Murder on Fifth Avenue

Both of the Deckers rose when they were ushered into the family parlor, and Mrs. Decker came forward to greet them. She took Sarah’s hands and raised her cheek for a kiss, but then turned her full attention to Frank, giving him her hand and then covering his with her other one so he wouldn’t release it immediately.

“Mr. Malloy, you’ve found the truth at last.”

Frank stared back at her in surprise, not sure what sort of response would be appropriate to this odd remark.

Mr. Decker saved him the trouble. “I don’t need your subtle reminders, Elizabeth. I am well aware of Mr. Malloy’s accomplishments.”

Mrs. Decker flashed Frank a conspiratorial smile before releasing his hand. “Of course you are, my dear. Let’s sit down so he can tell us everything.”

The Deckers sat together on the sofa and Frank and Sarah took the chairs opposite.

“I’m not sure how much you already know,” Frank said.

“I haven’t told him anything,” Mrs. Decker said, earning a frown from her husband that she ignored. “I wasn’t sure what was fact and what was theory, so I decided to wait until you had an opportunity to confirm everything.”

“All right, then,” Frank said, pretending not to notice Sarah’s grin. “You know the story of how Devries tricked Mr. Richmond into an investment scheme that ruined him in order to pressure Garnet to marry Paul.”

“Yes, so he could conceal Paul’s…uh, proclivities from the world,” Decker said.

“Is that what it’s called? Proclivities?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“No,” Decker said. “I’m simply trying to pretend you are too refined to wish to hear anything indelicate.”

Frank studiously avoided meeting Sarah’s gaze.

“In the past few months, however, Mrs. Richmond began to sense from Garnet’s letters that something was very wrong with her daughter, so she came to the city to find out what it was.”

“Garnet was thinking of leaving Paul,” Sarah said.

“Which would be understandable, under the circumstances,” Mrs. Decker said.

Mr. Decker sighed. “Mr. Malloy?”

“We have discovered that the reason Garnet was unhappy was because Mr. Devries had forced himself on her.”

“Good God!” Decker said.

“More than once,” Mrs. Decker said. “And she is with child by him.”

Decker covered his eyes for a long moment while he came to terms with this horror. “Why didn’t Paul stop him?” he asked hoarsely.

“He didn’t know,” Sarah said. “Garnet finally admitted that she didn’t tell him because Devries had already threatened to claim she had seduced him out of frustration over her husband’s neglect. Paul might not have believed him, but he would have been powerless to stop his father without causing a scandal that would have ruined Garnet.”

“And Lucretia would certainly have taken Chilton’s side,” Mrs. Decker said.

“So I assume Garnet is the one who stabbed him,” Decker said.

“That’s what we thought at first. The morning Devries died, he’d gone to Garnet’s room again, but this time she fought him off, and Paul heard her and came in.”

“Paul thought it was the first time Devries had tried this, and he had a terrible row with his father,” Sarah said.

“So Paul stabbed him,” her father said.

Frank began to feel sorry for him. “I figured it was one or the other, and when I confronted them, they both confessed.”

“What?”

“They were trying to protect each other,” Sarah said.

“So one or the other of them did it,” Decker said.

Frank shook his head. “Neither one of them knew what kind of a weapon Devries had been stabbed with. The medical examiner had told me it was something the size and shape of an ice pick, but when I asked them what they’d used, they both said a knife, so I knew neither of them had done it.”

Frank could tell Decker was holding his temper with difficulty, but Mrs. Decker didn’t seem to care.

“They did find out who killed the valet, though,” she said.

“Not Paul or Garnet, surely,” Decker said as if it were a prayer.

“No,” she said smugly. “Lucretia did.”

“Lucretia?”

“She thought Paul had stabbed his father,” Frank hastily explained. “And she thought Roderick knew it.”

“But he couldn’t have known it because it wasn’t true,” Decker said.

“No,” Sarah said, “but Roderick apparently thought Paul had done it. He actually tried to blackmail Paul, but he failed because Paul didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Malloy took pity on Decker and finished the tale. “Because Mrs. Devries thought Paul had killed his father and Roderick knew it, she told Paul to dismiss him, then she put poison in the decanter of whiskey and gave it to Roderick to console him.”

“You’re sure of this?” Decker asked.

“Positive,” Sarah said. “She practically admitted it.”

They gave him a moment to absorb this shock. “I don’t suppose she could have stabbed Chilton, not if she thought Paul had done it.”

“No,” Malloy said.

“Then who did?” Decker asked, at the end of his patience. “I’m assuming you wouldn’t have come if you didn’t know.”

“I told you Devries wanted Angotti to have Mrs. Richmond killed,” Malloy reminded him. “We thought it was just because she might help Garnet leave Paul, but now we know Devries had his own reasons for wanting to keep Garnet in his house.”

“I can see that, yes.”

“What Angotti didn’t tell me—and Mrs. Richmond didn’t mention when I visited her—was that when Angotti had warned her Devries might try to kill her himself, he gave her a small dagger that she could use to protect herself.”

“A stiletto with a very thin blade,” Sarah added.

Frank reached in his pocket, and both the Deckers gasped when he pulled out the beautiful instrument of death. Made like a tiny sword in a yellow enameled scabbard, it looked almost like a lovely toy.

Frank handed it to Decker to examine. He turned it over in his hand, then pulled the blade from its sheath. The soft clink made Malloy wonder if Devries had recognized that sound as his doom when he’d heard it. “So Chilton had gone to murder her that day?”

“We knew he’d met with Angotti after he left his house, and Angotti told him he was not going to have Mrs. Richmond killed. After that, he disappeared for a couple hours, and when he arrived at the Knickerbocker, he’d been stabbed. Mrs. Richmond didn’t want to talk about it, but your daughter was finally able to coax the story out of her.” Frank turned to Sarah, happy to give her the credit for this.

She told the rest of it. “Shortly after he left Mr. Angotti, Devries sent Mrs. Richmond a telegram ordering her to meet him at a disreputable hotel. He promised he would have good news about Garnet, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew he was planning to murder her, so she took the knife Angotti had given her and she went to meet him.”

“But why did she go at all if she knew what he was planning?” Decker asked.

“Because she was afraid he would come after her if she didn’t. At least this way, she had the advantage of surprise because he didn’t know Angotti had told her.”

Decker considered this for a moment. “Wait, didn’t you tell me Devries was undressed when he was stabbed?” he asked Frank.

“That’s why Mrs. Richmond was so reluctant to tell her story,” he said.

“When she arrived at the hotel room,” Sarah said, “she found him waiting for her with just a towel wrapped around him. He was going to make her submit to him, and then he was going to murder her.”