Murder on Washington Square

10

SARAH MADE HER WAY QUICKLY DOWN BANK STREET, clutching her umbrella against the rains that had returned and trying not to look at the Ellsworths’ front porch. Not seeing Mrs. Ellsworth there, waiting to speak a cheery word and commiserate with her, was too depressing after the day she’d had. At least the baby she had delivered today had been born healthy. This morning, upon returning home from her parents’ home where she’d spent the night, she’d been trying to decide what she could do that would help exonerate Nelson Ellsworth when an elderly gentleman had come to her door. He’d begged her to come immediately.

His granddaughter was giving birth, he told her, and indeed she was, even though she was only thirteen and hardly more than a baby herself. The girl was, in fact, his great-granddaughter, the illegitimate child of his granddaughter who’d died giving birth to her. He and his wife had taken the child to raise, since their daughter had long since deserted the family. They’d hoped to be able to keep this girl-child from the fates of her mother and grand-mother, but she’d been seduced-or raped, the difference was slight for a girl so young-by some older boys in the neighborhood. Even the girl herself had no idea which of them had fathered the child. In spite of all odds, the baby and the mother appeared to be doing well, however, and the baby was a boy. If nothing else, he’d never give birth to a child before even reaching maturity. Of course, he might die of disease or neglect before reaching maturity, too. Sarah couldn’t allow herself to think of such things, though. If she did, she’d give up completely.

She’d purchased a copy of the Evening World from a newsboy on Fifth Avenue, but she hadn’t looked at it yet. If Webster Prescott had written another story about Anna and Nelson, she didn’t want to discover it until she was sitting down in the privacy of her own home.

To her relief, no reporters loitered in front of the Ellsworth house this evening. She wondered if they had just taken shelter from the weather or if they were following other threads of the story. She could even go knock on the Ellsworths’ front door today without risking making a public spectacle, but she decided to wait until she’d had time to get a bite of supper first. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, having refused the offer of a meal at the flat where she’d delivered the baby today. They hadn’t looked as if they could spare any food, and only the fear of wounding their pride had induced her to accept a payment for her services. Fortunately, they hadn’t suspected that the amount she’d charged them was only a fraction of her usual fee.

From habit, she glanced over at the Ellsworths’ porch as she unlocked her own door and stepped inside. She would never complain again about her neighbor being nosy, she vowed.

She found some bread and cheese and made herself a sandwich. As she sat to eat it, she spread the newspaper on the table in front of her. The headline she was looking for was prominently displayed: ACTRESS PLAYS A DEADLY ROLE.

“Malloy,” Sarah muttered, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Although the newspapers did not identify the reporter who had written each particular story, Sarah easily recognized Webster Prescott’s handiwork by the content. The article revealed that prior to her death, Anna Blake had made her living “on the boards,” playing a succession of minor roles in minor productions produced by minor production companies in obscure theaters. The titles of the plays were suggestive, such as Molly, Girl of the Streets and The Rape of the Sabine Women. If Anna Blake had appeared in anything like a serious drama, Prescott hadn’t seen fit to mention it. He was more interested in sensationalizing her past and making her sound like a scarlet woman who had seduced innocent gentlemen and deserved her awful fate.

Sarah knew perfectly well that Anna Blake was a scarlet woman, of course, but she hated seeing the newspaper say so. Too many people already judged females too harshly. Girls like the one whose baby she’d delivered today were branded as harlots and worse, as if they’d chosen their fates instead of being victimized, since men seemed to delight in blaming females for their own debauchery. Heaven knew, the boy who had fathered that girl’s baby would never suffer any stigma because of it.

How curious, then, that Mr. Giddings and Nelson Ellsworth had truly fallen prey to a seductress. Women who fell from grace were always branded as evil, but few really were the kind of schemer that Anna Blake was. And oddly enough, such women could only dupe unworldly, middle-class men. Wealthy men would either pay them off or laugh at their threats-if you were rich enough, you need fear nothing. Poor men would also laugh-the poor could not afford niceties like honor and responsibility. Only men who had something worth protecting but little means of protecting it were susceptible to the Anna Blakes of the world.

She had, Sarah reflected, chosen her victims well, however. While Giddings wasn’t personally wealthy, he was comfortable enough and so positioned in life that he couldn’t afford a scandal. He also had access to ample funds, and if pushed far enough, as he was, he would steal them to protect his good name.

But what still didn’t make sense, at least to Sarah, was why Anna had chosen Nelson Ellsworth. Like Giddings, he did have access to vast amounts of money, even though he wasn’t wealthy himself. But as a bachelor, he needn’t fear scandal, and if his better nature demanded that he provide for his child, he could marry the mother, which he had offered to do. No matter how many times Sarah thought about it, she couldn’t make sense of it. Why choose Nelson?

