Murder in Murray Hill (Gaslight Mystery) (5 page)

“I don’t want her involved either,” Frank tried, but Maeve was already on her feet.

“I’ll tell Mrs. Brandt to come down and copy the letter.”

She was gone long enough that he knew she’d told Sarah her plans, so he wouldn’t have a chance to convince her otherwise. Sarah came back alone.

“She’s right about using Mrs. Ellsworth’s address, you know,” Sarah said before she’d even sat down again.

“At least leave your mother out of it,” he said. “You can buy Maeve a dress.”

“She’ll need a hat and gloves and shoes. It might look funny if everything is brand-new, though.”

“Wouldn’t a girl buy new clothes to meet her future husband?” he asked in desperation.

“I suppose. We’ll think about it. My mother’s clothes would be too old for her anyway. Let me see what she wrote.”

In the end, Frank walked out of Sarah’s house with Maeve’s letter, copied over in Sarah’s handwriting, with Mrs. Ellsworth’s return address on it, and signed
Sarah Smith
.

Maybe, he thought as he walked off into the springtime dusk, Grace Livingston had come home today. He’d stop by her house on his way to the newspaper in the morning in hopes of finding her safe and sound.

H
ow exciting!” Mrs. Ellsworth said when Sarah had explained the plan to her over coffee the next morning. “I’m happy to help. That poor young woman. I can’t imagine how terrified her father must be. I’ll do whatever I can to bring her safely home.”

“I know you will, but you must be careful. We don’t want to put you in any danger.”

“Oh, pooh. What danger could I be in? No one is interested in an old woman like me.”

Sarah frowned. “We don’t know much about this fellow, but he could be violent, and if he came to your house looking for someone, he might not want to believe he had the wrong house.”

“He’s not going to come to my house. Someone might see him. He’ll meet Maeve in a park like he did all the others.”

“You’re probably right, but just in case, you shouldn’t open the door to anyone you don’t know, especially when you’re home alone.”

Mrs. Ellsworth smiled at that. “I’m hardly ever home at all! I’m usually here with you and the girls. Which reminds me: Would you and Mr. Malloy be willing to live in this neighborhood if you could find a suitable house?”

Sarah had no idea how to answer a question like that, especially because Mrs. Ellsworth was all too easily encouraged to interfere in their lives. “We really haven’t had time to think about where we want to live, I’m afraid.”

“You need to think about it, then. I’m sure he doesn’t want to remain engaged forever, and you’ll never fit him and his boy into this place. And what about his mother?”

Sarah suddenly felt a little dizzy. “His
mother
?”

Mrs. Ellsworth nodded knowingly. “Those Irish mothers never want to give up their sons, you know.”

Sarah
didn’t
know. She suddenly realized she knew very little indeed about Irish mothers. “I’ve never noticed Mrs. Malloy being overly fond of her son.”

“And what about her grandson? She’s been taking care of him since he was born. And didn’t you say she takes him to school every day?”

Fortunately, Maeve and Catherine chose that moment to join them in the kitchen. Mrs. Ellsworth had found some strawberries at the Gansevoort Market that morning, and she was going to help the girls make a strawberry shortcake.

Sarah was looking forward to eating the first of the summer fruits. Maybe Malloy would stop by later to enjoy it with them.

• • •

F
rank regretted stopping at the Livingston house the instant the front door opened. Mr. Livingston himself stood there in his shirtsleeves, looking as if he hadn’t slept all night. For a second, hope lighted his eyes, but then he saw Frank’s expression, and it died instantly, leaving behind the kind of black despair Frank had seen all too often in his career with the police.

“You haven’t found her.” He stood back so Frank could enter.

“And I don’t guess you’ve heard anything from her.”

“Not a word.” Livingston pushed the door shut and sighed.

“Can I speak with you privately?” Frank asked, glancing at the servants clustered anxiously at the end of the hall.

Livingston led him into the front parlor and closed the door behind them. “You’ve found out something.”

“I found out this Milo fellow places an ad in the
World
every week, and he’s met other women in the park where he probably met Grace.”

“Dear God.”

“Yes, well, that probably also means he lets them go when he’s finished with them.”

Livingston groaned and slapped both hands over his face. “My poor Grace.”

“I have a plan to catch him,” Frank explained before Livingston could fall into complete despair. “I’ve had a letter written to him that I hope will draw his interest, and when he arranges to meet with the young woman who wrote it, we’ll follow him back to wherever he takes her.”

