“And he has red hair,” Malloy said, sipping his coffee thoughtfully.
“Extremely red hair. But even if he didn’st, Letitia admitted he was the baby’s father.”
“She just told you, right out?” Malloy marveled. “I know priests who can’t get confessions like that!”
Sarah tried to look modest. “I think she just needed to confide in someone. Someone who wouldn’t judge her, that is.”
“She deserves to be judged,” Malloy said flatly.
“Perhaps, but Blackwell wasn’t without guilt either. He only married her because she wanted to stop doing the lectures. He pretended to be in love with her, and he used his considerable charms to convince her he was. But as soon as they were safely married, he didn’t even bother to… uh… to share her bed.”
Malloy choked on his coffee. She should have waited until he wasn’t drinking to tell him that. She knew he didn’t like discussing such things, especially with her.
“Are you all right?” she asked as he coughed.
He nodded and kept coughing for a few more minutes. Finally, he was able to speak again. “She told you that, too?” he asked incredulously.
“As I said, she needed to unburden herself. The strangest part is that when Letitia turned up with child, Dr. Blackwell didn’t even realize he couldn’t be the father. That’s how little attention he paid to her. She must have been terribly lonely and unhappy.”
“I guess committing adultery made her feel better,” Malloy scoffed.
“I’m not excusing her, Malloy. I’m just explaining.”
“All right, then explain why she didn’t leave Blackwell for the schoolmaster after he found her again and they discovered they were still in love.”
“That’s easy. Divorce is extremely difficult and expensive. Letitia’s father was hardly likely to finance one for her, and she and Dudley had no means of their own to do so. Besides, if she did divorce Blackwell, he could keep her child.”
“Why would he want a baby that wasn’t his?” Malloy asked skeptically.
“He probably wouldn’st, but he could legally keep the child, and even the threat of that would be enough to prevent Letitia from leaving him. Then he could make her life even more miserable than it already was, and she wouldn’t dare complain. And Blackwell could force her to continue appearing at his lectures.”
Malloy needed no more than a moment to see the significance of this information. “But if Blackwell was dead, the lovers could be together with no other problems.”
“I believe you already pointed that out to me,” Sarah reminded him, “which is why you assigned me the task of finding the redheaded lover in the first place.”
“I didn’t really expect you to find one,” he admitted.
“I didn’t either,” she admitted right back. “But now that I have, you have another suspect in Blackwell’s death.”
“Do you think this Dudley could have done it?”
Sarah considered. “He’s certainly devoted to Letitia. And he wasn’t above bedding another man’s wife. Did I tell you they met at an opium den for their trysts?”
“Good God.”
“He also eloped with an innocent young girl against her family’s wishes. I think he’s extremely foolish, maybe even foolish enough to commit murder and try to make it look like suicide, especially if he thought it was the only way to protect Letitia.”
“A schoolmaster might be smart enough to think of the suicide thing, too. A good way to avoid suspicion. If there’s no murder, nobody will be looking for a killer, and he can come courting the widow afterward with no one the wiser.”
“Murder would solve another problem as well,” Sarah said. “Letitia was concerned about living on a bank employee’s salary until I reminded her she would inherit her husband’s estate. She wouldn’t have gotten anything at all if she divorced him.”
“She won’t get anything now, either,” Malloy said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Blackwell didn’t leave any estate.”
Sarah frowned. “I know he didn’t own the house, but surely he had something put aside.”
“Not a penny, according to Mr. Potter, who seemed pretty upset about it himself. Turns out he was supposed to be a partner in the business and get half of everything. He even thought he owned half of the house.”
“Oh, my,” Sarah said, giving herself a moment to absorb this. “If Dudley and Letitia didn’t know this, as they apparently didn’st, then it wouldn’t rule them out as suspects, but it also gives Potter another reason to murder Blackwell, besides being in love with Letitia. He thought he would inherit some money, too.”
“Money that he’d use to pay me a reward for finding the killer,” Malloy suggested mildly.
“Oh, yes, I keep forgetting about that. I guess I’m going to have to give up on making Mr. Potter the killer,” Sarah said.
“I understand the temptation,” Malloy said with a grin. “He’s a hard man to like, especially when he keeps insisting poor Calvin Brown killed his father.”
“That is tactless of him,” Sarah agreed. “Oh, wait, I just thought of something else. If Letitia’s marriage to Blackwell wasn’t valid, then she wouldn’t have needed a divorce to marry Dudley.”
“She wouldn’t have needed to kill her husband either, which would eliminate her and Dudley as suspects. Do you think she knew?”
“If she did, she’s done a remarkable job of hiding it.”
“She did a remarkable job of hiding the morphine, too,” Malloy pointed out. “And she would have had to be an accomplished liar to keep her secret from her husband all that time.”
He was right, of course. A woman as desperate and unhappy as Letitia might be guilty of anything, innocent face or not. “So if she knew her marriage was bigamous, then she and Dudley probably didn’t kill Blackwell,” she reasoned.
“Unless the money was just as important to them as being together. If she wasn’t really married to Blackwell, she wasn’t entitled to anything he owned, either. Killing him while she was still his recognized wife would ensure she’d get his estate. And there wouldn’t be the messiness of a scandal, either.”
“So either way they have a motive for killing him,” Sarah realized.
A tap on the back door distracted them, and as Malloy had predicted, it was Mrs. Ellsworth bearing a pie.
“Mrs. Brandt said you enjoyed the one I sent over yesterday,” she explained to Malloy when she stepped into the kitchen.
“I did,” he admitted, doing his best to be gracious, even though Sarah could tell it was a strain.
“It’s the least I can do. If you can find Dr. Brandt’s killer, you will have done a great service.”
“I told you not to get your hopes up,” Malloy reminded her gently, for him. “There really isn’t much chance after all this time.”
“You can do it, if anyone can,” she said confidently. “It’s apple and raisin,” she added, setting the pie on the table. “There aren’t any good berries left this late in the year.”
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Sarah said.
After some more meaningless conversation, Mrs. Ellsworth reluctantly left, wishing Malloy success in his quest.
“I didn’t realize that coming over here could be so dangerous,” Malloy remarked, looking admiringly at the pie. “If I’m not careful, I’ll be as big as a barn.”
“You don’t have to eat it,” Sarah said with a grin.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to eat it,” he replied, grinning back.
SARAH BRANDT STILL needed some training in being a cop, Malloy mused the next morning as he made his way down Essex Street toward the rooming house where Calvin Brown was staying. She’d met Peter Dudley, but she had no idea where he lived or how to find him. He worked at a bank somewhere was all she could tell him. Letitia Blackwell was hardly likely to be forthcoming with the information he needed either, even if he could get her to see him, which seemed still more unlikely. Short of waiting on the Blackwells’ front steps until Dudley showed up again, Frank had no other means of locating him. He was once again going to have to send Sarah Brandt on police business to obtain the necessary information.