Frank could have told her how it mattered, but he still wanted to spare her unnecessary anguish. If Giddings wasn’t the killer… He also wanted to ask the boy some questions, but he figured this wasn’t the time to get a straight answer out of him. Better to wait and catch him alone, without his mother to protect him. It wouldn’t take much at all to frighten the boy into telling everything he knew.

“Which bar does your husband usually go to?”

“He doesn’t consult me,” Mrs. Giddings told him, still stubbornly clinging to her pride. “I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

Or wouldn’t, at least. Frank figured she wasn’t going to make it easy for him to put her husband in jail, if that’s what he intended, no matter how angry she might be at him.

“Just tell your husband I called,” Frank said, and showed himself out.

So Giddings’s family knew all about his affair with Anna Blake. And Frank knew some interesting information about Giddings. He was desperate indeed if he’d stolen from his own law firm to pay her off. Unlike Nelson, he had a family and a reputation to protect from the scandal she could cause him, so he’d been ripe for blackmail. Frank was beginning to regret never having met Anna Blake in life. She must have been an interesting woman to have inspired such foolish devotion.

“I knew something terrible was going to happen,” Mrs. Ellsworth confided to Sarah as they cleaned up the kitchen after their meager supper. “Remember I asked if you’d heard knocking the other night?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, not really certain. She didn’t make an effort to remember all of Mrs. Ellsworth’s superstitions.

“I heard it three nights in a row. That means someone is going to die. I knew it was going to happen, and I was so afraid it would be someone I knew,” she said sadly as she took the dishes off the tray she’d taken up to Nelson earlier.

He hadn’t come down, and he’d barely touched the food on the tray. Sarah hoped it wasn’t only grief for such an undeserving woman that had him so upset.

“The things you worry about never happen,” Sarah said, quoting her mother. “It’s the things you never imagine that hurt you the worst.”

“That’s the truth,” Mrs. Ellsworth said with a sigh and looked up, as if she might be able to see her son if she did. “I just wish he could go to work. If he had something to take his mind off all of this, but…”

“But the reporters would never give him a moment’s peace,” Sarah said.

“I’m so afraid he’s going to lose his job,” the old woman said. “The people at the bank are only concerned about the good name of the bank. No one wants to leave their money in a place run by scoundrels and… and murderers.” She shuddered.

“Nelson isn’t a murderer,” Sarah reminded her.

“What difference does it make? The newspapers say he is, and so people believe that. Next I expect the neighbors to come and tell me we have to move because we’re giving the place a bad name.”

“That isn’t going to happen. Malloy and I are going to find who really did this so all our lives can get back to normal again. But first I’m going to track down that reporter Webster Prescott and make him write the truth about Nelson.”

Mrs. Ellsworth’s eyes lit up with hope. “Can you do that?”

“I’m certainly going to try. And if I have to, I’ll go to the bank and ask them to give Nelson the benefit of the doubt until we can get this thing settled.”

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, I couldn’t ask you to do that!” she protested.

“You didn’t ask me; I volunteered. Besides, I’m sure my father knows the bank’s owner personally. He’ll be happy to put in a good word for Nelson,” she promised rashly. Her father certainly wouldn’t be happy to do any such thing, but Sarah felt certain she could prevail upon him to do it anyway.

“What on earth would we do without you?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked, taking Sarah’s hand in both of hers.

Frank wearily climbed the stairs to his flat. The sounds of family arguments and babies crying echoed faintly in the stairwell. He reached the door and knocked, not bothering to find his key. His mother opened the door without asking who it was.

“Ma, I’ve told you it’s not safe-”

“I saw you coming,” she said, waving away his protests. “Or rather the boy did. He watches for you every night.”

Frank felt a twinge of guilt, but he forgot it the instant Brian managed to crawl around her to reach him. His little face was so full of joy at seeing his father, Frank felt guilty again, this time because he knew he wasn’t worthy of such adoration. That didn’t stop him from picking the boy up and hugging him fiercely. Brian hugged him back, his thin arms clinging with amazing strength around Frank’s neck.

Brian’s red-gold curls were silken against Frank’s cheek, and he smelled sweet and clean and innocent when Frank buried his face in the soft curve of his neck. The only thing missing was Brian crying, “Papa! Papa!” the way other boys his age would have. Of course, other boys his age would have run, not crawled, to greet their fathers, but soon that should change as well.

“How’s he doing?” he asked his mother as he carried Brian over to the sofa and sat down, setting the boy on his lap. He inspected the cast, which was growing dirtier every day.

“He don’t cry so much or try to get it off,” she reported, disapproval thick in her voice just the same. “I don’t think it hurts him much anymore. Or maybe he’s just used to it.”

“How’ll you keep up when Brian starts running around the place?” Frank asked, only half in jest. “It won’t be long now.”

She crossed herself, as if to ward off a curse. “It ain’t good to wish for too much,” she reminded him. “You’ll just be disappointed.”

Brian was showing Frank the cast, trying with gestures to convince him to take it off. “In good time, son,” he said, even though Brian couldn’t hear him. “Then you’ll be able to walk.”

His mother made a rude noise. “I’ll get your supper.”

“Are you going with me when I take Brian to get the cast off?” Frank asked.

She just gave him one of her looks and retreated into the kitchen.

The next morning Frank decided to begin his day with a visit to the morgue. It was Saturday, but he was sure to find someone around, and he wanted to learn all he could about how Anna Blake had died. Chances were slim he’d discover anything that would help him identify her killer, but it was worth a chance. Besides, he now had two men who could possibly have been the father of her child. Maybe if the coroner could tell him how far along she was, he could figure out which one really was. He wasn’t sure what that would tell him, but the more information he had, the better off he’d be.

The entire morgue smelled of death, even the offices, and Frank steeled himself against the grimness of the place. The gray walls and barren corridors seemed to stretch for miles and echo with the sound of his footsteps. He found the coroner in his shabby little office, writing a report. Dr. Haynes looked up, his eyes weary behind his glasses.

“Which one is yours?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting. In a place like this, social amenities were meaningless.

“Anna Blake, stabbed in Washington Square,” he added, in case the name meant nothing.

Dr. Haynes shuffled through some papers on his desk and found the one he was looking for. He peered closely at it for a moment. “I thought that one was Brougham’s.”

“I’m helping him,” Frank said without blinking.

Haynes stared at him in amazement but made no comment on this astonishing bit of news. “What do you want to know, besides that somebody stabbed her and she’s dead?”

“Do you know what she was stabbed with?”

“A knife,” Haynes said just to be aggravating.