Frank had now identified two of the three women. The older one was still watching him, as if he interested her more than was normal under the circumstances. He once again acknowledged her with a small nod. “Are you also a member of the family?”
Before she could reply, Mrs. Van Dyke said, “Oh, no. Elizabeth is a friend. She was gracious enough to come the moment she heard what happened.”
“That was very kind of you, Mrs. . . .?” Frank said, giving her a chance to identify herself.
“Decker,” she replied, watching closely for his reaction. “Mrs. Felix Decker.”
2
F
RANK STARED BACK AT HER, USING EVERY SKILL HE POSSESSED to keep his true emotions from showing on his face. No wonder she looked familiar. Her resemblance to her daughter, Sarah Brandt, was striking. She knew who he was, too. He could tell by the way she was watching him, judging his every word and deed. She couldn't know everything about him, of course, because even Sarah didn't know that he was in love with her. But Mrs. Decker knew enough.
And Felix Decker had asked for him by name.
Had his selection for this case been an honor or a trap? Did they want to see the murder solved or to see him fail? Unfortunately, he wouldn't learn the answers until the case was over, and by then it would be too late.
“Perhaps you'll want to excuse yourself while I speak with Mrs. Van Dyke and her stepdaughter, Mrs. Decker,” he said, relieved to hear his voice sounded perfectly normal.
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Van Dyke exclaimed in alarm. “Please stay, Elizabeth!” She turned to Frank in appeal. “I'm sure we can tell you nothing Mrs. Decker wouldn't already know.”
“Don't be a fool, Lilly,” her stepdaughter said acidly. “The detective is going to want to know all our family secrets, and he's trying to spare you from embarrassment.”
“Regrettably, we no longer
have
any family secrets, Alberta,” her stepmother replied just as acidly, “thanks to your brother, who has taken up with the lowest creatures in the city and made us a laughingstock.”
“Are you speaking of Mr. Van Dyke's older son?” Frank asked, reaching for his notebook and pencil.
“Yes, Creighton,” Mrs. Van Dyke reported with satisfaction.
“Creighton had nothing to do with this,” Alberta insisted somewhat shrilly. What little color had been in her face now fled. “You just want to see him disinherited!”
“If he killed his father, he most certainly will be!” Mrs. Van Dyke replied smugly.
Alberta sprang from her chair, probably intent on doing her stepmother bodily harm, but she stopped instantly and swayed a bit, clapping her hands to the sides of her head as if trying to hold it in place. Frank instinctively rushed to her, grabbing her arm in case she fainted. He was only one step behind Mrs. Decker, who had followed the same instinct and caught her from the other side.
“You've had a terrible shock, Alberta,” Mrs. Decker was saying to the young woman. “Perhaps you should rest a bit. Mr. Malloy can speak with you later.” She looked at Frank, silently willing him to agree.
He was only too happy to do so. Besides the possibility of this one fainting, he wasn't going to learn very much if the two women were going to quarrel with everything the other said. “I'd actually
prefer
to speak to you separately, if you wouldn't mind, Miss Van Dyke.”
Alberta looked at him, her red-rimmed eyes full of misery. “Creighton didn't do this,” she repeated. “No matter what she says, you must believe me.”
“If he's innocent, he has nothing to fear,” Frank assured her.
Mrs. Decker gave him a look of astonishment that he didn't quite understand, but then she was leading Alberta away.
“Please come back, Elizabeth!” Mrs. Van Dyke cried. “Alberta's maid can take care of her, and I need you with me!”
Frank caught the slightest flicker of impatience on Mrs. Decker's face this time, but she covered it instantly. “I will, my dear,” she said and went out with Alberta.
When the door had closed behind them, Mrs. Van Dyke sighed dramatically. “That girl is such a nuisance. I don't know why she won't marry. It's unnatural, if you ask me, for a girl that old to still be at home.”
It did seem strange. Frank had guessed her to be the same age as her stepmother, around thirty. She was no beauty, but surely her father could have bought her a husband with a large dowry, even if no eligible man had volunteered. Before this was over, he would probably know exactly why Miss Alberta Van Dyke was a spinster, though, along with a lot of other things that should have been none of his business.
