Murder On Astor Place

2

FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS. HE’D LOOKED AT the girl’s body long and hard, and he hadn’t seen anything to indicate she was in a family way. If she was, this Sarah Brandt must be a witch to have divined it. Still, if this really was a tool used by an abortionist…

“You seem pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you do a little of that on the side yourself,” he tried. Performing abortions was illegal, although the authorities hardly ever prosecuted anyone for carrying out what many believed was a service to humanity. And maybe it was, if it was a service to prevent children who would grow up poor and hungry from ever being born.

But if Frank had hoped to rattle Sarah Brandt, he failed. She simply stared right back at him, her blue-gray eyes as cold and still as glass. “I’m not trained to perform abortions.”

“Then how do you know what this is?” he challenged, holding the instrument up to her face.

She didn’t flinch. “My husband was a physician. I… sometimes assisted him in certain procedures. When a pregnancy goes wrong…” She hesitated, probably seeing what Frank was feeling reflected on his face. “But perhaps you’d rather not hear the details.”

She was right about that. She probably thought he was squeamish or maybe that he was embarrassed by this frank discussion of female problems. Let her think that. He’d humble himself a lot before he’d reveal the true reason for his discomfort with the subject of pregnancies gone wrong.

“So you think an abortionist came here to her room. Someone she hired to get her out of a tough spot,” he said, trying out the theory to see how it sounded.

“I don’t think anything,” she corrected him. “I’m a midwife. You’re the detective.”

He ignored her. “That would explain why there was no break-in. She let the abortionist in. Late at night, after everyone was asleep. And then… what? She decided not to go through with it and refused to pay and…”

“And the abortionist strangled her?” Mrs. Brandt supplied, her skepticism obvious.

Frank had to agree. It didn’t sound very logical. In his experience, abortionists did very well for themselves. The prospect of losing a fee didn’t seem likely to inspire one of them to murder.

But Frank had another idea. A very clear idea, and one he suddenly realized he didn’t need to share with Sarah Brandt. He didn’t really need her for anything else now. Bringing her up here had just been a whim, and-he had to admit-a rather juvenile way of imposing his will on a woman who looked as if she didn’t get imposed upon very often.

But he’d had his fun-if you could call it that-and he was finished with her.

“You can go now,” he told her.

She widened her eyes at him again. This time she was amazed at his rudeness. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the least bit humbled by it. “Detective Sergeant Malloy, Alicia’s family is very wealthy and influential, and I’m sure they’ll be extremely, uh, grateful to whoever finds the person who murdered her.”

Frank bristled at her implication, all the more offended because the implication-that he’d work harder to solve a case for someone rich-was true. “I’m sure I don’t care if they’re grateful or not, Mrs. Brandt. I’ve got my job to do, and I’ll do it.”

She didn’t snort in derision-ladies of her class didn’t snort-but she gave every indication that’s how she felt about his assertion. Frank told himself he didn’t care. He’d given up caring about other people’s opinion of him a long time ago.

At least she didn’t argue with him. He watched her turn and start out, but then she remembered the hat she was still carrying, the silly thing with flowers and ribbon all over it. She stopped in front of the dead girl’s mirror and took a moment to put it back on, silently telling him she would do just what she wanted, when she wanted to do it, and detective sergeant or not, he couldn’t rush her.

She smoothed her blonde hair with one hand where the hat pin had pulled it loose of the fancy roll she’d done it up into. Then she removed the hat pin, placed the hat on her head, just so, and reattached it with the long pin.

Memories stirred to life, memories he hadn’t allowed himself for years. How long since he’d been in a bedroom and watched a woman smooth her hair? How long since he’d been alone like this with a woman at all?

He knew exactly: three years and three months in another week. The night he’d sat at Kathleen’s bedside and held her hand while the life’s blood drained out of her. All because of a woman like Sarah Brandt.

