Murder on Trinity Place Page 4

  Frank had been wondering that himself. “It doesn’t seem likely, but we did see at least one man get a little rough with him, and most of the men in that crowd were drinking.”

  “Some of them had been drinking all day,” Gino said knowingly.

  “All right,” Sarah said. “I can understand that someone would have been annoyed with him, and Mr. Pritchard might not have realized he should stop arguing and move on, but he was strangled.”

  “What does that matter?” Gino asked.

  “I could see it if somebody punched him or pushed him, and he fell and hit his head. That’s what happens when men argue. But it takes a long time to strangle someone, and with so many people around, why didn’t anyone stop it?”

  “Or why didn’t the person doing the strangling come to his senses before it was too late?” Gino said. “You’re right, it takes a long time to strangle someone.”

  “And a lot of effort,” Frank said, remembering victims he’d seen who had been strangled. “If somebody was drunk enough to think it was a good idea, they’d probably be too drunk to do a good job of it.”

  “Which makes Mr. Pritchard’s murder seem very suspicious indeed,” Sarah said.

  “So you think somebody murdered him for a mysterious reason that we don’t know?” Gino asked with more delight than Frank thought was appropriate.

  But Sarah only shrugged. “I know, it’s hard to believe. The man owned a dairy, for heaven’s sake. What could he possibly have done to get himself murdered?”

  “Don’t ask questions like that,” Frank said. “It’s none of our business.”

  “Isn’t it?” she asked with a smile.

  Before he could reply, the doorbell rang again. Frank chafed at the wait while their maid, Hattie, answered the door and dealt with the caller. In the old days, he would have opened his own door and known immediately who was there. On the other hand, Hattie could turn away people he didn’t want to see. Being rich wasn’t all bad.

  Hattie came to the parlor door at last and said, “A Detective Sergeant O’Connor is here to see you.”

  Frank managed not to groan.

  O’Connor was supposed to wait in the hallway until Hattie told him whether or not Mr. Malloy would see him, but he hadn’t waited. He almost instantly appeared behind Hattie and slipped by her, stepping into the parlor with a brashness that annoyed Frank almost as much as it impressed him.

  Frank and Gino rose to greet him. O’Connor was a big man and still young. He hadn’t been a detective very long but long enough to have crossed Frank. He apparently hadn’t yet recovered.

  “Happy New Year, O’Connor,” Frank said with far less enthusiasm than he’d greeted Gino.

  “Same to you.” O’Connor was busy looking around, taking in the furnishings and the paintings, things Frank and Sarah had bought in Europe on their wedding trip. Frank could see he was impressed and trying not to show it.

  “What brings you here?” Frank asked.

  “The Pritchard murder.” His inspection of the room had noted the pile of newspapers, and he raised his eyebrows. “I went to see the family this morning, and they mentioned you’d seen Pritchard at the church that night. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have bothered tracking down a witness like that, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to see how a millionaire lives.”

  But Frank and Sarah had deliberately chosen to live modestly, compared to most of the wealthy families in the city. “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

  “Not a bit. Nice house. Nice things. Nice wife. All bought and paid for.”

  Frank had actually taken a step toward O’Connor, ready to throw him bodily out of the house, but Sarah caught his hand and stopped him.

  “Won’t you sit down, Mr. O’Connor?” she said in a voice he seldom heard her use. It was the voice she’d learned at her mother’s knee, her lady-of-the-manor voice.

  O’Connor, bless his heart, responded instinctively. Something very like alarm flicked in his eyes and he sat. Frank and Gino did the same.

  “Do you have a wife, Mr. O’Connor?” she asked.

  “I . . . uh . . . Yes, I do,” he said warily.

  “And exactly how much did you pay for her?”

  O’Connor’s eyes grew round and he swallowed. “Uh, I beg your pardon, ma’am. Please excuse my manners. I’m, uh, not used to dealing with ladies.”

  “Obviously not, but if you think you can be civil, we’ll be happy to answer your questions.”

