A Golden Cage

by Shelley Freydont

  Joe listened, fascinated. He talked like a character in a play—or in one of Dee’s dime novels. The thought of her deflated his spirits somewhat. At least she would be at the Rensselaers’ dinner all night and under the eagle eye of his grandmother, though she would be more likely to enter into Deanna’s schemes than try to dissuade her from them.

  Though to give the old lady her due, she knew how a young girl needed to conduct herself in order to enter society. Once Dee was there, it would be a whole other kettle of fish.

  “I have authorities that I must answer to,” Will was saying. “The more your people cooperate, the sooner you will be allowed to return to the city.”

  “We have cooperated. I don’t know what more we can do, unless it’s to draw straws to decide which one of us will give up his life and confess so that the others may go back to work.”

  A muscle in Will’s jaw tightened. He was trying to hold on to his patience. He wasn’t easily riled, Joe knew, but this theater man was definitely pushing him to his limits.

  If only someone would tell this Edwin Stevens that it was better to talk to Will, than to have their heads knocked together by a less sympathetic police officer, of which there were plenty. Most of the force still thought beating a suspect was the first and fastest way to a confession.

  Which, Joe had to agree, was true. Unfortunately, they got a lot of confessions from innocent people just to stop the pain.

  “Sir,” Will said, giving Edwin Stevens his full attention. “I will find the person who did this and bring him to justice. No matter how long it takes. You may be assured of that. So please tell your people that if any of them remembers something, no matter how small, to bring it to me. Help me find the culprit so we can all get back to living our lives.”

  Stevens studied Will’s face, glanced down at Will’s hands, which were cradling his beer mug.

  Taking the measure of the man, Joe thought.

  “I’ll tell them. Now, if we are to be stuck here, to whom do I speak in order to find a place to rehearse my players on the chance we are ever to get back to what we do?”

  Will looked at Joe.

  “Possibly the Casino theater? It may be available during the day, but it will be costly, I imagine.”

  “Like everything in Newport. Still, I thank you.” Stevens reached into his inner jacket pocket and extracted a card. “My name and local address.” He handed the card to Joe. “Good evening.” He strode to the door and left the tavern.

  “Did we just agree to find them a space to rehearse without guaranteeing they help us in return?” Will asked.

  “I believe so,” Joe said. “Perhaps this will soften their attitude toward cooperating.”

  “We can but hope.” Will snorted. “God, listen to me. Two minutes around that spouter and he has me talking like someone out of a play.”

  “Another beer for you gentlemen?” Peg appeared like a stage effect in the space Stevens had just quitted.

  “No thanks, Peg. I have to get back to the station. You, Joe?”

  Joe frowned. “Yeah, Peg, I think I will have another.” He pulled out his money clip and handed her enough for the drinks, including Will’s. “Have another round sent over to the actors. Keep the change for yourself.”

  “Well, ain’t you the big spender. Thanks.” She stuffed the bills down her blouse, scooped up both mugs by two fingers, and started to walk away but then turned back. “I remember now, the women weren’t here, and I don’t think the man who just left was, but those three were: the two tall ones and the roly-poly one. They were with the man who got offed. Having a real set-to, they were.”

  Both Will and Joe sat up.

  “Not like they was arguing, though, not like they were going to end up with their fists in each other’s faces, more like they was trying to persuade him of something.”

  “Do you have any idea what it was about, Peg?” Will asked.

  “Nah, I can’t say. You’ll have to ask them.” Peg smiled at him, showing uneven teeth. “I’ll get ya beer.”

  “What are you up to, Joe?”

  “I think I’ll go hobnob a bit. See if I can get any information out of them so we can get this group out of town before all of us are running around in tights yelling ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.’”

  Will laughed. “Shakespeare? I prefer something from Gilbert and Sullivan. But I take your point. This could get expensive all around.”

  “Yes,” Joe agreed.

  “Not to mention, this has ‘potential Deanna escapade’ written all over it.”

  “That, too.”

  As soon as Peg returned with Joe’s beer, Will took his leave, and Joe wandered over to the other side of the room where the actors were just receiving their free beers.

  Joe waited until they were served, then he sidled up to the table.

  “Looking for a seat, sailor?” said the taller of the two women. She’d taken off her bonnet, revealing light brown hair. Classical features, nose, eyes, mouth, all proportioned to be perfect for the stage. And the way she was looking at him told Joe she was smart and pulling his leg.

  “Is that a line from a play?”

  She shrugged coyly.

  One of the men rolled his eyes and looked away.

  Joe pulled up a chair from a nearby table and sat down. “Sergeant Hennessey is as good a man as you’ll find.”

  “If he’s looking for a job,” said one of the men, “he’ll have to audition for the manager. You just missed him.”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Gil,” the actress who had spoken said. “I’m Noreen Adams. Coryphée and headed for stardom. And you would be . . . ?”

  “Joe.”

  Their eyes met, there was a brief standoff, then she laughed, a throaty but not unpleasant sound.

  “Come now, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  “Joseph Ballard.”

  “Well, Mr. Ballard. What’s your interest in our poor band of players?”

