“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.
15
DUDLEY’S LANDLADY HAD GRUMBLED AND COMPLAINED about every one of Sarah’s requests. Sarah thought she should have been grateful someone was willing to clean one of her rooms for her, but no, she’d just been unhappy because Sarah was inconveniencing her with her demands for supplies. She’d been even less enthusiastic about providing supper for Sarah and the patrolman who was guarding Dudley’s room, until Sarah had offered to pay her for her trouble. Sarah had regretted her offer as soon as the food had finally arrived, though. It was barely edible. She also wanted a rich beef broth for Dudley, if he regained consciousness, but she figured there was no use asking the landlady for it. Maybe she should send a message to Mrs. Ellsworth, who would be only too happy to prepare something if she asked.