“Very true.” I had given up my chair and now paced the small office. “But she also seemed in favor of Jerome marrying Imogene. She said Imogene would be a fool not to marry him. But if he’s so wonderful, why the rift with his parents?”
“Do you think less of your cousin for being disowned by his parents?” Ethan had taken the swivel chair I’d vacated and sat turning it gently from side to side.
“You know I don’t.” I paced some more. “Then the question is, what caused the rift? Perhaps Jerome is taking the high road when it comes to living off his father’s money. Perhaps he sees any potential inheritance as ill-gotten gains.” I was, of course, thinking of my own situation with my inheritance from Uncle Cornelius and how conflicted the matter left me. I had truly loved the man and had seen him not only as an uncle, but often as a second father. He had always treated me with kindness and respect. And yet . . .
“Sometimes I’m glad my family has relatively little, at least compared to these cottagers.” Ethan shook his head. “Life seems much easier this way.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. The situation with Derrick’s mother would not exist if he had hailed from an ordinary, working-class family. But I’d had the choice of an ordinary, peaceful life—with Jesse. And I had decided to travel the more difficult path with Derrick—or, rather, my heart had made the decision.
I turned to Jesse now. “Do you know if Detective Myers has any good leads?”
“He’s focusing on Judge Schuyler’s past cases. He’s convinced it’s someone the judge ruled against in the past, so he’s going over the records and compiling a list of possibilities.”
“Not a bad strategy,” I conceded. “Has he found any evidence that one of those possibilities could be in Newport now?”
“As a matter of fact, Myers spoke with someone you’ve already questioned. The jester.”
“Burt Covey? Was he ever sentenced by Judge Schuyler? Does Detective Myers suspect him of the murder?” I tried to remember if he had been missing from the vicinity of the stage that night, but I had been watching Neily, not him.
“No,” Jesse said, “Myers doesn’t think Covey did it. But Covey told him the same thing he told you, about the man he saw climbing the terrace steps. Myers’s attention is on finding that man. He believes he could be an ex-convict with a grudge against Judge Schuyler. So, oddly, he and I are looking for the same individual, but officially for different reasons.” He narrowed his eyes on me. “Speaking of that night, I’m on a new case. Apparently, murder was not the only crime at Wakehurst that night.”
“Theft,” I said as a wave of heat rose in my cheeks.
Jesse nodded. “I understand a fan of yours might have been stolen?”
That heat intensified as the others turned their gazes on me. I opened my handbag and slid out the folded fan. “No, Jesse. Derrick and I used that excuse to make our way back into Wakehurst the next day. I wanted to see if the arrow could have been shot from the veranda. I had no idea Mr. Van Alen would discover things missing from the house. Apparently, he believes my fan was taken as well.”
“A fan that never existed.” Jesse reached for the one I held, and I passed it to him. He opened it and examined it from all sides. “Costly.”
“He gave me this to make up for the one he believes was stolen,” I explained, and hastened to add, “I plan to return it at the first opportunity. Unless you wish to give it to him.”
“Oh no. Not me.” Jesse snapped it closed and dropped it back into my hand. “I’ll let you explain your way out of this one.”
Derrick smiled at me indulgently, clearly amused, while Mr. Sheppard and Ethan looked as though they had questions they knew better than to ask. I tucked the fan back into my bag and asked Jesse, as much to change the subject as out of curiosity, “Have you found any leads about the identity of the man in the ill-fitting suit?”
“Not yet, although I’m checking the boardinghouses nearby.” He made a moue of frustration. “But if you ask me, it’s too easy an answer to consider him the killer. Too pat.”
“Why had he been there, then?” Derrick’s question was a rhetorical one, a question I’d asked myself countless times. “And why did he argue with Neily?”
Mr. Sheppard toyed with the memo spike on his desk, running a fingertip up and down the edges of the papers impaled on it. “Do you think their argument had anything to do with what Emma dug up about miners and union rights?”