But just as he felt the old rage building, she turned to face him. Her expression couldn’t be called humble. Sarah Brandt would never wear such an expression. But this was as close as she probably ever came.

“Please, Mr. Malloy, find Alicia’s killer,” she begged him.

She didn’t wait for his reply, probably knowing he had none to give.

SARAH WANTED TO go straight back home and lock herself in her bedroom and give vent to all the terrible emotions roiling inside of her. She wanted to weep and wail and rant against the injustices of the world, against the ruthless forces that snatched the good and the innocent and left the evil and the corrupt behind. She wanted to mourn Tom’s death anew while she mourned sweet little Alicia for the first time. She wanted to announce to the gods how much she hated the way they ran the world. She wanted to tell them how things should really be.

But Sarah didn’t have time for such an indulgence at the moment. She had a patient to see.

The officer in the foyer nodded politely when she came down the stairs and retrieved her medical bag. And he didn’t stop her when she went down the hall to the cramped and cluttered rooms where the Higgins family lived. Someone had sent the older children outside, thank heavens, because Mrs. Higgins was nearly hysterical with fear and fury.

“Did you hear, Mrs. Brandt? Did they tell you?” she demanded tearfully the instant Sarah entered her room. She lay in the plain, iron bed, propped up on some bundles of rags that passed for pillows. “That girl was murdered right here in my own house! We could have all been killed in our beds! And my dear little ones sleeping like angels, and who could protect them with Mr. Higgins not being able to see his hand in front of his face or just about?”

“How are you feeling?” Sarah asked solicitously, pulling up the only chair in the room, a straight-backed chair with a hole in the caning. The Higginses saved their good furniture for the paying guests.

“How do you think I feel? There was a woman murdered in my own house!”

The newborn babe lay on the bed beside his mother, fretting but not really crying yet. Sarah picked him up and unwrapped him carefully, lovingly. The sight of new life always awed her, this promise of tomorrow, a promise she herself would never fulfill.

Fortunately, the baby looked healthy enough. No sign of dehydration. But if Mrs. Higgins’s milk dried up, he wouldn’t do nearly as well as if she was able to feed him. And the Higginses probably couldn’t afford canned milk, either. While Sarah’s main job was to get the babies safely delivered, she also took great pride in making sure they thrived afterwards, too.

“This is a terrible thing, I know, and you must be very upset, but try to remember that none of your family was harmed. Whatever happened, you and yours were spared. And now you have a baby to think of. He needs you to be calm.”

As if to prove her point, the baby began to wail. Mrs. Higgins frowned, probably annoyed by having her diatribe interrupted, but she took the baby when Sarah handed him over and bared a swollen breast for him. This was her sixth child, after all, and she knew exactly what to do.

He latched onto the engorged nipple greedily, but after a few moments of avid sucking, he let go of it and wailed again.

“My milk won’t let down,” Mrs. Higgins said, wailing, too. “And is it any wonder? I’m beside myself!”

“There now, just relax. Lean back against the pillow, take some deep breaths and let them out slowly. Close your eyes, that’s right.”

As Mrs. Higgins did as Sarah instructed, she also coaxed the now-screaming baby to take the nipple again. After only a few more moments of frustration, he was rewarded with a gush of milk that had him gulping to keep up with it.

When the baby had settled in, Mrs. Higgins opened her eyes. Sarah realized she looked unutterably weary and a lot older than Sarah knew her to be. And why shouldn’t she? Burdened with a nearly blind husband and a houseful of children and the care and feeding of her lodgers, and now a girl had been murdered in her house. She didn’t need to add an infant into the bargain, but she had one. Sarah would see that they both weathered this storm and came through all right.

“I’m going to prescribe beer for you, Mrs. Higgins,” Sarah said. “Two big glasses a day.” The brewer’s yeast would strengthen her and the alcohol would relax her. “I’ll send someone out for it right now. How about that fellow who came for me the other night? Is he around?”

