Gaslight Mystery 11 - Murder on Waverly Place Read online

  Sarah stared at her mother in wide-eyed astonishment, having no idea how to respond. Fortunately, Maeve appeared at that moment, saving her from having to decide.

  “Catherine is ready for bed and . . . Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, sensing the tension in the room. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “That’s all right, Maeve,” Sarah said, jumping up in her desperate need to escape. “I suppose she wants me to tuck her in.”

  “Yes, she always misses you when you’ve been gone awhile.” Maeve’s shrewd glance was flicking back and forth between Sarah and her mother, trying to gauge the situation. Were they quarreling? Disagreeing about something? Sarah wasn’t about to explain.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” Sarah said, not daring to meet her mother’s eye.

  Catherine was more demanding than usual, begging Sarah for just one more good-night kiss and asking question after question. She knew Sarah’s attention was focused elsewhere and tried every trick she knew to draw it back. Hating herself for giving the child less than her due, Sarah finally managed to break away. She found her mother still sitting at the kitchen table. Maeve had made herself scarce.

  “I’m sure this was a shock to you,” her mother said before Sarah could open her mouth. “I shouldn’t have asked you so soon. I should have given you time to get used to the idea. It’s just . . .”

  “How long will Father be out of town?” Sarah asked, having figured out the rush.

  “Only three more days. It’s not really necessary that he be out of town, of course, but I thought—”

  “You thought it would be easier if he were,” Sarah supplied for her. “I just don’t know . . .”

  “Sarah,” Mrs. Decker said, her blue eyes clear now, and full of determination. “You’ve finally been able to lay your own ghosts to rest. Please, help me with mine.”

  Sarah knew she was referring to Sarah’s husband, Tom. She hadn’t even realized how haunted she had been by his tragic murder almost four years ago until her friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy had finally tracked down his killer. While Sarah would still miss Tom until the day she died, at least she understood why he had died and had seen his killer punished. While nothing would ever ease the pain of losing him, she did have some measure of peace now. Could she deny her mother the chance at some peace for herself?

  “I’ll go with you, Mother,” Sarah said.

  Mrs. Decker’s relief was palpable. “Oh, Sarah, thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m not promising to support you in this or believe for one second that it’s possible. I’m just going to make sure no one takes advantage of you.”

  “It is possible,” her mother said, her voice almost breaking from the strength of her emotions. “It has to be.”

  For her mother’s sake, Sarah could almost hope it was.

  AFTER SEEING HER MOTHER OFF, SARAH CLOSED THE front door to find Maeve standing on the stairs that led upstairs to the girls’ bedrooms. “Is everything all right?” the girl asked with genuine concern. “Mrs. Decker seemed upset.”

  Sarah looked at the young woman who, like Catherine, had also come from the Prodigal Son Mission. Maeve had sought refuge there to escape a life Sarah knew little about. She had recently learned some important facts about that life, though, and about Maeve’s special talents.

  “Do you know anything about spiritualists?” Sarah asked.

  “Spiritualists?” Maeve repeated with a frown. “What kind?”

  “Are there different kinds?”

  Maeve shrugged, telling Sarah more than she wanted to know.

  “My mother wants to go to a séance.”

  Maeve’s eyes widened with surprise. “Mrs. Decker? I wouldn’t’ve thought she’s the type.”

  Sarah’s head began to throb again. “Would you come into the kitchen and tell me everything you know about it?”

  “Are you sure?” Maeve asked with unfeigned concern. “You’re awful tired. Maybe tomorrow . . . ?”

  “I won’t be able to sleep,” Sarah assured her. “At least not until I know more about this.”

  Maeve nodded and led the way back to the kitchen. When they were seated at the table, Maeve folded her hands expectantly.

  “What do you know about people who do séances?” Sarah asked.

  Recently, Sarah had learned that in her former life, Maeve had been a grifter, or at least that she’d come from a family of grifters, people who made their living by conning people in elaborate schemes. Although Maeve had never given Sarah any reason to suspect she was dishonest, Sarah’s friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy had recognized her abilities immediately when Maeve had employed them to help him solve the murder of Sarah’s husband, Dr. Tom Brandt.

  “I never knew anybody who did that kind of thing,” Maeve replied. “You need a house in a respectable neighborhood, and most of all, you need some way to get people with money to come to you. You know, classy people who can vouch for you.” She smiled apologetically. “My family never could even have managed the house part of it.”

  “But you know that it’s all fake, don’t you?”

  “I always figured it was. People talk, so I heard about it. There’s a lot of money in it, I guess.”

  “How do they get money from people?”

  “Not by stealing or anything,” Maeve hastened to assure her. “The marks . . . I mean, the customers, they come back of their own free will. The trick is to make them want to. You tell them some little thing the first time, just enough to make them believe it’s on the up and up. Then they have to come back again to hear more. Next time you tell them a little more and promise that the next time there’ll be even more. There’s no end to it, and they’ll pay more and more each time to hear what they think the spirits are telling them.”

  Sarah sighed wearily. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Mrs. Decker wouldn’t let herself get taken in, though,” Maeve said.

