by Jane Steen
“If you’d wanted to check if it was Gorton’s writing, the correct person to have asked would be Joe,” Martin said mildly. “After all, he worked with the man.”
He was right, of course. But that didn’t help. I stood up.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
Martin stood too, bending down to look at me again so his hair, grown longer now, flopped forward over his forehead. “I thought you were having supper with me?”
“I’d rather not, thank you.” I had to get away—now.
Martin’s large hand curled gently around my upper arm. “Could you please tell me what’s wrong?”
That did it. “Wrong?” I spat. “What isn’t wrong? You’re being singularly unhelpful after I spent hours going through your dead wife’s clothing because you couldn’t bear to. In point of fact, you’re being about as useful to the furtherance of this investigation as an umbrella in a hurricane. You hate yourself because circumstances have robbed you of the life you built—well, fine. Go to Europe and mope around there—you’re free to do it, after all. Weep for Lucetta all you like. Her death has made you see what she really meant to you, hasn’t it? She introduced you to an entirely new world, and you had some juvenile dream that you could somehow cling to that world and have me too. ‘Come to Chicago,’ you said, and like an idiot, I obeyed. And now all I’m fit for is to do your dirty work—”
I stopped to draw breath. Martin’s eyes were two dark pits, his mouth set in an ominous line.
“You’re lucky I’d never hit a woman,” he said.
I drew myself up and faced him squarely. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Don’t call me ridiculous.”
“Then stop acting like a child.”
“Me?” I inquired ungrammatically. “I’m not the one sulking in the corner while everyone else runs around after him.”
“Is that really what this is about?” Martin took three or four rapid steps backward, putting the chair between us. “Because I asked you to do something for me? I thought you’d understand why I couldn’t do it. I thought you wanted to help me.”
“Of course I want to help you,” I wailed. “But I want you to help yourself. To behave as if you cared.”
“What do you think I do all day?” Martin waved a hand wildly in the direction of his desk. “I spend hours every day talking to the Pinkerton men, writing to every politically connected man I know to get the damned journalists off my back. I pass all my free time talking with Joe, thinking, thinking, pacing these rooms when I’m alone in an attempt to wear myself out so I can sleep. Then I close my eyes and see that room full of blood and Lucetta lying on the floor, split open at the throat.” He swallowed. “I liked it better when I was sleeping all the time.”
I frowned. “When was that?” Having spent the main force of my anger, I was subsiding into exhaustion and unhappiness. Naturally, I wished I’d never lost my temper in the first place. I crossed my arms, almost tangling them together, and hunched my back defensively.
“Just after I was released—when you were at Gambarelli’s.” Martin retreated to his desk, where he perched on its edge in a similar attitude to my own. “There were days when I didn’t seem able to get out of bed, when sleep was my only refuge. And then, somehow, one morning I decided I would get up early, shave, and dress. The next morning I did the same—and the next. It was you who inspired me, I think. Knowing you were working for me.” His own brief surge of rage seemed to have spent itself like a wave crashing on the shore, and his voice was gentle.
We stared at each other for a long moment, huddled in our defensive positions either side of the room. Then Martin slowly, tentatively, crossed the room and seated himself at my side.
“I feel as if I’m digging myself out of a deep hole, Nellie.” He looked down at his knees, which stuck up rather—the settee was a low one. “There are days when I still wake up and wonder if the police will walk into these rooms and tell me that they’re not convinced of my innocence after all and have come to take me back. I’m not sure what I’d do if I had to go back again.”
“Does that have something to do with going to Europe?”
“Yes,” Martin replied, still looking down. “I need to know that I can leave Chicago as much as anything else. I need to know that I’m truly a free man. And, believe me, despite the impression you’ve received, I’m quite as anxious as you that we should find the killer before the day I step on board ship.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him what else I’d learned, what I suspected, but his next action forestalled my words. He put the back of his hand to my cheek, gently, and I tensed against the urge to turn my head and kiss his fingers. I too was in a deep pit. I had fallen in love with Martin completely and irrevocably, with no way of ever getting out again.
“Please stop,” I whispered. The mood between us had shifted again, but I didn’t know in which quarter it now lay.
He withdrew his hand. “Look at me.”
I looked up into a face that was stern and remote, and yet his eyes said something different. I knew what it meant when people said their hearts were full. Mine seemed to be taking up far too much room in my chest.
“My dear,” Martin said, his voice hoarse and strained. “Do I really need to point out to you, yet again, that you’re the light of my life and the center of my world? That hasn’t changed one whit. But I’ve changed, as a man—my place in the world has changed.”
He was silent for a moment, seeming to ponder what he would say next. “And yes, I do mourn Lucetta,” he said finally. “Not as a wife I loved—I have the unfortunate trait of only being able to love one woman at a time—but as a wife, nonetheless, whose death deserves pity and some measure of dignified respect. I don’t think, if you search your heart, that you’d want me to turn from her graveside into your arms as easily as if I were changing my coat.”
I hung my head. He was right, of course.
