Murder at the Breakers

by Alyssa Maxwell

  I tried to think of a way to backtrack without involving my relatives. I didn’t relish the idea I came up with, but there didn’t seem to be any other option.

  They dropped me off at home nearly two hours later. With brief greetings to Nanny and a call to Katie to come help me, I changed into a riding habit—a rather threadbare one with frayed hems and a veil with more holes than actual netting, but it would have to do. By far my greatest concern awaited me in the barn.

  “Help me saddle him, Katie.” Gesturing, I directed my young maid toward the corner cupboard that held blankets and tack. With a huffing breath, I lifted the saddle from its rack. “I know it’s been a good long time, Barney, and I promise not to push you too hard.”

  The roan gelding regarded me, then the saddle, and me once more, the expression in his large, velvety eyes approaching indignant disbelief.

  “I’m sorry, Barney, but it can’t be helped. We won’t have the new buggy wheel until tomorrow, and if I wait that long I might not get my answer.”

  “Are ya talkin’ to me, miss?” Katie appeared at my shoulder, the tack snaking from her arms.

  “Uh, no. Let’s just get him suited up to go.” I took the bridle and bit, and slipped them over Barney’s head, muttering more apologies to him as I went, especially when I coaxed him into opening his mouth so I could set the unfamiliar metal bar between his teeth, poor thing. When all was done, Katie and I stepped back to appraise our handiwork.

  “Do ya think he’ll do, miss?”

  “He’ll have to. Besides, I’m not taking him far. Just to Waite’s Wharf, off lower Thames Street. Will you help me up?”

  Katie threaded her fingers and boosted me up. I clucked my tongue and tapped lightly with my heels. Barney let out a long, snuffling breath and went nowhere.

  “Hold his bridle and walk him outside,” I suggested. Katie tugged to coax him to move. Finally, he seemed content to put one foot in front of the other. I signaled Katie to release him, proceeded to the end of the drive, and turned onto Ocean Avenue.

  About an hour later and after nonstop encouragement from me, Barney plodded onto Waite’s Wharf. The sight that had brought me back was still there, no longer on the wharf itself but occupying a spot on the freight steamer that just then fired up its engines with a great, roaring hiss.

  I was happy to see the very men I wished to question were still there as well.

  “Mr. Manuel!” I called as I slid from my sidesaddle to the ground. “Mr. Manuel, there appears to have been a mistake.”

  “Miss Emma?” Elton Manuel, the shorter and younger of the two, removed his hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “What brings you here, and what kinda mistake?”

  I pointed to a crate that stood some four feet high, the front panel open and leaning off to the side. Next to the crate sat stack of gray packing blankets. “That’s Adelaide Halstock’s spinet. And that is not the Halstocks’ steamer. It would say Halstock Industries across the side if it were.” I strode closer to the boat and scanned the contents in the stern, protected from the elements by a broad stretch of canvas overhead. I saw more than one familiar shape. “Those other crates—don’t they belong to the Halstocks as well? You’ve delivered their things to the wrong ship.”

  He was shaking his head at me and chuckling. “You’re the one’s got it wrong, Miss Emma. I mean, you’re right that this is the Halstocks’ freight shipment, but wrong about where we were supposed to deliver the load.”

  “But isn’t this all supposed to go to their house in New York? And their steamer is docked at Brown & Howard, so . . .”

  “This stuff’s going to New York, all right, and then on to London.”

  “London!”

  “Sure. It’s all going to Christie’s.”

  “Christie’s?” I was beginning to sound like a parrot. “The auction house? You mean it’s all for sale?”

  “I suppose.” He gave a shrug. “Guess it’s stuff they got tired of. Mrs. Halstock probably wants to buy all new. You know how rich folks are.”

  At that moment, Edwin Manuel stepped out from the steamer’s main cabin and sauntered down the gangplank. He held what appeared to be a bill of lading, which he stuffed in the breast pocket of his coat. “All right, Elton, let’s pack that spinet up right this time and get her loaded. . . . Hey there, Miss Emma. Out for a ride on that old hack of yours, eh?”

