Murder in Chelsea (5 page)

Without being instructed to, he followed her upstairs and over to the door to what had to be a parlor. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him. He almost stumbled in his effort not to run into her.

“What is your name? I need to announce you.”

“Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police.”

“Well, I never,” she muttered and started on her way again. She threw open the parlor door and repeated it.

A middle-aged man in a velvet smoking jacket rose slowly from an overstuffed chair. “Good heavens, Gabby, why didn’t you tell me he was from the police?”

3

B
OTH ME
N WAITED FOR THE MAID TO LEAVE, USING THE
time to take each other’s measure. Wilbanks was probably in his fifties, a tall, slender man confident of his place in the world. He still had his hair and a luxurious mustache into the bargain. Frank tried to imagine a woman of Sarah’s age finding him attractive, but perhaps his money alone would be enough for a penniless actress.

“Gabby said you know where the child is.”

Frank winced inwardly. The child was the most important thing to him, which meant he’d do whatever it took to get her back. Frank would have to be very careful. “I do.”

“Where is she? Take me to her.”

“Why should I?”

Wilbanks obviously wasn’t used to being thwarted. The blood rushed to his face, turning him a dangerous shade of crimson. “If you’re here, then you know I’m her father. What is it you want? Money? Name your price, but you’re not getting a penny until I see her.”

“Aren’t you at all interested to know why a police detective is here to see you?”

Frank watched the emotions play across his face. Confusion replaced the anger, then changed rapidly to concern, and finally, fear. The color drained from his face. “Dear God, has something happened to her?” His knees appeared to buckle, and he grabbed the arm of the chair where he’d been sitting and lowered himself into it. When he looked up, he seemed almost frantic. “Answer me, damn you!”

“No, nothing’s happened to her. She’s perfectly fine and in a safe place.”

His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“Just what I said. She’s fine.”

“I don’t . . .” His words strangled in a wracking cough torn from his chest. He fumbled in the pocket of his dressing gown for a handkerchief and pressed it to his lips. It barely muffled the painful hacking that shook his slender frame. The coughing went on much longer than Frank would have thought possible, and when Wilbanks finally pulled the cloth away from his mouth, Frank saw it was spotted with blood. Still gasping, Wilbanks said, “Water,” and indicated a tray beside his chair.

Frank hurried to him and filled the glass sitting there from the carafe and pressed it into Wilbanks’s trembling hands. As he watched Wilbanks sip the water, he saw what he had failed to notice before. The man was not merely thin, but gaunt, his skin sallow and his eyes shadowed from illness. Frank instinctively took a step back, realizing he shouldn’t be so close.

When Wilbanks had recovered, he looked up at Frank. He must have read something on his face, because he said, “It’s not what you think.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s not consumption, so you don’t have to worry. You can’t catch what I’ve got.”

“And what have you got?”

“Cancer, which means I don’t have time to waste. Now, who are you, and what are you doing here?”

Frank hesitated only a moment. “May I?” he asked, indicating a nearby chair. He sat without waiting for an answer. “I’m here because of Anne Murphy.”

“Anne? What about her?”

Frank removed the letter he’d found from his pocket and handed it to Wilbanks.

He frowned when he saw it had been opened, but Frank didn’t feel any need to explain. As he read, the color returned to his face. All of this anger probably wasn’t good for a man as sick as Wilbanks, but there was nothing Frank could do about that.

“Where did you get this?” he asked when he’d finished.

“From Miss Murphy.”

“You’re in league with her then.”

“No, I’m not. I’m investigating a crime.”

“What crime?”

“Murder.”

He blanched again. “Murder? Dear God, not Catherine!”

“No, I told you, she’s fine.”

“Who then? Emma?” The thought did not upset him nearly as much as Frank would have expected.

“No, although I don’t know where she is, so I can’t say for sure that she’s all right.”

“Emma is like a cat. She always lands on her feet.”

Now wasn’t that interesting? “Anne Murphy.”

“Anne? Yes, you said you got this letter from her.”

“Not from her. I found it in her room, after she was murdered.”

The news caused another coughing fit. This time Frank poured the water without being asked and waited patiently for Wilbanks to recover. This time he seemed shrunken, as if the news of Anne Murphy’s death had sapped him somehow. “Who killed her?” he asked hoarsely when he could speak again. At least Frank was now pretty sure Wilbanks had not been involved.

