Murder at Rough Point

by Alyssa Maxwell

  Mr. Dunn glared at me, but with a hovering ghost of a smile that sent chills racing along my spine. With no other alternative, I dropped the key into my bodice, knowing full well the horrid man could at any time force his way upon me to retrieve it. I only hoped to borrow time, a few minutes or however many fate would grant me, so that I might find some way to save my dog and myself. I had faced dire circumstances before, and I could at least give thanks that he carried no gun—that I could see. I also possessed a knowledge of self-defense I had used in the past to my advantage, but if I couldn’t manage to overpower the man and gain the advantage . . . well, I had Patch to think about, and I mustn’t act rashly.

  “Clever of you.” He raised his arm again, mocking me by making slow circles in the air with the ice hook. A sinister giggle bubbled in his throat while his gaze raked me with an all-too-naked intent. The door behind me rattled, and I realized it was not Patch attempting to dig his way out, but my own shaking body causing the vibrations. “Someone will find us,” I said defiantly.

  Another scarlet wave encompassed his face. “If you had minded your own business, Miss Cross, we would not now be in this predicament. You leave me with very little choice.”

  “But why? I don’t understand. I defended you and the other servants when even the slightest suspicion fell on you. I could see no reason why any of you would wish to hurt people you didn’t know—”

  “You just summed it up,” he blurted before I could finish. “Servant.” A burst of spittle accompanied the word. “I am no better than a servant to him, the high and mighty Frederick Vanderbilt. I am nothing more than someone to be at the beck and call of his superiors.”

  “You are Uncle Frederick’s estate agent. Surely he doesn’t think of you as a servant, much less treat you like one.”

  “You don’t think so, eh? Ah, but you didn’t hear him issuing orders before this troop of miscreants arrived. ‘See to their comforts, Dunn, make sure they have everything they need but watch them closely. And whatever Sir Randall wants, Sir Randall may have. We want Rough Point to make a favorable impression on the man.’ As if I were some sort of butler.”

  I shook my head, more baffled than ever. “They didn’t require a butler. Mostly they wished to be left alone. You were only here to organize things, and as for Sir Randall—”

  “Sir Randall had no right to this place,” he shouted, leaning so close to my face his hot breath once more assaulted my skin. I turned away, but he caught my chin in a painful grip and slid the hook beneath my jaw. “He had no right, Miss Cross. None. Rough Point is mine by rights.”

  His outburst started Patch barking, and Dunn flinched and blinked like a traumatized soldier who, hearing thunder, imagines it to be enemy fire. Throbbing purple veins scored his temples. I shut my eyes and braced for a swipe of the hook, but when nothing happened within a second or two I reopened them to find Mr. Dunn clenching his teeth.

  “Shut him up,” he commanded.

  With my back still plastered to the door, I turned my head as far as I could to be heard from inside. “Patch, quiet, boy. Stop that barking this instant.” I loathed myself for speaking harshly, for using my stern voice and making my loyal boy feel as if he had done something wrong. For your own good, I wished I could tell him—and vowed to tell him just as soon as we were reunited.

  The barking quieted and Dunn backed slightly away, giving me the courage to not only keep him talking until some opportunity presented itself, but to satisfy my now-burning curiosity.

  I spoke softly, with none of the rancor coursing like sparks through me. “How could Rough Point be yours? I don’t understand.”

  He slowly shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t, would you? Because you don’t believe you have a right to The Breakers or Marble House, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. Those houses belong to my relatives. Their wealth has nothing to do with me. My father hails from a different branch of the family. . . .”

  “Yes, I know. You’re the great-granddaughter of Phoebe Vanderbilt, daughter of the first Cornelius. She married James Cross, and brought relatively little to the marriage because the Commodore didn’t believe in leaving more than a few token scraps to his daughters.”

  His knowledge of my background shocked me. “How do you know all that?”

  “I’ve made it my business to learn such things, Miss Cross. And tell me, have you never once considered the unfairness of the Commodore’s stance concerning his daughters? Have you not ever envisioned what your life might have been had the old vulture not been so stingy?”

