Murder on St. Mark’s place

6

“MRS. BRANDT, ARE YOU OFF TO DELIVER A baby?” a voice called as Sarah descended her front stoop the next evening.

“Not this evening,” Sarah replied to her next-door neighbor Mrs. Elsworth, who never seemed to miss a single event that happened in their neighborhood. Mrs. Elsworth spent an inordinate amount of time sweeping her front steps just so she’d have a good vantage point. That’s what she was doing just now, but at least she had an excuse. The showers that had fallen throughout the day had left leaves and small twigs in their wake. “I’m going to meet some friends.”

“Not that nice detective sergeant?” she asked hopefully.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Sarah said, unable to hide her smile. She wondered what Malloy would say to being characterized as “nice.”

“Are you expecting visitors, then? I found a button today while I was cleaning upstairs, which means I’m going to make a new friend. I wonder if you’ve got any babies due soon. If someone comes while you’re out, I’ll certainly take a message for you.”

“No babies due that I know of, but certainly take a message if anyone comes. I won’t be late, I’m sure.”

“Oh, that won’t matter to me. I hardly sleep anymore as it is. The slightest noise wakes me, and then I’m awake for the rest of the night. Getting old is such a bother.”

“But far preferable to the alternative, don’t you think?” Sarah replied with a smile.

Mrs. Elsworth smiled back. “I expect you’re right about that.”

Sarah left her still sweeping as she watched for other activity which might excite her interest.

A few minutes later Sarah was outside Faircloths when the girls came out at the end of their shift. She tried to imagine Gerda working in this place, sitting over a sewing machine for long hours, making men’s shirts, then coming out at the end of the day, tired but rejuvenated at the prospect of going dancing that evening and meeting a young man who might marry her and change her life.

Of course, changing her life might not necessarily have been a change for the better. She would most likely have traded her good times for life in a tenement apartment with too many children and too little money. Unfortunately, Gerda’s only alternatives would have been prostitution and an early death or spinsterhood, living on the charity and goodwill of relatives. When Sarah thought of Lars Otto’s potential for showing goodwill, she knew why women chose spinsterhood only when they had no other choice.

At first Sarah was afraid she might miss Gerda’s friends in the crowd of girls pouring out of the building, but then she saw Bertha’s outrageous hat with the red bird on top, and she called out to attract her attention. Bertha was surprised, and as Sarah had expected, she directed the attention of the other two girls, who were with her, to Sarah. They made their way over to where she stood beside the building.

“Mrs. Brandt, what’re you doing here?” Lisle asked “Did you find out something?”

“Did you find the killer?” Bertha asked, saying what Lisle wouldn’t.

“Not yet, which is why I need your help. Is there someplace we can go to talk? I’ll treat you to supper,” she added when the girls looked doubtful.

She knew that the girls frequently skipped lunch to have money for their frolics, and they eagerly accepted the invitation. They found a German beer garden nearby, where they feasted on bratwurst and sauerkraut and chunks of freshly baked bread.

“What do you want from us?” Lisle asked when they were settled at their table, heaping plates in front of them.

“I need to know the names of all the men that Gerda had been seeing right before she died,” Sarah explained. “My friend Detective Malloy is going to question the friends of all the other murdered girls, too. We’re going to try to narrow down the list of suspects to men that all the girls knew. Try to think of men who paid Gerda particular attention those last days.”

The girls thought and argued. “He did so dance with her!” “No, he didn’t!” It was a frustrating process, and Sarah was afraid it might be equally fruitless since evenings at the dance halls seemed to run together in their minds.

Still, she jotted down every name the girls mentioned in relation to Gerda, no matter how casual the contact. Sarah thought perhaps the killer wouldn’t want to have been seen with the victim very much before the crime. Perhaps he’d kept their contact mostly private. The thought was discouraging. That would mean he was clever enough to hide his identity from everyone.

“And there was George, don’t forget,” Bertha reminded them. “He bought her that fancy hat.”

Hetty nodded grimly. “George liked her a lot. He got mad one night when she danced with somebody else.”