Hope bloomed again in Livingston’s red-rimmed eyes. “Do you think it will work?”

“It has to. I’m going to take the letter over to the newspaper office this morning. Then we’ll have to wait for him to answer. That may take some time.”

“And Grace may come home before that.”

Frank thought that unlikely, but he said, “Yes, she might. But even if she does, we’ll go ahead with our plan. We need to stop him.”

“Yes, of course. We can’t let him continue to prey on innocent girls, can we?”

“No, we can’t. If you hear from Grace, send me word at Police Headquarters. I’ll let you know if we hear from this Milo.”

A few minutes later, Frank made his escape. He hated giving Mr. Livingston false hope, but whatever happened, he’d need time to grow accustomed to it. Even if Frank managed to rescue the girl, she’d never be the same. No woman ever was after something like that.

On that thought, he headed down the street toward the El. He’d drop the letter off at the newspaper, then stop by the park to see if anyone there this morning remembered seeing Grace Livingston.

Apparently, not many people got up early to place advertisements in the newspaper, Frank observed, walking straight up to the counter, where only one lone customer conferred with a clerk. The other clerks were working at the desks lined up behind the counter, and only one looked up when he rapped on the counter to get their attention.

“It’s the copper,” the clerk said, springing to his feet and hurrying over. The others followed, coming close so they wouldn’t miss a word. “Did you find him yet?”

“Is your boss in?”

“Mr. Snodgrass!” the clerk called, and the prim little man emerged from an office located back behind the desks. “That copper is back.”

Frank resisted the urge to grab the fellow by the lapels and teach him some manners.

“May I help you?” Snodgrass asked a little breathlessly. “Have you found him yet?”

“No, and I’ll never find him if this is how your people are going to act when he shows up.” Frank gestured to the gaggle of clerks unabashedly listening to every word.

“Get back to work,” Snodgrass snapped, sending them scurrying to their desks again. “I apologize, Mr. Malloy.”

“You’ll have to do more than that. A young woman’s life is at stake here, maybe more than one. If your clerks let Pendergast know somebody is looking for him, we’ll never see him or the girl again.”

“They won’t say a word to him, I promise you,” Snodgrass said, his face flushing with outrage.

“They don’t have to say a word. All they have to do is stare at him the way they’re staring at me right now.”

Snodgrass jerked his head around and caught them all hastily getting back to work. “I will make sure that—”

“Don’t bother. I want to speak to whoever is in charge.”

“I’m the editor of the advertising—”

“No, I mean who’s in charge of the whole paper. Is Pulitzer in?”

“Good heavens, you can’t expect to—”

“I can expect to have your job if you don’t let me speak to somebody in charge.” The threat was meaningless, but Snodgrass had no way of knowing that.

A few minutes and several whispered conversations later, Frank was escorted to a plush office on one of the upper floors of the enormous building. The office was so far from the presses in the basement, he couldn’t even feel their rumble anymore.

“Now what’s this they’re telling me about a woman being kidnapped?” the well-dressed man behind the huge, shiny desk demanded. It wasn’t Pulitzer, who was in Europe, but one of his underlings, Brisbane.

Frank told him how Milo Pendergast had used the newspaper to lure young women and how he had recently taken Grace Livingston.

“And what am I supposed to do about it? I run a newspaper. I can’t control what people do when they advertise.”

Frank sat back in the comfortable leather chair provided for visitors and gazed out the large windows at the city below. “Well, now, Mr. Brisbane, I was going to suggest that if you got your staff to cooperate, I’d give you an exclusive on the story of how we rescued an innocent woman from the clutches of a fiend. But now I’m thinking you might not want anybody to know this Pendergast used your newspaper to kidnap young females.”

“I most certainly would not! People would stop advertising with us altogether!”

Frank nodded, hoping he looked thoughtful and not as angry as he felt. “I’m also thinking that every other newspaper in town
would
want that story. They’d probably run it on the front page, how this evil seducer of women used the
World
to trap his helpless victims but their editors wouldn’t lift a finger to help catch him.”

Brisbane turned an unbecoming shade of purple. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I know lots of reporters, Mr. Brisbane. In fact, they camp out in the building right across from Police Headquarters every day. I could just shout out the window, and they’d all come running.”

For a minute, Frank thought Brisbane might be choking on his own bile, but when he could speak again, he said, “What do you want me to do?”

