Murder in Chelsea Read Online Free PDF

even inquire after her for a year?”
    Sarah sighed. “A woman who fears for her own life, perhaps, or that of her child.”
    “Mrs. Brandt, you’re picturing Catherine’s mother as some angelic creature who sent her child to safety, but I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate.”
    “I don’t think she’s angelic,” Sarah protested.
    “Maybe not, but you do think she’s like you, at least.”
    “Like me?”
    “Yes. You’re trying to picture her as a respectable person who loved Catherine above everything else, but the story this Miss Murphy told suggests otherwise.”
    “You mean because she was an actress?”
    “I mean because she thought nothing of going off and leaving the child for weeks at a time while she carried on in the city. Oh, I know she’d hired this Murphy woman to take care of the child,” she added when Sarah would have protested again, “and if she needed to work to support herself and her child, I could applaud her devotion. But she didn’t need to. This Mr. Smith supported her.”
    Sarah had to admit she had a point. “I suppose she really loved acting and didn’t want to give it up.”
    “Even for her child?”
    Sarah frowned. “I hate to say it, but she wasn’t very happy about having a child. Miss Murphy said Emma originally asked Mr. Smith for money for an abortionist, but he convinced her to have the baby instead. He promised to take care of them, and it sounds as if he kept that promise.”
    “At least for a while.”
    “Miss Murphy said Emma and Mr. Smith had an argument shortly before Miss Murphy left with Catherine. I hadn’t thought about it, but maybe he told her he was tired of her and was going to turn her out.”
    “If he wasn’t going to keep them anymore, that would explain why she sent Miss Murphy and the child away,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.
    “But Miss Murphy said he doted on Catherine. Surely, he wouldn’t punish her just because he was tired of her mother.”
    “Men do strange things,” Mrs. Ellsworth reminded her. “Maybe he had come to believe the child wasn’t his. Maybe he wasn’t as fond of Catherine as Miss Murphy thought. Or maybe he lost all his money and couldn’t afford to keep them anymore.”
    Sarah rubbed her temples, more than tired of trying to figure out why people she’d never set eyes on had done what they’d done. To her relief, someone rang her doorbell. Maybe it was Malloy.
    * * *
    F RANK STOOD IN THE DOORWAY, WATCHING THE ORDERLIES carry Anne Murphy’s body out to the waiting ambulance.
    Doc Haynes, the medical examiner, said, “I’ll do an autopsy, but I doubt I’ll find anything surprising. She was stabbed in the chest with an ordinary kitchen knife. The blade probably nicked her heart or a major blood vessel. From the trail of blood, she was stabbed upstairs in her room and managed to get to the stairs, probably trying to get help or maybe running away from her attacker. At some point she died and fell the rest of the way down the stairs.”
    This was pretty much what Frank had determined before Haynes ever got there, while he’d been taking a look around and waiting for the hysterical landlady to get back with a beat cop in tow. She’d expected the cop to arrest Frank, but instead he’d obeyed Frank’s orders to summon the medical examiner. “If you could tell me who stabbed her and why, I’d be very grateful, Doc.”
    Haynes grinned. “Ask me after the autopsy.”
    When he was gone, Frank closed the door and turned to the beat cop who’d been waiting around in case he was needed. “How’s the landlady doing?”
    “Fine once she broke out her gin. After a glass or two, she settled right down. She didn’t want to believe you was a copper, you know. She thought for sure you killed that woman.”
    “Thanks for looking after her.”
    “Like I said, she was no trouble after she had herself a nip or two. She’s in the kitchen.”
    Frank found her sitting at the table, staring at an empty glass. “Mrs.