“Well, thank you.”
“I’ll see you soon, yes?”
“You’ll see me in the morning, remember? You and your valet will bring Barney home.”
“Ah, yes. Have you thought of replacing him?”
“Barney? I can’t afford to keep two horses, and I couldn’t possibly part with him. What would become of him? Why, someone might . . .” I shuddered to think of the fate that befell aging horses that were no longer of any use to anyone. Why, it would be akin to sending Nanny packing someday, when she was no longer able to cook her wonderful meals or offer her sage advice. Nanny would always have a home at Gull Manor, and Barney would always enjoy a warm stall here as well. I adamantly shook my head. “I’m content to travel as slowly as Barney could wish.”
Derrick gave a soft laugh. “All right. Good night, Emma.”
“Good night.” I started to step down, but he caught my arm, leaned in, and grazed my lips with his.
* * *
Contrary to my observation that Derrick would see me in the morning, I awoke to rather different circumstances.
“Have you seen your surprise yet?” Nanny asked when I padded into the morning room for breakfast. At my blank look, she gestured for me to turn around and retrace my steps to the front hall. “You’ll want to see this.”
As I might have expected, my carriage, with its faded canvas roof and crinkling leather seat, sat on my driveway in front of the house. Derrick and his valet had apparently gotten a very early start, had been here and gone again. What I had not expected to see hitched to my old vehicle, however, was the handsome dark bay carriage horse. They made a most unlikely match. A note sat on the seat, held in place by a rock the size of my palm. It said, simply, “His name is Maestro.”
Once the initial surprise subsided, I experienced a spark of alarm. “But where is Barney?” Without waiting for anyone to answer me, I circled the house, my dressing gown flapping out behind me. Upon reaching the small barn in my rear garden, I flung open the door and stopped short, once more held motionless in surprise.
Dear Barney raised his head above the wall of his stall to peer at me as he continued chewing a mouthful of fresh hay. Had Katie been out to feed him already? Perhaps, but it seemed Barney’s fairy godmother had visited him as well. Or his fairy godfather, I should say. Bales of hay that hadn’t been there yesterday had been stacked along one wall, along with sacks of oats and another of apples I knew hadn’t been charged to my household account.
I had told Derrick I couldn’t afford to keep two carriage horses, and he had solved my problem for me. Not sure how I felt about that, I stood for some moments taking in the scene while weighing the expense of his gesture against what monies I knew were available for such extravagance. Barney stamped a foot and snorted, breaking the spell of uncertainty that held me. Not the uncertainty itself, mind you, but, roused from my immobile state, I went to Barney and scratched behind his ears.
I didn’t turn at the sound of the soft, slippered tread or the squeaking board. Nanny came up behind me and slipped an arm about my shoulders. “Such a lovely thing to do. Wouldn’t you agree, Emma?”
I stifled a sigh. It was a lovely gesture. However much I valued and fervently protected my independence, I couldn’t deny that.
“Please don’t say you’re going to return it all—the horse, the supplies. Derrick’s kindness.” At the gentle admonishment in her tone, I turned to her and shook my head.
“No. To do so would be foolish and self-defeating. I made a promise I’d find the person who killed Cleo Cooper-Smith and framed Dale Hanson. Derrick has made that task so much easier.”
“A pity he didn’t include a new carriage.”
“Nanny!”
“I’m only saying.”
“Maestro goes back to Derrick as soon as I’ve completed my errands. With my sincere thanks, of course.” Barney nudged my shoulder, prompting me to pivot once again and stroke his neck. “Don’t you worry, old friend. No one will forget you. We’ll need Katie to exercise him every day so he doesn’t grow bored and . . . well . . . sad. It doesn’t do to deprive an individual of his occupation.”
“I can do that,” Nanny said. “He’s such a gentle soul. He and I move at the same unhurried pace nowadays. Don’t we, boy?”
