Murder at Marble House (A Gilded Newport Mystery)

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “All right. Hold the line . . .”

  The next half hour passed in a blur of activity. Katie had carried the basket into the house and discovered a feeding bottle and containers of Mellin’s powdered baby milk that had been tucked in with a small supply of diapers.

  “At least someone thought of his immediate needs,” she said, though her tone implied that this someone hadn’t risen much in her estimate. She then proceeded to loosen the swaddling and peeked inside. “He’s a boy,” she announced with something akin to delight twinkling in her eyes.

  Meanwhile, Stella had gone upstairs to rummage through the spare bedrooms for more light blankets and extra linen we could fashion into swaddling and yet more diapers. Aunt Sadie had never had children, so there would be no ready supply of baby necessities stored away in a cedar chest in the attic. As Nanny sagely pointed out, you could never have enough linen on hand where an infant was concerned, and at this point we didn’t know how long our visitor would be staying with us.

  One thing was certain: This child had been dropped off once, and it wasn’t going to happen again, at least not on my watch. I wouldn’t be leaving him at the police station, or packing him into my buggy for a drive up to St. Nicholas Orphanage in Providence. Gull Manor had already proved itself as a haven for strays, and this poor mite was nothing if not that.

  I slipped back into the parlor and reclaimed him from Katie’s arms, to sit with him on the sofa. Nanny, no stranger to infants, had boiled water and mixed a quantity of the Mellin’s so that when he began whimpering again she had the bottle cooled and ready. “By my estimate,” she said, twisting to tighten the seal of the rubber nipple, “he’s no more than a week or two old.”

  “So young!” Stella entered the parlor and deposited the results of her search on the sofa. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Someone desperate,” I replied, looking down as if speaking to the child nestled in my arms. “Someone who had no other choice.”

  I lifted my head, my gaze straying from Stella to Katie, who was sitting on the floor at my feet, her face turned up to me. At my words, her cheeks flamed.

  “Someone with nowhere else to turn,” she whispered. Tears filled her eyes, and my heart broke for her, for I knew she was remembering the unborn child she had lost a year ago last spring—the child who had been forced upon her by an unprincipled youth, which had resulted in her being fired from her position at The Breakers, the home of my Vanderbilt relatives on nearby Ochre Point.

  While Katie blinked her tears away, I carefully tipped the bottle and touched the nipple to a pair of rosebud lips. Those lips immediately opened, drew the nipple in, and latched on with a strength that surprised me. Sucking noises filled the silence.

  “Well, I think it’s horrible to abandon a baby on someone’s doorstep.” Stella tossed her head, sending one braid swinging over her shoulder. “Only a selfish, wicked person would do such a thing.”

  Nanny turned to her with a patience she hadn’t previously shown the young woman. “You don’t understand. The person who left this child knew about Gull Manor. That’s why she came here. It’s why you knew to come here. Because Emma would never turn away anyone who needed her help. That’s what Gull Manor means here in Newport.”

  “That’s right, you’re safe here,” I said, this time intentionally speaking to the child. He took no heed, too intent on drawing nourishment into his tiny body. All the while, the bottle moved subtly against my palm to the rhythm of each greedy suck. I grinned. “You may be small, but you’re determined, aren’t you?”

  By the time the milk was nearly gone, those little blue eyes, which had been staring up into mine as if to impart some vital wisdom, began to droop. The others had settled around the room to watch, but now Nanny came to her feet.

  “Unless I miss my guess, this little one is in need of a diaper change and a nice long nap.” She reached for a folded linen square from the top of the pile we’d made. I noticed then that Stella had managed to gather an assortment of safety pins, which she’d deposited on the sofa table.

  With a twinge of panic it struck me that I had never changed a diaper in my life. In fact, this was the first time I’d fed a baby, and while he had really done all the work, I surmised such would not be the case with diaper changing.

  “I’ll do it.” Katie must have read my mind. She stood and reached for the baby. “I’ll just take him into the kitchen.”

  I hesitated in handing him over. “Have you ever done it before?”

