Murder On Gramercy Park

14

FRANK THOUGHT HE SHOULD JUST WAIT AT THE Blackwell house for Dudley to show up. The former schoolmaster was probably visiting Letitia daily now, but he didn’t want to deal with the scheming widow. He went, instead, to the bank where Dudley worked. It was Saturday, so he’d only be working a half day.

Seeing no need for discretion, he went inside. He wanted Dudley to know he was waiting for him to get off. He’d be more cooperative if he worked himself into a state wondering what Frank wanted from him. But when Frank looked around, he didn’t see Dudley behind the bars of any of the teller windows. He’d only been standing there a moment, looking in vain for Dudley, when the guard approached him.

“Something I can do for you?” the man asked, obviously recognizing him as a policeman and wanting to avoid any disturbance. Frank couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing what he was.

“Is your manager here?” Frank asked in a tone that invited no questions.

The guard made his way hastily to a rear office, and in another moment a nattily-dressed man with a flower in his lapel anxiously approached Frank, the guard faithfully following at his heels.

“Could we handle this discreetly?” the manager asked, looking around nervously to see if anyone was disturbed by Frank’s presence. No one wanted a cop snooping around at a bank. It gave customers the wrong idea.

“I was looking for Peter Dudley,” Frank said.

“Dudley?” the man asked in surprise. “Whatever for?”

“Just send him out, will you?” Frank said impatiently.

The man glanced around again, making sure they weren’t being overheard. “He isn’t here.”

“What do you mean? Doesn’t he work here anymore?”

“Yes, of course he does, but… He didn’t come in this morning.”

“Is he sick?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. He didn’t send word.”

“Does he do this a lot?”

“He wouldn’t still work here if he did,” the manager sniffed. “He’s always been very reliable.”

Frank felt the back of his neck prickle. Something was wrong. It could just be that Dudley had decided he didn’t need this job anymore if he was going to marry Letitia. That was probably it. A man who’d seduce and elope with a young girl of good family probably wouldn’t hesitate to walk out of a job like this without giving notice either.

“I’ll just go check on him, then,” Frank said. “Make sure he’s all right. You know where he lives?” he added. Dudley was probably with Letitia, but just in case, he needed the man’s address.

“I most certainly do not know where he lives!” the bank manager said.

“Then find somebody who does,” Frank said with a friendly smile. “I’ll wait right here until you do.”

MOST ROOMING HOUSES were sad, smelling of cabbage and unwashed bodies, but the one where Peter Dudley lived was sadder than most. Paint was peeling off the front door and one of the shutters hung askew. The woman who owned the place was a slattern in a dirty apron, with a thin cigar dangling from her mouth. She even had a hint of a mustache.

“How should I know if he’s here or not?” she demanded when Frank asked after Dudley. “Do I look like his mother?”

Frank was in no mood for this. He’d already been to the Blackwell home. The butler, who appeared to be recovered from whatever illness he’d been suffering, had informed him he hadn’t seen Mr. Dudley that day. As usual, he hadn’t been very friendly about it, either.

“Just take me up to his room,” he told the landlady. “And bring a passkey. If he’s not there, I’ll still want to take a look around.”

The woman grumbled, but she complied. Frank followed her laborious progress up the steep, narrow stairs, taking care not to slip on the debris that had accumulated since the last time the steps had been swept. Frank figured it had probably been a year or more since a broom had touched them. Ahead of him, the landlady’s broad backside looked like two small boys fighting under a blanket. Frank tried his best not to watch the disturbing sight.

At last they reached one of the rear rooms, which lay down a stuffy, narrow corridor. The landlady knocked loudly. “Mr. Dudley, you in there?”

Frank nudged her out of the way and pounded even louder. “Dudley, it’s the police. Open up!”

A door at the other end of the hall opened, and a curious face peered out, but Frank ignored the other lodger. He pounded once more and, still hearing nothing, said, “Open it.”