My throat tightened. I could not envision my world lacking either Nanny or my loyal horse. I placed an arm around her and laid my cheek against her shoulder, wide, cushioned by her plumpness, and still the bastion of comfort it had been all my life.
* * *
After telephoning over, I returned to Ochre Court shortly after breakfast. This time I went to the front door, and Grace let me in, having spent the night to comfort her sister. She must have been watching for me, for I saw no sign of the butler upon stepping inside.
“May is in bed,” she told me. “And likely to stay there all day today.”
“How are her son and daughter?” I removed my hat and driving gloves and handed them to a footman who appeared from seemingly out of nowhere.
“They’re holding up remarkably well. Neither were particularly close with Cleo. Not even young May, oddly enough. She and Cleo were the same age.”
“That is odd, considering the friendship between their mothers. I wonder why that was.”
“I really couldn’t say.” I heard something in her voice, a bit of reluctance perhaps, to reveal too much. I considered pressing her, but then remembered her relation to the Goelets. She might be my friend and sincere in her desire to be of help, but her first loyalties would lie with family.
“And little Beatrice? Have you heard anything about how this affected her?”
Here Grace smiled. “Her mother telephoned a little while ago to say Beatrice is happily playing with her dolls and has made no mention of last night other than to congratulate herself once again on a job well done. Three-year-olds are remarkably resilient, I understand, and terribly pleased with themselves at the slightest accomplishment. But tell me, where to first?”
I had explained on the telephone the purpose of my visit, including the accusations made against Dale Hanson. Through Brady, Grace had a passing acquaintance with his sister, Hannah. While she maintained that Brady would do better to set his sights on some less-well-to-do heiress, she tolerated Hannah as “a girl with a good head on her shoulders.”
At my request she took me into the ballroom and through into the drawing room. Everything looked as it had yesterday—the artificial garden, the dais, the Egyptian stage setting. And the throne, of course, its gilded finish charred and pitted.
I took a magnifying glass from my handbag, but first looked about me with my naked eyes. The silken clover no longer retained its spring beneath my boots, as it had been quite trampled last night. So many people had traipsed through the room that I couldn’t hope to find anything as identifying as a footprint.
I climbed the dais steps and knelt beside the throne. Before I touched anything, I listened for the telltale humming of active circuitry. It had been turned off last night, but I couldn’t dislodge from my mind the image of Jesse and Dale touching the throne and nearly being electrocuted.
Reassured at hearing only my own breathing and Grace’s occasional steps brushing through the clover, I reached out a tentative fingertip and touched the wiring wrapped around one of the front legs of the throne. I noticed two things immediately. The first had already been noted by the police, that the rubber insulation had been stripped from the wiring where it came in contact with the throne’s metal leg.
As far as I knew, the second hadn’t yet been noted, but this wire appeared thicker than those connected to the surrounding Edison bulbs. I got to my feet and went to the side of the dais to examine those wires, and yes, they did appear thinner, which meant the current running through the throne would have been stronger than that needed for the bulbs.
Someone had indeed known what they were doing. I returned to the throne.
Crouching low, I held my magnifying glass over th
e stripped wire. It appeared some kind of blade had been used to cut away the rubber, leaving jagged edges. The job appeared hurried, perhaps slightly frantic. That suggested whoever had done this feared discovery, and wished to be done and away as soon as possible.
The cut marks providing me with little other information, I searched around each leg, hoping for some clue—a thread, a button, anything the culprit might have dropped. I found nothing.
And then an idea sent me crawling from leg to leg, examining the direction in which the wire had been wrapped each time. I discovered a counterclockwise motion had been utilized. I pretended I held a length of wire in my right hand, the one I favored. My instinct was to wrap in a clockwise direction.
Did that mean a left-handed person had rigged the wiring?
I sat up.
“Did you find something?” At Grace’s question, I started. I’d been so intent on my examination I’d forgotten she was still in the room watching me.
