Murder In Chelsea Part 3

"Oh, dear! Who was she?" Mrs. Ellsworth asked, pulling out a chair for herself.

Sarah told her what she and Maeve had learned about Anne Murphy.

"I knew it," Mrs. Ellsworth said.

"You knew about this woman?"

"Oh, no, not about her exactly, but I knew something bad was going to happen. I saw an owl yesterday morning, in the tree out back. It's very bad luck to see an owl in the daylight."

Sarah managed not to roll her eyes. At least the girls weren't there. They were fascinated by Mrs. Ellsworth's superst.i.tions, and she always seemed to have one for every occasion. Sarah didn't mention that she'd heard the owl hooting last night. Heaven only knew what that meant.

"Mr. Malloy was right," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "You should never have gone to see this woman without him. You don't know who her cohorts might be."

"I'm afraid I didn't think about her having cohorts or anything else, for that matter. I just wanted to find out if she really has any claim on Catherine."

"I remember that day last fall when we were outside and Catherine had that . . . Well, I don't know what to call it."

"I know, I don't either, but she was so frightened. I can't help thinking that the 'pretty lady' she was remembering was her mother."

"I suppose I always half believed that myself, even without having heard this woman's story. What kind of a woman sends her child off heaven knows where and doesn't even inquire after her for a year?"

Sarah sighed. "A woman who fears for her own life, perhaps, or that of her child."

"Mrs. Brandt, you're picturing Catherine's mother as some angelic creature who sent her child to safety, but I don't think that's necessarily accurate."

"I don't think she's angelic," Sarah protested.

"Maybe not, but you do think she's like you, at least."

"Like me?"

"Yes. You're trying to picture her as a respectable person who loved Catherine above everything else, but the story this Miss Murphy told suggests otherwise."

"You mean because she was an actress?"

"I mean because she thought nothing of going off and leaving the child for weeks at a time while she carried on in the city. Oh, I know she'd hired this Murphy woman to take care of the child," she added when Sarah would have protested again, "and if she needed to work to support herself and her child, I could applaud her devotion. But she didn't need to. This Mr. Smith supported her."

Sarah had to admit she had a point. "I suppose she really loved acting and didn't want to give it up."

"Even for her child?"

Sarah frowned. "I hate to say it, but she wasn't very happy about having a child. Miss Murphy said Emma originally asked Mr. Smith for money for an abortionist, but he convinced her to have the baby instead. He promised to take care of them, and it sounds as if he kept that promise."

"At least for a while."

"Miss Murphy said Emma and Mr. Smith had an argument shortly before Miss Murphy left with Catherine. I hadn't thought about it, but maybe he told her he was tired of her and was going to turn her out."

"If he wasn't going to keep them anymore, that would explain why she sent Miss Murphy and the child away," Mrs. Ellsworth said.

"But Miss Murphy said he doted on Catherine. Surely, he wouldn't punish her just because he was tired of her mother."

"Men do strange things," Mrs. Ellsworth reminded her. "Maybe he had come to believe the child wasn't his. Maybe he wasn't as fond of Catherine as Miss Murphy thought. Or maybe he lost all his money and couldn't afford to keep them anymore."

Sarah rubbed her temples, more than tired of trying to figure out why people she'd never set eyes on had done what they'd done. To her relief, someone rang her doorbell. Maybe it was Malloy.

FRANK STOOD IN THE DOORWAY, WATCHING THE ORDERLIES carry Anne Murphy's body out to the waiting ambulance.

Doc Haynes, the medical examiner, said, "I'll do an autopsy, but I doubt I'll find anything surprising. She was stabbed in the chest with an ordinary kitchen knife. The blade probably nicked her heart or a major blood vessel. From the trail of blood, she was stabbed upstairs in her room and managed to get to the stairs, probably trying to get help or maybe running away from her attacker. At some point she died and fell the rest of the way down the stairs."

This was pretty much what Frank had determined before Haynes ever got there, while he'd been taking a look around and waiting for the hysterical landlady to get back with a beat cop in tow. She'd expected the cop to arrest Frank, but instead he'd obeyed Frank's orders to summon the medical examiner. "If you could tell me who stabbed her and why, I'd be very grateful, Doc."

Haynes grinned. "Ask me after the autopsy."

When he was gone, Frank closed the door and turned to the beat cop who'd been waiting around in case he was needed. "How's the landlady doing?"

"Fine once she broke out her gin. After a gla.s.s or two, she settled right down. She didn't want to believe you was a copper, you know. She thought for sure you killed that woman."

"Thanks for looking after her."

"Like I said, she was no trouble after she had herself a nip or two. She's in the kitchen."

Frank found her sitting at the table, staring at an empty gla.s.s. "Mrs. Jukes?"

She scowled. "Are you still here?"

"I need to ask you some questions."

"I don't have no idea who done for her, if that's what you want to know."

Frank was glad to note she didn't seem too drunk. "How long has Miss Murphy lived here?"

"Less than a month. Leastways, she paid for a month, and the rent's not due for a few more weeks."

"What did she tell you about herself?"

She sighed. "If a woman's got the price of a room and she don't look or act like a tart, I take her. I don't ask for no references, if that's what you mean."

"I don't expect you do. I meant did she tell you anything about herself? Did she have any visitors? Did she have a job?"

"She didn't have a job. My other boarders, they do, though. That's why she was here alone this morning."

"If she didn't have a job, how did she pay the rent?"

"She had the cash. I don't do charity work, if that's what you're thinking."

Frank hadn't thought that for a minute. "She didn't mention where she got her money if she didn't work?"

