Murder at Marble House (22 page)

We had stopped at the western end of the sprawling, crescent moon strand. Just beyond, the land heaved upward to hilly, rocky terrain choked with cattails and dune grass. From there the ground continued to rise to the cliffs that formed Purgatory Chasm with its dramatic plunge and dizzying view of the ocean. Today, a small crowd, formed into a semicircle facing away from the road, obscured the view of both the chasm and the water.

A sense of foreboding made the eggs and kippers I’d eaten at The Breakers begin to churn. Newport’s posh summer set descended daily on the superior facilities of Bailey’s Beach; locals and those less well heeled enjoyed the boardwalk and entertainments to be found at Easton’s, or First Beach, closer to town. To see more than a few people strolling Second Beach’s sands was a rarity.

My boots sinking into the granular turf, I pushed my way through the nearest clutch of neck-craners, hoping against hope they were examining some fascinating object washed up with the tide.

Between milling shoulders, bonnets, and wide-brimmed hats, I could just make out a man in a dark serge suit bending low over what appeared to be a heap of sand littered with “red tide,” the ribbons of crimson seaweed that periodically washed up on Newport’s beaches and spoiled the enjoyment of summer bathers. Oh, I thought, perhaps everything was all right after all. Just a pile of seaweed, perhaps entwined with the nasty tentacles of some slimy jellyfish.

“My God.” Brady stood at my shoulder, his voice a breath against my ear. “Is it . . . please say it isn’t . . . Consuelo.”

Being a head taller, he could see over the small throng and make out what I could not until we prodded our way closer. Then the ordinary beach debris these people were inspecting transformed before my eyes to elegant beige silk stamped with burgundy velvet.

“No, Brady,” I whispered, my throat pinched tight—with shock and, I’m sorry to admit, with tremendous relief. “It’s not Consuelo. Look at her clothes.”

“Oh, my God. Lady Amelia.”

The next minutes passed in a blur. Apparently someone who lived close by and owned a telephone—Mable Hanson’s neighbor, perhaps—had run home to alert the police. Soon the onlookers were pushed back to make way for a swarm of blue-coated police officers. A couple of them tried to herd me away along with the rest, shouting admonishments I ignored. I was going nowhere until I found out what had happened.

Although truth to tell, part of me didn’t wish to know.

“Miss, you’ll have to step aside. Oh, it’s you, Miss Cross . . . and your brother, I see.” I met the dark gaze of a policeman I knew, Scotty Binsford, who had not only attended school with Brady, but had been one of the investigating policemen when Brady had been accused of murder. I spared him a weak smile, for he’d whispered to me, upon Brady’s release from jail, that he’d never doubted my brother’s innocence.

Scotty turned to his associates. “They’re all right.” Then to me he said, lower, “Just don’t get too close to the . . . er . . . body, Miss Cross. We’re hoping our audience didn’t already disturb important evidence, though for certain they’ve churned away any incriminating footprints with their own.”

“Emma.” Another police rig had just pulled up onto the sand beside the rescue wagon waiting to carry Lady Amelia away. Jesse stepped down and came striding over, kicking up whirls of sand in his wake. Just before he reached me he snapped out an order, crisp, terse words that didn’t register with me but sent the others into a fresh flurry of activity. He gave me a quick embrace and set me at arm’s length. “Emma, why is it you’re always . . .” With a shake of his head he changed tack in mid-sentence. “How did you hear about this so quickly?”

“I didn’t. I . . .” My gaze strayed to the beautiful blond curls spilling over the sand and partly across Lady Amelia’s face and shoulders, the pins having scattered and whatever hat she had worn lost to the wind.

“Then why are you here?” He glanced over my shoulder. “Brady? What brought the two of you down here? And don’t tell me you thought you’d fancy a stroll on the beach.”

“One of Nanny’s friends thought she might have seen Consuelo walking here,” I said a bit shakily. “Brady and I came to see if we could find her.” I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Oh, but it couldn’t have been Consuelo. It must have been . . .”

Lady Amelia. Lovely, elegant, but not wholly genuine Lady Amelia. Even as I uttered my next question, I knew the answer. “D-did she drown?”

“I’ll find out,” he said, and moved off to confer with his men. He returned within moments. “She didn’t drown,” he said gently. “It doesn’t appear as if she’d been any closer to the water than she is now.”

Brady stepped up beside us and slipped an anchoring arm around my waist. “What you just said, Em. It can’t be right. It couldn’t have been Lady Amelia Mrs. Hanson saw. According to Nanny, the sighting would have been more than two hours ago by now. We saw Lady Amelia at Marble House an hour ago at the most.”