  It was Elton who turned to him to say, “Miss Emma thought we’d delivered the Halstocks’ things to the wrong steamer.”

  “Well, never you worry, Miss Emma. We’ve got things under control even if that old spinet nearly did come bursting out of its crate. Phew, close call that was, but no harm done.”

  “Glad to hear it, gentlemen,” I said, though my own words barely registered in my brain.

  Elton boosted me back into my saddle and I headed Barney for home. After all, there was nothing more I could ask them, and I didn’t want to ride home after sunset and run the risk of repeating the events of last night.

  But I’d certainly learned something. Adelaide had lied to me, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. People sold their belongings on the sly for one reason—because they didn’t want anyone to know about their money troubles. If I had any doubts, this freight shipment to London quelled them. Obviously, sending their possessions to auction here in the United States posed the risk of being found out. Who but members of the Four Hundred could afford to bid on European spinets and other valuable items from a house the likes of Redwing Cottage? The Four Hundred was a small and closed society, and how many of them would have recognized those items from visits with the Halstocks?

  No, there was only one possibility that made sense, and might even explain Rupert Halstock’s strange illness: They’d experienced a downturn in their finances, a serious one.

  I felt awful—awful for poor Adelaide, who had only ever wanted to be a rich man’s wife and reclaim the social standing her own family once held. That wish had once earned my secret disdain, but who was I to have judged her? I’d never been wealthy, but I’ve always had the security of knowing my Vanderbilt relatives would never let me starve or be thrown out on the streets. Adelaide had never had that reassurance. She had known some hard times growing up, so who could blame her for the decisions she’d made? Besides, considering everything, I had to admire how well she was holding up, how brave a face she showed the world. She obviously had more mettle than I’d given her credit for. And that, too, made me feel ashamed.

  “Barney,” I murmured, “from now on I’m going to be nicer to her.”

  The roan’s ears twitched as he trudged along.

  “I know; I’ve already been nice to her . . . sort of. But only when I had to, when I couldn’t avoid it. From now on I’m going to be more charitable with my time, and show my old friend she’s not alone. Of course, I can’t ever let on that I know. . . .”

  My vow raised my spirits a bit, especially since it had been heeded by a witness, albeit by Aunt Sadie’s tired, uninspired hack. But Barney had as valiant a heart as the staunchest Newporter—like me. Like Brady. Like Adelaide. And we Newporters stuck together.

  Chapter 11

  That night I sat up late at my desk. For a long while I tapped the end of my pen against my bottom lip and stared at my own reflection in the blackened window pane in front of me. Beyond, I could hear the ocean kicking up a bit of a fuss, the water churning against the rocks even as my mind churned with everything I’d learned up to now, the facts colliding with what I knew and with what I wanted to believe.

  Finally, I picked up the ruler I’d set beside me, inked my pen, and set the nib to paper. I started by drawing columns, four of them, and at the top of each I wrote a name. The first was Neily.

  Beneath it I wrote what I knew so far. Neily was carrying on a courtship with a woman of whom his parents highly disapproved, so much so Uncle Cornelius had sent Alvin Goddard to spy on them and report back. As his father’s eldest heir, Neily had a lot to lose—a massive fortu
ne should his father disinherit him. Doing away with Alvin Goddard might have been a move on Neily’s part to buy himself more time to reconcile his parents to the notion of a possible marriage between him and Grace. Neily had been missing from the ballroom immediately following Mr. Goddard’s death, and while Grace had corroborated his alibi of being with her below stairs, could I necessarily believe her?

  I wrote a second name but almost crossed it out. Reggie. I had no specific motive for the boy to have harmed anyone. There was only that bottle of Tennessee bourbon beside Brady’s elbow that night, the lingering odor of spirits, and the fact that Reggie himself had been lately drinking on the sly. Then there had been his interest in my maid, Katie, who had come to me in a delicate condition. Had Reggie fathered her miscarried child—had he forced himself on her? If so, he might have done anything to prevent his parents from finding out. Society might turn a blind eye to such matters, but Uncle Cornelius and Aunt Alice would not. And if Mr. Goddard had a nose for ferreting out secrets . . .