Mrs. Higgins moaned in anguish. “He’s gone! Moved out in the night! Without a word! One room already empty, and now two more, and who will live here, where there’s been a murder? And with no lodgers, we’ll starve to death! All of us! What’s to become of us now?”

Postpartum depression, Sarah judged, although anyone in Mrs. Higgins’s circumstances could be excused for being depressed. She would bear close watching to ensure she didn’t do something untoward. Women in her condition sometimes harmed themselves or others, even their newborns. She’d have a talk with Mr. Higgins and make sure some of the neighbor women came in to help. And she’d come by often to check the baby for signs he was failing to thrive. Short of removing Mrs. Higgins’s problems, it was all Sarah could do.

Only after she left the house, once she’d gotten Mrs. Higgins to drink her glass of beer and extracted promises from her husband and neighbors, did Sarah recall one vital piece of information Mrs. Higgins had given her: Ham Fisher had moved out. In the night. The night in which Alicia VanDamm was murdered.

For a moment she considered going back to tell Detective Malloy. He’d probably be very interested in that bit of news. But then she remembered his arrogance and his rudeness, and she knew he wouldn’t thank her for helping him do his job. No, surely he’d find out for himself that Fisher had moved out. And he’d probably also figure, as Sarah had, that his sudden departure was too coincidental not to have some relation to Alicia’s murder.

No, she’d leave Detective Malloy to his investigation. And meanwhile, she’d do a little investigating of her own.

FRANK WALKED OVER the one block from the Sixth Avenue elevated train station to Fifth. The trains, which ran on elevated tracks along various avenues in the city, were a godsend for getting from one end of the congested city to the other in a reasonable time. Traffic in the unregulated streets clogged to impassability at major intersections during busy times of the day, so a trip uptown could take hours by cab or trolley. Of course the noise the trains caused and the dirt and cinders they dropped on hapless pedestrians below were a scourge of major proportions, too, inspiring talk of building a railroad underground instead. Frank agreed with those who claimed the only people who would ride such a thing were those who didn’t want to be seen riding a train.

As he studied the enormous mansions that graced Fifth Avenue at its northern end, he could hardly believe they existed in the same city as the Lower East Side with its crowded, filthy tenements. Up here in the fifties, the rich lived in houses that sometimes filled entire city blocks and which probably contained enough treasure to support the whole population of the ghettos for years. Another block farther up stood the elegant Plaza Hotel, named for the plaza on which it was built, and across the street from it was one of the Vanderbilt mansions. Frank thought the place looked like a museum, but people rarely asked his opinion about such things.

Frank could remember when this whole area was open ground. When he was a boy, the only people living at this end of Manhattan Island were vagrants and bums who had constructed a shantytown on the outskirts of the park some city fathers with foresight had begun up here. But when the park was finished, they ran off the bums and sold the lots to millionaires who wanted to live away from the noise and smells and heat of the city itself. Now the city had spread upward to meet them, so if they really wanted to get away, they had to escape the city altogether, to mansions in the country. The poor, of course, had Coney Island.

But Frank had given up railing against the inequities of the world. Now he concentrated on getting as much of those treasures for himself as he could. Other people were depending on him.

The VanDamm house was only slightly less pretentious than some of the others, a stately town house on the block of Fifth Avenue between Fifty-Seventh and Fifty-Eighth streets called “Marble Row.” It had marble steps, of course, and a shiny brass door knocker. A butler in a uniform that probably cost as much as Frank earned in a month opened the door for him. It was clear he thought Frank should have used the service entrance.

“Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy,” he told the butler before the man could order him around to the back. “I’d like to see Mr. and Mrs. VanDamm. It’s about their daughter.”

There, if that didn’t get him in to see the girl’s parents, he’d need dynamite.

Frank figured the butler was trained not to show any emotion, but he’d also probably never had a policeman come to the door, either. He seemed to blanche a little at the mention of the girl.

