My indignant retort was forestalled when the door to the servants’ wing opened and Carl and Irene came in to clear away the breakfast dishes. I waited, my heart thumping in anticipation, until they left the room.
“Now then,” I began once the door closed securely behind them. “About the matter of Miss Marcus’s guilt. I have given this serious thought, and once you’ve heard what I have to say I believe you’ll agree that she is innocent.”
Uncle Fredrick neither made a comment nor looked surprised. Obviously Jesse had filled him in on the situation on their way over.
Mrs. Wharton didn’t look surprised either, but decidedly skeptical. “You said that upstairs. I can’t begin to imagine how you can refute so much evidence. Or why. It’s not as if there is any love lost between you and Josephine, is there?”
“No, indeed there is not. In fact I rather abhor her. She ill-used a kindly gentleman, has no sense of common decency, and possesses not a shred of empathy for God’s four-legged creatures. But whether or not she committed murder is an entirely different matter. I won’t see an innocent person hang if I can do anything about it.”
Clapping ensued—slow, loud, and mocking. Vasili’s hands came together several times as his lips curled around derisive laughter. “Very noble, Miss Cross. We are all very impressed by your selflessness. But I think perhaps you have been sipping from my vodka.”
“Shut up, Vasili.” Father stood up for good measure and aimed a threatening glower at the man across the table. My mother reached up to grasp his forearm.
“Arthur, sit. Let’s hear what Emma has to say.” She offered me a smile of encouragement, as if I were a schoolgirl about to recite lines of poetry. “Go ahead, darling.”
I shook away my frustrations and cleared my throat. “I’ll begin with that fragment of cigarette Mrs. Wharton and I found out beyond the kitchen garden. It is next to impossible that my uncle’s gardeners would have been so careless on the very grounds they keep in near perfect condition. Isn’t that so, Uncle?”
“No gardener who values his position on my estate would do such a thing,” he confirmed.
I nodded my thanks to him and continued. “Then my theory is that whoever pushed Sir Randall from the footbridge disposed of the end of the cigarette before reaching him.”
“Yes, and that would be Josephine.” Vasili leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “She smoked like the rest of us. And Randall would not have suspected anything if he saw her approaching the bridge. He simply would have waited for her to join him. That gave her the advantage.”
“Did it?” I admit to studying Vasili down the length of my nose with no shortage of disdain. “Do you have your cigarettes with you?”
He shrugged and reached into the pocket of his velvet morning coat, extracting a thin gold case studded with pearls. With a snap he opened the lid.
“Would you please light one?”
He regarded my request with a look of bafflement, but took one of the slender cigarettes and struck a match. A moment later a thin trail of smoke streamed from both his nose and mouth.
“Do you see how you did that?” I pointed at the smoke drifting in the air. “You inhaled deeply into your lungs, and let out a semitransparent, grayish vapor. I have observed that with each of you who smokes.” I leaned with my palms on the tabletop. “Except with Josephine. When she smokes, she puffs out fluffy white clouds. It took me a good while to understand the significance of that, but it finally occurred to me that she doesn’t inhale—not at all. Which suggests that cigarettes are nothing more than an affectation for her. Something she does for show because she believes, one would deduce, that it makes her look modern and independent.”
“Even if that is so, what of it?” Vasili drew on his cigarette and forcefully blew a haze in my direction. “This is ridiculous.”
I blinked and coughed and fanned at the air.
“No, Emma’s right.” Mother tilted her head as she considered. “I’ve noticed, too, that Josephine never pulls the smoke into her lungs. In fact I questioned her about it once and she joked that smoking gave her something to do with her hands, and she enjoyed how it often shocked the more staid members of society.”
“My guess is she didn’t bother to smoke unless she had an audience.” I directed my next statement to Jesse. “It’s very doubtful Miss Marcus would have bothered to light a cigarette if she had been on her way to murder Sir Randall.”
