I saw Emily near the piano, chatting with Louisa Leggett, a mutual acquaintance from our school days. I excused myself from my parents and went over to say hello.
“Genna, you’re missing all the gossip!” Emily said at my approach, taking me by the arm. “Louisa was just telling me that Olivia doesn’t want to marry the Earl at all and that the match is all her parents’ idea.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked Louisa, whose eyes were already glittering from what her empty glass suggested was the influence of the famous Fiske punch.
“Our maid is friendly with the Fiskes’ cook,” Louisa divulged. “She says Charles and Lucille never let Olivia go out without a chaperone for fear she’ll try to post a letter or a telegram. They’ve practically got her under lock and key.”
“A letter to whom?” I asked.
“Her secret beau,” Emily answered in a stage whisper. “Apparently, she met him in Newport last summer. Not someone from our set, mind you.”
“Rumor has it he’s a mechanic who worked on her father’s motorcar,” Louisa added gleefully.
Though I normally didn’t put much faith in gossip, I knew that if Louisa was the source, it was apt to be at least half true. “Does that mean the engagement is off?”
They both looked at me as if there were corncobs sticking out of my head.
“Well, they can’t force her to go through with the marriage if she doesn’t want to,” I said.
“Perhaps not,” Emily replied, “but they can make her life miserable if she won’t.”
“She could still refuse, if she’s in love with somebody else,” I insisted, appalled to think that Olivia’s parents could be so coldhearted.
“What would be the point?” Emily asked with a shrug. “It’s not as though she could marry the other boy. I can’t imagine Olivia Fiske living on bread and beans.”
One of the scarlet-clad footmen drew up beside us, holding a tray of punch. He was strikingly handsome, even by footman standards, possessing clean-cut Germanic features and standing well over six feet tall.
“Thank you, Heins,” said Louisa, exchanging her empty glass for a full one.
“Isn’t that your man?” Emily asked her when he had moved on.
Louisa nodded, sipping the punch. “Lucille’s borrowing him for the evening. Her first footman left town unexpectedly, and there was no time for her to train a replacement.”
“Are you mad?” Emily asked. “You know Lucille’s penchant for stealing good servants.”
“Mother had no choice,” Louisa told her. “Lucille came to the house during visiting hours on Tuesday and said she wouldn’t leave until Mother agreed. Of course, she was laughing when she said it, but we both believed her.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’ve seen the last of him,” Emily said with a sigh.
“Don’t be silly,” Louisa retorted. “Heins would be a fool to jump ship. Lucille keeps her men packed in the basement like sardines. Besides, she assured Mother she was holding the position open for her own man when he returns.”
“That’s awfully civil of her,” Emily said skeptically. “I should think she’d be livid after he left her in the lurch like that.”
“Apparently, it wasn’t his fault,” Louisa answered with a shrug. “It seems his mother suddenly took ill, back in ‘the old country,’ and there’s no other family there to care for her. Anyway, he’s always been one of Lucille’s favorites. He was the one who used to lead us on pony rides in the back garden at Olivia’s birthday parties. You remember—she was always calling ‘Hagan, do this’ and ‘Hagan, do that.’”
I listened with keen interest as I sipped my punch. Although I still found it hard to think of Charles Fiske as a murderer, it struck me as a very strange coincidence that one of his most trusted servants had left town right around the time Dr. Hauptfuhrer was slain. Simon and I had never discussed the possibility that Charles might have hired someone else to kill the doctor; in our hypothetical scenario he’d been acting in haste and, therefore, presumably on his own. But while it might have been difficult for Charles to find a professional murderer-for-hire on two days’ notice, if he’d looked among his loyal staff for a hired gun he might have had better luck.
“How soon before the ball did you say he left?” I asked Louisa.
“It was the day before Lucille came to visit, which means she had less than a week to replace him.”
If Louisa’s mother’s visiting hours were on Tuesday, then the footman must have left on Monday. The very day that Dr. Hauptfuhrer was killed. I took a gulp of punch and nearly choked on the fizzy concoction, spraying drops down my dress front. Emily pounded on my back as I tried to wave her off.
“Ooh, there he is!” Louisa exclaimed, looking over my shoulder. “The Earl of Branard!”
I turned to see a slender man with an upturned mustache joining the Fiskes at the ballroom entrance. Unlike his host, he wore a traditional cutaway tailcoat, with a row of miniature medals on his left lapel and a large gold medallion hanging from his watch fob. He bowed to the ladies, speaking to each in turn, then took up position beside Olivia, clasping his hands behind his back as he archly surveyed the room. Olivia stood with her gaze fixed straight ahead and her lips clamped shut, looking as stiff as the marble door pilasters that framed her. As word of the Earl’s arrival spread, the heads around them began to turn, until the entire congregation seemed to be staring in their direction. Abruptly, the orchestra stopped what it was playing and broke into a bouncing rendition of “I Love a Lassie.”
“He’s got a castle in Ireland, you know,” Louisa said. “The real thing, not just an old pile of rocks with a flag on top.”
