Murder on Washington Square (2 page)

As always when she was here, Sarah’s gaze instinctively found the house where she had been raised. It sat on the east side of the Square, perched like a middle-aged woman who still bore signs of her previous beauty but who was beginning to show the inevitable effects of age. Sarah knew the place had become a boardinghouse after her parents sold it. The Deckers had moved uptown to escape the rising tide of immigrants whose lodgings were encroaching the Square on the south side. But it would always be her home, and she felt a twinge of sadness for happy times now gone forever.

Nelson Ellsworth sat stiffly on a bench near the giant elm tree that was said to have been used as a hanging tree in the early part of the century. Beyond him, across the expanse of green grass, the large fountain sparkled in the fading sunlight. Put there to provide water for thirsty horses, it also provided an oasis of beauty amid the harsh brick and mortar of the city. Sarah’s bedroom window had looked out on the fountain, and she’d spent many hours as a young girl watching it.

Nelson rose as soon as he saw Sarah. He wore a tailored suit that was still neat even after a day of work, and his shirt and tie were immaculate. Still a young man, he was already beginning to stoop from hours spent over a ledger, and his face was pale from too little sun. Like the boy who had brought her the note, he seemed anxious, but he was too well mannered to bounce from one foot to the other or to rush to meet her. Yet even from yards away, she could sense his tension.

“Mrs. Brandt,” he said when she was close enough that he didn’t have to shout. “How good of you to come.”

“I must admit I was intrigued by your note,” she said, giving him her hand when she reached him.

“I’m sure you were more than intrigued,” he said, his face fixed in a smile that did not reach his eyes. He took out his handkerchief and dusted the bench for her to sit. “I’m sorry I had to ask you to keep this meeting a secret from my mother,” he said when they were settled.

“Your mother doesn’t have to know everything I do, Mr. Ellsworth,” Sarah told him with a smile.

“I’m sure she would disagree with that sentiment,” Nelson said, returning her smile ruefully. Mrs. Ellsworth considered it her duty to learn the intimate details of everyone else’s lives, and she devoted herself to the task.

“Now you must tell me what delicate matter has driven you to seek advice from a midwife,” Sarah said encouragingly.

His smile vanished instantly. “This is most embarrassing,” he said. “And please believe that I would not have involved you in this matter if I had any other resources, but—”

“Please don’t apologize,” Sarah said, hoping to relieve some of his social agonies. “I’m flattered that you felt you could safely confide in me. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the situation—and believe me, you needn’t stand on ceremony.”

Some of the stiffness went out of him, and he rubbed his forehead, as if it ached. “All right, although I’m not certain exactly where to begin.”

“This involves a young lady, I gather?”

Nelson nodded miserably.

“Then tell me how you met her.”

He drew his breath and let it out in a long sigh of resignation. “She came into the bank one day. She was so very frightened and obviously desperate. She wanted to make a loan, and she asked for the manager. He wasn’t in, so the clerk sent her to me. We don’t make loans to young women with no means of support,” he told Sarah, as if he were offering an excuse.

“No one would expect you to,” Sarah assured him. “But I’m sure you don’t make loans to young women under any circumstances.”

This was so obvious, it didn’t merit a response. “Her mother was ill and needed medical care,” he continued, “but they hardly had enough to live on. She was hoping to borrow some money from the bank, but I had to disappoint her. She was very upset. She was afraid her mother was going to die.”

“That
would
be upsetting,” Sarah agreed, still wondering how this encounter led to Nelson needing the services of a midwife.

“The bank couldn’t lend her the money, of course, but I . . . Well, I couldn’t just turn her away, could I? There’s no telling what a young woman will do if she feels desperate enough. She even hinted that she . . . that she might have to . . . to . . .”

“To compromise her virtue?” Sarah supplied helpfully.

“Yes, yes,” Nelson agreed gratefully. “She was so innocent and sweet, I couldn’t bear the thought of her degrading herself. She only needed a hundred dollars, so I . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked away in embarrassment.