“Do you mind if I sit down, Mrs. Van Dyke?” he asked.
She looked startled, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “I suppose you might as well,” she conceded ungraciously, motioning to the chair Alberta had just vacated.
Frank retrieved the notebook he'd dropped when he'd rushed to rescue Alberta and took the offered chair. “I gather you are Mr. Van Dyke's second wife,” he began.
She looked a little mollified. “Yes. His first wife died years ago, long before I met him.”
“It must be strange having stepchildren older than you are,” he observed. He didn't know if this was true, but he figured she was the type of woman to respond to flattery. He was right.
“Why, yes, it is strange,” she replied, quite pleased. “Of course, Tad is younger than I, if only by a few years.”
“How is the young man doing? He said he was coming straight home.”
Mrs. Van Dyke frowned slightly. “He was quite upset, of course. He went straight up to his room, and I'm afraid he took some liquor with him. He wouldn't even tell us about what happened. I'm sure he'll be fine, though. Men don't feel tragedy the way women do, after all.”
Frank wondered where she'd gotten an idea like that, but he didn't challenge it. “Tad said your husband was in an exceptionally good mood this morning. Can you think of any reason why he would have been?”
She looked startled. “Why, no, I can't. I didn't see my husband this morning. I never do, because he leaves so early, you see.”
Frank didn't think nine or ten o'clock was particularly early, but he wasn't going to argue. The Van Dykes probably had separate bedroomsârich people often didâso her not seeing him was understandable. “Then you aren't aware of any recent success he might have had or any particularly good fortune?”
“My husband was always successful,” she assured him. “I can't think why that would be a cause for him to be unusually cheerful. What exactly did Tad say?”
“That his father greeted him by his nickname and said it was a fine day or something like that. Since the weather is so bad today, I found that odd. I assume he must have had some other reason than the weather to think it was a fine day.”
“I'm sure I couldn't say,” she said with a puzzled frown. “Unless he was thinking about the present he was going to give me.”
Frank was fairly certain that wasn't it. “What can you tell me about Mr. Van Dyke's son Creighton?”
She glanced toward the door, as if afraid Alberta might come bursting in to stop her. Satisfied that she was safe, at least for the moment, she looked back at Frank with a smug smile. “Creighton is an anarchist.”
“An
anarchist
?” Frank repeated incredulously. She couldn't have any idea what the word meant, because if this were true, why hadn't someone at Van Dyke's office mentioned it already?
“I think that's what Gregory called him. I don't know anything about politics, but Creighton got involved with some group of foreigners who don't believe we should have a government. Can you imagine? How would we keep order without a government? Someone must tell people what to do, or they'll run wild!”
Frank had to agree. People ran pretty wild when they
did
have a government to tell them what to do. “How did he get involved with these people?” The step from being a millionaire's son to an anarchist was a pretty big one.
“A girl. Isn't that always the reason young men do foolish things?” she asked sincerely. “He became infatuated with some girl, and suddenly, he was running off to these meetings where people ended up in fist fights and the police had to come. Can you imagine?”
Unfortunately, he could. “Did Creighton get arrested?”
“If he did, I never heard about it, but he kept going to the meetings and saying the most outrageous things. He and Gregory argued about it constantly, but always behind closed doors. I'm sure Gregory wanted to protect me from such unpleasantness.”
“I'm sure he did,” Frank agreed sympathetically.
“I do know that anarchists use bombs and murder people,” she informed him with just a little too much satisfaction. “Gregory never told me anything about it, of course, but when Creighton moved out and went to live with those people . . . Well, some of our acquaintances were only too happy to enlighten me. Wealthy females can be terrible gossips, Detective,” she confided.
Frank decided not to comment on that. “You said Creighton went to live with those people. Do you know where I can find him?”
“Certainly not. Alberta might, though. She's still quite devoted to him. I think she even sent him money after Gregory cut off his allowance.”
“What about Thaddeus? Would he know where Creighton is?”
