police returned the body. She had no idea how long that would take.
“I suppose Paul will be taking his father’s position in the company,” Sarah said, hoping to find out something useful to help Malloy.
“Oh, heavens, no,” Mrs. Devries replied.
“Paul has no head for business,” Garnet said.
Mrs. Devries flushed. “That isn’t the reason at all.”
Garnet frowned with apparent confusion. “Isn’t it? I’ve heard Father Devries say so a hundred times.”
Mrs. Devries flushed scarlet. “Silly girl! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Oh, no, Paul simply has no interest in commerce. His tastes are too refined for that. Putting him in an office would be a waste of his talents.”
“What talents are those, Mother Devries?”
This time Mrs. Devries glared at Garnet, who seemed as unconcerned as her mother-in-law had been at her evil looks.
“Where are you from originally?” Sarah’s mother asked Garnet with a hint of desperation in her apparent eagerness to change the subject. “I don’t know that I ever heard how you and Paul came to meet.”
“She’s from Virginia.” Mrs. Devries waved her hand dismissively.
“We moved here when I was still in school,” Garnet said. “My father was in the importing business.”
“He tried to join the Knickerbocker.” The glow of satisfaction in Mrs. Devries’s eyes indicated he had failed. “That was how he met Chilly.”
“And when he met me,” Garnet said, “he decided I would be perfect for…Paul.”
Sarah felt a chill at the tone of her voice, but her expression betrayed nothing. Garnet could have been carved from stone.
Mrs. Devries nodded a bit too enthusiastically. “That’s right, although Paul could have married anyone at all. Such an accomplished young man and so handsome. Many girls were bitterly disappointed when he married Garnet, I can assure you.”
“One certainly was,” Garnet said and smiled at Sarah. “Do you have an office, Mrs. Brandt? Do women come to see you?”
“Some of my patients do, although they prefer I go to them. But I have an office in my home on Bank Street. I should be happy if you called on me sometime.”
“There’s no point in that,” Mrs. Devries said. “She’ll never have any use for a midwife. She’s barren.”
Sarah’s mother gasped in shock at the casual cruelty of the remark. Sarah quickly said, “I meant a social call. I’m sure my mother would say that I have neglected my old friends dreadfully, and I would be happy to make a new one.”
“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth Decker said. “I would love for Sarah to have more friends. She spends entirely too much time working.”
“And taking care of my daughter.”
Mrs. Devries frowned. “I didn’t know you had a child.”
“Sarah has adopted a little girl from a settlement house,” her mother said.
“How very noble of her,” Mrs. Devries said without much conviction.
“I’m sure she brings you a lot of joy,” Garnet said.
“Yes, she does. I’d love for you to meet her.” Sarah didn’t think she could be any clearer that she wanted Garnet Devries to visit her.
“Garnet won’t be meeting anyone for a while,” Mrs. Devries said. “Not while we’re in mourning, at any rate.” If she saw the flash of irritation that crossed Garnet’s face, she gave no indication. Instead she asked Sarah’s mother her opinion of hymns they might sing at Mr. Devries’s funeral, effectively turning the topic to something she could control.
After a few more minutes of polite conversation, Sarah and her mother took their leave. Sarah didn’t think she imagined the warmth in Garnet’s parting words, spoken so softly no one else could hear them.
“I hope to see you very soon, Mrs. Brandt.”
How interesting that Garnet was as anxious to see Sarah as she was to see her.
When she and her mother were safely ensconced in the Decker family carriage, where no one could overhear them, Sarah said, “I don’t think we learned anything helpful.”
“No, Lucretia is much too clever for that, but you made a friend of the younger Mrs. Devries.”
“I hope so. She wants to visit me. Do you think she could just be lonely?”
Her mother sniffed. “Living in that house? Of course she’s lonely, but I thought it was more than that. She seemed drawn to you.”
“Maybe she thinks I can help her have a child.”
“Can you?”
Sarah frowned. “Some midwives claim they can, but there’s really nothing I can do. Nothing
“What do these other midwives do, then, if they claim they can help?”
“Oh, they make up foul-tasting potions or teas and have women drink them. Or they tell them to put charms under their mattresses and things like that.”
“But if nothing really works—”
“A certain number of women will conceive after doing what a midwife told them to do, even if it’s nothing more than coincidence. I’m sure the herbs or the charms had nothing to do with it, but who can say? People believe what they want to believe, don’t they?”
“I suppose you’re right. I’ve seen people given up for dead get well and people die from something very minor. Perhaps if Garnet Devries believes you can help her conceive, she will.”
“Maybe, but …”
“But what?” her mother asked.
“I wonder if that’s really why she wants to see me.”
FRANK HAD TO PRETEND TO LEAVE THE OFFICE BUILDING to escape Mr. Watkins’ scrutiny, but as soon as he reached the lobby, he claimed to have forgotten something. The elevator operator was only too glad to take him to the floor where Mr. Pitt worked when Frank explained he needed to ask him one more question.
Frank followed the operator’s instructions and easily found Pitt’s office, a small room lined with shelves crammed full of ledgers.
Pitt was not happy to see him. “What do you want?”
Frank just smiled, watching Pitt mop his damp forehead with a snowy white handkerchief.
“I can send for Mr. Watkins,” Pitt said, as if it were a threat.
“Go ahead. I’m sure he’ll be interested to find out you introduced Mr. Devries to the man who killed him.”
All the remaining color drained out of Pitt’s sweaty face. “I didn’t introduce them!”
“Brought them together, then. Why did Mr. Devries want to meet this Angotti?”
Pitt jumped out of his chair and closed the door of his office after checking the corridor for possible eavesdroppers. “You can’t tell anyone I was involved with this.”
“I won’t need to tell anybody anything if you answer my questions.”
“But I don’t know a thing about Mr. Devries’s death.”
“Just tell me what you do know, but maybe you better sit down first. You don’t look very good.”
Pitt sank back into his chair and mopped his forehead again. His handkerchief was getting a little limp. “Please, I told you—”
“When did Devries ask you to introduce him to Angotti?”
“He didn’t.”
Frank took a step toward him, and the man squeaked in terror and threw up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “He didn’t ask me to introduce them! I already told you that. He just …” He lowered his hands a bit and peered at Frank as if to judge his intent.
Frank waited, making no further threatening moves.