As he spoke, my gaze was drawn to the nearby cattails and rocky, weedy hillocks. Yes, a murder could easily take place here with little chance of anyone seeing. But what could have brought Lady Amelia to this nearly deserted part of the island? There could be only one connection between Lady Amelia and this place: Consuelo.

“You say you saw the victim recently?” Jesse reached into his coat pocket for a pencil and small tablet.

“Y-yes.” I shook my thoughts away. “She was breakfasting with Aunt Alva. But she left quite suddenly, didn’t she, Brady?”

“That’s right. Said she was going for a walk.” Brady glanced out over the calm swell of Sachuest Bay and then down at the lifeless woman. “Some walk. I wonder how she got all the way down here.”

I stepped out of Brady’s embrace. “Jesse . . . if she didn’t drown, how did she die?”

He chewed his lip. “Do you want to see?”

I sucked in a breath and nodded. Still holding my hand, he led me across the sand, skirting the officers still examining the scene. Brady followed close behind us. At Lady Amelia’s side—I couldn’t yet bring myself to think of her as
the body
—Jesse pointed.

The tangles of her hair had been swept to one side. He spoke a single word. “Strangled.”

I followed the angle of his outstretched finger; the same silk and velvet ribbon that had held her hair up earlier was now wrapped tight around her neck, its two ends dancing gaily in the breeze.

So like Madame Devereaux. Eerily, appallingly similar.

Brady swore.

“The same,” I said, the words stinging like salt in my throat. “Dear heavens, Jesse, don’t you realize what this means? Whoever killed Madame Devereaux also killed Lady Amelia. Clara Parker, and even Detective Dobbs, can be exonerated.”

Brady gave a snort at that second suggestion, but Jesse was already shaking his head. “Hold up there, now. We need more evidence than this. For all we know at this point, this murder was random, or carried out by an imitator or an accomplice.”

“But you already arrested Clara’s so-called accomplice—Anthony Dobbs.” I struggled to keep the anger from my voice. “Neither one of them could have murdered Lady Amelia.”

“As I said, I need more evidence. Clues, a motive—”

At that I cut him off. “I can tell you the motive. It’s because she knew him, Jesse. I believe Lady Amelia was having an affair with the man who murdered Madame Devereaux.” At his skeptical frown, I said, “The rugosa roses . . . she had a sprig in her room—in her jewelry box. Oh, blast, Jesse, you can’t ignore this. You’ve got to—” My grip on my emotions was slipping. Brady set a hand on my arm.

“It’s all right, Em. I’m sure Jesse has no intention of ignoring anything.”

“Then there’s this, too,” I said, suddenly remembering a detail I’d forgotten in the shock of Lady Amelia’s fate. “I’m sure this is merely a coincidence, and I wouldn’t even mention it if . . . I probably shouldn’t mention it, really . . .”

“Emma, as Brady said, I want to know about anything that could possibly have any bearing on this crime.” Jesse held his pencil aloft and waited.

“It’s just that as Brady and I were driving home from Marble House, Winthrop Rutherfurd passed us in his curricle at a runaway pace. He nearly hit us. He was heading north on Bellevue.”

“That’s it?” Jesse looked from me to Brady and back. “A man out driving in his rig?”

“Barreling along at a dangerous speed. It was highly suspicious. Isn’t that right, Brady?”

Before Brady could answer, Jesse said, “I’ve seen Brady barreling along a time or two. I’m sorry, but I think you may be grasping at straws now.” He wrote something in his tablet. “But what was it you said about Miss Vanderbilt?”

“Yes, Nanny’s friend saw someone resembling Consuelo walking on the beach. She was with someone, another woman,” I added. “That’s why we came—to see if we could find any trace of her, either here or at one of the neighboring cottages.”

“You thought you’d go door-to-door, did you?” Jesse looked at me askance.

“Well . . .”

“Emma,” he said, “if Consuelo is hiding or if someone is holding her against her will, how do you think they’ll react to you knocking on their door?”

“But we couldn’t simply not come, could we?”

“What you could do is tell me everything you know and leave the rest to me.”

I regarded the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose; the auburn hair, in need of a trim; and the easy confidence of his stance, something not always evident in the man but never missing from the officer. In his early thirties, Jesse Whyte wasn’t young, not nearly as young as Brady, but his were the sort of features that would remain youthful until suddenly one day wrinkles bracketed his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes. Someday a bit of a stoop might bend his shoulders, and perhaps he’d walk with a hesitant gait. But his ready smile would always be there, and I couldn’t imagine him ever being anything but amiable, dependable, responsible, and honest.

