Victoria Thompson - Murder On Astor Place

SARAH WAS PLEASED to see that the “Room for Rent” sign was gone from the front window of the Higgins’s house. Several of the Higgins children were playing on the front stoop. Sarah greeted them by name.

“How do you like your new baby brother?” she asked them.

“He sleeps all the time,” Mary Grace informed her disdainfully. As the eldest, Mary Grace apparently felt it was her responsibility to speak first. Her brown eyes were large in her delicate face and much too serious for a girl who had only known ten summers.

“He’s too little to play,” Robert complained. Robert was only five but much sturdier than his slender sister.

“He’ll grow,” Sarah said. “But he’ll never catch up with you. You’ll always be bigger than he is.”

“I will?” Plainly, this idea delighted Robert.

Eight-year-old Sally looked up from rocking her rag doll and said, “But you’ll never be as big as me and Mary Grace. You’ll always be our baby brother.”

“I’m not a baby!” Robert cried in outrage and began to howl.

Sarah would have comforted him, but Mary Grace was apparently used to such outbursts and wrapped her frail arms around his husky body and patted his shoulder for a few seconds until he’d forgotten why he was crying and ran off to find something else to do.

“Is your mother staying in bed?” Sarah asked Mary Grace, figuring the girl would tell the truth while the mother might lie.

“Most of the time,” Mary Grace said. “I try to make her rest.”

“Remind her that if she gets sick she’ll make double work, because then the rest of you will have to take care of her on top of doing her work for her. Maybe that will help.”

Mary Grace nodded solemnly. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah wished Mary Grace would smile. She looked far too old for her years. Just the way she remembered Alicia VanDamm. She knew why Mary Grace was so serious. Her mother was overwhelmed, and a lot of her burdens fell on the child. But Sarah couldn’t imagine why Alicia VanDamm, a child of wealth and privilege, had seemed so troubled. Now she might never find out.

Inside, in the cluttered family quarters, she discovered Mrs. Higgins in bed, just where she should have been, and looking better than the last time Sarah had seen her.

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, you don’t know the trouble we’ve had. The police were here asking everybody questions and going door to door on the street, asking did anybody see or hear anything. As if they’d tell the police if they had! And then we packed up that poor girl’s things because we had to rent out her room-had to charge a dollar a week less because somebody was murdered there! Can you imagine?-and then a man came to collect her belongings. He was the strangest creature. So formal and polite. I asked was he a relative, but he said no, just an employee of the family. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Sending the hired help to collect her things? What kind of people are they? Everybody says they’re rich, that her father owns a bank or something. Could that be true? But why was she living here? I mean, she always paid her rent on time every week, but she never went out or acted like she had anything extra to spend. If her family was rich, why was she on her own?”

“How’s the baby doing?” Sarah asked, determined not to spread any gossip about Alicia VanDamm and her sad history. The infant was sleeping on the bed beside his mother, and Sarah carefully unwrapped his blanket to examine him. She was pleased to note that he had filled out nicely. His little cheeks were rounding, and his arms and legs were growing plump. He stirred a little, his small mouth making sucking motions, as if he dreamed he was suckling, and Sarah quickly re-covered him before he could awaken. “He seems to be doing well,” she remarked. “Have you decided on a name?”

“Harry after Mr. Higgins’s father,” Mrs. Higgins said almost absently. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. That man-that employee -he wanted to know if we’d stolen Alicia’s jewels! Can you imagine? He practically accused us to our faces! This is a respectable house, I told him. If she had any jewels, I never knew anything about them, and if they’re gone missing, he’d do better to be asking the police about it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t really think you’d taken them,” Sarah soothed her. Sarah could just see the VanDamm’s butler looking down his nose at the Higginses and telling them they’d better turn over Alicia’s jewelry or else.

“If anybody took them, it was that Hamilton Fisher. From the day he moved in, he was always hanging around her room. Not that she ever left it, except to eat, mind you. I used to wonder what she found to do all alone up there all day. Just stared out the window, I expect. But whenever she did come out, he was right there, trying to make her talk to him. Or just notice him, I expect. Never saw a young man so taken with a girl. He’d sit at the table with her and say all kinds of wild things, trying to make her smile. She never did, though. I think she was a little afraid of him. And who could blame her? She just wanted to mind her own business, and there he was, bothering her all the time. But maybe it wasn’t her he was after at all. Maybe he really wanted to steal her things. Do you think that was it, Mrs. Brandt? Do you think he might’ve finally decided just to go into her room and take what he wanted, and when she put up a fuss, he-”

“I’m sure that wasn’t it at all. Please, Mrs. Higgins, you mustn’t upset yourself. It’s not good for you or the baby. I’m very glad you were able to rent out your rooms after all.”

Mrs. Higgins sniffed derisively. “Not to the kind of lodgers I’m used to. They’re a very rough sort of men, I can tell you. That’s what happens when I leave things to Mr. Higgins. He can’t see what people look like, so he isn’t as careful as I would be. But I doubt they’ll be here long. That kind never stays anywhere very long. And when they leave, I’ll be sure to get a better class of lodgers. For full price, too.”

Sarah was hardly listening. She was too busy thinking about Hamilton Fisher and wondering why he’d been so intent on making the acquaintance of Alicia VanDamm. It could be as simple as a young man wanting to be noticed by a pretty girl. But it seemed like more than that, from what Mrs. Higgins described. And of course, he’d vanished the night she died. Had Malloy asked about him? Did he know how interested Fisher had been in Alicia? “Did that young man, that Mr. Fisher, did he have a job?”

“Not that I ever knew,” Mrs. Higgins said, apparently undisturbed by the change of subject. “I was worried he might not be able to pay, but he gave me a month’s rent in advance, so I couldn’t complain, now could I?”

“And then he ran off after Alicia was killed, after only living here a week, when his room was paid for a month?”

“Makes him sound guilty, don’t it?” Mrs. Higgins said, with a worried frown.

“Have you told the police all this?”

Mrs. Higgins gave her a pitying look. “That fellow they sent over, that detective, he hardly asked me any questions at all. Acted like he couldn’t be bothered. Oh, I know nobody’s going to care if some orphan girl gets herself murdered, but if Alicia’s family is really rich, wouldn’t they at least offer a reward? Something to get the police interested?”

“I’m sure they will,” Sarah said, mentally cursing Frank Malloy. Well, he might not appreciate her help in the case, but she had far too much information now to even consider keeping it to herself. Like it or not, she’d have to track him down and make him listen to her. And then she’d have to find out if the VanDamms were going to offer a reward. And if they weren’t…