He understood her instantly and played along. “Not much, except that everything Serafina told us about Sharpe and Cunningham was true.”
“I would not lie to you, Mr. Malloy,” the girl said, surprising them both. Plainly, she was willing to be distracted.
“Do you think either of them could have killed Mrs. Gittings?” Sarah asked him.
“I’m sure either one of them could have, but I’m not sure either of them did. They didn’t like her much, but from what I gathered, Cunningham didn’t know she was the one behind the phony investment scheme where he got cheated. He didn’t even know he’d gotten cheated.”
Serafina smiled grimly. “Mrs. Gittings would be happy to know that. She thought he could be cheated at least three times before he realized it.”
Sarah gasped in outrage, but Malloy chuckled his appreciation.
“She might’ve gotten him even more times than that. He’s not very bright.”
“But if he didn’t know he’d been cheated, why would he have wanted to kill Mrs. Gittings?” Sarah asked.
“Because she wouldn’t give him Serafina,” Malloy said baldly. “He wanted her, and he was angry because Mrs. Gittings wanted him to give her money. After he lost what money he had on the phony investment, he was starting to feel desperate.”
“Did you ask him about freeing his hands during the seance?” Sarah asked.
“Yes. He pretended he didn’t know the trick, but he’s not a very good liar. That still doesn’t prove he did it, though.”
“What about Mr. Sharpe?” Sarah asked with a glance at Serafina. She was staring blankly out the window now. Sarah wasn’t sure she was even listening to them anymore.
“He was just as angry at Mrs. Gittings. She wasn’t going to let him take Serafina either. She wasn’t going to lose her meal ticket.”
“Was he angry enough to kill Mrs. Gittings?”
“If he was, he didn’t let on. He’s too smart for that. So what about you? Did you find out anything from Mrs. Burke?”
“Just that she hated Mrs. Gittings, too. And she was terrified that her husband was going to find out she’d been selling her jewelry to pay for the seances.”
“We already knew that,” Malloy reminded her.
“Yes, but we didn’t know she was actually giving the jewelry to Mrs. Gittings to sell for her. She said she thought Mrs. Gittings was cheating her.”
“She probably was,” Malloy said. “Did she say anything else?”
“Not much before she fainted,” Sarah said dryly.
“Yes, she did. Apparently, talking about Mrs. Gittings’s murder upsets her, although Mother thinks she might have been pretending. According to her, ladies often use a fainting spell to end an unpleasant scene.”
“Really?” Serafina asked with credible disbelief, but when Sarah looked at her, she saw a knowing gleam in her eye. That’s when she remembered how Serafina had fainted at the seance she’d attended.
“Yes, really,” Sarah confirmed with a grim smile of her own.
“Didn’t she tell you
“Just that Mrs. Gittings and the Professor seemed angry with each other that day. She thought they must have had an argument.”
“Did they?” Malloy asked Serafina.
“Yes, I told you, they argued every day. He wanted to use the money from the seances to do something else, but she wanted to keep doing the seances. It was so easy, she said, and so safe.”
“Did she think what the Professor wanted to do wasn’t safe?” Sarah asked curiously.
“It was dangerous, she said. She said it many times, but he would not listen. He kept saying how much money they would have.”
“What does it matter?” Malloy asked impatiently. “The Professor wasn’t even in the room when she was killed, remember?”
“Are you absolutely sure he wasn’t?” Sarah asked, including both of them in the question.
“I did not see him,” Serafina said with a shrug.
“And neither did anybody else,” Malloy added. “I asked all of them when they saw him after the murder, and he was in the doorway, so he must have just come in.”
“When did they see him come into the room?” Serafina asked with a frown, surprising both of them with her interest.
“Nobody was really sure,” Malloy said. “They didn’t notice him until they started to leave the room. I guess he came when you called for him and was just standing there, trying to figure out what had happened while everybody else was looking at Mrs. Gittings.”
Serafina frowned, as if this information displeased her somehow.
Sarah sighed. “That’s really too bad. It would so nice if he was the killer.”
“Yes, it would,” Malloy agreed. Sarah knew he was thinking of the difficulties he would face if one of Serafina’s wealthy clients was guilty.
“Yes, it would,” Serafina echoed, and Sarah knew she was thinking of Nicola.
But if Nicola was dead, none of this would matter, because protecting Nicola was the only reason they had for finding the real killer.
WHEN THE CARRIAGE STOPPED IN FRONT OF THE MORGUE, Serafina looked out the carriage window with dread. “What will I have to do?” she asked Malloy.
“I’ll take you down to where the… where the boy is. He’ll be covered with a sheet. You won’t have to look at his face if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t,” she assured him apprehensively.
“Did he have any birthmarks?”
“I do not know what that is,” Serafina said, looking to Sarah for help.
“Any marks on his body that you would recognize,” Sarah explained.
“I would know his hands,” Serafina said. “And his feet.”
“Then Mr. Malloy will show you the hands and the feet,” Sarah promised.
Malloy frowned, but he got out of the carriage and helped them down. Sarah put her arm around the girl as they entered the building and found she was trembling again. This must be terrifying for her, Sarah thought. When they were inside, Malloy spoke to someone sitting at a desk in a voice too low for them to hear. Then a young man in a cheap suit that was stained with things Sarah didn’t want to identify came out and led them down a flight of stairs to a large room furnished with several metal tables and lots of strange-looking equipment. She had seen autopsies at the hospital during her training, but she’d never been to a morgue. The smell brought the gorge up in her throat, and she swallowed it down hard, refusing to be sick.
Something shaped like a human body lay on one of the tables, covered by a sheet.
“I don’t want to see the face,” Serafina reminded him anxiously, her eyes wild with fright.
“You don’t have to,” Malloy said. He spoke to the young man again, and he carefully lifted the sheet on the side of the table nearest them. They could see a bare arm.
Serafina moved closer and looked down at the hand. The knuckles were badly skinned and the nails broken. He had fought for his life. She stared at the hand for a long moment. “Can I see his feet?” she asked. She sounded amazingly calm. She was probably in shock.
The young man covered the arm again and moved to the end of the table and lifted the sheet to reveal the bare feet. The toenails were long and unkempt. The body had been washed, but dirt was still embedded in the nails. Blisters reddened the small toes of both feet.
“Could you… Could I see his back,” she asked so softly they could hardly hear her.
The young man looked annoyed, but a glance at Malloy convinced him not to object. “Can you give me a hand, Mr. Malloy?” he asked instead.
Sarah and Serafina turned away while the two men struggled to lift the body. She thought she heard the young
