Derrick caught up to me, not by hurrying, but with his typically long strides. I fully expected a barrage of admonishments when he reached me. But he merely fell in step beside me.
“I’m sorry I did that,” I said without looking at him.
“So am I, but not for the reason you probably think. I couldn’t give a fig for their precious men’s club. But I do give a fig about you and I know the gossipmongers will blow this out of proportion.”
We had crossed two streets by now and were out of sight of the Reading Room. “Do you think that’s possible? To blow it out of proportion, I mean.” I exhaled a sharp breath. “What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking of finding justice for a deceased woman, and for Mr. Wetmore, who will be destroyed by her death once word of it gets out.”
I stopped short. “You say that as if it’s a foregone conclusion.”
“It is. The dockworkers already know she’s dead—you said so yourself. I’m astonished that the fact that she was found at the bottom of Wetmore’s staircase isn’t yet common knowledge.” He spoke barely above a whisper, but even so I glanced around to see if he might have been overheard. Though there were others walking in both directions along the avenue, no one gave us a second look.
Except for one man, though he could not have heard Derrick across the distance between us. I drew a small gasp at the sight of James Bennett rapidly approaching us.
Chapter 9
“Miss Cross, hold up there.” Somewhat breathless, he stopped before us. “Miss Cross, I truly don’t know what happened to Lilah that night. But I do know she is dead.”
“How—”
Derrick cut off my question. “Let’s hear what Mr. Bennett has to say. But I’m warning you, Bennett, one disrespectful word to Miss Cross and I’ll come after you with a buggy whip.”
Mr. Bennett’s mouth twitched unpleasantly. “Lilah came to the Casino that night after the polo match, but not for the reason you think. True, she quietly plied her trade most nights, but that night she kept to herself and seemed to be keenly observing some of the other guests.”
“Who?” I wondered whether George Wetmore was at the Casino that night.
“No one well-known here in Newport. I don’t believe the family has made their entry into the Four Hundred yet.”
“A family, you say?”
“Yes. By the look of them, parents and two grown children, your age or a bit younger. A son and a daughter.”
“Do you know their names?” Derrick asked.
“I do not. I don’t believe they are members, so they would simply have paid their admission and entered.”
“Did she speak with them?” I asked.
“I don’t believe so.”
I narrowed my eyes as I scrutinized his face. “And you can’t guess why these people held her fascination?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Did Lilah have enemies?” I asked him bluntly.
“Not that I knew of.”
“What about an angry family member of one of her clients? Had you ever heard any talk of that nature?” Derrick’s questions made me wonder, not for the first time, if the killer might have been a woman. I had already considered one of the other girls from the Blue Moon, but what about a wife?
My mind whispered a name—again, not for the first time. Mrs. Wetmore. I didn’t wish to believe it, but I knew I must consider the possibility.
“Not from Lilah, nor from anyone else,” Mr. Bennett replied. “She knew her place and she understood discretion. Otherwise I wouldn’t have looked the other way when she came to the Casino.”
“Mr. Bennett, why didn’t you tell us this last night? Why order us to leave? Especially if you already knew of Lilah’s fate.” My tone clearly scolded, and deepened Mr. Bennett’s frown. “And how did you learn of it?”
“In a very roundabout way. Lilah rarely disappointed her regular gentlemen, and that in itself became news immediately. Then came a rumor whispered along Thames Street and passed along by the usual means, worker to clerk to servant to employer.” He glanced up and down the avenue. “As for why I wanted you gone from the Casino, Miss Cross, your questions are dangerous.”
“What about my other question, Mr. Bennett?” I raised an eyebrow in a challenging manner. “You were on Carrington’s Wharf the night she died. You and Mr. Ellsworth, who I would also question today if not for the fire at his business last night. Were you there to see Lilah?”
“No,” he replied adamantly. “Whoever told you we were there that night had his facts wrong.”