“I’m not certain. I need to review everyone who had access to this room yesterday.” I contemplated the wiring again. Having been camouflaged by the vividly woven rugs covering the dais, it had been easy to miss. Dale Hanson and his assistant had installed the Edison bulbs three days ago. Most of the decorating had already been completed by then. Could this errant wire have been wrapped around the throne legs when I came here yesterday afternoon? Or had the deed been accomplished after that, perhaps even during the ball itself?
That meant the individual could have been a workman, servant, or any of the guests, male or female. I sat back on my haunches and thought about that. Something seemed off, and then it occurred to me that the vast majority of both workmen and footmen were right-handed. In the case of workmen, right-handedness was a matter of safety, as most tools, fine tools in particular, were made for right-handed men. In the case of footmen, uniformity when serving at the table dictated they be right-handed as well. Could I safely rule out both categories of men? Perhaps not entirely, but this potentially narrowed down the field considerably. Dale, I knew, was right-handed.
What about women? I had learned that women are hardly immune from the passions that prompt an individual to commit murder. Mrs. Goelet’s tea yesterday had been attended by some of Newport’s most respected doyennes and their daughters. It seemed unlikely one of them could be guilty, but I had been fooled before.
A name escaped my lips before I could stop it. “Ilsa.”
“What’s that, Emma?” Grace came closer to the dais. “Did you say Ilsa? What about her?” When I didn’t answer, Grace set her hands on her hips. “Surely you don’t think she had anything to do with her sister’s death.”
I wished I could call back my ill-advised utterance. “Of course not,” I assured her. In truth, I didn’t . . . and yet, on what basis could I rule her out? “She was in here yesterday afternoon, when no one was supposed to be. I found her in the ballroom while making notes on the decorations. I startled her, and she knocked over a vase. It was odd,” I added weakly.
“Did she give you a reason for being here?”
“She said she wished to ensure everything was perfect for her sister.”
“There you are then. They are—were—quite close from what I understand. I never knew either of them very well, I’m afraid. Their mother was May’s friend and nearly twenty years older than I. She and I enjoyed only a passing acquaintance.”
Ilsa’s presence in the ballroom could have been innocent enough. Before I accused anyone, I needed to learn more about Cleo—her habits, her interests, her goals. Silas Griggson claimed they were practically engaged, but that seemed dubious at best. Did she love someone else? Or, like me, did she long for independence?
“Grace, do you know if Cleo kept a diary?”
“I couldn’t say. Ilsa might know. They were both staying here for the festivities, though their father is staying in town. I believe Ilsa’s upstairs in her room, or with May, perhaps. Would you like me to check?”
“No, please don’t disturb either of them. Rather, would you show me to Cleo’s room?”
“May probably wouldn’t like that,” she said and then winked. “So we’ll go quietly. Follow me.”
She led me up the main staircase to the open gallery that looked down upon the Great Hall. We hurried along a section of it, and then down an enclosed hallway that branched off to a separate wing. Grace tried a knob and to our luck discovered the door unlocked. We slipped inside and closed the door.
“I believe Ilsa’s room is right next door, so we must be as discreet as possible unless you want her here asking questions.”
I shook my head. “No, indeed. At least, not yet.”
“What are we looking for?” Grace asked brightly, obviously warming to the task. Grace always did enjoy a bout of intrigue, as long as it didn’t come accompanied by any true danger.
I went to the dressing table and began opening drawers. The very act sent me spiraling back to last summer, when another death had necessitated rummaging through the victim’s private effects. “As I said, a diary,” I replied, “should we be so fortunate. Or anything, really, that sheds a bit of insight into who Cleo Cooper-Smith was.”
A small leather case yielded facial powders, rouge, tinted lip balm, and even a tiny bottle filled with some blackish liquid. Thickened elderberry juice, I surmised, which could be brushed on the eyelashes to darken them. “It seems Cleo was not opposed to enhancing her appearance.”
