Murder at Kingscote

by Alyssa Maxwell

  Chapter 17

  “Nine years ago in Providence . . . It could be Harry. But who was this Bald Eagle he was scheduled to fight that night?” I continued to study the admission ticket. The aging paper offered quite a bit of information: the date, October seventeenth; the day of the week, a Tuesday; the time, half past eight o’clock in the evening; and the amount of admission, one dollar. A princely sum, especially all those years ago. I could only imagine the amounts of the wagers laid on the fight.

  And yet, the most important information, which might have made so much difference, remained elusive. “Is this the very fight that incapacitated Harry Ainsley?” I shook my head in frustration. “And who dropped this in the laundry yard? Was it Clarence?”

  “Who is Harry Ainsley?” I heard Mrs. King ask.

  “Harry Ainsley was a boxer well on his way to becoming a champion, until a fight left him permanently addled nine years ago,” Jesse explained to the Kingscote women. Then he turned to me. “Your first question should be easy to answer with an inquiry or two. As for your second question . . .” He trailed off and shrugged.

  “Bald Eagle . . . Bald . . .” Shock dawned on Gwendolen King’s features. “Why, isn’t it obvious? Baldwin.” Her mother and Miss Wetmore gasped. Miss King jumped up and came to my side, reaching for the ticket. I placed it in her palm. “Don’t you think it’s possible?”

  “Our butler, a former boxer?” Mrs. King, too, came to her feet. She and Mrs. Peake traded astonished expressions. “Don’t be absurd, Gwendolen.”

  “It’s not absurd, ma’am,” I said. “Your butler was fond of the sport. And he was quite good at predicting winners.”

  “But what could this mean?” Mrs. King addressed her question to the room in general. “The fight occurred nine years ago. What importance could it have on a man’s life now?”

  “Don’t you see?” I held out my hands. “Whoever Harry Ainsley went up against in his last fight left Harry permanently incapacitated. If the opponent was Isaiah Baldwin, he may have been killed in revenge.”

  Jesse was nodding in agreement. “By a friend or a member of Harry Ainsley’s family.”

  “But why now, after nine long years?” Mrs. Peake’s mystification was reflected in the other women’s faces.

  “Opportunity,” Jesse and I said at the same time. I let Jesse continue. “Somehow, fate finally brought together the players from that nine-year-old tragedy. Or so it would seem.”

  With two fingers, Miss Wetmore plucked the damp ticket from her friend’s hand and held it up. “But if this is significant, if Clarence was killed because of it, why would his killer leave it behind?”

  After a short silence, I said, “Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he didn’t know Clarence had it. Clarence might have confronted the killer with what he had guessed about the past, but kept his proof—the ticket—hidden. As his death became imminent, perhaps Clarence dropped the ticket in the mud . . . for someone to find.”

  “You call it proof.” Gwendolen’s voice became strained with frustration. “But all that ticket does is perhaps link Baldwin to this boxer, this Harry Ainsley. It doesn’t tell us who or what part his killer might have played in what happened nine years ago.”

  “Not yet.” Jesse went to Miss Wetmore and reclaimed the ticket. “But it’s a start. It gives us a new direction to follow.”

  “Boxing has been part of the puzzle from the beginning,” I said. Derrick and I had driven out to the boxing club in Middletown looking for information about Philip King’s gambling habits. There we had learned that, besides Philip, Isaiah Baldwin had frequented the club. The manager, Mr. Tooley, had said Baldwin possessed a knack for picking winners. Now I understood why. It was because of Baldwin’s prior experience in the ring.

  Mrs. King folded her hands at her waist. “Then if boxing is the key, Mrs. Ross should be ruled out, shouldn’t she?”

  “Not necessarily,” I countered. “She often visited the asylum where Harry Ainsley has been living. You see, it’s the same facility where your husband’s uncle, William King, was held the last few years of his life. Mrs. Ross might be well acquainted with Harry, might have taken up his cause. Or she might have some other connection to him and his family.”