  “What makes you say that?” Sarah asked in surprise.

  “She’s smart. She’s . . .”

  “Rich?” Sarah guessed when Maeve hesitated. “That’s no guarantee you won’t be gullible. In fact, she’s probably much more innocent about these things than you are. She’s led a very sheltered life.”

  Maeve frowned, considering this. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s made her want to do this in the first place?”

  Sarah sighed again, absently rubbing the ache in her forehead. “She wants to contact my sister, Maggie.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” Maeve said in surprise.

  “There’s no reason you should. She died a long time ago, and we don’t talk about her,” Sarah admitted. “We’re too ashamed.”

  “Ashamed?” Maeve couldn’t believe it. “I’m sure you’ve got nothing to be ashamed about, Mrs. Brandt.”

  Sarah only wished that were true. “Guilty then,” she said. “We’ve got more than enough guilt to go around.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “Then I’ll have to convince you, won’t I?” Sarah said with another sigh. “Maggie was my older sister. I suppose she was a bit of a rebel. She didn’t think it was fair that our family had so much when many other people had nothing. She wanted to do something to help.”

  “Like the ladies who volunteer at the Mission,” Maeve guessed.

  Oh, if only Maggie had confined herself to such conventional good works. “No, she wanted more than that. She wanted to convince businessmen like my father to treat their workers more fairly.”

  “Did she?” Maeve asked doubtfully.

  “Not at all. She tried to convince our father first, of course, but he completely dismissed her, which only made her more determined.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Sarah said with a small smile. “Telling Maggie no was always the surest way to make her dig in her heels. And then she fell in love.”

  Maeve’s ey
es lit up, thrilled to hear about a romance. “With who?”

  “A man who worked for my father. He was young, just a clerk, but he probably had a bright future. He would never be good enough for Felix Decker’s daughter, though.”

  Maeve’s face fell with disappointment. “So Mr. Decker wouldn’t let them get married,” she guessed.

  “Of course not. Not even when she told them she was with child.”

  “Oh, no! But wouldn’t she have to get married? With the baby and everything?”

  “No. My father was determined she wouldn’t waste herself on a nobody, so my parents arranged for her to take a trip to Europe. She would have the baby there, give it to some orphanage, and return home with no one the wiser.”

  Maeve made an anguished sound of protest. “That’s horrible!”

  “Of course it is,” Sarah agreed bitterly. “Didn’t I tell you we were ashamed?”

  “Is that how she died? Having the baby?”

  “Not exactly. As you already know, Maggie wasn’t one to meekly go along with our father’s plans. She escaped before the ship set sail, and she found her lover, and they eloped. But they didn’t live happily ever after,” Sarah warned quickly when Maeve’s face lit up again.

  “But they were together!” Maeve protested.

  “My father is a very powerful man. He had dismissed Maggie’s husband when he found out about the affair, and he’d made sure the man couldn’t get work anywhere else. He had to labor on the docks, when he could find work at all, and when he couldn’t, they went hungry.” Sarah had to close her eyes to shut out the visions that still haunted her.

  “That must’ve been awful hard on your sister,” Maeve said. “With her being used to living in that fancy house and all.”

  “None of us ever imagined how much they suffered. I tell myself that if we had, my parents would have helped them, but . . . Well, we’ll never know, will we?”

  “They would have,” Maeve assured her. “Mrs. Decker is such a nice lady.”

  Sarah wished she was as certain. “At any rate, we had no idea where they were. I think my parents believed that if they were truly in need, they would ask for help. In fact, I think that was exactly what my father had planned. They’d come crawling back, he’d make them beg forgiveness for defying him, and then he’d help them.”

  “Except your sister would never give in, so they never asked.”

  “No, she wouldn’t, not until it was too late.” Sarah drew a deep breath and let it out in a weary sigh. “I was home alone that night when he finally came,” she remembered. “My parents were at some party, and there wasn’t time to find them. Maggie was dying.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “He took me to the place where they were living. It was a rear tenement, on the fifth floor.” Sarah didn’t have to explain to Maeve that this was the cheapest of lodgings. Rear tenements were built in the spaces behind the buildings that fronted onto the streets. They got little air and less sunshine, and the fifth floor would be the least desirable location in a building where no one ever wanted to live in the first place. “The front room was full of lodgers who rented out floor space at night. That was the only way they could afford the rent.”

  Maeve’s eyes were filling with tears. She didn’t want to hear the ending to this story, but she held Sarah’s gaze, determined not to flinch.

  “Maggie had given birth with no one to help her, and she was dying. I know now that the afterbirth hadn’t been expelled properly, but I didn’t know anything about childbirth then. She was bleeding and no one could make it stop. She wanted me to take care of her baby.” Sarah’s voice caught on a sob as the horrible memories overcame her.

  “You did, didn’t you?” Maeve cried. “Please tell me you didn’t leave him there!”

  “He was already dead,” Sarah remembered, wiping the tears from her own face. “Such a tiny little thing and so perfect. I’ll never forget how beautiful he was. But I promised her I’d take care of him, and then . . . then she was gone.”

