Free Murder on Washington Square by Victoria Thompson Page A

find out you weren’t Nelson’s fiancée,” Frank said.
    “Yes, you would, but she actually seemed disappointed. It was as if she wanted me to stand in the way of their love.”
    “If she didn’t want to marry Nelson, what did she want?”
    “She wanted money. A thousand dollars, so she could go away and not bother Nelson again.”
    “Where on earth would Nelson get a thousand dollars?” Frank had been saving for years to amass enough money to pay the $14,000 bribe necessary to get promoted to Captain, and he knew how difficult it was to come by an extra $1,000. That was a goodly portion of Nelson’s annual salary, and no one paid him rewards for doing his job well, the way they did Frank.
    “I don’t think he could have gotten that much money without a great deal of sacrifice,” she said, “but that doesn’t matter now.”
    “Oh, it matters a great deal, Mrs. Brandt,” he contradicted her. “Because if she was blackmailing him and he couldn’t pay, he had a perfect motive for murder.”

4
     
     
     
    F RANK WALKED SLOWLY FROM WASHINGTON SQUARE TO Anna Blake’s boardinghouse on Thompson Street, ignoring the brisk morning chill that warned of winter’s coming. He was trying to get a feel for the neighborhood and judge how long it might have taken Anna to walk from her rooming house to the Square where she died. He looked carefully around, seeing what she would have passed on her way and who might have had an opportunity to see her. The people who might have seen her or her killer weren’t here now. They’d crawled back into their hidey-holes until the sun set again.
    The first thing he usually did when investigating a crime was to ask the neighbors what they saw and heard and if they knew any gossip that might help identify the guilty party. In this case, the people who might have seen Anna Blake or her killer that night weren’t the kind who’d feel any civic duty to aid the police. In fact, they’d evade him or lie if they had to, just to keep from getting involved with the police. So coming back here to question the nighttime denizens of the Square was a waste of time.
    The house where Anna Blake had lived looked no different from the others on the street. Formerly a family home, it had long since been converted into cheap lodging for those who couldn’t afford a flat of their own but who earned enough to keep a decent roof over their head. Less fortunate folks would find refuge in flop houses where they could get a bed for a nickel a night or space on the floor for a few pennies. No decent woman would go into a flop house, though, and only the lowest of prostitutes frequented them. So Frank knew a lot about Anna Blake just from seeing where she lived.
    Although she’d been unable to find suitable employment, she’d managed to find the three to five dollars a week she would need for room and board here, or else they would have thrown her out of the house. Frank already knew Nelson Ellsworth had been paying her rent, but she’d lived in this house before he came along to rescue her. This meant she’d had some source of income before Nelson. Supposedly, she and her mother had been penniless and unable to find work. Then the mother needed an operation, for which Nelson loaned Anna money. Had she been living on that loan? And what had happened to the mother? Buried in a pauper’s grave? Or had she ever existed at all? Interesting questions. Perhaps Anna’s landlady could shed some light on them.
    But the person who answered the door wasn’t the landlady or even a lady at all. The man was of medium height, thin but with a slight paunch underneath a stylish waist-coat. A short, neat beard covered the lower half of his face. He wore a well-fitted suit, as if he had just been going out.
    “Another policeman,” he said with disgust. People always seemed to know Frank was a cop.
    “Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy,” Frank said by way of introduction. “And who would you be?”
    “Oliver