Murder on Washington Square (24 page)

“Something like that,” Prescott said, smiling a crooked, pained grin.

“All right then, who stabbed you?”

“A woman.”

Frank grinned back and shook his head. “They get real upset if you don’t pay them,” he teased.

Prescott might have been blushing, but he tried not to let on. “No, it wasn’t
that
. She . . . she sent a message. Said . . . she knew something . . . about Anna Blake.”

Frank raised his eyebrows in surprise. “This was about Anna Blake’s murder?”

“Why do you think . . . I was worried about . . . the story?” he asked.

“Let me get this straight. Some woman sent you a message claiming she had information about Anna Blake’s death?”

Prescott nodded weakly.

“And she wanted to meet you in an alley?”

“No, in the Square.”

“Washington Square?”

He nodded again. “By the fountain.”

“Then how did you end up stabbed in an alley?”

“She wanted . . . privacy . . . in the mews.”

“You followed her into the stables? The ones behind the houses on Washington Square?”

Prescott nodded.

“And what did she tell you?”

“Nothing . . . she just . . . stabbed me.”

This was making no sense. “What did she look like?”

“Didn’t see . . . her face. Dark . . . wore a cloak . . . with a hood . . .”

“But you’re sure it was a woman?”

“Sounded like . . . Strong, though.”

“She was strong? How do you know?”

“Pushed me . . . against the wall. Held my arm . . .” He lifted his right arm and pulled back the sleeve of his nightshirt. Frank saw the faint shading of forming bruises.

If a woman had done this, she was strong indeed. But Frank had another theory that made more sense. “Could it have been a man dressed as a woman? How tall was she?”

Prescott frowned as he considered Frank’s suggestion and held up a hand even with his mouth. Prescott was tall, so the height he indicated could have described Frank. Or Gilbert Giddings and his son. But why would either of the Giddings want to kill Webster Prescott? And were they likely to dress up like a woman to do it?

Frank found a chair and brought it over to Prescott’s bedside. When he was seated, he pulled out his notebook and a pencil. “You have to tell me everything you’ve found out about Anna Blake. Don’t worry,” he added at Prescott’s scowl. “I won’t sell the story to the
Herald
.”

“Or the
Sun
,” Prescott added.

“Or anybody else,” Frank said. “Now start talking.”

 

Sarah had just returned from the Gansevoort Market, having shopped both for herself and for the Ellsworths, when she found a message from Malloy stuck in her front door. She struggled inside, trying to simultaneously unlock the door, open it, read the note, and not drop her purchases.

He was, he explained, sending this message with a beat cop in hopes that she would receive it as soon as possible. He told her Webster Prescott had been stabbed, possibly by the same person who had killed Anna Blake! He was asking her to go over to Bellevue and make sure the boy was receiving proper care. Malloy, it seemed, had a sentimental streak. Or else he thought Prescott was too valuable a witness to lose.

When she’d made her way into the kitchen and set her market basket down, she reread the note again, looking for some sort of indication that Malloy knew who the killer was and was going to arrest him. But she found not a single clue. Wasn’t that just like a man, not to tell her the most important thing?

She hastily put away her own purchases and dropped off the things she’d bought for the Ellsworths. Mrs. Ellsworth obviously wanted her to stay and visit for a while, but when Sarah told her where she was going in such a hurry, the old woman sent her off with a blessing. And a rabbit’s foot for good luck. Sarah decided she’d give it to Webster Prescott, since he’d need it far more than she.

Many of the people in the hospital knew Sarah and remembered her husband, Tom, so it took her a while to make her way to the ward where Prescott lay. Fortunately, her status also gave her the ability to inquire about his condition and receive an honest answer.

The news wasn’t very good. The knife had missed his heart but had damaged his lung. He’d lost a lot of blood and was very weak. If he got a bad infection, he probably wouldn’t make it, and he could hardly avoid getting an infection with a wound like that. And of course, pneumonia was always a possibility, too. On the other hand, he was young and healthy, which meant he stood a small chance.

