“Aubrey was probably inebriated when the sailboat boom knocked him overboard, and Morgan was certainly far beyond sobriety the night he died,” Lena said. “Everyone believes they bear some of the responsibility for their own deaths. Friends are too polite to say it within my hearing, but I can read it in their eyes.”
“As you say . . .” Lady Rotherton was loath to whitewash the two young men she believed had led wasted, undisciplined lives, but neither did she wish to cause Lena further suffering. She let the subject drop.
“Everett continues to be my strong right arm in all of this,” Lena offered. She appeared to have accepted Prudence’s explanation of what had happened. Perhaps she just wanted to move on to what were bound to be happier days. “I’m content to allow him to continue to live here for as long as he and Lorinda wish, which I think will be only until they can construct a home of their own on Fifth Avenue. I understand he and her father are considering several building sites.”
“And the businesses?” asked Lady Rotherton.
“We’ve agreed to postpone that discussion until after the baby is born,” Lena said. “At the suggestion of William’s attorney, who drew up the will originally. If it’s another William, then we must take into consideration the fact that he may wish to take over his father’s firm one day. If it’s a girl, it might be to her advantage for Everett to buy her out of active management and invest the funds in a trust instrument.”
“But, as William promised all those years ago, you yourself have nothing to worry about?” Prudence asked. It was always difficult and embarrassing to have to discuss money.
“Nothing,” Lena confirmed. “Even with the disaster Morgan precipitated, William was generous to a fault. As I predicted he would be.” She glanced sharply at Lady Rotherton, an unmistakable gleam of triumph in her eyes.
“Geoffrey will be relieved,” Prudence said. “You had us worried for a while.”
“I want you both to come to a small family dinner next week in honor of Everett and Lorinda’s formal engagement,” Lena said. “And you, too, of course, Lady Rotherton. It won’t be anything splendid because we are all in mourning, and there won’t be a mention in any of the newspapers, but we didn’t want to let the occasion pass without something to mark our joy amid so much sorrow. You will come, won’t you?”
“We shall be delighted,” Prudence said.
“Wear the Marie Antoinette diamonds,” Lady Rotherton suggested. “I can’t think of a more appropriate occasion.”
* * *
“The dinner should be at the young girl’s home, not the young man’s. What on earth is Lena thinking?” Lady Rotherton fussed. “William has been gone more than three weeks. It’s entirely appropriate for us to wear gray, Prudence. He wasn’t a relative.”
“I’ll wear black, Aunt Gillian. Out of respect for the very close friendship between Mr. De Vries and my father.”
“Then you’re forcing me to wear black, also,” Lady Rotherton complained. “And it’s not my best color.” She stormed out of Prudence’s dressing room, waving an impatient hand at her lady’s maid. “The black pearls,” she commanded. “I refuse to forgo the tiara, and I must also have a black ostrich plume. These Americans expect one to treat each of their functions as though it were a coronation.”
“Will you want an ostrich plume, too, Miss Prudence?” Colleen Riordan asked. “Only I don’t think you have one. Not in black, at any rate.”
“I don’t have a title either, so it’s perfectly all right not to be grand. And it’s only a family dinner to toast the newly engaged couple. There won’t even be a line in the society columns tomorrow, so you needn’t bother looking.”
Prudence knew that Colleen kept an album of newspaper clippings in which Prudence’s name appeared. In the months since Lady Rotherton’s arrival, her maid had already added more articles to the pages than in the previous year altogether.
“Everything black, miss?” Colleen draped a pair of long silk evening gloves over one arm.
“Everything,” Prudence confirmed. She wondered if the name cards at each place setting would be bordered in black, the way mourning stationery was, and made herself a mental note to check that arcane piece of etiquette.
Despite her protestations, Lady Rotherton looked regal and intimidating in her jet-embroidered black gown, ropes of black pearls, and sparkling diamond tiara. An enormous midnight ostrich feather added inches to her already formidable height for a woman.