  Indeed I had. And I’d realized my life would have been far too similar to those of my cousins, Gertrude and Consuelo, for my liking. If my independence came at a price, it was one I was willing to pay. I lifted a shoulder. “Not particularly. I like my life as it is, thank you.”

  “Do you, Miss Cross?” He swiped the hook at me, missing by a scant few inches. I pressed tighter against the door and contracted my stomach muscles as I sucked in a breath. “Are you that daft, or has the family sufficiently brainwashed you to prevent you from claiming what should have been yours all along?”

  My mind spun in confusion. What did any of this have to do with Howard Dunn’s crimes?

  As if he heard my thoughts, he began to speak. “All I wanted was recognition and at least a few of the benefits of being born a Vanderbilt.” I gasped at this pronouncement, but Mr. Dunn kept on. “If Frederick and Louise are tired of this place, they can damn well give it to me. What is Rough Point to them with all their millions? Nothing! A trifle. But no, they insist on selling and adding insult to injury by forcing me to cater to the very man intending to usurp my rightful position here. Ah, but who will ever buy Rough Point with the stench of murder permeating the place inside and out?”

  “Please, Mr. Dunn, I still don’t understand. Uncle Frederick—”

  “Yes, dear Uncle Frederick.” Those ugly veins in his temples pulsed wildly. “Do you know how it galls me to hear him call you his niece, but refuse to acknowledge me as his son?”

  A cry escaped my lips and my knees turned to water. My back slid against the wood planks behind me. Frederick Vanderbilt’s son? Had I heard him correctly? The blood rushed in my ears, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of Patch’s whimpering. I drew in a breath and steeled myself not to sag to the floor.

  “How?” was all I could manage.

  “He took low advantage of my mother when they were young. Yes, the great Frederick Vanderbilt, the businessman and philanthropist, so moral and upstanding. He would never admit to his wrongdoing, and somehow he even persuaded my mother never to speak of their . . . their . . . relations.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Because,” he shouted, then continued more calmly, “he always sent us money, and gifts at Christmas and birthdays. He paid for my schooling. I ask you, why would he do all that for another man’s son?”

  I had no answer, indeed, simply could not reconcile myself to the idea of the man I knew—kind, generous, intelligent—with what Mr. Dunn had just revealed. But a wave of understanding came over me. “That day . . . you said we were two of a kind. This is why.”

  “You know what it is to be born on the wrong side of the Vanderbilt family tree, don’t you, Miss Cross?”

  I nodded as a realization came into sharp focus—and with it, a possible opportunity. “Yes, Mr. Dunn, I know quite well. Bad enough they treat me like a poor relation, I’m also cast into the role of servant more times than I care to relate.”

  These words brought a bitter taste to my mouth, for in truth I had no such complaints against my relatives. They might not always understand or approve of me, but they had always been generous and supportive. “Even here, Louise charged me with the task of ensuring the artists didn’t damage the estate, as if I am a caretaker in their employ. They toss me their castoffs and consider themselves generous, and expect me to be grateful.”

  He was nodding, looking gratified. “Frederick and Lou
ise, indeed the entire family, will not escape unscathed. What I have done will put them dead center of a scandal they’ll never outlive. They’ll be shunned by society, because members of the Four Hundred will disdain to have such shadows darkening their festivities.”

  “But you sacrificed innocent lives to achieve revenge on one man,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

  “Innocent? They’re at one another’s throats morning, noon, and night. They all deserve a similar fate.” His eyes became small and narrow, two gleaming pinpoints in the dim light. His voice became flat and cold. “I thought you understood. I see I was wrong.”

  I strained my ears, hoping against hope to hear the sound of approaching footsteps. Of course there were none. Who would think to search for me in the cellar? Jesse would probably scour the grounds before he thought to check down here. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I tried to make friends with you, Miss Cross, but you brushed me off with all the arrogance of a true Vanderbilt. You’ve left me with little choice, but I can’t dispatch you here, where you might be found before I’ve quit Aquidneck Island.” He jerked his head toward the corridor that led deeper into the cellars. “That way.” For good measure he seized the collar of my shirtwaist and tugged.