  I moved on to my next suspect, Jack Parsons, an investor in the New Haven-Hartford-Providence railroad line. Yes, he was my father’s longtime friend, but a simple motive presented itself: anger over the plans designed by Alvin Goddard allowing Uncle Cornelius to take over the line and restructure it from the bottom up. Brady had said the line had been losing money because of corrupt business practices. If Uncle Cornelius managed the takeover, the identities of those responsible might come to light. Was Jack Parsons one of them? I might be stretching things, but the pocket watch I’d found in Uncle Cornelius’s safe, with the P engraved on its cover, suggested . . . what? A bribe? A kind of promissory note? A payment? Maybe Uncle Cornelius had already uncovered secrets from the New Haven-Hartford-Providence line, and Jack Parsons had given him the watch as collateral for the money he’d be forced to pay back.

  Then why kill Alvin Goddard? I tapped my pen to my lip again. Murdering a man like Cornelius Vanderbilt would have dire ramifications, would even bring the attention of President Cleveland himself to the investigation. But murdering a mere financial secretary would be a matter left to the local police. Perhaps Jack hoped murdering Alvin Goddard would delay the buyout proceedings and give him enough time to cover up his financial shenanigans.

  Sighing, I shook my head and wondered if all of these motives and scenarios were being supplied by my overactive writer’s imagination, rather than the actual facts.

  But the basic facts continued to niggle. Theodore Mason’s name occupied the top of the final column. Just prior to the ball, the Vanderbilts’ head butler had been accused of the worst thing a head butler can be accused of—theft from the very house in which he worked. Such a charge meant never serving in any great house again, in any capacity, and the position of head butler generally took years, often decades of dedicated effort to achieve. Once again, here was a suspect with much to lose, at least from his perspective. And Alvin Goddard had been his accuser.

  Added to that, I now knew Mr. Mason had lied to me when he claimed he hadn’t strayed from his boardinghouse the night Alvin Goddard was murdered. Lies usually meant one thing: that the liar had something to hide. The question was what?

  Sitting back in my chair, I stared down at my notes and realized I was no closer to an answer than when I’d started. The niggling hadn’t stopped either; in fact, the hairs at the back of my neck continued to prickle. I couldn’t banish today’s revelations from my mind. Jack and Neily—or rather his valet—had leased carriages from Stevenson’s Livery. So had that reporter, Derrick Anderson, and while I saw no reason to suspect him of murder, his behavior had been nonetheless suspicious. It occurred to me he could easily be lying about his reasons for being in Newport; for all I knew, he had been hired by the murderer to keep an eye on things and make sure no one came too close to the truth.

  My pen fell from my fingers and clattered to the desk. I was certain Derrick Anderson had followed me on more than one occasion. Who was to say he hadn’t followed me yesterday from Adelaide’s house to Jack’s, and then out along Ocean Avenue?

  Not surprisingly, I tossed and turned that night and slept in the next morning. I found Katie bustling around the morning room, but when I greeted her, she dipped a quick curtsy and scampered out through the baize-covered service door. The door swung inward and this time Nanny shouldered her way in with the coffeepot.

  “What’s gotten into her?” I asked with a nod toward the passageway. My query sounded halfhearted and no wonder, because I was pretty certain I knew the answer. The problem was me.

  When Katie had first arrived on my doorstep, I’d asked precious few questions. The girl had needed time to heal, to recover from her ordeal. She had needed time to gather the courage that seemed to have been frightened out of her during her time at The Breakers. So while I’d privately turned my anger on Neily, I’d given Katie the respite I thought she’d needed, and it seemed to have helped. The color had returned to her cheeks, the light to her pale blue eyes. But ever since I tried questioning her the other day, she’d become a jittery bundle of nerves and given me a wide, wary berth.

  For a moment I didn’t notice that Nanny hadn’t answered, hadn’t said anything. She’d silently filled my coffee cup and turned away to fuss with one of the platters on the sideboard.

  “Did I do something . . .” I trailed off as a yellow envelope beside my place setting caught my attention. I rushed closer and snatched it up. “This is from Western Union. When did this come?”

  Nanny turned slowly back around, her kindly face tightened into a severe mass of wrinkles. “Earlier.”

