A Golden Cage

by Shelley Freydont

  “Not Rollie,” Noreen said. “So if the note called him that, they don’t know us. And it’s just a piece of malicious mischief.”

  “But Charles Withrop.”

  Noreen took a deep breath. “He’s dead so I don’t suppose it matters now. But yes.”

  “But he was engaged to Belle,” Dee said.

  “Yes,” Noreen said.

  Dee didn’t ask for elucidation. She’d have to get that from Grandmère as soon as she got home.

  “Perhaps we could discuss this further . . . later,” Will suggested.

  “You can discuss it whenever you please. Right now, I have to make certain my belongings are getting moved to wherever we’ll be staying next. And that the mean-spirited Mrs. Calpini hasn’t tossed them to the street.”

  Dee grabbed her wrist. “And—”

  “All of my belongings,” Noreen told her.

  Joe stood. “Why don’t we all repair to Bonheur? I’ll hire a hack and we’ll stop by your boardinghouse on the way. Will can remain on duty and continue his questioning over food.”

  Will cut a severe look to Noreen. “Before you bother to ask, yes, Miss Adams. I do request your presence. I’ll be sure that you get to your new lodgings safely afterward.”

  Noreen opened her mouth.

  “Or you can go to the hotel and you and your group can sit there until we’re satisfied that we have the correct killer or find another.” Will finished with a slight shrug, which said he didn’t much care.

  Noreen didn’t answer. “Good,” Joe said. “Now we can all have a proper dinner. Orrin, you can come, too.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Orrin said from where he’d practically crammed himself into a corner. “But I’ll just go on home if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not me,” Elspeth said. “I go with my mistress.”

  “Naturally,” Joe said in his most pompous voice.

  “Very well,” Will said. “But I’ll meet you there.”

  “And I have my bicycle,” Dee said.

  “I’ll bring it to you tomorrow,” Joe said.

  “I may need it before then.”

  “Very well, I’ll hire a hack for the three ladies and I’ll ride Dee’s bicycle to Bonheur.”

  “Don’t let it get scratched,” Dee instructed him.

  “I won’t.”

  “Very well.” Dee smiled smugly.

  Joe left to hail a cab. When it arrived at the door of the warehouse, Dee, Elspeth, and Noreen climbed in, and Joe gave the driver directions to Mrs. Calpini’s boardinghouse.

  “I’m not going to tell your sergeant anything until you tell me where Amabelle is,” Noreen said as the cab clattered down the cobbled street.

  “Why?” Deanna asked.

  Noreen glanced at Elspeth.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” Elspeth said. “I’m true-blue.”

  “She is,” Deanna added.

  “I don’t think Edwin would accuse Rollie of what the note accuses him of, even to get us out of Newport and back to work.”

  “You said he would do anything to get them to let you all go.”

  “But not that. It casts a pall over the whole company, casts aspersions on everyone’s personal lives. He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Who would?”

  “That’s what I don’t know. And that’s why I think we need to warn Belle. You have to tell me where she is.”

  “What are you going to warn her about?”

  “That they’re looking for her—the police.”

  “She knows that,” Deanna said. “That’s why she’s in hiding.” And there was the subject of the diamonds. Though Deanna had remedied that situation. “I think once the killer is caught, Belle will no longer need to hide.”

  Noreen sighed. “You have no idea.”

  “Did Charlie love women, too?”

  “Possibly, I never discussed either with him. It isn’t something you discuss. One is bad manners and the other is illegal.”

  “Then I don’t think you should be discussing things like that now,” Elspeth interjected. “Begging your pardon.”

  “Quite an inappropriate subject for ladies, Elspeth, is it?”

  “Yes, miss—Madame.” Elspeth beetled her eyes at Noreen. Deanna could tell she didn’t approve of the actress.

  “Did you mean what you said about me not being fit for a ballroom?” Deanna asked.

  “You misheard me. It has nothing to do with whether you are fit or not, though I’m sure you’ve been a smashing success during the season. What I said and meant was you weren’t made for the ballroom. Society doesn’t inspire you, challenge you, nor even interest you, does it?”

  Deanna didn’t answer at first. Her mother would be crushed if she didn’t make a good match and take a respected role among her peers. But Noreen was right. After a few short months Deanna had come to realize that she’d never be completely happy discussing menus with Cook or sitting morning after morning listening to the same gossip. “No, actually, it doesn’t. But my mother—”

  “I know. Look what poor Belle has endured. But to be cast off from one’s family is no little sacrifice. I’m lucky that my mother accepted me and Letty back. Of course we aren’t in the same class as you and Belle. And quite frankly, I’m glad of it.”

  The carriage came to a stop.

  “Ah, we’re here,” Noreen said. “I won’t be but a minute.” She started to alight.

  “Shall Elspeth and I come with you? Elspeth is a whiz at packing. And I can help with Belle’s things.”

  “You two stay with the hack and make certain he doesn’t leave us stranded. After years in the theater I’m also rather a whiz at packing. I’ll only be a moment.” Noreen hurried up the walk to the boardinghouse and rang the bell. The door opened and after a fair amount of conversation, the landlady let her inside and shut the door.