Geoffrey paid her the compliment of a courtier’s bow, then winked at Prudence behind her aunt’s back as they climbed into the carriage that Kincaid had thoroughly warmed with hot bricks wrapped in woolen scarves.
“I have a feeling this is going to be one of those evenings when I find it difficult to stay awake,” he whispered in Prudence’s ear. “Kick me under the table if I seem to be dozing off.” He often found the socially acceptable topics of conversation to be immensely boring, another of the reasons he begged off more than half the invitations littering his mantelpiece.
“We don’t have to stay for very long after dinner is over,” Lady Rotherton said, proving once again that her hearing was far too sharp for her age. “I for one will not linger over my brandy and coffee. I’ll be quite happy to call it an early night. One can always offer the excuse of not wanting to impose on the hospitality of a house in mourning.”
“Have you met the Bouwmeesters, Prudence?” Geoffrey asked.
“Lorinda, of course, at some debutante tea, I think. But not the parents.”
“The name tells you everything you need to know, Mr. Hunter,” Lady Rotherton told him. “Knickerbockers on both sides. Very prim and proper. They don’t know quite what to make of the newcomers to New York society. If it’s not old money it can’t be respectable.”
“Which would exclude half the people whose names regularly appear in the society columns.”
“My point exactly,” Lady Rotherton agreed. “I wonder if Lena will be wearing the Marie Antoinette diamonds tonight.”
“She’s too newly widowed,” Prudence reminded her aunt.
“I know. But I’d like one last look at them.”
“Why?”
“Just to be sure. I know what William said he had done. But that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t been busy again.”
Neither Prudence nor Geoffrey commented.
* * *
Lady Rotherton’s assessment of the evening’s guests was unerringly on target, except for one small disappointment. Lena De Vries did not wear the Marie Antoinette diamonds.
Lorinda Bouwmeester, dressed in black out of respect for the family she would soon be joining, was a small, pale blonde whose eyelashes were so light as to be nearly invisible, giving her an oddly startled look.
Prudence, smiling and murmuring polite nothings, finally remembered where they had been introduced. “It was at one of the Patriarchs Balls, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“How good of you to remember,” Lorinda said. “There were so many of us that night, all dressed in white, all probably wearing exactly the same anxious look. I’m so glad that’s behind me. I know it’s supposed to be a girl’s finest hour, but I found it absolutely terrifying.”
Which, Prudence decided, showed that Everett’s bride-to-be had common sense and wasn’t afraid to display it.
Mr. and Mrs. Bouwmeester were also very blond and lashless, two lookalike figures from New York’s Dutch past, as rotund and devoid of pretense as a pair of wooden dolls. They clearly adored their only child and considered the handsome Everett Rinehart, since Lorinda had selected him, to be the perfect choice of son-in-law.
“They have a very old name and own half the Hudson River Valley,” Lady Rotherton whispered.
“How do you know that, Aunt Gillian?”
“I ask the right questions of the right people, Prudence. How many times must I impress on you how important that is?” Lady Rotherton sipped a really fine champagne, silently thanking the departed William for stocking a dec
ent cellar. Catching Mrs. Bouwmeester’s eye lingering on Lena’s slightly spherical waist and belly, she wondered what Everett’s future mother-in-law was thinking.
“We’re only eight this evening,” Lena announced. “A small party but, I hope, a very happy one. I know I speak for my dear William when I say he would look upon Lorinda and Everett with great rejoicing and wish them a long, prosperous, and devoted life together.”
It wasn’t quite a formal toast, but in the absence of Everett’s uncle, it would have to do. Mr. Bouwmeester came forward to escort Lena to the dining room, Everett claimed Mrs. Bouwmeester’s arm, and Geoffrey conducted the blushing Lorinda to the table. Which left Lady Rotherton and Prudence following along behind.
“They certainly don’t understand rank in this country,” Lady Rotherton muttered.
“That’s because we don’t have it,” Prudence reminded her.
“Of course you do. You just call it something else. I could definitely use another glass of that delicious champagne.”
