My heart hammered, and the world around me stood out in stark relief, as if all of the beauty had been squeezed from the garden, leaving a dry husk. “Of course they do, Mr. Harrington. You’re quite right.”
“As for Judge Schuyler, he compounded his sins by ruining everything for me with Imogene. It was he who constantly drove home the point that I was marrying her only for her inheritance. And once the idea lodged in her mind, she turned against me entirely. He made her loathe me. It was his revenge for being forced to agree to the marriage in the first place.”
“Yes, I understand. You can’t be blamed for being angry.” I tried to start us walking again, tried to turn him toward the house. He didn’t budge, nor did he release his hold on my wrist. He stared into my face, searching, studying every line, until I longed to shield myself with my hands.
His jaw firmed and his mouth flattened. “Your family, too, Miss Cross. Those Vanderbilts. Do you think they’re any different? If the old man hadn’t died when he did—”
“Don’t say it, Mr. Harrington. I know you don’t mean that.”
“Do you?” He fell into motion and tugged me along behind him. I found myself half running to keep up and not be dragged, until we reached the next arch. I let out a cry that was easily swallowed by the foliage and muffled by the fog. A cry that would never reach the house.
Please, please, someone look out a window. Come out onto the veranda. See what is happening.
He dragged me through to the other side, and with a wrench of my arm, he spun me around to face him. “I don’t think you do understand. Because you’re like them, you’re one of them.”
“I’m not—”
“I saw how you were dressed the night of the fete. Oh, you might not be as rich as your relatives, but I know you hold them in high esteem, and you’re not averse to accepting their gifts. You don’t care what they do, so long as they keep you in their little circle and supply you with ready cash. You fool. It’s a circle of hell, Miss Cross, and you should have realized it a long time ago.”
Before I could cry out again, his grip opened and my arm came free. He just as quickly advanced on me, his arms outstretched, hands reaching to encircle my throat. I struggled against him, fighting for a scrap of breath. As my surroundings began to fade, I heard the cawing of crows, the squawking of seagulls, the tittering of sparrows. How odd, I thought, that the birds should be going about their business as I slowly died.
Chapter 22
Before the darkness engulfed me, my instincts took over. My hands fisted as if of their own accord, and I thrust them upward, connecting with something hard, sharp, and angular. His chin? Pain shot through my fingers, into my wrists, and down my arms. I heard a snap and a grunt, and opened my eyes to see his head back, his face pointed toward the sky. The pressure around my throat eased, and I sucked in half a breath. Pure reflex sent my knee up next, burying itself in soft flesh. Jerome Harrington’s hands fell away from my throat. He doubled over. Without hesitation, I drove the heel of my boot into his kneecap.
After that, I fled, his howls at my back. Under the nearest arch, across the garden, through the flowerbeds, sending droplets and petals scattering. My lungs shrieked for air; I still hadn’t filled them completely, but I pushed on, my only conscious goal that of reaching the house.
I heard a shout, then barking, and indistinct smudges of brown streamed down the steps and bounded toward me. The dogs. With their bull-nosed features and their intimidating size, they enveloped me in warm fur and wet noses and streams of saliva. I’d never been so happy to be taken off my feet, but down I went, sinking first to my knees and then toppling sideways, landing on one dog, while the other snuffled my arms and hands and neck. Running footsteps came from the house, and the voice shouted again.
“Who goes there? Name yourself!”
I recognized Mr. Van Alen’s voice. Thank goodness, he had returned home from his bird-watching. Relief poured through me. I tried to sit up, and raised myself high enough that the dog that had cushioned my fall wiggled out from under me, sprang up, and trotted back to his master. The other dog continued his nuzzling and snuffling, soaking my cheek and my sleeve. “Mr. Van Alen—” I called to him, and broke off. My voice rasped and I fell to coughing.
Were we still in danger? I realized I had no idea if Jerome Harrington had a weapon on him. Perhaps he had deemed his hands weapon enough and hadn’t needn’t to extract a pistol or knife from a convenient pocket.