Jesse, who had been standing all this time, dragged out a chair at the head of the table and sat. His eyes narrowed on me. “All right, so the cigarette didn’t come from Miss Marcus. That still doesn’t rule out the possibility that she killed Sir Randall. She had motive.”
Unwilling to be daunted, I said, “Let’s move on to Claude Baptiste. If you’ll remember, when I removed my shoes and tested the rug in his bedroom, I detected more moisture than logically would have been tracked in by your men. Don’t forget, they entered through the front door—where they left their overcoats—walked to the Stair Hall and up the steps. Their feet would have been mostly dry by the time they reached the bedroom.”
“That points even more directly at Miss Marcus,” he countered. “After the mishap with the broken water pipe, she must have gone directly to Monsieur Baptiste’s room.”
“We know she didn’t.” I addressed my next comment to my mother and Mrs. Wharton. “You both helped Miss Marcus change after that fiasco. You escorted her from the spraying water in her bathroom to her bedroom, where you helped her into dry clothing. Isn’t that right?”
Mother and Mrs. Wharton traded nods, and Mrs. Wharton said, “Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Josephine was completely dry when we left her.”
“She could have wet her feet forcing Claude under the water,” Vasili doggedly pointed out.
“But there were no wet footprints on the bathroom floor,” I replied without hesitation.
I turned back to Jesse. He spoke before I could. “I suppose you have a theory about Niccolo Lionetti’s attack as well.”
“I do. First, we found no gloves in her possession that would have protected her hands from the friction of the cello string.”
“She might have disposed of them directly after the crime,” Jesse said.
“But why would she have brought such gloves to Newport in the first place? It’s early autumn, not cold enough for thicker gloves, and judging simply by Miss Marcus’s temperament and physical bearing, I am going to venture a guess that she did not ride horses. Mother, is that correct?”
“It is,” Mother said, and then compressed her lips as she took a moment to consider. “I cannot remember Josephine ever speaking of horses. I certainly never saw her on horseback.”
“No, nor I,” Mrs. Wharton confirmed. “Not even the times we spent at Randall’s estate. He kept horses, you know, and some of us did ride. But not Josephine.”
“Secondly,” I continued briskly, “Josephine Marcus would never, and I do mean never, have damaged Niccolo’s instrument—no matter who she wished dead or otherwise.”
“Emma, how can you possibly know that?” An edge of anger sharpened Jesse’s question. “You of all people have learned we can never fully know what is in another person’s heart and mind.”
“That is most often true, but in this case I believe I can know of a certainty what is in Josephine Marcus’s heart.” Remaining calm, I walked the length of the table and stood in front of Jesse. “Her life is about music. About the making of beautiful, glorious, harmonious sound. The night Niccolo played for us, she spoke to me about how fortunate I was to hear him play. She explained to me that an instrument made by Domenico Montagnana was not merely an instrument, it was a work of art with a soul, one that mingles with the soul of the musician. A fire burned in her eyes, Jesse, a passion—not for the man, but for the music, for the heaven he created with his cello. And while he played, it was the only time I had ever seen Miss Marcus appear truly tranquil, as if the demons inside her—of which I believe there ar
e plenty—were awed into silence.”
I glanced along the table for approbation, and found it in the expressions of the others. Tears glittered in Mother’s eyes, and a pained look gripped my father’s face. Vasili had crushed the head of his cigarette against his plate, leaving a mess of ash and yolk, but even he compressed his lips and stared back at me with something approaching respect. And Mrs. Wharton . . .
Mrs. Wharton rose and came to me. She embraced me and kissed my cheek. “You are completely right. Josephine could no more have damaged that cello than she could have tossed one of Bizet’s or Mozart’s or Verdi’s original scores into an open fire. Some things are sacred, and say what you will about Josephine, there is no doubt about the things she held sacred.”
Jesse let out a deep sigh. “So that leaves us where we began, with three victims and a house full of suspects.”
“Whom do you suspect? Me?” Vasili lit another cigarette. “Did I kill Claude, my dearest friend? Or perhaps Arthur did it?” He jerked his chin at my father. “Did you kill them for fear they’d expose your painting forgery? Perhaps it was no joke after all, but an attempt to make your fortune.”