“Too late, Aunt Gillian. It’s still wines from here on out.”
“Lorinda is wearing an enormous engagement ring. I could see the size of it pushing against her glove.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“One of the small joys of life is comparing your jewels to everyone else’s, especially when you know you’ll come out on top.”
Prudence read her aunt’s face as they took their seats and knew there would be another few choice comments made in the carriage on the way home about the abysmal lack of correct formality at American dinner tables. Prudence would have to remind her that Lena had insisted on it being a very small family affair. In which case, Americans thought it perfectly fine to throw some of the rules of elegant dining out the window. She caught Geoffrey’s eye across the table and guessed he was envisioning the same scene.
A beam of brilliant reflected candlelight flashed from Lorinda’s engagement ring as she eased off her long black gloves and folded them neatly in her lap.
Prudence turned to ask Lorinda to extend her left hand so she could admire the ring Everett had given her—and then she froze. Lady Rotherton was holding Lorinda’s hand in her own, one finger brushing across the top of the large diamond set in eighteen-karat gold. Back and forth, back and forth again, and then around the stone several times as if to memorize the shape and cut of it.
“It’s definitely one of a kind,” Lady Rotherton remarked. “A very special diamond.”
“That’s what Everett said.” Lorinda blushed. “A very special diamond for a very special lady.”
* * *
“I don’t like being made a fool of,” Lady Rotherton declared, thin-soled evening slippers drumming an angry tattoo on Kincaid’s warm bricks.
“What on earth do you mean. Aunt Gillian?” Prudence asked. “It might have been a slightly boring evening, but everyone was excruciatingly polite.”
“We’ve been made chumps of,” Lady Rotherton insisted. “We’ve been conned, hoodwinked, duped, and misled. Had the wool well and truly pulled over our eyes. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Do you know what she’s talking about, Geoffrey?”
“You can’t mistake the eighteenth-century cut for anything else,” Lady Rotherton said. “Every era thinks of some new way to enhance the brilliance of a stone. The court of Louis the Sixteenth was no exception. The diamonds cut for the necklace that was never made for Marie Antoinette are unmistakable. Lorinda is wearing one of them on the ring finger of her left hand.”
“Are you certain? How can you tell?” Prudence felt as though the carriage were whirling through thin air.
“I told you I know my stones,” Lady Rotherton said. “I’ve worn and studied Europe’s finest gems all my life. I’d have to be some kind of an idiot not to recognize one of the Marie Antoinette diamonds when I see it.”
“You’re sure there’s no mistaking it for another stone?” Geoffrey asked quietly. Not that he doubted Lady Rotherton’s eye, but only that he had to ask one final time before committing them to as dangerous an action as any he’d ever undertaken for Allan Pinkerton.
“There’s no doubt at all,” Lady Rotherton said. “I saw you watching me, Mr. Hunter. Do you know what I was doing?”
He shook his head.
“Examining the facets. Feeling the shape and size of them. Making a mental picture I can sketch for you. Any decent gem expert would recognize it.”
“What do we do, Geoffrey?” Prudence asked.
“I’m almost afraid to tell you,” he answered.
CHAPTER 28
The burglary of the Bouwmeester home made all the morning editions of the city’s newspapers. It was a shocking and deeply disturbing assault on New York society’s privileged isolation safe from the depredations of a criminal element it largely ignored. Fifth Avenue mansions, seemingly impregnable in their solid bulk, were revealed to be as vulnerable to intrusion as the most ordinary citizen’s much humbler dwelling. It was all anyone could talk about.
“It says here that Miss Bouwmeester had removed her engagement ring from her finger and deposited it in a Spode trinket dish on her dressing table for the night. That she was in the habit of doing so because of the size of the diamond. The household staff was questioned as soon as the piece of jewelry was discovered to be missing. In the course of the investigation, the police found that a window on the second floor had been forced open. The carpeting below it was dampened by the overnight inclement weather.” Prudence folded the newspaper to the story she had been reading aloud, then tackled the next in the stack of papers Josiah had deposited on Geoffrey’s desk.