  “And that’s why you became a midwife,” Maeve guessed, her voice filled with wonder.

  “Yes,” Sarah said simply. “There were other reasons, too, but that was probably the most important one.”

  “And when you married Dr. Brandt, your parents had learned their lesson and didn’t stand in your way.”

  “I suppose you could say that. At least they didn’t stop me. I didn’t see them much after I was married, and after Dr. Brandt died, we quarreled and didn’t speak at all for several years.”

  “But now you’ve made up.”

  “Yes, although none of us can really forget what happened to Maggie.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault. You were so young, you couldn’t’ve done anything.”

  “I knew Maggie wasn’t going to Europe. She told me she was planning to elope. I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I’d told my parents and they’d been able to stop her.”

  “You couldn’t do that! She wanted to be with the man she loved!” Maeve protested.

  “But if I’d spoken up, she’d still be alive and her baby would, too. Even her husband . . . He hanged himself after Maggie died. Three lives lost, because I kept her secret.”

  “That’s foolishness, Mrs. Brandt,” Maeve insisted. “You can’t know what would’ve happened. Maybe Maggie wouldn’t want to be alive like that. Imagine knowing your baby was out there somewhere and you’d never see him again!”

  Sarah smiled at the girl. “Thank you, Maeve, for trying to make me feel better.”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel better,” she protested. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Yes, you are,” Sarah said. “And you’re right. We don’t know what would have happened, but now you know what did happen and why my mother is so interested in contacting the dead.”

  “Does she want to tell your sister she’s sorry for what happened?”

  “Yes, she does, and since we both know this spiritualist is a fake, she’s not going to be able to do that.”

  “But what if she could?”

  Sarah looked at her in surprise. “I thought you didn’t believe.”

  “I don’t, but Mrs. Decker does, and that’s all that counts. If she believes this person can talk to your sister, then she can say she’s sorry and she’ll feel better. Would that be wrong?”

  A very good question. Sarah considered it.

  “Or maybe,” Maeve ventured, “you think she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”

  “Oh, no! I know how sorry she is. I’ve always known that, but tonight I finally realized how much she’s suffered. I don’t want to see her suffer anymore.”

  “Then what harm could it do? So long as you’re there to make sure nobody takes advantage of her, I mean.”

  What harm could it do? Sarah had no idea. She just hoped she wasn’t going to find out.

  2

  BY THE TIME THE DECKERS’ COACH STOPPED IN FRONT OF Sarah’s house the next day, she was certain she’d made a terrible mistake by agreeing to accompany her mother. Her growing apprehension had infected Catherine, who started crying when Sarah kissed her good-bye and started out the door.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she assured the child. “I’ll be back in a little while, and when I am, Mrs. Decker will be with me.”

  “Hush, now,” Maeve soothed the child. “Mrs. Ellsworth will be here in a minute, and we’ll bake some cookies,” she said, naming Sarah’s next-door neighbor. “You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  Catherine shook her head in misery, big tears rolling down her cheeks as Sarah forced herself to turn away and take her leave.

  The Deckers’ coachman was holding the door for Sarah, and she climbed inside to find her mother looking pale and drawn.

  “Mother, are you ill?” Sarah asked in alarm. “We don’t have to do this if—”

  “No, no, I’m not ill. I just couldn’t sleep a wink last night for thinking about Maggie. What if she appears? Oh, Sarah, I do
n’t think I could bear seeing her again.”

  “She’s not going to appear!” Sarah exclaimed, horrified. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. You taught me that yourself.”

  “Sometimes there are . . . apparitions at these events,” Mrs. Decker said as if she hadn’t heard. “My friend Mrs. Burke told me.”

  From what Maeve had said last night, Sarah felt reasonably certain that any apparitions that appeared would be staged by the spiritualist, and her mother wasn’t likely to see an apparition on her very first visit in any case. She’d have to return several times and pay a large amount of money for such a dramatic display. “Has Mrs. Burke actually seen an apparition?”

  “No, not herself,” Mrs. Decker admitted reluctantly. “But she’s heard about it from others. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “Then perhaps we shouldn’t go at all,” Sarah suggested gently.

  Sarah could see that her mother’s gloved hands were clenched tightly in her lap, and she really did look as if she might be ill. “I have to go,” she said after a moment. “I’ve got to try, or I’ll never have any peace.”

  Sarah sank back against the seat cushions, resigned to enduring whatever the next few hours might bring.

  The trip didn’t take long, or at least not long enough for Sarah. If she’d been called to deliver a baby on Waverly Place, just off Washington Square, she would have walked from her house on Bank Street and counted herself lucky she had a delivery so close to home. Women like her mother didn’t walk around the city, however, even though it took longer for the carriage to navigate the heavy traffic than it would have taken Sarah on foot.

  The streets in this part of the city were quiet and well kept, inhabited by respectable people who worked hard and took pride in their accomplishments. Maeve would no doubt approve of this location for a spiritualist who wanted to attract a clientele with financial resources.

  When the coach finally stopped in front of one of the long row of identical town houses, Sarah looked at her mother one last time. “Are you sure you want to do this?”