Murder at Marble House (30 page)

“Read your mind . . .” he said now. “ ’Fraid I don’t know what you mean by that.”

It was then I noticed the grim set to his mouth. At the same time, his gaze dropped to the baby in my arms. We spoke at the same time.

“What’s happened?” and “Who’s that?” jumbled together into a confusion of words. I led him into the parlor.

“Left here?” he said with a shake of his head after I’d explained. “On your doorstep?”

“I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s the truth. I telephoned the station earlier, but you weren’t in. If you never got the message, what brings you here?”

Leaning forward with elbows on his knees, he ran a hand through his auburn hair and blew out a breath. “There’s been an incident. A murder, Emma. This morning.”

I hugged the baby tighter. “Oh, Jesse. Who?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. No one recognized him, and he carried no identification. He was a young man, mid-twenties, driving a rented carriage.”

“From Stevenson’s livery?”

He nodded. “The death wasn’t far from here, where the road curves around Brenton Point. He went off the road into the water—”

I gasped, a hand to my mouth. Nearly the same thing had happened to me last summer. Then, as now, it would not have been an accident. “Was he forced off the road?”

“No, Emma. He went off the road because he’d been shot. Clear through the chest, from dead on. The best we can figure is someone was waiting on the road for him, and when he rounded the bend, they took a clear shot.”

Jesse and I had fallen into a pattern over the past year. After proving my investigative skills more than once last summer, he often came to me when a case had him particularly perplexed, as now. We’d mull over evidence and possible motives. Jesse said it helped him see the facts more clearly. I was glad to help, but sometimes I wondered if his frequent visits were prompted by more than protecting Newport from criminals.

The baby, awake now, squirmed, and I realized how tightly I held him. I loosened my arms, shifting him from one shoulder to the other. A shiver traveled my length. “Jesse, this child was left on my doorstep sometime between last night and this morning. Do you suppose there could be a connection?”

“At this point, anything is possible. Anything.”

My mind began to race. I needed to move, needed to pace as I considered these developments. Seeing me struggle to come to my feet, Jesse stood and took the baby from me, then settled back in the wing chair, cradling the child as if it was second nature. I couldn’t help smiling at the picture they made.

Then I turned away, counted off ten steps toward the window, ten back. Mentally I listed the events of this morning, picturing the details as I knew them. I came to a halt. “Jesse, you said he was driving a rented carriage. Was he dressed like a wealthy man?”

“Not at all. If anything, he appeared more like a groom or a groundskeeper. A workman of some kind, certainly.”

“Not a man who would have an expensive piece of linen and lace in his possession.”

“Certainly not.”

“But someone might have
given
him the handkerchief Katie found in the swaddling . . . at the same time she entrusted the poor man to deliver her child here.” I fell silent and began pacing again. Jesse watched me, gently jiggling the baby against his chest. I came to another halt. “But then who would murder him?”

“Someone who didn’t want the child traced here. Someone who didn’t wish to hurt the child, but who wanted to make sure the one person who delivered him here could never tell anyone.”

I considered this, and a possible scenario began to form in my mind. “Either the mother is desperate to prevent her family from learning of her pregnancy, or . . .” I paused, took a breath. “Or the family . . . or perhaps even the father . . . wants the baby gone and the mother to never learn where.”

“Either is entirely possible,
if
there’s a connection between the two,” Jesse conceded, though he looked skeptical. “That’s still a big
if
at this point.”

“Yes, but I think the latter is more plausible. I can’t picture a mother—someone who has just brought life into the world—being capable of taking a life so cold-bloodedly. And I believe I know where to start searching—for the mother, that is. And something tells me if we find the mother, we’ll find your murderer.”

“Be careful of stretching again, Emma.”

“How many times have I been correct in the past?”

That silenced any further protests he might have made. The baby kicked his little legs, and Jesse changed his position to a more upright one, which seemed to satisfy the little fellow.

My heart squeezed. They presented so homey a scene Jesse could almost have been the boy’s father, except for the utter difference in their coloring. Where Jesse was fair and auburn-haired and possessed keen blue eyes, the baby’s eyes were a blue-green shade that suggested his eyes would be dark—as dark as the nut-brown hair dusting his tiny head.

“You know, you’re a natural at that,” I said to him. Just then, shuffling into the room, Nanny twittered lightly in agreement.

“I don’t see how you’ll ever find the mother unless she wants to be found,” Jesse said, apparently choosing to ignore my observation.