Grumbling again, the landlady started searching through the keys on her large ring, looking for the correct one. After a couple of incorrect choices, she finally got the lock to turn and pushed the door open.

“I’ll wait here to lock it back up when you’re finished,” she said, scowling at him.

Frank stepped into the room, and instantly the smell of death overwhelmed him. Dudley lay crumpled on the floor in a tangle of bloody bedclothes. Cursing, Frank hurried to him. In the doorway, the landlady started screaming and swearing, and Frank could hear footsteps running down the hallway. The curious face was coming to see what had happened.

Dudley was still in his nightshirt and had apparently been attacked while he was sleeping. The bedclothes were pulled half off the bed and had wrapped around his legs as he struggled. His nightshirt was torn and soaked in blood, front and back. Frank started to turn him over, and he moaned.

“Oh, Lord in heaven, is he still alive?” the landlady cried.

“Just barely,” Frank said after a quick examination. “Send somebody for a doctor. Right now!” he shouted when nobody moved.

“Get Woomer!” the landlady said to the lodger. “You know where he lives. Tell him to hurry!”

Frank heard the pounding of feet going down the stairs, but he was too busy assessing Dudley’s wounds to pay much attention.

“What happened to him?” the landlady asked, coming closer but not close enough to help.

“From the looks of it, somebody stabbed him,” Frank said. “Hand me that towel over there,” he added, pointing to a peg where a ragged towel hung.

“You’re not getting my good towels all bloody!” the landlady told him indignantly.

Frank gave her his most evil glare. “Don’t make me knock you down and take your petticoats,” he warned.

She yelped in outrage, then stomped over to where the towel hung and snatched it from the wall. “I’ll charge him for this, I will. I can’t afford to be wasting towels on something like this.”

“You can’t afford to let one of your tenants die on the premises,” Frank informed her, pressing the towel to the oozing hole in Dudley’s chest. Out of spite, he jerked the sheet the rest of the way off the bed and used that, too.

She made a horrified sound, deep in her chest.

“Put this on his bill, too,” Frank said. “And if he dies, good luck collecting.”

Pushed beyond endurance, the landlady flounced out of the room, leaving the door standing open.

Frank was still trying to determine the extent of Dudley’s injuries. He appeared to have been stabbed several times, both in his back and in his chest, but only one wound was very deep. Stabbing someone in the torso was risky at best, as Frank had learned from years of observation. There were all kinds of bones in the upper body. Unless you used a slender blade and knew just where to aim, you were more likely to hit one of them than not. The result would be a shallow gouge, painful but hardly fatal.

Sure enough, the wounds on Dudley’s back were ugly but only bone-deep. His attacker must have come into the room and tried to kill him while he lay sleeping on his stomach. The pain would have awakened him, and he’d apparently struggled for his life. Now that Frank noticed, his left hand was bleeding from a gash across the inside of the fingers, as if he’d tried to grab the knife and gotten sliced instead. The attacker had landed three good blows on Dudley’s chest; the first one slid along his collarbone and the second had gouged the center of his chest. Neither had been powerful enough to break through the bones and had, like the ones in his back, produced ugly but only superficial wounds.

The attacker must have been getting frantic by then. Dudley would have been struggling like a madman. Fear would have given both of them unusual strength. Finally, the attacker had struck a vulnerable spot and driven the knife between two ribs. Chest wounds like this one were serious stuff. Dudley wasn’t dead yet, but he likely would be soon. Frank’s only hope was to get him to name his killer before he died.

Dudley’s body was cold, in spite of the relative warmth of the morning, so Frank pulled the blanket down from the bed and tucked it around him. Then he pulled down the lumpy pillow and stuffed it under the man’s bloody head. The landlady would have a fit, but Frank was actually looking forward to her annoyance.

“Dudley, can you hear me?” Frank asked, patting his cheeks to rouse him. “Who did this? Did you see who did this?”

