Murder in Morningside Heights (A Gaslight Mystery) Read Online Free Page A

after they graduate, and still others marry. And before you ask, no, I don’t think that means they have wasted their education. I think a generation of young men raised by educated mothers would be very good for our country, don’t you?”
    “I’m sure it would,” Frank said quite sincerely.
    Both men looked up when someone knocked on the door. Alice stuck her head in. “Excuse me, Mr. Hatch, but Tobias is here.”
    Hatch’s expression soured. “Send him in.”
    Frank managed to feel offended that Hatch would interrupt their meeting in the minute it took for an older Negro man in work clothes to step tentatively into Hatch’s office.
    Tobias’s apprehensive gaze darted between Frank and Hatch, finally settling on the president, who said, “Mr. Malloy, I’d like you to meet the man who killed Abigail Northrup.”

2
    A fter Malloy left to visit the coroner, Sarah tried to go back to her novel, but her mind kept wandering. He had only been teasing about her being a lady of leisure, but she was finding that she missed many things about the life she had led before their marriage. Back then, she’d made her living as a midwife, and every knock at the door could mean the challenge of bringing a baby safely into the world. Now she had a maid to answer the door and nobody ever summoned her to do anything interesting.
    Malloy, too, had been chafing at his enforced retirement from the police department where he’d spent his entire adult life. Until he got this case, she hadn’t seen him this interested in anything since they’d returned from their honeymoon just before Christmas. Opening the detective agency had been a wonderful idea . . . for him. Sarah’s days still stretched out before her, full of deadly dull afternoons.
    A tap on the door put a merciful end to her depressing thoughts. “Come in.”
    Her new maid, Hattie, came in with an envelope. “This just come for you, Mrs. Frank, from the Mission.”
    A message from the Daughters of Hope Mission, which Sarah had helped support for several years, usually meant a problem of some kind, so Sarah felt guilty for the tremor of excitement she experienced at the prospect of something meaningful to fill her afternoon.
    She thanked Hattie and tore open the envelope. The note was from Mrs. Keller, the matron at the Mission. The Mission had been established years earlier as a refuge for girls who had been orphaned or abandoned by their families. It provided a safe place for them to live and get some education and training so they could make their way in the world.
    Mrs. Keller hated to bother Sarah, the note said, but she had just learned that one of the girls who had come to the Mission a little over a month ago was with child. They had a policy of never accepting a pregnant girl, although many had come to them for shelter through the years. Caring for a destitute expectant mother was the mission of other charities, and after giving these girls a hot meal, someone from the Mission would escort her to one of the places where she could find the help she needed.
    This situation was a little different in that the girl had already been living at the Mission and didn’t want to leave for a place she might not like as well. Sarah was only too glad to provide whatever assistance Mrs. Keller needed.
    *   *   *
    T obias’s expression instantly changed from apprehensive to terrified. “I never done no such thing, Mr. Hatch, sir! I never would’ve touched a hair on that poor lady’s head!”
    From the way he looked at Frank, Tobias apparently thought he was here to take him into custody. Since Frank had instinctively jumped to his feet, he had silently confirmed this suspicion.
    “Of course you wouldn’t,” Hatch said angrily, “but admit it—if you hadn’t left your screwdriver behind, she’d still be alive.”
    Ah, so this was the janitor who had accidentally provided the murder weapon. Frank frowned, wondering why the cops hadn’t jumped on him immediately