“And the other man?”
“His friend is sitting by his bedside. He refused to leave him.”
“Can you direct us to the ward he’s on?”
“No visitors,” the doctor said. “Family members only.” He’d already balked at giving out the patients’ names.
Geoffrey handed over a business card.
“Investigative Law?” questioned the doctor. “I didn’t think this was a police matter. We were told it was an accident.”
“Nevertheless.” Geoffrey glanced around the Emergency Pavilion’s waiting area. There was usually at least one reporter hanging about, waiting for a story that might fill a few lines of copy. With fresh editions of the city’s newspapers being hawked throughout the day, the hunger for news was insatiable. If he couldn’t get the names he wanted one way, he’d try another.
But the waiting area was empty of newshounds. He glanced at his pocket watch. Close to deadline for the afternoon editions.
“I’ll ask one of the nurses,” Prudence said quietly when the doctor turned away to attend to another case. She was soon back with the information they needed. “Morgan Whitley and Aubrey Canfield,” she said, reading from a scrap of paper. “Canfield is the one who’s in a bad way. The staff has been paid not to reveal his name.”
Geoffrey didn’t bother asking how much she’d had to hand over to overpay the Canfield family bribe.
“He’s on the floor above this one.”
Another horse-drawn ambulance had pulled up to the Emergency Pavilion entrance. In the rush to unload the bloody losers of the latest Five Points bar fight, no one noticed the well-dressed lady and her tall companion disappear up the staircase to the second-floor wards.
They found Morgan Whitley seated beside Aubrey Canfield’s narrow iron cot. White curtains strung on a ceiling rail had been drawn around three sides of the bed for privacy. Someone had wrapped a blanket around Morgan’s shoulders and another one over his legs. A pierced-cover pot of charcoal burned at his feet. River-wet clothing had been draped over a chair. Even before Prudence reached out a comforting hand, she could tell that his whole body was quivering relentlessly.
“It’s all right, Prudence,” he said, looking up at her, unable to stand. “They tell me I’m no worse off than if I’d caught a bad chill in the ordinary way. This must be that miracle cure we were talking about yesterday.”
“Can I call the nurse to bring you something hot to drink?” she asked.
“I’ve had enough tea and beef broth to last the rest of my life,” he said. He nodded in Geoffrey’s direction. “Don’t bother with an introduction. I know who Mr. Hunter is.”
“What happened, Mr. Whitley?” Geoffrey wasn’t sure how much time they would have before someone, perhaps the tired young doctor from the Emergency Pavilion, realized where they’d gone and decided to do something about it.
“I’m not sure I know. Everything seems jumbled together. I can’t make sense of it.”
“Morgan jumped into the river to save Aubrey’s life. That’s what happened.” Everett Rinehart closed the white curtains behind him and set a small suitcase on the floor. He held out a hand to Geoffrey and tipped his hat to Prudence. “I’ve brought clean, dry clothes,” he said, leaning briefly over the unconscious man in the bed, then turning his attention to Morgan. “We can’t have you walking out of here in whatever the hospital was able to scare up. Aunt Lena wrote a note. She wanted to come, but Uncle William very wisely wouldn’t allow it. They’re both waiting for you at home.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Morgan said. “I told you that, Everett.”
“I won’t insist. And neither do they. But you do need to get some decent clothes on if you’re going with him when the Canfields have gotten the arrangements made. That could be any time now. There’s a linen storeroom at the end of the ward you can use to get dressed in. I’ve already cleared it with the floor nurse.” He helped Morgan to his feet.
Geoffrey picked up the suitcase.
“Someone he knows has to be here. In case he comes to,” Morgan said.
“I’ll stay,” Everett promised. He placed a chair for Prudence next to the bed, then indicated he would take the seat Morgan had vacated.
Suitcase in one hand, the other clasped firmly around Morgan’s right arm, Geoffrey led the still shivering man out of the curtained cubicle. Their slow footsteps faded down the length of the ward.