  Fear sent paralyzing numbness throughout my limbs. My feet turned as cold and lifeless as if I’d trudged barefoot through snow, and my fingers hung stiff and leaden. Even so, I resolved to fight him, to deliver a vicious kick before we reached that hallway, for once there I would be virtually trapped between Howard Dunn and the stairs to the upper floor. One of the doors ahead opened onto the laundry room, but other than that I didn’t know these cellars. He did, all too well. My only hope of escape lay in the staircase. He tugged me again but I braced myself against the door, ready to lash out with my booted foot—

  With little more than a jiggle of the latch, the door behind me burst open and propelled me straight into Mr. Dunn. The force of our collision sent us both to the floor, he on his back and me sprawled on his torso. I felt a yank and heard a tear as his ice pick caught on my skirt. He ripped it free and raised his arm again.

  A blur of brown and white streaked past me and fierce growls filled the air. Clawing my way like a crazed animal, I crawled off of Howard Dunn just as Patch sank his teeth into the man’s arm. Mr. Dunn fought back, and both the ice pick and Patch were thrust from side to side. Breathless and half blinded by panic, I scrambled to my feet. No weapon showed itself in this empty, tiled room. I bolted into the storage room and seized the first object that reached my hands—a sack filled with something dense and heavy. I hefted it with borrowed strength and hurried back to the main room.

  “Patch, release,” I commanded. The instant he did, I swung, holding the sack by its cinched closure and striking Mr. Dunn square on the side of the head. He went limp and the ice hook clattered to the floor.

  Chapter 19

  The force of the blow and the weight of the sack sent me to my knees. I reached out with both arms. “Patch.”

  His furry body filled my embrace and I hung on tight, burying my face in the warmth of his neck. His heart beat a reassuring rhythm against me, and when I raised my head I found his loving gaze pinned on my own. My own heart swelled painfully. “You’re my hero, boy. But . . . however did you unlock that door?”

  A dull moan came from inside the storage room, and then a voice sputtered and said haltingly, “Emmaline? Is . . . that you?”

  I was on my feet again in an instant, seeing what I had missed in the skirmish: my uncle lying inside the storeroom a few feet from the threshold. I reached the open door at the same time he gripped the lintel and hauled himself to his feet. “What happened out here? Are you . . .” He trailed off as his gaze traveled over my shoulder. His lips stretched in a grim smile. “I might have known he was no match for you.”

  Footsteps sounded overhead and I heard the cellar door swing open. “Emma? Darling, are you down there?”

  “I’m here, Mother,” I called back, but my response was drowned out by the clatter of multiple feet descending the stairs. It was Jesse and not my mother who headed the downward charge that included my parents, Mrs. Wharton and Vasili, and finally Mrs. Harris and Irene in the rear. Mrs. Harris surprised me by speaking first.

  “Such a commotion I heard! The dear lad”—she pointed to Patch—“barking as if to wake the dead, and shouts and—good heavens. I told Irene to run for help and, well, here we are.” She, as well as the others, looked about, taking in the scene. “Mr. Dunn!” the woman exclaimed. “Is it his heart? Shall I call a doctor?”

  Mother studied the unconscious estate manager for all of a moment, then with a cry ran to me and caught me up in her arms. She practically smothered me, and my gasping effort to breathe was made more difficult by my father, who put his arms around both of us.

  “We’re so dreadfully sorry to put you in such danger, my dearest girl.” Her cheek against mine, Mother wept into my hair and held me tighter.

  “You didn’t, Mother. You had nothing to do with what happened. It wasn’t Father’s art dealer.”

  “It’s over now,” my father said in a gravelly voice. I continued stealing shallow breaths when I could, yet I couldn’t bring myself to mention my discomfort or attempt to break away, not even in the slightest. This felt . . . so very nice and was . . . oh, the very thing I’d missed these several years. I had comforted myself with my hodgepodge family of Nanny and Katie and my cousin Neily and the rest, but there had always existed a gap where my parents used to be.