Perhaps, but I decided to give Anthony Dobbs the benefit of the doubt. “Mr. Bennett, has it never occurred to you that the quickest way to appear guilty of something is to deny the obvious? Really, I should think the owner of the New York Herald would be more astute than that.”
“Oh, you think you’re clever, don’t you?” His upper lip curled as he shook his head in obvious disgust. But disgust with whom, I wondered, me or himself? I believed the latter, based on his next words. “All right. We were at the wharf. But our being there had nothing to do with Lilah. It was business, purely, and no one’s concern but our own. We were checking the schedule on a shipment we were expecting.”
I eyed him askance. I noticed Derrick doing the same. He spoke first. “You went yourselves to check on a shipment schedule? Why not send your household accounts manager? Or one of Ellsworth’s employees—his shop manager, for one?”
Mr. Bennett drew himself up. “See here. I told you our reasons for being on the wharf had nothing to do with Lilah. They are therefore none of your business.”
“Mr. Bennett, you wish to expand the Casino, don’t you?” This sudden turn in the conversation clearly took him aback, as I had hoped it would. “But you’ve met with resistance from city officials and powerful residents. Isn’t that correct?”
He set a fist on his hip. “What has that to do with Lilah or anything else?”
“It might have a good deal to do with Lilah.” I needed to be careful; I didn’t wish to drag George Wetmore’s name into the conversation. “I can’t help but wonder what lengths you might go to in order to have your way.”
His expression blackened dangerously, but just as quickly cleared. He whooped with laughter. “As in murder? Really, Miss Cross, you should give up journalism and take up writing Gothic novels. The very idea.” He continued to chuckle. “I’ve dealt with city politics, both here and in New York, all my life. If I decide to go ahead and expand the Casino, I’ll find a way, and there’ll be no dead bodies to step over in the process. Good day to you, Miss Cross.”
“Mr. Bennett, wait—”
“I’ve had quite enough of you, Miss Cross. Andrews, always a pleasure to see you.” He tipped his hat and prepared to leave.
“Don’t you think Lilah deserves justice?” I demanded. I braced for a cynical remark.
That stopped him. “As a matter of fact, I do, Miss Cross. Why else do you think I am speaking with you after such an outlandish display at the Reading Room?”
“Easy, Bennett,” Derrick murmured. “You’re on thin ice.”
As Mr. Bennett shrugged off the implied threat, an odd hunch made me grin. “Actually, I think you’re speaking to me because of my outlandish display. Admit it, Mr. Bennett. While you went to the Reading Room in hopes of avoiding me today, you were rather delighted by my audacity, weren’t you?”
“Maybe.” He sucked in his cheeks in an effort, I judged, to avoid smiling. “I will admit I didn’t expect that level of daring from you. You do know there will be hell to pay for it.”
“I expect so,” I replied with a shrug. “Now, what about Lilah? What can you tell us?”
“Lilah left the Casino alone and alive that night. What happened after that, where she went or whom she encountered, I cannot say. But I hope you find out, Miss Cross. Despite her profession, Lilah was decent.”
With that he set off back toward the Reading Room, or perhaps his home, which lay beyon
d.
* * *
That night I lay awake for hours considering everything I had learned. If the uncomfortable memory of trespassing at the Reading Room also staved off sleep, I tried not to dwell on it. Much more important was the question of whom Lilah had been watching that last night at the Casino. Who was this family? Did they have any connection to the men Lilah overheard plotting against George Wetmore? I would have to return to the Casino and ask Mr. Bennett to point them out to me, if they returned. It seemed likely they would. Not yet being accepted into the Four Hundred meant their invitations would be scarce, and where better to spend a fashionable evening, seeing and being seen, than at the Casino?
But why had Mr. Bennett and Mr. Ellsworth gone to Carrington’s Wharf that night? The excuse of checking on a shipment failed to ring true, unless . . .
Unless that shipment consisted of some form of contraband. But what? Two summers ago Derrick and I had nearly gotten ourselves killed when we stumbled upon black market dealings in molasses, which would have been used for distilling illicit rum and bypassing the import tariffs.
