Murder at Marble House (10 page)

“Can’t you try to forgive him, Neily?”

He shrugged and kissed me good-bye.

Katie and I spent the next hour or so coaxing Barney up and down Belleview Avenue and its surrounding area. The streets bustled with activity, there being quite a well-heeled crowd riding up and down the fashionable avenue to see and be seen, waving hello to acquaintances and stopping to talk to friends. More than once the genial traffic brought my rig to a complete halt, not to mention the several times I was obliged to stop and exchange greetings and news with those who recognized me as a Vanderbilt relation. I might not have been a desirable acquaintance in my own right, but my connections kept me in fairly high social demand during the Season. That I wrote a society column that extolled the grandeur of their houses and their glittering summer activities didn’t hurt either.

One of the interruptions in my travels did bring an unexpected benefit, for as I climbed down from my carriage to trade pleasantries with Mary Hazard and her mother, who should happen by but Carrie Astor—really Carrie Wilson now, but most people still referred to her as an Astor. Her younger cousin, Waldorf, who was about Consuelo’s age, strolled at her side.

The Beechwood estate had been my next intended stop. Earlier, calling on the Goelets and their nearby neighbors, the Oelrichses, had produced little in the way of results. I’d forgone the direct approach I’d taken with Winty and instead steered the conversation in ways that encouraged Consuelo’s friends to divulge whether they’d seen or heard from her in recent days. May Goelet hadn’t encountered my cousin since the same ball where Consuelo had managed to speak with Winty, and Blanche Oelrichs hadn’t glimpsed Consuelo at all since they’d met in Paris in the spring. Both expressed concern for her, and nothing in their attitudes or bearing led me to believe either had reason to lie.

I hoped for better results with Carrie and Waldorf. Yet when I casually brought up her name, they stared back at me with blank expressions. “Heard from Consuelo?” Carrie parroted. Her mouth formed a rigid line as she raised a hand to adjust the netting around her beribboned chapeau. “No, I have not, and I am beginning to take it rather personally. I had believed she and I to be friends.”

“As did I,” her cousin agreed. “But it seems she’s been too busy for old acquaintances this summer.” He gave a shrug, and his voice lost a bit of its resentment. “Planning her wedding, I suppose. Clever Consuelo, to land herself a duke.”

Consuelo and Waldorf had never been sweethearts, but like many friends who’d essentially grown up together, they shared a sibling-like closeness and kept few secrets from each other. It didn’t surprise me that her apparent abandonment of her friends had been taken to heart. But no matter where Consuelo’s future took her, she would need these old friends. I couldn’t let them slip away because of her mother’s actions.

“Consuelo hasn’t been ignoring you,” I said earnestly. “She’s been longing to see you, to see all her friends.”

“Then why have we been turned away each time we’ve called at Marble House?” Carrie demanded to know. Waldorf nodded his consensus.

“It’s . . . she’s . . .” If Aunt Alva got wind of my interference, I’d never hear the end of it. But concern for my cousin took precedence. “It’s her mother. She’s been refusing to let Consuelo’s friends see her all summer. It’s because of the engagement.” Having said too much, I closed my mouth. They didn’t need to know the ugly truth about Consuelo’s impending nuptials. They were as aware of Aunt Alva’s penchants as everyone else in their social circle. Her temper was legendary, her tendencies familiar if inexplicable.

But I’d obviously given too much away. “Consuelo isn’t happy about the engagement,” Waldorf said rather than asked. His youthful gaze sharpened. “She’s being forced.”

I wanted to backtrack, to lie and say Aunt Alva simply wanted Consuelo to focus and prepare for her new role as a duchess, for an American, however much an heiress, had much to learn when it came to mingling with European royalty, as she surely would once she married. But the Astors had been lied to enough when it came to my cousin.

“She’s not happy, I’m afraid. To be honest, she’s rather afraid of the prospect, but she’s determined to make the best of it.”

Carrie studied me, her blue eyes shrewd. “Then why are you looking for her?”