Dudley’s eyes flickered, and his lips moved, but he only managed to groan very softly before going still. At first Frank feared he was already dead, but his regular, if shallow, breathing reassured him. He’d just passed out. Nothing to do now but wait and hope Dudley came to one more time before the doctor, whoever he was, managed to finish him off.

When he finally appeared, Dr. Woomer looked like he would do just that without half trying. An ancient, gin-soaked fellow in a shabby, stained suit, he looked like he’d been on an all-night bender, and smelled like it, too.

Frank’s expression must have betrayed his opinion, because the doctor said, “Don’t worry. I was doctoring before you were born, and I’m better when I’m drunk.”

Maybe he just thought he was better, Frank thought, but he said, “Anything I can do to help?”

“Help me get him up on the bed. I’m too old to be crawling around on the floor.”

The lodger who had fetched the doctor had followed him upstairs and stood outside the door, still staring curiously. He was a cadaverous man of indeterminate age who wore only a yellowed undershirt and trousers drooping because his suspenders dangled at his hips. Frank wondered that they hadn’t fallen off during his trip to get the doctor.

“Get over here and give us a hand,” Frank ordered him, and he came, however reluctantly.

Between the three of them, they managed to get Dudley back up on the bed. The landlady would be charging for a lot of ruined sheets.

“Now let’s see what we have here,” the doctor said.

Frank explained what he’d observed of Dudley’s wounds. The doctor made his own assessment, turning Dudley with Frank’s help. “Most of these’ll just need a few stitches. This one here, though, that’s the bitch.”

“Did it hit his heart?”

“How should I know?” the doctor said sourly. “Think I can see through flesh and bone?”

Frank gave him a look.

“All right,” the doctor relented. “Looks like it missed the heart. The lung, too, though God only knows how. He’d be dead by now if there was a hole in either one of those organs. Still, he’s lost a lot of blood, and there’s plenty of other stuff in there that could be sliced. All I can do is close him up and hope for the best.”

“Just try to keep him alive until he can tell me who did this,” Frank said.

“He a special friend of yours?” the doctor asked, opening his bag and rummaging for the tools he needed.

“No, but whoever did this killed two other men, and I did care about one of them. And I also don’t like people getting away with murder.”

The doctor gave him a funny look out of red-rimmed eyes. “There’s a reward, I guess,” he remarked to no one in particular.

Frank tried not to be insulted. The doctor couldn’t be helped for his opinions of the police, which were, Frank had to admit, well justified. “If he lives to tell me who did this, I’ll share it with you,” Frank offered.

The doctor’s eyes lighted. “I’ll do my best.”

As Woomer worked, Frank introduced himself. “You ever know a Dr. Tom Brandt?” he asked idly after the doctor had worked in silence for a bit.

Woomer looked up in surprise from drawing a stitch through Dudley’s flesh. “Tom Brandt? Young fellow?”

“That’s the one,” Frank confirmed. “Got himself murdered about three years back.”

“Has it been that long? God, I’m getting old.”

“What kind of a man was he?”

“Tom? The best there was, I guess. Never heard anybody say a word against him.”

“Somebody didn’t like him,” Frank pointed out. “Or he wouldn’t be dead.”

“He wasn’t killed by somebody who knew him,” Woomer said.

“You know that for a fact?”

“It’s only common sense. Tom wasn’t the kind of man who made enemies.”

This wasn’t exactly what Frank wanted to hear. Not only did it make it harder to figure out who’d killed him, he certainly didn’t like the idea that Sarah Brandt had been married to a near saint. Not that he was trying to compete or anything, but still… How could any other man compare?

“What did people say? When he died, I mean.”

“That it was a shame. Had a young wife, if I remember. He did a lot of good, too. Never turned anybody away just because they couldn’t pay his fee. It’s a wonder he didn’t starve.”

Just what he needed, more evidence of Tom Brandt’s perfection. “I mean what did people say about how he died?”

Woomer was threading catgut into his needle for more stitches. He squinted and concentrated for a moment until he found the hole. When he’d gone back to stitching, he said, “I heard he got robbed. I figured somebody robbed him for whatever he was carrying and killed him, probably because he didn’t have anything much. Happens often enough, you want to know the truth.”