“Vasili, you can’t mean that,” Mother exclaimed, but Father reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Don’t encourage him. The more you protest, the more he’ll insist I’m guilty.”
“But you are perhaps connected to these crimes, Father,” I said. He and my mother turned to view me with horrified expressions that hastened my explanation. “Of course I don’t mean you’re guilty. But we never ruled out the possibility that your painting was the catalyst that set events in motion.”
“I thought we had ruled it out,” Mother said in a plaintive voice. “Why murder Claude? Why Niccolo? And why not your father?”
Father’s shoulders slumped. “Because it’s possible whoever bought the forgery is making us all pay for Randall’s and my mistake—no, it was my mistake alone.”
“Randall played a part in it too, darling,” Mother said, but Father shook his head miserably.
“Only because I talked him into it. The idea was mine.”
“You finally admit it,” Vasili mumbled.
Mother spoke at the same time. “Yes, because that beastly art critic, Henri Leclair, said unfair and untrue things about Randall’s work.”
“And now Randall is gone.” Father collapsed forward, elbows on the table and his head in his hands. His color suddenly mimicked the drab clouds reflected through the windows and the colorless ocean in the distance. If I didn’t know better I’d believe he had been drinking with Vasili all night. But no, my father’s malaise resulted from guilt and regret and an inability to change the past.
“Then whoever purchased the forgery on the black market traced us all the way to Newport and hired someone to come after us.” Vasili drew heavily on his cigarette, which crackled as the end lit up in a burst of orange. He smiled—almost. “It could still be one of us, couldn’t it? It could be you, Miss Cross.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” my father snapped.
Vasili seemed to enjoy his game. “It could be me. It could even be our illustrious Mrs. Wharton, daughter of one of America’s first families.”
If Vasili expected shock or wounded denial from the lady, she disappointed him by remaining calm. “How could I possibly benefit from murdering my friends?”
“Your husband, then. He is half mad, isn’t he?”
Her composure unwavering, Mrs. Wharton returned to her place at the table, lifted her water glass, and splashed the contents into the young man’s face. He drew back with a yelp, then fell to spluttering and wiping at his face with his coat sleeve. “Perhaps that will help sober you.”
“You are as mad as he is.”
Mrs. Wharton stood over him like an avenging angel. “Say what you wish about me, but do not talk about my husband, nor any other person not present to defend himself, in such vile terms again. You make me ill, Vasili. Look at you. Drunk all day and night, turning your anger toward the very people who have supported you all these years—” She broke off at his first word of protest, threw her hands in the air, and shook her head vehemently. “Oh, save your self-pity, please. Your friends wished you to join them in Versailles. And yes, they wanted an introduction to a patroness of the arts. What of it? Whatever favor they asked of you, they had returned several times over in countless ways. That is what we do for one another. Furthermore, they didn’t force you onto that train. They didn’t cause the train to derail. You shame yourself with your behavior, and you shame Claude.”
Vasili sprang to his feet and I tensed, ready to hurry around the table and intervene. But he hesitated, and if he’d had any intention of retaliating physically, that intention became lost in the moment. Instead he sank back into his chair, let his chin sink to his chest, and began to sob quietly. Mrs. Wharton silently leaned over him and circled her arms around his shoulders. He tilted his head, crying against her sleeve.
“I, uh . . . if you’ll excuse me.” Uncle Frederick pushed stiffly to his feet and strode from the room into the Stair Hall. A moment later Father helped Mother to her feet and they trailed after him.
Jesse caught my eye. “What now?”
It was a rhetorical question, I knew, for what answer could there be? I fully believed Miss Marcus to be innocent, and that led us back where we had started, with victims and no suspect in sight. “Will you release Miss Marcus?”
I knew the answer before the question had fully left my lips, so I was not surprised when Jesse shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. Not without solid proof of her innocence.”
“But you do believe me, don’t you?”
