I nodded. “Why was it strange that he took a bottle of whiskey with him then?”
“Because Master Nicholas never drinks whiskey, only wine.”
CHAPTER 22
“How dare you! You’re dismissed!” Jane Whitwell said as I stood poised to knock on the drawing-room door.
“What? No, wait. But ma’am?” a woman’s voice pleaded.
“I want you out of my house this minute.”
“But ma’am, where am I to go?”
“I don’t know and frankly I don’t care.”
“But ma’am, other maids, all over the country, are striking and walking out. I only asked for an extra evening a month off,” the girl said.
“And I only want my dear husband back,” Mrs. Whitwell snapped.
“May I get a reference, ma’am?”
“A reference? A heartless, selfish girl like you? You don’t deserve a reference.”
“But I won’t be able to get another position without it,” the girl nearly sobbed.
“You should’ve thought of that before you came in here with your demands, the day after my dear husband was found murdered. Now get out of my sight!”
The door burst open and the housemaid I’d met earlier flew past me. She was sobbing, almost on the verge of hysteria. I stared at her hasty retreat sympathizing with her plight yet inwardly grateful that it was she and not I who had lost her position. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I were cast out without a reference as she had been. I turned toward the door, these ominous thoughts in my head, and hesitated. Should I wait to approach Mrs. Whitwell with my findings? I’d been speculating on the contents of the handwritten letter, with all that I’d learned from Mr. Whitwell’s office and the contents of the safe—the unpaid bills, the life insurance policy, the fire insurance policy, the bank failures—and I didn’t think she was prepared for my conclusion. No, I’d be wise to wait, I thought, and turned from the door.
“Whoever is hovering outside my door, come in or go away,” she said. Although she had given me an option, her tone demanded I show myself. I stepped into the room.
“Mrs. Whitwell, ma’am?” I said.
She was staring out of the window, mindlessly brushing her hand through the large white silk tassel holding the drapery back. “What do you want?” she asked when she saw me.
I held up the envelopes. “I have something I think you should see,” I said. “Weeks and I found these in the safe downstairs in the wine cellar.” I handed her the insurance policies first. She took them but never took her eyes off of me.
“Life insurance and fire insurance on the bank,” I said, explaining. “You’ll want to have your husband’s lawyer look at them straightaway.” She nodded and set them in her lap. “And then there’s this.” I offered her the last envelope. She took the letter and looked at it. “As you can see, it’s addressed to you, ma’am.”
“What is it?”
I took a deep breath and voiced what I’d been thinking since I found the letter. “I believe it’s your husband’s suicide note.”
The moment I said it I felt the air leave the room. Mrs. Whitwell looked deliberately up at me, her countenance hardened into stone, her eyes menacing.
“How dare you!” Jane Whitwell said quietly. I wasn’t fooled by her apparent calm. Her lips trembled as she pressed them together. She squeezed her hands in her lap until her knuckles turned white. This woman was about to explode. “Leave me at once.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, as eager to leave her as she was to see me go. “And I am sorry.”
“I don’t need your pity, secretary. Now go! And don’t think I won’t tell Charlotte of your impertinence,” she said. She fumbled with the letter, her hands shaking, dropping it to the floor. She snatched up and was ripping and tearing at the letter, clumsily trying to open it, before I was barely out of the room.
I was sorry. Sorry to be witness to her pathetic attempt to read the last words her husband would ever write. Sorry to be the bearer of such hurtful news. Sorry anyone should have to feel such desperation and sorrow. But it wasn’t my fault. I knew she wouldn’t take well to my presumption, but I hadn’t expected her threat. Would she demand my dismissal as she had the maid’s? Would Mrs. Mayhew concede to her friend’s demand? What would Sir Arthur think? Would he scorn me simply on one woman’s angry impulse? Why hadn’t I simply waited to give her the letter? Even as I asked myself this, I knew it wouldn’t have mattered. Jane Whitwell, in her grief and denial, would’ve lashed out at me at any time. What I’d delivered was very unwelcome news.
“Oh, Harland!” Jane Whitwell sobbed. I hadn’t made it halfway to the back stairs when I heard her cry.