Grace came to peer over my shoulder. “She was rather young for that,” she observed. “One would suppose she used them on the sly.” She touched her fingertips to her own cheek. If Grace used cosmetics, as I guessed she did, she applied them artfully and subtly.
I continued my perusal of the dressing table, finding nothing of particular interest. I moved next to one of the two dressers and asked Grace to search through the other.
“It feels wrong to be doing this,” she said with a little trill in her voice. “And yet exciting at the same time.”
“We’re doing nothing but seeking justice for Cleo. As for excitement, Grace, let’s hope we don’t encounter too much of that.” Having exhausted the dresser without finding anything but the usual trappings of a young lady, I threw open the armoire. Dresses and gowns of the very latest designs met my eye. Most spoke of House of Worth, though I believed I detected creations by Redfern and perhaps Rouff as well. I carefully thumbed through as I would the pages of an ancient and precious book. Something struck me as not quite right. My hand stilled as I continued to contemplate Cleo’s wardrobe.
Grace came up beside me. “What is it?”
“These gowns . . .” I turned around and returned to the dresser I’d just rifled through. Sliding open the top drawer, I once again viewed underclothing, gloves, and handkerchiefs. Much of it was no better than my own. “The gowns don’t match the rest,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“The quality. Her gowns are the finest, yet nothing else boasts the same superiority.” I turned to face her. “We haven’t found any jewelry. At least, nothing of value. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“Do you know anything about the Cooper-Smiths’ finances? Are they as wealthy as these dresses would imply?”
“I always believed them to be, at least fairly so. They are a Four Hundred family, an old one.”
“Her father works as an architect,” I pointed out. And as I had learned, “old money” did not always mean current money.
“Emma, unlike our counterparts in, say, England, American gentlemen work. I know another architect, Mr. Phelps Stokes. He designs buildings for the love of it rather than for money. His inheritance is sufficient to allow him to pursue such interests.”
“Still, this lack of jewelry could be significant. These fine dresses could be an attempt to hide the fact that the family finances are not what they should be.” Could this be why Mrs. Goelet had set her sights on Silas Griggson for Cleo? A self-made man su
ch as he would not resent a bride’s lack of fortune the way members of the Four Hundred would.
Across the room, the end tables on either side of the bed beckoned. “Let’s check these,” I said, gesturing. I opened the drawer above, sifted through, and then opened the cupboard below. As I reached in, Grace stopped me.
“Emma, come here.” Grace backed away from the gaping drawer in the cabinet across from me. She held a small wooden box and stared down at something in her other hand. “See what I’ve found!”
I quickly circled the bed.
“I think these are diamonds.” Narrowing her eyes, she held the small setting of several stones up to an electric wall sconce. “Yes, most definitely diamonds. They were in this box and shoved into a corner. But the setting is broken. See how the links at either end have been pulled open. This appears to be part of a larger piece, most likely a necklace. Here, you look.”
She poured the glittering segment into my palm. Several diamonds dangled from what I judged to be a platinum chain. I agreed with Grace; this did seem to be part of a larger piece of jewelry. So where was the rest?
We went through the room again, and into the bathroom that adjoined Ilsa’s bedroom on the other side. We found nothing that helped solve the mystery of the diamond setting.
“Perhaps you’re correct about the Cooper-Smiths’ finances.” Grace perched at the edge of the bed. “In truth, I’ve seen it before, where the family of a young woman on the marriage mart will spend their last pennies on her trousseau to hide their penury. It’s even possible May paid for Cleo’s wardrobe. She loved Cleo’s mother that much. Should I ask her?”
“Do, but be discreet. We don’t want to distress your sister any more than necessary.”
Grace smiled. “Leave it to me. I know just how to go about it.”
My thoughts drifted back to Ilsa. “Can you tell me about Ilsa’s affliction? I know she suffers from curvature of the spine.”
Murder at Ochre Court Page 7