Murder on Washington Square

admire her technique. “Can you think of any reason?”

“No, I can’t,” Ellsworth wailed. “I’ve asked myself the same thing a hundred times. She would’ve known it wasn’t safe. At that time of night, the Square is filled with all sorts of dangerous people.”

“But if she was from a small town, maybe she didn’t know that,” she offered. “Is it possible she just decided to go for a walk? Could she have been that naive?”

Ellsworth’s shoulders sagged with despair, and he covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know.”

But all this conjecture had given Frank an idea. “Do you think she would have gone out to meet you?”

Ellsworth looked up. “But I never would’ve asked her to meet me someplace after dark!” he objected.

“She might not have known that, though. Suppose someone sent her a message and said it was from you. Would she have gone out to meet you?”

“I don’t know. She might have,” he conceded.

Frank checked the serving bowl and kept the last scoop of potatoes from going to waste.

“Do you think someone lured her out that night to kill her?” Mrs. Brandt asked him while he was refilling his plate.

Frank shrugged one shoulder. “It’s possible. I’m just trying to figure out how it might’ve happened. We know she was out there and someone killed her. If it wasn’t Nelson here-”

“And it wasn’t!” Ellsworth cried.

“Then it had to be someone else. Was it a stranger? If so, why was she there in the first place, where she was easy prey? Prostitutes work in the Square after dark. Why would she risk being mistaken for one by some drunken customer?”

“Which means she must have had a good reason for being there,” Mrs. Brandt guessed. She was getting much too good at this sort of thing. “And that could only mean she was expecting to meet someone. Someone important to her.” She turned to Ellsworth. “If you were her only friend in the city, she must have thought she was meeting you.”

“But why wouldn’t he have just come to the house, the way he always did?” Frank asked. “Or at least wait until morning to meet her? Why would he ask her to do something dangerous?”

“Please, I can’t…” Ellsworth begged, dropping his head into his hands again. “I can’t think anymore. Isn’t it dark enough for me to go home yet?”

Frank sighed. He wouldn’t mind being rid of Ellsworth. He wouldn’t get any more from him tonight. “I’ll check to see if the reporters are still there.”

A quick trip to the front room told him that only two of the more persistent reporters remained, and they were standing across the street under the gaslight which had recently been lit, not paying much attention to the house.

“I think you could make it now if you’re quiet,” he told Ellsworth when he got back to the kitchen.

“Malloy will go with you,” Mrs. Brandt said, without bothering to consult him. He shot her an irritated look, but she didn’t pay any attention. “Try to get a good night’s sleep.”

“And don’t try to go to work in the morning,” Frank warned him.

“But Mr. Dennis will be expecting me!” Ellsworth protested. “If I don’t go, I could lose my job.”

“If the bank fills up with reporters who write stories that say a killer works there, you’ll definitely lose your job,” Frank pointed out.

“It’s just for a few days, until we find the real killer,” Mrs. Brandt added reassuringly. “I’m sure Mr. Dennis will understand when he hears what happened.”

Frank wanted to challenge her on the “we,” but he refrained. He preferred getting Ellsworth home as quickly as possible. Arguing with Sarah Brandt could wait a few more minutes.

Ellsworth looked like he might pass out, but Frank got him to his feet and helped him out the back door. Mrs. Brandt’s garden was pitch dark. Even though the street out front was lighted, not a beam of it could penetrate the row of houses in between. The two men made their way carefully down her walk and opened the back gate. Frank winced when it squeaked, but he waited a moment, and when the noise didn’t seem to have aroused any alarm, he led Ellsworth into the alley and around to his own yard.

Frank knocked lightly on the back door, and in a moment, the curtain in the window beside it moved and a shadowed face peered out. A second later, they heard a cry of recognition, and the back door flew open.

“Quiet!” Frank warned, before the old woman started screaming at the sight of her son. “Get him inside and turn out the lights and don’t either of you go outside until you hear from me. Do you understand?”

“I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Malloy,” Ellsworth stammered.

“Thank me later. Now get inside before someone hears us.” He shoved Ellsworth into the house and pulled the door shut. In another minute he was back at Sarah Brandt’s back door.

He wasn’t surprised to see her waiting there, watching to make sure everything went all right. He’d been planning to bid her good night, but she stepped aside for him to enter, which he was more than happy to do.

“What’s going to happen now?” she asked when he was inside again.

“I guess I’ll have to find out if there was anyone else who might’ve wanted to kill Anna Blake. Otherwise, Nelson is in a lot of trouble.”

“He didn’t do it. You know that, don’t you, Malloy?”

“I don’t think it’s very likely,” he admitted, “but that might not be enough to keep him from frying.”

She winced. “Then we have to find out who really killed her. Are you investigating the case?”

“No, Broughan has it.”

“Oh.” Her expression fell. She knew Broughan. He’d helped Frank out one time on a case she’d been involved with. “He won’t be much help, will he?”

“He won’t be any help. I had to promise I’d get Ellsworth to confess before he’d let me take him home.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yes, oh dear,” Frank agreed. Then he remembered one more thing he needed to deal with before he left. “Were you just teasing me before or do you really know something about this case that I need to know?”

“Oh, I’d almost forgotten. Sit down, and I’ll tell you about my meeting with Anna Blake.”

Frank pushed the dirty dishes away and sat back down at the table. “I’d been meaning to ask you about that,” he said in a tone that should have warned her he was angry, but she didn’t seem to notice. Or else she didn’t care.

“Nelson sent me a note and asked me to meet him at Washington Square.”

“Wait, stop right there,” Frank said. “He sent you a note? Why didn’t he just come to your front door if he wanted to talk to you?”

“Because his mother would have wanted to know why he was talking to me. You know she doesn’t miss a thing that happens on this street. So I met him at the Square on Monday afternoon.”

“Where in the Square?” Frank asked, thinking this sounded too familiar.

She hesitated. “By the hanging tree,” she finally admitted.

“Right where this Anna died.”

“So it appears.”

“That’s interesting. Go on.”

“We met, and he told me about Anna and how she thought she was expecting a baby. He thought maybe I could help her.”

Frank frowned. “Did he want you to do something to the baby? To get rid of it?”

“Oh, no! I think perhaps he was hoping she wasn’t expecting at all. That would have solved all his problems. But if she was, he wanted me to offer her assistance and reassure her, I think. Maybe even convince her to marry Nelson.”

“Now that’s the part I don’t understand. Why would a woman in her position not want to marry the man who’d ruined her?”

“I didn’t understand that either,” she said, “until I met Anna. You see, she wasn’t at all what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I thought she’d be young and innocent and frightened out of her wits. Instead, she wasn’t nearly as young as