I was right then, I thought. Harland Whitwell had committed suicide. Nick must’ve tried to conceal the fact by locking up the suicide note and the insurance policies he’d found left in plain sight. Why else would Nick have been upset by Mr. Weeks seeing him in the wine cellar? Had Nick also upset the office and placed Lester Sibley’s pamphlet in his father’s hand? Or had the elder Whitwell planned the whole thing in order to spare himself the shame and humiliation of bankruptcy while at the same time ridding Newport of the labor man? But where was the gun? Had Nick carried that away too? And how much did Mrs. Whitwell really know? Much to my chagrin, I was no longer in a position to find out. I had discovered the truth behind Harland Whitwell’s death, but I despised loose ends.
“Davish!” Mrs. Whitwell shrieked a moment later. I cringed but turned to face whatever wrath the grieving woman would mete out.
“Ma’am?” I said, ducking my head as I cautiously opened the door. No vase smashed the wall next to me, so I stepped in.
“How did you know?” She was standing, staring out the window, the letter loosely held in her hand. I followed her gaze. Two gray pigeons sat perched on a marble statue of Aphrodite in the garden preening each other. I had to look away and was relieved Mrs. Whitwell kept her back to me. I wasn’t prepared to face the anguish and disillusionment in her eyes.
“It was more like a guess, ma’am,” I said honestly. “I was having difficulty determining why anyone, besides your son perhaps, would want to kill your husband.” I expected her to twist around and confront me at the mention of Nick, but she never moved.
“And?” she said.
“And when I learned that your husband was on the verge of bankruptcy, even your son had no motive. You should take comfort, ma’am, in the fact that your husband was well thought of by everyone.” With the exception of Lester Sibley, a thought I kept to myself.
“Thank you,” she said in an emotionless monotone. “Please continue.”
“And then I discovered the letter and the insurance policies, and the fact that your son had hidden them. It all suggested that Mr. Whitwell may have taken his own life. Unfortunately, I read about such things happening in the paper every day.”
Jane Whitwell finally turned to look at me. “But why implicate that labor man?”
“One reason is that life insurance doesn’t pay survivors of someone who has committed suicide,” I said.
“How would you know?”
“I read the policy, ma’am. The one I believe your son left in the safe for you to find along with the note. As to why Lester Sibley was implicated?” I said, answering her previous question. “You’ll have to ask your son.”
“You think Nick orchestrated this whole thing? That he discovered his father’s body and this note . . .” She glanced at the letter in her hand and hesitated before continuing. “And made it look like someone had ambushed Harland? Nick threw the papers about, overturned the books, put the pamphlet in Harland’s dead hand?”
“Or Mr. Whitwell did it himself and asked Nick to help.” I thought this more likely unless Nick, whose behavior suggested otherwise, knew about his family’s impending financial crisis. “The gun is still missing.”
She nodded, sighing. “Yes, I think you’re right. And to think I suspected Nick,” she said under her breath. Her head
shot up as if in surprise. Had she not meant to say it out loud? “You will ignore that last comment, Miss Davish,” she said.
“Of course, ma’am,” I said. She stared at me for several moments. I stood as still as possible, knowing from experience, she was wondering if she could trust me. I had my answer when she continued.
“I saw him come out of his father’s office right before . . . So of course I thought . . . They’ve been fighting so much lately.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“And then I was so relieved to know that that Sibley man was the obvious culprit. But then the police said he couldn’t have done it. I was so worried about Nick. I thought Sibley had to have done it. It didn’t make sense.” She looked down at the letter dangling in her hand for the third time. “And now it does, doesn’t it, Miss Davish?”
“Yes, ma’am, it does,” I said.
She continued without looking at me. “Harland was a good man, Miss Davish, a family man. Unlike others I won’t name, I’ve never had reason to suspect him of straying. He loved me and the children very much. Yes, he worked hard, very hard, but always because he was concerned for my and our children’s welfare. He would’ve done anything to make sure we were taken care of, even . . .” Her voice trailed away for a moment. We left the words given his life unsaid between us. “Harland never discussed business with me, thank goodness, but a wife has a way of knowing when things aren’t going well. He’s been so tense, so short with everyone, especially Nick, I feared for him when the bank workers threatened to strike. And then the bank burned!”
