Murder On GramercyPark

the room and tried to kill him while he lay sleeping on his stomach. The pain would have awakened him, and he’d apparently struggled for his life. Now that Frank noticed, his left hand was bleeding from a gash across the inside of the fingers, as if he’d tried to grab the knife and gotten sliced instead. The attacker had landed three good blows on Dudley’s chest; the first one slid along his collarbone and the second had gouged the center of his chest. Neither had been powerful enough to break through the bones and had, like the ones in his back, produced ugly but only superficial wounds.

The attacker must have been getting frantic by then. Dudley would have been struggling like a madman. Fear would have given both of them unusual strength. Finally, the attacker had struck a vulnerable spot and driven the knife between two ribs. Chest wounds like this one were serious stuff. Dudley wasn’t dead yet, but he likely would be soon. Frank’s only hope was to get him to name his killer before he died.

Dudley’s body was cold, in spite of the relative warmth of the morning, so Frank pulled the blanket down from the bed and tucked it around him. Then he pulled down the lumpy pillow and stuffed it under the man’s bloody head. The landlady would have a fit, but Frank was actually looking forward to her annoyance.

“Dudley, can you hear me?” Frank asked, patting his cheeks to rouse him. “Who did this? Did you see who did this?”

Dudley’s eyes flickered, and his lips moved, but he only managed to groan very softly before going still. At first Frank feared he was already dead, but his regular, if shallow, breathing reassured him. He’d just passed out. Nothing to do now but wait and hope Dudley came to one more time before the doctor, whoever he was, managed to finish him off.

When he finally appeared, Dr. Woomer looked like he would do just that without half trying. An ancient, gin- soaked fellow in a shabby, stained suit, he looked like he’d been on an all-night bender, and smelled like it, too.

Frank’s expression must have betrayed his opinion, because the doctor said, “Don’t worry. I was doctoring before you were born, and I’m better when I’m drunk.”

Maybe he just thought he was better, Frank thought, but he said, “Anything I can do to help?”

“Help me get him up on the bed. I’m too old to be crawling around on the floor.”

The lodger who had fetched the doctor had followed him upstairs and stood outside the door, still staring curiously. He was a cadaverous man of indeterminate age who wore only a yellowed undershirt and trousers drooping because his suspenders dangled at his hips. Frank wondered that they hadn’t fallen off during his trip to get the doctor.

“Get over here and give us a hand,” Frank ordered him, and he came, however reluctantly.

Between the three of them, they managed to get Dudley back up on the bed. The landlady would be charging for a lot of ruined sheets.

“Now let’s see what we have here,” the doctor said.

Frank explained what he’d observed of Dudley’s wounds. The doctor made his own assessment, turning Dudley with Frank’s help. “Most of these’ll just need a few stitches. This one here, though, that’s the bitch.”

“Did it hit his heart?”

“How should I know?” the doctor said sourly. “Think I can see through flesh and bone?”

Frank gave him a look.

“All right,” the doctor relented. “Looks like it missed the heart. The lung, too, though God only knows how. He’d be dead by now if there was a hole in either one of those organs. Still, he’s lost a lot of blood, and there’s plenty of other stuff in there that could be sliced. All I can do is close him up and hope for the best.”

“Just try to keep him alive until he can tell me who did this,” Frank said.

“He a special friend of yours?” the doctor asked, opening his bag and rummaging for the tools he needed.

“No, but whoever did this killed two other men, and I did care about one of them. And I also don’t like people getting away with murder.”

The doctor gave him a funny look out of red-rimmed eyes. “There’s a reward, I guess,” he remarked to no one in particular.

Frank tried not to be insulted. The doctor couldn’t be helped for his opinions of the police, which were, Frank had to admit, well justified. “If he lives to tell me who did this, I’ll share it with you,” Frank offered.

The doctor’s eyes lighted. “I’ll do my best.”

As Woomer worked, Frank introduced himself. “You ever know a Dr. Tom Brandt?” he asked idly after the doctor had worked in silence for a bit.

Woomer looked up in surprise from drawing a stitch through Dudley’s flesh. “Tom Brandt? Young fellow?”

“That’s the one,” Frank confirmed. “Got himself murdered about three years back.”

“Has it been that long? God, I’m getting old.”

“What kind of a man was he?”

“Tom? The best there was, I guess. Never heard anybody say a word against him.”

“Somebody didn’t like him,” Frank pointed out. “Or he wouldn’t be dead.”

“He wasn’t killed by somebody who knew him,” Woomer said.

“You know that for a fact?”

“It’s only common sense. Tom wasn’t the kind of man who made enemies.”

This wasn’t exactly what Frank wanted to hear. Not only did it make it harder to figure out who’d killed him, he certainly didn’t like the idea that Sarah Brandt had been married to a near saint. Not that he was trying to compete or anything, but still… How could any other man compare?

“What did people say? When he died, I mean.”

“That it was a shame. Had a young wife, if I remember. He did a lot of good, too. Never turned anybody away just because they couldn’t pay his fee. It’s a wonder he didn’t starve.”

Just what he needed, more evidence of Tom Brandt’s perfection. “I mean what did people say about how he died?”

Woomer was threading catgut into his needle for more stitches. He squinted and concentrated for a moment until he found the hole. When he’d gone back to stitching, he said, “I heard he got robbed. I figured somebody robbed him for whatever he was carrying and killed him, probably because he didn’t have anything much. Happens often enough, you want to know the truth.”

Frank knew it only too well. “You didn’t hear any rumors? Maybe somebody had it in for him?”

“Tom? Not likely,” Woomer scoffed. “How come you’re so interested in a man got killed over three years ago?”

Frank didn’t think it was any of his business, but he’d been friendly enough. “A friend of his asked me to look into it. See if I could find anything. The killer was never caught.”

“Never will be, you ask me. You’re wasting your time.”

“It’s my time,” Frank pointed out.

Woomer looked up and studied Frank for a minute. “This friend of Tom’s wouldn’t be his widow by any chance?”

This really wasn’t any of his business. “How’s he doing?” He gestured toward Dudley.

Woomer chuckled to himself, not fooled by the sudden change of subject. “He’s not complaining. And he’s still breathing.”

“Will he live?”

“For a while. After that, who knows?”

Frank would take what he could get. Woomer finished up the last of the stitches and wrapped a bandage around the worst of the wounds. Frank had to admit his work was neat and apparently competent.

“Should he go to the hospital?” he asked when the doctor was finished.

Woomer frowned as he started packing up his instruments. “Wouldn’t do him any good. He’s likely to catch something there and die from that. Besides, moving him at all right now might kill him. He’s pretty weak.”

“I can’t leave him here alone,” Frank complained.

“Does he have any family? Somebody who could nurse him?”

“What kind of care would he need?”