  “Why, the woman is twisted enough to have decided Harry Ainsley is another of her long-lost relatives.” Gwendolen scoffed. “To think, she approached us at the parade and stood right here on our very doorstep. A possible murderer.” She cast a glance at the windows along the east side of the room. “Do you think she’ll try to break in and murder us all in our sleep?”

  “I’m fairly certain she won’t do that. Mrs. Ross might be calculating, might even be a killer, but she doesn’t appear to do anything without a sound, logical reason,” Jesse assured them all. “Still, I’ll post a policeman here at night from now on. Keep the windows and doors locked.”

  Ella King nodded her thanks. She still didn’t know that John Donavan had been released from jail. Jesse made no mention of it, and I concluded that he saw no reason to further worry the family, especially when he would be sending an officer to patrol the house at night. I would also advise Ethan to be extra vigilant in keeping track of who came and went during the day.

  While I trekked into the servants’ domain to speak with Ethan, Jesse went upstairs to speak with Philip, and we convened outside some twenty minutes later. Philip had no insights to offer. As he had told me earlier, he’d been asleep until Olivia Riley’s cries woke him. As for pearl necklaces, he claimed never to notice such trifles.

  After Jesse left Kingscote, I lingered outside on the driveway, studying the European beech and thinking. I had few doubts that Mrs. Ross had come here the night Baldwin had been struck. That perhaps she had argued with him. That somehow her pearl necklace had broken. Something, however, stopped me just shy of fully believing she pushed the Hartley Steamer into him.

  What was it? What little detail continued to prod and nag at the corner of my mind? What could possibly rule out a woman who had every reason to wish ill on the King family, and who, by her own admission, had enlisted Baldwin’s help in bringing the King family down. Or, at least, in helping her undermine their claim to William King’s fortune.

  I slowly walked around the sweep of the tree, then shouldered my way into the deep shade beneath its canopy. Dampness pervaded the air, and I felt the slight drop in the temperature, smelled the rich, earthy scents within, as if the interior of the foliage constituted a world unto itself. But nothing here spoke to my doubts concerning Mrs. Ross’s guilt.

  With a shrug, I stepped back into the sunlight and walked back to the driveway, my heels grinding against the gravel beneath them. A pearl. Bits of gravel. What else? Once more, I turned back and walked toward the tree . . .

  And stumbled over the same half-hidden root that had tripped me at least twice before. I leaned down closer to inspect it, then crouched and ran my hands over its jagged bark. Here was no ripple in the grass, but a snaking, gnarled ridge, part of the tree’s formidable root system that spread weblike from the trunk. It stood several inches up from the soil beneath the grass, and as I looked, I noticed the grass immediately to either side of it stood longer than the rest of the lawn. I concluded the gardeners could not push the lawn mowers over such a protrusion. No, here they must use hand clippers, and perhaps hadn’t done so the last time they mowed.

  Slowly, I pushed to standing. Could a woman summon the strength, even in a fit of temper, to push a vehicle over such a root? It would be difficult enough for a man, though I believed that with enough force—combined with enough willpower summoned by anger and loathing—he might accomplish the feat.

  But that isn’t to say Mrs. Ross couldn’t have brought someone with her, a man willing to do her bidding.

  * * *

  On my way to the carriage house to retrieve Maestro and my buggy, I came upon Olivia Riley standing outside, a short distance from the house, beyond the laundry yard. She appeared to be staring at the clouds scuttling acro
ss the sky, or perhaps at nothing at all.

  I thought about skirting her, leaving her to her thoughts. She must be terribly shaken after what she’d been through. Was she also guilty? The thought filled my mind, unbidden. I exhaled and shook my head. Guilty or not, her future prospects, and those of her daughter, must have seemed dismal at best. I set my feet in her direction.

  “Miss Riley, if you have a moment. Please.”

  She flinched, then quickly regained her composure, such as it was. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks mottled. “What can you possibly have to say to me? I found a body today, Miss Cross. The body of a nice young man who didn’t deserve what happened to him.” Her voice hitched and faltered. She swallowed. “Can I not be left alone?”

  “I won’t keep you long, I promise.”