“And because of the circumstances, I wasn’t even able to stand at her graveside. I can’t go there now for fear of the journalists hounding me and drawing unwonted assumptions. I have to find a way to say good-bye to her in some human, ordinary fashion without seeing that horror of blood every time I think of her. And I know for certain I can’t do it in that house. It holds the failure of our marriage, everything that was sour and mean about our last few months together. I think I’m selling it complete with its contents to the first buyer I can find once all this is over.”
“Not the portraits.” My response came so swiftly it surprised even me.
“You saw those, did you?” Martin’s eyebrows lifted.
“Yes, and they’re much of what made me feel so—well, I didn’t feel I could ever be part of the world they represented. They—that house—” I could feel a treacherous, hot tear gathering at the corner of my eye. “I can—maybe—understand why you can’t—love me right now. But I don’t see how you ever can, once you’ve gone to Europe and left me behind here.” The tear broke free and slid down my cheek to my jawline. It lingered there, leaving a wet, slightly itchy trail behind it.
A knock at the suite door made us both jump. Martin rose swiftly to his feet. I dragged the back of my hand across my face as he crossed to the parlor door, stepping into the tiny hallway.
It was the food, of course. We were obliged to stand by while the two men set up a folding table, draped it with snowy linen, and laid it with sparkling silver and crystal. One of them handed me into a chair with a solemn air of accomplishment that might have made me laugh in other circumstances.
I saw a generous tip exchange hands, which probably ensured the men’s discretion. Martin poured out water for both of us and served the fish in silence while I stared at my plate, wondering how I was going to eat. Emotion always robbed me of my appetite.
“Now then, Nellie Lillington, none of your tricks.” Martin seated himself and nodded at my plate. “Eat your food. You were very hungry when you arrived, and you’
ll faint from inanition before you get home if you don’t put something inside yourself. Try a little fish, to encourage your appetite.”
How well he knew me. After the first, difficult act of swallowing, my hunger revived. Martin talked about impersonal topics—the endlessly rehashed opinions on the forthcoming presidential election figuring prominently—until I’d eaten most of my portion of fish and a drumstick of very fine fried chicken. I began to feel not exactly calmer, but definitely less likely to explode.
“That’s better—a real smile at last.” Martin, who had managed to eat well while talking, wiped his mouth on the beautiful damask napkin. “Now let me say the rest of what I wanted to say to you. I’ve been turning it around in my mind for some time.”
He stood up and crossed to his desk, donning the sack coat that hung over his chair. He straightened his cravat, pulled down his vest, and generally made himself tidy. The black armband he wore on his sleeve had slipped out of place, and I saw the swift look he gave me before he adjusted it carefully. He was donning his armor again, I realized, but not as a protection against me. In some odd, masculine way, he was making himself presentable for me. I felt the tension in my shoulders ease.
He returned to the table and held out his hand, leading me back to the settee, but this time seating himself in the chair opposite me.
“The world I lived in with Lucetta has gone,” he said without preamble as soon as he saw I was comfortable. “It wasn’t really my world, anyway. Those were her friends, her family, and her music. Even when we entertained my business acquaintances, it was at her insistence, not mine. You and I will start the world anew, when the time is right.”
“And you’ll still carry it on your shoulders,” I murmured.
“What?” Martin gave me a quizzical look.
“Your portrait. You look like you’re bearing the weight of the world.”
“Do I?” Martin looked interested. “He’s a clever fellow, that Sargent boy. An American lad, very young, who was introduced to us in Paris. He doesn’t really like doing portraits, but he’s studying under a society painter who thinks Sargent needs to learn some bread-and-butter work before he indulges his own tastes. He’s got talent, hasn’t he? That portrait of Lucetta is quite magnificent. I can’t say I care for mine all that terribly though. Perhaps he saw into me too much.”
“I have my qualms about living with it as well,” I admitted. “But if we do start the world anew, Martin, well—that portrait is you. I wouldn’t want to let it go. And it would seem wrong to split the paintings up, don’t you think? They’re so obviously a pair, and would be a pair even if they were continents apart.”
“It would be a crime against art,” Martin agreed. “Some people don’t think portraits are real art—but whatever I might feel about those particular paintings on a personal level, I think they are art, and astonishing at that. I suppose we could shut them in a room somewhere.”
I shuddered. “I don’t like that idea. I feel like they’d change behind our backs if we didn’t look at them. Grow older, perhaps.”
Martin stared at me. “That’s possibly the most horrible feat of imagination you’ve ever achieved, Eleanor Lillington. And you a woman of such great practical sense.” He winced. “It’ll give me the horrors to look at them now.”
“But don’t you think they’re your responsibility?” The thought rose to my consciousness like a bubble in a glass of champagne, popping into bright clarity so that I sat upright, suddenly alert. “I mean—what you said earlier about your lost world with Lucetta—it’s not really lost. The past is something you and I will have to carry with us, always. We shouldn’t have to fear that burden.”
Martin smiled, shaking his head. “That ‘we’ makes up for everything. For giving me horrible thoughts about the paintings, and for practically calling me a coward and a cad. Thank you for that.”
