Murder on Fifth Avenue

until tomorrow?”

“I don’t think there’s any hurry. If she’s dead, I can’t help her, and if not, I don’t want to alarm her by calling on her after dark.

“But if Chilton hired someone else to kill her—”

“He didn’t find out Angotti wouldn’t do it until a few hours before he died, so I doubt he had time to arrange anything else. Finding someone to commit murder isn’t that easy, even in New York.”

“But you’ll let us know immediately what you find out, won’t you?” she asked.

“Elizabeth, Mr. Malloy will report to me in good time.”

She didn’t even acknowledge him. “You will, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Before Decker could object, he added, “Now tell me, was the English duke really a foot shorter than Miss Vanderbilt?”

“Oh, dear, did I say that?” she asked, her face lighting with delight. “Not a whole foot, surely, but at least half a foot. She’s quite tall, you see, and he is…a bit runty.”

“Elizabeth, really,” her husband said.

“Well, he is, even if he is a duke. He was rather penniless, too, so he came out on the better side of the bargain. They had to honeymoon for a year while he used her dowry to refurbish his castle because it wasn’t fit for human habitation.”

Frank couldn’t wait to tell Sarah her mother thought she should have married her off to a duke. “Mr. Decker, I’ll report back to you as soon as I know anything important. Mrs. Decker, thank you for your hospitality.”

The Deckers murmured all the appropriate responses as Frank took his leave. Just as the maid showed him out, he heard Decker say to his wife, “Now tell me what Mr. Malloy said to you that was so funny.”

7

SARAH WAS JUST FINISHING THE ENORMOUS BREAKFAST Maeve and Catherine had prepared for her after she arrived home from the delivery that morning when the doorbell rang. They all groaned, thinking she was being summoned to another birth, but the girls’ laughter when they answered the front door told Sarah their visitor was a friend. The rumble of a male voice prompted her to smooth her hair, but she had no time for any additional primping before the girls escorted Malloy into the kitchen.

Well, he’d seen her looking far worse than this. “Malloy,” she said, returning his smile of greeting.

“Good morning, Mrs. Brandt. I was hoping to catch you at home.”

Maeve poured him some coffee and gave him a few minutes to exchange some nonsense with Catherine before taking the child upstairs so he and Sarah could speak privately.

“I suppose you’re wondering what Mother and I found out from Mrs. Devries,” she said when the girls were gone.

“Oh, no. Your mother already told me all about it.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped open, and she closed it with a snap. “When did my mother tell you all about it?”

“Yesterday, when I went to see her. You weren’t home,” he added.

“Maeve didn’t tell me you’d stopped by.”

“I didn’t.”

Sarah managed not to gape at him again. “You mean you just went to my mother’s house without even checking with me first?”

“I needed to see your father, so I figured if I got there early enough, he wouldn’t be home yet, and I could talk to her in private.”

“She must have loved that.”

“She didn’t say, but she did seem happy to see me.”

Sarah could just imagine. “What did she tell you?”

“She told me the marriage between Paul and Garnet Devries was arranged, sort of like the one with Consuelo Vanderbilt and the duke.”

“She didn’t tell you any such thing.”

“I’m sure she did. You can ask her yourself. In fact, she also told me…Well, another time. Anyway, she said they aren’t happily married—Paul and Garnet, although I think Consuelo and the duke couldn’t be very happy either—and they don’t have any children, which proves it.”

“They were happy at least once, because Garnet is now with child.”

Sarah had the satisfaction of seeing Malloy choke on his coffee. “Your mother didn’t tell me that.”

“She doesn’t know. Garnet came by to visit me yesterday.”

“Oh, right. Your mother stopped by to see you yesterday after you left for the delivery, and Maeve told her Garnet had been here. So that’s why she was so interested in your work. Your mother did tell me that, at least.”

“Yes, Garnet asked me a lot of questions about being a midwife, and she asked some more when she was here yesterday. I had the oddest feeling she was really just interested in how she might earn her own living, though.”

“Ah.”

“What do you mean, ah?”

“Paul mentioned that Garnet wanted to divorce him.”

“Oh!”

Malloy frowned. “What do you mean, oh?”

“I mean that would explain why Garnet wasn’t very happy about having a baby. If she is really considering a divorce, a baby would complicate matters. When did you talk to Paul?”

“I met him when I went back to the house yesterday to look at Devries’s clothes.”

Sarah blinked. “I get the feeling you have a lot of things to tell me.”

“Let me start with what I’ve found out since I saw you last, and then you can do the same.”

“Sounds like a good plan, but don’t dawdle. I was up all night, and I might drift off at any moment.”

“I’ll do my best to keep you awake. I guess I should start by telling you about my visit with the mistress.”

Sarah no longer felt a bit sleepy. “I’d completely forgotten about her. What’s she like?”

“Not like I expected. She’s young and …”

“And what?”

“I feel silly saying innocent, considering what she is, but she seems like a fresh- faced country girl who just got lost on her way to the market.”

“How sad. What’s going to become of her now?”

“I don’t know, but she’s got a maid who’ll look after her, I think.”

“A maid?”

“Well, she was got up as a maid, and she answered the door and fetched Miss English like a maid would, but when Miss English got hysterical, this woman slapped her right in the face.”

“The maid slapped her?”

“Yeah. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“I’ve heard about a very ill-mannered houseguest slapping a maid once, but never the other way around. She’d be turned out without a reference and would never get work in another house in the city.”

“Which is why I thought maybe she wasn’t really a maid.”

“Or maybe she was the girl’s nursemaid or something and just stayed with her when she fell on hard times or…I don’t know. Did you ask my mother what she thought about it?”

“Of course not. Do you think I was going to talk about Devries’s mistress with your mother?”

Sarah had to smile at the image. “No, but I assure you, she would have loved it.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t do it. So this girl and her maid are living in this house, but I’m sure Paul Devries will turn them out as soon as he thinks about it, if he hasn’t done it already. That’s why the girl got hysterical, by the way. She didn’t seem too upset that Devries was dead until she realized what it meant to her. That’s when she