  Closing that gap sent tears of my own to mingle with my mother’s, and as I glanced up at my father, I discovered he had succumbed to the same sentiments, with similar results. He grinned ruefully and gathered Mother and me closer still. A warm body pressed against the back of my skirts, leaning his weight against my legs in his familiar way. In that moment I felt my family to be complete.

  Commotion broke out around us. At Uncle Frederick’s suggestion, Irene and Mrs. Wharton found a roll of twine and Jesse set to work binding Mr. Dunn’s wrists and ankles. I took comfort in not having ended his life, but I would be lying if I pretended I didn’t wish to deliver a swift kick to his side.

  Curiosity, rather than a lack of oxygen, finally prompted me to loosen my hold on my parents. They did likewise, and we turned to my uncle. Jesse had just asked him to explain what happened.

  “I questioned him—that’s what happened.” Frederick Vanderbilt spoke with an outraged sense of authority. “I was in the butler’s pantry, as I have a right to be in my own home, looking through some account papers, when I came upon sets of keys that Howard Dunn would not have needed in supervising the estate this past week.”

  “Such as?” Jesse prompted when my uncle paused.

  “Such as the key to the linen cupboard. Why would anyone but the maid need that key? In fact, my wife left the key in Irene’s possession the day we left Rough Point.”

  “But you just said you’d left Mr. Dunn here to supervise the retreat,” I pointed out.

  He shook his head. “Certainly not. I left him here as my representative should Randall Clifford decide he wished to buy the estate. Howard was to draw up the papers, as well as answer any questions the Englishman might have had. As far as domestic concerns went, I had complete faith in Irene, Carl, and Mrs. Harris. They were to see to the needs of the guests.”

  “He replaced the towels he used to dry the floor in Monsieur Baptiste’s bathroom after he killed him,” I said with a gasp of realization. “That’s why there didn’t appear to be any missing.”

  “And why,” Jesse said, “there were damp tracks across the bedroom rug. Dunn entered with wet feet after the fiasco in Miss Marcus’s bathroom. He probably sopped up as much of it as he could, but my guess is he must not have thought we would take off our shoes to check the rug for moisture.”

  “He also had the duplicate keys to all the bedrooms,” Uncle Frederick continued.

  “I knew about that,” I ad
mitted with a sinking feeling. If only I had said something at the time—but to whom? In all likelihood, no one would have considered this unusual. “Carl used them to check that all the locks were in working order.”

  “There was no need for that,” Uncle Frederick declared. “We keep duplicates on hand only for emergencies, in the event a guest is ill and locked inside. We would never allow a member of the staff to unlock a guest’s door otherwise. When I began questioning him as to why he should need these keys, he struck me. Knocked me out cold and dragged me down here and into the storage room. I awoke to find your dog’s tail thumping in my face as he tried to dig his way under the door.”

  I very nearly combed my fingers into his hair to feel for a bump. “Mrs. Harris, call for Uncle Frederick’s physician, and prepare a poultice, please. But, uncle, how did you unlock the door? Surely Mr. Dunn didn’t allow you to keep the set of duplicate keys?”

  His eyes twinkled. “In a house this size, it’s all too easy for a servant to shut a door on another and walk away. It happened once, years ago, in New York. Our young hall boy actually fell asleep in the cold storage pantry one summer. Later he said he’d gone in to escape the heat. The housekeeper walked by, saw the door ajar, shut it, and locked it. The poor boy shivered for hours once he was finally let out. Every storage room and pantry unlatches from the inside, regardless of whether the door is locked from the outside. A detail our Mr. Dunn apparently forgot.”

  “Uncle Frederick,” I half whispered, for here was a truth I loathed to reveal, “Howard Dunn made some astonishing accusations.”

  Before I could say more, Mrs. Wharton came to me and cupped my face in her hands. “I’m very grateful to find you all right.” She turned to the others. “I suggest we adjourn upstairs to more comfortable surroundings. Frederick and Emma have each suffered a terrible shock.”

  “And so has Patch,” I added, and then called up to the cook who had neared the top of the stairs. “Mrs. Harris, I believe a nice meaty bone is in order.”