“He won’t regain consciousness, will he?” Prudence said. She spoke in a low voice, but there was no indication that Aubrey Canfield was aware of anything that was going on around him. Nothing except the slight rise and fall of his chest testified to evidence of life.
“No,” Everett said. “Aubrey’s parents are taking him home to die. There’s no hope of recovery. I don’t know a lot about medical matters, but even I could understand that much. He was under water too long for his brain to remain undamaged. If that weren’t bad enough, he inhaled and swallowed huge gulps of the river. The doctor said his lungs will never recover.”
“Pneumonia?”
“That and a host of other things I don’t remember and can’t pronounce. Having to do with contamination and toxic poisons. The East River is apparently as filthy as a sewer.”
“It looks so beautiful with the sun sparkling on it,” Prudence said.
“Beautiful, deadly, and full of shipping. We usually go out into the Sound.”
“But not today?”
“This was going to be a short sail. No more than two hours on the water from start to finish. Our last outing before the New Year. And who knew when we’d get another day like today? The winter weather can turn on you without warning.”
“What did you mean when you said Morgan jumped into the river to save Aubrey’s life?” Prudence asked, studying the patient in the bed as she spoke. If a man did not react to the sound of his own name, then he was well and truly beyond reach.
“That’s what happened, though I don’t think any of us actually saw Aubrey go in. We were tacking northward.... Do you know what tacking is, Miss MacKenzie?” Everett asked.
“It means you were going from one side of the river to the other. On a diagonal,” she answered, recalling her father’s explanation of nautical maneuvers when they watched small pleasure boats racing each other in the Hudson River off Staten Island.
“Because you can’t sail directly into the wind,” Everett confirmed. “We were on a broad reach, which means the boom was nearly at a right angle to the hull of the boat.”
“How long is your boat, Mr. Rinehart?”
“It’s a thirty footer, built narrow for racing.”
“Go on.”
“So when you tack, the boom swings across the boat to the other side.”
“I understand.”
“We had a ten- to twelve-knot wind, good and steady. I called out ‘Ready about,’ somebody shouted back ‘Ready,’ and I swung the wheel into the tack. As I said, none of us saw it happen, but Aubrey must have been struck and knocked over by the boom when it swung from port to starboard. That’s the only way to explain it. He was lying out on the deck, looking up at the sky. It was beautiful, Miss MacKenzie, bright blue and crystal clear the way it only gets in winter. He didn’t hear me or he raised his head at exactly the wrong moment. I’d glanced over at the shoreline for a second. The next thing I knew, people were shouting ‘Man overboard.’ I never even heard the splash.”
“And that’s when you said Morgan jumped in?”
“Not right away. But the wind had caught the sail and we all realized pretty quickly that we wouldn’t be able to get back to Aubrey in time if he went under. Which we saw him do. That’s when Morgan went in. I don’t think he stopped to think about what the consequences could be. For him, I mean. When we came about and got close enough to pick them up, he was holding Aubrey’s head above water, but it was pretty clear that neither one of them could last much longer.”
“Such a brave thing to do,” Prudence said.
; “And foolhardy,” Everett said. “Aubrey will die anyway. And who knows what may happen to Morgan in the weeks ahead. We could lose both of them.”
Still no sign that the friend Morgan had risked his life to save had heard anything of the conversation taking place so close to him. It wasn’t difficult to believe that he would never speak or open his eyes again.
“Mr. Canfield’s private ambulance is here,” a nurse announced. “We’ll need to get him ready to be transported.” She held the white curtain open for them to leave.
“I think you have one additional patient to see to,” Prudence told her.
Followed closely by Geoffrey, Morgan Whitley was making his way down the ward toward Aubrey’s bed. He looked frail and still blue around the mouth, but Prudence thought he was shivering less. Lena had sent a thick overcoat, wool scarf, and heavy gloves, all of which hung off Morgan’s thin frame like hand-me-downs on a scarecrow. But he was walking steadily and had a determined set to his jaw. Nothing and no one was going to stop him from sitting with his friend until the end.