Using an obliging mastiff for leverage, I managed to come to my feet. Once upright, I found my legs could barely hold me, so I placed my hand on the back of the dog’s sturdy neck. He reached above my waist while sitting, so I didn’t have to lean to find my support.
“Miss Cross? What the devil is going on here? My butler told me you had come. Why are you dashing roughshod through my garden and destroying my flowers? And where is Jerome?”
His words spurred me forward, and I ran to meet him partway. When I reached him, I all but collapsed against him. His arms came up and caught me, and I could feel the astonishment in the tensing of every muscle in his body. “What in the world?”
“He attacked me. Jerome. It was him.” The words tumbled from my lips. “He murdered Judge Schuyler and Felix Mathison, and ran George Gould off the road.”
“What? My dear girl, surely not. You are mistaken, Miss Cross. Jerome would never—”
I lifted myself from his coat front and raised my face to his. “Listen to me. He confessed it, right before he tried to strangle me.” To prove my point, my voice hitched, and coughing once again overcame me. I doubled over, sputtering and gasping.
“Now, Miss Cross, did a little flirtation get carried a bit too far? Is that what this is about?”
I stared up at him, incredulous. “We need to get back to the house.”
“Yes, a good idea, that. We’ll get a good strong cup of tea in you. Then you’ll feel better.”
I gave up trying to reason with him and hurried to the house, glancing back over my shoulder every few steps. I didn’t see anyone in the archway, but I wondered if Mr. Harrington was watching us, or if he had fled the property.
The moment we stepped into the dining room, I turned to my disbelieving host. “I must use your telephone. Where is it?”
“My butler’s pantry. But, really, Miss Cross—”
“Which way?”
“In there.” He pointed to a door secreted within the paneling in the corner of the room.
I hurried to it, issuing an order over my shoulder. “Have all the doors and windows on the ground floor locked immediately.” Reaching the door, I pushed my way through and saw the wooden telephone box mounted on the wall beside the counter. I snatched the ear trumpet and turned the crank.
“Newport exchange. How may I direct your call?”
“Gayla, it’s Emma. Put me through to the police station right away. Please.”
“Goodness, you sound out of breath. Is everything all right?”
Had everybody lost their minds this morning? “Gayla, please.”
“All righty, hold your horses.”
Once connected with the police, I had another few minutes to wait while Jesse was found. “Emma? I’m glad it’s you. I’ve discovered something, or rather Derrick did. He’s here now, and he—”
“Jesse, I’m at Wakehurst, and Jerome Harrington just tried to kill me.” I heard Jesse’s exclamation across the wires, but kept talking. “He admitted to killing the judge and all the rest. Come out here at once, and bring plenty of men with you.” I hung up to forestall any further conversation.
* * *
Mr. Van Alen continued to believe his version of events: Jerome Harrington and I had engaged in a tryst that went awry. Why else would we have gone behind the hedge? After several tries, I gave up my attempts to dissuade him, repeatedly declined his offers of refreshments, and waited for Jesse’s arrival. With the two mastiffs flanking me, apparently having gotten it into their heads I needed their protection,
I stood at the library window and kept my eyes peeled on the distance, alert for movement in the garden. My fall had soaked my skirts, anyway, and I didn’t wish to ruin one of Mr. Van Alen’s costly chairs.
I also checked once again that he had instructed all the doors and windows to be locked. He insisted he had, and I only hoped he was telling the truth. But, surely, Jerome Harrington was no longer on the grounds. Only a fool would linger to be arrested, even if his wish to silence me remained a priority.
Where would he go? His parents’ home? Not likely. Long Wharf and the first outgoing steamer? I hoped Jesse had left word to have the wharves and train depot alerted. Mr. Harrington certainly wouldn’t appeal to Miss Schuyler to help him—I hoped. The sudden pounding of my pulse points begged to differ. What if, failing to strangle one woman, he tried another? Without stopping to reason whether or not he had enough motive to want Imogene Schuyler dead, I about-faced. Mr. Van Alen sat in an armchair upholstered in gold satin damask, staring into the unlit hearth.