“Please wait in the front parlor,” the butler instructed stiffly as he grudgingly allowed Frank to enter. “I’ll see if Mr. VanDamm is at home.”

Nice trick the rich had, Frank mused. If they didn’t want to see somebody, they’d just tell the servant to report that they weren’t at home. Frank had a feeling the VanDamms would be home to him, though, at least for today.

Frank’s opinion of the rich dropped a notch or two as he looked around the front parlor (which meant they probably had a back parlor, too; what in God’s name did they need two parlors for?). Frank decided he’d been in classier whorehouses. This place was a disaster of ostentation, with red velvet everywhere, draped in enormous folds over the windows and covering all the plush furniture. The walls were covered with dark paper in a hideous design. A palm tree in the corner and potted plants on every flat surface. Tables adorned with lace doilies and cluttered with figurines of every description. And they were all ugly.

He found himself wondering what Kathleen would have said. Too much stuff to dust, probably. Kathleen had always been practical.

When the parlor doors opened twenty minutes later, Frank was examining the covers someone had put on the piano’s legs. He’d heard about people who were so modest that they never uttered the word “leg” and even clothed the legs of their furniture. He’d never expected to actually see such a thing, however.

The man who entered the room was obviously the master of the house. He was dressed for the street, in an impeccably tailored suit of the finest wool and a shirt so white it could blind a man. Frank noticed his tie was slightly askew, however, telling him VanDamm had made himself presentable in a hell of a hurry.

“Detective, I’m Cornelius VanDamm,” he said, in case there could be any doubt. Frank noticed he didn’t offer his hand. Probably he didn’t shake hands with messenger boys, either. “I understand you have something to tell me about my daughter.”

VanDamm was a man trained never to show a trace of weakness. Men who moved in the circles he did, where millions were made or lost on a man’s word, couldn’t afford to reveal any vulnerability without risking attack. VanDamm would be very good at hiding his true feelings, but Frank figured he was about to put him to the ultimate test.

“Is your wife available?” he asked. “I told your man I had to see you both.” He wanted to tell them together-so he would be sure of seeing their initial reactions, which would reveal a lot about a lot of things. How they felt about their daughter and about each other and about her death. And whether they knew more than they intended to tell him, information he might have to get from other sources.

“I’m afraid my wife is indisposed at the moment,” VanDamm said without the slightest trace of apology. “What is it you’ve come to tell us? I know it can’t be good news, Detective, so out with it.”

Frank hadn’t yet decided whether to obey or not when the doors opened again and a woman appeared. She was a fragile, birdlike creature dressed in a filmy gown with flowers printed all over it that swirled around her and made her seem almost ethereal. She must have been a beauty in her day, but that beauty had faded with the years, along with her once-golden hair which was now almost entirely gray. Her pale cheeks were sunken, her eyes hollow, and her skin had turned crepey, even though she probably wasn’t even as old as her husband, who was still a fine figure of a man.

“Cornelius, what’s going on? Bridgett said the police were here, something about Alicia.” Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused, and at first Frank wasn’t sure she even noticed he was in the room. Then he realized she was simply not acknowledging him. She looked at her husband, waiting for him to explain.

“Alicia? Don’t be ridiculous, Francisca, go back to your room. I’ll take care of this,” he told her sternly, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child.

“I think this is something you should both hear,” Frank contradicted him, watching as Mrs. VanDamm finally looked directly at him. Even her eyes were faded, to a washed-out blue, and they watered slightly as she blinked at him curiously. Maybe she was just short-sighted, he couldn’t help thinking.

She turned back to her husband. “What could he have to tell us about Alicia? She’s at Greentree. If anything had happened, Mrs. Hightower would have sent word.”

Her husband spared her only a bored glance. “Of course she would. This isn’t about Alicia at all, and don’t say I didn’t warn you, Francisca. All right,” he said to Frank. “What have you come to tell us?”

