A Gilded Grave
Page 19
“Can you see who it is?”
“A maid.”
“It’s happened again. There’s a madman attacking maids!”
“I’ll keep mine close at home until they catch him.”
“How can this happen?”
“Not in Newport.”
Claire, thought Deanna. Her name is Claire. And she’s dead because of me.
But why? As much as Deanna didn’t want to think of a mad killer loose among them, even less did she want to think she might be responsible for Claire’s murder.
A line of men stood on the walk above them. They’d probably come from the clubhouse, and they’d brought lanterns, which made it even easier to see those who crowded around the body.
One of them called down. “We’ve telephoned for the police.”
Deanna saw Lord David standing with Mr. Woodruff among the men looking down on the scene. She hadn’t even known Mr. Woodruff planned to come to the bonfire. Nor did he seem overly concerned with the fact that one of his own maids lay dead in the sand—assuming he even recognized her. He appeared to be trying to catch his son’s eye.
Joe started toward Deanna.
“He’s getting away!” Cokey yelled.
“Oh, stuff it, Cokey,” Herbert said. “He’s one of us.”
“I saw him with the first one, too. I oughta know.”
Joe stopped in front of him. “You don’t know anything. And I’ll thank you to stop making a spectacle of yourself and me.” Then he continued around the group until he came to Deanna.
“I didn’t do it,” he said under his breath but not looking at her.
“I know.” Deanna might question his culpability in seduction, and she could imagine him capable of killing if there were good reason, but she knew he would never attack defenseless young women.
They stood silent for what seemed like hours. Deanna didn’t hear the clang of the police van, merely heard the pounding of the horses’ hooves before it appeared. Of course they wouldn’t use the bell. This was the cottagers’ side of Newport. Discretion was everything.
A second wagon joined the first, possibly the Beach Patrol. Constables jumped out and came to stand in a line along the ground above the rocks. Deanna picked out Will Hennessey immediately. Tall, substantial, with an air of authority that stood out even in the dark.
Deanna had never been so glad to see him in her life.
Will stopped above them, surveying the scene. Deanna looked, too, trying to see what he was seeing. A small crowd huddled on the rock, lit by torchlight, carving the witnesses’ faces into deep relief. Claire, lying dead on the sand before them. Murder on a Rocky Beach.
Will picked his way over the rocks to the knot of people standing around Claire’s body. He paused when he came to Joe and Deanna.
“Did any of you touch the girl?”
No one had—except for Joe.
Deanna saw them exchange a quick look before Will knelt to examine the body. “Mr. Howe, bring your torch closer, if you will.”
Vlady moved closer, handed him the torch.
“Thank you. Now, if you will all carefully step away from the victim. People on this side, you may return to the beach. Those of you on the left, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay where you are unless you can find a safe but circuitous way to the road. Then you’ll be escorted back to the club.” Will motioned to his men. Two of them moved toward the retreating group.
Gradually, people moved out of the light and back to the beach, until only Deanna, Joe, Cassie, Vlady, and Charles and Madeline were left—and Cokey Featheringham, standing with his feet spread, his arms crossed, and glaring past the body at Joe.
It took only a few minutes for Will to examine the body. Deanna paid careful attention to what he was doing, trying to discern what he was looking for. Another envelope like the one Daisy had held?
But when he stood a few minutes later, he had nothing in his hand.
The first person he looked at was Joe.
It was everything Deanna could do not to blurt out, He didn’t do it, but she had no evidence that he hadn’t. And in the meantime, poor Claire and Daisy were dead.
Please say it isn’t my fault, Deanna prayed.
One of Will’s officers came around and took all their names while a photographer who had come on the second wagon took pictures of the body. Deanna supposed they had done this for Daisy, too, but she’d been sent away before the actual investigation began.
Now she was mesmerized by what was happening. She thought about her sketch of Daisy lying on the rocks and how much more helpful it was for the police to have photography at their fingertips.
Deanna sighed, and she felt Joe put an encouraging hand on her back before he stepped away.
“It’s him. He did it.” Cokey pointed across Will’s head to Joe.
Will’s men stepped toward Joe, but Will waved them back. “That won’t be necessary, will it, Joe?”
Deanna’s head snapped around in time to see Joe frown at his friend and slowly shake his head.
“Tell him you didn’t do it,” Deanna hissed at him.
“All in good time.”
Deanna grew cold as she watched the policemen climb over the nearby rocks, backs bent as they searched the crevices, their electric torches flickering in the darkness. The arrival of another van brought a doctor and two men who carried a stretcher. Too late for Claire.
The doctor examined the body more thoroughly, then said a few words to Will that Deanna couldn’t hear. Once the doctor’s examination was finished, the two men lifted Claire’s body onto the stretcher and carried her away.
Will spent another few minutes inspecting the ground where her body had been. Finding nothing, or so it seemed to Deanna. He took a notebook out of his breast pocket, and while a constable held a lantern for him to see by, Will began to ask questions.
