Tell Me No Lies

by Shelley Noble

  “You brought up more colts from Virginia?”

  “No, we’ll do that in the spring. Bought these two at the track. Had ’em checked over after the races. They both lost and that was the end for their owner. A deal too good to pass up.”

  He tilted his head, which she took to mean he wanted to talk to her out of hearing distance.

  He opened a door on the side of the stable barn and led her down a hall to a small office. It smelled like stale cigar smoke, and Phil steeled herself to a few minutes in the unwholesome air.

  He pulled a stack of racing forms off the extra chair, flourished a handkerchief that she hoped was clean, and slapped it at the chair’s seat.

  “Have a seat, your…”

  Phil waited for him to find an appropriate ending. He never seemed to remember the protocol and frankly she enjoyed his creativity.

  “Your … ness.”

  As if the abbreviation would suffice.

  It did.

  “Yes?” she encouraged.

  “I hear you’re going up to Foggy Acres for the weekend.”

  “I am,” Phil said, wondering how he knew that. Then again, Bobby had his own network of informants.

  “There are gonna be some big cheeses—I mean some high-stakes folks there. Some of them what might be responsible for what happened to Abe Sorkin.”

  “Abe Sorkin? Gambling?”

  “Stock market.” Bobby lifted a cold cigar butt out of the ashtray on his desk and stuck it in his mouth.

  Phil braced herself for the choking smoke, but he didn’t light it, just sat chewing the end for a ruminative minute. Then he took it out of his mouth and pointed it at her.

  “Until yesterday Abe was the owner of those two fine mares you just saw. They showed real good but didn’t win. He sold ’em to me right there at the track. I thought it was just him being pissed off and all, begging your pardon, but he was depending on those nags to save him from bankruptcy.

  “They both lost and so did he. His whole fortune—pfft.” His fingers splayed in the air. He stuck the cigar back in his mouth and clamped his teeth around it. “Gone. Every last dime. Lost his shirt on account of dumping everything in a short-sell scheme.”

  “Ah,” Phil said. “Not to worry. I have no intention of investing in the market at this time. But I appreciate your concern.”

  “Ain’t your concern I’m worried about. It’s your neck. Last night, ole Abe blew his brains out.”

  “But what does that have to do with me?”

  “One of them fine folks up at Foggy Acres killed Abe Sorkin as sure as they killed that Fauks fellow.”

  “They shot Mr. Sorkin?”

  “They cheated him.”

  “But I thought the crash was averted,” Phil said.

  “For some, but some, like Abe, took a bath. Word on the street is it ain’t over yet. More people are going to bite it.” He returned the cigar to the ashtray and picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue.

  “Now what generally happens is either people start jumping out of windows or other people help them do it so’s they won’t talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Fixing the market.”

  “It’s illegal to manipulate the stock market.”

  Bobby snorted. “Miz—Lady Dunbridge, this is New York, nothing is illegal if you don’t get caught. But here’s where it might interest you. One of Abe’s boys told me he went into a scheme to buy up other companies that would give U.S. Steel a run for its money. Stupid if you ask me. Bound to fail. But then old Abe got cold feet, but when he went to get his money out, it wasn’t there.”

  “Because of the run on the banks,” Phil said.

  “Not the bank. Abe had cashed out at the bank and put it all in Fauks Copper, Coal and Steel.”

  “And Fauks’s stock is nearly worthless,” Phil added.

  “Not worth a hill of beans. But Abe ain’t usually such a fool. When it started to sink, he went directly to the Fauks office and demanded to sell back his stock to them. Turns out they’d never heard of him or his money.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Phil said, trying to put this together.

  “Their records showed that he’d never invested in Fauks Copper, Coal and Steel.” Bobby leaned back in his chair and slapped his knee. “If that ain’t a scam, I’ve never seen one.”

  “Has he no recourse?”

  “Hell, Lady D, he already took it. Went home and killed himself. If Fauks or somebody was cheating people, fleecing them, some people at that house musta had knowledge of it.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “Nope. Nothing has hit the street yet. Which means someone up top is keeping mum.”