  She showed me an indulgent smile. “I’m the second oldest of six, Miss Emma.”

  “I’ll help.” Stella followed her out of the room, surprising me. I hadn’t previously suspected her of harboring maternal instincts. Or was that simply my preconceived prejudice, based on her life previous to arriving at Gull Manor? I loathed to think I’d been judging Stella, that I had in any way blamed her for falling into the oldest profession. As Aunt Sadie had taught me, a woman did what she must to survive, and it behooved the more fortunate among us to help where and when we could.

  “What are we going to do?” I said to Nanny once we were alone.

  “Do?” She reached up to tuck a wiry gray curl into her kerchief. “I believe we’re doing it.”

  “Yes, but Nanny, we can’t keep this baby.”

  “Can’t we? Whoever he belongs to doesn’t want him or can’t keep him.”

  “But . . . even if that’s true, there could be relatives who would take the child in if they knew about him. We can’t assume no one wants him.”

  “Then what do you suppose we should do?”

  Before I could reply, Katie called out my name from somewhere down the corridor. A moment later she passed through the doorway with one arm outstretched, a bit of lace dangling from her fingers. “Look, Miss Emma. This was tucked into the baby’s blanket. I don’t know how we didn’t see it sooner.”

  “Where is he?” was all I could think to ask as a frisson of alarm ran through me.

  She frowned slightly. “He’s all right. Stella’s finishing up with his diaper. Seems she grew up with four younger brothers and sisters.”

  “Oh, all right.” I wondered that I’d had such a strong and instant reaction to the idea of Katie having left the baby unattended, that the person in whose charge I had left him had returned without him. It seemed I harbored some surprising maternal instincts as well, and the smile dancing in Nanny’s eyes told me she’d noticed, too.

  I held out my hand. “Let me see what you’ve got there.”

  Katie dropped into my palm an embroidered handkerchief edged with lace—no ordinary lace, mind you, but an intricate pattern shot through with silk and golden threads. Puzzled, I searched for an initial worked into the embroidered design, but there were only flowers.

  “This was costly,” I said.

  Katie nodded her agreement. “Do you suspect the mother might be a lady of quality?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose a maid could have gotten hold of this handkerchief, but the question would be why?” I fingered the tiny yellow and pink flowers and curling, pale green vines covering the linen portion of the fabric. This was meant to dangle from a manicured hand during a ladies’ tea or luncheon, or to ward off a sheen of perspiration during a garden party. “This isn’t here by chance. I’m fairly certain of that.”

  “A clue, then,” Nanny said, reading my thoughts as she so often did. “Someone wants us to know where this baby came from.”

  “A pretty obscure clue, though. With no initial or crest of any sort, this could belong to anyone and could have come from anywhere, even off island. For all we know, someone brought the child over on the morning ferry.”

  “Not true, at least not this morning.” Nanny reached to take the handkerchief and brought it to the brighter light by the window. “We all heard what we believed to be a squall before the sun was up. The morning ferry wouldn’t have arrived yet.”

  “Goodness!” Katie’s hand flew to her throat. “You don’t supp
ose the poor dear was outside all night?”

  “All night? Good heavens!” The very suggestion sent me hurrying out of the room. Stella was already on her way back to the parlor, and we almost collided in the dim corridor. I held out my arms, and she placed the baby in them. Neither our near collision nor the transfer from one embrace to another disturbed him in the least. His eyes were closed, and his lips were working as if still sucking on the bottle.

  “Are you all right, Miss Emma? You’re as white as a sheet.”

  I waved away Stella’s concerns while my own burgeoned. “I’m fine, but I wish I knew what was keeping Dr. Kennison. Nanny,” I called over my shoulder. “Please telephone the doctor’s office again. Right away!”

  “He’s fine, Emma. Lungs sound clear, heart’s strong. Has a good grip, too. I’d say this is one healthy little fellow.” Dr. Kennison folded his stethoscope and slipped it into the medical bag at his elbow, the black leather worn and cracked with years of steady use.

