Murder in Morningside Heights (A Gaslight Mystery) (8 page)

“Do you lock your own desk?”

“As I said, there is no need.”

Then why was there a key in the lock on the professor’s desk where Frank could plainly see it?

“Thank you for your help, Professor,” Frank said, shaking the man’s hand again. “If you happen to think of anything that might help, please let me know.” He handed him one of his expensive cards.

“Of course, Monsieur Malloy. I wish you much luck in finding who killed the poor mademoiselle.”

*   *   *

G
ino had foolishly thought that Mr. Malloy was doing him a favor when he assigned him to question Abigail Northrup’s students. After spending almost an hour interviewing them, he now understood that Malloy had merely fobbed off an unpleasant task to his underling. The girls were either openly hostile to a male they considered a dangerous interloper into their sacred sanctuary or they were too giggly and flirtatious to even make sense. Neither type had offered any useful information.

One of the other female teachers had helpfully gathered Abigail’s classes together and sent them one by one into an empty classroom to meet with Gino. He had to leave the door open for propriety, but he’d set up his interviews as far from the door as possible to keep from being overheard by the teacher, who sat just outside as a chaperone. If only he’d heard anything worth overhearing. He was about to give up hope he ever would when the next student came in.

She sat down in the chair he’d placed in front of the student desk he’d commandeered. She was a plain girl with hair the color of carrots and a generous sprinkling of freckles. She peered at him suspiciously through her spectacles as he sat down and introduced himself.

“I’m Karen Oxley,” she offered without either a giggle or
a scowl. “I did see Tobias working in the lavatory on the second floor last Wednesday, and I didn’t see anything outside. All the girls are talking, so I know what you’re going to ask. I guess you’ve figured out by now that we don’t spend a lot of time staring out the windows.”

“It does seem like they keep you pretty busy.” Not a single girl had admitted to so much as glancing outside on the day Abigail had died, although most of them knew the janitor had been working in the girls’ dormitory.

“Of course we’re busy. And I don’t have any idea who might’ve killed Miss Northrup either.” Her voice broke a bit, but she cleared her throat. “It’s a terrible thing. She was a good teacher.”

“You liked her, then?”

“Of course. We all liked her. None of us in our class knew a word of French when we came to her, and she made learning it fun.”

“How did she do that?”

Miss Oxley smiled at the memory. “She’d teach us the grammar and the vocabulary, and then we’d do silly examples that would make us laugh but also remember.”

“Like what?” Gino asked with genuine interest.

“Oh, we’d say something like, ‘The bird sat on my head.’ And then the next girl would try to think of something better, like, ‘The bird ate my head.’ By the end we’d be laughing so hard, we could hardly talk.”

“And this isn’t the usual way people learn French?”

“I don’t know, because I never studied French before, but no teacher ever made me laugh except Miss Northrup. If she wasn’t so young, she probably would’ve been my smash.”

Gino blinked in surprise. “Your what?”

“My smash.” Plainly, she thought he should know what that was.

“What’s a smash?”

She registered a little surprise, but she said, “It’s the teacher you . . . I’m not sure how to describe it. Love? But not romantically. Admire? Not strong enough.” She frowned in concentration.

“But Miss Northrup was a female.”

She gave him a pitying smile. “That’s the whole point! None of us have ever met women like the teachers here. Nor have we ever been exposed to new ideas the way we are here. Talking about them and learning so much . . . it’s intoxicating! And the females who teach here are so interesting. They’re smart and educated, and they know so much about everything. Not like our mothers at all. When you meet them, it’s like falling violently in love without having to worry about romance.”

“Sort of like a crush?” Gino tried, still not sure he understood.

“Yes, in a way, only much more exciting because you don’t have to be embarrassed or nervous or worry about a young man noticing you. All the freshmen girls have a smash, or most of us, anyway. They even call it the Freshman Disease,” she added with a satisfied grin.

“And who’s your smash?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “None of your business, but not Miss Northrup. Like I said, she was too young. She was more like a friend than a teacher, I guess because she’d been a student herself just a few months ago.”