  Someone at the top? Sheffield? He managed the company. Luther? He was courting Perry to become a member of the family. She suddenly wondered about the state of the Pratts’ finances. Or even Godfrey. He’d tried to stop the investigation from the start.

  “Just watch your back. The boys and me are here if you need us.”

  “Thank you, Bobby.”

  “It’s nothing. I was Reggie’s right-hand man. Gotta take care of his wife and her friend.”

  He walked her back to the yard.

  “Damn those people.” He pointed up to where a balloon—the same one or another one—was passing overhead and appeared to be losing altitude.

  “They agreed not to fly over the farm. It scares the horses. And if one of these babies gets injured, they’re gonna pay. Eddie, Rico!” he called. “Get those horses in the stable!”

  The two jockeys ran into the paddock, rounded up the two mares, and pulled them toward the barn.

  “I’m gonna have to get tough with them guys.”

  “Who’s doing it?”

  “The dang government. Some aero-naw-tical weather-predicting tests. Hell, if you want to know what the weather is, look out the window.”

  Weather. Fauks had been reading an article about weather balloons.

  “Ask me, they’re spying on us. Well, maybe not us exactly, though I know some owners who’d give their eyeteeth to snoop around our training techniques. They say they got some new kind of something that makes navigation better. They’ve been flying back and forth all week.”

  The jockeys had reached the barn, but one of the mares jerked her head, caught sight of the balloon, and pulled frantically on the rein. Several other stableboys ran out of the barn to help bring her inside.

  “See what I mean? They’re driving us nuts, and they won’t do a thing about it. Back on Monday one of them crash-landed right in the middle of the training track. Tore up the surface. Lucky none of the nags got hurt. They gotta pay for the repairs, but damn it set us back.”

  “What happened to the balloon?”

  “Bashed in all the equipment and a few heads. One of the pilots broke his leg. Nobody died, but if a horse had been on the track there woulda been hell to pay. If you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “I will. That’s terrible. When are they finishing the testing?”

  “Hell if I know. When they all crash, I guess.”

  “Shall I try to find someone to intercede?” Phil asked. There should be someone in Phil’s little black book of scandal that she could, as Bobby would say, “squeeze” for a favor.

  “Shall I ask Godfrey Bennington? I don’t know if he can help, but I know he’s connected to the War Department. He might know someone.”

  Bobby slapped his knees and guffawed. “If you ain’t something. It’s his balloons.”

  * * *

  Phil had plenty to think about on the way to Foggy Acres. It was a lovely drive with the last colors of fall holding on among the evergreen trees as they danced in a bright blue sky. It was hard to imagine a place called Foggy Acres while driving beneath the brilliant sun.

  The road narrowed, rose and dipped and finally snaked beneath an overgrowth of trees. The temperature dropped considerably. And Phil was more than ready to be sitting before a warm comfortable fire with a glass of
brandy in her hand.

  The road forked; Phil turned to the left and began looking for the gates to Foggy Acres.

  She would have driven right past it if it had been summer with the trees in full growth. As it was, two tall sculpted cedars framed an ornamented wrought-iron gate that rose a good ten feet in the air.

  She stopped the auto in front of the closed bars.

  The door to a stone guardhouse opened and a small man dressed in a normal sack suit came out. Phil was glad to see that he wasn’t costumed in some outrageous livery parroting British servants.

  He opened the gates, Phil drove through, and the gates shut behind them. “Just like a gothic horror story,” Phil called over her shoulder to Preswick and Lily.

  “Let us hope not,” Daisy said. “If Godfrey and you have spirited me away from business for a damp weekend in a rustic country house, I may learn to drive myself.”

  Phil laughed. “It’s an adventure.” An adventure and the perfect opportunity to get to know the people who were in attendance the night of Fauks’s murder.

  She accelerated and soon they drove out of the tunnel of trees and into more brilliant sunshine. A formal lawn, still lush with green, stretched out before them and beyond it, a rise of land where Godfrey’s mansion rose like a colossus in front of them.