  I sighed with relief as I leaned over the kitchen table and once more wrapped the swaddling blankets snug around the baby’s pink body, which had not yet begun to plumpen in the way babies do at several weeks old. Our young man had awakened only briefly during his examination, whereupon he had surveyed the doctor with a puzzled frown, squeezed the offered finger, blew a bubble between his lips, and drifted back to sleep.

  Poor thing. How long had he cried before I finally found him this morning? “You don’t see any signs of exposure, then, Doctor?”

  “Emma, relax. Even if he had been outside all night, which I very much doubt, don’t forget it’s summertime. The air wouldn’t have done him any harm.”

  A few minutes later I walked him to the door. “So for now you’ll keep mum about this, Doctor? I’d like a chance to discover who he is and why he was left here before too many people learn of his existence.”

  “If you think that’s best. Now, mind you, mix his formula exactly according to the directions. I can’t tell you how many undernourished infants I see whose mothers added too much water, trying to stretch their supply.”

  “We’d never do any such a thing.” The very notion appalled me, and I instinctively hugged the baby closer. “We’ll take the very best care of him.”

  He reached out a finger to stroke the baby’s head. “I’m sure you will. If you need me, telephone. Otherwise I’ll see the two of you in my office next Thursday.”

  Beyond him through the open door a cloud of dust formed at the end of my driveway, and seconds later a police buggy came into view. “That’s Jesse. Someone must have told him I called the station. Well, good-bye, Doctor, and thank you.”

  The two men exchanged a greeting before Jesse made his way to my front door. “Morning, Emma.”

  “Good morning, Jesse. Did they tell you I called, or can you read my mind now?”

  I’d known Jesse all of my life. We both hailed from the Point, the colonial, harbor-side section of Newport that had changed little in the past century and a half. Though he was some ten years older than me, we’d forged a friendship based on our common origins and interests and, more recently, through our mutual efforts to uncover hidden truths and see justice done. Jesse hadn’t necessarily approved of my involvement in local criminal matters, but neither had he turned down the vital information I’d been able to offer him. In the months since first working together last summer, he came to me often, not to involve me directly in his investigations, but to run ideas by me.

  “Read your mind . . .” he said now. “ ’Fraid I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  It was then I noticed the grim set to his mouth. At the same time, his gaze dropped to the baby in my arms. We spoke at the same time.

  “What’s happened?” and “Who’s that?” jumbled together into a confusion of words. I led him into the parlor.

  “Left here?” he said with a shake of his head after I’d explained. “On your doorstep?”

  “I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s the truth. I telephoned the station earlier, but you weren’t in. If you never got the message, what brings you here?”

  Leaning forward with elbows on his knees, he ran a hand through his auburn hair and blew out a breath. “There’s been an incident. A murder, Emma. This morning.”

  I hugged the baby tighter. “Oh, Jesse. Who?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t know. No one recognized him, and he carried no identification. He was a young man, mid-twenties, driving a rented carriage.”

  “From Stevenson’s livery?”

  He nodded. “The death wasn’t far from here, where the road curves around Brenton Point. He went off the road into the water—”

  I gasped, a hand to my mouth. Nearly the same thing had happened to me last summer. Then, as now, it would not have been an accident. “Was he forced off the road?”

  “No, Emma. He went off the road because he’d been shot. Clear through the chest, from dead on. The best we can figure is someone was waiting on the road for him, and when he rounded the bend, they took a clear shot.”

  Jesse and I had fallen into a pattern over the past year. After proving my investigative skills more than once last summer, he often came to me when a case had him particularly perplexed, as now. We’d mull over evidence and possible motives. Jesse said it helped him see the facts more clearly. I was glad to help, but sometimes I wondered if his frequent visits were prompted by more than protecting Newport from criminals.

  The baby, awake now, squirmed, and I realized how tightly I held him. I loosened my arms, shifting him from one shoulder to the other. A shiver traveled my length. “Jesse, this child was left on my doorstep sometime between last night and this morning. Do you suppose there could be a connection?”

  “At this point, anything is possible. Anything.”