Now Frank was the one who was confused. Obviously, VanDamm was expecting bad news, but not about Alicia. If she’d been away at this Greentree place, maybe he didn’t even know she was missing, although that seemed difficult to believe. And if he was expecting bad news about his other daughter, he didn’t seem too upset about it. Ordinarily, a parent in this situation would be bracing himself for something horrible, but VanDamm didn’t seem to require bracing.

The woman knew nothing, of that Frank was certain.

“Maybe you better sit down, Mrs. VanDamm.”

The vagueness in her eyes turned to confusion. “I do feel a little strange,” she admitted. “It’s that weakness I was telling you about, Cornelius. It comes on me at the oddest times, I never know when. And then sometimes I can’t get my breath-”

“Sit down, Francisca,” VanDamm said firmly, this time the way you’d would speak to a slow-witted child. Frank understood about that only too well.

“Well, if you think it’s best,” she murmured as she moved like a wraith to the nearest of the several ornately carved sofas in the room and perched on it, back ramrod straight the way a proper lady was taught to sit. Her hands fluttered restlessly in her lap, though, as if she thought she should be doing something but couldn’t remember exactly what.

VanDamm simply stood where he was, arms down to his sides, hands relaxed, showing Frank no more than common courtesy. The way he would if Frank had come to sell him tickets to the policeman’s ball. Or the way he would if Frank’s news wasn’t going to be a surprise. But whatever VanDamm was expecting to hear, Frank was pretty sure it wasn’t what he’d come to tell them.

“Mr. and Mrs. VanDamm,” he began, looking at each of them in turn. “It is my sad duty to inform you that your daughter Alicia has been the victim of a crime. I’m sorry to tell you that she has been murdered.”

VanDamm’s face went chalk white, but he never so much as flinched. “Murdered?” He repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before. He may have been expecting something, but Frank was pretty sure this wasn’t it. “Alicia? Are you certain?”

“I’m afraid so. We found her name embroidered in her jacket, and someone identified her. An old family friend.”

“What on earth is he talking about, Cornelius?” Mrs. VanDamm asked plaintively.

VanDamm continued to ignore her. Frank figured he probably usually did. “Where? What happened to her?” he demanded.

“We found her in a rooming house in Greenwich Village. She’d been living there for several weeks.”

“That’s impossible,” Mrs. VanDamm insisted. “Alicia is at Greentree. Tell the man there’s been some mistake, Cornelius.”

When Cornelius said nothing, his face as blank and stiff as if it had been carved from stone, she turned to Frank with a weary sigh.

“Our daughter is at our country home in Mamoraneck, Officer,” she explained patiently. “She’s been there for over a month, and if anything had happened to her, our housekeeper would have sent us word immediately. We have a telephone for just such emergencies, so you see, the girl you found couldn’t possibly be Alicia. You’ve wasted a trip and bothered us for nothing, and I must say, I plan to complain to Teddy about this. That’s Police Commissioner Roosevelt to you. His mother is a dear friend of mine, and I used to dandle him on my knee when he was a boy. He’ll be most interested in the way you have inconvenienced us, I’m sure. Imagine, coming into a person’s house and telling such outrageous-”

“Francisca, that’s enough.”

The rebuke was mild, in Frank’s opinion, but it was enough to make her stop and gape at her husband in confusion. He didn’t even spare her a glance. The color was coming back to his face, which meant that he was over whatever shock he’d felt at his daughter’s death.

“Detective,” he said in a perfectly reasonable voice, the one he probably used to seal million-dollar business deals. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, my daughter really isn’t at our country house.” His wife sputtered in protest, but neither man paid her any heed. “Although we sent her there, she ran away a few weeks ago, disappeared completely. Alicia has always been a willful girl-”

“Willful?” his wife echoed incredulously. “Alicia is the most sweet tempered girl alive! Never a harsh word to say to anyone. And obedient! I can’t remember the last time I had to scold her. If anything, she’s too agreeable. I always tell her-”

VanDamm seemed not to even hear her protests, any more than he seemed to feel any emotion. His expression was still controlled, and even his flush had faded again. “How did she…? Who did it?” he finally asked, interrupting his wife’s ramblings.

