Murder at Marble House (14 page)

I glanced down at my dishabille, thought about my aching side, and winced. “Oh, uh, not long. Has something happened? Is this anything to do with the murder?”

“In a way, yes. You’ll be here soon, then?”

Within the hour I brought my carriage to a stop outside the
Observer
’s offices. Whatever Mr. Millford wished to talk to me about, I resolved not to give him the chance until I’d learned why my story about Madame Devereaux’s murder hadn’t been run.

The question never left my mouth. I strode into Mr. Millford’s private office to find Ed Billings there as well, and looking as pleased as a popinjay in full plumage.

“Emma, you’ll never guess what.” My fellow reporter practically danced a jig in front of me while Mr. Millford looked on from the other side of his desk with the air of a proud parent.

I blew out a breath, knowing whatever had happened, I’d been beaten once again. “I give up, Ed. What?”

“Anthony Dobbs has been implicated in the murder at your aunt’s house. Implicated by
me,
Emma.”

I staggered to Mr. Millford’s old, scarred desk and clutched the edges of it for support. Ed’s words pounded through me. Anthony Dobbs . . . a murderer? The man who not two weeks ago had accused my own brother of a similar crime? Black spots danced before my eyes and a rushing like ocean waves filled my ears.

After what might have been only seconds, or as much as several minutes, I found myself able to gain control of my breathing and face Ed. “How do you know this?”

“I’ve been asking questions all over town ever since he was charged with extortion.” Can a peacock flash a self-satisfied grin? This one did. “Seems our detective is quite the braggart, especially when he’s been drinking. More than one source told me Tony’s been, ah, having
relations
with that little maid, the one who actually did the dirty deed.”

“A
nthony Dobbs and . . . Clara?” The notion clashed like cymbals inside me, because here might be the elusive motive—the reason Clara might have had to kill Madame Devereaux.

“You bet,” Ed returned almost joyfully. “I’ve just been to the police with my evidence, and Tony’s already been arrested. He’d tried extorting that medium just like he did the other shady characters in town. She threatened to expose him, so he put Clara Parker up to it. Probably told the girl he loved her so she’d be more than willing.”

I shifted my gaze to Mr. Millford. He nodded. “No one else but us has the story as far as we know, Emma, and we’ll be the first to run it. That’s why I called you in. I want you to sit down with Ed and tell him everything you remember from the murder scene, including what Clara said during the preliminary questioning. You
were
there, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was, but . . .” My temples throbbed. “My article, Mr. Millford. All the details are there. Why didn’t you run it?”

With one woman dead and my cousin still missing, my concerns were petty. I
knew
that. Yet I couldn’t help myself. Once again my employer had delivered a pat to my head before attempting to shove me aside.

He got to his feet and circled the desk to stand in front of me, where he smiled with grandfatherly kindness. “Now, now, Emma, don’t be upset. Ed has managed to sniff out the whole story. The other papers, they all ran stories that included only half the facts. By waiting and running this as our headline, we’ll outshine every other paper not only in Newport, but the whole of Rhode Island.”

“Only because I’ve filled in the details.” My heart thumped painfully in my throat. I tugged the bow at my neckline. “Why should I write three quarters of Ed’s article for him when my own account of the murder was ignored?”

“Because nobody cared, Emma,” my nemesis declared. “The locals couldn’t give a fig about this Madame Duvreau—”

“Devereaux,” I all but shouted. “It’s a detail, Ed. Get it right.”

This was met with an eye roll and a tug at the corner of his mouth. “Whatever her name is,” he replied with infuriating calm, “she wasn’t going to have Newport’s full attention until now, when a local became involved. Now it’s piqued everyone’s curiosity. Now it’s big news.”

“I cannot believe you,” I murmured. Faintly I heard Mr. Millford’s gentle admonishment that I remain calm, see reason, but I couldn’t calm down. I was tired of being reasonable, dignified,
ladylike
. I’d had it up to the neat little bow on my collar with graciously stepping aside and letting Ed Billings steal my headlines. “A woman was killed—
killed,
Ed. Do you understand what that means? Do you have a thimble’s worth of empathy in you? Do you even care that a life was snuffed out or that a young girl like Clara might hang for the crime? No,” I continued when he opened his mouth to reply, “I don’t believe you do. All you care about is seeing your byline beneath the front page headlines, and it doesn’t matter to you how it gets there. Not even if you have to steal your facts from me.”

“From you?” Ed chuckled, a sound that nearly drove me to commit murder myself.

Luckily for Ed, Mr. Millford intervened. “That’s enough, both of you. Ed, come to think of it, it won’t be necessary after all for you to consult with Emma.”

