Free Murder in Chelsea by Victoria Thompson

the necessary bribes to ensure police department cooperation.
    “He didn’t offer,” Malloy said.
    “Perhaps he doesn’t understand his responsibility in the matter. I’ll explain it to him.”
    “Father! You’re not going to see this man, are you?”
    “Of course I am.”
    “Then he’ll know where Catherine is.”
    “Mr. Malloy said he’d already hired a private investigator to find her once, and now he knows Mr. Malloy’s connection to her. Even the most incompetent operative would be able to learn of his friendship with you and that you have a foster daughter. I imagine someone will be at your door tomorrow to claim her.”
    Instinctively, Sarah jumped to her feet. “I’ve got to get home!”
    “Of course you do, dear,” her mother said. “I’ll go with you.”
    “And you’ll bring Catherine back here,” her father said. “That girl who takes care of her, too.”
    “Her name is Maeve,” Sarah said, furious at him for taking over her life and especially for being right to do so.
    “Yes, Maeve. They’ll be safe here, and your mother will love having them.”
    “I certainly will.”
    “I will go to my club and find out who knows this Wilbanks fellow, and Mr. Malloy will find out who killed this Murphy woman. Does that plan meet with your approval, Mr. Malloy?”
    Sarah glanced at Malloy and caught a momentary flash of surprise at her father’s demonstration of confidence, but he recovered instantly. “Yes, sir, it does.”
    “You must call upon me for whatever you need. Elizabeth, go finish dressing. I’ll have the carriage brought around for you and Sarah. Mr. Malloy, I’m sure you will want to be on your way, so we won’t keep you any longer.”
    “Wait!” her mother said when Malloy would have taken his leave. They all looked at her in surprise. “There’s one thing about this that doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Just
one
thing?” her father asked.
    “Oh, most of it is very strange, to be sure, but one thing struck me as completely unbelievable. Why wouldn’t this Emma person marry Mr. Wilbanks after his wife died?”
    “I wondered about that myself,” Sarah said. “I guess I forgot about it with everything else, though. Did Mr. Wilbanks know why she refused?”
    Malloy shook his head. “He thought she didn’t want to give up acting to be tied down with an old husband and a child.”
    “Nonsense!” her mother said. “No woman in her right mind would refuse an offer like that.”
    “Maybe she didn’t love him, Mother,” Sarah argued.
    “He was the father of her child and rich into the bargain, and women marry men they don’t love every day. What kind of a life did she have to look forward to? She wasn’t a great actress, just a chorus girl, and she was already getting close to the end of that career.”
    “How can you know that?” her father asked.
    “Think about it. She’d taken up with Wilbanks at least six years ago. When she went back to it a few years later, she was still only in the chorus. Now we think she’s in a touring company, where you only find the actors who can’t get work in the city. How would she support herself and her child when she’s too old to kick up her heels anymore? And who would choose that over a life of luxury with a rich husband, no matter how old he is?”
    “His being old would actually be an advantage,” Sarah realized. “She’d figure to outlive him by many years.”
    “Exactly!” her mother said.
    The two men exchanged a horrified glance.
    “So you see, she must have had a very good reason for refusing him,” her mother said. “One she didn’t want to share with Wilbanks.”
    Her father still looked skeptical, but Malloy said, “She’s right.”
    Now they all turned to him in surprise.
    “I just remembered something Mrs. Dugan said.”
    “Who’s Mrs. Dugan?” her mother asked.
    “The landlady at the boardinghouse where Emma and Anne Murphy lived at different times through the years. I went there after I saw