Victoria Thompson - Murder on St. Mark’s place

Agnes Otto was afraid of displeasing her husband, and she might well have good reason to be. Sarah would do nothing further to annoy him. At least that he would know about. And he certainly wouldn’t know if she questioned Gerda’s friends.

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“ MRS. BRANDT, ARE YOU OFF TO DELIVER A baby?” a voice called as Sarah descended her front stoop the next evening.

“Not this evening,” Sarah replied to her next-door neighbor Mrs. Elsworth, who never seemed to miss a single event that happened in their neighborhood. Mrs. Elsworth spent an inordinate amount of time sweeping her front steps just so she’d have a good vantage point. That’s what she was doing just now, but at least she had an excuse. The showers that had fallen throughout the day had left leaves and small twigs in their wake. “I’m going to meet some friends.”

“Not that nice detective sergeant?” she asked hopefully.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Sarah said, unable to hide her smile. She wondered what Malloy would say to being characterized as “nice.”

“Are you expecting visitors, then? I found a button today while I was cleaning upstairs, which means I’m going to make a new friend. I wonder if you’ve got any babies due soon. If someone comes while you’re out, I’ll certainly take a message for you.”

“No babies due that I know of, but certainly take a message if anyone comes. I won’t be late, I’m sure.”

“Oh, that won’t matter to me. I hardly sleep anymore as it is. The slightest noise wakes me, and then I’m awake for the rest of the night. Getting old is such a bother.”

“But far preferable to the alternative, don’t you think?” Sarah replied with a smile.

Mrs. Elsworth smiled back. “I expect you’re right about that.”

Sarah left her still sweeping as she watched for other activity which might excite her interest.

A few minutes later Sarah was outside Faircloths when the girls came out at the end of their shift. She tried to imagine Gerda working in this place, sitting over a sewing machine for long hours, making men’s shirts, then coming out at the end of the day, tired but rejuvenated at the prospect of going dancing that evening and meeting a young man who might marry her and change her life.

Of course, changing her life might not necessarily have been a change for the better. She would most likely have traded her good times for life in a tenement apartment with too many children and too little money. Unfortunately, Gerda’s only alternatives would have been prostitution and an early death or spinsterhood, living on the charity and goodwill of relatives. When Sarah thought of Lars Otto’s potential for showing goodwill, she knew why women chose spinsterhood only when they had no other choice.

At first Sarah was afraid she might miss Gerda’s friends in the crowd of girls pouring out of the building, but then she saw Bertha’s outrageous hat with the red bird on top, and she called out to attract her attention. Bertha was surprised, and as Sarah had expected, she directed the attention of the other two girls, who were with her, to Sarah. They made their way over to where she stood beside the building.

“Mrs. Brandt, what’re you doing here?” Lisle asked “Did you find out something?”

“Did you find the killer?” Bertha asked, saying what Lisle wouldn’t.

“Not yet, which is why I need your help. Is there someplace we can go to talk? I’ll treat you to supper,” she added when the girls looked doubtful.

She knew that the girls frequently skipped lunch to have money for their frolics, and they eagerly accepted the invitation. They found a German beer garden nearby, where they feasted on bratwurst and sauerkraut and chunks of freshly baked bread.

“What do you want from us?” Lisle asked when they were settled at their table, heaping plates in front of them.

“I need to know the names of all the men that Gerda had been seeing right before she died,” Sarah explained. “My friend Detective Malloy is going to question the friends of all the other murdered girls, too. We’re going to try to narrow down the list of suspects to men that all the girls knew. Try to think of men who paid Gerda particular attention those last days.”

The girls thought and argued. “He did so dance with her!” “No, he didn’t!” It was a frustrating process, and Sarah was afraid it might be equally fruitless since evenings at the dance halls seemed to run together in their minds.

Still, she jotted down every name the girls mentioned in relation to Gerda, no matter how casual the contact. Sarah thought perhaps the killer wouldn’t want to have been seen with the victim very much before the crime. Perhaps he’d kept their contact mostly private. The thought was discouraging. That would mean he was clever enough to hide his identity from everyone.

“And there was George, don’t forget,” Bertha reminded them. “He bought her that fancy hat.”

Hetty nodded grimly. “George liked her a lot. He got mad one night when she danced with somebody else.”

“What night was that?” Sarah asked, her interest quickened. “Was it near the time she died? Was it before or after he gave her the hat?”

“After, I think,” Bertha said, glancing at Lisle, who was frowning. Plainly, she didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken.

Sarah waited for her verdict. “Yes, it was after,” Lisle reluctantly recalled. “She was wearing the hat that night, I think. That’s what started the fuss. George thought she should only dance with him, but she was tired of him.”

“That’s right,” Hetty remembered. “She’d found somebody she liked better. He had more money to spend, too. He’d treated her to dinner at a real nice place, she said.”

The other girls nodded.

“And George was jealous,” Sarah guessed.

“I guess you could call it that,” Bertha allowed as the girls exchanged a look.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not like George was in love with her or anything,” Lisle explained. She sounded almost as if she were defending him. “He just… he wanted to…”

“She’d let him do it,” Hetty said baldly when Lisle couldn’t find the proper words. “He wanted to do it some more, but Gerda was finished with him once she got the hat.”

“Was Gerda fickle?” Sarah asked.

The girls gave her a blank stare, not understanding.

“Did she often change her mind about which man she liked best?” Sarah tried.

“She never liked any of them,” Bertha said. “Not really.”

Lisle nodded her agreement. “She never cared for anybody much. She just went with anyone who could show her some fun.”

“She liked a man who’d treat her,” Hetty added. “The more he’d spend on her, the better she liked him.”

“And she’d found someone more generous than George, so naturally, he was angry,” Sarah said. “Do you know George’s last name or where he lives?”

“He wouldn’t kill anyone,” Lisle said too quickly, and Sarah remembered that Lisle had also taken a gift from him. That meant she’d had a relationship with him, too. Did Lisle have tender feelings for him? If so, she’d better tread softly.

“I didn’t say I thought he was the killer,” Sarah said. “But maybe he would remember who the other man was or know his name. We need to question everyone who might know anything at all. It’s the only way we’ll find Gerda’s killer before he kills someone else.”

This sobered them instantly. After a moment Lisle said, “I never heard George’s last name.”

“I think he said Smith, but that’s probably a lie,” Hetty said. “Sometimes they don’t tell you their real names.”