Murder at Marble House (15 page)

He let that pass, his brow furrowing. “So, you’ve checked with Miss Vanderbilt’s closest friends?”

“Everyone I could think of that she’d go to for help.”

“But for all you know, someone may have lied. She could have been in a room right above your head, and you wouldn’t have been the wiser.”

I conceded the possibility. “I suppose that’s why I’m here. I’m about out of ideas. Nanny is helping, of course, but so far she hasn’t heard anything.”

He pushed paper and a pen across the desk to me, then set a pot of ink at my elbow. “Write down the names of her friends for me.”

While I complied, he sat back with a pensive look. When I finished I slid the paper back to him. He stared down at my list, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“If I’m going to be any help to you at all,” he said, “I’m going to have to bring a few men into this.”

“Jesse, you can’t.”

“There’s no other way to keep an eye on the people on your list. But see here. What I can do is have my men report back to me on visitors to their homes, whom they’re seen with in town, that sort of thing.”

“Won’t your men wonder why they’re shadowing some of society’s most prominent figures?”

Jesse smiled. “They might. But that doesn’t mean I have to tell them.” Through his coat, he tapped the badge she knew was tucked in the inside breast pocket. “This means I get to give orders without having to explain myself. But I can only use so much manpower before my chief starts asking questions, so if we don’t find your cousin soon, Emma . . .”

His thought went unfinished, but I understood. We were fast running out of time.

I came to my feet and Jesse did the same. “I’m glad you finally came to me with this,” he said. “It’s in Miss Vanderbilt’s best interests.”

“I know. Thank you, Jesse.”

“I’ll see you out,” he offered, but I didn’t move to go.

“I do have one more favor to ask. Or two, actually.”

His eyes closed briefly as he shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

 

Jesse denied my first request. Or Anthony Dobbs did, I should say, by having stated upon his arrest that he would refuse all visitors except his lawyer. This unexpected roadblock frustrated me no end, but Jesse would not be persuaded otherwise. I supposed Dobbs wouldn’t have answered my questions anyway. My second request was more easily granted, and within minutes I stood where Jesse instructed me to, some three feet in front of the bars that lined Clara Parker’s cell. In deference to her being a woman, the police had housed her in a small, little-used section of the jail where she would not suffer the indignity of being seen by any male prisoners.

Upon seeing me approach she jumped up from her sagging cot and gripped the bars in front of her.

“Oh, Miss Cross, I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I swear I wouldn’t. You have to believe me.”

In my gentlest tone I said, “I’m not here to accuse you, Clara.”

The poor thing still wore the maid’s uniform she had been arrested in, except that the snowy white pinafore and the straight pins that held it in place were gone. Had the officers thought she might use the pins as a weapon, or strangle herself with the apron ties?

“As God is my witness, miss, I didn’t take the scarf from Lady Amelia’s room. I’d never seen it before . . . before . . .” Her head sank between her shoulders and her moan seemed to shiver up the bars of the cell. Her hair hung in limp strands around her face, and dark smudges made her eyes appear huge in her wan face. “Oh, please, miss, someone has to help me.”

My heart went out to her and I very nearly eased closer to grasp the fragile hand she stretched through the bars. But at the far end of the aisle between the four cells stood a door with a tiny window, and on the other side of the wavy glass a grim-faced guard stood watching. Jesse’s last words to me had been a warning to stay back or I’d be ushered from the building.

“I’m here to help you, Clara.”

She seemed not to hear me, but continued her pleading. “And I heard those footsteps . . . they could have been the murderer’s, but no one believes me.”

“I know you did, Clara. Detective Whyte knows it, too, and I promise he’s investigating all possibilities.”

Her face inched upward, those impossibly large, red-rimmed eyes locking with mine. “Why are you here, miss?”

I tried to choose my words carefully. “Clara, it’s come to the attention of the police that someone, a man, might have had a hand in Madame Devereaux’s murder.”