But Abigail Northrup had probably had a smash of her own, and Gino knew exactly who it was.

*   *   *

S
arah had been waiting somewhat patiently for over half an hour in the living room of Miss Wilson’s brick town house. She’d spent her morning trying to identify a
charity that would take Hannah, the pregnant young woman at the Mission, but she hadn’t had any luck. She only hoped her afternoon would be more rewarding. Finally, she heard the front door open. Bathsheba hurried down the hall to greet Miss Billingsly and tell her she had a visitor.

Sarah couldn’t make out the exact words of the whispered conversation, but plainly, Miss Billingsly wasn’t pleased. She spoke quickly, almost frantically, and Sarah knew a moment of guilt for having forced her presence on the distraught woman. Someone needed to speak with her, though, and Sarah knew she would be the most gentle. Bathsheba’s tone was reasonable and persuasive. She’d welcomed Sarah a while ago without the slightest indication that she had set up this meeting by telling Gino when she expected Miss Billingsly to return home. Sarah had made no reference to it either.

After a few more whispered exchanges, Miss Billingsly came in through the open doorway. She was patting her hair into place after removing her hat and looked a bit flustered. Sarah rose from her chair and said, “I’m sorry to have imposed myself on you like this, but your maid said I should wait, that you’d be home shortly.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Miss Billingsly lied with a stiff little smile. “It’s always pleasant to have company. I don’t think we’ve met.”

Sarah wasn’t going to remind her of her unceremonious entrance the other day. “No, we haven’t. I’m Sarah Malloy. My husband is the detective investigating Miss Northrup’s death.”

Miss Billingsly’s stiff smile vanished. “Oh yes. Georgia told me about that. A frightful business.”

Sarah wasn’t sure if she meant the murder or the investigation. “We’re trying to determine who might have attacked Miss Northrup, so we’re speaking with all of her close friends.”

Miss Billingsly frowned at that. “Close friends? I was hardly that.”

“But she lived here, didn’t she? And you knew her well.”

“I knew her, yes,” she admitted a bit reluctantly.

“And I’m sure you’d like to know her killer is locked up and unable to harm anyone else.”

She couldn’t possibly disagree with that, no matter how much she might have disliked Abigail Northrup, so she said, “Very well. Ask your questions.”

She moved to the chair nearest Sarah’s and sank wearily into it. Sarah took this as an invitation to sit down again herself, so she did.

Miss Billingsly looked her over. “Are you a detective, too?”

“Not professionally, no, but I sometimes help my husband. He thinks ladies respond better to me than to him.”

“And do they?”

“Sometimes. How long had you known Miss Northrup?”

She sighed as if in relief. “That’s an easy one. Going on five years now, I suppose. Since she first came to the Normal School as a student.”

“Did you have her as a student?”

“I have all the young ladies at one time or another.”

“What do you teach?”

“Geography.”

“How interesting,” Sarah said with genuine enthusiasm. “I always enjoyed geography.”

Miss Billingsly’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Yes, learning about all those countries you’ll never see.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I always thought someday I’d travel. I wanted to ride a camel in Egypt and see the Roman Colosseum at night. I wanted to visit the Parthenon, but I’ll never do any of that
now, not on the salary of a normal school instructor. So I just tell other disappointed young women about the wonders they’ll also never see.”

Sarah had no answer for that, especially when she remembered that Abigail had traveled to France during the summer between her graduation and when she started teaching. How jealous Miss Billingsly must have been of her opportunity. “Were you happy to have Miss Northrup living here?”

“Happy? Why should I be? This isn’t a large house. We were already crowded before she came. And it made a lot more work for poor Bathsheba. No one even considered her.”

“And yet you agreed to let her come.”

“It’s not my place to agree or disagree. It’s Georgia’s house. Miss Wilson’s, I mean. She had a small inheritance when her mother died, and she bought it. I’m just a guest here.”

“More than a guest, surely,” Sarah said. “You and Miss Wilson have been friends for many years.”

She pressed her lips together until they were no more than a straight line in her face, and Sarah slowly realized she was trying not to weep. After a few moments, she cleared her throat and said, “Yes, we have.”

