Victoria Thompson - Murder on St. Mark’s place

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He seemed shocked at the very idea.

“But you are trying to rebel, aren’t you? Why else would you keep company with girls of that sort?”

He was plainly uncomfortable discussing this, which was all the better. “I’ve never given the matter any thought,” he insisted.

“Well, think about it now,” she insisted right back. “At first I thought it was just that you… Well, I’ve been married, so I understand that a man has needs. I thought you were simply using these girls to meet those needs. But then I realized that a man of your means could keep a mistress to satisfy him in that way if that was all he was interested in. Such an arrangement would be safer, surely. You wouldn’t have to worry about disease or even about possible rejection. Surely, all these girls don’t succumb to your seductions, Dirk.”

“Sarah, you shock me,” he said, his voice hoarse with disbelief.

“Do I? I’ve shocked many people with my attitudes. That’s what comes of living alone and earning your own living, I suppose. You lose all sense of what is proper. I thought I’d found a soul mate in you, however. I thought you were a man who understood what it’s like to break the bonds of society. At least tell me how you first discovered an interest in pursuing these girls.”

“Are you thinking of following in my footsteps?” he asked in an effort to put her on the defensive.

“Perhaps,” she allowed with a small smile.

He smiled back, reluctantly. “I was coerced,” he said. “In the beginning, at least. My friends were bored one evening, and one of them said he knew a place where we could meet some attractive… uh… harlots. He took us to one of those places where they have dances. We asked the door-man to introduce us, but he insisted that he was unable to tell the respectable girls from the other kinds, and he left us to our own devices.”

“And were you able to tell?”

“Not at all,” Dirk assured her, warming to the story. “They all looked alike. And they all seemed quite pleased to have such well-dressed gentlemen paying attention to them. We bought drinks for some of them and engaged them to dance. Their behavior was quite outrageous, but they were insulted when we offered them money for their favors. My friends quickly lost interest when they learned they had been misled about the kind of female who frequents such dances, but I was intrigued.”

“You like a challenge,” she guessed.

He shrugged. “What man doesn’t?”

Indeed, she knew few who didn’t. “So you rose to that challenge.”

“I went back on another night, alone. This time I met a young woman who wasn’t quite so coy.” He grinned, a smile that chilled Sarah’s blood, but she managed to smile back.

“Your first conquest?” she asked, tempting him to brag.

“Ah, a gentleman never tells,” he replied.

“Does a gentleman seduce shop girls?” she countered.

He pretended to be offended. “Sarah, you cut me to the heart.”

“That assumes you have one, Dirk.”

“How cruel you are. When you lived in your father’s house, I’m sure you had better manners.”

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I just had less opportunity to prove it.”

She surprised a bark of laughter from him. The sound wasn’t pleasant. “Are we quarreling?” he asked.

“Are you angry?”

“Not yet, but I can’t promise not to become so if you continue to insult me.”

“I can’t resist a challenge either,” she confessed. “What if I told you that all the murdered girls were killed after attending a dance? And they also had one other, very important thing in common.”

“What was that?”

“They all knew a man named Will.”

Dirk didn’t so much as blink. “You told me this before, and I believe I pointed out that it’s a fairly common name.”

“They all knew the same man named Will. A man who gave them all gifts right before they were murdered.”

He gave her a pitying look. “I’ll admit I don’t know as much about murder and murderers as your friend the policeman, but is it common practice for killers to give their victims gifts before murdering them?”

It did sound strange, but everything about this was strange. “We believe this man named Will seduced these girls, and when they succumbed, he became enraged and beat them to death.”

“Sarah, my dear, that is preposterous. Who would believe that a man would become enraged and kill a woman because she submitted to him? Isn’t it usually just the opposite?”

“Yes, it is, which is why this case has been so difficult to solve. But just the other day, we discovered a clue that puts everything into perspective.”

“A clue?” She had his interest once again. “What kind of clue?”

“We have a photograph of the man named Will, Dirk. I don’t think it will surprise you to learn that it’s a picture of you.”

She watched the play of emotions across his face. Surprise came first, but the others followed so rapidly, she couldn’t even keep track, much less identify each one. The final one was, of all things, amusement.

“You think I killed those girls?” he asked in astonishment.

She didn’t want to admit it. She wanted to be wrong.

“You knew them all,” she reminded him.

“So you say. I don’t know which girls were murdered, so I can’t deny it. But I know dozens of girls like that, Sarah, much as it must shame me to admit it. Surely, not all of them have been murdered. Not a tenth of them, or the newspapers would have been raising a hue and cry against such a slaughter!”

“We don’t know why the victims were singled out,” Sarah said.

“And who is this we you keep talking about? You and that Irishman? Sarah, don’t you know anything at all about the police? They’re nothing more than uniformed criminals themselves! That detective-what’s his name?”

“Malloy,” Sarah supplied.

“Malloy,” he repeated, making a face as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. “I already told you why he’s so interested in this case, if you don’t. He doesn’t care who killed these girls. He’s only pretending to in order to impress you. Any fool can see he has designs on you, Sarah. He must consider you quite a prize to spend so much time chasing a killer of women no better than prostitutes. Why should he care how many of them die? The world would be a better place with fewer such creatures in it!”

“Dirk!” she cried, horrified by his attitude, although she knew far too many others shared it. She could also have set him straight about Malloy’s interest in her, but she didn’t think it was worth the effort.

“Don’t bother to be offended, Sarah. You’ve accused me of murder. I think I’ve got a right to be offensive in return.”

“Can you explain how you happen to know all the dead girls?” she asked.

“I told you, I know dozens of these girls, dead and alive. I’ve given them gifts and enjoyed their favors. At least give me an opportunity to defend myself. I probably have an alibi for the crimes. When were these girls killed? I’ll consult my calendar and give you a full report!” He seemed genuinely offended.

Sarah was starting to feel foolish. Although she wanted him to be innocent, she hadn’t really considered the possibility that he was. “Dirk, really, this isn’t necessary.”

“Of course it is. I can see I must prove myself to you or live under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of my life. Tell me. You must know when these girls died. What about this Gretel, the one you knew? You must have the date of her death engraved in your memory.”

Sarah wanted to deny it, but she did know the date. “Her name was Gerda. She died on the night of July sixth.”