“May I do a little demonstration, Mr. Malloy?”
Frank nodded.
Mr. Higginbotham rose from his chair and went out of his office. When he returned a moment later, the young man from the front office was with him. “This is Alexander, Mr. Malloy.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Malloy said, wondering what the boy had to do with anything.
“Pleased to meet you,” the boy replied. Malloy noticed that the “please” still sounded like “peas.”
“Ask Alexander a question, Mr. Malloy,” Mr. Higginbotham suggested.
“What kind of question?” Frank asked.
“Any kind,” Alexander said.
“How’s the weather?” Frank tried.
“It looks like rain, doesn’t it?”
Frank noticed the boy’s speech was a bit slurred. He’d never heard anyone speak quite that way before. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?” Frank tried.
“Eggs and bacon and bread with jam,” he said with a smile. “I live at home with my mother. She feeds me well.”
Something was wrong with the boy’s voice, but Frank couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “What kind of work do you do here?” he tried.
“I’m Mr. Higginbotham’s clerk.”
The word was so garbled, Frank could only guess that he’d said “Higginbotham.” He had to listen carefully to the boy, but he could understand what he was saying, even if he had to guess at some of the words.
“Why is Mr. Higginbotham making you talk to me?” Frank asked, looking at the gentleman in question.
“Because I’m deaf,” Alexander said rather proudly.
Now Frank knew they were playing a trick on him. “Then how could you understand my questions?” he challenged.
“I read your lips.” The boy grinned proudly.
“Read my what?” Frank was very confused.
“Alexander has been trained in speech reading, Mr. Malloy,” Higginbotham explained. “By watching the way your lips move, he can divine what you are saying. Even though he can’t hear your words, he can understand them.”
“But he can talk, too.” Not perfectly clearly, of course, but well enough to make himself understood. Frank had thought deaf people were also mute.
“Yes, we trained him in speech as well. That is what we do here at the Lexington Avenue School. You may have been to other schools where they use different techniques-”
“No, I haven’t,” Frank said, still looking at the boy as if he were a wonder. Because, of course, he was. A deaf person who could speak and understand, if not exactly hear, words was a wonder of wonders to Frank.
“Well, ahem, we use the oralist methods here,” Higginbotham went on to explain. “We force the students to rely on speech reading and speaking to communicate. Then they are able to make their own way in the world.”
Frank was still looking at the boy. “Are you sure he’s really deaf?”
“Quite sure,” Higginbotham assured him with a smile.
“Oh, yes,” Alexander said, still grinning at Frank’s confusion. “I had scarlet fever when I was five. That made me deaf.”
“So you weren’t born deaf,” Frank said.
“No, but I am deaf now.” He seemed almost proud of the fact.
Frank was still mystified. He looked at Higginbotham. “How can he just look at my lips and know what I’m saying?”
“It takes years of training,” Higginbotham said, “but you are fortunate to live here in the city. Your son is a bit young for our school just yet, but when he’s older, he can come here as a day student, just the way he would attend an ordinary school. The students who live in the country have to board with us, but we feel they do better if they can live at home with their families.”
“And you think you could teach my son to talk and to read people’s lips?”
“We’d have to test him, of course, but assuming he is of normal intelligence, then yes, I think we could.”
8
WHEN SARAH GOT BACK FROM THE GANSEVOORT Market, carrying her bags of produce, the next morning, Mrs. Elsworth was waiting for her. She was pretending to sweep her front stoop, as usual, of course, but she was really just keeping herself outside where she could observe the activity of the street.
“Is the corn in yet?” she asked when Sarah greeted her.
“I saw some, but it didn’t look very good. It’s too early, I’m afraid.”
“I do so enjoy fresh corn,” Mrs. Elsworth said wistfully. “And of course, I always make the corn dollies out of the sheaves.” She donated these dolls to the various orphanages in the city. “The dollies bring good luck if you make them out of the sheaves of the last corn of the harvest, but living in the city, how on earth can you find such a thing? Sometimes I think we’ve become too civilized, Mrs. Brandt.”
Sarah thought of the four dead girls and knew she could have argued the point, but she didn’t. She didn’t have the heart for it at the moment.
“You don’t look quite yourself this morning,” Mrs. Elsworth observed. “I hope nothing is wrong.”
“I’m just tired, I think.”
“You have been out quite a lot lately. It’s not baby business either, is it? Are you helping that nice detective with another case?”
Sarah knew she shouldn’t burden Mrs. Elsworth with such things. “Something like that,” was all she said. She wished her neighbor good morning and went on into her own house. She’d just finished putting her purchases away when someone knocked on her back door. Somehow she wasn’t surprised to find Mrs. Elsworth there. She held a plate covered with a napkin.
“I baked a cake yesterday, and it’s more than Nelson and I can eat, so I thought you might help me by taking some.” Nelson was Mrs. Elsworth’s son. He was a banker and was seldom at home to eat much of anything.
“Thank you so much,” Sarah said sincerely. “Why don’t you come in, and we’ll share it. I can make some tea.”
A few minutes later the two women were sitting on Sarah’s back porch, enjoying the coolness of the morning shade and Mrs. Elsworth’s fluffy white cake.
“This is delicious,” Sarah said.
Mrs. Elsworth waved the compliment away. “Now, tell me what’s bothering you. And don’t try to pretend it’s nothing. I saw that young woman you brought home the other night. She’s the same one who left you the message, isn’t she? I hope she’s not with child. She’s so young…”
“It’s not that. She’s… well, a friend of hers was murdered and-”
“Murdered!”
“I didn’t want to involve you in this,” Sarah said. “It’s not a very pretty story.”
“Do you think I haven’t been shocked in my life?” Mrs. Elsworth asked, a little offended. “I could probably tell you stories that would curl your hair. Now, you look like you need someone to confide in, and I’m right here.”
Sarah knew she would probably regret doing this, but she told Mrs. Elsworth the story of how the four girls had been beaten to death, probably by the same man. And she told her what Luisa’s sister and friend had said about the man named Will.
“It seems as if Coney Island is the place where he met at least two of the girls, then,” Mrs. Elsworth observed.
“Yes, it does. And from what the girls told me last night, he may have bought Luisa a gift there, just as he bought Gerda the red shoes.”
“Red shoes,” she said, her disapproval obvious. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to find where those shoes were purchased, now should it? I wouldn’t imagine too many places sell such a thing.”
She was right, of course. Why hadn’t Sarah thought of it? More to the point, why hadn’t Malloy thought of it? He was the professional detective. They should go back to Coney Island and find the shop that had sold the red shoes and… But when Sarah tried to imagine Malloy returning to Coney Island, she realized she was probably wasting her time. Malloy wouldn’t go back to that place unless he was chained to a team of wild horses and dragged.