“Did you meet when you were students?”

“Oh no, not until I came here to teach. Georgia had been here for a year already. She took me under her wing, you see. She’s like that, always making sure people feel welcome and included. That’s why the young ladies love her so.”

“And you became close friends.”

Her whole body seemed to soften as she remembered. “I’d never had a friend like that before. I hardly dared believe that she felt the same until she bought this house and asked me to share it with her.”

“You must have been very happy here.”

“Yes, until . . .”

“Until Miss Northrup came?” Sarah said when she hesitated.

“I should have seen it,” Miss Billingsly said softly.

“What should you have seen?” Sarah asked just as softly.

Miss Billingsly’s expression hardened. “She would come to our Sunday Salons. That’s what we call them. We’d invite a few of the young ladies, the more promising ones, to come for some literary discussions and a light supper. Georgia teaches English literature, and all the young ladies love that.”

“Did you ever discuss geography?”

She shook her head impatiently. “We’d discuss other cultures and a woman’s role in them. We’d discuss all sorts of things. Abigail was delightful in the beginning. She was so hungry for knowledge, and she admired Georgia so. All the girls did, of course. She was the one they came to see. I was just the one who filled their cups and passed around the cookies.” Oddly, she didn’t seem bitter about that at all.

“I’m sure you have your own admirers.”

But Miss Billingsly didn’t even seem to hear her. She was lost in her memories. “I was so blind. I should have guessed it was something more when Abigail continued to come. The girls usually lost interest after a year or two. The juniors and seniors formed their own friendships and cliques, and they didn’t need us anymore, but not Abigail.”

“Why do you think she kept coming?”

Miss Billingsly turned in her chair to meet Sarah’s gaze squarely. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe I would. Help me.”

“The girls fall in love with their teachers. Learning can be intoxicating to those who are being challenged for the first time in their lives, and in the beginning they look at us as the source of that knowledge. They think we’re somehow special. After a year or two, they realize it’s the knowledge
they love, not the one who transmits it to them, but with Abigail . . . She loved Georgia at first, but I didn’t think anything of it. Dozens of girls have loved her through the years, perhaps hundreds. But this was different.”

“Different how?”

Her lips thinned down again, and this time her eyes flooded with tears. “Georgia loved her back.”

Before Sarah could even register this remarkable statement, someone pounded on the front door.

“What on earth?” Miss Billingsly murmured.

They heard Bathsheba hurrying to answer it, and whoever was out there hammered on the door again before she could get there. As soon as she opened the door, a man’s voice said, “I’m here to get my sister’s things.”

By then Miss Billingsly was on her feet and moving toward the doorway into the hall. Sarah was close behind her. When they reached it, they saw that a young man had pushed his way into the house in spite of Bathsheba’s efforts to prevent him. He was a strapping youth with corn yellow hair and large ears that protruded just a bit from his head. At the moment, his handsome face was red with fury.

When he noticed the two women, he demanded, “Which one of you is Miss Wilson?”

“Neither of us. I’m Miss Billingsly. How may we help you, young man?”

Something in her tone, probably the natural authority of a longtime teacher used to managing her students, seemed to startle him a bit, and he lost some of his belligerence. “I’m Abigail’s brother. Luther Northrup. I . . . I’m here to collect her things.”

Sarah didn’t know why she was surprised to learn Abigail had a brother. Malloy hadn’t mentioned it, but surely her parents had told him.

“If you truly are her brother, then there’s no need for you to be rude, young man,” Miss Billingsly said. “You have every right to Abigail’s belongings.”

“I . . . I’m sorry, miss. I just . . . I went to the school first and no one wanted to tell me where you lived. They acted like I’d done something wrong to go there. It took me hours to find you.”

“Then you must be cold and tired. Come in and have a seat. Bathsheba, will you get Mr. Northrup some coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”

“Coffee, if you please.”

Bathsheba didn’t say any actual words, though her grunts and huffs made it perfectly clear how reluctant she was to serve this rude young man, but she headed for the kitchen.