I experienced a moment’s elation that perhaps at long last I’d be shown some fairness, that I’d finally find validation as a reporter. And then Mr. Millford went on. “I’d quite forgotten I have Emma’s article right here.” He went back behind the desk and stooped to open the top drawer. He pulled out a sheaf of paper filled with familiar handwritten lines. “Here you go, Ed.”

Open-mouthed and incredulous, I watched Ed take my article from our employer’s outstretched hand. “Thanks,” was all he said before he about-faced and strode from the room.

“Get the completed article to me within the hour,” Mr. Millford called after him. “We’ll run the presses this afternoon and have a special edition on the newsstands by tonight.”

“I . . . but . . .” Turning back to him, I struck my fists on the desktop, making Mr. Millford flinch. “How could you? That is my article—my headline. How can you just hand it to Ed like that, as if feeding him with a silver spoon?”

His brown eyes regarded me coolly. “I’ve told you before, Emma. You do fine work. You’d make a fine investigative reporter. . .
if
you were a man. But you are not a man, Emma. And people don’t want to read stories of violence and mayhem written by a woman. Not unless we’re talking about fiction, and even then . . .” Trailing off, he turned his attention to an open ledger book in front of him. He picked up a pen and made a quick notation while I stood on the other side of his desk, thunderstruck and doing my utmost to prevent my stinging tears from falling.

He glanced up at me briefly before returning his gaze to the figures in his book. “That will be all for now, Emma. Sorry to have brought you all the way into town for nothing.”

Even then, I didn’t leave. I couldn’t move. Surely that couldn’t be all. Surely I couldn’t be dismissed as easily as that. In my heart, I felt the spirit of my aunt Sadie give a nudge. I could all but hear her demanding justice, and prompting me to stand up—
speak up
—for myself.

But my throat constricted around the words, and my jaws ached from clenching my teeth. I knew if I attempted to push out so much as a whimper, those humiliating, bitter tears would spill over. Yet all the same, I couldn’t bring myself to walk away.

Mr. Millford finally looked up again. This time he set down his pen and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Emma, this is the world we live in. Women simply don’t report on heinous crimes like murder. I’m sorry. I’d change it if I could.”

“Would you?” I managed, my voice rasping like pebbles over sand.

“I gave you a job, didn’t I?” He attempted a placating smile.

I said nothing.

“And it’s a job you’re good at. Your Fancies and Fashions column is wildly popular.”

Still, I remained silent. It had suddenly occurred to me that the less I spoke, the more conciliatory Mr. Millford seemed to become. I wondered where it might lead....

He tapped his fingertips against his leather blotter. “How about if I start sending your society write-ups to the Providence papers? I bet they’d love to run them. Surely Rhode Island readers would eat up your accounts of Newport’s social season. You know, the insider’s view and all that. I’ll bet none of the Providence papers has someone like you working for them.”

Did he really think to placate me by expanding the circulation of my society page? I folded my arms and compressed my lips.

Mr. Millford snapped his ledger book shut. “All right, Emma. Ed gets this headline. But if you can crack this case—either prove or disprove Anthony Dobbs’s and Clara Parker’s guilt—that headline will be yours.”

Bracing my hands on the desk, I leaned over and across, bringing my face close to his. “Do you swear?”

His eyebrow went up; I’d clearly taken him by surprise. “I . . . I suppose so.”

“No, don’t suppose. If I can do the job—get the information and write you one spectacular story—you will run the headline with my name beneath it?”

“How would you feel about a pseudonym?”

“
My
name, Mr. Millford.” My hand closed around the nearest object, a heavy, brass-framed magnifying glass. I gripped the long handle as if the piece were a hammer and tapped it twice against the desktop. “My headline, my name. It’s no more than I deserve.”

Considering I’d been close to tears only moments ago, where on earth had this gumption come from? Silently I thanked Aunt Sadie while I continued to hold Mr. Millford’s baffled, startled gaze with my own.

“All right, Emma. Yes. Your headline, your name. But only if your story is truly front-page worthy.”

“Promise me.”

“Fine. I promise.”

I straightened and very nearly let out a whoop of triumph. Then his hand went up, the flat of his palm like a policeman’s warning to halt. “I want a promise, too, Emma. That you won’t go doing anything foolhardy or dangerous in order to get the story.”

That gave me pause, but only for an instant. “Fine. I promise I won’t do anything foolhardy.”

He didn’t seem to notice that I left out the word
dangerous
from my promise, or that we hadn’t settled on the meaning of
foolhardy
. Certainly I would proceed carefully and logically, just as I had when I had previously sought to clear my brother’s name of murder. If my careful and logical plan put me in danger . . . well . . . as I said, I had omitted that word from my promise.