Frank knew it only too well. “You didn’t hear any rumors? Maybe somebody had it in for him?”

“Tom? Not likely,” Woomer scoffed. “How come you’re so interested in a man got killed over three years ago?”

Frank didn’t think it was any of his business, but he’d been friendly enough. “A friend of his asked me to look into it. See if I could find anything. The killer was never caught.”

“Never will be, you ask me. You’re wasting your time.”

“It’s my time,” Frank pointed out.

Woomer looked up and studied Frank for a minute. “This friend of Tom’s wouldn’t be his widow by any chance?”

This really wasn’t any of his business. “How’s he doing?” He gestured toward Dudley.

Woomer chuckled to himself, not fooled by the sudden change of subject. “He’s not complaining. And he’s still breathing.”

“Will he live?”

“For a while. After that, who knows?”

Frank would take what he could get. Woomer finished up the last of the stitches and wrapped a bandage around the worst of the wounds. Frank had to admit his work was neat and apparently competent.

“Should he go to the hospital?” he asked when the doctor was finished.

Woomer frowned as he started packing up his instruments. “Wouldn’t do him any good. He’s likely to catch something there and die from that. Besides, moving him at all right now might kill him. He’s pretty weak.”

“I can’t leave him here alone,” Frank complained.

“Does he have any family? Somebody who could nurse him?”

“What kind of care would he need?”

“Every kind,” Woomer said. “He won’t even be able to get up to relieve himself. That hole in his chest might bleed inside, too. Might be bleeding even now.”

“So he needs a nurse,” Frank said.

“That would be best. A mother would be second best.”

“I don’t have any idea where to find him a mother,” Frank said. “But I do know where to get him a nurse.”

SARAH DECIDED SHE was no longer going to be surprised at anything Frank Malloy did. This was the second time he’d summoned her to help him in this case, and she dearly longed to tease him about it. If she did, however, he might never call upon her again. Helping with his cases was far too interesting to take such a chance, no matter how much fun it would be.

The patrolman who had delivered Malloy’s message had given her no other information beyond telling her Malloy needed a nurse and to come to this address. The lodging house was a step up from a flophouse, where men paid a nickel to sleep in a hammock or a cot or even on the floor for a night. This place at least provided a private room and probably a meal or two a day, but not much comfort beyond that.

Sarah judged that the landlady, who opened the door, was probably a retired prostitute who’d invested her money wisely in this house to support her in her old age. She looked Sarah up and down, withholding her approval.

“You the nurse?” she asked around the cheroot dangling from her lips. Ashes had spilled unnoticed down her ample bosom.

“Yes,” Sarah said, offering no other information. “Is Mr. Malloy here?”

“Upstairs,” the woman said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward the stairway. “End of the hall.”

So much for the social amenities, Sarah thought in amusement. Malloy was waiting for her in the doorway of the room, looking grim.

“Who is it?” she asked. “And what happened?”

“It’s Dudley. Somebody stabbed him,” he said, admitting her to the room.

An older man sat in the one chair of the room, his head drooping to his chest, dozing. Sarah thought he looked vaguely familiar, but she went immediately to the bed where Dudley lay amid the bloodstained sheets. His face was pale, but he seemed to be breathing easily. “How bad is it?” she asked.

Malloy kicked the chair leg, jarring the older man awake. He shook his grizzled head and rubbed his hands over his face. He hadn’t shaved in a day or two, and the stubble glistened silver on his cheeks. He blinked bloodshot eyes at her, and Sarah immediately recognized the signs of chronic alcoholism. She also recognized the man.

“Dr. Woomer,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

He gave her a sad smile and nodded. “Too long. You’re looking well, Mrs. Brandt.”

“I am well, thank you,” she said, not returning the compliment. “How is Mr. Dudley doing?”

