“Come in and sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”
A few moments later they were sitting in her kitchen. She cut him a slice of the cake Mrs. Ellsworth had brought over that afternoon to have along with the coffee she was boiling. When she set the plate in front of him, she saw that he’d spread two pieces of paper out on the table for her to see.
“Look at these, and tell me what you think. This is the suicide note.” He slid one over to her as she took her seat opposite him.
She winced as she read the words, and tears stung her eyes. She’d hardly known the boy, but he’d been far too young to die under any circumstances. “If you found this, why do you think he was murdered?” she asked when she’d finished.
He slid the other piece of paper over to her. It was the kind of letter a boy would write to his mother, telling her what he’d been doing and about the people he’d met. Malloy had made a big impression on the boy. He was a little afraid of the police detective, but Malloy had been very kind to him, even paying the rent so he could stay in his rooming house. Of course, Sarah knew this had been a ploy to make sure Calvin didn’t disappear, but even so, it was a kind one. He could have locked the boy up instead. Locking him up would have ensured he didn’t leave town, while leaving him in the rooming house was a gamble. The boy’s homesickness was palpable through his simple words, as was his love for his mother and sisters. One other thing was also obvious.
“Calvin didn’t write the suicide note,” she realized.
“What makes you think so?” he asked.
“The handwriting, for one thing,” she said, comparing the two letters. The letter to Mrs. Brown was written in a large childish hand, the letters formed carefully but awkwardly, as if by one to whom writing was an unwelcome chore. “Whoever wrote the suicide note was trying to make it look like a young person wrote it, but the printing is too small and neat to be Calvin’s.”
“How about what he wrote?”
Sarah compared the two letters more closely. “He calls his mother ‘Ma’ in the one and ‘Mother’ in the other. His grammar is much better in the suicide note, too.”
“That’s what I thought. I noticed the ‘Ma’ thing right away. And the handwriting. But if he hadn’t written the letter to his mother the day before, I might never have figured it out.”
“Or if he’d mailed it before you got to see it,” Sarah added. “I’m surprised the killer didn’t dispose of it.”
“I’m sure he would have, if he was clever enough or if he’d seen it at all, but Calvin had given it to his landlady to mail.”
“Thank heaven
she
hadn’t mailed it yet,” Sarah said with a sigh, laying the letters back down on the table. “Now you have two murders to solve. Do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill both Blackwell and his son?”
“We know it had to be someone who
knew
about Blackwell’s first family. Out of those, just about anybody who wanted Blackwell dead, and probably all of them had a good reason to.”
“That probably eliminates Letitia and Dudley,” she guessed, “since they didn’t know about Blackwell’s other family.”
“Not necessarily. We assumed Letitia didn’t know about Calvin, but we could be wrong. As you pointed out, she wouldn’t have needed a divorce to marry Dudley if her marriage to Blackwell was bigamous, but she would need to be a widow to inherit his imaginary fortune to support her and Dudley.”
“And to escape any hint of scandal,” Sarah pointed out. “Even if she was an innocent victim of the bigamy, her reputation would be tarnished. That would have been a motive for anyone who cared about Letitia, too.”
“Do you mean her father?” Malloy asked with raised eyebrows.
“Her father or her lover,” Sarah said. “Or even Amos Potter, if he hadn’t already eliminated himself by offering a reward for Blackwell’s killer.”
“You’re going to have to forgive him for that, Mrs. Brandt,” Malloy said with just a ghost of a smile as he took a bite of Mrs. Ellsworth’s cake.
“I’ll try,” Sarah promised. “Calvin’s killer must have gone to his room. Didn’t anyone see him?”
“Not that I could find,” he said. “One of the other tenants did remember someone out on the street asking if Calvin lived in the house, but that was earlier in the day, and the man didn’t go inside.”
“What did he look like?” Sarah asked eagerly. “That should tell us something.”
Malloy just shook his head. “Mr. Snively doesn’t remember. He’s quite elderly, and his memory and his eyesight aren’t too good anymore.”
Sarah sighed in disappointment. “And nobody saw or heard the killer going in or coming out?”