He was saying all the right things, asking all the right questions, but Frank didn’t like his steely reserve. Is that the way members of the Four Hundred handled tragedy? Frank had precious little experience breaking bad news to them, so he had no way of judging. Still, he knew how ordinary bereaved parents acted. Oddly, Mrs. VanDamm’s behavior was the most normal. Shock invariably produced denial in most people.

“She was strangled,” Frank said. “And we don’t know who did it. Yet,” he added, in case VanDamm was going to make assumptions about him the way Sarah Brandt had. “I was hoping you could help me there. Do you have any idea why your daughter ran away? Did she have a lover-?”

“A lover?” Mrs. VanDamm echoed in outrage. “Alicia most certainly does not have a lover! She isn’t even out yet!”

For a minute, Frank couldn’t think what she might have been out of, but then he realized she meant the girl hadn’t made her debut into society yet.

“Alicia is just sixteen!” Mrs. VanDamm was saying. “She has no suitors. She’s never even been alone with a young man! A lover, indeed! Cornelius, why are you standing there listening to this rubbish?”

“Francisca, go back to your room,” VanDamm said coldly. “I’ll explain everything to you later.”

“I certainly hope so. And I fully intend to complain to your superiors,” she told Frank as she floated and fluttered her way out of the room, murmuring her outrage at Frank’s effrontery.

Frank couldn’t help wishing she really would complain to Commissioner Roosevelt about him. Everyone on the force hated the playboy-turned-reformer who had gotten himself appointed to the Police Commission with an eye toward cleaning up the corruption in the department. A rebuke from Roosevelt would likely propel him to Captain even without paying the requisite bribes as soon as Roosevelt got bored and went back to his old life and things in the department returned to normal.

“I’m afraid I can’t be of any assistance to you, Detective,” VanDamm said when she was gone. The only sign of whatever emotional distress he was experiencing was the way he idly fingered his gold watch chain. “I have no idea why my daughter chose to run away from the safety and comfort of her home and family. And my wife is right, Alicia doesn’t know any young men, certainly no one who could have lured her away.”

He was lying, of course. Parents always lied at first. Either they didn’t want their children to look bad or they didn’t want to look like irresponsible parents. Frank figured a cold fish like VanDamm would be more worried about his own reputation.

And VanDamm hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised that his daughter was living in a rooming house in Greenwich Village. Hadn’t even questioned the identification of the body, as most parents did. As his wife had done. She was sure Frank had made some mistake.

VanDamm didn’t think Frank had made a mistake. He’d known where she was. Certainly he knew her condition, which was why she’d been banished to the country house in the first place, and he might also know with whom she’d run away. He wouldn’t tell Frank, though, at least not today.

Frank was just about to suggest that VanDamm go with him to the morgue to identify the girl’s body when once again the parlor doors opened. This time a younger woman entered. She must have just come in from outside, because she was still wearing her hat. She was large-boned and tall for a female, almost as tall as Frank’s five feet, eight inches, and she was dressed in the most outlandish outfit Frank had ever seen. Probably considered the height of fashion, the bold plaid of her skirt and matching jacket made him dizzy. Or maybe it was the woman herself, who came in with the force of a whirl-wind.

“What’s going on here, Father? Alfred said the police are here!”

VanDamm didn’t seem too happy to see his daughter, although with VanDamm it was a little hard to tell exactly what he was feeling. Frank figured this must be the one Sarah Brandt knew, the one she’d mistaken Alicia for. The one VanDamm obviously thought Frank had come to tell him about. Frank could imagine this one getting into some kind of scrape. She looked like one of those suffragettes, always looking to cause trouble. He tried to see the resemblance Mrs. Brandt had noticed, but if this woman had ever looked like the dead girl, it was a long time ago.