“With real drafts too, no doubt,” Emily said, “and no plumbing to speak of.”
“Nothing a hefty dowry can’t fix,” I muttered.
We watched the Fiske entourage cross the room toward the refreshment table, parting the sea of ball gowns. Lucille led with Charles, nodding regally to her right and left, while Olivia followed on the Earl’s arm, hesitating slightly before each step, her mouth fixed in something between a half smile and a grimace.
“You don’t really think they’d force her to marry him if she didn’t want to, do you?” I asked. “A title can’t be that important.”
Louisa turned to me, eyebrows raised. “Of course it’s important,” she said. “It’s the only thing they haven’t got.”
As Emily and Louisa joined the guests drifting toward the refreshment table, I proceeded to the powder room at the end of the stair hall, where I dabbed at the punch stains on my dress with a moistened hand towel and mulled over what I’d learned. If Charles wanted a title in the family badly enough to force his daughter into marriage, it didn’t seem such a stretch to think he might resort to murder as well. Prominent citizen or not, my father’s potential investor or not, I had to admit that Charles Fiske had both the motive and the resources to kill Dr. Hauptfuhrer. And like it or not, it was up to me to look for proof connecting him to the crime.
The logical starting place, I supposed, was with Hagan, the Fiskes’ recently departed first footman. Perhaps I could locate his room, slip inside, and search for incriminating evidence. My stomach clenched at the mere idea. How would I know which room was his? And what would happen if I was discovered? Glancing down at my bodice, I saw there was now a large wet circle where the small, sticky spots had been. I dabbed at this for a few more minutes with a dry corner of the towel before I gave up with a curse and started back to the ballroom, still undecided what my next move should be.
I was padding down the carpeted stair hall, and had nearly reached the top of the stairs, when I heard a woman on the landing below demand, “What are these?”
I stopped, recognizing Lucille’s voice.
“They’re cigars, ma’am,” came the quavering reply.
Peering cautiously over the banister, I saw
Lucille confronting a cringing maid on the landing, holding up a box of cigars.
“Mr. Fiske does not smoke Belinda cigars,” Lucille spat out. “He smokes El Rey del Mundos.”
“I know, ma’am,” the maid said, “but they didn’t have any at the tobacconist.”
“Didn’t have any?” Lucille repeated, her voice silky with threat. “Did you tell them who they were for?”
There was a long pause, filled only with the beating of my own heart, before the maid miserably replied, “No, ma’am. I…I didn’t think it would make any difference.”
Lucille’s free hand shot out and slapped the girl across the face.
I pulled back from the rail, stifling a gasp. I knew I should go before I was discovered, but my fascination with the unfolding household drama temporarily trumped my instinct for self-preservation. I stayed where I was, holding my breath, just out of sight of the pair below.
When Lucille spoke again, her voice was as cold and hard as an iceman’s hook. “I want you to go back there this instant and tell the shopkeeper who they’re for.”
“But, ma’am,” the maid whimpered, “the shop will be closed—”
I heard a second slap, louder than the first. “Then find the proprietor and wake him up,” Lucille demanded. “Tell him who the cigars are for. I don’t care if he has to go to every other tobacconist in town—he will find El Rey del Mundos, and you will not return without them. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” whispered the maid.
I heard the shuffling of feet and then the rhythmic thump of someone climbing the stairs. Horrified that Lucille would see me and realize I’d been eavesdropping, I turned and fled back into the powder room.
I locked the door and let out my breath, deeply disturbed by what I’d seen. I found it shocking that someone as outwardly cultured and beautiful as Lucille could treat a servant so badly. My own mother had never raised a hand in anger toward anyone on our staff. Such behavior was more than a breach of etiquette; it was an abuse of power, a power that, if not self-regulated, would not be regulated at all.
Louisa’s words suddenly struck me with new significance: Hagan, she’d said, was one of Mrs. Fiske’s favorites. Not Mr. Fiske’s, but his wife’s. I sank down on the commode, reexamining everything I knew personally or had ever heard about Lucille. By the time I left the powder room, I was wondering if Simon’s hypothetical scenario may have featured the wrong Fiske in its leading role.
Chapter Nineteen
When I reentered the ballroom a few minutes later, Lucille was seated in one of the large chairs in front of the stage, gazing up in rapt attention at an aerialist in a sequined leotard who tottered across the high-wire over the platform. I watched in amazement as she oohed and aahed along with the crowd, clapping gleefully at each suspenseful dip and recovery. I would never have guessed that she’d just been battering her maid.
The perfection of her attitude after such an unpleasant altercation, and the ease with which she projected it, only added to my suspicions. I started rehashing Simon’s suggested scenario, putting Lucille in the murderer’s role. We knew that Dr. Hauptfuhrer had met with Lucille in his office on the Friday before the murder, presumably to convey his concern that Olivia might have inherited Huntington’s chorea and to insist that the Earl be informed. The doctor had likely contacted Lucille again on Sunday, after Eliza phoned him to say she’d be coming to his office the next day. Lucille would have seen the scimitar on Hauptfuhrer’s desk during her office visit; she might have thought of it again on Sunday night while plotting ways to silence him. For after what I’d heard and seen tonight, I had little doubt she’d have wanted to silence him. She had invested too much in Olivia’s marriage to let the doctor stand in her way. The decision to kill him would have been easier if she’d known she wouldn’t have to bloody her own hands to do it. She could simply recruit her favorite manservant, paying him enough to stay away until the dust cleared or, perhaps, to live out a comfortable retirement in the old country.