  My mind began to race. I needed to move, needed to pace as I considered these developments. Seeing me struggle to come to my feet, Jesse stood and took the baby from me, then settled back in the wing chair, cradling the child as if it was second nature. I couldn’t help smiling at the picture they made.

  Then I turned away, counted off ten steps toward the window, ten back. Mentally I listed the events of this morning, picturing the details as I knew them. I came to a halt. “Jesse, you said he was driving a rented carriage. Was he dressed like a wealthy man?”

  “Not at all. If anything, he appeared more like a groom or a groundskeeper. A workman of some kind, certainly.”

  “Not a man who would have an expensive piece of linen and lace in his possession.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But someone might have given him the handkerchief Katie found in the swaddling . . . at the same time she entrusted the poor man to deliver her child here.” I fell silent and began pacing again. Jesse watched me, gently jiggling the baby against his chest. I came to another halt. “But then who would murder him?”

  “Someone who didn’t want the child traced here. Someone who didn’t wish to hurt the child, but who wanted to make sure the one person who delivered him here could never tell anyone.”

  I considered this, and a possible scenario began to form in my mind. “Either the mother is desperate to prevent her family from learning of her pregnancy, or . . .” I paused, took a breath. “Or the family . . . or perhaps even the father . . . wants the baby gone and the mother to never learn where.”

  “Either is entirely possible, if there’s a connection between the two,” Jesse conceded, though he looked skeptical. “That’s still a big if at this point.”

  “Yes, but I think the latter is more plausible. I can’t picture a mother—someone who has just brought life into the world—being capable of taking a life so cold-bloodedly. And I believe I know where to start searching—for the mother, that is. And something tells me if we find the mother, we’ll find your murderer.”

  “Be careful of stretching again, Emma.”

  “How many times have I been correct in the past?”

  That silenced a
ny further protests he might have made. The baby kicked his little legs, and Jesse changed his position to a more upright one, which seemed to satisfy the little fellow.

  My heart squeezed. They presented so homey a scene Jesse could almost have been the boy’s father, except for the utter difference in their coloring. Where Jesse was fair and auburn-haired and possessed keen blue eyes, the baby’s eyes were a blue-green shade that suggested his eyes would be dark—as dark as the nut-brown hair dusting his tiny head.

  “You know, you’re a natural at that,” I said to him. Just then, shuffling into the room, Nanny twittered lightly in agreement.

  “I don’t see how you’ll ever find the mother unless she wants to be found,” Jesse said, apparently choosing to ignore my observation.

  I chewed my lip to hide the smile that refused to go away, and went to sit beside Nanny on the sofa. “Tomorrow night is June thirtieth, and Mrs. Astor will be holding her annual ball to kick off the summer Season. I’m on the guest list—well, not strictly as a guest, mind you. I’ll be working, taking notes for my Fancies and Fashions page. Everyone in society who’s in Newport will be there. It’s as good a place as any to start asking questions.”

  I glanced over at Nanny, who agreed with one of her sage nods.

  “And what makes you think a woman who gave birth so recently will be at that ball?”

  “She’ll have to be. If my suspicions are correct and the mother is a society lady, she’ll make every effort to attend the ball to quell any rumors that might have sprung up during her confinement. A woman can’t simply stop making her usual appearances without her peers noticing, not to mention wondering and whispering. She might get away with the excuse of having been ill, or visiting relatives in the country, or some such, but she’d be desperate to reenter society as soon as possible and have everyone see her carefree and happy and, more to the point, laced tightly into her corset.”

  Jesse winced. “Sounds painful. Not to mention unhealthy.”

  “It is, on both counts.” I smoothed a hand down the front of the sprigged muslin I’d hastily changed into earlier. I wore stays, but not nearly as tightly as fashion dictated. In the past it had been a source of disagreement between my aunt Alice and me. “Loose stays suggest loose morals,” she would often admonish, only to add in a rush, “not that you are of loose morals, Emmaline. Heaven knows you are not. But one does not wish to give a wrong impression, does one?”