She’d finished up her sandwich and washed it down with some cider that was beginning to turn. She’d have to offer it to Malloy when he came next. He wouldn’t mind hard cider, she thought with a smile.

Briefly, she considered taking the newspaper over to her neighbors, but then she decided against it. She could tell them the information. They didn’t have to know Nelson was still being mentioned prominently on the front page of every scandal sheet in town.

Frank cursed under his breath as he made his way through the crowded hospital ward at Bellevue the next morning. Rows of beds lined the walls, most of them filled with men in various stages of dying. No one came to the hospital unless they were dying. The odors of rotting limbs and diseased bowels and God knew what nearly gagged him, but he set his teeth and refused to display any weakness. The smell wasn’t really any worse than an ordinary flophouse, he told himself, and he’d certainly seen his share of them, looking for suspects. At least the floors were reasonably clean and the beds had laundered linen and no lice.

But it wasn’t really the odors. It was the dying. Frank knew that smell, and it brought back far too many memories.

Finally, he saw the face he’d been looking for. It was paler than it had been the last time he saw it, but he recognized it easily.

“Prescott!” Frank called, hoping the eyes would open. To his great relief, they did.

Webster Prescott smiled wanly at the sight of him. “How’d you find me?” he asked, his voice faint and breathy.

“You asked for me, remember? The cop who found you in that alley said you just kept begging him to send for me. Said you wouldn’t get in the ambulance until he promised. So what in the hell happened to you?”

Prescott’s young face wrinkled in pain. “Somebody stabbed me.” He gestured toward his left side, and Frank managed not to wince at the thought of how close his attacker had come to his heart.

“I knew that much,” Frank said. “You wouldn’t say who did it, though. Or why. At least to the cop who found you. He’s pretty mad about it, too.”

“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said, his voice so faint Frank had to lean closer to hear. “Somebody else might get the story.”

Frank shook his head in disgust. “You reporters. All you think about is getting the story. I guess you thought you were safe telling me, though. You know how I hate you lot, so I wouldn’t go telling your competitors.”

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

“All right then, who stabbed you?”

“A woman.”

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

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

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

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

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

Prescott nodded weakly.

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

“No, in the Square.”

“Washington Square?”

He nodded again. “By the fountain.”

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

“She wanted… privacy… in the mews.”

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

Prescott nodded.

“And what did she tell you?”

“Nothing… she just… stabbed me.”

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

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

“But you’re sure it was a woman?”

“Sounded like… Strong, though.”

“She was strong? How do you know?”

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

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

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

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

“Or the Sun,” Prescott added.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you mind if I check your bandage?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He nodded.

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

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

“Anna’s friend… at the theater…”

“What theater?”

“Tivoli,” he said.

“What’s her name?”

“Irene.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah?” he asked gruffly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As it turned out, she needed no further assistance. The dingy corridor she entered led past several doors, but only one was ajar. Through it, Sarah could hear the sound of women’s voices. Deciding this was very promising, she called into the opened doorway, “Irene?”

The voices ceased, and a long moment of suspicious silence followed.

“Irene, are you there?” Sarah called again, feigning confidence. If Irene wasn’t there, she’d have to bluff her way past others the way she’d bluffed past the doorman.

But a voice said, “Who is it?” and Sarah knew she need look no further. She pushed the door open all the way and stepped in to find a narrow room lined on both sides with crudely built shelves that apparently served as dressing tables with mirrors above them. The shelves were littered with the same kinds of grease paints Sarah had found in Anna Blake’s room, along with wigs and brushes, combs and hand mirrors, and scraps of ribbon and hairpins and feathers and all sorts of grooming items. At the far end of the room stood racks of what appeared to be costumes, judging by their garish colors and fabrics.

Three young women in various stages of undress stood in the center of the room. The one who wore a wrapper carelessly draped over her underclothes was staring at her most intently, while the other two seemed merely curious. “Hello, Irene,” Sarah said to the one who was staring. “I’m Sarah Brandt.”

“Do I know you?” she asked warily. She wasn’t old, not in years. Her body still retained its youthful curves and her face showed no signs of dissipation. Her eyes, however, revealed a wealth of experience, and they’d taken Sarah’s measure in one glance. She didn’t seem impressed by what she’d seen.

“I’m a friend of Anna Blake’s,” Sarah tried.

Instantly, the two curious women moved away and busied themselves with the costumes at the far end of the room. Irene looked even warier now, as if she might bolt. Murder had a way of making people cautious, Sarah had learned.