Mrs. Van Dyke looked offended. “Absolutely not. Tad and his brother haven't spoken since Creighton left here. Tad is devoted to his father and would never do anything to offend . . . Oh, my,” she said, suddenly paling. “I keep forgetting about Gregory . . . that he's gone. It doesn't seem real, like a bad dream, and I'll wake up any moment and . . .”
Her lovely eyes were filling with tears, and Frank knew she'd be dissolving into hysterics in another moment. That's why he was so glad to hear the parlor door opening. Mrs. Decker had come back to rescue him.
But when he looked up, he saw Sarah Brandt instead. His breath caught at the sight of her, and somehow, he managed not to swear.
Â
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S
ARAH BRANDT WAS JUST AS SHOCKED AS HE. “MALLOY, what are you doing here?” she asked, hardly able to believe her eyes. She hadn't seen him for almost a month, and this was the last place she'd expected to encounter him.
He'd risen to his feet, looking disapproving, as he always did whenever he found her someplace he didn't think she should be. He didn't have time to say anything, though, because Lilly Van Dyke spoke first.
“Sarah! How kind of you to come. I don't know what's going to become of me!” With that, she burst into tears.
Propriety demanded that Sarah should go to comfort Lilly, even though she wanted to talk to Malloy. Helpless, she obeyed her conscience, acutely aware of Malloy watching every move she made. Why hadn't she heard from him in weeks? Was he glad to see her? Was she glad to see him? And did any of that really matter?
She went to the sofa and dutifully sat down beside Lilly, who was sobbing with amazingly feminine grace into a fine, lace handkerchief.
“I was so sorry to hear what happened to Mr. Van Dyke,” she said, laying a comforting hand on Lilly's shoulder. “I hope you're not alone.”
“Oh, no. Your mother came hours ago,” Lilly assured her tearfully. “Of course, Alberta is here, although she's no comfort at all. And poor Tad. He was there when . . . when it happened, but they sent him home.”
“How is he?” Sarah asked gently.
“He was naturally upset. He went to his room with a bottle of brandy.”
Probably the best solution, under the circumstances. Sarah looked up at Malloy for some clue from him what she could do to assist him. He wasn't very helpful. He was too busy glaring at her. That probably answered her question about whether he was glad to see her.
“Sarah!” her mother exclaimed in surprise as she entered the room. “What on earth . . .?”
“I heard what happened and went straight to your house. Your maid told me where you were,” she explained, still patting Lilly's shoulder. “Have you met Detective Sergeant Malloy?”
“Yes, I have,” she replied, to Sarah's surprise. “I believe he's investigating what happened.” Her tone was odd, as if she were asking a question, but Sarah didn't take the time to figure out what it was. She was looking at Malloy for some kind of explanation.
He didn't supply it. “How is Miss Van Dyke?” he asked her mother instead.
“Not very well, I'm afraid. She's been ill, and now with this . . .” Her voice trailed off as her gaze drifted back to Sarah. “Perhaps you could help, my dear,” she realized.
“No,” Malloy said, surprising everyone. Even Lilly forgot to cry for a moment. Then, seeing all the women staring at him, he corrected himself. “I mean, maybe you should call a doctor, if she's that sick.”
“Sarah is a trained nurse,” her mother reminded him sternly, much to Sarah's amazement. “Surely, you knew that.”
Sarah wasn't sure which was more shocking, the fact that her mother was apparently bragging about the training to which she had so strenuously objected when Sarah had first suggested it years earlier or the fact that she seemed to know that Sarah and Malloy were well acquainted.
“I'll be happy to look in on Alberta while we're waiting for a doctor to arrive,” Sarah said diplomatically, rising to her feet. She hadn't thought to bring her medical bag with her, but she was sure the household would be well supplied with standard medications if she needed anything.
“Oh, Sarah,” Lilly cried, catching Sarah's hand. “I'm feeling faint.” Her lovely eyes were pleading with Sarah not to leave her, and Sarah couldn't believe that Lilly was so selfish as to pretend an illness to keep her from paying attention to Alberta.