  “He thinks one of us murdered Charlie.”

  “Rollie, stuff it.”

  “Gil, both you and Rollie stuff it, and let the man talk.” Noreen laughed. This time it was a lighter, genuinely amused laughter. “I’m sorry, but this is so ridiculous. Joe, meet Gil, he’s the suspicious one; and Rollie, who is usually much better humored than he is this evening; and sitting back in the shadows is Timothy—he keeps his own counsel unless he’s being paid.”

  “Which I’m not,” came a low bass voice from the shadows.

  “And Talia, my fellow thespian. If you want to pick the brains of the marquee players, you’ll have to move up to a better establishment. Perhaps a coat and tie would be in order.”

  Joe acknowledged the hit. He looked like a manual laborer. Which he was, actually.

  “Are you a copper, too?” Gil asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what business is it of yours?”

  Gil was angry. More so than the others? Or perhaps he just showed his feelings more freely. Noreen was cool as a cucumber. But Joe suspected that was a façade, too.

  “Charlie was found at my family home.”

  They all stared at him, and Joe felt a little proud of himself to be able to stifle this group of emoters.

  “Your home?” Talia was the one who broke first. “You’re a toff? I thought—” She flinched.

  Joe guessed Noreen had just kicked her under the table. Their eyes caught for a brief moment but neither acknowledged it.

  “What did you think?” Joe pressed.

  “Just . . . that . . . he . . .”

  “Must have been found on the street,” Rollie finished for her. “Overcome by robbers.”

  Did they really think that? Hadn’t Will told them where Charlie had been found?

  Noreen smiled slowly. Amused. He didn’t trust her.r />
  “You mean you live in one of those ostentatious lean-tos, and you come drinking down here with us mere mortals?”

  “Actually, this is a step up from where I live,” Joe said.

  “Family throw you out?”

  “No, I needed a place to work.”

  “Work? Lord, what kind of work do you do that you’d give up that life?”

  “I invent things.”

  “How very interesting.” Noreen glanced at the others.

  “Go on now,” Rollie said. “Like what? The telephone?”

  “Or maybe one of those moving picture shows,” Talia added. “We saw one in New York. Now, that was exciting. I’d like to be a moving picture actress.”

  “Let the man talk,” Timothy said from the shadows, and leaned forward. Not a thug but another young man, clean-cut, with good features, a trim build, and a fairly expensive suit.

  “Nothing so glamorous,” Joe said, trying to make himself amenable. “Right now, I’m working on a machine to make sugar refining more efficient and another one that makes bags for holding sugar granules.”

  “Why? Sugar doesn’t come in granules.”

  “But it could. And the granules could be bagged and sold in stores.”

  “How big would these bags be?” asked Rollie.

  “Small enough so that you’ll be able to carry it home in a tote with your other groceries.”

  “Now, that’s an invention. Have another and tell us more,” Timothy said.

  Joe had a feeling that he’d just been played by a cast of very able thespians. They’d gone from combative to friendly in a few sentences. Got him talking about sugar instead of asking them questions.

  But did that mean they actually had something to hide? Or that they were just jerking him around for the sport of it?

  “Thanks, but I’m already over my limit. I was just hoping that one of you might have remembered something that could help.”

  “So you can squeal to your copper friend?” Gil asked.

  “You can trust him to do the right thing.”

  “Sure, and what will he want in return?”

  “Just the truth.” Joe stood. “It’s been a pleasure. Good night.”

  “Sure you don’t fancy another round with us, Mr. Edison?”

  “Thanks, but I’d best be getting home.”

  “Fancy that, so should I,” Noreen said. “I wouldn’t mind having an escort. I don’t know how safe the streets of Newport are.”

  Joe expected the others to protest, but they seemed to have forgotten Joe was there and were talking among themselves.

  “My pleasure,” Joe said, and offered Noreen his arm.

  * * *

  Deanna thought the evening would never end. They’d all been invited to the Rensselaers’ for a dinner party. Deanna didn’t really like dinner parties; they never discussed anything interesting and once you were seated you could only talk to the people on either side of you. Tonight Deanna had been stuck between a hard-of-hearing older gentleman and some bashful young man who stuttered each time he tried to say something.

  She was relieved when Lionel said it was time to leave. They had barely all gotten situated in the carriage when Gran Gwen let out a huge sigh.

  “I declare, that was the most ennui-inducing dinner party I can remember attending.”

  Mr. Ballard tapped on the roof and the carriage jolted forward. “You didn’t enjoy the backstabbing that poor Maude Grantham got?”

  “Ordinarily I would. Anyone who wears their morals on their sleeve the way Maude does deserves the occasional setdown. But it’s not nearly as fun if she isn’t there to receive them.”

  “Well, I think she’s got a lot of nerve passing judgment on everyone, then throwing a theater party for her husband,” Laurette said.

  “Yes, my dear, that was a slip in her usually overly fortified outlook on the world. And she’s paying for it now,” Mr. Ballard said.

  “Oh, Lionel,” said Laurette. “Those people never pay for their sins.”

  “Yes.” He smiled fondly at his wife. “It’s only the poor who pay.”