“He’s alive,” he said, rising stiffly from the chair. “No thanks to whoever attacked him.”

He shuffled over to the bed and pulled down the top sheet so Sarah could see Dudley’s chest. “Somebody took after him with a knife. Didn’t know what they was doing, so most of the wounds hit bone and aren’t deep. This one here is the worst. Don’t look like it hit the heart or a lung, since he’s still alive, but it’s worrisome. He lost a lot of blood, too.”

Sarah nodded. She gave Malloy a questioning look.

“Dr. Woomer here thinks Dudley needs a nurse to look after him for a few days,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d take the job.”

Would she? He knew perfectly well she was more than willing to remain involved with the case. Sitting beside an unconscious man who might well die hardly seemed like an ideal occupation for someone who wanted to find a killer, but she also knew Dudley had most likely been attacked by the same person who’d killed Blackwell and Calvin Brown. When Dudley regained consciousness-assuming he did-Malloy would want someone there he could trust to hear anything he might have to say. Sarah wanted to be that person.

“I’ll be happy to assist in any way I can,” she said, managing to sound merely cooperative. Malloy wasn’t fooled, but probably Woomer was. “Unless I’m called out on a case, of course, but we’ll worry about that if it happens. Just tell me what care he’s going to need.”

“That’s good of you, Mrs. Brandt,” Woomer said, scratching his chin. He quickly told her what Dudley’s condition was and what he wanted her to do. Then he gathered his things and started to leave.

“Who’s going to pay me for this?” he asked Malloy when he was ready to go.

“Mr. Dudley is,” Malloy said, and he paid the doctor from a worn wallet he pulled from Dudley’s suit coat. Woomer seemed relieved.

They both waited a few moments, until Dr. Woomer was on his way down the stairs, before speaking, lest they be overheard.

“I guess this means Dudley isn’t the killer either,” Sarah said.

“Unless he figured out some way to stab himself in the back,” Malloy said in disgust.

“Was he able to give you any information at all?”

“No, although it looked like he was trying to say something before he passed out. The doc gave him some morphine, too, so it’ll be a while before he’s awake again.”

“Morphine,” Sarah said, thinking of all the trouble this drug had caused. She sighed. “Who could the killer be now? We shouldn’t have too many suspects left.”

“No, killing Dudley isn’t something any of Blackwell’s clients would think of doing, even if they knew anything about him, which they wouldn’t. They’d have been satisfied with casting suspicion on Calvin. And killing Dudley would eliminate him as a suspect, in any case.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you never got around to questioning the Fitzgeralds.”

“That’s right. I almost forgot all about them when Calvin was killed, but now it looks like they’re eliminated completely. They didn’t have anything against Dudley, and I think whoever tried to kill him did so for a very personal reason.”

“Because Letitia was going to marry him,” Sarah guessed. “It’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else. That certainly gives Amos Potter a good motive,” she added hopefully.

“But not for killing Blackwell and then Calvin. We know the person who killed Blackwell also killed Calvin and tried to make us believe the boy was the killer. We know the reason for Calvin’s death was to end the investigation. We don’t know why Blackwell was killed, but we do know why someone tried to kill Dudley.”

“Yes, to prevent Letitia from marrying him. That was the only threat he posed.”

“Which means only one person has a motive for all three murders,” Malloy said.

“Amos Potter,” Sarah tried again.

But Malloy shook his head. “He might’ve thought Blackwell was a bad husband-and we really don’t even have proof of that-but he would hardly offer me a reward to find Blackwell’s killer if he was the killer.”

“And if he didn’t kill Blackwell, he wouldn’t have killed Calvin,” Sarah said. “Then who’s left?”

“The only person left who’d kill just to protect Letitia is Maurice Symington.”

Sarah’s heart sank. “Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, oh, dear.”

They both knew a man with Symington’s wealth and influence would never even be charged with a crime like this, no matter how much proof they found against him. The worst part was that he might well have hired the killings done, which put him even further from being held responsible.