“Oh, I’m not,” I replied, probably too quickly. I looked out over the phaetons, victorias, and curricles, as well as single riders passing by. “I only wanted to know if you’d heard from her. I thought . . . well . . . perhaps my aunt relented and allowed her to at least speak with you.”

Neither Carrie nor Waldorf replied for a long moment, their expressions burning with speculation. Then a soft-gloved touch descended on my forearm.

“If there is anything we can do . . .” Carrie murmured.

“Yes, please let us know,” Waldorf finished for her.

I nodded my thanks and moved to climb back into my carriage. Waldorf offered a hand to help me up, and when I’d settled in the seat he smiled at me. “How’s Brady doing, by the way?”

“Much better and vastly relieved,” I said. “As you can imagine.”

“Never did believe he was guilty. I just wanted you to know that, Emma.”

Carrie moved beside Waldorf, a head taller than she despite being so much younger, and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Me neither. We’re glad it turned out well for him. And things will turn out just fine for Consuelo, too. You’ll see.”

“Thank you. Both of you.” I hoped Carrie was right. If nothing else, her optimism bolstered me on my way into town after I dropped Katie off at home. There was one more person I was eager to question, but first I had a stop to make.

 

Ed Billings’s voice boomed from Mr. Millford’s office as I stepped into the tiny lobby of the Newport
Observer
on Lower Thames Street. I shot a glance at Donald Larimer, Mr. Millford’s secretary, half buried behind the stack of paperwork on his desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked him as the voices from the inner office crescendoed a second time. I tried to make out the words, but only the name Anthony Dobbs penetrated the walls and the mostly closed office door.

“Big scandal,” whispered Donald with a sidelong glance into the narrow corridor off the lobby. Sunlight from the large front window glinted on his oval spectacles. “Ed just got the scoop.”

I tightened my grip on the doorknob I hadn’t noticed I was still clutching from when I’d closed the street door behind me. “Please don’t tell me Mr. Millford decided to scrub my article on the Marble House murder and run some rot Ed tossed together. Is that why my article wasn’t on the front page this morning?” What
had
been on the front page? In my eagerness to find my own article, and then my disappointment at not seeing it, I’d ignored the actual headlines.

Oh, but it wouldn’t be the first time Ed Billings stole a byline from me with a hastily scrawled, uninformed report. And merely because he was a man, while I, a woman, should focus my attentions on fashions and parties and other such rubbish. Or so Mr. Millford often told me.

Donald wrinkled his nose, a flash of his glasses recapturing my attention. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, Emma. But at this point no one is going to care about the murder of some charlatan with no real Newport roots. Not now.”

I released the doorknob and strode to the desk, only just stopping myself from leaning over its littered surface to grab Donald’s shoulders and shake him. How dare he imply my article was unimportant? “What
are
you talking about?”

“Anthony Dobbs. He’s been suspended from the police force under suspicion of extortion.”

My mouth dropped open; I backed away from the desk. Yet I can’t claim to have been completely shocked. I’d never liked the man, never fully trusted him, and I had ample cause to resent the way he’d treated my brother through the years. Had the bully Dobbs finally gotten his comeuppance? It had been Dobbs who had most wanted to see Brady hang for a crime he didn’t commit, who had been ready to seal Brady’s fate before all the evidence was in.

I frowned. “Whom was he extorting money from?”

“Oh, you know . . . the town bookies, that so-called doctor who likes to prescribe mint oil for all manner of ailments, and apparently a real-estate broker who was selling land that didn’t exist off the mainland coast. And then there were the usual run of townies—barkeepers watering down the liquor, restaurants serving horse instead of beef . . . and the like. You see, they were all paying him to turn a blind eye. And a blind eye he turned, for quite a profit from what I understand.”

I started to wonder how I’d had no inkling of any of this, when a notion dawned. “Fortune-tellers?” I whispered, my mind turning the information over.

Donald shrugged. “I suppose so. Newport has a fair amount of those.”

One fortune-teller in particular, who would never gaze into her crystal ball again? I searched Donald’s bland features for affirmation of my unspoken theory, but he’d already turned his attention back to the documents under his nose. I headed down the corridor to Mr. Millford’s office to see what I could learn.

