Victoria Thompson - Murder On Waverly Place

“And Serafina would be looking for your other hand,” Sarah said, understanding how it could work.

Mrs. Decker took Serafina’s wrist in her left hand, but then she shook her head. “No, no. I might take her wrist by mistake in the dark, but I would never believe it was yours, Mr. Malloy.”

“Could you have mistaken it for Cunningham’s, though?” he challenged her. “He’s a much thinner man.”

“Yes, he is,” Serafina said in surprise. “I had not thought of it before.”

“Could that have happened, Mother?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Decker said with a frown, “but it’s possible, I suppose.”

“Even if he could get free, he’d still have to find Mrs. Gittings in the dark, though,” Sarah pointed out.

“And how would he know where to stab her?” Mrs. Decker added. “He would have had to feel around in the dark, and she would have noticed if someone touched her. Surely, she would have cried out in surprise, if nothing else.”

“I don’t think it would be too hard,” Malloy mused. “He didn’t have to walk far, and he’d hear people talking, so he could get his bearings that way.”

“He could touch the chairs,” Serafina offered.

They all looked at her in surprise.

“You touch the backs of the chairs,” she repeated. “That is how you know where you are.”

“So he could just walk around the table until he came to the third chair, where he knew Mrs. Gittings was sitting,” Malloy said. “The chair back would tell him where her body was, so all he had to do was-”

“That’s enough,” Sarah said quickly. “We understand. But could he have gotten up quietly enough so no one noticed?”

“Everybody was shouting,” Malloy reminded them. “Were you paying attention to the people around you, Mrs. Decker?”

“Not at all,” she said in surprise. “I would have known if someone let go of my hand, but if Mr. Cunningham had slid his chair back and gotten up, I doubt I would have noticed.”

“But shouldn’t someone have noticed when Mrs. Gittings got stabbed?” Sarah asked. “Wouldn’t she have screamed or something?”

“I asked the medical examiner the same thing, and he said no,” Malloy said. “The knife went straight into her heart, and she died quickly.”

“But surely she felt some pain when the knife went in,” Sarah said.

“She might’ve felt a pain, but since she wasn’t expecting to be stabbed, she probably wouldn’t have thought it was anything really bad,” Malloy explained. “Everybody has unexpected pains from time to time. They usually just pass, and we forget about them.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Decker exclaimed. “I think we’ve proven that any one of the three of them could be the killer.”

“And don’t forget the Professor,” Malloy said.

“But he wasn’t even in the room,” Sarah reminded him.

Malloy turned to Serafina. “Could he have gotten in without anybody knowing it?”

She frowned. “He could have come in through the cabinet, but Nicola was in there. He would have seen him, and he would have told me.”

“Is there any other way to sneak in?”

“No,” Serafina said.

Malloy gave her one of his glares.

The girl blinked but held her ground. “I would tell you,” she insisted. “I want to help.”

“Of course you do, dear,” Mrs. Decker soothed her and gave Malloy a reproving glance.

He ignored it. “Supposing he could have gotten into the room somehow, did he have any reason to want Mrs. Gittings dead?”

Serafina considered the question for a long moment. “I do not know.”

“You said they were lovers,” Sarah reminded her, thinking that was a strange word to use for middle-aged people but unable to think of another. “Did they get along well?”

The girl shook her head. “Mrs. Gittings was mean to him. She said he was stupid.”

“Did they argue?” Sarah asked.

“No, no, the Professor, he is very quiet. He would say nothing when she said mean things to him.”

“But she trusted him with the money,” Malloy remembered. “He knew the combination to the safe. He could have taken it and disappeared.”

“No, they were saving for something,” Serafina said. “At least…” She stopped, remembering.

“What is it?” Sarah prodded.

The girl pursed her lips as she tried to recall. “At first, the Professor and Mrs. Gittings would talk about what they were going to do when they had enough money. They were going to bankroll something, they said. I did not understand what it was, but they would get very excited when they talked about it because they would get very rich. The Professor, he had done it before, but he was just a steerer then and did not earn much money.”

“A what ?” Malloy asked sharply.

“A steerer,” Serafina repeated uncertainly. “I think that is the word.”

“What else did they say about it?” Malloy asked urgently.

“I do not know,” Serafina said in dismay. “I did not pay attention, but it does not matter, because then she changed her mind.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“She saw they could make a lot of money from the séances. She said… she said it was easier and not as dangerous. She said no one would get killed,” she remembered suddenly.

“That’s what she said?” Malloy asked. “That nobody would get killed?”

“Yes, this other thing, what the Professor wanted to do, that was dangerous, but the séances were not. She said they attracted a better class of people.” Serafina glanced at Mrs. Decker apologetically.

“And did the Professor agree with her?” Sarah asked.

“No, no,” Serafina said. “He was not happy. They would argue about it at night sometimes, after Nicola and I went to bed.”

“Why didn’t he just take the money himself?” Malloy asked.

“They did not have enough yet. I think…”

“What do you think, dear?” Mrs. Decker asked when Serafina hesitated.

“I think they would never give me my part of the money,” she said bitterly. “I think they would have taken it all and left us with nothing.”

Sarah thought that, too.

“So the Professor stayed because he didn’t have enough money yet to do whatever it was he wanted to do with it,” Malloy said, drawing Serafina’s attention back. “But Mrs. Gittings had changed her mind and just wanted to keep doing the séances.”

“Yes, she asked did he not like living in a nice house and not worrying about the police. She said he was stupid to think about anything else. But he said they could live in a mansion and never have to work again.”

Malloy sat back and considered what she had told him.

“Do you know what it was he wanted to do?” Sarah asked him.

“I have a good idea,” he replied.

“What do you think it was?”

“They call it the Green Goods Game.”

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“It’s a way to trick people out of their money. They send out letters all over the country, offering to sell people counterfeit money.”

“Is that legal?” Mrs. Decker asked in amazement.

Malloy’s mouth quirked, but he managed not to smile. “Not at all. But lots of people are curious enough to travel to New York to find out more about it. The operators pay all their travel expenses, too, even if they decide not to buy in. So the suckers come to New York and somebody-the one they call the steerer-meets them at the train and takes them to a hotel. Then the steerer takes them to meet the one they call the Old Gentleman, who is someone who looks very respectable. The Old Gentleman shows them a suitcase full of what they think is the counterfeit money, except it’s real money.”

“Real money? Why would they show them real money?” Sarah asked.