* * *
Aubrey’s room in the Canfield mansion was darkened and hushed. His mother and younger sister sat on one side of the bed, Morgan on the other. Mr. Canfield stood at the foot, one hand on the gold watch he frequently withdrew from its waistcoat pocket. Time was racing by and standing still.
Morgan had managed to make it up the outside steps of the Canfields’ home, but two footmen had had to half carry him to the upstairs bedroom where the ambulance stretcher bearers had deposited his dying friend. And there Morgan collapsed into the chair where he had now been sitting for more than three hours. With Prudence beside him.
Geoffrey had gone to find Danny Dennis’s waiting hansom cab while Aubrey was being loaded into the ambulance at Bellevue. When one of the attendants held out his hand to assist Prudence into the specially equipped vehicle, she took it and climbed in. “He assumed Morgan was Aubrey’s brother and I was a wife or sister,” she told her partner later. “I decided not to inform him otherwise.”
The Canfields, seeing how Morgan clung to Prudence, and knowing that he had nearly given his life to save their son, welcomed her. Custom dictated that Death should not be met alone.
From time to time a maid brought a tray of tea and small sandwiches into the room. Only the tea was touched. The family doctor stayed until his services were urgently required elsewhere. Death was no stranger to anyone; it would come when it would come. He gave a few instructions and a small brown bottle of laudanum to the housekeeper, urging her to persuade Mrs. Canfield not to begrudge herself a decent dose when the moment of her son’s passing arrived.
Which it did, inevitably, and as everyone gathered around Aubrey’s bed had known it would.
He opened his eyes, seemed to recognize Morgan, and motioned for him to lean in closer. Then he sighed or perhaps said something to his friend on one of his last breaths.
Sought and found his mother’s gaze. His father’s. Smiled.
“I am content to go,” he whispered. “This life has been so very hard.”
* * *
Morgan Whitley fell ill the evening Aubrey Canfield died.
“Will you go in my place?” he begged Prudence when it became obvious that he was far too sick to attend his friend’s funeral.
“Of course I will,” she promised.
Then told Geoffrey that the situation had become impossible.
“I used our childhood acquaintance to pry information out of him.” Prudence tried to keep the anguish she was feeling out of her voice, the misery of betrayal from her eyes. “I do feel very sorry for his pain and the mess he’s made of life, and I can’t even begin to imagine the courage it took to jump into the East River after Aubrey. But I can’t allow personal feelings to get in the way of the investigation. Someone in that household played a part in stealing Lena’s diamonds, and it could very well have been Morgan.” She gratefully accepted the cup of tea Josiah had brewed for her. Always tea. Rarely coffee since the arrival of Lady Rotherton. The evidence of Josiah’s partiality toward her aunt brought a rueful smile to Prudence’s lips. Even now. “We’ve been over it so many times,” she sighed.
“Shall I come with you to the Canfield boy’s memorial service?” Geoffrey offered.
“It’s tomorrow afternoon at Trinity Church. Can you spare the time?”
Geoffrey thought it an odd question to ask. Anything and anyone associated with the De Vries household was part and parcel of the inquiry they had been hired to conduct. Morgan and the friends with whom he shared his pastimes certainly qualified.
On a hunch, Geoffrey had sent Amos Lang back to the Mint, to the same easily bribed employee who had supplied him with Morgan’s gambling tab. Aubrey Canfield had run up a staggering debt since graduating from Harvard and returning to live in his parents’ home on Fifth Avenue. There had been talk of using muscle to collect it. And then it had been paid off in its entirety. Not all at once, but in several considerable installments that mirrored the way Morgan had discharged the bulk of his debt. The dead man hadn’t remained free and clear, however. Starting a few months previously, the arrears had begun mounting again. At the time of his plunge into the East River, Aubrey owed several thousands of dollars. Amos had been told that someone from the Mint would be visiting the elder Mr. Canfield. After the funeral. They weren’t, after all, barbarians.
