudley, then turned and marched to the parlor door. Just as he reached it, it opened to admit the maid, who had finally come in response to the bell. She seemed a little breathless.

“Peggy, see Mr. Potter out,” Letitia said. “Mrs. Brandt, would you take the baby back to his nurse?”

Sarah pretended not to hear the request. Instead, she handed the child to the unsuspecting maid, who was too startled to refuse him. “You may take him back to his nurse,” she told the girl, then shooed both her and Potter out and closed the doors decisively behind them.

She turned to see Letitia’s outraged expression. Dudley was simply looking confused.

“I’m afraid I must speak with both of you immediately,” Sarah explained by way of excuse for her outrageous behavior, “and don’t bother dismissing me. I’m not as easily intimidated as Mr. Potter, and besides, you need to hear what I have to say, whether you want to or not.”

13

FRANK FOUND MAURICE SYMINGTON IN HIS WELL-APPOINTED office in a building on upper Fifth Avenue. According to Frank’s sources, Symington owned property all over the city and made his living by collecting rents and spending as little on maintaining his buildings as possible. Most of his property was located in the poorer sections of the city, so the tenants didn’t complain much about their living conditions for fear of being evicted.

Anticipating the possibility that Symington would refuse to see him, Frank told the man’s secretary that he had some news about Dr. Blackwell’s death. Even so, Symington kept him cooling his heels for almost an hour, but finally the young man who handled the clerical work in the office invited him into the inner sanctum.

The office was large and meant to intimidate. The wall behind Symington’s desk was a huge window providing a panoramic view of the city below and the sky above. Symington looked up impatiently from a stack of papers on his enormous mahogany desk.

“What is it?” he demanded. “And make it quick. I don’t have time for any nonsense.”

“Calvin Brown is dead,” Frank said baldly, still standing because he hadn’t been invited to sit.

Symington’s gaze had returned to his papers, as if assuming Frank could have nothing interesting enough to say to distract him, but this time when he looked up, Frank had his undivided attention. “Who did you say?”

“Edmund Blackwell’s son,” Frank said politely. Symington knew perfectly well who he was talking about. “I know you were trying to be discreet when you pretended not to know who he was the other day with Potter, but Calvin told me he’d met with you. He said the only way he got in to see his father was because you intervened for him.”

Symington was a careful man. He took a moment to weigh his options. He could, of course, have called Frank a liar and ordered him from the room. He could have feigned ignorance and demanded an explanation. But he was too wise to take any chances. He understood that a scandal like this, involving the betrayed daughter of a wealthy and powerful man, would sell a lot of newspapers. The respectable papers wouldn’t publish it, of course, but there were many papers in the city that made no pretense to respectability. They would pay a large sum of money for the information Frank had, and Symington had no reason to trust Frank’s discretion.

“Please sit down, Mr. Malloy,” Symington said, instantly reasonable.

Frank did as he was told, noticing that the chair here was much more comfortable and expensive than the one in Blackwell’s former office. This one was leather and as soft as butter. A real man’s chair.

“How did the boy die?” Symington asked when Frank was settled.

“Arsenic. Somebody put it in a bottle of sarsaparilla.”

“Somebody?” he asked, not missing the implication.

“It could have been a suicide.”

Symington thought this over. “You don’t believe it was,” he guessed.

“I’m paid to be skeptical.”

“Do you know the entire story?” Symington asked, folding his hands on the desktop. “About the boy, I mean.”

Now it was Frank’s turn to be cautious. He certainly didn’t want to be the one telling Symington something he didn’t know about his own daughter. “I know that Blackwell used to be Eddie Brown and that Eddie Brown had a wife he’d neglected to divorce and three children he’d deserted in Virginia. I know Calvin had traced his father here and that they’d met. Calvin said Blackwell had promised to give him some money and start supporting the Brown family again. I only have his word on that, since Blackwell wasn’t around to confirm anything. Oh, and Amos Potter said Blackwell had gotten some money together and planned to meet with Calvin on the afternoon he was killed. The boy claimed nobody answered the door that day, so he never even saw his father, but nobody’s seen the money since, either.”

“Potter believes the boy killed Edmund. If he did, he could have killed himself out of remorse,” Symington suggested.

“That would make everything neat and tidy,” Frank pointed out. “But if he did kill Blackwell, why didn’t he take the money and leave town? Why stay around and put himself in the way of being caught? If Calvin didn’t kill his father-and that’s a pretty unnatural thing to do, no matter what your old man did to you-then somebody’s gotten away with murdering two men.”