Murder on Fifth Avenue

“My daughter.”

Suddenly, everything fell into place. Norah English, the innocent young girl with the phony name. Frank nodded. “I’ve met her.”

“She was willing,” Mrs. Richmond told him, her composure slipping at last. “You must believe that. I didn’t force her. I would never have forced her to do anything against her will. I couldn’t take care of her myself anymore, and no one else would marry her, not with no dowry and a father who’d killed himself. Keith had ruined my life and her prospects completely. She would never have gotten a better offer, and she knew that as well as I.”

Frank had heard stories like this before. “So you turned her over to Devries and left town.”

“She begged me to go, and I really had no choice. This is how I have to live here in the city, and she couldn’t bear the thought of it, or so she said. But she also …” Mrs. Richmond pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it to her lips.

“She what?” he asked.

“I think she also didn’t want me to see how miserable she really was.”

That made sense. What girl would? “What brought you back?”

“Her letters. She didn’t tell me, not outright, but I knew something was wrong. I came for a visit, and when I found out …” She pressed the handkerchief to her lips again.

“What did Norah tell you?” he asked as gently as he could.

She looked up in surprise. “Who?”

“Norah, your daughter.”

“My daughter’s name is Garnet.”

8

FRANK NEEDED A FEW SECONDS TO RECOVER. “GARNET?”

“Who is this Norah?” she asked, as confused as Frank.

“Uh, nobody. I…Your daughter is married to Paul Devries?”

“Yes. You said you’d met her.”

“I have. Do you know why your daughter was unhappy?”

“I can’t imagine that’s any of your business, Mr. Malloy.”

Frank sighed. She kept forgetting she didn’t have money anymore, and he really hated having to remind her. “If it had something to do with why Devries wanted you killed, then it’s my business.”

“I already told you, I have no idea why.”

“Then let’s figure it out.”

“What good would that do?”

Frank studied her for a long moment and realized that she really wasn’t as unmoved as she was trying to convince him she was. He could see it now in the tightness of her jaw and the way she clutched the handkerchief in her lap. Underneath her manners and her hauteur, she was afraid. He could deal with that.

“Mrs. Richmond,” he said softly, “a strange man came to see you the other day and told you that your son- in-law’s father had hired him to murder you. I don’t think for one minute that you don’t know why or at least suspect,” he added when she would have protested. “We can also guess that it has something to do with your daughter, and if you’re in danger, she probably is, too.”

The blood drained from her face. “No, I don’t believe it!”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Even if you don’t care about yourself, you should care about your daughter.”

Frank could see that a lifetime of training in how a lady should conduct herself was the only thing preventing her from collapsing into hysteria. Tears flooded her eyes, and she dashed them angrily away. “He wouldn’t hurt Garnet, would he?”

“Why would he hurt you?”

“I told you—”

“And I told you, let’s figure it out. When did you first start thinking something was wrong with your daughter?”

She drew a deep breath. “I don’t…I can’t remember exactly, but maybe four months ago. Her letters…She’d never seemed particularly happy in her marriage, but suddenly, she wrote asking if she could come to live with me at her grandmother’s house. I thought she meant a visit, and I told her she would always be welcome, but she asked if her grandmother would welcome her if she wanted to stay.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t know what to tell her. I couldn’t ask my mother a question like that, could I? She’d want to know what was wrong with Garnet and…Well, I must confess, I don’t think my mother would approve of a woman leaving her husband like that. It just isn’t done.”

“So what did you tell her?”

“I asked her what was wrong, and I told her I would be glad to give her the benefit of my wisdom to help her solve whatever problem she might be having with her husband.”

“But she didn’t tell you what was wrong.”

“She only said that nothing I could say would help.”

Frank sat back in his chair. “That sounds like a serious problem.”

“I was frightened, Mr. Malloy. My daughter was talking about leaving her husband, and I could tell from the tone of her letters that she was in despair. I couldn’t invite her to come to me, so I came to her.”

“And what did she tell you when you got here?”

“Not much more than I’ve already told you. I’ve only seen her three times since I’ve been here. I couldn’t invite myself to stay at the Devrieses’ house, so I stayed in a hotel at first. I called on Garnet, but Mrs. Devries was very cold. She made it clear I was not welcome. I couldn’t believe it, but I suppose she was only expressing her husband’s wishes. Mr. Devries had no desire to be reminded of how badly he had treated my husband, I’m sure.”

Frank wasn’t so sure. He didn’t think Devries had much of a conscience, so why would seeing Mrs. Richmond bother him? “Paul Devries said he and his father argued because Devries was being cruel to Garnet. Maybe she wanted to get away from him, not Paul.”

“I know Garnet despised him, but that started long before she married Paul. She blamed him for her father’s death.”

“Did Garnet say anything to you about Devries? Give you any idea what he might have done recently that was especially cruel?”

“No, she…In fact, at first I thought she might want to escape from Mrs. Devries. The woman is intolerable, and she dotes on Paul. No woman would ever be good enough for him, especially not Garnet.”

Frank had no trouble at all believing that. “Lots of women hate their mothers-in-law. That doesn’t make them want a divorce. Didn’t Garnet tell you anything at all about why she wanted to leave Paul?”

Mrs. Richmond hesitated, then shook her head. “No, she didn’t tell me anything.”

But Frank had seen the hesitation. “You have an idea, though, don’t you? Is it something about Paul?”

“No, I don’t…I told you, she never told me.”

“But she hinted. She said something that made you suspect.” Frank took a chance. “Something about why they don’t have any children.”

She sprang to her feet, her face flaming. “How dare you?” she cried. “Get out of here! Get out of here right now before I call …”

“Who?” Frank taunted. “The police?”

“Mrs. Higgins.”

“The landlady?” he scoffed. “She’s more likely to put you out. You’re trouble, Mrs. Richmond. First an Italian thug calls on you, and then a police detective. She runs a respectable house. She doesn’t