Sarah found him sleeping, and when she touched his forehead, she detected a slight fever.

“Could I have some water?” he asked hoarsely, without opening his eyes.

Sarah got him a glass of water and held it to his lips while he drank. Then he fell back on the pillow, exhausted. But he did open his eyes to thank her, and his puzzled frown told her he couldn’t quite remember who she was. “You’re not a nurse,” he said.

She didn’t like how weak his voice was. “No, I’m Sarah Brandt. I live next door to Nelson Ellsworth.”

A healthy reporter would have a dozen questions to ask her—who’d told her he was here, why had she come, what did she want?—but he could only manage a weak, “Why?”

“Mr. Malloy asked me to check on you. I also happen to be a nurse. He wants to make sure you’re getting good care,” she explained, picking up his wrist and checking his pulse. It seemed very fast. “Are you having a lot of pain?”

His young face twisted. “They gave me morphine, but . . .”

“Do you mind if I check your bandage?”

She didn’t wait for a reply. With skilled hands, she adjusted the blanket and raised his nightshirt while still preserving his modesty. The bandage was clean and dry except for a small, fresh bloodstain. Every instinct demanded that she offer to take him home where he wouldn’t be exposed to the contagion of the other patients and where she could give him constant care. She didn’t, though, because she knew the trip across town would be too much for him in his weakened condition.

“Can you take a deep breath?” she asked, and he merely gazed at her incredulously. “I’ll make sure the nurses take special care of you,” she told him, “but you must do everything they tell you, even if it hurts. Otherwise, you’ll die.”

What little color he had left leached away at that. “I don’t want to die.”

“That’s good,” Sarah said briskly. “Then be as determined to live as you were to get the story on Nelson Ellsworth. Do you have any family in the city? Someone who can visit you and bring you food?”

“They feed me here,” he said, confused.

“You’ll need better food than you can get here, and someone to watch over you all the time. You should have beef broth to build your blood. Is there someone who would bring it for you?”

“I have an aunt in Brooklyn,” he said doubtfully.

Brooklyn had once been practically another country, accessible only by water, but now that they’d opened that amazing bridge, people traveled from there to the city and back every day. “If you give me her address, I’ll send her a message and tell her what you’ll need.”

Sarah didn’t stop to wonder why she was being so considerate of a man who had tried to ruin Nelson Ellsworth’s life. From his point of view, of course, he’d done Nelson a good turn by vilifying Anna Blake. And he was just doing his job, after all. Never mind that doing his job meant making other people’s lives miserable. None of that really mattered, however, because Malloy had asked her to help him. If Malloy thought he was worth saving, she had no reason to question his judgment. The only thing she questioned was his sudden concern for a man whose profession he despised, but he’d tell her why the next time she saw him. She’d see to that.

Overriding Prescott’s feeble protests, Sarah gave him a cool sponge bath in an effort to help his body fight the fever that was building. Then she discussed his care with the nurses on the ward. They were overworked as it was and had no time to give special care to any of their patients, but Sarah extracted promises to keep a close watch on him and to let her know if he got worse.

Only when she’d done all she could for the moment did she suddenly realize that Malloy’s concern for the boy might not be so generous after all. “Mr. Malloy said that your stabbing might have something to do with Anna Blake’s death,” she tried.

When he struggled to reply, she had a pang of guilt over bothering him again, but then she remembered the Ellsworths and how their lives had been practically destroyed by all of this.

“A woman . . .” he said very faintly, “Said she knew something . . . she stabbed me. I think . . .”

Sarah gaped at him, trying to make sense of it. “A woman who claimed to know something about Anna’s death stabbed you?”

He nodded.

This didn’t make any sense. Why would someone want to stab a newspaper reporter? She’d been very angry with a lot of them the past few days, but to actually lure one to his death and shove a knife into his side was something else entirely. And a woman, too. How very unusual. This person had wanted Webster Prescott in particular to die. But why? And why him of all the reporters working on the case?