Sarah’s imagination conjured several possible things Nelson could have done, but she doubted he was capable of any of them, although the fact that he needed her services proved she was at least partially mistaken in his character. “You didn’t take money from the bank, did you?” she asked, offering the only criminal possibility she could think of.

“Oh, no!” Nelson cried, horrified at the thought. “Nothing like that! I . . . I loaned her the money myself from my own funds.”

Although he had said she “only” needed a hundred dollars, that was still a lot of money. More than three months’ wages for a laborer. “You were very generous, especially when she probably had no hope of being able to repay you.” Unless, of course, she became Nelson’s mistress. Perhaps that would explain why Mrs. Ellsworth thought Nelson had been working such late hours.

“I had no illusions she would repay me, Mrs. Brandt. I was giving her the money out of Christian charity.” Nelson’s pale blue eyes were tortured, and his smooth banker’s hands made a pleading gesture as he silently begged for her understanding.

Sarah was still not certain what he wanted from her, but she was sure it wasn’t her absolution. “That was very noble of you,” she offered.

He recoiled as if stung.
“Noble!”
he scoffed. “I assure you, I was far from noble!”

“Are you saying you took advantage of her?” Sarah asked, still unable to believe him capable of such a thing.

“No, not . . . not then, at least. In fact, I never expected to see her again. As I said, I did not believe her capable of repaying the loan, so what other reason would she have for returning except to humiliate herself? Then one evening a week or so later, she was waiting for me on the street when I came out of the bank. She was even more distraught than before. Her mother had died, you see and . . .”

“And she needed more money,” Sarah guessed.

“Oh, no, that’s not why she came,” Nelson insisted. “She just wanted to tell me that she couldn’t pay the rent in her rooming house anymore, and she was being evicted, so she wouldn’t be able to repay my loan for a while. She didn’t know where to tell me to find her, since she didn’t know where she would be living and . . .”

“And you gave her more money.” This time Sarah wasn’t guessing.

“She didn’t ask for it,” Nelson assured her. “She didn’t even want to take it, but she was penniless. I couldn’t just let her be thrown out into the streets, could I? You know what happens to girls like that when they don’t have any money and no one to take care of them.”

Sarah knew only too well. “How much did you give her this time?”

“Not much. Just enough to pay her rent and keep her for a month. She was going to find a job, so she could support herself.”

This would be highly unlikely. Jobs for young women paid so poorly that the girls could hardly afford to give their own families a pittance for their board, much less provide their own independent accommodations. And a girl who’d lived a sheltered life in a respectable home wouldn’t last a day in one of the sweatshops. “I don’t suppose she was able to find a suitable position,” Sarah said.

“I had no idea it was so difficult for young women to earn a living!” Nelson said, outraged. “Poor Anna looked everywhere. I called on her several times to make sure she was all right, but she was becoming more and more disheartened. I offered to pay her expenses for another month, but that only distressed her more. I . . . I . . .” His pale face flushed, and he could no longer meet her eye.

“Am I to assume you gave her more than comfort?” Sarah asked as discreetly as she could.

“I have no excuse,” Nelson said, covering his face with both hands. “What I did was despicable. To take advantage of someone so helpless and unprotected . . .”

Sarah would reserve judgment until she’d heard the entire story. “There’s no use flogging yourself over it now. I’m going to assume that your indiscretion has resulted in this Anna being with child. Am I correct?”

“That’s what she believes,” Nelson confirmed bleakly. “I have offered to marry her. It is the least I can do, but . . .”

Sarah thought she saw the problem. “I’m sure you want to do the right thing, but marriage is a huge commitment, particularly with someone you hardly know. If there was no child after all, then it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I’m not trying to escape my responsibilities, Mrs. Brandt,” Nelson quickly assured her. “I would feel obligated to marry Anna even if there is no child. I dishonored her, after all. But she . . . she refuses to consider it!”

This was not what Sarah had expected to hear. “Why won’t she marry you?” she asked in amazement.