Honest.

An uninvited image formed in my mind—someone taller, more handsome, more exciting . . . but honest? When it suited him, yes. And when it didn’t . . .

“Emma, will you please trust me to find your cousin? That
is
why you confided in me about her disappearance, isn’t it?”

“Will you find her quickly?” I held my breath waiting for his answer, knowing I could put my faith in whatever reply he gave.

Yet honest Jesse gave no reply other than to give my hand a squeeze and offer me a small smile.

What else had I expected? He would never make a false promise.

The officers carried a gurney from the rescue wagon and placed it beside Lady Amelia. No, Lady Amelia’s body. Their simple act rammed the truth home, straight through my heart. She was dead. Murdered. Whatever she might have been able to tell me, whatever connection there might have been between her, the rugosa roses, Madame Devereaux’s death, and my cousin’s disappearance, would never now reach my ears.

Tears burned in my eyes, and the next thing I knew a pair of arms went gently around me. Overwhelmed, I turned my face into Jesse’s coat front and gave in to surging waves of futility, countered by the familiar comfort of my old friend’s arms steadying me. Suddenly those arms felt all too right; all too easy to cling to and not let go.

But I did let go and with a shaky smile of gratitude, stepped back. Never a believer in coincidences, I no longer entertained the slightest doubt that today’s events, and those at Marble House, were intricately connected to my cousin. But could I—or Jesse—find her in time to prevent yet another disaster?

Those doubts threatened to drown me.

T
hat night I tossed fitfully, tormented by dreams of Consuelo walking toward me on the beach, her delicate hand outstretched to me. A veil hid her face, but somehow I knew she was smiling, and the confidence of her stride told me she’d reconciled herself to her future, that she was no longer afraid, that she embraced the challenge. She was only some dozen yards away when suddenly she collapsed, a heap of silk and velvet ruffled by the breeze. I ran to her, calling her name, shouting, but when I reached her I found only twisted clumps of sand and seaweed . . . and a single rugosa rose wilting in the afternoon sunlight.

A sense of disorientation haunted me throughout the early-morning hours. I dressed having little sense of what I donned—something sensible in a dark blue muslin, I think. I breakfasted but tasted nothing. I stared out at the ocean beyond the morning-room windows and saw nothing . . . nothing but Lady Amelia’s beautiful, lifeless face interchanging with that of my cousin. For the first time I wondered if Consuelo was even alive, and my heart clenched painfully.

Somehow I resisted calling Jesse, though every instinct willed me to crank the telephone and ask to be connected to the police department. Very well did I know that if Jesse had discovered anything new since yesterday, he’d have already informed me.

I had to ask myself, then, whether it was a yearning for information that continually turned my feet toward the alcove beneath the stairs, or a simple need for comfort, to hear that reliable, reassuring voice in my ear and know I was safe; know things would be all right.

I had felt that way yesterday, however briefly, and the essence, the warmth of that sensation lingered, sorely tempting me to reach for it again. I had only to say a word, give a sign, and the love of a good man could be mine for the rest of my life.

Light, speedy footsteps pulled me from my musing. I turned from the window as Katie entered from the hall.

“Miss, a visitor for you.” Her smile held a hint of mischief that raised my guard, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when she added, “It’s that nice Mr. Andrews.”

The tension inside me tightened another notch. If not for Derrick Andrews, my choices, my life, would be a raked and gently graded path laid out before me. But the mere mention of his name tossed up insurmountable barricades and made me realize there could be no easy way for me. No satisfaction in a practical, logical decision. I was not to be so lucky.

“Tell him I’m not receiving . . . no, tell him I’m not at home.”

“Are you sure, miss?”

I hesitated. “Yes. No. I . . . um . . .”

Katie had turned to go, and now turned back, my words acting on her like puppet strings. A realization hit me a sobering blow: I would make no proper wife for either of the men currently haunting my dreams and waking hours. I was no sophisticated, poised lady, and in the elegant drawing rooms of the Andrews family, I would always yearn for my true self, and for the freedom that had become so precious to me. But with Jesse, I would just as surely pine for the excitement—and the passion—he could never give me.

Katie fidgeted with her apron. “Miss?”

“Oh . . . blast and dang it,” I said, quoting two of Uncle Cornelius’s favorite expletives. I hurried past her and found Derrick, hat in hands, waiting in the foyer.

“I know all about yesterday,” he said without preamble. “You went down to the beach and stumbled on another murder. Emma, this reckless behavior—”

“I was looking for Consuelo, not a murder scene. What happened is not my fault, and believe me, I’d have much preferred yesterday’s events never to have occurred. Poor Lady Amelia.”