Tariff. As in the Dingley Tariff? Perhaps. I would have to question James Bennett again, as well as Robert Clarkson and Stanford Whittaker, and I would need to be blunt. Were they planning to form some kind of black market ring to evade the Dingley import tariffs, a scheme perhaps George Wetmore had learned of?
When I padded in to breakfast that morning, I found Nanny sitting at the table reading a rival newspaper, the Newport Daily News. Katie sat across from her, but upon my arrival she set down her fork and sprang to her feet.
“Good mornin’, Miss Emma,” she said hurriedly in her gentle brogue. “Coffee? The eggs are nice and hot, and there are sausages with a maple syrup glaze.”
“Sit, Katie. I’ll help myself.”
It had taken me nearly two years to persuade my maid-of-all-work that it was perfectly permissible for her to sit at the table with Nanny and me. Having worked for my Vanderbilt relatives at The Breakers before coming to Gull Manor, she had viewed such familiarity as grounds for immediate dismissal without a reference. She worked for me, yes, but we were a household here at Gull Manor, and I considered Katie as much a part of that household as Nanny or dear little Patch, who had sauntered in behind me and now curled up beneath the table at my feet.
Katie had been a frightened, wounded teenage girl, all alone in this country, when she found her way to Gull Manor one night in the spring of 1895. She was one of my strays, like Patch, like Stella who had decided to change her life, like a child named Robbie who stayed at Gull Manor all too briefly last summer. If only Lilah had made her way to my front door . . .
I pushed the thought from my mind, served myself some sausages and eggs, and went to sit at the table. Only then did I realize Nanny hadn’t said good morning.
“Still asleep, are we?” I teased. She didn’t smile, but refolded her newspaper until the front page became visible. She slid the publication across to me.
“I debated whether to show it to you or burn it,” she said, and then sighed. “You’re going to find out anyway.”
Puzzled, I glanced at the headline—and very nearly fell off my chair.
SHAME ON THE OBSERVER! it read, immediately followed by the sordid tale of how Mr. Millford, my editor-in-chief, sent a female reporter into a den of iniquity and then to that most exclusive of gentlemen’s clubs, the Newport Reading Room, for the sake of sensational journalism. The article didn’t mention my name; it didn’t have to. Everyone knew of Newport’s sole female reporter, and they knew I worked for the Observer. Mr. Millford was termed a villain for being willing to sacrifice the well-being and reputation of an innocent young miss.
I gulped and willed the typeface to magically rearrange itself. My blood ran hot and cold and sent a fever of fire and chills up and down my back and into my face. My stomach seemed to fall out from under me. I pushed my plate away and let my head sink into my hands.
“Oh, Nanny.”
“The Reading Room, Emma? What were you thinking?”
Without raising my head, I peeked at her through parted fingers. Then I glanced at Katie. Her eyes were wide, and if she didn’t know the exact contents of the article, she had gleaned enough of the facts from Nanny’s simple statement. Katie was no stranger to scandal or to the rules of Newport society.
I raised my chin slightly. “I am attempting to discover how Lilah Buford died.”
Nanny shook her head slowly, her plump shoulders rising and falling on a deep breath. “Your ability to continue doing good for this city depends on maintaining your position in society. Your Vanderbilt relatives can only do so much for you. This”—she grasped the newspaper and gave it a shake—“will alienate both the locals and the cottagers.”
“This,” I said with rising dismay, “is likely to end my employment at the Observer.”
Not a minute later, the telephone in the alcove beneath the stairs began to jangle.
“Do you want me to answer that?” Nanny started to rise, a testimony to how much she sympathized with me, as she had never grown accustomed to using what she considered an intrusive device.
I came to my feet. “I’ll go.”
My name practically exploded in my ear when I lifted the receiver from its cradle. “Yes, good morning, Mr. Millford. I can explain . . .”
“Have you taken leave of your senses? Are you attempting to ruin me?”