Less than an hour later, Frank left the imposing
World
building, confident that several of Brisbane’s most trusted editors would be spending their days in the advertising department to make sure no one noticed Milo Pendergast when he finally showed up to collect his mail. As a bonus, he had also extracted a promise that Maeve’s letter would be the only one found in Pendergast’s box whenever he did finally show up.

Now all he had to do was wait.

• • •

F
rank had no luck in the park, so he returned to Police Headquarters to report in and find something else to fill his time while he waited for Milo Pendergast to pick up his mail.

Tom, the doorman at Police Headquarters, gave Frank an uncharacteristically stiff smile in response to his “Good morning.”

“Is something wrong?” Frank asked.

“Oh no, sir. Everything’s fine.” But he didn’t quite meet Frank’s eye.

Still puzzled by Tom’s odd behavior, Frank strolled into the lobby. Ignoring the newly arrested felons on the benches lining the walls, he nodded to the desk sergeant and headed for the stairs.

“Malloy!”

Frank turned back to the desk sergeant. “What is it?”

“Chief O’Brien wants to see you.”

This was not an unusual request, but suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and the very air in the room seemed to quiver with expectation. Frank glanced around and realized every cop within sight had stopped what he was doing to stare at him.

They knew.

Slowly, as eagerly as he would have climbed the scaffold steps to his own execution, Frank climbed the stairs to the second floor and the office of the chief of detectives. The cops he passed paused to watch him, their eyes guarded and mistrustful.

They all knew.

Finally, he reached the second floor. He knocked on O’Brien’s door, and a voice impatiently bid him enter.

O’Brien looked up from the piles of papers on his desk and frowned. “Shut the door.”

Frank did.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what, sir?”

O’Brien was a mild-mannered man, God-fearing and normally patient, but not today. “Don’t act stupid, Malloy. You’re many things, but you’re not stupid. The money. When were you going to tell me you’re a millionaire?”

“I’m not a millionaire yet.” Without waiting to be asked, he gingerly sat down on the straight-backed chair in front of O’Brien’s desk.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I haven’t seen a cent of the money yet.”

“But you’re going to. You’re going to be richer than a Vanderbilt, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

O’Brien sighed in exasperation. “But you’re going to be rich enough that you don’t need to work here anymore.”

This is what Frank had been dreading. “I suppose.”

“And I suppose that you won’t be
able
to work here anymore, not another day. Not with every cop on the force envying you and hating you. You see that, don’t you?”

He did, of course. He probably would’ve felt the same way about anybody who suddenly found himself almost as rich as a Vanderbilt through no fault of his own. “How did you find out?”

“Is it supposed to be a secret?”

“No, but it’s not exactly public knowledge either.”

“It will be soon. Some reporter got wind of it. He’s going to break the story.”

Frank thought about the way he’d just strong-armed the editor at the
World
. Still, that would be fast work. “Which newspaper?”

“The
Sun
.”

But the
World
would pick it up and sensationalize it even more after the way he’d treated Brisbane an hour ago. That reminded him of Grace Livingston. “I’m in the middle of a case. A young woman is missing . . .”

“Tell whoever’s around to pick it up. Here’s your pay packet, although I don’t guess you really need it now, do you?”

Frank took the envelope, thinking how he’d never imagined leaving the police force like this. He’d expected to retire as an old man and get a gold watch, and his friends would have a party for him and tell stories about the cases he’d solved and . . .

“I’m sorry to lose you, Malloy. You’re a good man, but millionaires aren’t cops.”

“Thank you, sir.”

A small crowd had gathered outside O’Brien’s office, but they instantly dispersed when Frank stepped out. Nobody made eye contact with him. He walked down the hall to the detectives’ room. Several men were lounging there, feet up on the desk and cigars smoldering in their teeth while they lazily traded lies.

All conversation ceased abruptly when Frank came in. Their hostile gazes told him they’d already begun to hate him. “I’ve got a case. A missing girl. Who wants it?”

For a long moment, nobody moved. Frank thought he was going to have to get mad, but finally, Bill Broghan dropped his feet to the floor and said, “I’ll take it.”

Frank wouldn’t have picked the old drunk to handle
any
of his cases, but Broghan was probably the only volunteer he was going to get. Frank pulled the letters and clippings out of his pocket and placed them on the desk in front of Broghan. As he started to explain what he knew and what he had discovered, the rest of the detectives silently stood up and filed out. Frank ignored their cold stares, and Broghan looked after them with an ironic smile.