“I don’t know yet. I went to question her this morning, and I found her already dead.”

“Question her about what?”

“That’s really none of your business, Mr. Wilbanks. I only came here because I found the letter addressed to you. I thought you might be involved somehow.”

He smiled grimly. “You thought I might have killed Anne? I can hardly swat a fly these days, as you can see.”

“Or that you might have an idea who did.”

“For who might’ve killed Anne? Not any at all. Now if you’d said Emma was murdered, I could give you a list, but not for Anne. She never hurt a soul. But you said you don’t know where Emma is, and if Anne’s dead, who’s looking after Catherine?”

“I told you she’s safe. She’s been living with a family.”

“What family? Who are they?”

“Mr. Wilbanks, you can’t expect me to tell you anything until you’ve answered a few questions.”

“I most certainly can. Catherine is my daughter, and I have every right to her.”

“And I have every right to protect her until I find out what’s going on. A woman is dead, Mr. Wilbanks. Until I know why, I don’t know that Catherine isn’t in danger, too, and neither do you.”

“She’s in no danger from me!”

“And you’re in no condition to protect her from anybody else.”

That seemed to do the trick. All of Wilbanks’s bluster evaporated. He rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re right, of course. Forgive me, Mr. . . . Malloy, is it? What do you need to know?”

“Tell me everything you know about this Anne Murphy. When did you first meet her?”

He drew a breath, as if testing himself, and when he didn’t start coughing again, he said, “I met her at the same time I met Emma. Emma Hardy, Catherine’s mother. She was an actress. It was over six years ago now. My wife . . . My wife was an invalid, Mr. Malloy. She’d been ill for years and unable to . . . to perform her wifely duties. I was faithful to her all that time, I assure you. I put my energies into making money, and as you can see, I was very successful. But even making money pales after a while. You’re a man, Mr. Malloy. You can understand. I went to the theater one evening, and Emma caught my eye. She was just in the chorus, but something about her . . .”

“So you made her acquaintance and started seeing her,” Frank said when he hesitated. “And that’s when you met Miss Murphy.”

“Yes. Anne was a dresser.”

“A dresser?”

“She helped the girls get into their costumes, kept the backstage area clean, that sort of thing. When Emma . . . When she found out she was with child, I got her a house. She needed help with the housework and when the baby came, so at Emma’s suggestion, I hired Anne to take care of her.”

“Do you know anything about her? Does she have any family? Anyone who might wish her harm?”

“I don’t think she had any family. She was from the city, I think. She’d never been married, of course. She was grateful for the position I gave her, I know. She loved living in the country, and she adored Catherine.”

“What happened last year, when they disappeared?”

Wilbanks frowned. “How do you know about that?”

“I’m investigating her murder. I’ve learned a little about her.”

He didn’t look like he believed that, but he said, “I really don’t know what happened. I went out to visit one day, as I usually did, and they were gone.”

“Miss Hardy didn’t leave a note?”

“She didn’t leave anything at all except the furniture, which I assume was too cumbersome to carry away with her.”

“Did you look for her?”

“Of course I looked for her! She had Catherine, and whatever my feelings for Emma, I love my daughter, Mr. Malloy. I would have moved heaven and earth to find her, but I had to settle for hiring a private investigator. He could find no trace of them, however.”

Frank wondered how hard the fellow had tried, but he didn’t want to upset Mr. Wilbanks again, so he didn’t wonder it out loud. “Do you think she left because of the argument you had with her?”

Wilbanks gaped at him. “How do you know about that?”

“Just assume I know everything about your affair with Miss Hardy. What did you argue about?”

“I thought you knew everything.”

“I want to compare your version with the one I heard.”

Wilbanks snorted his disbelief. “I don’t know whose version you heard, but I’m sure it was a lie. I asked Emma to marry me. That’s what we quarreled about.”

Frank blinked in surprise. He could usually tell a lie when he heard one, and this sounded like a whopper, but Wilbanks wasn’t lying. Frank would’ve staked a month’s pay on it. “First of all, I thought you were already married.”

“I was. I was married when I met Emma, but my wife passed away a little over a year ago. I was then free to marry whomever I chose, and I asked Emma to be my wife.”

“And you’re saying this is why you quarreled?”

“Yes. Emma did not want to marry me.”