“Not that they remember. He must have gotten in earlier in the evening, before the doors were locked, and he could have sneaked out later, after everyone was in bed. My guess is he brought Calvin a bottle of sarsaparilla that had been laced with arsenic. The boy drank it down, then started to feel sick. The killer probably helped him to bed and maybe even fussed over him a bit, to prevent him from calling for the landlady. The killer would have left the box of rat poison sitting in plain sight and put the suicide note out on the table, and then sneaked out. A pretty good plan, and I would’ve believed it if it wasn’t for the letter the boy had just written to his mother.”
“The killer is very clever,” Sarah pointed out. “That’s twice he’s almost convinced you his victims killed themselves.”
Sarah got up and poured him some of the freshly boiled coffee. He’d finished the cake and was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“A killer who thinks he’s clever is usually pretty easy to catch,” he remarked. “You just have to figure out how to let him outsmart himself.”
“Are you suggesting we wait until he kills someone else and gives himself away?” she asked in alarm.
“Not exactly,” he said. “I was thinking more about letting him think he got away with Calvin’s murder. Nobody has to know just yet that it wasn’t a suicide.”
“But would you be able to continue with the investigation if everyone thought Calvin had killed his father?”
“I could pretend I didn’t find the suicide note,” he mused, obviously still working this out in his head.
“Then you could pretend you still didn’t believe Calvin was the killer, or at least that you’re not sure,” she suggested.
“That’s right. And only the killer would know about the note. He might give himself away if he thinks I didn’t find it or was trying to conceal it.”
“I suppose you’ll have to speak with each of the suspects, then,” she said.
“I’ll certainly have to notify them of Calvin’s death, just to see their reactions, if nothing else.”
“Potter will be relieved, even though he’s not the killer,” Sarah said. “I’m sure Mr. Symington will be, too. You’ll have to be careful with him, though. Men like Maurice Symington don’t appreciate being visited by the police, and if he thinks you’re considering him as a suspect, he can make your life very difficult.”
“I know,” he said with a frown. “I think I can get by with pretending I’m just notifying him personally in case there’s anything he wants to do to hush things up and prevent a scandal over the boy’s identity.”
“That’s a good idea. We already know he was aware of Blackwell’s previous marriage and had met Calvin. Don’t be surprised if he pretends he didn’st, though. He may decide that denying the whole thing is the best course of action.”
“I won’t be surprised at anything Symington does,” he assured her.
“At least now you can eliminate the Fitzgeralds as suspects, and all of Blackwell’s other clients, too.”
“And why is that?” he asked with amusement.
Sarah didn’t like it when he found her amusing. “Because they would have no reason to kill Calvin,” she pointed out quite logically.
“Unless it was to throw suspicion on him, which is the reason he was killed by whoever did it,” he pointed out right back. “Of course, they’d have to know about Calvin and his relationship to Blackwell. That’s not something Blackwell was likely to share with paying customers.”
“Wait, the Fitzgeralds knew,” Sarah remembered.
“You mean Blackwell told them?”
“No, remember they were talking to Calvin after the funeral. I heard Mrs. Fitzgerald asking him about his relationship with Blackwell. He looked very uncomfortable, so I told him you were looking for him, to give him an excuse to get away.”
“That’s right. You said they had his life story by the time you interrupted them.”
“I was exaggerating a little. Oh, dear, what did I hear them saying? Something about how much he resembled Blackwell, I think, so they must have discovered the relationship. But even if they did find out he was Blackwell’s son, why would they imagine Calvin would have a reason to kill his father unless they knew the whole story? Calvin didn’t have time to tell them, even if he’d been willing to confide in total strangers, which I doubt. And we’ve already decided Blackwell wouldn’t have told his patients.”
“Clients,” he corrected her absently. “The killer addressed the suicide note to his mother, too. Anyone finding out Calvin was Blackwell’s son would naturally assume Calvin’s mother was dead, since Blackwell had remarried, so whoever killed the boy had to have known the whole story. It doesn’t seem likely the Fitzgeralds did.”
“Unless—” Sarah began, stopping herself when she realized how silly this was.
