“No,” Jack said. “I’m the cop who’s going to track him down and see that he hangs.”
A grim smile divided her face in two, but her eyes were wet and her hand trembled when she took his wrist. “This way, then. Up those stairs.”
She talked so fast he only caught parts of the story she was trying to tell. Mrs. Winthrop had gone to see a doctor and come home half-dead.
“She’s a spiteful thing, mean as snakes. But nobody deserves to die like this, tore up like a fox at the end of a hunt.”
“Wait,” he said. “She’s still alive?”
“She is, but just barely.”
“Conscious?”
“In and out.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“I expect you do,” said the cook. “But you’ll have to get past Sir Albert first.”
Jack wondered that the cook felt free enough to call Winthrop by a nickname he must surely hate and decided she was past caring. Mamie Winthrop might be a wretched employer, but something about her had gotten the cook’s sympathy.
She pointed to a set of double doors and started to turn away.
“Tell me before you go, is there anybody in the house she takes into her confidence? Anybody at all?”
“Lizzy,” said the cook. “Her maid. If not for Lizzy the missus would be dying in the back of a cab or in a filthy hospital somewheres, all alone.”
A break, finally. The first real break. He said, “Where is Lizzy now?”
“Packing her things. Fired.”
“Don’t let her leave,” he said. “If you have to tie her down, keep her in the kitchen until I come to fetch her.” At the look on the cook’s face he said, “If you want us to catch the man responsible for Mrs. Winthrop’s state, you’ll keep her here for me to talk to.”
He waited for her nod and walked through the doorway into a sitting room that was crammed full of furniture, the flocked wallpaper barely visible under dozens of paintings and mirrors. He stepped around a sculpture of an Egyptian goddess, a set of couches upholstered in silk, a standing lamp in the shape of a heron with ruby eyes, through seating arrangements too delicate to bear the weight of anything larger than a cat, and arrived finally at the open door.
The stench in the room was familiar: infection, blood, human waste. Two men, almost certainly doctors, stood beside the bed, their heads bent together while they talked. Someone had pulled a sheet over the shape in the bed, blinding white but for the drops of blood that blossomed on the lower half.
Alfred Winthrop was on a stool on the far side of the room, bent forward, his palms on his knees. There were rings on every finger, like extra knuckles of metal and stone. An older woman stood beside him, dressed as though she were going to a ball or royal reception. Her jewels were around her neck and hanging from her ears.
Jack stepped into the room and closed the door behind himself.
? ? ?
NOTHING WAS EASY with old money, and the Winthrops were some of the oldest and richest of the Knickerbocker set. Lawyers came, surveyed the situation, and advised Alfred Winthrop to let the coroner’s office take charge of his wife’s remains, talking in low tones about inquests and investigations. A few well-chosen words and Winthrop dropped his protesting and even agreed to answer a few of Jack’s questions.
No, he hadn’t known his wife was enceinte, and she certainly had said nothing to him about a doctor’s appointment; ladies did not share such personal information, not even with a husband. They had been married four years and had no children, had wanted no children while they were still young and had so much of life to experience. They had made many plans for travel over the next year, and now it would all have to be canceled.
To Jack it seemed Winthrop was more worried about gossip than upset about his wife’s death. That might be heartless and shallow, but there was nothing illegal about it.
Hardly a half hour after Jack sent for him, the coroner arrived. In another neighborhood the wait could stretch out into days, but not on Park Place. Coroner Olsen was new and intimidated by the casual display of wealth; without much effort Jack convinced him that this was a case that had to be handed over to Dr. Lambert at Bellevue.
He anticipated some trouble from the lady’s maid, who would balk at the idea of being questioned at police headquarters. Instead he found her in the kitchen with two satchels, ready and eager to leave. Her life as a servant in a fine house had just ended; no one else would hire the young woman who had played some role, however how small and innocent, in Mamie Winthrop’s death. The harm was done, she told him, and a few hours in a police station would make no more difference.