"What do I care where she got it? She could've stole it from the U.S. Mint for all I know. It's nothing to me as long as I get paid."

Frank didn't sigh. "When did you last see her?"

"She come down to breakfast early, with the rest. If you want to eat, you're here when I serve it. Then she went back up to her room. I never saw her again until I got back from the market and . . ." She shook her head.

"What time did you leave the house?"

"How do I know? A little after eight, I imagine."

Frank had arrived a little after nine, so he'd probably just missed the killer. "Did you see the knife Miss Murphy was stabbed with?"

She winced. "Yeah."

"Is it from your kitchen?"

"Not that I know of."

"Do you know if Miss Murphy had it in her room?"

She frowned at this. "How would I know? Boarders, they have all kinds of things in their rooms."

"So you never saw it before?"

"No, I never."

"What about visitors? Did anybody come to see her while she lived here?"

"Not that I ever saw, until yesterday. Two women come to visit. Ladies, they was. I don't know what they wanted with her."

Sarah and Maeve. Maeve would be flattered to have been thought a lady. "n.o.body else?"

"Like I said, not that I ever saw, but I'm not here all the time, am I? Like today. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if I'd been here, I might be dead, too."

"I think whoever killed her waited until she was alone."

"How can you know that? How do you know they won't be back and kill all of us in our beds?"

"Because Miss Murphy was involved in something dangerous. That's why I came to see her today, to question her about it, so you don't have to worry. Whoever killed her was only interested in her."

"What do you know about it? You didn't know a thing about her or why would you be asking me?"

Frank again managed not to sigh. "And you're sure she didn't have any other visitors?"

She glared at him again.

"Was she friendly with any of your other boarders?"

"Not likely. Kept herself to herself, that one. But if she wanted to see somebody, she didn't have to do it here. She went out most afternoons."

"Where did she go?"

"She wasn't likely to tell me, now was she? And what did I care? It's not like she was out all night and coming in drunk. She went out in the afternoon and come back in time for supper. It's included with the room, and she never missed but once or twice."

So whoever had contacted her about Catherine must have met her someplace else. "I'll need to search her room and pack up her belongings."

This got her attention. "Pack them up for what?"

"To take as evidence."

"Evidence? Evidence of what, I ask you? Her clothes didn't stab her."

"What do you care about her belongings?"

"Somebody might come for them."

"You said she didn't have any friends."

"How do I know who she had? Her family might want her things."

"Then they can get them from the police."

Mrs. Jukes frowned. "I might need to sell them to get my rent money."

"You said she was paid up for a month."

She had no answer for that and had to content herself with another glare. "Just don't make a mess. It's bad enough there's blood everywhere. Them stains'll never come out of the floorboards."

Frank made his way back up the stairs, following the blood drops to Anne Murphy's room. It looked like a thousand other rooms in cheap lodging houses, where people with little money and less hope found a place to live and some human companions.h.i.+p. Only the overturned chair and the blood splashes on the floor betrayed the violent death the room's occupant had suffered.

Miss Murphy's meager wardrobe hung on pegs on the wall, an extra skirt, a woolen cape, a jacket that matched the skirt. The drawers in the washstand held her extra linen. A brush and some stray hairpins lay on the stand beside the bowl and pitcher. A battered carpetbag sat in one corner.

He searched every inch of the room, fingering each article of clothing for anything hidden in pockets or seams. He pulled out the drawers and turned them upside down in case something had been stuck underneath. The carpetbag was empty with no secret pockets. He checked under the sagging iron bed, then he pulled off the bedclothes and shook each piece.

Finally, he flipped the mattress up off the bed and there it was, a thin packet of letters placed squarely in the middle, so someone tucking in a sheet or blanket wouldn't accidentally discover them. They'd been tied into a bundle with string. The envelopes were addressed to Anne Murphy but at an address a little farther north, in the Theater District.

Frank righted the chair overturned in Anne Murphy's final struggle and sat down. The oldest letter, dated about five weeks ago in January, instructed Anne to find a boardinghouse where no one would know her and wait there for further word. It was signed, "Emma."

The next letter, dated two weeks ago, told her Emma would be returning to the city soon, and she would meet Catherine and Miss Murphy and they would leave the city together. Anne was to write to her, care of General Delivery in Philadelphia, and tell her where she was living. Anne Murphy must have panicked when she realized she couldn't locate Catherine. Emma would have been furious to find the child missing.

The letters had no return addresses, and the postmark on the oldest one was Indianapolis and the most recent was Altoona, Pennsylvania. Miss Murphy's theory about Emma touring was probably correct. The last letter, the most interesting one, had been sealed and addressed-in a different handwriting-to a Mr. David Wilbanks on Seventy-second Street on the Upper West Side. Frank ripped it open and found a letter from Miss Murphy, telling him that Emma would soon be returning to the city to reclaim Catherine and take her away. It also indicated that Miss Murphy would be happy to tell this man where to find Catherine, if he paid for the information. She didn't say it right out, of course, but her meaning was clear. So Miss Murphy did know the real name of Catherine's father, and his address, too.

Frank decided he would leave Anne Murphy's belongings for Mrs. Jukes to dispose of. All he needed were these letters. And he'd deliver one of them to Mr. David Wilbanks himself.

OH, SARAH, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? I COME BY TO spend time with our darling Catherine and you tell me you put your life in danger!" her mother asked when Sarah had finished telling her tale. "Mr. Malloy was right. What if this Miss Murphy had attacked you?"

"I think Maeve and I could have adequately defended ourselves. I'm not the one in danger, in any case."