“I wonder . . .” I faced the window, gazing out onto Spring Street. “Coal and railroads go hand in hand, don’t they? That could be why Neily wouldn’t talk about it. He might be ashamed of his family’s involvement.” I let go another laugh, an utterly mirthless one. “At least Detective Myers isn’t accusing Neily, although he practically did that night at Wakehurst.”
“Your cousin could have been threatened.” Derrick’s quiet pronouncement drew the attention of the rest of us, and all gazes converged on him. “Doesn’t that make the most sense, Emma? That Neily wouldn’t wish to speak of the argument in order to protect you, his wife and child, and anyone else he cares about?”
“Good heavens, perhaps he wasn’t being difficult or evasive, he was being protective.” I blew out a breath. “Which means I’ll never get it out of him. Not unless I can find out enough to corner him with the facts and coerce him into confirming my conclusions.”
* * *
Questioning Jerome Harrington would prove tricky for me, at least if I attempted to do so alone. As a bachelor, he tended to frequent places denied to me: the Reading Room, the card rooms on the second floor of the Newport Casino, the homes of other bachelors. At none of those places could I move about freely. Quite the contrary, I’d once stood on the front step of the Reading Room, Newport’s most exclusive gentlemen’s club, and suffered grave consequences as a result. Not that I intended to give up on the idea of finding the young man, but I would most likely need Derrick’s or Jesse’s assistance in tracking him down. In the meantime . . .
I had done Grace a service in attending the Wakehurst fete. Would she return the favor? With little doubt, I stopped at Beaulieu that evening on my way home from the Messenger. I took a chance that I would find her home, and I was correct. But it had been an easy assumption. She and Neily surely regretted attending the fete; it was highly unlikely they would venture out anytime soon after that fiasco.
I found her alone on the rear veranda, enjoying a cup of tea as daylight faded and the ocean waves took on deep blue and purple tones. Seeming pleased to see me, she set her teacup aside and jumped up to embrace me. Of Neily, I saw no sign.
“How are you feeling?” I inquired.
“Oh, quite well, thank you.” She smoothed a hand over her stomach, then raised the same hand to the silk chiffon scarf protecting her hair from the breeze. A frown creased her brow, and she looked away. “Emma . . . I . . .”
It wasn’t like Grace to be at a loss for words. When her teeth nipped her bottom lip, I became truly concerned. “Grace, what is it? Has something happened?”
She shook her head, looking unhappy. Finally her gaze met mine and words tumbled from her lips. “I’m so sorry, Emma. That man, that Detective Myers, he has a way of prying things out of people, and he made me say some things that night at Wakehurst I didn’t wish to.”
I thought back to the night of the murder and the look on Grace’s face when she had returned from speaking with the detective. We hadn’t seen each other since then, and I realized perhaps she had been avoiding me—or avoiding telling me what she had told the detective. I smiled and tried to make light. “Whatever you said, he hasn’t arrested me for it, as you can plainly see.”
“Oh, Emma, he somehow tricked me into admitting that I’d helped you in the past, when we investigated Virgil Monroe’s death. I don’t quite know how he did it, but somehow there I was, telling him all about it, and him sitting there with his arms folded, nodding as if he’d known much of the story all along. But he couldn’t have, surely?”
&
nbsp; “No, but he’s a clever man. He saw the friendship between us and took a chance you would have something interesting to tell him about me.”
“Yes, and I’m afraid I only made matters worse for you and your friend Detective Whyte.”
I smiled and reached for her hand. “Don’t fret another moment about it. Detective Myers only wished to affirm the opinion he had already formed about me—that I’m an interfering busybody to be avoided at all costs. Nothing you said, or didn’t say, would have changed that opinion.”
“Are you sure, Emma?”
I embraced her. “Of course I’m sure.”
“I’m so relieved. Will you stay for dinner?”
“No, thank you,” I said, “I’m expected home and I wouldn’t want to intrude on you and Neily, especially unannounced.”