  “Earlier . . . why didn’t you tell me? It must be from Mother and Dad. They must be on their way home from Paris. . . .” I turned the missive over to break the seal, only to discover the paper hallmark bearing the initials WU had already been torn. I glanced over at Nanny, raising an eyebrow.

  “It came like that,” she said defensively.

  “Did you read it?”

  Her lips pursed. “I might have peeked . . . a little.”

  “Nanny, how could you? This is private correspondence from my parents. . . .” My indignation melted away when she pouted up at me, her spectacles magnifying her wounded expression. “Never mind . . . So when will they be here?” I spread open the page.

  As I read the message, Nanny spoke, her words as sharp and cold as icicles. “They’re not.”

  My heart thumped in my throat. The short note read:

  DEAREST EMMALINE, HAVE RECEIVED

  YOUR NEWS. IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO

  GET AWAY RIGHT NOW. HAVE WIRED

  MONEY TO HELP WITH BRADY’S

  EXPENSES. NOT MUCH, BUT THE BEST

  WE CAN DO. HAVE FAITH. ALL WILL BE

  WELL. BE THERE WHEN WE CAN. LOVE

  TO YOU BOTH.

  I reread the words several times; surely they couldn’t mean what they appeared to mean.

  “Oh, Nanny, how can they not come? How can Mother not be here for her son?” I slapped the telegram onto the table so hard Nanny flinched. My voice reached a crescendo. “Her only son, Nanny. How can she stay away?”

  Nanny glared back at me, the wrinkles around her pursed lips deepening. “Because . . . Oh, sweetie, I know what I’d like to say, but they’re still your parents, so I’d better keep my mouth shut.”

  I knew what she would have said. It spoke volumes that she and I were sitting at the breakfast table together, not as housekeeper and employer, but as close to grandmother and granddaughter as two unrelated people could possibly be. It’s not that my parents had been neglectful of Brady and me when we were young. They’d shared their world with us, taught us more about the literature and music and art than we ever learned in our respective schools.

  Our cultural education hadn’t come to us in a series of classroom lessons learned by rote, but in always having people in our house—poetry readings, musical soirées, friends of my father’s setting up their easels in our backyard. I grew up around artists like Frederic Edw
in Church and James McDougal Hart, writers like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Edith Wharton, and I thought nothing of it. Why would I? There were always people about, debating, philosophizing, dreaming. . . . Brady and I grew up in an enlightened environment where creativity and independent thinking had always been encouraged, valued.

  But sometimes a child just wants to be held. Just wants a mother’s or father’s whole attention, not as a reward for any particular achievement, but simply because. I was seven years old when I realized my parents were caught up in a world that certainly included me, but didn’t revolve around me. Edith Wharton had come to visit that afternoon, and as Mother had welcomed her new friend into our home, I’d seen a joy in her eyes that had never been there before. That I’d never put there myself.

  And while Mother and Mrs. Wharton had taken tea on our small patio, I’d run to Nanny, who held me and stroked my hair and sang softly in my ear, and never once asked me what had made me sad. She knew what made me sad, but in the end it hadn’t mattered, really. What had mattered was that I was a child who needed to be held, and so she held me.

  Somehow the two of us muddled through the rest of the morning without speaking the thoughts on both our minds. My parents were who they were, and no amount of wishing would change them. Did I even want to change them, need them to change? Even now, I couldn’t answer that question.

  Hank Davis arrived around noon with my new buggy wheel, but although I was once more independent, I made no plans to go anywhere—not just yet, anyway. Earlier, I’d taken my coffee cup and crossed the narrow peninsula that formed the rear of my property and gone to sit on the boulders that overlooked the sea. Mother and Dad weren’t coming—the reality hadn’t quite sunk in, not in my heart, but my logical mind accepted the fact for what it was. Our parents would be of little or no help. Nor would Uncle Cornelius, who refused to so much as hire a lawyer for Brady. Since yesterday I’d formed a notion that perhaps Aunt Alice might convince him otherwise, but I knew better than to hold out too much hope there. Once Uncle Cornelius made up his mind, very little could change it, not even his wife.