“Sir.” He flinched as if I’d startled him awake. “Someone needs to telephone over to the Schuylers’ residence and warn them about Mr. Harrington.”
Deep ruts formed above his nose. “Are you sure you wish to apprise Miss Schuyler of the activities between you and her fiancé?”
“Good heavens, Mr. Van Alen!” At a loss how else to convince him, I tugged my collar down to reveal the bruises Mr. Harrington’s hands had surely left. “Look at my neck. Jerome Harrington did this to me.”
Mr. Van Alen’s eyes went wide and he jumped to his feet. “Why didn’t you show me this sooner? Yes, yes, I’ll ask my butler to make the call.”
“I’ll go. You come here and keep watch out the window.”
My telephone call to the Schuyler home proved brief, once the housekeeper agreed to put me through to Imogene. She had seen no sign of Jerome Harrington and doubted she would. She also sounded as dubious about my claims as Mr. Van Alen had been, but she agreed to have the house locked up and ask the footmen to keep watch. I told her I would suggest to the police that they send over an officer, just in case.
Back in the library, I sat tapping my foot against the carpet, while trying to deduce where Mr. Harrington might go from here. Mr. Van Alen, convinced of the danger now, kept darting from window to window, out into the Long Gallery to issue orders, then back in, to start the cycle again. I left him to it and turned inward to my own thoughts.
Escape seemed the most logical course, but I feared Mr. Harrington had lost all hold on logic. He wanted revenge against the men responsible for the deaths of the miners. In his sickened mind, his cause seemed a noble one. But then, Judge Schuyler had “compounded his sins,” to quote Jerome Harrington, by turning his daughter against her new fiancé.
Would Jerome have allowed Judge Schuyler to live, if not for that? Was the judge’s agreement to the marriage enough to exonerate him in the young man’s mind? I thought it might have been. But Clayton Schuyler hadn’t realized he had purchased his own life by allowing his daughter to marry Mr. Harrington, a boon he had then squandered with his duplicity. Perhaps the judge simply hadn’t been able to help himself. Duplicity seemed to have become a way of life for him, a habit he perhaps had believed gave him the upper hand. How easily Mr. Harrington had dispatched him. It had undoubtedly been Mr. Harrington who had offered the judge the cigar—forbidden fruit—that sent him into the shadows that night.
But what, I wondered, had induced Mr. Harrington to confess his guilt to me? Had he been incapable of schooling his anger? As we had discussed the miners and Imogene earlier, he had grown more and more agitated. I had felt his mounting distress, but I hadn’t recognized the danger until it was too late. The truth, I believe, was that Jerome Harrington had lost his grip on sanity. Those twenty-five deaths had left an indelible stain on his family’s honor, and had shown Jerome the depth of his father’s greed, as well as those of the other men involved. I almost pitied him the burden thrust upon his young shoulders by the heedless acts of his elders. Did he believe himself guilty by association? Were the murders a form of self-hatred, as much as they were a form of vengeance?
He had turned his anger on me. That, too, I had discerned only when it was too late. He saw me as part of the Vanderbilt family, and that, in his eyes, made me guilty by association.
That thought sent me to my feet so quickly, I startled Mr. Van Alen on his most recent trek across the room. He stared at me in alarm, prompting me to explain, “I think I may know where he’s gone.”
A pounding on the front door preempted further clarification. He and I hurried down the Long Gallery as the butler opened the door upon Jesse, Derrick, and several uniformed officers. Derrick wasted no time in lunging across the threshold and gathering me in his arms.
“What happened? What did he do to you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right, but never mind that for now.” I spoke against his shoulder, barely able to draw a breath because he held me so tight. I began to pull away and he let me, either realizing we had an audience or fearing he was hurting me. I immediately turned to Jesse. “I think he may have gone to The Breakers. To find Alfred. And probably Reggie, too.”
Without asking me to explain why I thought so, Jesse signaled to his men. “You heard her.”