“No, of course not, Mr. Millford. I—”
“Balls. Picnics. Fashions. That was your job, Emma. But, heaven help me, brothels? The Reading Room?” I could hear by the emphasis that, in Mr. Millford’s mind, the latter of the two constituted the worst of my offenses. And then I realized what he had said just prior to that: was your job.
Desperation rose up inside me. “Mr. Millford, please. I’m trying to find justice for a young woman for whom no one else will fight. Please, sir, if you’d just allow me to—”
“Emma, you don’t understand. You may march through Washington Square in your petticoats if you wish. But you will not do so as an employee of the Newport Observer. As of this moment, you are no longer employed by the paper.”
My heart clogged my throat, but I nonetheless choked out the beginnings of a plea. “Mr. Millford, please be reasonable—”
The line went dead. I stood for some moments, listening to the buzzing coming over the wire and staring at the wall above the call box. Then I placed the ear trumpet on its cradle and made my way, as unseeing as a sleepwalker, back to the morning room.
“I gather that was Mr. Millford calling?” Nanny’s voice came as a whisper through the roaring in my ears.
I glanced down at the plates on the table and then at the platters and bowls on the sideboard. Great Aunt Sadie had left me enough in her will to keep this house running, but little more. We needed to eat. We needed to make repairs when necessary. I needed to continue her legacy of helping women in need. And I refused to abandon St. Nicholas Orphanage in Providence, where I sent donations of either money or supplies whenever possible.
I would need new employment, and soon.
* * *
I spent the rest of the morning brooding over how the Daily News had learned of my visit to the Blue Moon. That word of my trespass into the Reading Room had already spread didn’t surprise me. There had been plenty of witnesses. But, besides Madam Heidi’s girls, I knew of only two other people who saw me in the vicinity of the Blue Moon: Anthony Dobbs and a man he worked with.
Was this Anthony Dobbs’s revenge for my perceived crimes? I couldn’t deny that a poetic justice must have existed in his mind. I had lost my employment just as he had lost his. Then again, it could have been one of Madam Heidi’s girls. I felt confident in ruling out Flossie. Why come to me outside with information if she didn’t want me to use it? But one of the others—yes, someone among them could have resented Lilah enough to murder her, and me enough to destroy my career.
In the end, however, it didn’t matter how that da
mning headline came to be splattered across the front page of the Daily News. What did matter, very much, was where I was going to find another position as a reporter. The answer presented itself as readily as the congealed eggs I had helped Katie carry back into the kitchen. Nowhere. With such scandal attached to my name, no newspaper in town would take a chance on hiring me. The backlash would be sharp and immediate, and no editor-in-chief would risk it.
Somewhere outside of Newport, then. Suddenly, I had an idea.
* * *
About an hour later, I alighted from my carriage in front of James Bennett’s Stone Villa. Before I could put my plan in action, however, another carriage, an elegant brougham trimmed in glossy red, came alongside mine and a voice called to me from inside.
“Miss Cross, a word if you please.” Through the partly open window I could make out only a wide hat, plumed and flowered and with a nearly opaque netting that obscured the wearer’s face. I went closer and was surprised to recognize Lavinia Andrews.
From inside, she opened the door. “Please get in, Miss Cross.”
“It’s lovely to see you this morning, Mrs. Andrews.”
She didn’t smile or offer me her hand, though mine hung outstretched between us. I dropped it to my lap, where I held my drawstring bag, and waited.
She knocked once on the ceiling with a kid-gloved hand, and the carriage rolled into motion. Moments passed as she drew a breath and released it audibly. I noticed she sat perfectly upright, preserving several inches between her spine and the velvet squabs behind her. Then she grasped her netted veil between her forefingers and thumbs and raised it from her face. “Miss Cross,” she began calmly, “I wish to make this very clear, so that there can be no misunderstandings between us. You are never to see my son again. You are never to seek him out for any reason, write to him, or contact him in any way.”
Murder at Chateau sur Mer Page 14