“What night was that?” Sarah asked, her interest quickened. “Was it near the time she died? Was it before or after he gave her the hat?”

“After, I think,” Bertha said, glancing at Lisle, who was frowning. Plainly, she didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken.

Sarah waited for her verdict. “Yes, it was after,” Lisle reluctantly recalled. “She was wearing the hat that night, I think. That’s what started the fuss. George thought she should only dance with him, but she was tired of him.”

“That’s right,” Hetty remembered. “She’d found somebody she liked better. He had more money to spend, too. He’d treated her to dinner at a real nice place, she said.”

The other girls nodded.

“And George was jealous,” Sarah guessed.

“I guess you could call it that,” Bertha allowed as the girls exchanged a look.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like George was in love with her or anything,” Lisle explained. She sounded almost as if she were defending him. “He just… he wanted to…”

“She’d let him do it,” Hetty said baldly when Lisle couldn’t find the proper words. “He wanted to do it some more, but Gerda was finished with him once she got the hat.”

“Was Gerda fickle?” Sarah asked.

The girls gave her a blank stare, not understanding.

“Did she often change her mind about which man she liked best?” Sarah tried.

“She never liked any of them,” Bertha said. “Not really.”

Lisle nodded her agreement. “She never cared for anybody much. She just went with anyone who could show her some fun.”

“She liked a man who’d treat her,” Hetty added. “The more he’d spend on her, the better she liked him.”

“And she’d found someone more generous than George, so naturally, he was angry,” Sarah said. “Do you know George’s last name or where he lives?”

“He wouldn’t kill anyone,” Lisle said too quickly, and Sarah remembered that Lisle had also taken a gift from him. That meant she’d had a relationship with him, too. Did Lisle have tender feelings for him? If so, she’d better tread softly.

“I didn’t say I thought he was the killer,” Sarah said. “But maybe he would remember who the other man was or know his name. We need to question everyone who might know anything at all. It’s the only way we’ll find Gerda’s killer before he kills someone else.”

This sobered them instantly. After a moment Lisle said, “I never heard George’s last name.”

“I think he said Smith, but that’s probably a lie,” Hetty said. “Sometimes they don’t tell you their real names.”

Sarah could believe that. She wrote “George Smith” with a question mark. “What else do you know about him?”

“He sells ladies notions to the stores in town. Siegel-Cooper, Ehrichs, Simpson-Crawford, Adams & Co., and O’Neils,” Hetty said, naming all the big department stores on Sixth Avenue. “At least he claimed he did,” she added.

“He had nice things in his sample case, that’s certain,” Lisle said. Sarah thought she sounded wistful.

“Have you seen him lately?” Sarah asked.

The girls tried to remember. “I don’t think so,” Bertha finally decided. The others agreed.

“He ain’t been around since Gerda…” Lisle didn’t have to finish the thought.

“Please let me know if you see him in any of the dance halls, won’t you?” Sarah asked. “And it wouldn’t hurt to ask around and find out if anyone knows more about him.”

They looked grim now. Plainly, they didn’t relish the role of detective the way Sarah did.

“Do you know any of the other girls who were killed?” she asked. “Well enough to know who their male companions might have been?”

They considered.

“I used to see Luisa at the dances sometimes,” Hetty allowed.

The others weren’t sure. Obviously, they weren’t too interested in which other females attended the dances.

“Do you know any of their families?” Sarah asked. “Maybe you could introduce me.”

“Why would you want to meet them?” Lisle asked.

“To find out what men they knew in common.”

The girls looked at her pityingly. “Their families ain’t likely to know such a thing,” Lisle said. “You’d best ask their friends. Like us, that’s who’d know.”

They were right, of course.

“Do you know any of their friends, then?” she asked with a smile.

