“Then why didn’t you tell me before?” Frank asked.
“Because I wanted you to think Amy killed Vivian!” she cried, then clamped her hand over her mouth in horror over what she’d just admitted. She looked to Van Orner for help, but he was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“What have you done?” he roared.
“Nothing! I didn’t do anything, I swear!” She was trembling now, her face white and her lips bloodless. She stared up at Van Orner, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “You’ve got to believe me!”
Van Orner started toward her. “You lying bitch! After all I’ve done for you!”
She gave a cry and her knees gave way. Frank caught her before she fell. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he laid her down.
“I didn’t do it, Gregory,” she murmured. “You’ve got to believe me!”
“Get her something to drink,” Frank told Van Orner.
Reluctantly, Van Orner went to the sideboard and poured something into a glass and handed it to Frank. Frank pressed it to her lips, and she took a sip or two, then turned her head away. “You might as well give me some laudanum, too,” she said bitterly.
“You won’t get off so easy,” Van Orner said. “I’m going to see you hang!”
She gasped, her eyes wide with horror. Frank decided not to mention that in New York State, murderers died in the electric chair, figuring that wouldn’t ease her concerns at all.
She turned to Frank, tears flooding her eyes. “You’ve got to believe me! Why would I kill anyone?”
“Because you wanted me all to yourself,” Van Orner snapped.
“But I didn’t! I didn’t want him at all!” she told Frank. “I was so glad when he got tired of me, and Vivian was giving me a chance to have a real life! I never would’ve harmed her.”
“Then who did?” Frank asked reasonably, ignoring Van Orner’s disgruntled frown.
“I thought it was Amy! Truly, I did. That’s why I convinced Gregory to let you investigate. I was sure you’d find out she killed Vivian. If I’d killed her, why would I want you to investigate?”
Frank had to admit that did seem to support her innocence, but he still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe you thought you’d set it up well enough that I’d think Amy was the killer, but when she showed up here, you decided not to take a chance and got rid of her yourself.”
“That would be stupid! Why would I take a chance like that?”
“Who else would have wanted them both dead then?”
“I don’t know!”
“Of course you don’t. The person who did this had to hate both Mrs. Van Orner and Amy. She had to be in a place where she could sneak the laudanum to them. She had to know about Mrs. Walker and that she would do what Mr. Van Orner wanted. And she had to know where Amy was going to be this morning so she could set it all up. Who could that be but you?”
Miss Yingling was frantic now. Her eyes darted around as her mind raced in search of some way out.
“It’s no use, Tamar,” Van Orner said. “You’re the only person who—”
“No, wait, someone else knew!”
“Knew what?” Frank asked skeptically.
“About Amy, that I was taking her shopping today. Mrs. Brandt knew!”
“Mrs. Brandt?” Van Orner asked. “You mean Elizabeth Decker’s daughter?”
“Yes, the midwife! She was here on . . . on Saturday. Yes, I remember. We were talking about it then. Amy was bragging that she was going to get a nurse for the baby, and she asked Mrs. Brandt about . . . about feeding him, and then she told her that we were going shopping first thing on Monday, as soon as the nurse got here. She knew!”
Frank sighed. “You have to do better than that if you want to convince me you’re innocent. I know Mrs. Brandt very well. She’s been helping me with this investigation. She wouldn’t have killed either woman. She didn’t have any reason to.”
“It’s over, Tamar,” Van Orner said. “Mr. Malloy, you can take her now.”
“No!” she wailed. “No, there’s someone else! I almost forgot—Mrs. Spratt-Williams was there, too, that day. She came with Mrs. Brandt. She was worried about Amy, she said, and she came to make sure she’s all right.”
“Why would Mrs. Spratt-Williams want to kill Amy?” Van Orner scoffed. “Or Vivian either, for that matter. Vivian was her oldest friend.”
But Miss Yingling wasn’t listening. Frank knew that expression on her face and what it meant. He’d seen it many times before on many other faces. She was remembering something, something important, and putting it together with everything else and figuring it all out.
She sat up on the sofa, and when she looked at Frank, her eyes were clear. The terror had drained out of her, and she almost smiled when she said, “I know who killed them.”
14
MRS. SPRATT-WILLIAMS TURNED IN HER CHAIR SO SHE could reach the tea tray that had been set out on a table beside her. Three cups were stacked on the tray, along with three saucers, three spoons, and three small plates to hold the little sandwiches and cakes her staff had prepared for them.
She picked up the top cup and set it on a saucer, then took the cup from the bottom of the stack and put it on another saucer.
“I’m not sure you realize the implications of your pledge to support my beliefs that charity to the poor should not be limited, Mrs. Brandt.”
“Perhaps not, but I do know how shocked I was to learn the philosophy of the Charity Organization Society.”
“Their philosophy, as you put it, is based on Mrs. Lowell’s belief that ‘Gratuitous charity works evil rather than good.’ ”
Sarah had heard those words before, the first time she’d visited Mrs. Van Orner’s office. “Mrs. Lowell?”
“Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. She founded the COS. She believed that if a widow receives too much assistance to support her children, for example, she might lose her love for them because she was relieved of the anxiety of providing for them.”
Sarah blinked in amazement at such reasoning, but Mrs. Spratt-Williams wasn’t finished.
“She also believed that while giving a handout to an unemployed man would help him for the moment, it would also teach him the dreadful lesson that it’s easy to get a day’s living without working for it.”
As Sarah absorbed this astonishing bit of news, Mrs. Spratt-Williams carefully lifted the tea cozy off the pot.
“The COS has records on over one-hundred-seventy-thousand individuals and families, and they are quite selective and stringent in qualifying people to receive aid. The records of each applicant are carefully examined to determine if their poverty is the result of their own character flaws. Such people are denied assistance, and consequently, they refuse the majority of requests.”
Sarah couldn’t even imagine the tragedy this policy would have caused to the thousands in the city who were destitute and had no other hope of assistance.
Mrs. Spratt-Williams poured the tea. “How many lumps do you take, Mrs. Brandt?”
“Two, please.”
“I think you’ll find that with this particular type of tea, more sugar enhances the flavor. If you’ll allow me to judge . . .” She dropped four lumps into each cup.
Sarah accepted the cup her hostess offered. “I can certainly see why you took it upon yourself to circumvent the system by reporting false names for the women that you helped.”
“What do you think of the tea?” she asked.
Sarah took a sip. She found it unpleasantly bitter and could understand why extra sugar would be necessary. “It’s very unusual,” she said tactfully.
“It comes from Madagascar, I believe. It’s very rare in this country.”
Sarah thought it probably wasn’t likely to become popular either.