  “If ever there was a misnomer,” Phil said. “No fog, and hardly rustic.”

  It was tasteful, large but not overbearing, and not monstrously overbuilt like some of the cottages she’d visited in Newport. An edifice built by someone who didn’t wear his wealth on his sleeve. Or perhaps did, but just in an understated way. Someone who had no desire or need to impress. It made him much more interesting than the rank-and-file millionaires all trying to outdo the other.

  It was two stories of red brick and limestone with a grand stairway that led to massive carved doors, sheltered by a rounded portico of frieze columns, and topped by a wrought-iron balcony trimmed in gilt. Large windows were aligned in symmetrical rows on both floors, promising a well-lit interior.

  They drove around the curve of the drive and came to a stop in front of the main entrance. The doors opened immediately and several servants, all dressed in simple black livery, filed down the steps to open the doors to the auto and take their luggage.

  They were followed by Godfrey Bennington.

  Phil quickly leaned toward Daisy as they went to greet him. “I forgot to warn you. They think Lily only speaks Italian.”

  Daisy’s eyes widened. “Why on earth?”

  “Later,” Phil said. Godfrey was upon them.

  “Delighted, delighted,” he said, and kissed Phil’s hand. He turned to Daisy.

  “Daisy, my dear. It’s been ages,” He kissed her on both cheeks, then he embraced her like a long-lost friend.

  Hmm, thought Phil.

  Godfrey swept them up the steps and into a large marble foyer that took Phil’s breath away. Above them a massive crystal chandelier shot prisms of light over a double-curved staircase of dark wood with an ornate wrought-iron handrail. On the landing above them, a smaller chandelier echoed the light down three separate hallways.

  Impressive, tasteful, and outrageously expensive. And perhaps just a bit of humor? A suit of medieval armor stood between the two staircases flanked by two tall plinths, each holding models of aeroplanes introduced by the Wright brothers a few years before.

  A genial-looking woman, a little past middle age, dressed in a buttoned dress of gabardine, appeared from a doorway to the left.

  “Ah,” Godfrey said. “I’ll leave you ladies in the good hands of my housekeeper, Mrs. Nicholson. She will see that you have everything you need.”

  “This way, please,” Mrs. Nicholson said, and began to climb the stairs.

  “Drinks at six,” Godfrey called from below them. “I’ve invited a few people.”

  Phil raised an eyebrow. She had no doubt that Godfrey would be the consummate host this weekend. And would keep them all busy and their minds away from the murder that had driven them here. She just hoped she would have a few quiet moments to find out why he met with Isaac Sheffield in the park, where Mr. Sheffield was now, and the reason he continued to keep him hidden.

  Mrs. Nicholson led them up the stairs and to the left. “This is our west wing; you should be quite comfortable. There are two rooms with adjoining parlor and also rooms for your staff.”

  She stopped at a door on her right. “Lady Warwick, Mr. Bennington has put you in the Yellow Room.” She opened the door and they all stepped inside. The room was wallpapered in a delicate gold. A canopied four-poster bed sat prominently against one wall and French doors opened onto what looked like a balcony.

  Daisy laughed delightedly. “Charming.”

  “I’ll send Margaret up to help you get settled.”

  “Thank you,” Daisy said.

  “Through here is your shared parlor.”

  They followed Mrs. Nicholson into a bright sitting room, with a row of French doors that led to a balcony.

  “And Lady Dunbridge…” the housekeeper paused while she opened a connecting door. “Mr. Bennington has put you in the Lilac Room.”

  “It’s lovely,” Phil said. The bed was Louis Quinze style with an elaborate gilt headboard with pale mauve panels draped behind it, against a patterned wallpaper of lilacs and green leaves. She was pleased to see that the room also opened onto a balcony.

  She did love a room with a balcony. She would have to warn Lily that the Countess of Warwick, if Phil had read Godfrey’s welcome, might be receiving an unannounced nocturnal visitor.

  It wouldn’t do for Lily to skewer their host thinking he was an intruder.

  As for herself … who knew who would be among the guests?