“Unless what?”
“It’s a little farfetched,” she warned.
“Say it anyway.”
“Remember that Potter was going to meet with Mr. Fitzgerald the day after the funeral. What if he told Mr. Fitzgerald about Calvin?”
“Why would he?” he asked skeptically.
Sarah tried to reason the way Potter might have. She was amazed at how easy it was. “He’s mentioned several times that Blackwell trained him in his techniques. If he wants to set himself up in practice, he’ll need to win over Blackwell’s patients.”
“Clients,”
he corrected her again, this time with a wry glint.
She ignored him, still thinking. “Maybe he was afraid they’d be too loyal to Blackwell, and he wanted to ruin the good doctor’s reputation so they’d turn to him.”
“That’s stupid. They’re just as likely to turn on Potter for speaking ill of the dead,” Malloy pointed out.
“Potter might not realize that. He doesn’t strike me as very bright about dealing with people.”
“He’s not,” Malloy agreed. “Of course, Fitzgerald would’ve had to have a reason to kill Blackwell in the first place.”
“We decided he was jealous because of Blackwell’s attentions to his wife,” Sarah reminded him.
“No,
we
didn’st,” Malloy contradicted her. “Besides, Fitzgerald doesn’t strike me as the jealous type. He seems more likely to be motivated by greed.”
“Then he didn’t like the fact that his wife was letting Blackwell live in her house for free.”
“Then he could’ve had him evicted.”
“Malloy, you’re ruining my perfectly good theory,” she complained, getting up to refill his coffee cup.
“Murder just seems pretty extreme if you’re only unhappy about somebody’s living arrangements,” he said.
“I guess you’re right,” she grudgingly admitted. “Who else do you think could have done it, then?”
“I’m still favoring the young lovers.”
“Then you have to prove they knew about Calvin and his family,” she reminded him.
“Do you think there’s any chance Potter might’ve told Letitia? For the same reason he might’ve told Blackwell’s clients?”
“To turn her affections from Blackwell to him?” she asked skeptically. “It would never have worked!”
“You think that because you know Letitia already had a lover. But what if you didn’t know about Dudley?” he challenged.
Now Sarah was beginning to understand. “And suppose you were Potter, who doesn’t know too much about women in general. He might imagine that a distraught Letitia would turn to him for comfort and support.”
“Instead she turns to Dudley, who kills her husband and tries to make it look like suicide,” Malloy continued.
“Because he wanted to inherit Blackwell’s money and preserve Letitia’s reputation,” Sarah concluded.
“Now,
that’s
a perfectly good theory,” Malloy said approvingly. “All we have to do is prove Letitia and Dudley knew about Calvin.”
“They’re certain to deny it, even if they did,” Sarah guessed.
“Before we confront them about that, we should probably find out if they have an alibi for the day Blackwell was killed. According to the servants, Letitia was out.”
“She’ll probably say she was with Dudley, even if she wasn’st,” Sarah said. “In any case, I suspect she was at her opium den.”
“They can’t give each other an alibi, but if they
were
at the opium den, someone will probably remember. We could eliminate Dudley pretty easily if he was seen someplace else that day.”
“Or not eliminate him if he wasn’st,” Sarah said.
“That’s right, so now you have to arrange for me to finally meet with Mrs. Blackwell,” he said.
“I could question her for you,” Sarah pointed out.
He just gave her one of his looks.
“She’ll claim she’s not well enough,” she tried.
“She was well enough to see Dudley. Remind her of that. And tell her if she doesn’t get dressed and come downstairs, I’ll be glad to visit her in her bedroom.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Sarah scoffed.
Malloy smiled blandly. “She doesn’t have to know that.”
S
ARAH FOUND LETITIA Blackwell looking much better when she arrived the next morning. She was still in bed, but her color was good, and she greeted Sarah with a smile.
“The baby is doing well,” she reported. “Nurse brings him in for a visit every day. She says he’s growing, although he still looks very tiny to me.”
“He does seem to be fine,” Sarah agreed, not bothering to point out that he still needed morphine daily so he wouldn’t die in agony.