 

From the
Observer
office I made my way across town and wound a circuitous path through the bustling activity of Long Wharf. Here commercial hulks vied with elegant sailboats and steamers for docking space and waterfront access, while trains snaked slowly along the wide arcs of the adjoining tracks. Amid billowing clouds of steam, shouts, horns, and bells clamored in the air around me, and I felt Barney’s discomfiture in the pull of the reins wrapped around my hands. I maneuvered through the throng carefully yet almost absently as new revelations filtered through my mind.

Mr. Millford had had to step out when I arrived in his office, so I’d questioned Ed Billings about the Anthony Dobbs case. His answers had been measured and evasive. It didn’t surprise me; Ed typically guarded his information jealously, apparently suspecting in others the unfair tactics he himself employed. I had no intention of stealing his story from him. But I wondered . . .

If the charges were true and Anthony Dobbs had been extorting not only con artists but local businesses attempting to cut corners to maximize the profits that would plummet when the summer season ended, who had reported him? Ed either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that question; my guess was the latter.

A new and unexpected motive for murder had arisen, widening the pool of possible culprits. Aunt Alva had spoken harshly to Madame Devereaux, demanding the woman lie to soothe Consuelo’s fears concerning her impending marriage; and the medium and Aunt Alva’s guest, Mrs. Stanford, had certainly seemed to share a mutual abhorrence. Motives . . . perhaps. But flimsy ones when compared to the end of a police detective’s career, the ruination of his good name, and the very real possibility of his spending the next several years in prison.

A familiar face roused me from my speculations and reminded me I hadn’t come to the wharf to solve a murder, but to continue the search for my cousin. Near the far end of the wharf, all but lost between a freight barge and a proud, three-mast schooner, an ancient-looking skiff bobbed up and down with the gentle tide. A man with shoulder-length red hair pulled back in a queue, a fair, freckled complexion, and a weathered countenance that belied his youth sat hunched in the bow of the boat. His gaze found me as I steered Barney to a stop beside the boat slip.

“Hello, Angus. Are you free for the next hour or so?”

His grin revealed a broken front tooth and a missing incisor. “Are you hiring me, Emma?”

One of seven children, Angus MacPhearson had grown up two blocks away from our house on the Point. He and Brady had gotten up to no end of mischief during their early years, but upon finishing their schooling Angus had joined the navy and gone off island with boastful promises of someday commanding a frigate. Six months later Angus had returned to Newport a civilian and refused to talk about his naval experience. He somehow managed to win his skiff during a night of gambling and had operated his transport service from this same boat slip ever since.

“I most certainly am,” I said in answer to his question as I wrapped Barney’s reins around the dock railing. Angus’s rough calluses scraped my palm as I grasped his offered hand and stepped down into his skiff. His were boatman’s hands, gotten from rowing his passengers through all manner of weather and tides.

“Let me guess . . .” Angus turned away as I settled on the middle seat, facing him. His pale blue eyes searched the harbor, and then his grin returned. “You almost never leave the island, so we’re not rowing to Jamestown.”

“No,” I confirmed, and his relief was palpable in his loud exhalation.

“Good. This swelling in my thumb wouldn’t like a row that far.” He held up the offending appendage, an angry red blister encompassing the skin from the pad of his finger to the knuckle.

“Have you had that looked at?”

He shrugged and placed an oar in its rowlock before bending to lift the other from the deck of the small craft. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

I vowed to tip him well for his services and urge him to see a doctor.

“
The Valiant,
then?” he asked with his gap-toothed grin.

“How did you know?”

“There’s no other ship a decent young lady like yourself would visit but her uncle’s.” Something in his expression warned that if I’d had other ideas, I’d better be able to justify them or he wouldn’t take me. An old loyalty to Brady? I believed so. And somehow the notion warmed me. Poor Angus might not have fulfilled his dream of becoming a naval officer, but despite his unkempt appearance, something of a gentleman lived inside him.

“To
The Valiant,
” I said with a flourish, and we set off, easing away from the pier. “I don’t suppose you rowed my cousin Consuelo out yesterday or today,” I asked, as if spurred by mere idle curiosity.