That sent them scrambling back into the police wagon they’d arrived in. Jesse’s carriage sat on the drive, and he, Derrick, and I climbed in. As Jesse set the horse in motion, Mr. Van Alen called from the doorway, “Shall I go with you?”
“No, sir,” I called back. “Stay here, and keep the house locked until you hear that it’s safe.”
The horse broke into a trot, and within minutes, we passed through the front gates of The Breakers.
* * *
All lay quiet in front of the house. We parked at the gatehouse beside the police wagon, and before proceeding on foot, Jesse asked Shipley, the gatekeeper, if he had seen anyone enter the property. He hadn’t, but that only meant Mr. Harrington hadn’t entered by the main drive. The fog lingered over the front lawn, rendering the graveled circular drive nearly invisible. It also masked our arrival, and we walked on the grass to muffle our footsteps. Before us, the house seemed to float, its red tile roof standing out against a brooding sky.
The uniformed officers had gathered beneath the shelter of a stand of elm trees inside the perimeter wall, quietly awaiting their orders. “We don’t wish to go storming into the house,” Jesse told them. “We’ll assess the area first. Spread out around the house, see what you can. Keep close to the walls and glance into each window before you move on. Be stealthy about it.”
The police team scattered in different directions. It was a sound plan, but I had another in mind. “Jesse, I think I should go inside. I know the house. I can make my way through without being obvious.”
“No.” Jesse and Derrick spoke at once. Jesse scowled at me. “He tried to kill you. Do you want to give him another chance?”
“They could be anywhere.” I scanned the front of the house. I saw no one at any of the windows, nor any flicks of the curtains or other indications we were being observed. “If he’s here, he might already know we’re here. He might be watching your men surround the house. That should keep him busy. I can, at least, go in and locate him.”
“And then what?” Derrick leaned to bring his face close to mine, a face shuttered with the kind of conviction no argument could penetrate. “Do you think you’ll find him and simply walk back out to tell Jesse where he is? No, Emma. If you go in, you might never come out alive.”
He spoke bluntly, with no attempt to soften the words. I understood. But it was my cousins in there, and I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the danger they might be facing. “Come with me, then,” I said. “We’ll go together.”
“Wonderful. That’s all I need.” Jesse groaned and let his eyes fall closed.
Derrick studied me a good long moment. Without a word, he took my hand and started for the front door.
&nb
sp; “No, not that way,” I said. “Through the kitchen.”
We about-faced and stole along the front of the house to the north side, where a staircase led down to the service entrance. As I had expected for this time of day, the door wasn’t locked. We entered through a large storeroom and passed through two more storage rooms into a hallway. There were workers about, and when one approached us, obviously about to question us, recognition brought a smile to his face.
“Miss Cross. What are you doing coming in this way?”
“I’ve got my reasons, Zachery, but I can’t share them right now.” I didn’t bother to warn him to stay downstairs; there was no reason these estate workers would ever ascend to the main part of the house.
Another stairway brought us up to the kitchen, scullery, and butler’s pantry. We were on the main floor now, but in a separate wing from the rest of the house. We were stopped again, this time by the housekeeper. I cautioned her to keep everyone within the service wing.
Wariness shone in her eyes, but she nodded and asked no questions.
Derrick and I continued into the dining room. As in the other rooms I’d visited only days earlier, the furnishings and light fixtures were swathed in fabric, as phantomlike as the patches of fog outside. There was no one else in the room, and the silence fell heavily around us. At a second doorway that led back out into the Great Hall, we paused to listen. The nearby fountain beneath the Grand Staircase had been turned off, a sure sign the family would not be inhabiting the house again until next summer, at the earliest. The notion filled me with sadness. We heard no sounds from the billiard room, either.
We hurried beneath the staircase to the front of the Great Hall, and then along the perimeter, staying well beneath the overhanging gallery in hopes of preventing anyone upstairs from noticing us. Outside the library, we once again listened for voices. Nothing. The packing must have been completed. Was Alfred even here? What about Reggie? Had I brought everyone here on a fool’s errand?
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