  O’Connor cleared his throat and glanced at Frank. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to do him bodily harm, at least not at the moment, he cleared his throat again and said, “So did you see Mr. Pritchard on the night he was killed?”

  “Yes.” Frank didn’t let his anger show in his expression, because Sarah expected him to act like a gentleman, but he didn’t even try to keep it from his voice. “We went down to Trinity Church to hear the bells, and we saw Pritchard in the crowd.”

  “How do you happen to know him?” O’Connor’s confidence was returning. He pulled out his notebook and a pencil.

  “His daughter married our neighbor, Nelson Ellsworth. We met the Pritchard family at the wedding, and we were invited to a dinner party last Friday that he attended.”

  “So you hadn’t known him very long.”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Did you speak to Pritchard when you saw him on New Year’s Eve?”

  “Yes, and we invited him to join us.”

  “We were in Mr. Malloy’s motorcar,” Gino offered with obvious satisfaction.

  “Motorcar, eh?” O’Connor echoed with a frown.

  “Yes,” Gino said. “She’s a real beauty. A tonneau with—”

  “And you were there, too?” O’Connor said.

  “Yes. Mr. Malloy lets me drive the motorcar and—”

  “We thought Mr. Pritchard would like to sit down.” Sarah shot Gino a warning look. No sense in antagonizing O’Connor more than necessary. “He didn’t look well.”

  This got O’Connor’s interest. “What do you mean?”

  Sarah asked Frank a silent question and he nodded. No sense in hiding the facts from O’Connor either.

  “He was approaching people and trying to talk to them, but . . . Did Mrs. Pritchard or her son tell you about Mr. Pritchard’s interest in the turning of the century?”

  Now O’Connor just looked confused. “The what?”

  Frank quickly explained.

  “But that was all settled,” O’Connor said, still confused. “It’s next year.”

  “Not according to Pritchard,” Frank said.

  “And we were worried about him approaching people to argue about it that night,” Sarah said.

  “We saw someone push him away, and he almost lost his balance, so that’s when we called out to get his attention,” Frank said.

  “If you were so worried about him, why didn’t you keep him with you?” O’Connor asked.

  “We tried,” Sarah said, “but he was only interested in informing people of his views. Malloy went after him but lost him in the crowd.”

  “You went after him?” O’Connor said with renewed interest.

  “Don’t get any ideas. I hardly knew the man, and I certainly didn’t have any reason to kill him.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t make the same mistake twice.” O’Connor had falsely arrested Frank for murder a few short months ago, and he was probably still being razzed about it.

  Sarah said, “We understand that Mr. Pritchard was strangled.”

  O’Connor looked at her in surprise. “That’s right.”

  “We were just discussing how difficult it is to strangle someone, especially with so many people around.”

  “Is that what you talk to your wife about?” O’Connor asked Frank with amusement.

  “That’s what she talk
s to me about,” he replied, even more amused.

  “And I pointed out that strangling isn’t what men do when they have a disagreement with a stranger. The usual reaction is a lot of pushing and shoving and at worst, a fistfight.”

  “She’s right, too,” Gino offered. “When you got here, we were trying to figure out why somebody would’ve strangled him and how somebody could’ve strangled him in that crowd without anybody noticing and stopping it.”

  O’Connor just blinked.

  “What do the police think happened?” Frank asked after a long moment.

  “That somebody strangled him,” O’Connor said, obviously reluctant to admit his thinking hadn’t gotten any further than that.

  “Is it true he wasn’t robbed?” Sarah asked.

  “That’s what the beat cop said.”

  “So he’s the one who got Pritchard’s watch,” Frank said. It wasn’t a question and O’Connor didn’t bother answering. “You can tell him there’s a reward for its return.”

  “The Pritchards didn’t say anything about a reward,” O’Connor said.

  “His daughter is offering it.” Frank pretended not to notice how Sarah raised her hand to cover a smile.