Two MORE DAYS passed before Malloy came in response to the note she’d sent him. She was sitting in her backyard, savoring the cooler evening breeze and feeling awful because she’d lost a baby that afternoon. The cord had been wrapped around his throat, and he’d suffocated before ever seeing the world. Sarah knew there was nothing she could have done, no way she could have known or prevented it from happening, but she still hated failure. The mother had been inconsolable. She’d lost another one before this, too, a baby born before its time and too small to live. She had placed all her hopes on this one since she’d managed to carry it to term. The babe had been perfectly formed, too. All his fingers and toes and a face like an angel. But dead. Sarah had tried every trick she knew to revive him, but to no avail.

When she heard someone knocking on her door, she rose wearily, praying it wasn’t someone summoning her to another birth. She didn’t think she could face another possible tragedy today. Which made her actually happy to see Malloy on her front stoop.

He looked as formidable as ever in his wrinkled suit and bowler hat. His shirt needed a fresh collar. She thought of her father, always impeccably dressed. Felix Decker considered himself a force in the city, a man to be reckoned with because he had money and power. Sarah imagined he wouldn’t last five minutes if Malloy decided to give him the third degree. The thought cheered her a little.

“Malloy, come in, and you’d better have some information. You kept me waiting long enough.”

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, too, Mrs. Brandt,” he replied, and she thought she caught a twinkle in his eye as he passed her.

“I hope you let Mrs. Elsworth see you coming in here,” she said, closing the door behind him. “She’s a great admirer of yours.”

“I doubt anybody comes in here without that old bat seeing them,” Malloy said sourly, removing his hat. His dark hair was mussed, and he made an attempt to smooth it with his fingers, making it worse.

“Let’s sit outside where it’s cooler,” she suggested. “I didn’t have a chance to get any lemons today, so all I’ve got to offer is water or coffee.”

“Water,” Malloy said, probably thinking as she did that it was too hot for coffee, even though a freak storm the day before had dropped the temperature sixteen degrees in just a short while.

When they were seated at the table on her back porch, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small notebook. Sarah already had her notes in front of her.

“These girls knew a lot of men,” he said.

“All we have to do is figure out which ones they all knew,” Sarah reminded him.

“Except they might not have known the man’s real name. Or maybe their friends didn’t know they’d met the fellow or-”

“Stop being so discouraging, Malloy! Just show me the names you’ve gotten.”

“I wouldn’t think I’d need to show you anything, Mrs. Brandt. You’ve probably done more investigating than I have on this case.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked, trying to sound innocent.

“You know what I mean. By the time I found some of these people, they’d already talked to you.”

“I was only trying to help. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to find all the girls’ friends.”

“You could’ve just told me who they were.”

“I was also trying to save you some time.”

He gave her one of his looks. “Then you should’ve told me to stop investigating. I wasted a lot of time following in your footsteps.”

He didn’t seem too annoyed, though. He was only pretending. How and when she had become an expert on Malloy’s moods, she had no idea. “Stop complaining, Malloy. I know you talked to a lot of people I didn’t. Just as I talked to people you didn’t. Let’s see your list.”

Malloy opened his notebook and handed it to her, then slid her papers over so he could look at them in turn.

Malloy’s handwriting was surprisingly small and neat. “You wrote descriptions of the men,” Sarah observed.

“A lot of them don’t tell the girls their last names. Do you know how many men there are in the city named Frank? I didn’t want you thinking I was the killer just because my name turned up on the list.”

Sarah looked at him in amazement. His expression was bland, and he was pretending to study her list. Since when had he developed a sense of humor?

“That’s a good idea,” she admitted. “The descriptions, I mean. That way we’d know immediately if any of these fellows with the same names are the same men.”

“Except there aren’t a lot of men with the same names.”

Sarah had noticed this also. “I made a chart, you see?” she said, pointing to a piece of paper on which she had made four columns, one for each of the dead girls. In each column, she had listed the names of all the men their friends had mentioned. She hadn’t done as thorough an investigation as Malloy, of course. She hadn’t questioned any friends of Eva Bower, for instance, because the girls hadn’t known her. Luisa Isenberg had been fairly easy since she worked at Faircloths and the girls knew her friends. She’d found only a few people who knew Fredrika Lutz. Sarah picked up a pencil and began filling in her chart with the names Malloy had gleaned from his interviews. When she was finished, she made a startling discovery.