“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet, but one thing I’m not going to do is tell Symington that Dudley is still alive. Or anybody else, for that matter.”

“Why not…? Oh, because if Dudley names his attacker-”

“I’ll know who the real killer is,” he finished for her. “If Dudley is still alive, the killer is liable to come back and try to finish the job, too.”

“That’s why you sent for me to take care of him, then. You want me to try to get him to tell me who did this.”

“I just want you to keep him alive,” Malloy corrected her.

Sarah smiled knowingly. “And guard him in case the killer returns.”

“Absolutely not! I’m going to leave a patrolman here to guard you. I know you think you’re practically a police detective now, but I doubt you’re up to defending Dudley against the killer.”

“Maybe you could get Mrs. Ellsworth to help me. Between the two of us, I’m sure we could-”

“That’s not funny,” Malloy informed her.

“Are you going to tell Letitia that Dudley’s dead? She’ll be very upset.”

Malloy considered this. “I think I will. I’d like to see if she really is upset or if the whole thing with Dudley was a bluff. Maybe she was just trying to get her father’s goat with talk of marrying him.”

“You seem to have changed your opinion of the lovely Letitia,” she noted.

“What do you mean?” he asked, a little affronted.

“Nothing,” she said sweetly. “So you think the lovely widow might have been involved in the killings?”

“She’s involved all right, but I’m pretty sure she’s just the reason men are getting killed. I can’t see her getting her hands dirty. Or sneaking around the city in the middle of night to stab her lover in his bed. And why would she want Dudley dead in the first place?”

“Maybe she was finished with him. If he’d served his purpose, he’d just be a hindrance, especially with that red hair. Everyone would know she was an adulteress, and if she threw him over, he might try to blackmail her or cause a scandal. With him out of the picture…”

“So maybe she hinted to her father that things would be easier with Dudley dead,” Malloy admitted. “It still isn’t likely she killed him herself. Anyway, it’s not your job to solve this case. It’s your job to keep our only surviving witness alive.”

“All right, I’ll do my best.” She glanced at the figure on the bed. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that Woomer disinfected the wounds before he stitched them up.”

“Disinfected?” Malloy echoed.

“Cleaned them,” she explained.

“He wiped off the blood.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Would you tell the landlady that I’ll need some clean sheets and lots of hot water and towels and some whiskey?”

“She won’t be happy,” Malloy warned her.

“And a broom, too. And a dustpan.” She looked at the bloodstains on the floor. “I’ll need a scrub brush, too. And some lye soap.”

Malloy was chuckling when he made his way down the stairs.

FRANK HAD INTENDED to go straight to Maurice Symington, but Sarah Brandt had changed his mind. The quickest way to Symington was most likely through his daughter, in any case. Besides, Frank wanted to see her reaction to news of Dudley’s supposed death before someone else had a chance to break it to her gently.

When he arrived, the butler reluctantly admitted him, but he said, “Mrs. Blackwell already has a visitor,” in an apparent attempt to discourage Frank from staying.

Just then someone shouted, “Don’t be a fool, Letitia!” from the front parlor. It sounded like Maurice Symington.

Granger winced, most certainly a violation of the butler’s code of conduct, Frank thought with amusement.

“Sounds like she could use a little protection from the police,” he said to the butler. “Announce me.”

Granger was torn, but his loyalty to Letitia won out. “Please wait here,” he said, and went to the parlor doors.

He knocked perfunctorily before sliding the pocket doors open. “Mr. Malloy is here to see you, Mrs. Blackwell,” he said, then stepped aside.

Frank wasn’t certain what he had expected, but Letitia Blackwell didn’t look the least bit upset that her father was shouting at her. Her delicate chin was raised and set in defiance. Symington’s face was red and his neck swollen with rage. He turned on Frank with a murderous glare.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, but didn’t wait for a reply. “Oh, never mind. I want to report a crime to you.”

“A crime?” Frank asked curiously as Granger closed the parlor doors behind him.