The memorial service was surprisingly brief and ill attended. No in memoriam cards had been sent out and no announcement placed in the Times. The Canfields did not receive mourners at home and the closed casket went directly from a mortuary parlor to the church and then to entombment in the family vault.
It was, Prudence decided, the oddest obsequies she had ever observed.
“What do you think it means, Geoffrey?” she asked as they left the church.
“The family is anxious to hide something. This son obviously didn’t live up to their expectations.”
“The gambling?” Prudence had begun to wonder if every young man of wealth concealed profligate spending and indebtedness he was at pains to pay off.
“More than that, I think.”
“They’ll never tell us. I imagine Mr. Canfield has bought off the newspapers in the same way he tried to conceal that his son had been admitted to Bellevue.”
“Which in itself is odd,” Geoffrey speculated. “It made sense to take Morgan and Aubrey there for immediate treatment. It’s the closest hospital to where the boat docked, and even though it’s largely a charity institution, it has a reputation for knowing how to deal with emergencies. I think they didn’t want some nosy newspaper reporter to start digging into his past. Or his present, for that matter.”
“For fear of what would be found?”
“Scandal, a stain on the Canfield name. Past misdeeds that had been hushed up. Payoffs to keep young Aubrey out of trouble.”
“The more we learn, the more complicated and confusing this case gets,” Prudence said, taking Geoffrey’s arm for the short walk up Wall Street to their offices. The hearse and family carriage had already moved off; the sidewalk was nearly empty. “And the wider we seem to need to cast our net.”
“We go back to the beginning,” Geoffrey declared. “We go over every clue, every incident, every person with any connection to the De Vries family and home.”
“Have we missed something?” Prudence asked.
“The pieces are always there,” Geoffrey reminded her. “It’s just a matter of finding them and then putting the puzzle together so it makes sense. We’ve never failed before. And we won’t this time, either.”
She wished she felt as confident as he wanted her to believe he was.
CHAPTER 15
“Aubrey Canfield’s father knew about the wagering long before any of his son’s creditors came to collect from him,” William De Vries told Prudence and Geoffrey.
He’d surprised them by appearing in their offices without any forewarning. It wasn’t the type of thing they’d expect
ed from him.
“How much are we talking about?” Geoffrey asked.
“He didn’t give me a precise figure and I didn’t press. But it was far above the boy’s ability to pay, especially since he’d already squandered the inheritance he’d come into from his grandfather.”
“On his twenty-first birthday?” Prudence remarked. That was the usual age at which legacies were bestowed.
“Aubrey’s grandfather should have stipulated age twenty-five or thirty,” De Vries declared. “But I suppose he had no way of knowing when the trust was set up that his grandson would turn out to be both a drunkard and a spectacularly bad gambler. I’m assuming that’s what drew him and Morgan together. Birds of a feather . . .”
“How is Morgan?” Prudence had sent a note asking if she could stop by, to which Lena had replied that on the advice of his doctor, Morgan was not to receive visitors.
“What I’m about to tell you is going to break his mother’s heart,” William said, “but I don’t see any way out of it. Which is why I’m here.” He glanced toward the door of Geoffrey’s office, checking to be sure it was tightly closed. “This must remain strictly between us.”
“Of course,” Geoffrey agreed.
“I don’t want any notes of today’s meeting put into the files I know you keep.” William had already demanded that Josiah and his Gregg shorthand notebook be excluded from what he had to say.
“Confidentiality is very much a part of what we do,” Prudence assured him.
“Your father was a great one for knowing how to keep a secret.” De Vries almost reached out to touch her hand, then thought better of it. “It made him a judge even his political opponents respected.”
Geoffrey said nothing, waiting for his client to begin. He knew from past experience that once the first words were spoken, the floodgates would open.
“Morgan is the one who stole his mother’s diamonds. I don’t know how he managed it, but he’s guilty. There’s no doubt in my mind. None at all.”
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