She put a handkerchief to her mouth, willing herself not to cry. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought her husband might have been involved with the bank fire, hoping to recoup his losses by collecting the insurance. But something must’ve gone wrong. His bank barely burned. It might have been what drove him to suicide.
“But this,” Jane Whitwell said, lifting the suicide note up for the first time. “I never imagined any of this.”
“No, ma’am. No one ever could.”
We stood in strained silence for several moments. What else was left to say? I’d discovered the truth of Harland Whitwell’s death. When my second report to Mrs. Mayhew was done, so too were my investigative duties. It would be a relief, if only I could tactfully leave Jane Whitwell to her grief.
“Can I get Mrs. Johnville or Mr. Weeks for you, ma’am?” I asked.
She nodded, tears in her eyes. “Ask Johnville to send up some iced tea.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and turned to leave.
“Davish,” she said, again calling me back.
“Ma’am?”
“You can be certain I will hold you to your promise,” she said, holding up the letter and waving it slightly. “Except for Charlotte, who already knows all my secrets, you are not to tell a soul about the truth of Mr. Whitwell’s . . . death.” I envisioned more uncomfortable teas at Moffat Cottage while I artfully dodged every question Miss Lucy plied me with. “I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you disappoint me.”
“Yes, Mrs. Whitwell,” I said, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice. When had my livelihood suddenly dangled from a tenuous string? I had another secret of Mrs. Whitwell’s to keep and I didn’t even work for her.
CHAPTER 23
Upon returning to Rose Mont, I saw Mrs. Crankshaw and Lester Sibley having a conversation in the driveway near the house. From Mrs. Crankshaw’s stern expression and crossed arms, she wasn’t “taking well” to what Lester Sibley was saying. Mrs. Crankshaw spied me and gestured to Sibley to stop talking. I smiled as I passed.
“Miss Davish,” Lester Sibley said to me, tipping his new brown derby.
“Mr. Sibley,” I said.
“Hurry up or you’ll be late for dinner,” Mrs. Crankshaw said to me. I knew better than to suggest the same for her. I’d headed around the corner to the servants’ entrance when Mrs. Crankshaw said, “That was close, Lester. I told you you should never have come here. I think we can trust the girl to be discreet, at least that’s what they all say about her, but if anyone else sees you . . .”
Upon hearing Mrs. Crankshaw’s first kind words about me, I inwardly promised not to disappoint her. I wouldn’t tell anyone about seeing her with Lester Sibley. But why was she talking to the labor man? She was the first one to halt any union or strike talk, idle or otherwise.
“Now get out of here,” Mrs. Crankshaw said to Sibley.
“But Thelma,” he said.
“Go! Oh, no!”
I peeked around the corner at the simultaneous sounds of Mrs. Crankshaw’s exclamation and the crunching of a horse cantering up the gravel drive. Lester Sibley had hesitated too long. Mr. Gideon Mayhew’s trap was pulling up to the house. The housekeeper spun away from Sibley and darted past me into the house, but I knew, as Mrs. Crankshaw did, that Mr. Mayhew had seen her with the labor union man.
“What the devil?” Gideon Mayhew said as he leaped from his carriage and stood watching, as Lester Sibley ran down the drive and disappeared on the other side of the wall. “Close the gate, Elmer!” Mr. Mayhew snapped. “By God, if that man ever comes onto my property again . . .” Without finishing his threat, the master of the house bounded up his stairs, fist clenched.
“Yes, sir,” the coachman said, not knowing if he’d been heard. “Right away, Mr. Mayhew.”
As I came into the Servants’ Hall to challenge Mrs. Crankshaw about Lester Sibley, a bell was clanging over and over, Mr. Mayhew making his fury known. Mrs. Crankshaw frowned as she stared at the bell swinging violently from side to side. Mr. Davies entered the room, causing everyone already seated at the table for dinner to stand.
“The master would like a word, Mrs. Crankshaw,” he said without preamble. “Immediately.” For the first time since I’d known her she held her tongue and merely nodded.
