A Deadly Affection

by Cuyler Overholt

  “That’s not what you meant at all.”

  He squirmed under my gaze, ratcheting up my curiosity several notches.

  “Out with it, Bartie.”

  “You’re right. You are still a bully.”

  I crossed my arms and waited.

  He sighed. “It’s just that there’s been…talk. Totally unfounded, I’m sure.”

  “About what?”

  His big blue eyes beseeched me; Bartie would rather sleep on nails than disparage a lady behind her back.

  “You know I won’t repeat it,” I said patiently. “Now tell me. What did you hear?”

  “Well, if you must know…” Lowering his voice, he continued, “It’s been suggested that all this marrying-the-Earl business has affected Olivia’s nerves.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “As I recall, the talk started after the Harrimans’ Thanksgiving ball. After that incident with Cato Armstrong.”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “Oh, I forgot. You weren’t there. Olivia was dancing with Cato when suddenly, for no apparent reason, she fell. Of course, at first we all assumed it was on account of Cato’s two left feet, but later, he told Harvey Lipton that she’d been wobbly as a carriage with a broken wheel the whole time they were on the floor.”

  “Was she hurt?”

  “Apparently not. There was a doctor on the premises—as a matter of fact, it was that doctor who was murdered a few days ago. He was Mandy Maidlaw’s cousin, you know. Anyway, he looked her over and pronounced no harm done. But then a week later, at one of the cotillions, she shattered a glass of punch. I saw it myself; the glass simply dropped from her hand onto the marble floor.”

  “Perhaps she was just overtired,” I said, trying to ignore the alarm sounding in my head.

  “I expect you’re right,” he agreed, far too quickly.

  “All right, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  He sighed. “Just the grumbling of a discharged lady’s maid. And you know you can’t put any stock in that.”

  “Olivia’s maid? What is she saying?”

  Grimacing, he bent closer to confide, “She claims that Olivia throws tantrums. More specifically, that she tossed a bust of Ophelia off the second-floor balcony when the maid took too long bringing her ice cream. And that she refuses to leave the house without changing her gloves at least half a dozen times.”

  I stared at him. “She threw it off the balcony?”

  He nodded. “It was a Woolner too, if I remember correctly. Damn shame if it’s true.”

  “Over a bowl of ice cream?”

  “Yes, well, as I say, it’s only talk.” He glanced at Olivia. “All the same, I have no great urge to be in the Earl’s shoes.”

  Falling, dropping things, fits of temper: they could all be signs of Huntington’s chorea. Even compulsive behaviors like the alleged glove-changing fit the profile. And Dr. Hauptfuhrer had been there when Olivia fell. Perhaps he’d observed her at other functions as well. I knew he had treated her grandfather after he’d fallen and broken his arm; perhaps some similarity in their behaviors had made him suspect an inherited disease, causing him to take a closer look at Eliza and to eventually voice his concerns to Mrs. Fiske.

  I watched Lucille rejoin the Earl’s entourage, twining her arm around Olivia’s and drawing her close. To all appearances, it was an affectionate maternal embrace. But what if it was really something else? What if Lucille was trying to hide the fact that her daughter was ill—trying to hold her together, as it were, while also partially shielding her from view?

  It struck me as entirely plausible, considering Lucille’s determination to make her daughter a countess—except for one important fact. While Olivia may have been acting clumsily and having tantrums, I hadn’t seen her exhibit any of the classic, choreic, twisting-type movements most closely associated with the disease. I stared now at her free arm, extended tautly at her side, searching for the slightest tremor or involuntary movement, but it was as stiff and still as a wooden Indian’s. If it was the disease that was causing Olivia’s strange behaviors, surely she should have been experiencing at least some degree of chorea. I forced my shoulders to relax and sipped my punch. There had to be some other explanation.