“There isn’t one single name that appears on all four lists!”

“That would make this job easy, Mrs. Brandt. If it was that easy, they wouldn’t need someone with my abilities to solve cases,” he told her smugly.

Sarah had to admit he was probably right, even though she could see it gave him great satisfaction that she knew it. “All right, Mr. Detective Sergeant, what do we do now?”

He gloated for a moment, but only for a moment. “We pick out the names that occur most often. Then I find the men-or as many of them as I can-and ask them where they were when these girls were murdered.”

“They’re hardly likely to remember,” Sarah pointed out. “Except for Gerda, the killings happened weeks and even months ago.”

“You’re right. The average person won’t remember where he was on a particular evening even just a week ago, at least not without giving the manner some serious thought. But the killer will know exactly where he was on those evenings. Unless he’s very clever, he’ll make up alibis for those evenings. He’ll pretend to remember exactly where he was those nights and give me an elaborate story to explain it.”

Sarah was amazed. “So being clever can be a trap in itself.”

“If the police are even more clever.”

He was enjoying this too much. “But what if the killer is very smart, too. What if he’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t be able to remember where he was on a particular night three months ago?”

“Killers aren’t that smart, Mrs. Brandt. If they were, they wouldn’t be killers.”

Sarah certainly hoped he was right, but so far the killer had behaved with unusual intelligence. He’d chosen girls whose deaths would excite no interest in the police and who moved in social circles where they encountered numerous unfamiliar males. He’d killed them far enough apart that no one noticed the connection between the deaths until now, and that was only by accident. He may even have given his victims a false name or made certain the victims’ friends didn’t see them together. If no one knew they were acquainted, then no one could name him as a suspect. But Malloy had said killers weren’t that smart, or they wouldn’t be killers in the first place. She clung to that.

Looking over the list, she saw the name George was on three of the lists. “I don’t know what he looks like, but remember I told you that Gerda’s friends said a man name George was the one who gave her a new hat right before she died. I just found out he also got angry when she danced with another man right before she was killed.”

“Jealousy is sometimes a motive for murder, but in this case, I’m not so sure.”

“This man must have some reason for killing these girls. Maybe he imagines himself in love with them, and when they take up with someone else, he gets insanely jealous and kills them out of revenge.”

“Maybe,” was all Malloy would give her. “Do you know this George’s last name?”

“The girls said they thought it was Smith. They did say they weren’t sure it was his real name, though,” she added at his skeptical expression.

“George Smith. That narrows it down to about a thousand men in the city.”

Sarah ignored his sarcasm. “He sells ladies’ notions to the big department stores. He has a sample case, and from what I understand, when a girl allows him, uh, certain liberties, he offers her a gift from its contents.”

She’d embarrassed him, although he was trying valiantly not to show it. The flush crawled up his neck, however, betraying him. “Is that all it takes now? A bit of ribbon or a pair of gloves?” He was appalled.

“I’m sure it takes more than that. Gerda got a hat, don’t forget.”

“And a pair of red shoes. Did this George buy them for her?”

“The girls didn’t think so. Seems Gerda took up with another man right before she died, but they never saw him. He spent money on her rather freely, so she gave George the gate. That’s when George got angry. I think you’d do well to question him, at least.”

Malloy just grunted and continued to look over the list. Sarah wished she’d gotten descriptions for the men on her list. She hadn’t even thought to ask for a description of George. It seemed so obvious now that she’d need to know what he looked like. Or rather that Malloy would.

He was making a new list of the names that occurred on three of the lists. A good place to start, she reasoned, when she heard the gate open.

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had company.” Mrs. Elsworth didn’t look a bit sorry. In fact, she looked as satisfied as a cat with its head in the cream pitcher. “Good evening, Detective Sergeant.”

Malloy rose reluctantly to his feet as Mrs. Elsworth made her way through the flowers to the back-porch steps. “Good evening,” he replied without the slightest trace of warmth.