“Yes.” He perused me in a manner that raised goose bumps at my nape and renewed the nervous fluttering inside me.

Without warning he stepped closer and took me in his arms—not like Jesse’s brief, comforting embrace, but a claim that made no pretense of politely asking but instead adamantly taking . . . while at the same time, somehow, giving. Almost suffocating, and yet spirit renewing.

“What if you had arrived at the beach earlier than you did?” His voice was as rough as sandpaper. “What if you had stumbled upon the killer?”

“I had Brady with me.”

“Hang Brady.”

“Don’t underestimate my brother,” I said defensively into his shirt collar. He held me tighter, then slowly released me and stepped back.

He raised a hand to cup my chin. “No one can stop you from walking into danger, can they?”

I stared back at him. I could have said I never purposely walked into danger, but simply embarked on any task that needed doing. My cousin needed finding. I couldn’t abandon the search, not for anything. But he and I would continue to see it differently.

“All right, then.” He dropped his hand to his side. “Come with me.”

“Where?” I trotted to keep up as he exited through the front door and circled to the back of the property. He didn’t slow his lengthy strides until we passed the kitchen garden and stable yard, and stood on the grassy verge overlooking the water.

With one hand he snapped open the buttons of his coat and shrugged the garment off. He tossed it to the grass a few feet away. “It’s about time someone taught you how to defend yourself.” He unknotted his tie and dropped it onto his crumpled coat.

“What do you have in mind?” I didn’t at all care for the predatory gleam in his eye. I began backing away.

“Flight,” he said, “is certainly a natural and legitimate response to a threat, and in all honesty the one I prefer you to choose. However, since you’ve proved stubborn time and time again, not to mention that sometimes flight isn’t an option, we need to explore other avenues. Now stop backing away.”

“Then stop frightening me. I don’t like that look on your face.”

“Are you a victim, Emma Cross? Is that how you see yourself?”

I halted my retreat and drew myself up. “Certainly not.”

“Then come at me.”

“That won’t be fair. You’re much bigger than I am. Besides, I’ve no doubt your expensive, private school education included the sport of boxing. You’ll be far more experienced than I.”

“You’re right on all counts. But you do have advantages over me.”

“Such as?” I managed to stand my ground as he came closer.

“When someone bigger than you poses a threat, you want to attack him from below. Your size will make that easier. Like this.” Grasping my shoulder, he crouched a bit and jabbed four fingers straight at my throat. I braced for the blow, but he stopped an inch or two before contact. “Thrust up and straight into that little hollow below the Adam’s apple. You try.”

I mimicked his actions with some degree of finesse, I thought, until he scowled.

“Don’t be afraid to hit me. You need to swing upward while spearing your hand like a bayonet. Put your strength into it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

A glint of fondness entered his eye, then was gone. “Don’t worry, I’ll live. The important thing is for you to learn how.”

This time when he made a grab for my shoulders, I swung my right hand upward, fingers extended, straight into his throat. He grunted, released me, and stepped sharply back.

“Well done.” He coughed and a rusty groan escaped his lips.

I felt a surge of triumph, tempered by a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Next . . .”

By the time Nanny summoned us for luncheon I’d mastered that and several other techniques. I’d learned how, whether attacked from up front or behind, to lift my foot and shove my heel directly into my assailant’s kneecap. Not an ineffectual kick with my toes, as Derrick termed it, but a blow forceful enough to break the bone and topple a man several times my size.

Rather than slap or punch with my small hands, I learned how to stab my fingers into the soft skin underneath the jaw as well as into a person’s eye, but lest I be accused of blinding Derrick, let it be noted we sacrificed a tomato from the garden for this lesson. I learned a man’s most vulnerable points: the Adam’s apple—any blunt blow should do; the soft dimples behind the ears—I should dig inward with my thumbs; beneath the rib cage—a jab of the elbow there; the nose—an upward thrust with the heel of my hand; and . . . oh, most shocking of all, the juncture of a man’s legs.

I balked at practicing this, insisting the knowledge would be sufficient should I need to utilize the technique. It wasn’t until a laughing Derrick revealed that all along he’d planned to substitute his open palm for his more . . . ah . . . susceptible area . . . that I agreed to slam my knee in an upward assault. He declared my efforts sound as I collapsed in an exhausted heap on the ground, and he beside me.

“Of course, the best plan is simply to stay safe, Emma.”

“No one is ever completely safe,” I reminded him.