  Charles came over to claim the Earl and lead him toward another group of guests, leaving Lucille, Olivia, and three young women I knew only by sight to chat among themselves. I sidled closer to listen in, drawing Bartie with me, nodding occasionally as he related a story about a sledding party that had gone awry, while from the corner of my eye I watched Lucille deftly fill the gap created by the Earl’s departure. She’d always been an animated speaker, given to dispensing colorful opinions and witty nuggets of advice, but tonight, as she flitted from one topic to another, punctuating her comments with flutters and jabs of her enameled fan, I detected a shrill note to her chatter that hinted at an underlying unease.

  “I’m sick to death of cotillions and waltzes,” she was saying, waving her fan dismissively in the air. “I’ve told the orchestra I want nothing but popular music this evening. It will be good for Branard to try something American for a change.” Her lips tightened for an instant as her eyes flicked toward the Earl. The next second, they were smiling again as she launched into a story about seeing “Tum-Tum” dance the cakewalk at Biarritz, tossing off King Edward’s nickname like so many pennies to the poor. She was, I thought, a born performer, with a performer’s instinctive ability to use voice and gesture for calculated effect. And yet, as I watched, I gradually became aware that her attention was never far from her husband. Time and again, I saw her eyes seek him out as he moved among the guests, lingering for a moment on the side of his face or his broad back, watching him with an expression that took me completely by surprise. For what I saw in her face was hunger—a hunger so raw and naked, it made me feel I should avert my eyes.

  Instead, I stared in fascination, wondering for the first time about the nature of the Fiskes’ private relationship and whether it might have somehow played into their murderous scheme. Suddenly, Lucille glanced in my direction and our eyes met. She cocked her head, raising her eyebrows with a smile. Mumbling excuses to Bartie, I stepped over to join her.

  “I was just admiring your tiara,” I told her. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Thank you. I designed it myself,” she said, raising her hand to the diamond-encrusted headpiece. “Although lately I’ve been thinking of trying something new. Something a little simpler, perhaps, in plain gold and silver, without all these heavy stones.”

  “Something to complement Olivia’s coronet when she marries the Earl!” the young woman beside me eagerly offered.

  Olivia flushed and looked down at the floor as an awkward silence dropped over the group.

  “I mean, if he asks her to marry him,” the young woman amended, her own cheeks turning red. “That is, if they should wish to marry…”

  “I was thinking of something a bit more modern,” Lucille said tartly, making me think that the Earl’s delay in proposing to Olivia was indeed becoming something of a sore point.

  “I haven’t had a chance to speak with the Earl,” I chimed in. “Is he enjoying his stay in New York?”

  “I believe he’s quite taken with it,” Lucille replied.

  “I hope he wasn’t upset by that dreadful murder. I’d hate to think he felt he had to worry about his safety while he was here.”

  “My dear, murder is hardly unique to New York,” Lucille said with a flutter of her fan. “I’m sure the Earl feels as safe here as he would in Belgrave Square.”

  “Besides,” said the woman standing beside Olivia, “I understand they’ve already caught the murderer, so there’s no need to fear it could happen again.”

  “Of c
ourse, you’re right,” I said, still watching Lucille. She hadn’t appeared particularly disturbed by my mention of the murder, but I had too much respect for her skills at deception to take her reaction at face value. “I suppose it’s just that I myself was so shaken by it. To think that something like that could happen right in our own backyard.”

  “It was an unfortunate event, but an isolated one,” Lucille said firmly, as if to bring the subject to an end.

  “Did you know the doctor?” I asked her.

  “Remotely. He served on the Metropolitan board with Charles.”

  “But he’s not your physician.”

  “Oh no, we’ve used Dr. Hartness forever.”

  Then what, I wondered, was she doing in his office on the Friday before his murder? Emboldened by catching her out in what seemed at least a lie by omission, I continued, “It seems he was something of a jack-of-all-trades. He was known for his work with blood disorders, but he had other interests as well.” I hesitated, gathering my nerve, then added, “Delivering babies, for example.”

  Lucille’s fan paused in midflutter. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, apparently, he’s been doing it for years, for a discreet clientele.” I glanced toward Olivia. “Twenty years, at least.”