“She said she doesn’t want to disgrace me. You see, she assumed from the beginning that I was married, because of my responsible position at the bank and everything. She was shocked to learn I wasn’t, but even then, she said everyone would know why I’d married her, and I would be pitied and tied to a woman who would be of no assistance to me in my ambitions. I won’t deny those things are important to me, Mrs. Brandt, but I can’t—”

“What does she want from you, then?” Sarah asked, tired of his justifications and trying to make sense of the whole thing.

He looked ashamed to have to say the words aloud. “She wants a sum of money so she can go away somewhere and raise the child by herself.”

At last Sarah was beginning to understand. “How much did she want?”

“A . . . a thousand dollars should be sufficient.” He would not look her in the eye. “Invested properly, it could bring—”

“Do you even
have
a thousand dollars?” Sarah asked in amazement.

“No, but—”

“And where does she propose you get it?”

This time the color staining his face was more than embarrassment. “She doesn’t know a lot about business, Mrs. Brandt, and she believes I am very successful. I work in a bank, you see, and many people believe bankers own the money in their institutions. I’m sure she has no idea that I couldn’t simply write a check for that amount.”

Sarah no longer believed this Anna was the innocent Nelson thought her. Anna’s refusal to marry him made no sense at all for a respectable girl, and Sarah was growing more concerned for Nelson every moment. “You still haven’t told me why you invited me to meet you,” she reminded him.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought it would be clear. I was hoping . . . that is, if you would be so kind, could you speak with Anna? She may not even be . . . uh . . . I mean, if there is no child, if that is the case, she would be under no obligation to marry me. But if she is, then . . . Well, I would certainly take care of her and the child, but I couldn’t possibly send her away.”

He looked so distressed that Sarah had an urge to hug him. Or slap him. How could he have gotten himself into such a predicament? She tried to imagine what his mother would say to all this. Mrs. Ellsworth had confided in Sarah many times that she wished her son would marry and have a family. She dearly wanted grandchildren to spoil before she died. Would she mind that the first of them had been conceived in such a shameful way? And what about this Anna herself? What kind of person was she to have gotten herself into such a predicament? She might be truly innocent as Nelson believed, but Sarah seriously doubted it. Most women in her position would be pathetically grateful for an offer of marriage, and many would even plead for it. Some women had been known to marry men who had raped them just to preserve their good name. In fact, men less honorable than Nelson sometimes used rape to force otherwise unwilling women to marry them. This knowledge made Sarah doubly skeptical of Anna’s protests.

Although she wasn’t certain how much assistance she could offer to either of them, she couldn’t refuse Nelson’s request. She owed it to his mother. “Where can I find Anna to speak with her?” she asked with resignation.

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, I shall be forever in your debt!” Nelson exclaimed.

“Don’t thank me until I’ve actually done something,” she warned, knowing full well that settling this matter might take far more than her own intervention. “Where is she?”

“Her rooming house is only a block away. I can take you there right now.”

“Is she expecting you?”

Nelson flushed again. “Yes, I . . . that is, I often stop on my way home from work to see how she’s doing.”

Sarah refrained from complimenting him on his solicitousness. His visits to Anna were probably amply rewarded. “Let’s not keep her waiting then,” Sarah said, rising from the bench.

They walked toward the south side of the Square, where the dwellings were still small and wooden. The contrast between them and the mansions sitting on the north side was stark, clearly illustrating how the Square seemed to serve as a dividing line of sorts between rich and poor. Some of these smaller buildings dated back a hundred years, including the shack said to have sheltered Daniel Megie, the hangman who had used the famous hanging tree at the Northwest corner of the Square. Behind these buildings the streets stretched away toward the tip of Manhattan Island. Houses that had formerly been family homes were now boarding houses and tenements and brothels. Sarah reserved her comments and even her speculations until Nelson stopped before one of the smaller homes on Thompson Street.

“This is where she lives,” Nelson said. “She’s been fortunate to have such understanding landlords.”