“Yes, Peter Dudley is blackmailing my daughter.”

“Father!” she exclaimed in outrage. “How dare you?”

“What else do you call it?” Symington asked Frank. “The man is claiming to be the father of her child and demanding she marry him or he will ruin her reputation.”

“That’s a lie!” Letitia cried, jumping to her feet in her lover’s defense. “Dudley loves me, and I love him!”

Her father ignored her. “I want him locked up. And this, of course, gives him a very good reason for having killed Edmund and that poor boy, doesn’t it?”

Letitia made a strangled sound in her throat, but Frank ignored her, too.

“It would except for one thing,” Frank said.

“And what’s that?” Symington asked contemptuously.

“Someone has killed Dudley, too.”

Symington looked appropriately shocked. “What?”

Letitia made a cry of distress. “Peter?” she asked weakly, and sank back down onto the sofa.

At last she had their attention. Her father rushed to her. “There now, it’s all right,” he assured her, sitting beside her and taking her hand. Then he looked back up at Frank. “What’s this about Dudley?”

“I’m sorry to have been so blunt,” Frank lied, “but I’m afraid Peter Dudley has been murdered.”

Letitia looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “But he was just here yesterday,” she argued, as if that proved Frank was wrong. She looked stunned, but she wasn’t crying, at least not yet.

“What happened?” Symington asked more practically. “When did he die?”

“Someone went to his rooms last night, it seems. I found him this morning when I went to ask him some questions.”

Letitia’s lovely face crumpled, and she finally began to weep quietly, pulling a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve. “Peter,” she moaned.

Frank found her reaction a little too well-bred for his taste. Remembering how the patrolman had described her screaming when she found Blackwell’s body, he would have expected a more violent reaction to losing the man she professed to actually love. Of course, she hadn’t had to see any of Dudley’s blood spilled on her carpet.

Symington was trying to comfort his daughter, but his mind was still working. He looked up at Frank again, this time with a silent challenge in his piercing gaze. “Maybe it was a suicide,” he said. “He couldn’t live with himself for trying to hurt Letitia, and he killed himself from the guilt. Maybe all three of the deaths were suicides, Mr. Malloy. Isn’t that a possibility?”

He wasn’t making a guess; he was giving Frank a solution. He’d already offered a reward to ensure that Dudley was charged as the killer in the case. He’d probably be even more grateful if Frank decreed all the deaths were suicides and closed the investigation completely. His daughter would be free of two fortune hunters, and no scandal would touch his family. What more could he ask?

Frank could have granted his unspoken request so easily, if only Sarah Brandt hadn’t ruined him. “If Edmund Blackwell killed himself, then why would Calvin Brown have killed himself out of guilt for murdering his father?” he asked logically.

Symington was going to protest, but Frank didn’t give him a chance. “And Peter Dudley hardly stabbed himself in the back, so who did that, if not the man who killed Blackwell and Calvin? Unless, of course, it was just someone who wanted to prevent Dudley from marrying your daughter,” he added.

Symington needed only a moment to understand the implication. “There are many ways I could have prevented that, short of killing the man,” he snapped.

Like having him arrested for murder, Frank thought, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. Symington could have his job in an instant, and Frank had pushed him perilously close to doing just that already.

At the mention of killing Dudley, Letitia cried out again and began to sob. Her father instinctively put his arm around her, and she buried her head in his shoulder.

Symington looked as if he wished Frank in hell, but he also knew that he had to do something to help his daughter. Frank could almost see him considering and rejecting various options. Finally, he said, “What if that boy Calvin did kill Edmund and then himself? And what if Dudley was simply the victim of a robbery gone wrong? That must happen frequently in cheap lodging houses.” He glanced down at the golden head resting on his shoulder, then back at Frank again. “I would still be willing to offer the same reward we discussed previously if you can find the person who robbed and murdered Mr. Dudley.”

Frank nodded his understanding and breathed a sigh of relief. He knew perfectly well there was no robbery, but at least he was still on the case.