  I would have had to be blind not to see that I had struck a nerve. Lucille’s expression was suddenly so frosty that my heart skipped a beat in response.

  “You seem very well informed,” she said. “Were you involved with the doctor professionally?”

  I licked my lips. It was not a pleasant experience, I was finding, to be on the receiving end of Lucille’s scrutiny. I hadn’t really intended to go head-to-head with her, but now that I’d gone this far, I couldn’t turn back. “No, I learned about it from a patient of mine. A woman from the German district. He delivered her baby years ago.”

  “How very…extraordinary,” she said, her eyes glittering like those of a feral animal disturbed in its lair.

  “I thought so.”

  Her butler approached and stood expectantly at her shoulder. She turned her cheek toward him, but her eyes remained on me as he murmured into her ear. “Very well,” she said. “Tell the orchestra it’s time.” She slipped her fan lead over her wrist. “If you’ll excuse us, ladies, we have to find the guest of honor. Dinner is about to be served.” She grasped Olivia’s elbow and steered her across the floor.

  I watched them go, shaken by our exchange and not sure what, if anything, I had achieved. Lucille was now aware that I suspected Olivia’s origins and her own connection to Dr. Hauptfuhrer, while I had gained nothing but her doubtless formidable enmity.

  With a musical flourish from the orchestra, the doors to the adjacent room were flung open. Lucille crossed the threshold on the Earl’s arm, followed by Charles and Olivia. I found my escort and queued up with the other guests, filing into the dining room behind them.

  This room was nearly as large as the ballroom, filled from one end to the other with round, damask-covered tables. Gilt monograms sparkled on the white china plates, aligning precisely with vases of red Gloire de Paris roses at the center of each table. My escort, a Harvard student who, I soon learned, was taking a leave of absence to market some novel greeting cards he’d designed, led me toward a table in the middle of the room. Lucille, the Earl, and Olivia were sitting at the far left end of the room, while Charles commanded a table on the far right. From my spot in middle Siberia, I could only watch my suspects from afar, and then only when the guests at the intervening tables obliged me by leaning in the right direction.

  I resigned myself to learning more than I would ever need to know about the growing pains of the greeting-card industry, smiling and nodding and picking at my food as a parade of footmen set one course after another in front of me. It was a feast worthy of society’s reigning queen: plump oysters served with a dry sauterne; consommé with custard squares and sherry; sole, shrimp, and mussels in a fines herbes sauce with a very cold champagne; a ham mousse; mutton and roast potatoes with an aromatic claret; cold artichokes; frozen punch; and a chaud-froid of quails. Though I did my best, I could eat only a quarter of what I was served, and by the time the cheese arrived I was nearly stuporous from excess. I sat back and glanced across the room, trying to catch another glimpse of Lucille’s party. The occupants of the intervening tables had conveniently arranged themselves so as to give me a reasonably good view, and by stretching my neck I could see the Earl, just lifting his glass to make a toast. I craned my neck a little further, trying to read his lips, wondering if a marriage deal had finally been reached.

  Olivia sat very erect beside the Earl. Although the other guests at her table were already raising their glasses in response, she appeared to be a beat or two behind. I watched her reach slowly, stiffly, for her glass. It was nearly in her grasp when, for no apparent reason, her hand jerked forward and knocked it onto its side.

  Before the Earl could look down, before the ruby liquid had even soaked into the cloth, Lucille reached toward the fan near the top of her own plate, pushing her finger bowl over in the process. The bowl rolled across the table and collided with the overturned glass. Lucille made a great to-do, shaking her head and clapping her hand to her chest in apology, as a footman swooped in to remove the glassware and lay a fresh napkin over the stain.