“Who discovered the body?”
At first no one answered.
“We heard the scream,” Vlad volunteered.
“When?”
“Swan, Lord David’s manservant, was just finishing his magic act.”
Will looked over the crowd. “And where is Swan now?”
No one answered, so Vlad shrugged, and said, “Probably with the other servants, in one of the club staff rooms or back at Seacrest.”
Will nodded.
“We found Joe Ballard kneeling over the body,” Cokey said. “Didn’t we?” Deanna noticed that he was no longer swaying or slurring his words. Shock. Finding a body must have shocked him sober. Now, if he would only shut up.
There were a few murmurs, but no one wanted to point the finger at a member of one of Newport’s most respected families.
“I heard the scream, too,” Joe said, glancing at Madeline. “I was just leaving and came to see if I could help. I was too late; when I finally found the place, the girl was dead.”
“And was there anyone else about?”
“Not that I noticed.”
Will jotted something down in his notebook. He must be making other notes, because it was taking him longer than it should have to write four words.
“But—”
Will stopped Joe with a look.
Deanna looked closely at both men. It seemed to her they were sending each other messages through that look. She mentally shook herself; she’d been reading too many stories about mind reading and summoning the dead.
Joe had said telepathy was all nonsense. And Deanna thought he must be right or the police would have no trouble apprehending villains; they’d just have to read their minds. And as far as summoning the dead . . . She shivered. Surely that wasn’t possible.
“And who was the first to arrive after Joe?”
Everyone looked at someone else.
“I guess I was,” Vlady said. His voice sounded a little shaky
. “Me and Herbert.” He looked around to get corroboration from Herbert, but Herbert was missing. “We—I saw something—someone lying in the sand and called to the others. When we—I—got closer, I saw—” He stopped to swallow. “I saw Joe kneeling over the body.”
“I told you so,” Cokey said triumphantly.
“And the rest of you?”
“Deanna and I got here next.” Cassie smiled.
Will stifled a smile and turned toward Charles and Madeline, who were now standing even further apart.
“We . . .”
“I asked Mr. Woodruff to escort me back to the veranda.” Madeline’s voice was perfectly modulated, but Deanna thought she was prevaricating. “We heard a scream and, being close to where the sound came from, we naturally came to help if someone was in distress.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, we were too late.” Madeline flicked a glance at Joe, so quickly that Deanna might have missed it if she hadn’t been so intent on the fiction Madeline was telling.
The walk to the veranda from the beach came nowhere close to the rocks beyond Rejects Beach. Charles had definitely been with Madeline, but if they’d been innocently strolling back to the veranda, Deanna would eat her new straw boater. Surely Will could figure that out.
It was pretty obvious what they’d been out here doing, what most people did on the rocks in the dark. Charles looked disheveled and his waistcoat was misbuttoned.
Madeline, however, looked like she’d just walked away from her maid. She’d finally moved out of the circle of Charles’s arm, and the two stood a respectable distance from each other.
But Deanna wasn’t fooled, and she suspected it was too late for Adelaide to salvage her future with Charles.
Though that may be for the best after all, Deanna thought. She couldn’t see Adelaide being happy with a man who’d started a flirtation before she’d even left for Boston. None of them had missed the attention Charles had paid to Madeline the night of the ball. And it had just gotten worse since then. It was better to find out now, before her sister was tied to him for life.
At that moment, Deanna swore that she wouldn’t let her sister’s happiness be sacrificed on the altar of business mergers. Surely Adelaide deserved more than that.
Deanna waited for Charles to say something, but when he spoke, he merely corroborated what Madeline had told Will. Protecting her honor? Deanna didn’t think either of them was behaving very honorably. She wasn’t mistaken about what the two of them had been doing. She just wasn’t sure how far they had gone nor how much she should tell Will.
She looked up to find Madeline watching her. Deanna looked away. Between what she’d witnessed last night and tonight, she didn’t like her new friend very much at the moment.
After another few minutes, Will released all of them with the request to contact him if they remembered anything else.
Vlady and Cassie started back with Vlady supporting her and helping her down the rocks she’d climbed up so nimbly and without thought just a short while before. Cassie was taking full opportunity to get closer to him, and once when he lifted her down from a boulder she’d been jumping from for years, she stayed in his arms. She was pressed so close to him that Deanna blushed for her. And then felt a little envious.
No one came to help Deanna over the rocks. She didn’t need help, but it would have been nice if someone had thought about her. She squelched the thought. It was heartless to think of love when yet another poor girl had just been murdered.
Madeline and Charles followed them. Cokey stumbled along, due more to his lack of physical talent than to the amount of champagne he’d drunk that night. She glanced back over her shoulder. Joe was standing with Will right where she’d left them.
Her foot did falter then. Were they discussing the murder, or was Will going to arrest Joe on Cokey Featheringham’s accusations?