“The police have already asked me if someone put me up to it.” Clara’s voice trembled, its timbre as weak as a kitten’s. “I didn’t understand. They wouldn’t tell me who they meant. I just kept telling them I didn’t do it.”

So she didn’t know about Anthony Dobbs’s arrest. I decided to take another tack. “Clara, dear, when you weren’t working at Marble House, was there anyone special you spent your time with? In town, perhaps?”

A wary gleam entered her eyes and she took a long moment before answering. “I worked most of the time, miss. Six days a week. On Sunday I went to church. You know that. We both attend at St. Paul’s.”

“Yes, but what about Saturday nights? You went off duty by seven o’clock unless Mrs. Vanderbilt was holding a party, yes?”

“Yes, but . . . why are you asking me these questions, miss?” The police might not have informed Clara of Dobbs’s arrest, but it
was
on public record and no one had instructed me
not
to tell her. I shot a glance down the aisle at our dour audience before hurrying on. “There’s been another arrest in connection to the murder. Anthony Dobbs.”

Clara let out a yelp and lurched backward as if I’d struck her. “Tony? Oh, God in heaven, why Tony?”

“You know him, Clara, don’t you? And I don’t just mean you know
of
him.”

“Tony,” she wailed, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Not Tony . . . He didn’t. He wouldn’t . . . He promised—” Her whisper broke off and her lips clamped suddenly shut. Her eyes gaped wide as she peered at me with a terror-struck expression.

“What did he promise you, Clara?”

“That he’d let me be the one to talk to her. That he wouldn’t threaten or . . . or hurt her . . .”

Another sideways glance revealed the guard pressing his face close to the glass with renewed interest. I held up a hand to silence Clara. Very low, I said, “I believe you’re innocent and I want to help you, but I can’t do that unless I know what happened that day. Why were you in the gazebo, and don’t tell me you came out to see if anyone needed anything, because that simply doesn’t make sense. There are other servants at Marble House whose job it is to do that.”

I held my breath while Clara clearly warred with her fears and uncertainties. To help her along, I said, “You know me, Clara, and you’ve heard what I’ve done for other women in trouble. You can trust me.”

“She threatened to report him to his superiors,” the maid said in a rush.

“She . . . Madame Devereaux?”

Clara nodded in tight, frantic motions.

“The
he
you refer to is Anthony Dobbs?”

She nodded again, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong, not really. Those people, they’re all criminals. Taking people’s money in exchange for lies and false promises. He was keeping them under control, keeping them from running amok.”

“Is that what he told you?” I couldn’t quite keep the accusation from my voice, and Clara’s response was to tilt her chin in defiance.

But her tears kept right on falling. I thought I’d have to prompt her again when she said, “I went out to the pavilion to talk to Madame Devereaux. To persuade her not to report Tony. To plead with her, threaten her if I had to. Oh, but I wouldn’t have hurt her, not really.” Her voice broke and she sobbed several times before continuing. “Besides, I never had the chance. I found her dead. I swear it, Miss Cross. The woman was dead when I arrived.”

At that moment the main security door swung open. “Time’s up.”

I had come hoping to gain insight that might help clear Clara, even if it shifted the blame to Anthony Dobbs. Instead, I left the jailhouse with the heavy knowledge that, despite Clara’s protestations, I now possessed the key piece that had been missing: her motive for having committed the murder.

Love was a compelling and often irresistible incentive. Every jury knew that.

A
fter leaving the jail, I started back toward home. Exhaustion tugged at every part of me, yet a nagging sensation told me I wouldn’t likely find any rest again until late into the night. Today’s developments had my mind running like an out-of-control racehorse.

On the other hand, Barney plodded along at his usual sedate pace, and long before the turn onto Ocean Avenue I’d made up my mind to put the remaining daylight hours to good use.

Clara’s protestations about the scarf and the footsteps she’d heard claimed the greater part of my speculations. Unless Lady Amelia had been an accessory, how could someone have gained access to her possessions in the house and then make his or her way outside without being noticed? I thought again of Anthony Dobbs. A man of his height and bulk, who moved with all the grace of an ox, could hardly have tiptoed through the house unseen. Come to think of it, in all likelihood I’d have seen him during my pursuit of Consuelo’s escaped cat, Muffy, which I’d chased into the library.