“Mina, I’m afraid Alicia has been murdered.” There it was, bald and brutal, but Mina VanDamm could obviously take it.

“I knew it!” she declared, pulling off her gloves with furious motions. “I knew she’d come to no good. Didn’t I tell you that when she ran away?”

So much for sisterly affection, Frank thought. So much for any normal human reaction at all. The mother, whom Frank had pretty much decided was crazy as a bedbug, was the most regular person in the bunch.

“Do you know why your sister ran away?” Frank asked her, hoping to catch her off guard.

But Mina VanDamm was never off guard. She looked at him as if he was something that had just crawled out from under a rock for having dared to speak to her directly without benefit of a formal introduction.

“Mina, this is Detective…” VanDamm realized he hadn’t bothered to get Frank’s name.

“Detective Sergeant Malloy,” Frank supplied. If he’d hoped to impress them with his title, he failed.

Mina simply stared at him in acknowledgment.

“Mina doesn’t know the reason Alicia ran away either. It’s a mystery to us all,” VanDamm assured him.

“She ran away because she’s an ungrateful little baggage,” Mina said, making her father a liar. “After all Father has done for her, this is the way she repays us. Running away, getting herself murdered and bringing disgrace down on all our heads. How will we ever go out in polite society again?”

“I doubt she got herself murdered just to ruin your social life,” Frank tried, unable to resist. But it was obviously impossible to insult the VanDamms, at least by criticizing their finer feelings. They merely stared back at him blankly. He sighed in defeat. “Mr. VanDamm, I’ll need for you to go down to the morgue and identify the body.”

He frowned at that, but Mina was positively outraged. “How dare you ask my father to go to a place like that? Don’t you know who he is?”

“He’s the father of a murdered girl,” Frank said. “We need positive identification of the victim. You wouldn’t want to bury some stranger, would you?”

“I’m afraid the officer is right, Mina,” VanDamm said reasonably. “We must be sure it’s Alicia.”

Mina opened her mouth, but she must have changed her mind about whatever she’d been about to say. She closed it again with a snap and took a moment to collect herself. Then she smiled a queer little smile that gave Frank gooseflesh because it looked so forced, and she said, “You mustn’t do this,” using a voice that surprised Frank. Suddenly, she was kind and gentle, as if speaking to someone infirm. “No one will blame you for not wanting to see her like that. No one can expect you to put yourself through such an ordeal.”

VanDamm considered this for a moment, wanting to agree with her, and then he remembered something. “I thought you said someone already identified her,” he said to Frank. “An old family friend.”

Mina looked shocked, as well she might. “A family friend?” she echoed incredulously.

“She didn’t exactly identify her. Your daughter’s name was sewn into her jacket, and this woman said she’d thought the girl looked like Miss Mina VanDamm. She knew you, she said.”

“Who is she?” Mina asked skeptically.

“Sarah Brandt. She’s a midwife.”

Mina widened her eyes at him. “I know no such person, although I suppose it’s possible she may know of me. We’re one of the oldest Knickerbocker families in New York.”

She didn’t have to tell Frank, of course. Everybody knew the Dutch families-dubbed Knickerbockers ages ago because of the knee britches the early arrivals had worn-had been the first to settle in what was then New Amsterdam. Frank didn’t think that made them particularly special, just because their ancestors had fled persecution a hundred and fifty years before his had, but that was the way of the world. Mina VanDamm seemed intent on making the most of it, too.

“In any case,” Frank explained doggedly, “Mrs. Brandt hadn’t seen Alicia in a number of years, so she couldn’t make a positive identification.”

Mina VanDamm sighed to show her impatience, then she had another thought. “Alfred can go, then,” she told her father. “He’ll recognize Alicia as well as any of us.”

VanDamm nodded sagely, as if this were the only logical solution.

“Who’s Alfred?” Frank asked, thinking for an instant he might have discovered Alicia’s lover.

“Alfred is the servant who admitted you,” VanDamm said.