In reply he stretched out on his back beside me and stared up at fleecy clouds racing the ocean breeze. I couldn’t resist stretching out on the warm grass beside him. The sun felt heavenly on my cheeks, which heated further when Derrick caught hold of my hand. We remained silent until my thoughts returned to the reason for today’s lessons.

“My cousin isn’t safe,” I said. “But I did promise Jesse I’d let him and his men scour the area around Second Beach for any trace of her.”

Had I mentioned Jesse as a kind of defensive tactic, much like those Derrick had just taught me, in an effort to ward off feelings I simply wasn’t inclined to acknowledge?

His hand stiffened around mine. “If there is anything I can do to help, just let me know.”

I shot up to a sitting position. “Actually, there is. Why didn’t I think of it sooner?” I tugged his hand to pull him up beside me. I reached out to flick bits of grass from his tousled dark hair, until the familiarity of the act had me snatching my hand back to my lap. “Remember how you discovered that Jack Parsons owned that house on the Point? Can you find out who owns the cottages around Second Beach? It might give us a hint as to where Consuelo would be staying.”

“I can try. It’s a lot more to research than a single house, and many of those cottages are probably leased for the summer, so it’ll take that much longer to determine the current residents’ names. But, yes, I’ll do my best.”

It was no small task I’d assigned him. Yet the readiness with which he’d accepted took my breath away and sent me awkwardly to my feet. “It’s all right if you’re too busy. I shouldn’t encroach on your time this way. After all, none of this is your concern.”

“I’m not too busy and I’ve made it my concern.”

At that moment the kitchen door opened and Nanny stuck her head out. “If you two have finished waging your battles, I’ve got a hearty stew and fresh bread on the table.”

In strained silence we made our way to the house. The conviction filled me that before we were through, there would be many more battles waged between Derrick and me.

 

The cell block door shut with a clang of finality I’d never grow accustomed to, no matter how often fate sent me back to this place. The very notion of being lawfully trapped behind that door, where sunlight became no more than weak, dust-ridden shafts of illumination sifting through the high-set bars, devoid of warmth, unable to penetrate the shadows . . .

I shivered and traversed the aisle until I reached Clara Parker’s cell, walking lightly to muffle the echo of my footsteps against the walls.

“Who’s there?” Clara’s voice trembled like airy notes on a flute. I could just make out the angle of her cheek pressed against the bars of her cell as she attempted to peer down the aisle.

“It’s me, Clara. Emma Cross.”

She gave me no greeting, but waited silently for me to reach her. As always, I stood about a yard away from the cell door, conscious of the guard watching through the other side of a small square window. My only consolation was that it wasn’t Jesse who escorted me back to the cells today. He hadn’t been in the main station when I arrived, and I couldn’t deny my relief. With the memory of his arms around me yesterday, seeing him today would have been uncomfortable at best, downright awkward at worst.

“How are you, Clara?” I asked when I reached the girl.

She frowned, obviously puzzled by the question. Looking at her surroundings, I could hardly blame her. The bleak contents and clammy stone walls of her tiny cell told me she was often cold, especially at night, and that her lungs no doubt felt the claw of the dampness; that she slept little on the lumpy mattress; that she ached from inactivity; that . . . I glanced down at a hardly touched plate of some unidentifiable porridge that occupied a wooden shelf beside her cot. She was hungry. And frightened. And feeling a miserable lack of hope.

The place reeked of mold and hopelessness, and I took shallow breaths in a selfish effort to avoid allowing that sense of despair to lodge inside me.

How I longed to see Clara free of this place, and to give her the hope she no longer believed in. I wanted to tell her how the circumstances of Amelia Beaumont’s death would surely prove her innocence. But Jesse’s admonishments yesterday stilled my tongue. Instead, I said, “Is it all right if I ask you a couple of questions, Clara?”

“Excuse me, miss, but what would be the use? No one but you believes I’m innocent.” She hiccupped a sob, but then swallowed and recovered with a brave and stubborn tilt of her chin. “Not even Tony. A guard told me, just yesterday, that Tony claimed I killed the medium to keep him out of trouble.”

I gasped. “He did not!”

“Yes, miss. He admits to the charges of ex . . . extor . . .”

“Extortion,” I supplied.

She nodded. “Of making people pay him to overlook their little crimes, but he’s telling anyone who’ll listen I must have taken it upon myself to kill Madame Devereaux out of love for him.”

“Oh, that fiend.” My hands curled into fists. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that a bully like Anthony Dobbs would willingly sacrifice another to save his own cowardly skin. More than ever I wanted to reassure Clara, but once again caution made me hold my tongue. “Clara,” I said as evenly as I could, “how much did you know about Lady Amelia? You served as her lady’s maid at Marble House, yes?”