I’d probably have seen Clara or anyone else exiting the house before the murder as well. And that led me to suspect that the killer had entered the pavilion from somewhere on the grounds and not from inside the house. That meant the scarf had also already been outside somewhere, accessible to the murderer.

Poor Barney. I’m sure visions of fresh oats and cool water danced in his head, so I whispered a promise that he’d enjoy the very same treats during our stop at Marble House. In fact, when we arrived the groom’s youngest assistant, a teenaged boy named Howard, seemed only too happy to unhitch Barney and take good care of him for me.

My conscience soothed for the time being, I circled the house and headed straight for the pavilion. Late-afternoon shadows cloaked the structure in an early dusk, but I bent low, searching for . . .

Anything that had been overlooked thus far. At the request of the police—much to Aunt Alva’s dismay—the floor had not yet been scrubbed clean. The soiled tracks I’d seen that day, indistinct as they’d been then, had dried in the interim, been dragged around by the breezes, and now were nothing more than dusty traces of dirt and grass along the floor. Nothing that would suggest a shoe size or type. Still, I scoured the area beneath the tiled roof, looking for a scuff mark, a stain on the marble flooring, anything. Finding nothing new, I went to the railing where Jesse had deduced the murderer had jumped and then crashed through the foliage. I inspected the banister for scratches, dirt—anything. But again, I discovered nothing that hadn’t already been noted by the police.

With a sigh I turned to face back into the pavilion, and something in the opposite corner caught my eye.

I strode to it and only just managed not to snatch it up in my haste. No, I wanted to study it right where it was, as well as consider the rest of the pavilion one more time. The table that had been set up for the purpose of reading fortunes still occupied the same space. The linen tablecloth still stretched across it, and on top of that stood the vase of sunflowers and daisies, now looking tired and faded.

I glanced around at the other vases set on small tables around the pavilion, each spilling sprays of sunflowers and daisies that had appeared a good deal happier two days ago. Then I directed my discerning eye back to the corner and the tiny petals that had attracted my notice.

They were neither yellow nor white, nor any other color associated with sunflowers or daisies. They were a deep, dusky pink—creased, browning at the edges and dulling to a rusty hue, but pink nonetheless. Frowning, I made another circuit of the pavilion, this time keeping tight to the rail, bent at the waist so nothing would escape my notice. It wasn’t until I’d nearly returned to the first corner that another pair of similar petals met my scrutiny. They’d have been easily missed, wedged as they had obviously been by the breeze up against, and nearly under, the supporting strip that ran along the floor to hold the newel posts in place. In that very narrow gap, two more dusky petals clung. I wondered how many others there might have been that day. Would anyone have noticed them, or would they have disregarded them as merely part of the floral decorations?

A rational voice inside me suggested these petals might have simply blown in on the breeze. But a quick scan of the surrounding bushes and flowers revealed nothing of that specific color. The azalea bushes had long since lost their springtime blossoms. Besides, my memory conjured them as alternating red and white, not pink.

My guess was these petals belonged to the rose bushes closer to the house, particularly the smaller English tea roses on either side of the terrace steps. If so, any one of Aunt Alma’s guests might have tracked them in that day.

But then again, maybe not.

Quickly I opened my purse and rummaged through to find a handkerchief. Carefully, between thumb and forefinger, I plucked each petal from the pavilion floor and placed them between the folds of the linen. They stood out in detailed relief against the fabric, and I clearly saw now these were not rose petals. They were too small and altogether the wrong shape. Where rose petals were broad and tapered to points toward the tips, these were much rounder and smaller, more delicate. Pondering, I folded my handkerchief back up and hurried from the pavilion.

 

“Mr. Delgado! Mr. Delgado!” I picked up my skirts and, in a manner sure to receive censure from Aunt Alva were she to see me, ran along the garden path away from the house and toward the whitewashed toolsheds, designed to resemble quaint if ornate country cottages.