Frank couldn’t believe it. They were going to send a damned butler to identify a member of their own family.

And just when Frank thought nothing could shock him more, Mina VanDamm turned to him and said, “I think you’ve bothered my father quite enough for one day. You may leave now.”

SARAH LOOKED UP at the tall town house on what was known as “Marble Row” and hesitated. All during the long elevated train ride up from Greenwich Village this morning, she had debated the wisdom of calling on her old friend. She hadn’t seen Mina VanDamm in a decade, and likely, Mina no longer lived here anyway. She’d be married and gone. Sarah couldn’t remember reading about her wedding in the Times, but that meant nothing. She hadn’t followed the society column for years.

She could ask for Mrs. VanDamm, of course, but Sarah remembered her as one of those flighty, worthless women who never had a thing to say worth hearing. She wouldn’t learn much from Francisca VanDamm. And approaching Mr. VanDamm wasn’t even worth considering. He was a man just like her own father, a man who considered females just one step above dogs in intelligence and who wasn’t likely to give her the time of day, much less a hearing.

Well, maybe the servants would at least tell her where Mina lived now. Then she would seek her out and share with her what she knew about Alicia’s last days. If the police couldn’t find Alicia’s killer-and Sarah had personal experience with their failures-then the VanDamms could hire their own investigators, which was the best way to solve a crime in any case, according to Sarah’s understanding of the current police situation.

The police commissioners had made great strides in cleaning up the department in the past year, but in purging the corruption, they had decimated the ranks, leaving the entire force seriously under strength. Even the most dedicated officers were overwhelmed, and Sarah had no reason to believe this Detective Sergeant Malloy was particularly dedicated. So if Alicia’s murder was solved, it would probably be only because her family hired someone to do it.

The butler who opened the door looked at her askance, probably judging her unworthy of entering. Indeed, she knew her appearance no longer marked her as a member of one of the elite families of New York, but fortunately, she recognized him from her visits here as a girl.

“Good afternoon, Alfred,” she said, startling him. “I heard about the family’s tragedy, and I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find Miss Mina to express my condolences.”

“I’m sorry, madame, I don’t…” He shook his head to express his confusion.

Sarah smiled. “It’s been a long time. I’m Sarah Brandt. That is, that’s my married name. When you knew me, I was Sarah Decker.”

His eyes lightened with recognition. “It has been a long time, Miss Decker… I mean, Mrs. Brandt. These are very sad times for the family, and I don’t know if Miss Mina is receiving this morning, but if you give me your card…”

Sarah shouldn’t have been surprised to find Mina here after all. Naturally, she would be here with her parents in their time of grief. She stepped into the foyer and handed him her card after folding down the top right corner to indicate she was calling to pay her respects. There was a whole language to the business of calling cards, depending on which comers were folded over, but those cards were usually engraved with just the visitor’s name on fine paper. Sarah’s card was the kind that identified her as a midwife. Alfred frowned over it for a second, obviously wondering if he should even deliver such a thing to Mina.

“Please tell Miss Mina that I saw her sister, Alicia, the night before she died.”

The butler’s head came up in surprise, although his expression betrayed little. Then he offered her a seat and disappeared up the stairs, moving a little more quickly than propriety allowed, she couldn’t help thinking.

Sarah wouldn’t have been surprised at being turned away. Mina had probably forgotten all about her, and the two of them had never actually been friends in the first place. Mina was always a bit too self-important and conscious of her position in society for Sarah’s tastes, even back when Sarah had been conscious of those things herself. But to her relief, Alfred soon returned and ushered her upstairs to one of the private suites where she found Mina swathed in black and reclining on a fainting couch. One hand clutched a lacy handkerchief into which she had apparently been weeping, and the other reached out limply in welcome.

“Sarah, dear, how good of you to come,” she said, her voice faint and cracked with grief. “Have you heard the news? We’ve lost dear, sweet Alicia!”