  “Is she offering a reward for anything else?”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  They all knew O’Connor would work much harder at finding the killer if there was a reward. “You said you thought Pritchard didn’t look right. Was he drunk?”

  “What does Doc Haynes say?”

  “He hasn’t done an autopsy yet. Because of the holiday. I’m asking what you think.”

  “We thought he was ill,” Sarah said. “I’m a nurse and a mother, and that’s my considered opinion.”

  O’Connor didn’t look like he wanted to argue about it, at least not with her.

  “Have you found anybody else who saw him that night?” Gino asked.

  “No. His family said he went out alone. They didn’t mention this new-century stuff. Maybe he had some friends with him to help convince people.”

  Of course the Pritchards hadn’t mentioned Clarence’s hobbyhorse. “Maybe he did,” Frank said, “but he was alone when we saw him.”

  “Did you say the daughter is your neighbor?” O’Connor asked.

  Frank didn’t want to subject the Ellsworths to O’Connor’s questioning, but the police would naturally want to speak to everyone in the family, and O’Connor would want to investigate the possibility of a reward. “I’ll take you over and introduce you.” At least he could make sure O’Connor behaved himself.

  And that Theda and Nelson understood they’d have to offer a reward to get her father’s watch back.

  Later that evening, Sarah was reading in her private parlor upstairs, enjoying the peaceful hour when everyone else had retired and she had the house to herself, when Hattie came up to tell her Mrs. Ellsworth and Mrs. Nelson Ellsworth had come to call.

  “I would’ve told them you was already in bed,” Hattie said, “but Mrs. Nelson is pretty upset, so I thought it might be important.”

  Sarah glanced at the bedroom door to make sure they hadn’t disturbed Malloy, who must have already fallen asleep. “Thank you, Hattie. It probably is important.”

  Theda had been “pretty upset” ever since her father’s untimely death, but if she felt compelled to seek Sarah out at this hour of the night, it must be something drastic. Could the police have discovered the killer?

  Hattie had put the Ellsworths in the parlor.

  “Oh, Mrs. Malloy,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, jumping to her feet. “I’m so sorry to bother you this late but—”

  “It was my doing, I’m afraid,” Theda cried. “They’re ruining my father’s reputation. Look at this!”

  With a trembling hand she held out a newspaper. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her lips quivered as she fought back a fresh onslaught of tears.

  Sarah took the newspaper and sat down in the nearest chair to read it. It was the evening edition of The World. This story was much longer than those from this morning and it was on the front page. The headline read, “Dairy Owner Murdered on Church Property,” and beneath it in smaller letters, “New Century Heresy Brings Death.” The story was accompanied by a picture of Mr. Pritchard. Newspapers couldn’t print photographs, so they made engravings of the actual pictures, which meant the result wasn’t particularly clear or detailed, but it was still Mr. Pritchard, all right.

  “Where did they get a photograph of your father?”

  “I don’t know!” Theda wailed.

  Sarah winced and concentrated on reading the article, which recounted Mr. Pritchard’s accomplishments in business but ended with a mocking description of his obsession with the turn of the century. Supposedly, he had gone to Trinity Church to convince the revelers that they were actually celebrating the beginning of the twentieth century and ran into someone who disagreed strongly enough to murder him. The police, the story claimed, were looking for anyone who might have seen Pritchard that night or know who had killed him.

  When she had finished reading, Sarah laid the paper in her lap and looked up to see both Mrs. Ellsworths watching her expectantly. “I’m so very sorry.” She was, too. After all, she and Malloy were the ones who had told O’Connor about Pritchard’s hobbyhorse. He must be the one who had told the newspapers, and he hadn’t wasted any time in doing so.

  “We have to do something,” Theda said. “It’s bad enough that my father was murdered. We can’t let him become a laughingstock, too.”

  Sarah wanted to reassure her, but Theda was right. Once the newspapers got ahold of something like this, they’d never let go. They’d been known to invent scandals just to sell newspapers, and in this case, they had only to report the truth. “Did you have something in mind?”