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, you’ll think me such a ninny, but this message came for you this morning, and I completely forgot about it.” She had a piece of paper in her hand that Sarah longed to snatch, but there was no point in being rude. Mrs. Elsworth would give it to her in due time. “I should’ve known,” she was saying. “I dropped a fork this morning. You know that saying, ‘knife falls, gentleman calls; fork falls, lady calls.’ ”

Sarah didn’t know the saying, but she nodded anyway. “Are you saying a lady called for me?”

“Oh, gracious, yes. I thought I’d said that. And she left this message.”

“I hope it isn’t a message about a baby being born.” That would be a disaster.

“Oh, no, of course not. I told her right away that you were out on a delivery, and heaven only knew when you’d return. Babies keep their own schedule, don’t you know. But she said it wasn’t about a baby, and she just wanted to leave a message. She didn’t look like the sort of person who usually calls on you, if you don’t mind my saying so, but she was such a little thing, I didn’t believe her to be dangerous. I let her come in and write you a note, and then I forgot all about it until just this moment.”

At last she handed over the missive to Sarah, who unfolded it quickly. The spelling was poor, but she had no trouble deciphering the message. It was from Lisle. “One of Gerda’s friends saw George at a dance hall last night,” she told Malloy.

When she looked up, Mrs. Elsworth was waiting expectantly. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Elsworth. This is a very important message. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss receiving it.”

“I hope its being late didn’t do any damage,” she said with a worried frown.

“None at all,” Sarah assured her. “Thank you so much for delivering it. You’ve been a big help.”

Sarah was trying to dismiss her, but she didn’t want to be dismissed. She wanted to know what they were talking about, and she kept trying see what was on the papers scattered over Sarah’s table.

“We don’t want to keep you from anything, Mrs. Elsworth,” Malloy said. His tone was unmistakable. He wanted her gone.

Her face fell, making Sarah sorry. Mrs. Elsworth was lonely, and her life held little pleasure and absolutely no excitement. Sharing Sarah’s life was one of her few enjoyments. But Sarah couldn’t share this part of it. “If I don’t get a call tomorrow, perhaps you’ll come over for lunch,” she suggested, softening the rejection.

That seemed to placate her somewhat. “I’ll make a pie,” she offered. “I’ll go to the market first thing tomorrow and see what fruit they have. Good night, Detective Sergeant. Such a pleasure to see you again.”

Malloy did not return the compliment. He waited a few minutes after the gate had closed behind her to say, “Let me see the note.”

The message was brief. Plainly, Lisle wasn’t used to writing formal letters. She had seen George at Harmony Hall the previous night and had come by before going to her job at Faircloths this morning to let Sarah know.

“She says she told him to meet her again tonight,” Sarah said. “There’s a dance at the same place.”

“Do they have dances every night?” Malloy asked, unable to comprehend such a thing.

“It appears they do. And that’s just one hall. There are others all over the city.”

Malloy looked up from the note. “You think this George is the killer, don’t you?”

Sarah hoped he was. She wanted the killer caught quickly, before he could harm anyone else. “I think he may know something,” she allowed. “He was angry because Gerda had taken up with another man. Maybe he knows who that man was, at least.”

Malloy sighed. “I suppose you want to go out right now and find him.”

Sarah smiled sweetly. “Oh, no. The dance won’t start for at least another hour.”

“YOU CAN’T GO in with me, you know,” Sarah said as they approached Harmony Hall. The usual assortment of flashily dressed young men were gathered on the walk at the bottom of the steps, surveying the young women as they arrived.

Malloy cast her an impatient glance. “How am I supposed to question this George fellow if I don’t?”

“I’m not sure. I think perhaps we should get Lisle to lure him outside. In any case, he can’t see you first. I’m afraid you’re just too intimidating, Malloy, and besides, you don’t look like you belong in a place like this. You’ll frighten away all the patrons.”

He looked like he was going to argue with her, but just then the fellows lingering outside the dance hall got a look at Malloy, and they scattered like pigeons, ducking and dodging in every direction.