The man I’d hailed stopped with his hand on the latch of one of these sheds. He broke into a smile when he saw me. Eduardo Delgado, head gardener at Marble House, was a sturdy man, broad-chested, with a full head of silver hair, a leathery complexion, and long-fingered hands that reminded me of a musician’s, except for the calluses. “Senhorita Cross, what a pleasure. Aren’t you looking as lovely as a fresh summer day?” Even without the light Portuguese cadence, he spoke like a southern European, full of enthusiasm and a chivalrous flattery that always stopped short of being flirtatious. “Is there something I can do for you?”

I acknowledged his compliment with a modest smile of my own. Then I pulled the handkerchief from my purse. “Mr. Delgado, can you tell me what this flower is, and what part of the estate it grows on? I thought it might be a tea rose at first, but now I’m not so certain.”

I unfolded the fabric and held it up for him. He squinted and pursed his lips. “No, not one of our tea roses. Even faded I can see the color is off. There is something roselike about it . . . but this is nothing I’ve cultivated for Mrs. Vanderbilt. It looks more like a wildflower to me.”

“A wildflower? Are you sure?”

He shrugged. “There is nothing on the estate with these petals.”

I almost questioned him about his certainty, but held my tongue. Aunt Alva wouldn’t employ a head gardener who didn’t know his cultivated flora like the back of his hand.

“Where did you come upon this?” he asked.

I met his gaze. “In the pavilion.”

The word, once synonymous with carefree afternoon entertainments, had taken on sinister connotations for all of us, and I saw it in the creasing of his brow. Before he could reply, however, a whistled tune drifted from the gardens behind me. Jamie Reilly approached us gripping a sack overflowing with cuttings and twigs. “The east beds are all tidy now, sir,” he said to Mr. Delgado. Then, “Good day to you, Miss Cross.” He dropped his sack to the ground at his feet, removed his cap, wiped a sleeve across his perspiring brow, and set his cap back on his head. “Bit of a hot one, this.”

“It’s good you came along, Jamie.” The note of affection in Mr. Delgado’s voice was unmistakable, and I inwardly smiled at this evidence the two were getting on well. I’d helped Jamie secure the position as a favor to my maid, Katie, and looked forward to telling her of our success. “Senhorita Cross has discovered some curious flower petals. Perhaps you know what they are.”

I held my handkerchief out to Jamie. “Do you have any idea where something like this would grow, and at this time of year?”

With a slight frown he peered at my find. “Looks like a sort of wildflower . . .”

“As I thought,” Mr. Delgado said.

Jamie stroked a finger over one of the petals, imprinting a trail of familiarity across my palm even through the handkerchief. I didn’t mind, in fact, quite the opposite. He’d never have dared touch something lying in Aunt Alva’s or Consuelo’s hand, and I was happily reminded that despite my grandiose connections, I was not someone to fear; I was simply Emma Cross, free to associate with whom I chose.

This passed through my mind in an instant, during which Jamie made his assessment. “For all these seem delicate wee mites, there’s a hardiness to ’em and no mistake. I think it’d be a clinging sort of plant, probably along the cliffs.”

“Along the cliffs . . . of course.” I gazed out across the rear lawns to where they ended at the hedge bordering the Cliff Walk. I thought about the variety of ocean-hardy wildflowers that adorned the cliffs in a mosaic of color, even this late in the summer. “But how on earth could a flower clinging to the cliffs have crossed the border hedge and then traveled so far across the lawn?” Suddenly the petals’ potential as a clue faded to nothing, for who would have been climbing cliffs before stealing into the pavilion to murder Madame Devereaux? I blew out a breath and spoke my final thought out loud. “It makes no sense at all.”

“Terribly sorry not to be more help, Miss Cross.” Jamie seemed to misread my look of dismay as disappointment in him. “Is it very important?”