Not if she could stop him. She turned back and clambered over the rocks and down into the crevice of sand.
“Deanna, you were supposed to go back with the others,” Will said.
“You’re not going to arrest Joe, are you?”
“No.” He exchanged a look with Joe.
“No secrets. That’s not fair.”
“Dee—” Joe started, but Will interrupted him.
“Dee, this is not a game. You can’t tag along. Two women have been murdered. This is a police investigation, not something you can be a part of.”
She scowled at him, then at Joe, but neither of them succumbed to her expression this time. She sighed. “Fine. Then I won’t bother to tell you what I know.” Not that they would believe her now. They’d probably laugh at her for thinking Daisy had tried to leave Orrin a message by tearing off the cover of her book.
She started to pick up her skirts, realized they were still tucked into her waistband, and felt hot with humiliation. She looked ridiculous. How could she expect anyone to ever take her seriously?
She stomped off across the rocks, heedless of how she was going and managed to skid to the bottom without major mishap. That would have been the ultimate humiliation.
“Do you think she really knows something?” Joe asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past her. And that could be very dangerous, very dangerous indeed.”
“You mean whoever is killing these women may graduate from household maids to the female occupants?”
“Exactly what I mean,” Will said.
“Christ. Well, at least we know for certain that Orrin wasn’t the murderer. He’s locked safely away in jail.”
Will winced. “Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. He was released just this afternoon.”
Chapter
16
“What? You released him? Why didn’t someone tell me?” Joe passed his hand over his face. “Where the hell is he?”
Will smiled ruefully. “It was your grandmother’s doing. At least, I assume it was. He was gone when I came in from my rounds this afternoon. Crum was not amused. He really doesn’t like it when the rich call in favors.”
“Nor do you,” Joe reminded him.
“Nor do I, but in this case . . . well, until half an hour ago I was glad. I don’t think that boy killed the first maid.” He pulled his cap down. “I just hope he has an airtight alibi for tonight. Or heads will roll. Starting with mine.”
“Do you think the fact that both maids worked for the Woodruffs and were killed within a week of each other makes this the work of one man?”
“Don’t you?”
“It seems that way, but I bow to your expertise.”
“I think it does. I plan to question every one of their servants strenuously. And then I’ll question the household.”
Joe choked back an involuntary laugh. “I don’t envy you.”
“I’m not looking forward to it. I might learn something from the servants, but I don’t expect any cooperation from the family. Charles and I never liked each other by half.”
Will started to climb back up the rocks to the road. Joe put a hand on his arm, stopping his progress. “You don’t think Charles might have anything to do with these murders? My God, he was with the vixen sister from Barbados. They didn’t admit it, but Charles Woodruff and Madeline Manchester were here first. I think it was she who screamed, not the maid.”
“You saw them?”
Joe thought back. “Not at first. I was on my way home. I had just come out the front entrance and was walking toward the road when I heard a scream. It was coming from this direction, so I ran to see if I could help.”
“And you saw them down on the rocks.”
“I saw movement. I called out, and when I didn’t get a response, I climbed down. That’s when I saw the maid lying on the sand. I ran to her and felt for a pulse, but it was too late. There was nothing, and her skin was cool.” Joe stopped, searched Will’s face. “She wasn’t killed just now.”
Joe stared at him. “How can you know that?”
“It’s my job.”
“I wondered what she would be doing out here in her uniform. It doesn’t make sense. Is there a chance that this would clear Orrin? If he was still in jail when she was actually killed?”
“Possibly, but convincing the authorities of that a second time around might not be so easy.”
The bonfire had lost its allure, and Swan’s magic act had been forgotten. Most of the guests had retreated to the veranda, and those who hadn’t hurriedly left the party were standing in clusters, except for several women who lay on chaises with their vinaigrettes.
Deanna found Cassie and Vlady.
“What took you so long?” Cassie asked, grabbing Deanna’s hand and pulling her away from the others. One quick look around, and Vlady joined them.
“What was she doing out there? She’s one of our maids.” Cassie’s voice trembled. “Why is he picking on us? Two girls from our household. Who will be next?”
“Stop it, Cassie,” Deanna said urgently. “Don’t you dare get hysterical. That’s all we need.”
Vlady had his arm around Cassie’s waist again. This time it seemed to be more protective than seductive. “Dee’s right, Cassie. You don’t want all these people speculating about something that probably has nothing to do with us. Isn’t that so, Dee?”
Deanna was pretty sure Vlady was seeking reassurance for Cassie’s sake, but she didn’t have much to give. The murders might have been committed because of some servant feud or some madman who preyed on young working women—she’d heard of that happening. And she and Elspeth had read many tales, though none quite this disturbing.
But Deanna seriously doubted that either of those possibilities was the correct one. She shuddered to think that Claire was killed because of Daisy, and Daisy was killed because of—what? Something the maid had seen? It sounded just like the title of one the stories they read. What the Maid Saw.