Murder on Washington Square

“Because of Prescott’s stories in the paper,” she reminded him impatiently. “He was the one who discovered that Anna was an actress and-”

“You were the one who discovered that. Prescott just happened to be the only reporter we told.”

“Fair enough, but still, he was the first one to write about it. If someone was afraid of what he was finding out, they could have decided the safest thing to do was kill him.”

“Wait a minute,” Malloy said, holding up his hand. “How would they know it was Prescott writing the stories?”

Sarah had been rummaging around in her cupboard, looking for something to eat, but this brought her head up sharply. She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came for a moment while she thought this through. “You’re right!” she said finally. “We knew Prescott was writing the stories, but no one else would.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Malloy said. “It’s not like they put the reporter’s name on his stories or anything. So it had to be someone who knew Prescott was the one writing them, or who at least had heard of him.”

“The Walcotts knew Prescott,” she remembered. “He’d been to the house that day we told him Anna was an actress. Then he went back later, right before he was attacked, after he’d talked to her friends at the theater. He was asking a lot of questions, and Mrs. Walcott got very upset.”

“Did Prescott tell you this?”

“No, Catherine Porter did.”

He frowned, surprised and not happy about it. “When did you talk to Catherine Porter?”

“Yesterday. She told me a lot of things, and that’s why I was looking for you. I thought you needed to know them, too.”

“You went to the boarding house?”

“Yes. I just couldn’t make sense of what had happened that night, and I thought Catherine might be able to answer a few of my questions.”

Malloy rubbed a hand over his face wearily, although what he had to be weary about, she had no idea. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me everything Catherine Porter told you?” he suggested tightly.

“I want to get something to eat first,” she said. “You promised Mrs. Ellsworth you’d take care of me, but I can see you have no intention of it.” Turning her full attention to the cupboard for a few seconds, she finally found a tin of peaches and started prying it open with the can opener.

Malloy sighed again, this time in martyrdom, and rose to his feet. “Sit down,” he commanded her.

“But-”

“Sit down! Or I’ll get Mrs. Ellsworth over here to make you.”

That was an effective threat. Sarah sat, mystified as to what might happen next. To her surprise, Malloy finished opening the can of peaches, poured them out into a bowl, and set it in front of her.

Sarah looked up at him, still not quite certain what to make of this. “I’ll need something… a fork,” she ventured.

To her amazement, he located one without fumbling and put it on the table beside her. “Eat,” was all he said.

So she did. And while she did, he found some eggs in her icebox, which was still fairly cool even though she hadn’t replenished the ice in several days. Then he located a piece of cheese that was too hard to eat and a dried- up onion. In a few minutes, he’d chopped the onion and put it in a pan to sizzle in some bacon grease he’d spooned from the container by the stove. Then he broke up the cheese and threw it into the pan with the eggs, and before Sarah could quite comprehend what was happening, Malloy set the finished concoction down in front of her.

While he was pouring them each a cup of coffee, she looked up at him in awe and asked, “When did you learn to cook?”

“This isn’t cooking,” he said. “This is basic survival. How do you think men keep from starving when they don’t have a woman to do for them? Now eat.”

Sarah had forgotten to finish eating the peaches while she’d watched him, and the aroma of the frying onions had set her mouth to watering. She tucked into the omelet with shameless enthusiasm, not pausing until every bite of it was gone.

“That was delicious,” she said, a little chagrined at her gluttony.

“You were hungry,” he demurred.

She looked at the bowl of peaches. “Do you want some of these? I don’t think I can eat them all after that.”

“Try. Then tell me what you found out from Catherine Porter.”

Sarah had been so sure she’d be able to recall every detail, but now it seemed days had passed since she’d been at the Walcotts’ house. Fatigue made her memory even more sluggish. Maybe she should just try to put things in order. “The night Anna died, the Giddings boy came to see her.”

“We knew that.”

“They had an argument. He threatened to kill her if she didn’t give back the money Giddings had paid her.”

“I know, I know,” he said impatiently. “Then he left, and she got a message and went out and-”

“No, she didn’t!”

“What?”

“She didn’t get a message, not that Catherine knew of, and they were together all evening. Also, Anna didn’t go out, not right away, at least. The two of them played checkers or something until Catherine went to bed much later.”

“But the landlady said she went out right after Harold Giddings left,” Malloy protested.

“Then one of them is wrong. I think Catherine was telling the truth, though. Remember she said she was asleep when Anna left the house. She said that long before we knew anything different. She also thought Mrs. Walcott was angry about the boy coming to the house. She doesn’t like unpleasantness, Catherine said. Maybe Mrs. Walcott and Anna argued about it after Catherine went bed. Maybe Anna left the house in a huff and got herself killed and now Mrs. Walcott feels guilty, so she made up the story about her getting a message.”

“It would’ve had to be a pretty nasty fight for her to go out alone after dark,” Malloy observed. “Would Mrs. Walcott have been that upset about the Giddings boy’s visit?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask her,” Sarah suggested, earning a frown from Malloy. “Or maybe they argued about something else,” she tried. “Remember what that actress Irene said about Mr. Walcott courting the girls to get them to move into his house? Maybe his wife was jealous of Anna.”

“I guess you want me to ask Mrs. Walcott about that, too,” Malloy asked sarcastically.

“Oh, and I almost forgot. Anna was only wearing her housedress when she left that night. No woman would go out in her housedress under ordinary circumstances. She didn’t wear a jacket or a cape, either, and it was cold enough that she would’ve needed one.”

“She had a shawl,” Malloy said. “I told you the coroner said she’d tried holding it against her wound to keep it from bleeding too much.”

“Catherine said she had a shawl on when they were playing their game,” she remembered, “because it was chilly in the house. Mrs. Walcott wouldn’t light a fire. That means she didn’t change anything she was wearing before she went out. Probably, she didn’t even go up to her room. She just ran out without any preparation at all. A woman as vain about her appearance as Anna Blake wouldn’t do that unless she was very upset. Or desperate. Whatever she was feeling, she certainly wouldn’t go out like that if she were meeting someone.”

Malloy sipped his coffee, considering all she’d told him. “You’ve been wondering why she was out alone so late. All right, maybe she had an argument with Mrs. Walcott, but that still doesn’t explain why she’d leave the house so suddenly.”

“Maybe Mrs. Walcott threw her out,” Sarah suggested.

“Even so, wouldn’t she have at least packed her things and gotten properly dressed?”

He was right, of course.

“She might have just been going to stay with a friend for the night,” Sarah said, still thinking out loud, “until she and the landlady had time for their tempers to cool. Or maybe she was planning to return for her things later, when Mrs. Walcott wasn’t home.”

“Then that means a stranger killed her while she was walking the streets by herself. Actually, that’s more