  She cast a glance over her shoulder at the house before turning back with a resigned nod. When I hesitated, her attractive features hardened with anger. “This isn’t only about today, is it? You followed me yesterday. I saw you in the trolley, and again on the wharf. Do you think I’m blind? Or just stupid?”

  “I think you’re neither, but if you saw me, why did you keep going?” I kept my tone even, without a hint of accusation. “Why didn’t you confront me?”

  “I had little choice.”

  “Because of your daughter.”

  She pivoted away, her black skirts swishing tersely about her ankles. “Blast you, Miss Cross. Leave my daughter out of this.”

  “I can’t.” I came up behind her and placed my hand on her shoulder. This conversation surely overstepped the bounds and interfered with Jesse’s investigation. He might be angry when he learned of it, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d known too many young women in Olivia’s position. Many had knocked at Gull Manor’s door asking for help and haven, for themselves and their illegitimate children. Olivia might be innocent of Baldwin’s and Clarence’s deaths, but with her daughter ill and her resources severely limited, how long before this housemaid would be driven to a desperate, illegal act?

  “Yes, Miss Riley, I followed you.” I saw no reason to mention anyone else if she didn’t. “I did so because of the secretive nature of your errand, and, as you know, because I’m helping the police and Mrs. King discover who killed Baldwin.”

  She whirled back around to face me, her chin raised. “And you think I did it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I never wished to distrust you. And that’s not why I’m speaking to you now. I understand why you kept your daughter a secret from your employer. I don’t believe Mrs. King would have held it against you, but many would have. I want you to know that if you need help, now or in the future, whether it’s money or a doctor or food, or even a place to stay, you must come to me.”

  Her brows gathered, her lashes narrowing warily. “You’re no society lady. You might not be as low as me, but neither are you from one of the grand families hereabouts.”

  So then, she didn’t know of my background, or that my relatives owned three of Newport’s most magnificent cottages. “I have resources,” was all I said, certain that if I were to go to Aunt Alice for a loan, she would be only too happy to help. “I’ve assisted other women, plenty of them. You can ask other servants the next time you’re in town or if you happen to attend one of their gatherings at Forty Steps. People know me and they’ll tell you the truth about me.”

  Her guardedness eased slightly. “And in return? Nothing is ever free.”

  “There is nothing. Except to answer one question.”

  “Hmph.” Her shoulders hunched as if she were preparing to fight me. “Did I push the motorcar into Mr. Baldwin? Is that your question?”

  “No, Miss Riley. What I wish to know is whether Isaiah Baldwin is the father of your little girl, of Fiona.”

  Her mouth dropped open in what appeared to be genuine surprise. “Good grief, no. What gave you that idea?”

  “Had you ever worked with him in the past?”

  “No, never.” Her lips gathered to form an O. “I see. You think he got me with child and then left me. Is that it? And I killed him out of vengeance?”

  “It’s been said he left his former position in Bristol after getting a maid in the family way. She, of course, was dismissed.”

  “It wasn’t me.” She laughed without a trace of humor. “Not that the same thing didn’t happen to me. It just didn’t happen with him. My last position, before Fiona was born, was with a family in Tiverton. And no, I wasn’t dismissed. I left on my own before anyone knew what had happened.”

  “What did you do? Where did you go?”

  “I moved in with my aunt. After I had Fiona, I went to New York and worked in the garment trade—that’s right, not as a maid for a family. I only said that because I didn’t want to have to answer questions about why I left domestic service. No, I worked at a sewing machine fourteen hours a day. If you think it’s easier work than cleaning house, you’re wrong, Miss Cross. Imagine all those hours sitting still until your legs go numb and your back aches so badly you can barely hold yourself up another minute. And your hands cramp from clutching the fabric and keeping it from bunching. . .” She shook her head. “I’d much rather scrub floors, beat rugs, and dust shelves any day. I was only too happy to sign on as Mrs. King’s housemaid. And truly, Miss Cross, I couldn’t ask for a better position. Fair pay, decent food, a bed I don’t toss and turn in all night.”

  The anger and fear eased from her countenance. I studied her and reached a conclusion. “Then it was true what you and the other servants told my reporter from the Messenger, Jacob Stodges, about being happy working at Kingscote.”