“Did you get some new information recently? Something that hasn’t been in the newspaper yet?” she asked.

“Anna’s friend . . . at the theater . . .”

“What theater?”

“Tivoli,” he said.

“What’s her name?”

“Irene.”

“What did she tell you?” Sarah asked, leaning over, willing him to answer her. But he was slipping away. The latest dose of morphine was finally doing its job.

“Actress,” he muttered before the drug overcame him.

Sarah sighed in frustration. At least she knew he’d been talking to an actress named Irene at the Tivoli Theater. Did Malloy know? Had he gotten all the information from Prescott, and was he even now questioning this Irene? She’d have to track down Malloy immediately and find out. Or else find Irene herself, just in case he wasn’t.

Finding Malloy was never easy, and going to Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street in search of him was far from pleasant. On the other hand, she could be fairly certain that an actress would be at the theater where she worked this evening. The hospital would probably let her use a telephone to call Headquarters and leave a message for Malloy. He wouldn’t appreciate all the teasing he’d get over it, but that couldn’t be helped. He’d also get teased if she went down there in person. She might yet hear from Malloy this afternoon. If not, and if no one decided to deliver today, she could go find this Irene tonight.

First, however, she’d have to get home and post a letter to Prescott’s aunt. She’d receive it tomorrow, and if she was any kind of a female, she’d be across the bridge with a basketful of nutritious food for Prescott the same day. Sarah would check on him first thing in the morning, too, and do whatever she could to make him more comfortable.

Meanwhile, she’d wait to hear from Malloy and go visit Irene at the Tivoli Theater.

 

The theater hadn’t opened yet when Sarah arrived that evening, and the front doors were locked. The signs outside urged people to come and see the current product and featured a drawing of a scantily clad female fleeing from an evil-looking man with a handlebar mustache and wearing a black top hat. The names of the actors listed on the sign did not include anyone named Irene.

Sarah knew little about the theater, but she assumed the actors would enter through a rear door, since they had to be at the theater earlier than the patrons in order to prepare for the performance. She had also, in her years of attending the theater, never seen an actor entering or leaving, which meant they came and went at different times and through different doors than the audience. In fact, now that she thought about it, she’d heard about the men who waited outside the theater after a performance to meet the actresses. Weren’t they called Stage Door Billys? No, Jimmies or Johnnies or something like that. She couldn’t remember exactly. Which meant there must be a stage door that the actors used someplace off the main street, a place where would-be Lotharios could wait.

Pleased at her deduction, Sarah walked to the side of the building until she found the alley that ran beside the theater. Just as she’d suspected, she located an unmarked and inconspicuous door on the side of the building, near the rear. It, too, was locked, but when she knocked, an elderly gentleman opened it and peered out at her suspiciously.

“Yeah?” he asked gruffly.

She tried a friendly smile. “I’m looking for Irene. Is she here yet?”

The smile didn’t seem to affect him at all. In fact, he didn’t bat an eye. “Who’re you?”

Sarah surprised herself with her cleverness. “I’m Irene’s cousin, Sarah. I live in Brooklyn, and she told me if I came to see her, she’d show me the stage and everything and let me watch her get ready for the play and—”

The old man interrupted her with a grunt and pulled the door open wide enough for her to enter. “I expect you wanna be an actress, too,” he grumbled. “Well, don’t get your hopes up, girlie. You’re a little long in the tooth to be starting out. Unless you’ve got nice ankles. They might give you a try if you’ve got nice ankles. I could check and give you my opinion,” he offered, glancing down hopefully.

Sarah glared at him, but he didn’t notice because he was looking at the floor, waiting for her to lift her skirt. “I don’t want to be an actress,” she said. “I just want to see Irene.”

He grunted again, this time in disappointment. “She’s down there,” he said, pointing vaguely toward a hallway and turning away. He’d lost interest since she wasn’t going to show him her ankles.

Not wishing to press her luck by asking for more explicit instructions, Sarah set off, figuring if she couldn’t find Irene, she’d most certainly find someone who could.