  Chapter

  17

  Deanna kept her eye trained on the front door of the boardinghouse. “Elspeth? Does it seem to you like Noreen’s taking a long time?”

  Elspeth screwed up her face. “Being an actress, she oughta be used to packing her own cases, like she said.”

  “She may be having to pack Belle’s, too.”

  “Maybe, or maybe she’s done a scarper.”

  “I think I’d just better go in and see.”

  “Shall I come with you, miss?”

  “No, you stay here and make sure the cabbie doesn’t leave us.”

  Deanna climbed down from the cab and walked briskly up the walk to the boardinghouse, where she knocked firmly on the door. It took a while before the door opened and the landlady peered out at her. “You again. What do you want?”

  “I was waiting for Noreen.”

  “Well, you won’t find her here.”

  “Why, I just let her off at this very door.”

  “So you did and she just left by the back.” The landlady laughed, shook her head, and started to close the door. Deanna stuck her foot in it just like Cad Metti would have done. Cad Metti was more Elspeth’s style of detective, but desperate times . . .

  The landlady looked so surprised that it worked.

  “Where are the actors staying now that you kicked them out?”

  “Well, I couldn’t have murderers staying in my own house, now, could I?”

  Deanna didn’t give her opinion on innocent until proven guilty, so she merely said, “Where, please?”

  “The Ocean House Hotel. That place used to be grand, but it’s gone downhill. Don’t get the clientele it useta get. Shame, and catering to actors now. What will happen next?”

  “Thank you,” Deanna said, and hurried back to the cab. “Ocean Hotel,” she called to the cabbie, and climbed back inside.

  “Scarpered?” Elspeth asked.


  Deanna nodded. “I didn’t think she would. I thought . . . oh well. At least we know where she’s probably gone.”

  They set off down Bellevue to East Bowery Street, where the expansive Ocean House Hotel sat on the corner on a slight knoll. It was hard not to be impressed with the sheer immensity of the place, with its wide, columned porches, high-pitched roofs, and octagonal pergola.

  “You’re never going in there by yourself, miss. What if someone were to see you?”

  Deanna sighed. “I’m so sick of always being worried about what people will think. You’ll have to go and ask which rooms are theirs. But be careful that no one overhears you. We don’t want them all ‘doing a scarper.’”

  “Yes, miss.” Elspeth climbed down to the street and glared up at the cabbie. “You just make sure no one accosts my mistress while I’m gone.”

  “Well, ain’t you an educated wench,” he said, and settled back to wait.

  She was gone and back in a few short minutes. “We’re in luck. They’re all on the side veranda having a ‘meeting.’ We can get there without having to go inside.” She glared up at the cabbie. “We may be a while. So take a nap.”

  “I got—”

  “My mistress will pay you handsomely if you wait.” She shrugged. “Or nothing if you strand us here.”

  “Hey.”

  Deanna started to intercede but Elspeth was more than capable of handling the driver.

  “Don’t put yourselves out.” The cabbie pushed his hat forward to shield his eyes and settled back to nap until they returned.

  “This way,” Elspeth said, avoiding an area crowded with what appeared to be traveling salesmen. She found a second set of steps. “Up here.”

  The acting troupe seemed to be assembled at the corner of the veranda. There had to be at least twenty-five people all crowded together, rather like cattle corralled by the porch rail. Several actors sat in lounge chairs or shoulder to shoulder on the edges of chaises, others had brought out wooden chairs that had been gathered closely together, while others stood. Though the voices were kept low, Deanna could tell long before they reached them that there was an argument going on. And in the midst of it was Noreen.

  She was the first to see Deanna approach, and the group immediately became quiet. One by one they all turned to look at Deanna and Elspeth.

  It was daunting, all that theatrical energy directed at her, but Deanna refused to be cowed.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to find me,” Noreen said, coming forward to meet her. Stop her? Turn her around and send her on her way?

  “And you were much quicker than I’d hoped for. That Mrs. Calpini just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Well, no matter. You might as well meet the others.”

  “This is Deanna Randolph,” Noreen announced.

  “Some of us have already had the pleasure,” Gil said. “What did you tell them that got Rollie arrested?”

  “Nothing,” Deanna said.

  “That’s just what I was about to tell you when Deanna made her entrance. There was an anonymous note.”

  “To the police?”

  “None of us would do that.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s a fabrication just so they’ll have a suspect, and one with no friends in this godforsaken town.”

  Deanna wanted to tell them it wasn’t how things were done here, but she couldn’t. She’d heard this same conversation from the people who lived in the Fifth Ward who were servants and tradespeople. In this case, Deanna didn’t think the police were protecting any of the rich people, but they might be looking for a scapegoat. Not Will, of course, but there were others . . .

  “It accused Rollie of murdering Charlie?”

  “Evidently,” Noreen told them.

  “What reason could they possibly name that would point to Rollie?”

  “Not jealousy,” Gil said. “He didn’t care for Belle by half.”

  “Not Belle,” Noreen said.

  “Then what?” Timothy’s expression changed as he watched Noreen. “What rot.”