The high-wire act ended, followed by a Mozart aria by the opera diva Johanna Gadski. Although Miss Gadski rendered Donna Elvira’s pain with moving intensity, it was Lucille’s more subtle performance that continued to absorb me as the entertainment progressed. Indeed, I was so engrossed that I jumped when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Bartie Mattheson standing beside me, holding a plump red rose.
“Hello, beautiful,” he greeted me.
I raised a cautioning finger to my lips, nodding toward the singer.
“Mother said she saw you come in,” he whispered loudly. He handed me the rose. “This is for you.”
I eyed it dubiously. “Where did you get it?” I whispered back. “From the refreshment table?”
“Coat room, actually.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t doing anyone any good in there.”
“I’m flattered.”
A jack-o-lantern smile lit up his angular face. “Excellent! Just the effect I was after.”
I smiled too, for what felt the first time in days. After all I’d been through, Bartie’s familiar presence was as comforting as a hot bath after a long day’s ride. When the entertainment concluded, he gave me his arm and guided me toward the refreshment table.
“So,” I asked him briskly, “what do you think of the event of the season so far?”
He made a sweeping gesture with his free arm. “The ladies are lovely, the champagne is Clicquot, and the entertainment is above par. What more could anyone ask?”
“Spoken like a gentleman,” I said, which of course he was. Indeed, Bartie’s only defect, as far as society matrons were concerned, was his uncompromising dread of the altar. He fell in love as often as most men changed handkerchiefs, and fell out of it just as quickly. He got away with this disappointing behavior because, while he lasted, he was a generous and devoted suitor, and when the infatuation was over, he always made it look as though he was the one who’d been turned out.
“Speaking of lovely ladies,” I asked him, “who’s the lucky one tonight?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
I had known him too long to be thwarted by his evasive tactics. “The apple of your eye, the target of your affections, the Eve to your Adam, the desire of your loins…”
“All right!” he cried, throwing up his hands. “I get your point.”
“You’re not still courting Marjorie Fuller, are you?”
“History, I’m afraid. She couldn’t tolerate my taste in neckties.”
I thought it more likely he had discovered her penchant for gratuitous backstabbing but made no comment. We were passing by the front of the stage, where a bevy of young women had gravitated toward the Earl like iron filings to a magnet. “What about Cora Richardson?” I suggested, nodding toward the most striking of the group. “I’ve always thought you two would make a lovely couple. Why don’t you go take her off the Earl’s hands?”
“I’d rather stay here with you.”
“That’s my gallant Bartie.”
“I quite mean it,” he said, sounding suddenly awkward. “I’d far rather hear the latest on germ research than what they’re wearing in Paris.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “You haven’t been listening to them, have you?”
“Listening to whom?”
“Our parents. They seem to have hit on the idea of joining us in connubial bliss.”
“Now that you mention it, I had gotten wind of it, yes.”
“Well, you needn’t worry,” I said, patting his arm. “I have no intention of marrying you, so you’re off the hook.”
“I don’t know. I thought it was rather a nice idea,” he said, looking put out. “If I have to settle down, I’d just as soon it be with someone I can stand.”
“You’d be miserable with me, and you know it! You didn’t call me Bossy Boots all those years for nothing.”
&nbs
p; “You’ve changed.”
“I haven’t. And neither have you, I’m glad to say.”
He scratched his head. “You don’t think we ought to at least give it a try, for the parents’ sake?” He glanced toward his mother and father, who were standing a few yards away.
“Dearest Bartie, I won’t let you throw your life away on me,” I said lightly. “But I will let you get me something to drink.” I tucked my hand over his elbow, and we started again toward the refreshment table.
One would never have guessed, seeing the heaping plates of finger foods laid out there, that we would soon be eating a six-course dinner, followed by breakfast after the dancing. Although I had no appetite, I did accept another glass of punch, for it gave me a reason to linger by the table and observe Olivia, the Earl, and their circle of admirers, now standing just a few yards away.
“Have you spoken with the Earl yet?” I asked Bartie, glancing toward the guest of honor.
“More times than I care to recount,” he replied, waving a crabmeat canapé dolefully in the air. “He’s everywhere I go these days.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“I suppose I’m just jealous. It’s hard work competing with an Earl where the ladies are concerned.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve taken a fancy to Olivia!” I teased. “And here I thought you’d set your cap for me.”
“Olivia? Good God, no.”
His vehemence surprised me. “Why not?” I asked, peering at him.
“Oh, well,” he said quickly, “I just meant that—I don’t think I’d be her cup of tea.”
A Deadly Affection Page 26