  “It is. Oh, Isaiah Baldwin sometimes tried to make trouble, and his hands wandered my way a time or two. But I gave him what for and ignored his persnickety ways, for the most part. We all did. Why let a man like that ruin good employment for the rest of us? I only wish . . .” She sighed. “I only wish it would last. Come autumn, Mrs. King will close up the house, let us all go, and sail away to Europe. Even if she agreed to hire us all back when she returned in the spring, none of us can wait that long. We’ll each need to find a new situation.”

  “Then who sent me that note?” I murmured, more to myself than to Miss Riley.

  “What note?”

  I shook my head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” But it did. Someone had wished to incriminate one of Kingscote’s servants. The individual probably hadn’t cared who might be blamed. He—or she—had merely wished to deflect suspicion away from themselves. And I had allowed myself to be deceived.

  * * *

  Once again, I found myself gazing up at the stern façade of the Butler Hospital in Providence. Clarence’s death, and the questions it raised, had sent Derrick and me back here, not to ask about William King this time, but with hopes of visiting Harry Ainsley. Derrick’s memories of the fight that robbed Harry of his intellect were sketchy at best, but he had contacted a reporter at his family’s newspaper to see what could be dug up about the fight at the Delphi Athletic Club nine years ago. He feared, however, that the man who had fought Harry that night, the Bald Eagle, had registered only under that name and had remained otherwise anonymous. Were the Bald Eagle and Isaiah Baldwin the same man?

  On the way here on the train, we had discussed Clarence’s death and the cryptic hint we believed he had left behind. “The question,” Derrick had pointed out, “is how did Clarence come by that ticket. Did he find it among Baldwin’s things while cleaning out the room? Or perhaps in the butler’s pantry? Although, had that been the case, Ethan should have known about it.”

  “Or,” I replied as the train jostled me against the back of the seat, “did Baldwin himself give Clarence the ticket for safekeeping? Perhaps he had known his life was in danger and didn’t want it disappearing.”

  “If that’s so, we can only assume the ticket is a direct link between Baldwin, Harry Ainsley, and the murderer.”

  We entered the hospital with hopes and doubts in equal measure. Would H
arry Ainsley be able to tell us anything?

  The man at the front desk, different from the one we’d met last time, inquired about our business with little apparent interest, until I mentioned Harry Ainsley’s name. That produced a quirk of his eyebrow. He gave the desk telephone a crank and murmured into the handset. After hanging up he asked us to find seats in the waiting room. We were not detained there long, as only minutes later an orderly greeted us and bade us follow him.

  He led us up to the building’s second floor and down a scrupulously scrubbed corridor. From a window at the far end, bright, cheerful sunlight splashed the tiled floor and beige walls. Murmuring could be heard from the rooms on either side, their doors open. A man in a suit strode out from one, followed closely by a nurse. It was not the doctor we had spoken to last time, and I hoped we would not encounter Dr. Winston again. They passed us with brisk nods and kept going to the elevator. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of errand they had set out upon. Something routine, or trouble with a patient?

  The orderly escorted us past some of those open doors, whereupon I realized these were administrative offices, not patient quarters. He brought us to a large room near the end of the corridor, where he bade us again be seated. He took up position by the door, his feet braced wide, his arms crossed, and his gaze on us. No one else occupied the room.

  I don’t believe he meant to be rude or make us uncomfortable. I supposed he merely had the responsibility of seeing that we didn’t go wandering off where visitors shouldn’t be. Still, a sense of being scrutinized sent a chill across my shoulders. What would it be like to be watched all hours of the day, to have one’s liberty curtailed, to wake, eat, bathe, and even walk in the sunlight, only when one was told to do so?

  Derrick must have noticed my shiver, for his hand slid across to cover mine. The orderly made note of it with a little flick of his eyelids. Then he shifted his gaze away from us, toward the windows lining the outside wall. There were numerous chairs arranged in various groupings throughout the room, a piano in one corner, a card table, and a set of bookshelves filled with well-worn volumes, probably donations from local families. There was even a phonograph, with a gaily painted horn, sitting on top of an oak cabinet, which I assumed held the recorded discs.