“They’re all about the same, miss,” Josiah said. He had already skimmed the best and the worst of the accounts, most of which seemed to be nearly identical copies of what the first reporter to break the story had written. “They couldn’t have gotten those details except from one of the servants.”
“No doubt about it,” Geoffrey said, sipping at the strong coffee Josiah had brewed as soon as he saw his employer’s haggard face. “Half the gossip in the society columns comes from maids and footmen.” He ran a hand over his chin and realized that his razor had missed a spot that morning. It had been a long and danger-fraught night.
“When will the Tiffany story break?” Prudence asked.
“A messenger delivered Miss Bouwmeester’s ring and an anonymous note to the Tiffany appraisal department when the store opened. As soon as they’ve authenticated the diamond as being one of the Marie Antoinette stones previously set into Lena De Vries’s necklace, Russell Coughlin will go to his editor with the story. The whole thing.”
“I assume Mrs. De Vries hasn’t been warned what to expect?” Josiah queried.
“We thought it best to keep her in the dark,” Geoffrey said. “If what we suspect is true, she’ll be safer if she can be seen not to have recognized the diamond Miss Bouwmeester was wearing at the dinner party.”
“Will Everett try to bluff his way through?” Prudence asked.
Geoffrey shrugged. “There’s no predicting what he’ll do. We barely scratched the surface of who and what Everett Rinehart is.”
“A thief and a murderer,” Josiah contributed.
“Almost certainly,” Geoffrey agreed.
“Almost?” Prudence questioned.
“We need proof,” Geoffrey temporized. “We don’t have it yet.”
“Circumstantial evidence,” Josiah concurred.
“I’m hypothesizing that if Everett did steal Lena’s diamonds, it had to have been because he desperately needed large sums of cash that couldn’t be traced back to him the way an ordinary loan would be,” Geoffrey began.
“But the way he lives doesn’t demonstrate any kind of extravagance,” Prudence said, applying the same logic that had convinced them of Morgan’s innocence. “We know he doesn’t drink to excess or gamble, and the only hobby he seems to indulge is sailing. But the boat isn’t anything near yacht size and he doesn’t belong to a club
with high membership fees.”
“Something we were told about him has stuck with me ever since I heard it,” Geoffrey mused. “No red flags popped up at the time, but they probably should have.”
“What’s that?” Prudence asked.
“Everett supposedly made more money for the investment clients whose portfolios he managed than any of the other agents working at the De Vries companies. William boasted about his performance and contrasted it with Morgan’s. That’s why he was promoted so quickly, why be became his uncle’s second-in-command as fast as he did.”
“And it could also be why no one questioned or challenged him when he took over the day-to-day operations after William had his stroke,” Prudence said. “He’s obviously a capable organizer. He ran the household for Lena so she could spend more time at her husband’s bedside, and he continued to do so after William died. I don’t recall anyone ever saying anything critical about him.” She remembered the odd way Lena had seemed to brush Everett’s casual kiss off her cheek, then decided not to mention what had only been a fleeting impression.
“Too perfect?” questioned Josiah.
“We need a look inside the portfolios he oversees,” Geoffrey said. “If his clients aren’t getting the returns he promised them, he might have taken the diamonds to cover their losses whenever someone wanted to pull out cash.”
“And sold them to James Carpenter?” Prudence asked.
“Some of them,” Geoffrey agreed. “But my guess is he’s keeping most of them in reserve, hoping the stock market choices he’s made will rebound in time for him to be able to hold on to them. He may be running the De Vries banking and investment businesses, but he doesn’t own either company.”
“Not yet,” Prudence said. “Lena seems to trust him now, certainly more than she did when he first tried to have her sign away William’s assets. I remember she was so angry that she told me to burn those papers. I wonder what made her change her mind.”
“He’s a snake oil salesman,” Josiah said, tapping brusquely on his stenographer’s pad. “Slick as can be and hardly ever makes a misstep.”
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