  It was an amazing performance. A casual observer might easily have concluded that the whole accident was of Lucille’s doing. I might have doubted my own eyes, if it weren’t for the irritation I saw flash across her face when she looked at Olivia once the toast had resumed, and the way Olivia thrust her hands under the table and hung her head in shame. The Earl finished his toast and sat down, eliciting only a lukewarm “here, here”—hardly the celebratory response an announcement would have provoked.

  I turned back to my own table, trying to make sense of what I’d seen. The tension in Olivia’s arm as she reached for her glass had been decidedly abnormal, the abrupt, twisting hand motion that knocked the glass over very similar to what the literature on Huntington’s chorea described. Neither could be attributed to simple fatigue. Considering what my own eyes had just witnessed, along with Bartie’s earlier revelations, I was forced to concede that Olivia might have the disease after all. Which, if it were true, meant that Eliza must have it as well.

  I swigged my port, trying to ease the growing knot in my stomach. The possibility made it more imperative than ever that I uncover the real murderer before Eliza went to trial. And the evidence pointed increasingly to Lucille. She had been prepared when Olivia spilled her wine, suggesting that this was not the first such episode. She clearly knew there was something wrong with Olivia and was doing her best to hide it. I found myself wondering if she might even have concocted Olivia’s “secret beau,” spreading rumors of his existence so that she’d have an excuse to keep Olivia indoors and out of sight while the marriage negotiations were underway.

  I absently fingered my empty glass, only pretending to listen as the fish-breathed old man on my left let loose a long tirade concerning the dire effects of unscrupulous copper speculators and the San Francisco earthquake on the current financial markets. I came to full attention, however, when a man with a walrus mustache three chairs down quipped, “I’m sure Charles will keep the country’s interests in mind when he finalizes his daughter’s marriage settlement.”

  “Do you mean you see a connection between the health of our economy and Olivia Fiske’s marriage?” asked orange-haired Mrs. Selby, selecting a piece of cheese.

  “A very direct connection,” the man replied. “Considering that the Earl is on the board of the Bank of England.”

  “What does the Bank of England have to do with our economy?” queried Mrs. Selby, waving the cheese aloft.

  “Too damn much,” muttered the fish-breathed man on my left.

  “British fire insurance companies had to pay out millions in claims after the San Fra
ncisco quake,” the mustachioed man explained. “When the outflow of capital threatened to destabilize the pound, the Bank of England decided to raise its exchange rate, refusing to rediscount American trade notes.”

  “Blatant discrimination,” grumbled the old man. “Doubled our indebtedness in a matter of months.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem fair,” said Mrs. Selby, biting into her cheese.

  Dropping his voice a notch, the man with the mustache continued, “With the Earl’s personal fortune so depleted, people are hoping that Charles will see the marriage settlement as an opportunity to make him more sympathetic to our plight.”

  I lowered the biscuit I’d been nibbling on. “You mean they’re hoping he’ll bribe the Earl to persuade the board to lower the rates?” I asked in astonishment.

  He winced. “I’d prefer to say they see an opportunity to promote overseas friendship, with an example of American generosity.”

  A piece of biscuit seemed to have lodged halfway down my throat. “What if there is no marriage?” I choked out, thinking that if Lucille Fiske was charged with murder or her daughter revealed to have a disease, the engagement would surely fall through.

  The old man beside me snorted and shook his head. “Then we’re going to have a contracture the likes of which we haven’t seen in years.”

  The footman had just finished refilling my port glass. I grasped the stem and downed the contents in two gulps. It was bad enough being responsible for what happened to Eliza and the Fiskes; I didn’t think I was up to shouldering the national economy as well. I sank back in my chair, caught up in despondent thoughts, as the discussion moved on to Harry Thaw’s impending murder trial.

  “Genevieve, have you ever heard of this ‘Dementia Americana’?”

  I dragged my attention back to the conversation. “I beg your pardon?”

  Emily’s mother, Mrs. Clark, was addressing me from the other side of the table. “The defense they’re planning to use in the Thaw trial; they say it’s a kind of temporary insanity brought on in a man whose wife’s purity has been violated. Did you ever come across it in your studies?”