Murder on Washington Square

would never complain again about her neighbor being nosy, she vowed.

She found some bread and cheese and made herself a sandwich. As she sat to eat it, she spread the newspaper on the table in front of her. The headline she was looking for was prominently displayed: ACTRESS PLAYS A DEADLY ROLE.

“Malloy,” Sarah muttered, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Although the newspapers did not identify the reporter who had written each particular story, Sarah easily recognized Webster Prescott’s handiwork by the content. The article revealed that prior to her death, Anna Blake had made her living “on the boards,” playing a succession of minor roles in minor productions produced by minor production companies in obscure theaters. The titles of the plays were suggestive, such as Molly, Girl of the Streets and The Rape of the Sabine Women. If Anna Blake had appeared in anything like a serious drama, Prescott hadn’t seen fit to mention it. He was more interested in sensationalizing her past and making her sound like a scarlet woman who had seduced innocent gentlemen and deserved her awful fate.

Sarah knew perfectly well that Anna Blake was a scarlet woman, of course, but she hated seeing the newspaper say so. Too many people already judged females too harshly. Girls like the one whose baby she’d delivered today were branded as harlots and worse, as if they’d chosen their fates instead of being victimized, since men seemed to delight in blaming females for their own debauchery. Heaven knew, the boy who had fathered that girl’s baby would never suffer any stigma because of it.

How curious, then, that Mr. Giddings and Nelson Ellsworth had truly fallen prey to a seductress. Women who fell from grace were always branded as evil, but few really were the kind of schemer that Anna Blake was. And oddly enough, such women could only dupe unworldly, middle-class men. Wealthy men would either pay them off or laugh at their threats-if you were rich enough, you need fear nothing. Poor men would also laugh-the poor could not afford niceties like honor and responsibility. Only men who had something worth protecting but little means of protecting it were susceptible to the Anna Blakes of the world.

She had, Sarah reflected, chosen her victims well, however. While Giddings wasn’t personally wealthy, he was comfortable enough and so positioned in life that he couldn’t afford a scandal. He also had access to ample funds, and if pushed far enough, as he was, he would steal them to protect his good name.

But what still didn’t make sense, at least to Sarah, was why Anna had chosen Nelson Ellsworth. Like Giddings, he did have access to vast amounts of money, even though he wasn’t wealthy himself. But as a bachelor, he needn’t fear scandal, and if his better nature demanded that he provide for his child, he could marry the mother, which he had offered to do. No matter how many times Sarah thought about it, she couldn’t make sense of it. Why choose Nelson?

She’d finished up her sandwich and washed it down with some cider that was beginning to turn. She’d have to offer it to Malloy when he came next. He wouldn’t mind hard cider, she thought with a smile.

Briefly, she considered taking the newspaper over to her neighbors, but then she decided against it. She could tell them the information. They didn’t have to know Nelson was still being mentioned prominently on the front page of every scandal sheet in town.

Frank cursed under his breath as he made his way through the crowded hospital ward at Bellevue the next morning. Rows of beds lined the walls, most of them filled with men in various stages of dying. No one came to the hospital unless they were dying. The odors of rotting limbs and diseased bowels and God knew what nearly gagged him, but he set his teeth and refused to display any weakness. The smell wasn’t really any worse than an ordinary flophouse, he told himself, and he’d certainly seen his share of them, looking for suspects. At least the floors were reasonably clean and the beds had laundered linen and no lice.

But it wasn’t really the odors. It was the dying. Frank knew that smell, and it brought back far too many memories.

Finally, he saw the face he’d been looking for. It was paler than it had been the last time he saw it, but he recognized it easily.

“Prescott!” Frank called, hoping the eyes would open. To his great relief, they did.

Webster Prescott smiled wanly at the sight of him. “How’d you find me?” he asked, his voice faint and breathy.

“You asked for me, remember? The cop who found you in that alley said you just kept begging him to send for me. Said you wouldn’t get in the ambulance until he promised. So what in the hell happened to you?”

Prescott’s young face wrinkled in pain. “Somebody stabbed me.” He gestured toward his left side, and Frank managed not to wince at the thought of how close his attacker had come to his heart.

“I knew that much,” Frank said. “You wouldn’t say who did it, though. Or why. At least to the cop who found you. He’s pretty mad about it, too.”

“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said, his voice so faint Frank had to lean closer to hear. “Somebody else might get the story.”

Frank shook his head in disgust. “You reporters. All you think about is getting the story. I guess you thought you were safe telling me, though. You know how I hate you lot, so I wouldn’t go telling your competitors.”

“Something like that,” Prescott said, smiling a crooked, pained grin.

“All right then, who stabbed you?”

“A woman.”

Frank grinned back and shook his head. “They get real upset if you don’t pay them,” he teased.

Prescott might have been blushing, but he tried not to let on. “No, it wasn’t that. She… she sent a message. Said… she knew something… about Anna Blake.”

Frank raised his eyebrows in surprise. “This was about Anna Blake’s murder?”

“Why do you think… I was worried about… the story?” he asked.

“Let me get this straight. Some woman sent you a message claiming she had information about Anna Blake’s death?”

Prescott nodded weakly.

“And she wanted to meet you in an alley?”

“No, in the Square.”

“Washington Square?”

He nodded again. “By the fountain.”

“Then how did you end up stabbed in an alley?”

“She wanted… privacy… in the mews.”

“You followed her into the stables? The ones behind the houses on Washington Square?”

Prescott nodded.

“And what did she tell you?”

“Nothing… she just… stabbed me.”

This was making no sense. “What did she look like?”

“Didn’t see… her face. Dark… wore a cloak… with a hood…”

“But you’re sure it was a woman?”

“Sounded like… Strong, though.”

“She was strong? How do you know?”

“Pushed me… against the wall. Held my arm…” He lifted his right arm and pulled back the sleeve of his nightshirt. Frank saw the faint shading of forming bruises.

If a woman had done this, she was strong indeed. But Frank had another theory that made more sense. “Could it have been a man dressed as a woman? How tall was she?”

Prescott frowned as he considered Frank’s suggestion and held up a hand even with his mouth. Prescott was tall, so the height he indicated could have described Frank. Or Gilbert Giddings and his son. But why would either of the Giddings want to kill Webster Prescott? And were they likely to dress up like a woman to do it?

Frank found a chair and brought it over to Prescott’s bedside. When he was seated, he pulled out his notebook and a pencil. “You have to tell me everything you’ve found out about Anna Blake. Don’t worry,” he added at Prescott’s scowl. “I won’t sell the story to the Herald.”

“Or the Sun,” Prescott added.