He rose to his feet and went to press the service button. “I’ll get them to find a hired carriage to take you home. Listen—I don’t even know what the world will be like for me once I’m free of this mess. I still intend to go to Europe, for a hundred good reasons. But I desperately want you to understand that I’m resolved to spend the rest of my time in this world with you, if you’ll only have the patience to wait for me to straighten out the warp and the weft of my life.”
“As long as you love me.” That, when it came down to it, was all I needed to know.
“With every fiber of my being.”
He raised my hand to his lips and kissed the tips of my fingers gently. I wanted more from him—I had been waiting for an eternity for more. But I would have patience, as he asked.
So I nodded. “That’ll do.”
And it wasn’t until I was following the concierge back through the maze of tunnels that I realized I’d never told Martin about my suspicions.
31
Compromised
The concierge led me to a side door, well away from the main lobby. There were just two armchairs there, set discreetly behind some columns. I was about to seat myself when a familiar voice assailed me.
“Mrs. Lillington! Nell!”
It was Joe.
“I’m so sorry to be lying in wait for you.” He waited until I was seated in one of the armchairs before taking the other. “But I knew, as soon as the housekeeper told me you’d gone, that I’d find you here. Why didn’t you ask me for the carriage?”
“I was in a bad mood,” I admitted, smiling ruefully. “It was those portraits.”
Joe grinned. “They do rather blot out every other thought, don’t they? I’ve never been sure if I like them or not. They’re quite the cleverest thing I’ve ever seen though.” His dark, intelligent eyes were fixed on my face. “I expect they made you feel rather excluded.”
“They did.” I smiled. “But I’m starting to see them as two people living in their own worlds. They’re linked by the past and the artist, but they are, after all, bound by their own frames.”
Joe laughed. “You’re turning into a philosopher. Besides, you’re doing more than Lucetta ever did. You’re becoming part of the one thing that’s uniquely Martin’s. The store.”
The thought made me glow inside. “Thank you, Joe. You have a great knack for saying the right thing.”
“That’s why I’m good at my job. And by the way, I’ve sent away the hired carriage. I’ll take you home. Now that you’re here, let me go find my driver and tell him to get ready. He should be somewhere around the front. It’ll only take five minutes.”
He rose and disappeared in the direction of the main lobby, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I wondered briefly if Joe and the Pinkerton agents had found anything. I decided they probably hadn’t, or Joe would have come up to Martin’s rooms. I would have to tell him about the paper, which Martin had tucked away in his vest pocket. Joe could certainly rule out Gorton’s handwriting.
“Mrs. Lillington.” A voice spoke softly in my ear, and I jumped. “Or is it Mrs. Harvey? What an interesting woman you are.”
My insides turned to ice as Christopher Columbus Crabb lifted his hat with a smile, looking down at me.
“I’ll be quick—I don’t want Salazar to spot me. And, if you please, don’t tell him I was here. I’ve been following you all day. Very interesting. I knew there was something about you that just didn’t fit.”
“What are you going to do with the information?” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice, but I didn’t think I was succeeding.
“The information that you’re Martin Rutherford’s mistress, perhaps?” His tone was teasing.
“I’m not.” I felt my cheeks flame. “I’m most certainly not.”
“Is that so?” He raised an eyebrow. “Going to his rooms alone in the evening definitely looked like it. Most compromising.”
“So you’re going to blackmail me. Or ruin me? Go ahead and try.” I stuck my chin out.
Crabb held up his hands. “I promise you I’ll do nothing hasty. I have to give all of this a goo
d thinking-through. You’ll be hearing from me—and in the meantime, be a good girl and keep your mouth shut. It’ll be better for all concerned if you do.”
He tipped his hat again and was gone, sliding behind the columns and heading in a different direction from Joe.
“You’re an idiot. The worst kind of idiot,” I said to myself. I could see I might have made things a great deal worse for Martin. But I had little time to fret. There was Joe, walking toward me, a smile on his face.
“All ready,” he said cheerfully—but his face fell as he saw mine.
“Is something wrong?”
“Nothing.” I forced a smile, remembering Crabb’s injunction to keep my mouth shut. “Did your investigation turn up anything, by the way?”
He shook his head. “A complete waste of time. What about you?”
“A piece of paper—which Martin thinks is probably of little significance. I’ll tell you about it in the carriage.”
We exited into the street, which had just been sprinkled with water to lay the dust and had the odd, metallic smell of dampness on a hot day. Even this quieter street was full of passersby, mostly well-to-do couples in evening dress. The life of Chicago flowed around me, ignoring me, ignorant of me.
Crabb could change all that.
32
Rights
Even amid the joys of absorbing employment, the tumultuous affairs of the heart, and the frustrations of an investigation that was going nowhere, I still had to find time to visit Tess and Sarah in Lake Forest. So the next Sunday afternoon found me sitting against a tree on a picnic blanket on the Parnells’ beautifully kept lawn, watching Sarah and Tess play a game Elizabeth called battledore and shuttlecock. I had spent a good forty minutes trying to hit the feathered birdie toward Sarah. I had at last handed the job over to Tess, who was far closer to Sarah’s size and made a much better partner.