  Theda straightened and leaned forward in her chair. “We have to find the person who killed him.”

  “I’m sure the police are—”

  “Oh, pish tosh, the police aren’t going to do anything,” Theda scoffed. “Did you see that detective Mr. Malloy brought to the house this morning? He isn’t a bit interested in finding the killer.”

  Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Did Malloy explain to you that you need to offer a reward?”

  Theda glanced at Mrs. Ellsworth. “Nelson already knew that, and we did tell the detective we’d give a reward for the return of my father’s watch.”

  “An officer brought it to the house before supper,” Mrs. Ellsworth reported sourly.

  “I’m glad you got it back,” Sarah said, “but to find the killer—”

  “If I have to pay to find the killer, I’d rather pay someone I thought could really find him,” Theda said. “That’s why we’d like to hire Mr. Malloy.”

  “And Mr. Donatelli,” Mrs. Ellsworth added.

  “Don’t you at least want to give the police a chance?” Sarah asked.

  “After what they said about my father?” Theda gestured to the newspaper Sarah still held. “That detective was the one who told the newspapers about Father’s interest in the new century. I know it was him. All he wanted to talk about was why my father was so interested in when the century really changes, and who else could have told the newspapers? My family certainly wouldn’t have. The police and the newspapers are only interested in humiliating someone who can no longer defend himself. I’m not going to trust them to do anything to clear his name.”

  “I’m sure Malloy would be happy to help you, but you must understand, when the police find out Malloy is investigating, they’ll probably stop.”

  “Good,” Theda said. “Mother Ellsworth has told me Mr. Malloy is the best detective the New York City Police ever had. He’s the one I want to find my father’s killer.”

  Sarah turned to Mrs. Ellsworth. “The best detective they ever had?”

  Mrs. Ellsworth smiled unrepentant
ly. “I’m sure it’s true. I’ve never known him to fail.”

  Sarah had to agree that she and Malloy had enjoyed success on the cases they had solved together. She was certainly willing to do whatever she could for Mrs. Ellsworth, too, if that’s what they really wanted, but she wasn’t sure how much help they could be on this one. “You know we’d do whatever we can, Mrs. Ellsworth, but . . .”

  “What is it?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked. “Do you think Mr. Malloy won’t want to be involved?”

  “I can’t speak for Malloy, of course, but he’ll probably tell you the same thing I just did, that the police should at least have a chance before you try elsewhere. And what about Nelson? Has he agreed to this?”

  “We haven’t told him yet,” Theda said. “He’d already gone to bed, but Mother Ellsworth and I couldn’t sleep, and when we saw your light was still on, I just couldn’t wait. But I know Nelson will agree. He thinks even more highly of you and Mr. Malloy than Mother Ellsworth does.”

  Sarah knew why, too. She and Malloy had once saved Nelson’s future, if not his very life. The Ellsworth family had reason to expect Malloy to save them again. Sarah only hoped they could.

  III

  I doubt anyone warned you about this when you got married, did they, Nelson?” Frank asked Nelson Ellsworth the next morning as they walked down Mulberry Street toward Police Headquarters. After learning of Theda Ellsworth’s late-night request, Frank had convinced Nelson to try dealing with the police one more time.

  “You mean that I’d be offering to bribe a police detective to investigate the murder of my father-in-law?” Nelson asked with a grim smile. “No, no one even hinted this would be one of my husbandly duties. I think it will be easier than explaining to Theda why I did it, though.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do that. Like I said before, I’ll take all the blame and tell her I refused to take the case until the police at least investigated.”

  Nelson didn’t look at all reassured. Frank knew a wife could make a man’s life miserable if he displeased her—or at least he had observed it in others, having been lucky in his own choice of a wife—which was why he wasn’t going to let Nelson suffer. But he also wasn’t going to take on an investigation that rightfully belonged to the police. He’d already engendered too much ill will at the New York City Police Department, first by becoming rich and then by clearing himself of murder. No sense asking for more trouble.