I chewed my lip to hide the smile that refused to go away, and went to sit beside Nanny on the sofa. “Tomorrow night is June thirtieth, and Mrs. Astor will be holding her annual ball to kick off the summer Season. I’m on the guest list—well, not strictly as a guest, mind you. I’ll be working, taking notes for my Fancies and Fashions page. Everyone in society who’s in Newport will be there. It’s as good a place as any to start asking questions.”

I glanced over at Nanny, who agreed with one of her sage nods.

“And what makes you think a woman who gave birth so recently will be at that ball?”

“She’ll have to be. If my suspicions are correct and the mother is a society lady, she’ll make every effort to attend the ball to quell any rumors that might have sprung up during her confinement. A woman can’t simply stop making her usual appearances without her peers noticing, not to mention wondering and whispering. She might get away with the excuse of having been ill, or visiting relatives in the country, or some such, but she’d be desperate to reenter society as soon as possible and have everyone see her carefree and happy and, more to the point, laced tightly into her corset.”

Jesse winced. “Sounds painful. Not to mention unhealthy.”

“It is, on both counts.” I smoothed a hand down the front of the sprigged muslin I’d hastily changed into earlier. I wore stays, but not nearly as tightly as fashion dictated. In the past it had been a source of disagreement between my aunt Alice and me. “Loose stays suggest loose morals,” she would often admonish, only to add in a rush, “not that you are of loose morals, Emmaline. Heaven knows you are not. But one does not wish to give a wrong impression, does one?”

Jesse again shifted the baby from one shoulder to the other, his large hands fumbling when the blanket began to unwind and a tiny foot dangled freely. I bit back yet another smile and came around the sofa table to help tuck those minuscule toes safely back in. As I did so, I couldn’t help but notice the blush suffusing Jesse’s face, making the smattering of freckles across his nose stand out brighter.

He said, “I’m still not sure why you’re so convinced the mother is a society lady. She could be a lady’s maid, or even a laundry maid. And if the murdered coachman was involved, he could have been the father, all too eager to hide the evidence of his indiscretion.”

“Then why murder him?” I shook my head. “It makes more sense that he was murdered to preserve a secret. And who more than anyone else would wish to hide the evidence of an illegitimate birth?”

When neither Jesse nor Nanny answered, I threw up my hands. “A member of society! Someone with heirs or who stands to gain an inheritance, or who wishes to preserve his reputation, along with that of the woman who birthed the child.”

“Emma, an angry brother or father might have shot that man, not to mention we haven’t yet found a definite connection between the two occurrences. And anyone could have gotten hold of that handkerchief. Have you considered that the mother might want you to believe the child hails from a wealthy background, so maybe you’ll do better by him?”

“As if that would make any difference to us,” Nanny replied with a huff.

“No, it wouldn’t,” I said as I resumed my place beside her on the sofa, “but it might to a lot of people. Jesse does have a point, one I hadn’t considered. A desperately poor mother might have thought she was influencing us by leaving a clue like that. Maybe she thought that rather than delivering him up to an orphanage, we’d find a good family willing to take him in, or we’d raise him ourselves.”

If Nanny thought I wouldn’t notice the sudden change in her posture, or how she clutched her hands in her lap, she was greatly mistaken. “Nanny! Do not even think it. We cannot keep this child.”

She turned to me with a wounded expression. “Why not?”

“Lots of reasons! For one, a child needs parents—two of them. The state isn’t likely to let me adopt him, or even foster him for any extended length of time. Isn’t that right, Jesse?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

“What about me?” Nanny puffed up with self-importance. “I was married for nearly thirty years.”

“I realize that, Mrs. O’Neal, but . . .” Jesse suddenly looked uncomfortable. His cheeks colored again, the curse of his pale complexion. “It’s your age, Mrs. O’Neal. The courts might deem you—to be blunt—too old to take on an infant.”

Nanny pursed her lips, and Jesse turned his attention back to me. “They might allow you to keep him while a search was made for his next of kin, but that’s about all, Emma. Since you’re unmarried, it’s unlikely they’d allow you to adopt him. For now, though,” he added with a wink, “what the courts don’t know won’t hurt them. See what you can find out, Emma, but only about where this fellow belongs. Leave the murder to me.”

I opened my mouth to agree, but a sudden and unexpected rush of disappointment had temporarily knocked the breath out of me. I struggled not to show it. Good heavens, had I, like Nanny, been hoping this little boy would find a permanent place in our household?

And if I felt this way within mere hours of his arrival, how would I feel days from now? Or weeks—or however long it took to find his rightful home? Would I be able to simply hand him over to . . . a stranger?

Now when I chewed my lip, it wasn’t to hide a smile, but to bite back wholly unexpected, stinging tears.