This made no sense at all. “Why on earth not?”

“You flatter me, Mr. Malloy, although I’m afraid you may assume my main attraction is my ability to support a family in a certain amount of luxury. Emma did not find that ability irresistible, however. By then, she’d returned to her career as an actress, if you can call it that. She was still a chorus girl and never likely to be anything more, but she liked being on the stage. She did not like being stuck at a house in the country with a young child, and she most definitely did not want to be stuck in a large house in the city with a young child and an aging husband, no matter how much money he might have.”

Frank scratched his head in confusion. “She doesn’t sound like she would’ve made a good wife, Mr. Wilbanks. Why were you so eager to marry her?”

“I wasn’t.”

Now he was really confused. “Then why did you ask her?”

“Because I wanted to legitimize my daughter’s birth, Mr. Malloy. I wanted to raise her in respectability. I made a terrible mistake when I took up with Emma Hardy, but Catherine was an innocent and did not deserve to be tainted by my mistakes. Marrying her mother was the only way to give her the life I wanted for her.”

“So you’re saying that after she refused your marriage proposal, Miss Hardy packed up Catherine and Miss Murphy and disappeared.”

“Shortly after that, yes.”

“Did you tell her to get out if she wouldn’t marry you?”

“Of course not. I still wanted to be able to see my daughter.”

“If she wouldn’t marry you, why not just take the child and cut Emma loose?”

“I might have done just that eventually. As I said, I wanted Catherine to be legitimate, and marrying Emma was the easiest way to do that, but my son-in-law was still investigating my other legal options when Emma disappeared. He’s an attorney.”

So far, Frank was pretty sure Wilbanks had been honest with him. Now it was time to test him. “Maybe your son had something to do with Emma leaving town.”

“My son? What does Oswald have to do with this?”

“He went to see Miss Hardy shortly before she disappeared.”

“That’s impossible! He knew nothing about her.”

“You’re wrong about that. He visited her at least twice and frightened her pretty badly, from what I understand.”

Wilbanks straightened in his chair, his eyes blazing. “Who are you getting your information from?”

“From Anne Murphy.”

“You said she was already dead when you found her.”

“She told her story to someone else the day before she died. Miss Murphy didn’t know what passed between Miss Hardy and your son, but it wasn’t pleasant, and you said yourself, she left town shortly after that. Maybe he found out you wanted to marry her, and he didn’t like the idea of sharing the family fortune with his father’s mistress and bastard child. Maybe he threatened her.”

He’d expected Wilbanks to explode at that, but to his surprise, he sank back into his chair and covered his face with both hands.

“Mr. Wilbanks? Are you all right?”

When he lowered his hands, his face was white, his eyes blazing. “I’ve told you everything I know about Anne Murphy, Mr. Malloy. Now when can I see Catherine?”

“That isn’t my decision.”

“Then whose decision is it? And don’t toy with me. I can have your job.”

“You wouldn’t like my job, Mr. Wilbanks,” Frank said, knowing he was foolish to taunt a man as powerful as Wilbanks but unwilling to be bullied all the same. “And I have to consider what’s best for Catherine.”

Wilbanks was furious, but he knew how to control it. His eyes narrowed. “You speak as if you care about her.”

“I do. I’ve known her for almost a year.”

“You said she lives with a family. Is it your family?”

Frank could only wish. “No, but I know them well.”

“How did they get her?”

“When Miss Hardy and Miss Murphy ran away, they separated. Miss Murphy took Catherine, and Miss Hardy told her to hide and that she would contact her when it was safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“She didn’t tell Miss Murphy, but Miss Murphy thought she feared for her life. At any rate, Miss Murphy was afraid to keep Catherine with her in case whoever was after Miss Hardy were to find them, too. So she dropped Catherine off at a settlement house here in the city.”

“Good God!”

“She thought Catherine would be safe there, and as it turned out, she was right. Eventually, one of the women who volunteer there took Catherine to live with her. The first anyone knew anything about Catherine’s background was when Miss Murphy went to the settlement house the other day looking for her.”

“And how did you get involved in all of this?”

“The matron at the settlement house refused to tell Miss Murphy where Catherine was. She wanted to check with Catherine’s guardian first. The guardian asked me to speak with Miss Murphy and find out if she really did have a claim on the child. She cares for Catherine very much and has no intention of turning her over to a total stranger.”