For now, I’d leave Ed Billings to write his wretched article. My next stop, meanwhile, would be the jailhouse.

 

Promises were complicated, and that promise to Mr. Millford wasn’t the only one I’d made in recent days. I’d promised Aunt Alva I’d find Consuelo without involving the police. But just that morning I’d promised Derrick and Nanny and even myself that Consuelo’s welfare would take priority over Aunt Alva’s wishes.

Upon arriving on Marlborough Street, I entered the columned building and headed straight for Jesse’s desk in the large main room. My palms sweated and my mouth ran dry, but I had to do the right thing, for my cousin’s sake.

Jesse stood when he saw me enter through the wide archway, and strode to meet me partway across the room. Around us, police officers were milling around, consulting with each other, tapping on typewriters, and stuffing fistfuls of papers into filing cabinets. Along the wall where a pair of telephones was located, two plainclothes officers barked orders into the transmitters while pressing the receivers tight to their ears. A loud hum of activity surrounded me, yet it was the throbbing of my own pulse in my ears that drowned out Jesse’s greeting.

He shook my hand, then kept hold of it as he led me back to his desk. Briefly my gaze landed on the workspace directly behind his, the chair unoccupied and the blotter swept clean of papers, notebooks, and pens. That desk belonged to Anthony Dobbs.

“What brings you here, Emma?” Jesse asked as he beckoned me into the chair that faced his across the desk.

I leaned forward, my hands tight around my purse in my lap. “I need to tell you something, but I need you to promise me you’ll be discreet.”

His brows gathered above his nose and his gaze sharpened. Promises were about to become even more complicated.

“This doesn’t bode well so far, Emma.”

I stole a quick glance over my shoulder. Briefly I considered asking if we could go somewhere more private, but I realized that would only bring more attention to us, whereas in the busy room, no one paid us any heed. I craned my neck in Jesse’s direction and spoke quietly. “I need your help, Jesse, but in asking for it I’ll be breaking my own promise to someone and . . . well . . . that person could make life difficult for both of us.”

“Hmm, let me guess.” His teeth nipped at his bottom lip.

“Could we be speaking of Alva Vanderbilt?”

“Jesse, please . . .”

Anger claimed his features, but a wave of his hand signaled compliance. “Whatever you tell me will be held in confidence.” Before I could begin my tale, he added, “For as long as it can be, Emma. But if what you’re about to ask of me puts anyone in danger—yourself included—then I’ll have no choice but to call in reinforcements.”

“Fair enough.” I took another glance around and leaned closer still. “My cousin Consuelo is missing. Has been since the murder.”

“What?” Jesse went ramrod straight, his complexion turning ruddy. “And her mother didn’t see fit to report this?” Realization dawned in his features. “I asked her where her daughter was that day. She lied to me—” His mouth opened, then snapped shut, then opened again. “You lied, too, Emma. At least by omission.”

“That’s not true. When you asked about Consuelo, Aunt Alva and I believed her to be in her room. We had no idea she was missing until after you’d left. You asked me to speak with her and I went up to her room for exactly that purpose. Only, she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere in the house.”

“And you have no idea where she went?”

“None.”

“You’ve had no word from her at all?”

I shook my head.

“Good heavens, Emma, what were you thinking?” His voice rose an octave and I quickly shushed him.

“Jesse, please. No one can know.”

“Why in the world not? Doesn’t her mother want her found? Don’t you? We need to notify the state police. Get the federal agents involved—”

“No, that’s exactly what we can’t do. Please calm down and listen to me.”

It took him some moments, but Jesse managed to rein in his irate disbelief and I began explaining. It wasn’t until I revealed what I’d read in her diary that he seemed to reach an understanding. “So you see,” I said, “we have every reason to believe she left the house of her own accord. It’s too much of a coincidence that she might have been kidnapped on the very day she wrote about wanting to find a life of her own. Nor is it quite possible that she left Newport. She is too recognizable to have gotten far without word of her whereabouts reaching Aunt Alva or her father.”

“Yes, I see your point there. But even so, the police could help you find her. She might have been home by now if you’d come to me sooner.”

“Her mother doesn’t want word of this getting out. It would destroy Consuelo’s reputation, and with the Duke of Marlborough on his way—”

“Society people,” he murmured, his derision plain. “How do you do it, Emma?”

“Do what?”

“Move in their world. Put up with their ridiculous notions.”

I shrugged. “Is a ruined reputation a liability only in their world? No, Jesse. Every woman must be vigilant every moment of her life.”