She drew me to the wicker furnishings, cushioned in bright striped fabrics. “You could never intrude on us, Emma.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I’m afraid I angered Neily the last time I was here.”
She fingered the pearls at her throat. “He told me, but don’t fret over it. It was more everything that has happened recently than anything you said or did.”
“Where is he now? Out?”
“He’s in his smoking room. He’s been spending a lot of time there. And in the billiard room as well. You know how men are when they’re brooding.”
“Grace, have you learned anything about the disagreement Neily had with that man at Wakehurst?”
She shook her head, a regretful look shadowing her features. “He won’t tell me. Do you think it could simply be what he keeps saying, that they merely lost their tempers over nothing?”
“No, Grace, I truly do not.” I told her about the break-in at Oberlin’s, and about how the clothes that had been stolen and returned fit the description of those worn by Neily’s antagonist. I also told her about Judge Schuyler’s ruling that favored workers over investors, and how it had caused conflict—at least in a business sense—between him and Uncle Cornelius. “So you see, I believe that man somehow played a significant part in what happened that night.”
“Gracious, Emma, could Neily have rowed with a murderer?” Her fingertips pressed against her lips as she looked out over the water beyond the cliffs. Then she shook her head. “But a murderer with conscience enough to return stolen clothes with payment?”
“I don’t know what part he played, but I don’t believe his being at Wakehurst was purely coincidental. But there’s more, and I want you to take heed. Did you hear about George Gould’s mishap on the road last night?”
“ ‘Mishap’? No, I haven’t.”
Her eyes widened and her color rose as I related the events of the previous evening. “It seems whoever murdered Clayton Schuyler might be planning more to come.” I reached over to grasp her hand. “Please, you and Neily have a care.”
“Gracious,” she repeated in a whisper.
“I’m sorry to worry you. There may be no connection at all between the two occurrences. But I do want you and Neily to take precautions to stay safe. Most likely Neily would not become a target, anyway, given that he’s not part of the decision making at the New York Central.”
She made a disparaging sound I knew wasn’t aimed at Neily, but at his family. “That, he is not.”
I felt a pang at having not been completely honest with her; at least for not having related Derrick’s theory about Neily trying to protect those he cared about. If it were true, then Neily might indeed be in the potential path of a killer. But telling Grace would only distress her, and she had a tiny new life to think about.
“I came for another reason, Grace,” I said. “I need a favor, if you’re able to grant it.”
“Anything for you, Emma, you know that.”
I smiled, my gaze drawn to a brilliant star in the purpling sky. “Do you know a young lady named Eliza Denholm?”
“Why, yes, I do. She’s English, but she lives here now. Her mother married the Earl of Brocklehurst some twenty years ago, but they’ve since divorced. She and Eliza moved back to America about three years ago, and Eliza goes by Miss Denholm, though she is entitled to be Lady Eliza. The son, Roderick, remained in England with his father. He’s the heir, so one understands why he stayed.” Her brows drew inward. “Why do you ask?”
“I need to meet her. I’m told she’s a close friend of Imogene Schuyler’s.” I tipped my head, thinking. “Do you happen to know if she attended the Elizabethan Fete?”
“As it happens, she did.”
I nodded, remembering the girl I had seen watching the archery competition, Miss Schuyler’s plain friend. “Do you know where I might find her?”
“As a matter of fact, the day after tomorrow there’s a donations luncheon at Castle Hill. Alexander Agassiz is raising money for a project at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.”
My pulse quickened with hope. “Are you invited?”
“I am,” she said with a grin. “Neily and I, and my parents, all received invitations. None of us had intended going, under the circumstances, but if you need me . . .”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“I cannot guarantee that Eliza will be there.”
“Do you think there’s a good chance she will be?”
“Her mother received a sizable settlement in the divorce—to ensure her silence about why she left the earl, of course—and she is known to take an interest in the sciences, as does Eliza. They’re rather a pair of bluestockings, truth be told. But, yes, I don’t think Alexander would have let an opportunity for a generous gift slip through his fingers. They’re almost certainly invited.”