“A newspaper reporter, Webster Prescott, said you knew Anna,” Sarah tried quickly, in an attempt to break through Irene’s understandable reluctance to speak of Anna Blake to a stranger. “I’m trying to find out who killed her, and if you could-”

“You?” she scoffed. “How could you find a killer? And why would somebody like you care who killed Anna anyway?”

Sarah doubted Irene would understand her concern for Nelson Ellsworth even if she’d felt like explaining it, which she didn’t, so she said, “I want to see justice done. The police…” Sarah made a helpless motion with her hand. “I don’t think they care very much about finding the killer.”

“I thought that fellow did it, the one in the newspaper who was her lover,” Irene said. “That’s what the reporter said, anyway.”

Sarah only needed a second to come up with a new lie. “That’s what the police are trying to make everyone believe so they don’t have to exert themselves to find the real killer. But he didn’t do it, and Mr. Prescott is helping me find out who did.”

Irene didn’t care about any of this. “I gotta get ready for the performance,” she said impatiently.

“I don’t want to bother you,” Sarah said. “But I only have a few questions, and I’d be willing to pay you for your time. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

The two women who had been so interested in the costumes suddenly turned their attention back to Sarah. “I knew Anna,” one of them offered.

“You did not,” Irene snapped. “Shut your lying mouth.” Then to Sarah, “Come out here where we can talk.”

She led Sarah back into the corridor. Some more women had arrived and were making their way toward the dressing room. Irene took Sarah’s arm and drew her down to the far end of the corridor, into the shadows where the gaslights on the walls didn’t quite reach.

“I can’t talk long,” she warned. “What do you wanna know?”

“How long did you know Anna?”

“A couple years. Ever since I joined the troupe.”

“She was here when you came?”

“That’s right. Been with them a long time, she said.”

“Why did she stop acting?”

Irene smiled strangely. “You mean why did she stop working here?”

“Yes.”

“She was getting old, you know? Too old for any of the good parts. She could still sing, but they put her in the back row. She didn’t like it, but there wasn’t nothing she could do about it. Then she met this fellow.”

“What fellow?”

“I don’t know his name. He’d wait at the stage door for her. Hadn’t nobody waited for her for a long time. We was all pretty surprised.”

“What did he look like?”

She shrugged. “Skinny. Short beard. Nice clothes. Good manners. A real dandy. He owned the house where she went to live.”

“Mr. Walcott?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“That’s him,” Irene said. “You know him?”

“Yes. Are you saying he was a Stage Door Jimmy?”

Irene smiled condescendingly. “That’s Stage Door Johnny, and yeah, he was one. He’d wait out there after the show and give her flowers or something. Some of the swells, they give you jewelry or really nice things. Flowers ain’t good for nothing, but they’re nice. And Anna, she liked the attention, ’cause she hadn’t had any in a while, her being so old.”

“How old was she?” Sarah asked in amazement.

“Twenty-five, I think. At least, that’s what she’d admit to.”

Sarah didn’t think that was very old, but since the doorman had deemed her too “long in the tooth” to begin an acting career, she had to assume different standards prevailed in the theater. “I’m sorry I interrupted you. Go on. Mr. Walcott was giving her presents.”

Irene shrugged again. “Then next thing you know, she says she’s going to live with this Walcott. Says he’s got a rooming house where she can live for free, and she won’t have to work no more.”

That sounded suspicious. The Walcotts definitely gave the impression the girls were paying customers. Unless Anna was a special case. “How would she support herself if she didn’t work? Even with a free room?” Sarah asked.

Irene made a face. “We had our ideas. Only one kind of place gives you a free room, but we figured she’d be too old to attract much in that trade either. She said it wasn’t that kind of a house, though. Just laughed when I warned her to be careful.”

“Why were you worried about her?”

Irene gave her a pitying look. “A girl has to be careful. Nobody takes care of you for nothing. I figured this fellow wanted something from her, even if I couldn’t figure out what it was. But she wasn’t worried. She told me she was just gonna do what Francine did and end up rich and living in the country.”

“Who’s Francine?”

“She worked here, too. She found a rich fellow to take care of her, or that’s what she said when she left here. Anna said Mr. Walcott introduced Francine to her gentleman friend and he was gonna do the same for her.”

“What does Francine look like?” Sarah asked, thinking of Catherine Porter.

“Short with red hair. Lots of freckles.”

Not the same person. “Do you know a Catherine Porter?” she asked.

Irene shook her head. “Never heard of her… Oh, wait, could that be Katie Porter?”

“I’m sure it could. She’s an actress, too. She has dark hair, very Irish looking.”