  18

  After Mrs. Nicholson had left, Phil crossed the room, opened the French doors, and stepped onto the balcony, which she realized conveniently ran the length of the back of Godfrey’s mansion. Below her was a wide brick patio with two sets of steps that led down to a wide green lawn surrounded by formal gardens planted for fall in asters and mums and colorful ornamental greens.

  Beyond the gardens were woods, and in the distance, wide glimpses of sparkling water, which had to be Long Island Sound. Phil couldn’t imagine why Godfrey had chosen to call this delightful hideaway Foggy Acres.

  The sound of laughter caught her attention and she looked over the balustrade to see a badminton game was in progress on the wide still-green lawn. Effie and Maud Jeffrey were testing their skills against Morris and Harry Cleeves. Agnes and Vincent Wynn-Taylor stood off to the side, waiting their turn.

  The girls wore soft woolen jackets but the men had stripped to their shirtsleeves in a show of defiance to the weather, except for Vincent, dressed in a business suit, perhaps in deference to his position as secretary.

  Maud or perhaps it was Effie stretched up to return the shuttlecock Harry had just served, but a sudden gust of wind shot it beyond her reach and out of bounds. Vincent jumped agilely and snatched it out of the air.

  Agnes clapped and laughed and Harry trotted over to clap him on the back and retrieve the shuttlecock.

  They all seemed in high spirits. No one, not even Agnes, seemed to miss the presence of Perry Fauks.

  Especially not Agnes, Phil thought. A little too happy for someone whose fiancé had just been murdered, but not entirely a surprise. It had been apparent in her talk with Detective Sergeant Atkins that Agnes had been disgusted by Perry’s touch, though duty may have compelled the girl to accept his proposal when he offered. Phil could relate. No wonder Agnes was relieved at his death.

  She was smiling and laughing as Vincent came back to stand by her side, closer than they had been standing a minute before.

  There was no doubt of the attraction between them. And Phil knew it was not unusual for a girl to fall for a poor young man who couldn’t compete with the attractive suitor her ambitious parents had planned for her.

  She would have to delve further into that relationship
.

  Then there was Maud. Agnes may not have wanted the man, but Maud Jeffrey did. And Phil wouldn’t make the mistake of dismissing them as mere children.

  Phil had been younger than either of them when her parents sold her off to the derelict Lord Dunbridge. There had been more than a few times she’d wished him dead. She hadn’t acted on it, of course, but she might have found someone who would, one of her many liaisons, perhaps.

  Phil shivered and went back inside. She wouldn’t mark Agnes and Maud off her suspect list just yet.

  She changed out of her driving clothes and into one of her favorite Poiret tea gowns, an aquamarine and blue flowing silk chiffon, with a passementerie of rose and gold beading around the high waist, and joined Daisy in the private sitting room that separated their bedrooms.

  Here, like her own guest boudoir, every detail spoke of attention to what would please a lady, with comfortable chaises and padded chairs and several lovely oil paintings on the wall that Phil was almost certain were originals.

  Daisy was draped along a pink velvet chaise with the air of a nymph from an Impressionist painting. “Lord,” she said when she caught sight of Phil. “You look divine. Poiret, isn’t it? I’m sure he’s going to be all the thing in a season or two.”

  She sighed. “Now that we’re here, I wish I had brought a wardrobe more appropriate to the drawing room than the picket line.”

  Phil perused the tray of sandwiches and fresh fruit before sitting on a matching chaise on the opposite side of the tea table.

  It was a perfect arrangement where confidences could be exchanged and gossip could flourish in private. And since Daisy and Phil had more to gossip about than most women, it was a perfect setting for their tête-à-tête.

  However, they would have to change for dinner soon so Phil had better get on with her interrogations, starting with the subject of Daisy’s relationship with Godfrey. But before she could begin Daisy asked, “Now what’s all this about Lily speaking Italian?”

  Phil gave her a quick explanation of her not-so-brilliant idea. “I thought it would loosen tongues if they thought she couldn’t understand what they were saying.”