“I’ve already brought up your dinner,” Britta said to me.
“Thank you, Britta.”
As I turned to leave, Mr. Davies stopped me with a clearing of his throat. “Ah, Miss Davish, that,” the butler said, pointing to the insistent bell, “is Mrs. Mayhew wanting to see you.”
I sighed. I thought the bell had been Mr. Mayhew ringing for Mrs. Crankshaw. Could Mrs. Mayhew have heard from Mrs. Whitwell already in the short time it took me to walk from Glen Park to Rose Mont? Or had she simply assumed I’d be at dinner and wanted an immediate update? Either way, relief flooded through me knowing I was to face Mrs. Mayhew and not her husband.
I followed Mrs. Crankshaw out of the Servants’ Hall, staring at her back, as stiff as her starched navy blue collar, as we walked.
“But the master wants to see you first,” Davies said. I froze. Me? Mr. Mayhew wanted to see me? Mrs. Crankshaw swirled around to gape at me. I’d never seen her so pale. Did she see the same look on my face?
“Why?” I wondered out loud.
“I’m not one to question the master, Miss Davish. I’ll send a maid up to inform Mrs. Mayhew you will be delayed. Now out with you both.”
I followed Mrs. Crankshaw out of the room, her shoulders sagging, her head bowed. I should’ve felt anxious for her, but all I could do was focus on me. Why would Mr. Mayhew want to see me? Had Mrs. Whitwell changed her mind and demanded my dismissal? If so, why wasn’t it Mrs. Mayhew I was seeing? Or could this have something to do with the truth I’d learned about Harland Whitwell, both his financial ruin and his suicide? Gideon Mayhew might wish to extract a promise of secrecy from me as well. But what about Lester Sibley’s visit? Could it be a coincidence that Mrs. Crankshaw and I were both to be given an audience with the master of the house, an honor I would gladly do without?
“Why was Lester Sibley here, Mrs. Crankshaw?” I whispered as we climbed the stairs, her in front and me behind.
“I don’t take kindly to girls who don’t mind their own business,” was her tart reply. I watched her back stiffen again and resigned to walking into Mr. Mayhew’s study uninformed. I grew stren
gth from the knowledge that I’d done nothing wrong. Nothing but what I had been told to do. Surely I won’t be dismissed for doing my job?
“Come in,” Gideon Mayhew said when Mrs. Crankshaw tapped lightly on the door.
“Sir, you asked to see us?” she said, her voice level and calm.
He was writing in a ledger and didn’t look as we came in. “Close the door,” he said. Being the closest, I obliged. As soon as the door was closed, he slammed the ledger shut and stood up from behind his desk, glaring at me. “What were you doing speaking to that miscreant in my own driveway?” he demanded. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t spoken to Sibley beyond responding to his greeting, but I didn’t dare contradict the man standing in front of me.
Mrs. Crankshaw saved me from the dilemma. “Sir, if I may beg your pardon, but Miss Davish was merely returning to the house as Mr. Sibley was leaving. I alone had a conversation with the vile man.”
Mayhew glanced at me, Mrs. Crankshaw’s description of Lester Sibley momentarily placating his anger. “Is this true, Miss Davish?”
“Yes, sir, we only exchanged greetings as I passed Mrs. Crankshaw and Mr. Sibley.”
He nodded, appearing appeased. I began breathing again.
“What about you, Mrs. Crankshaw? Why did you speak to him?”
“The man’s a pest, sir. On more than one occasion I’ve caught him preaching to the staff about better wages, shorter hours, about going on strike to get what we deserve. Frankly, sir, he makes honest workers unhappy with their work.”
“Yes. That’s it, isn’t it? The servants of Rose Mont are a select few and should covet their positions, not complain. And what does Sibley believe you deserve? You already get higher wages and more privileges than any other house in Newport provides. What more could you want?”
We both understood this was a rhetorical question and stayed silent.
“He’s dangerous, this man. Like you said, Mrs. Crankshaw, he enjoys stirring up trouble. That’s why he must never step foot on my property again. I forbid you or any of the staff to converse with this man again.”
A Sense of Entitlement (A Hattie Davish Mystery) Page 17