“That’s probably her. I haven’t seen her for a while. I thought she’d gone on tour or something. She hasn’t been around.”

“She lives at Mr. Walcott’s house, too,” Sarah offered.

Irene registered surprise. “Does she now? Ain’t that interesting? I guess it really is a brothel, then. Wasn’t Anna surprised?”

“What makes you think it was a brothel?”

“Because of Katie. She never liked being poor. If she couldn’t get work on the stage, she’d find some on her back, if you know what I mean. She never would admit to being a whore, because she only did it now and then, but if you say she was working in that house…” She shrugged again, her meaning clear.

Sarah was certain the Walcotts didn’t operate a brothel, but a woman who’d had experience in both acting and prostitution would certainly be an asset if all the women there were doing what Anna Blake was doing. “Has Mr. Walcott taken an interest in any of the other actresses in the theater?”

“Not that I know of. Listen, that’s all I know, and I gotta get back. You said you’d pay me…”

Sarah reached into her purse and pulled out five dollars, which was probably what Irene earned here in a week. “Thank you for your help,” she said, slipping the money into Irene’s outstretched hand.

She counted the money and smiled. “Any time.” She stuffed the money down into the bodice of her corset and hurried back to the dressing room without bothering to say good-bye.

Sarah stared after her for a long moment, wondering what, if anything, she had really learned. With a sigh, she made her way back down the corridor to the exit. Maybe, she thought, Malloy had had better luck.

The gaslights were lit by the time Sarah reached Bank Street, and she was wishing she’d worn a heavier coat. Her spirits rose instantly when she saw a man sitting on her front step, waiting for her. She needed to see Malloy and find out what he’d learned. But as she got closer, and the man rose to his feet to meet her, she realized it wasn’t Malloy after all.

“Mrs. Brandt,” he said with a pleasant smile, pulling off his hat.

“Mr. Dennis,” Sarah said, making no attempt to hide her amazement, although she did manage not to sound disappointed. She couldn’t help glancing at the Ellsworth house, but no faces stared out of the front windows. Had Mrs. Ellsworth or Nelson seen him sitting here? They would surely wonder about that. Sarah was wondering herself. “What brings you here?”

His smile vanished. “I wish I could tell you I’d come on a social visit, but I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. I wanted to break it to you myself first.”

“What do you mean, first?” she asked apprehensively.

“I mean, before you read it in the newspaper.” He glanced up and down the street, as if trying to judge whether or not he would be overheard.

“Why don’t you come inside?” she suggested, instinctively knowing she didn’t want anyone else to overhear his news either.

He followed her up the front steps and waited while she unlocked the front door. When they were inside, she removed her jacket and took his hat. He was looking curiously around her office. “This is very impressive. You have quite a bit of equipment here,” he remarked.

“My husband was a physician,” she reminded him. “This was his office originally. I don’t use a lot of it.”

He looked a little ill at ease. Most people were in the presence of such intimidating furnishings, but Sarah did nothing to reassure him. She didn’t want him to feel comfortable if he was bringing her bad news. She bade him be seated in one of the chairs that sat by the front window, and she took the other.

When they were seated, she said, “You came to tell me something.”

His smile was apologetic. “I wish I could have forgotten. This gives me no pleasure, Mrs. Brandt. I know you are a friend to the Ellsworths, and-”

“What is it?” she snapped, her patience stretched to the breaking point after her long and frustrating day.

He blinked in surprise at her tone, but he said, “I had an auditor check our books.”

“What books?”

“Our bank records,” he explained. “Ordinarily, the bank’s records are checked for accuracy only once a year, but in light of what you told me…”

“What did I tell you?” Sarah asked with growing alarm when he hesitated.

“That Nelson Ellsworth was being blackmailed by a woman of ill repute.”

“I didn’t tell you any such thing!” she protested.

He gave her the kind of patronizing look that set her teeth on edge. “You told me that she had demanded money from another man and that he had stolen it from his employer. You also told me this woman had seduced Nelson as well. Mrs. Brandt, I would be foolish indeed-and remiss in my duties-if I didn’t reassure myself that Mr. Ellsworth hadn’t done the same thing that other man did.”

“But Nelson is innocent!”

“Are you saying he didn’t give her money?”

“Well, he did, but-”

“I felt certain he had, and I had to make certain that money didn’t come from the bank,” he said so reasonably she wanted to slap him.

“Nelson would never take anything that didn’t belong to him,” Sarah insisted.

“Your confidence in him is commendable, I’m sure, but the fact is, Mrs. Brandt, that the auditors found money missing.”

“That’s impossible!” Sarah insisted.

“I assure you, it’s very possible. He stole nearly ten thousand dollars.”