  “It’s vicious.”

  “And it’s untrue.”

  No one had said it out loud but it seemed that everyone on the veranda knew what they were talking about—even Deanna. And everyone seemed to have the same opinion.

  Timothy looked around the troupe. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Right on cue,” Noreen said. She was looking past Deanna’s shoulder, and Deanna turned to see Edwin Stevens striding toward the group.

  “What’s going on?” Edwin asked. “They said at the desk you were all out here. Has there been news? Have they let Rollie go?”

  Timothy, fists raised, pushed past Noreen to confront him.

  “Tim, no.”

  “What the hell?” Edwin said, taking a step backward.

  Noreen slipped in front of Timothy and stood between the two men. “Someone sent the police an anonymous letter accusing Rollie of murdering Charlie out of jealousy.”

  Edwin snorted. “Over Belle? He couldn’t stand the girl.”

  Noreen shook her head. “Something quite different.”

  “What reason?”

  “It doesn’t matter what reason,” Timothy said. “Was it you?”

  Edwin’s head snapped toward Timothy. “Me? Are you crazy? Why would I do something like that?”

  “Because you said you’d do what you had to in order to get us out of here and back to work,” Gil said, stepping next to Timothy.

  “You did. We heard you,” said another of the actors.

  “We did, didn’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  They were getting louder, and a uniformed man stepped onto the veranda and looked sternly at the group.

  Edwin held up both his hands as if he were warding off a mob. “I can’t believe any of you—any of you—could think such a thing of me. I am sorely disheartened.” He pressed one hand to his chest and lowered his head.

  Deanna couldn’t tell if he was acting or was really hurt.

  “Then tell us you didn’t.”

  Edwin snapped back to his forceful self. “Of course I didn’t. How stupid do you think I am? Decimate my cast so I can take a ragtag group of folks back to the city only to not be able to fill all the roles in the play? Only to have to close the show and let all the employed actors go? Am I an idiot?”

  “No, no,” they assured him.

  He’d won them over; he’d won Deanna over. The only two people who still looked skeptical were Timothy and Noreen.

  “Maybe Rollie did kill Charlie and Belle,” Talia said.

  “Maybe he killed Belle,” Gil said. “Lord knows she wasn’t very nice to him. But not Charlie.”

  “He might,” Talia said. “If Charlie tried to stop him, and he had to kill Charlie, too.”

  “Then where’s Belle’s body?”

  “He threw it over the cliff.”

  “Talia, don’t be absurd.”

  Elspeth rolled her eyes. “They’re worse than we are, miss.”

  “Actors,” Deanna said. “It’s just like reading Beadle’s Weekly, only in a play.”

  “Belle isn’t dead,” Timothy said.

  Speculation stopped in a heartbeat, replaced by shocked silence, as slowly one by one the actors all turned to face Timothy.

  Only Deanna and Elspeth exchanged glances of their own.

  Elspeth stood on tiptoe and whispered, “I thought she said no one knew where she was.”

  “Shh.” Elspeth was right. Belle had said she’d spoken to no one. To trust no one except Noreen.

  “How do you know?” Talia asked. Her voice was more strident than it had been the first day Deanna had met her, and she wondered if the stress were overcoming her.

  “I saw her. At least I think it
was her.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Tell the police?” Noreen asked.

  “I wasn’t sure. And besides, we couldn’t very well tell them why we were out at that hour.”

  “What hour?” Edwin Stevens asked.

  Timothy looked at his hands. “It was this morning. Around six; the ferry had just come in from New York. I was . . . I’d been having a drink with some people and . . . the ferry let out, and across the street someone stepped out from a brick alcove. It looked just like Belle, but her head was covered in some babushka and she was wearing an old Mother Hubbard dress. She started toward the crowd, then saw me and rushed away.”

  He took a breath, blew it out. “That’s when I knew it was her. At least I’m pretty sure.”

  “Did you follow her?”

  Timothy shook his head. “I knew Edwin would have my head. Truly, Edwin, the time just slipped away. It was just a few drinks.” He looked beseechingly at Stevens.

  Stevens just looked back at him, and slowly his face paled with anger. “Have I not warned you about this? I would fire you, but at this point I can’t afford to lose anyone else. But . . .” He turned to face the group. “If anyone’s actions cause any more damage to the reputation of this company . . .

  “I’ll tell you all what I’ve told you before, though sometimes I wonder why I bother. If you’re going to make it in the theater, you have to have discipline.

  “You can’t go about carousing all night and be able to turn in a good performance. You can’t drink and drug and go whoring and not have it affect your abilities. Look at the good actors that bad living destroyed.” He lowered his voice.

  “Look what just happened to Oscar Wilde. Now he’s finished.”

  Deanna saw Timothy flinch, and Talia roused herself to smirk at him.

  Noreen shot her a withering look. “And that goes for you women in the chorus, too. And don’t look innocent.” Her gaze held Talia’s, before it broke and encompassed the others. “I know a good number of you were at that party after the performance. You complain that you don’t make enough money, but you’ll never get out of the chorus by taking up with randy men who will use you and spit you out like rancid milk when they’re done with you.”