* * *
At the Messenger the next day, I sat busily tapping away at the typewriter keys. Despite Judge Schuyler’s murder monopolizing the greater share of my attention, there had been other news to attend to. Another break-in downtown, apparently unrelated to the one at Oberlin’s; a boating accident; an assault with a deadly weapon—the latter occurring at one of the dockside taverns, late last night, between two sailors who had consumed more than their share of grog. None of these events seemed in any way linked to the murder at Wakehurst, but instead were simply the kinds of disturbances one expects to encounter in a seaport as diverse and bustling as Newport. I knew from my own reading that Newport had rarely been a peaceful hamlet at any time during its history, with crime and vice plaguing the city from its earliest days.
Suddenly my fingers stilled, and I raised my face to sniff the air. The office had one window that overlooked the narrow space between our building and the one next door. Not much of a view, admittedly, but the room had felt stuffy earlier, so I had raised the sash. Now a scent drifted to my nose, one that prompted me to my feet. The article I had been working on forgotten, I snatched up my small notebook and a pencil, hurried down the corridor to the front office, and bounded out to the street. I heard both Derrick and Mr. Sheppard call after me.
Derrick joined me on the sidewalk a moment later. “What’s the emergency—”
He broke off, and together we said, “Fire.”
We had no sooner spoken than bells began to clang from not far away. The pedestrians on either side of Spring Street, hurrying along on their errands, suddenly paused and smelled the air. Murmurs went up, audible even over the sounds of carts, carriages, and the approaching trolley.
I gazed up and down the street. “Which way do you think?”
Derrick shook his head.
I continued listening to the fire bells, their urgency like a stormy tide rushing at the shore. “That way,” I finally determined, and pointed north. Others had reached the same conclusion, and Derrick and I joined the collective flow along the street.
A dreadful fear lodged beneath my breastbone, and as we hurried along, I prayed it wasn’t Trinity Church going up in flames. But before reaching the church, those ahead of us poured around the corner of Mill Street. We followed and were brought up short by the dancing flames and
billowing black smoke consuming a small hotel. The fire crew was hustling people out of the front door, adding them to a small, dazed-looking crowd huddled near the fire department’s steam engine. The flames must have spread so quickly, the guests hadn’t had time to evacuate on their own. It was a blessing for them that the closest fire station was only a short distance away at the junction of Touro Street and Whitfield Place. The fire brigade had been only minutes in arriving.
I began jotting down notes and talking with onlookers, herded well to the opposite side of the street and several doors down. The hoses were turned on the neighboring buildings first to prevent further spread of the flames, and then, with the hotel apparently empty, efforts to douse the fire began in earnest. I acknowledged with a sinking heart that the building, a timber-framed Georgian structure faced in white clapboard, would not be saved. As I watched smoke and ash spiral against the sky, I thought about guests’ belongings, the owner’s investment, the workers’ livelihood. My eyes burned, but I forced myself to keep watching and recording.
For a time, I lost track of Derrick, but I knew he was somewhere close by. I saw reporters from rival newspapers milling about as well, their tablets and pencils at the ready. Policemen had arrived on the scene and set about ensuring the onlookers continued to keep their distance. Upon spotting a young woman dressed in a maid’s uniform leaning against a tree and watching with a bewildered expression, I approached her, hoping she might know how the fire started. I never made it to where she stood. Another face came into view, one with craggy features and a nose that had been broken a time or two. As my heart sped up beneath my stays, his gaze locked with mine for the briefest instant. Then he pivoted on his heel and set off at a brisk stride toward Spring Street.
Chapter 16
I looked about for Derrick. Not seeing him in the kaleidoscope of faces and colors surrounding me, I hurried after the man I believed to be the very same from the Elizabethan Fete. Though he had quickly turned away, that second or two he’d been within my sight had been enough to convince me I needed to follow him. I had no intention of confronting him; I wished only to see where he went.
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