  “And you, who indulge me and my passion for justice.”

  “A small price to pay, I assure you.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Never.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Well, maybe just a little.”

  Laurette popped his hand playfully with her fan. He laughed and pulled her into a hug.

  Deanna averted her eyes. She’d never seen married couples flirt with each other as the two Ballards did.

  “Ahem,” Gran Gwen said from the opposite seat, where she was sitting next to Deanna.

  Lionel straightened up. “I began your pardon, Gwen . . . Deanna.” He spoke contritely but his eyes brimmed with merriment, and for a second Deanna could see Joe as he would be in twenty years. And her heart made a little stutter.

  She turned to Gran Gwen. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak in a French accent as you did tonight.”

  Gwen laughed. “Oh, I only drag it out when I want to put paid to some people’s pretensions. And it works like a charm. They’ll appropriate our art, our aristocracy, even our cuisine, yet they can never quite trust us. We confuse them. Besides they think we’re all immoral opium smokers.”

  Deanna looked at Gran Gwen, shocked.

  Gwen patted her hand. “Of course that last part is completely untrue.”

  Across from her, Lionel snorted.

  “What about that one lady, the crass one, with the unpleasant face? The one who said those cutting things about Charlie and why he was in the conservatory. She practically accused you of murdering the poor man. You didn’t speak French to her.”

  “Mamie Fish? Oh my dear, that’s just part of her personality. She insults everyone; some consider it an honor to be insulted by her.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t.”

  “If you’re in her company at all, you will one day be insulted by her. She is notorious for her vituperous remarks. Just let it roll off your back. She doesn’t really mean any of it.”

  “Then why does she say those things? And saying Mrs. Grantham looked more like a bedouin than the men on stage. I can’t imagine people would put up with it.”

  “Well,” Laurette said, “I say she can keep her ill humor, but she should do something useful with it.”

  Lionel smiled indulgently. “You mean she should feed starving children instead of buying expensive birthday presents for her dogs.”

  “Horrible woman,” Laurette said.

  “Intelligent woman,” her mother countered. She turned to Deanna. “Mamie Fish can barely read or write. I doubt if she even finished third grade. She has no education, no social manners, she’s not even nice-looking. Fortunately her husband is rich in the same league of the Astors and Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, but even so, Mamie knows she would never be accepted in society if she tried to be one of them. They would have her head on one of her fourteen-karat-gold plates.

  “So she’s as outrageous as she can muster. And so far it’s worked. I have to give her credit—she’ll make herself the leader of society or go out in flames trying.”

  “Maybe,” Lionel said. “But she may have gone too far when she started going about with that supercilious Harry Lehr.”

  “Oh, I suspect he’s planning to ascend on her rising star until he has them all eating out of his hand, the charming little manipulator. I confess I don’t like him. Of course, I wouldn’t give you a nickel for Ward McAllister, either, but I suppose someone must fill his shoes now that he’s dead.”

  “I thought he was funny,” Deanna said.

  “Harry? He is, and very clever. And don’t worry your head about the likes of Mamie and Harry. But steer clear until you’re a little more experienced.”

  “Is everyone in N
ewport other than what they show to the world?”

  “Most people everywhere, I’m afraid.”

  “Not us,” Deanna persisted. “I mean, you and the Ballards and the Randolphs.”

  “Only when necessary, my dear. And never to each other.” The carriage came to a stop. “Home already? I declare, the conversation on the ride home was more interesting than the entire evening.”

  Once they were inside, the Ballards said good night.

  “I think Deanna and I, too, will make an early night of it. We don’t want to be late for church.”

  “Church?” Deanna asked.

  Lionel, already leading his wife away, stopped and turned back to his mother-in-law. “I’m sorry, Gwen, but if you expect Laurette and me to accompany you, just to assuage gossip about a body being found—”

  “I expect you and Laurette to lie abed until all hours of the day. Deanna and I will go to church.”

  “To stop gossip?” Deanna ventured.

  “Good heavens no,” Gwen said. “To stir it up.”

  Chapter

  8

  Joe really hoped the fact of him walking down the street with an actress on his arm late on a Saturday night wouldn’t make it into the Town Topics gossip column. He didn’t care about gossip, but he did care what his family thought. He wasn’t doing anything scandalous. Didn’t really intend to. Though it was tempting.

  How was a man to seek his pleasure while remaining honest and respectful—and out of jail? Stupid question. Get married. But he didn’t want to get married. Not yet.

  Grandmère wouldn’t mind his consorting with actresses, but his mother would be upset that he would take advantage of someone who was at the mercy of every stage-door johnny and gigolo.

  His family was very liberal in their views about most things. They neither condoned nor feared the prurient eyes of the Comstockians and Parkhurstians. But they drew the line at taking advantage of people who couldn’t demand society’s protections. Unmarried women of any profession were not to be taken advantage of, and that included prostitutes and madams. Widows in the States didn’t have the same freedoms as they did in Europe. So they were taboo, also.

  Funny how liberal thinkers and religious zealots almost came to a place of agreement, only for different reasons.