“I’m sorry, too, senhorita, but perhaps you’ll need someone smarter than this old man and that young Irishman”—Mr. Delgado cast Jamie a leathery grin—“to answer your questions.” He tapped his forehead. “We know our gardens. But I’m afraid that is all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Delgado, Jamie,” I said a bit absently. I regarded the petals in my hand another moment before tucking them back away in my purse. We bid each other good day, and as I turned away to let them resume their work, I happened to glance up at the house. A willowy figure stood framed in an upper window, a high-coifed, slender silhouette I immediately identified as Lady Amelia’s. She caught my gaze and very obviously flinched as if she had been caught observing us on the sly. She recovered quickly enough and waved, then turned back into the room. Had she merely been bored and looking for distraction, or had she been watching me for another reason?

I let myself into the house through one of the terrace doors. A maid dusting the painting frames in the main floor gallery greeted me cheerfully. A footman carrying silver polish and rags asked if he could do anything for me. Replying no, I asked him if his mistress was at home.

“I believe Mrs. Vanderbilt is resting in her room, Miss Cross.”

As with Mr. Delgado, I acknowledged his answer absently and kept going. My feet took me, as if of their own accord, up the stairs, not to Alva’s bedroom but to Consuelo’s.

My gaze swept my cousin’s bedroom—the shelves of costly European dolls, the heavily gilded furniture, the priceless art gracing the walls. A vase of fresh flowers caught my attention, but nothing in the mixed bouquet resembled my petals, nor appeared cultivated anywhere but in the estate’s gardens.

I ventured farther in and sat on the bed, in almost the exact spot where Consuelo and I had shared our last confidences. Wave after wave of remorse washed through me. Why had I listened to Aunt Alva and gone against my better judgment? More importantly, if I hadn’t, would Consuelo be here now, confiding in me,
trusting
me, as she had always done?

I glanced around again and suddenly realized what it was about this room Consuelo hated so vehemently. The dolls’ vacant eyes watched me impassively, yet behind their dull expressions I sensed Aunt Alva’s unyielding decrees. Her dictates were everywhere, from the paintings that reflected no young girl’s fancies to the incomparable workmanship of the furnishings that made one afraid to touch or sit or even breathe in the wrong direction.

This room symbolized Consuelo’s very existence in a way I’d never quite understood before, and now I realized part of my lack of comprehension had been due, quite honestly, to envy.

In my eyes she’d always had everything. Beauty. Intelligence. Privilege. Boundless resources. Had I believed those to be the ingredients of a happy, carefree life? On any ordinary day I’d have said no and meant it. But in my heart of hearts . . . I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t but admit part of me had always been jealous of Consuelo in a way I hadn’t envied my other Vanderbilt cousins. I thought briefly of Gertrude, Cornelius and Alice’s elder daughter, just a year younger than I. She had been born to the same advantages as Consuelo, but possessed none of Consuelo’s beauty, nor the inherent grace admired by everyone who knew her.

Consuelo had been blessed in every way a person could be, or so it had seemed from my skewed perspective.

I dropped my purse onto the bed beside me and lowered my face to my hands. But I just as quickly raised my chin and squared my shoulders. Had I wronged Consuelo? Advised her improperly out of my own petty jealousy? I swallowed painfully, knowing I deserved no bouts of self-pity. If I were guilty, then I had no choice but to own up to my fault and do everything I possibly could to make amends. I had to find Consuelo. And I had to support her as she wished to be supported, her mother’s wishes be damned.

Even if I made a lifelong enemy in the process.

With that resolve urging me on, I left Consuelo’s room. I needed to go back into town, and I hoped I might borrow one of Aunt Alva’s smaller rigs to spare Barney the exertion. I didn’t get as far as the staircase, however, when humming through an open bedroom door sent me to the threshold.

Hope Stanford sat at the dressing table with a leather-covered jewelry box open before her. Lifting a garnet brooch, she held it up against her summery white blouse with its wide, leg-of-mutton sleeves. After a moment’s consideration she set the brooch beside the box and selected a pearl earring, which she held to her lobe in a gesture at odds with her no-nonsense manner and tight, unforgiving coif.