Murder on Fifth Avenue: A Gaslight Mystery Read Online Free PDF

stairs.
    “Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.” Sarah led them to the kitchen, her home’s main gathering place. Her front room had long since been converted into an office for her late husband’s medical practice and where she still consulted with her own patients.
    “I hope you aren’t here to tell us something horrible,” her mother said as her parents took seats at the well-worn kitchen table. Sarah doubted her father had sat in many kitchens in his life, but she offered no apologies. She started making the coffee.
    “Chilton Devries died.”
    “Good heavens! Was it an accident?”
    “No, I believe it was on purpose.”
    Sarah looked up.
“On purpose?”
    “Your Mr. Malloy believes he was murdered.”
    Sarah didn’t bother to point out that he wasn’t
her
Mr. Malloy. “Is Mr. Malloy investigating?”
    “I called him in, yes.”
    Any reply she made would be wrong, so she busied herself with filling the coffeepot.
    “You were very wise to choose Mr. Malloy, my dear,” her mother said. “Now tell us everything.”
    While her father explained, Sarah set the pot on the stove to boil, then took a seat at the table.
    “So then Mr. Malloy and I called on the Devrieses to break the news.”
    “Dear heaven,” her mother said. “I suppose Lucretia became hysterical.”
    “Oddly enough, no. She merely seemed put out.”
    Sarah frowned. “Put out? You mean she was annoyed that her husband had died?”
    “Yes, and not nearly as grief-stricken as I hope you would be if I died,” he added to his wife.
    “I would be inconsolable,” she replied.
    “I’m glad to hear it.”
    “I’m trying to remember who the Devrieses are,” Sarah said.
    “You remember their son, Paul, I’m sure. You’re of an age, I believe. Mousey little boy with yellow hair. Never had much to say for himself.”
    “Which hardly makes him memorable, but I think I may have danced with him a time or two when we were growing up. Is he married?”
    Her mother nodded. “Yes, but I don’t think his wife is anyone you’d know. I don’t think I even know where she came from. I can’t seem recall her name, either.”
    “Garnet,” her father said. “She started laughing when she heard Devries was dead.”
    Elizabeth Decker’s eyebrows rose. “Laughing?”
    “I’m sure it was hysteria. The shock.”
    “I’m sure.” She didn’t sound it.
    “Why did you feel you needed to make a special trip here to tell me all this?” Sarah asked.
    To her surprise, her father didn’t answer right away. He glanced from her mother to his well-tended hands. He finally looked up, and Sarah had never seen her father look so uncertain before. “I know you have assisted Mr. Malloy with his investigations in the past.”
    “Felix—”
    Without turning away, he raised a hand to silence her mother. “I have not always approved of your involvement with him. You have, at times, even put yourself in danger.”
    Sarah felt her hackles rising. She had fought against his will her entire life, even estranging herself from both her parents for years. She wasn’t going to submit now. “Father, I’m a grown woman and—”
    “I know, I know. I don’t want to argue with you, Sarah. Just hear me out. I don’t believe you have any reason to involve yourself in this investigation. You hardly know the Devries family, but I was hoping you would accompany your mother when she makes a condolence call tomorrow.”
    Both women gaped at him. Sarah found her tongue first. “A condolence call?”
    He turned to his wife. “I’m afraid I already promised Lucretia you would call.”
    “Of course I will. She may be insufferable, but we’ve known them all our lives. But why do you want Sarah to go with me?”
    Sarah caught his glance. “Because something is very strangein that house, and I doubt Mr. Malloy has the slightest chance of finding out what it is.”
    R ODERICK WAS A MAN OF MIDDLE YEARS, AND F RANK could see he took his position as valet