Malloy frowned, and Sarah said smugly, “You see what I mean? You just look too much like a policeman. You frighten people.”

“Only people with something to hide,” Malloy argued.

“Maybe this George has something to hide.”

Malloy grunted his acceptance.

When they reached the stairs up to the dance hall, Sarah looked around the neighborhood. “We need to decide where we’ll meet you.”

“We?” he asked. “I thought this Lisle girl was going to bring him out. And don’t expect to stand around and watch me question this George fellow. You don’t have the stomach for it.”

Sarah could have argued that point. She’d seen people die in hideous ways during her years of nursing and midwifery, so her stomach was quite strong. But he probably wasn’t talking about that sort of thing. She wouldn’t approve of his tactics, which she imagined could be quite violent if necessary. If so, then he was right, she didn’t have the stomach for it.

“What kind of a place do you need for your interrogation?” she asked. “Is an alley all right?”

“Anyplace out of sight,” he replied, also scanning the area for an appropriate spot. “I’ll wait in the bar across the street. I’ll sit near the front window so I can see them come out.”

“You don’t know what they look like,” Sarah reminded him. “I’ll come out just before or just after them and catch your eye. Then we can follow them until you see a suitable place to… to do whatever you need to do.”

Malloy didn’t like accepting her plan, but it made so much sense, he couldn’t argue with it. “All right, but don’t think you’re going to watch me question him.”

Sarah smiled sweetly, then started up the stairs to the dance hall. The music was loud and discordant, and the hall was already crowded and smoky and unbearably hot. The bouncer took her admission fee, but his expression told her he found her presence in a place like this very strange indeed.

Sarah took a moment to allow her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness of the hall. Then she was able to find Lisle and the other girls sitting at a table on the other side of the room. She made her way over to them, drawing curious glances as she moved through the crowd. Feeling conspicuously out of place, Sarah finally reached the table where Lisle, Hetty, and Bertha sat.

Hetty and Bertha were looking grim, and Lisle was smoking furiously on a cigarette. Sarah noticed her hand was less than steady when she brought it to her lips to take a drag.

“You shouldn’t’ve made her do this,” Hetty told Sarah as she took the empty chair at the table. “She’s scared silly!”

“Shut up, Hetty,” Lisle said, glaring at her friend, even as she took another puff of the cigarette. “I ain’t scared. I’m just nervous.”

“If you don’t want to do it, I can go tell Malloy that-”

“I do want to do it!” Lisle insisted, throwing the butt of her cigarette to the floor and grinding it out with the toe of her shoe. “Don’t you want to know who killed Gerda?” she demanded of the other girls.

Their gazes dropped. Sarah wasn’t sure if it was shame or fear that cowed them. She only hoped whatever it was wouldn’t interfere with the investigation.

“I told my friend Detective Sergeant Malloy that when Lisle leaves the hall with George-”

“You mean she’s got to go out with him? What if he’s the killer?” Bertha wailed.

“Shush!” Hetty said, looking around nervously in case they had been overheard. Fortunately, the music was so loud, they could hardly even hear each other.

“Mr. Malloy is waiting downstairs,” Sarah hurried to explain. “He’ll follow Lisle and George, then he’ll confront George and question him. After I take Lisle away,” she hastened to add when Bertha would have protested again, “I’ll either follow them outside or go out ahead of them. That way I can point them out to Mr. Malloy. They won’t get far, and Lisle will never be alone with him.”

The girls didn’t seem reassured. Lisle looked around and saw a young man passing their table. “Got a smoke?” she asked with a brittle smile.

He was only too delighted to offer her a cigarette and light it for her. But when he made as if to sit down and join them, she turned away with a faint, “Thanks. See you later.”

Stung, he moved away, looking back once with an angry glare. Sarah imagined she saw murder in his eyes. She was becoming much too suspicious lately.

“Have you seen George? Is he here yet?” Sarah asked.

