“You can’t think anyone in his family is responsible!”
Frank gripped the back of the chair, glanced at the mantel clock, then back at his host. “First you tell me his friends couldn’t have done it. Now you tell me his family couldn’t have done it. Do you think some stranger just came up to him on the street and stuck a knife in his back for no reason?”
Color flooded Decker’s face as he obviously fought for composure as well. Frank knew he wasn’t used to being challenged by the help. “That would, of course, be my preference, but I suppose it’s too much to ask. I’ll have Hartley summon a cab for us.”
THEY COULD HAVE WALKED TO DEVRIES’S HOUSE MUCH more quickly than the cab carried them through the clogged streets, but Frank supposed men like Felix Decker didn’t walk in the city. Frank could think of no appropriate small talk to break the tense silence, and apparently, Decker couldn’t either.
Devries had lived only a few blocks from the Deckers’ residence on the Upper West Side, a place Frank had visited only once and not at Felix Decker’s invitation. The houses on these streets had been built to impress but not intimidate, the way the mansions on Fifth Avenue had. He’d been in enough of them to know what to expect, and he wasn’t surprised by anything he saw here.
A maid answered the door and her face lit with recognition. “Mr. Decker, I’m sorry, but Mr. Devries is not at home.”
“I know he’s not. Is Mrs. Devries here? I need to speak with her immediately.”
“Oh, dear, yes, of course. Please come in and I’ll see if Mrs. Devries can receive you.”
Frank watched alarm alter her features as she sensed the urgency and tried to decide how best to treat these unexpected visitors. She probably feared offending Decker if she showed them to the inevitably small, uncomfortable room near the front door where such guests usually waited while it was determined if they were welcome or not.
“We can wait in the front parlor,” Decker said, as if sensing her dilemma.
“Yes, sir,” she said with obvious relief, and led them upstairs into an oppressively overstuffed room obviously reserved for formal company. No fire had been lit, but Frank decided, despite the abundance of knickknacks cluttering every tabletop, velvets, and doilies, it would have been cold in any case. Nothing about it was comfortable.
“Sir, should I…?”
“Yes?”
“I mean, do you want to see just Mrs. Devries, or should I ask Mr. Paul to join you?”
“Please ask Paul to join us, too, if he’s at home.”
When the maid had closed the door behind herself, Decker turned to Frank. “I suppose I should have asked your permission to include Paul. That’s Devries’s son.”
Frank ignored the sarcasm. “If the wife is going to get hysterical, having the son here is a good idea.”
Decker made a rude noise, but Frank didn’t know what in particular had annoyed him, so he pretended not to notice his displeasure. Instead he glanced around at the enormous furniture upholstered in dark blue plush overwhelming the space. A large painting of a sour-looking gentleman hung above the fireplace in a hideous gilt frame, and dark landscapes depicting fox hunts adorned the others. Heavy drapes hung at the windows, trailing onto the floor and tied back with gold cords. No ray of sunlight had managed to enter the room.
Mrs. Devries didn’t keep them waiting long. He figured he had Decker to thank for that.
The wisp of a woman, dressed in a gown more suited to someone half her age, paused in the doorway and struck a pose, her finger to her chin as she gazed first at Decker and then at him. She wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. Her fair hair had been elaborately arranged but appeared stiff as straw. Like her face, it seemed a bit the worse for wear. After a moment, she tipped her head quizzically to one side and offered the hand not clutching a lacy handkerchief to Decker.
“Felix, what on earth brings you here at this ungodly hour? I hope the girl told you Chilton isn’t at home, and I have no idea when he’ll return. He never confides in me, you know. You have no idea how I suffer.”
Decker took her hand in both of his. “Lucretia, I know very well how you suffer. You tell me every time I set eyes on you. Please, come in and sit down. Is Paul here?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Paul never confides in me either. I’m always the last to know everything that goes on in my own house.”
This was going to be horrible, Frank decided. The wife would dissolve into hysterics and he wouldn’t be able to get a thing out of her. Then her doctor would come and give her laudanum, and he’d never be allowed back in the house again.
Mrs. Devries jabbered on about something or other that had caused her distress as Decker escorted her to a sofa. He had no sooner seated her than a young man appeared, still smoothing his suit coat as he strode into the room. “Mr. Decker, what a pleasant surprise.”
Paul Devries resembled his mother. A small man with delicate features and her fair coloring, he seemed nervous and uncertain as he ran a hand over his thinning hair. Frank wondered if this was his usual temperament or if Decker’s arrival had upset him.
“I’m very sorry to burst in on you like this, but I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Something that might have been alarm flickered over Paul Devries’s face but was gone before Frank could be sure.
“I’m sure I don’t want to hear bad news, whatever it might be,” Mrs. Devries was saying. “I have a very nervous disposition, you know. I cannot abide unpleasantness.”
“You will have to abide this, I’m afraid,” Decker said, plainly unmoved by her protests. “Chilton is dead.”
Both mother and son stared at him in what appeared to be genuine shock.
“Dead?” Paul echoed, as if he’d never heard the word be-fore.
“That’s impossible,” his mother said. “He was perfectly fine when he left the house this morning.”
“What time was that?” Frank asked from where he stood beside the cold fireplace.
Both Devrieses looked at him in surprise.
“I’m very sorry. I should have introduced you,” Decker said. “Lucretia, Paul, this is Detective Sergeant Malloy of the New York City Police Department.”
If anything, they looked even more surprised.
Paul blinked first. “Police? Why are the police here?”
“Because it appears your father was murdered.”
Frank braced himself for screaming, but to his surprise, the widow seemed more annoyed than upset.
“What on earth are you talking about, Felix? None of this makes any sense at all!”
“I’m afraid I’ve made a botch of this, although I’m sure you can understand I have never had occasion to notify a family that one of their members has been…killed.”
“Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” Paul said, moving somewhat awkwardly to the nearest chair and lowering himself into it.
To Frank’s surprise, Decker looked over at him, as if to get his approval. Frank nodded, then watched carefully for their reactions.
“Chilly came to the Knickerbocker this afternoon.”
“As was his habit,” Mrs. Devries said. “But surely you know that.”
“Yes, well, in any case, he went to the library to read the newspapers. The staff noticed he seemed to have dozed off, but eventually, when he did not respond to a disturbance, they realized he had passed away.”
“In his sleep? Just like that?” Mrs. Devries said.
“That hardly sounds like murder,” Paul said with a trace of outrage.
“We sent for an undertaker, and when he moved the body, he discovered some blood. The source of the blood was a wound on Chilly’s back. Someone had stabbed him.”
“Are you saying someone at the club stabbed him?” Mrs. Devries asked. “How could such a thing happen?”
“We believe someone stabbed him before he arrived at the club.”
“Are you saying my father was fatally stabbed, and yet he walked away, went to his club, and sat down to read the newspapers without saying a word to anyone?”
“The wound itself is quite small and on his back, and it bled very little. He probably had no idea how seriously