“I do, Emma. Now I have to find a way to convince my chief and the prosecutor. If we could only find something concrete, like those gloves, and link them to an individual.”
Mrs. Wharton, still leaning over Vasili, raised her head to regard us. “You have the stub of a cigarette, a wet rug, and a broken cello string that must have been torn loose by someone wearing gloves. There must be a pattern there that we aren’t seeing.”
“Yes, Mrs. Wharton, that is the point. We are failing to see the pattern.” Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose.
“It could still be someone from outside the house,” she said. “Perhaps whoever entered Claude’s bedroom hadn’t come from Josephine’s bathroom, but from outside in the rain. Likewise, whoever dropped that cigarette might have simply walked onto the estate from any direction, most likely the Cliff Walk.”
“And Niccolo? Are you suggesting whoever killed Claude took yet another risk of discovery by entering the house again?” Even with a black market art dealer wishing to take his revenge on my father, Mrs. Wharton’s theory didn’t ring true to me.
She straightened, but kept her hands on Vasili’s shoulders. He seemed lost in his own world, no longer paying us any heed. “Miss Cross, Emma if I may, we are left with Vasili, me, you, and your parents.”
“And the servants,” Jesse murmured.
I shook my head. “What motive could any of Uncle Frederick’s servants have to murder people they have never met before? And they have all been in my uncle’s service for years.”
Mrs. Wharton raised a speculative eyebrow. “Perhaps one of them didn’t wish your uncle to sell the house.”
“A rather drastic solution, don’t you think? Besides, if the new owners wish to replace them, my uncle will find positions for them at one of his other estates. As estate manager Mr. Dunn is already involved in the administration of the Long Island and Hyde Park properties in addition to this one, and I believe Mrs. Harris has also worked at the Hyde Park house. At any rate, that might be a motive to dispatch Sir Randall, who planned to purchase Rough Point, but certainly not Monsieur Baptiste or Niccolo. Neither of them showed any interest in buying the property, did they?”
“No,” Mrs. Wharton conceded. “In fact Claude commented that he almost hoped the production at the Metropolitan fell through so he cou
ld return to France sooner rather than later. And neither he nor Niccolo possessed that kind of money.”
A memory worked its way through my speculations. “At one point, I did come upon Carl testing the locks on the bedroom doors. He said Mr. Dunn had sent him. Do you think he might have been lying?”
“Carl is a local boy,” Jesse said, “and might have feared being dismissed. But I can’t imagine him committing murder over a footman’s position. With his height and looks and a good recommendation, he would secure new employment immediately.”
Mrs. Wharton stepped slightly away from Vasili. “What if he knew Mr. Vanderbilt wouldn’t write him a good recommendation?”
“Then he wouldn’t be here now,” I said. “Uncle Frederick, like all my Vanderbilt relatives, would not retain an employee whose work they did not deem acceptable. But if there is any question, we can simply ask him.”
“Then there is still Teddy.” Mrs. Wharton said this in a murmur as she stared down at the table. She traced the damask design in the tablecloth. “Teddy is not himself these days. And he was in a terrible hurry to leave here after Niccolo’s attack.”
Although I didn’t span the distance between us, I nonetheless stretched out my hand to her. “I understand what it cost you to say that.”
Jesse said nothing at first, but seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Then he regarded me. “You said there was grass on Mr. Wharton’s shoes the night Sir Randall was pushed from the bridge.”
I nodded.
“Mrs. Wharton, when Monsieur Baptiste was drowned, you remained with Miss Marcus to help her change into dry clothes, yes?”
She nodded with a resigned air. “That is correct.”
“So your husband was presumably alone for some time following the water pipe incident.”
She nodded again.
“And during Signore Lionetti’s attack he was where—do you know?”
She paused, a frown etching lines between her eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know where Teddy was at the time.” She turned to me. “Emma, if you’ll remember, we came upon Miss Marcus on her way into the billiard room, and then found my husband sitting alone in the drawing room. He and I had that row, and he left us. . . .”
Murder at Rough Point Page 24