The girls shook their heads. A young man with buckteeth and freckles came over and asked Bertha to dance. She went reluctantly and only after Lisle told her to. A few minutes later another fellow came and asked Hetty to dance. Left alone with Lisle, Sarah watched her smoke the second cigarette down until it was too small to hold any longer. She ground it out with a ferocity that made Sarah wince.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sarah tried. “Mr. Malloy won’t let you out of his sight.”

“I ain’t afraid,” Lisle snapped, her fragile face rigid with whatever emotions she was feeling. “Not of George, any-ways. He won’t hurt me. He’d of done it before now if he was going to. I just don’t like tricking him like this. And what’s that copper friend of yours going to do to him? What if he don’t know who killed Gerda?”

Before Sarah could answer, a young man approached them. He was moderately tall and solidly built with the cheerful, open face of a born salesman. If his suit was loud, it was also well made and fit him perfectly. His hair was slicked back with pomade beneath his bowler hat, and his cheeks were clean-shaven. His smile revealed strong, even teeth.

“Lisle, my darling girl, sorry I’m late. The trolley jumped the track, and I had to walk most of the way up from… Oh, hello there, miss,” he said, noticing Sarah.

“This is my friend Sarah,” Lisle said without looking at her.

“George Smith,” he said, tipping his hat. “Pleased to meet you.” His expression told her he was trying to figure out what a woman like her was doing in a place like this. With Lisle. She simply smiled serenely, trying to picture him beating a young woman to death. The picture simply would not form in her mind.

“Thank you,” she said, almost shouting to make herself heard above the music.

George pulled one of the other chairs a little closer to Lisle’s and sat down. “You look down in the mouth, kiddo. What’s wrong?”

“I’m tired of this place. Can we go somewhere else?” She didn’t sound very enthusiastic at the prospect, and George must have been a little suspicious. He glanced at Sarah as if trying to figure something out.

“Don’t worry about me,” Sarah said. “I was just leaving myself.”

“I wouldn’t want to run you off,” he said with his too friendly smile. “The night’s just starting.”

“Not for me, I’m afraid.” Sarah got up, looking at Lisle to make sure she was going to be all right. The girl’s chin rose a notch, and she met Sarah’s gaze steadily.

“You go on,” she said. “Don’t worry none about me. I’ll be fine now George is here.”

“Very nice meeting you, Mr. Smith,” Sarah said to George, who stood politely and nodded. He was still puzzled, trying to figure out who Sarah was and why she was here, but he would get no satisfaction from her.

By the time Sarah reached the relative quiet of the street outside, she felt her own tension quivering along every nerve ending. No wonder Lisle was so nervous.

She walked straight across the street, dodging the late-evening traffic, to the bar where Malloy said he would wait, giving him ample time to see her. Then she paused, looking up and down the street as if trying to decide which way to go. A moment later Malloy was at her side.

“Did you see him?”

“Yes, and I think he and Lisle will be coming out in just a moment. Where can we hide so he doesn’t see me watching for him?”

“No need to hide,” he said, taking her arm and guiding her to the next building. He put her back against it and stood in front of her, facing her, as if they were enjoying a very private conversation. He put his arm up, bracing his hand against the wall beside her head so her face would be shielded from anyone coming from the direction of the dance hall.

She looked up at Malloy, his face only inches from hers. She could see the tiny hairs where his beard was starting to grow. How odd she’d never noticed before but his eyes weren’t solid brown. They had gold flecks in them.

“Do you see them yet?” he asked. His voice sounded a little hoarse. Or maybe she was just being fanciful.

Obediently, she glanced under his arm. People were going into the hall, a group of young men who had obviously been drinking. They were laughing and shoving each other playfully as they unsteadily climbed the steps. Seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. Sarah was very aware of Malloy. The evening was warm, but it had grown considerably warmer in the past few minutes.

Sarah tried to draw a breath and found her lungs didn’t want to cooperate. Just when she thought she would have to duck under Malloy’s arm and flee or lose her sanity, she saw them.

“There they are!” she cried with as much relief as triumph.