Murder at Rough Point (14 page)

Jesse turned away from the body. Taking my arm, he drew me away from the tub. “If someone entered the room, perhaps while Monsieur Baptiste was relaxing with his eyes closed, that person might have reached into the water, grabbed his ankles, and pulled. That would have forced the victim's head under with such force the water would have gushed into his nose and mouth. Drowning is almost instantaneous. He wouldn't even have had time to struggle.”

I whisked a hand to my mouth, my reply tumbling breathlessly into my palm. “How utterly savage.”

“Or,” Jesse went on, “as you said, he'd propped his feet up on the rim, or he was in the habit of wearing his garters too tight. We'll need confirmation from the coroner.” He turned and nodded to the men behind him. “Go ahead and drain the tub, but we'll leave the body where it is until the coroner arrives.” He slowly walked to the bathroom door, face bent toward the floor as he went. When he reached the threshold, he stopped and turned back around. “How many towels are in the room? Have you counted?”

A young rookie with sloping shoulders and a bumpy complexion shook his head. “Is it important?”

“Everything is important,” Jesse snapped. In a calmer voice he added, “We'll need to ask the maid how many she left. I'm wondering if someone didn't use one to mop up any water he tracked as he made his exit.”

“That's brilliant,” I said with a surge of admiration. “I wouldn't have thought of that.”

He smiled grimly. “Let's you and I take a look around the bedroom, see if anything seems disturbed.”

As Jesse and I each took a side of the bedroom and began opening drawers and cabinets, Patch wove zigzags back and forth to see what we were up to. To him of course this was all a game, enhanced by his newfound freedom to explore beyond the kitchen and service areas. We did not share in his enjoyment. It was a somber task, rifling through a dead man's belongings, and one we abandoned almost eagerly when the coroner made his appearance some half hour later, along with two men bearing a stretcher.

“Wicked night,” he said in greeting, and trudged past us. A pair of spectacles sat low on a wide nose, the lenses slightly fogged from the rain. A stocky man approaching fifty, his shuffling gait drew my attention to his large feet.

“Jesse, the rug. We need to see if it's wet or not. I hope we haven't contaminated potential evidence.”

He turned away from the drawer he had just opened in the writing desk. “What do you mean?”

“You, your men, the coroner . . . you've all walked on the rug with your damp shoes. We should have checked for moisture first.”

His gaze darted from the bedroom door to the bathroom door and back. “What were we thinking?”

“Maybe it isn't too late.” I sat in the desk chair and slipped off my house shoes. “You did wipe your feet on the mat downstairs. Perhaps your men did as well. Besides, the act of walking through the house would have dried their shoes considerably.”

I began a slow walk to the bathroom door, letting the slightly worn path in the Persian rug guide me. Dampness seeped into my stockings. “Someone who passed through this room left a considerably wet trail.”

“Yes, but who?”

“Perhaps someone who slipped in after the incident with Miss Marcus.”

“What incident?”

“Oh, yes, that's right. I haven't had time to explain.” I took the time now, reviewing the events that had left us all with soaked feet at the least, in dripping clothing at the worst. “We've been waiting for the handyman to examine the pipe and determine the reason for the leak.”

Jesse remained silent as he took this in. Then he said, “Come, let's see what the coroner has to say.”

Barking echoed loudly against the bathroom walls, causing Jesse to frown.

“Emma, please . . .”

“I'm sorry. Patch, come here,” I called out, but my mischievous pup paid no heed. Jesse and I entered the bathroom to discover Patch standing on his hind legs with his front paws propped on the rim of the tub. One floppy ear cocked higher than the other, he leaned down into the tub, working his nose as if Nanny had just removed a savory roast from the oven. A low whine in his throat became a whimper. The coroner and the policemen made no attempt to intervene, but their scowls conveyed their annoyance.

“Patch, come away. Stop that.” Horrified to find my dog enthralled by a dead man, I hurried over to him and grasped his collar. A wash of relief surged as I saw that Claude Baptiste's body had been draped with a sheet. “Naughty boy. Get down from there this instant.”

The coroner shook his head. “Perhaps he senses something we humans can't perceive.”

“Such as what?” Jesse came up behind me.

The coroner didn't reply, but I thought of how Patch had found Sir Randall. Was he telling us now that Monsieur Baptiste's death was no accident? Could Patch somehow know that? I stared into his endlessly dark eyes in an attempt to glean whatever knowledge lay behind them. He gazed back with a loving earnestness that made me believe he would comply if he could.

Jesse's hands closed over my shoulders, breaking the spell. “You'd better go, Emma, and take Patch with you. They'll be moving the body out now.”

* * *

“There is no way that pipe could have sprung a leak, sir. I checked all the plumbing the week before the guests arrived, as Mr. Vanderbilt instructed. Everything was sound.”

Jim Royston, part-time handyman to Rough Point and several other estates along Bellevue Avenue, simmered in defiance of Mr. Dunn's accusations that he had neglected his duties. He was about Jesse's age, a lifelong Newporter, and as well liked as he was well known among the locals. He had just come downstairs after mending the faulty plumbing in Miss Marcus's bathroom, and now, as I watched from the Great Hall, the two men were held in a kind of standoff in the vestibule.

“That doesn't change the fact that the pipe did in fact burst.” Mr. Dunn raised his eyebrows and stared down the length of his aquiline nose at the handyman. His mustache twitched disdainfully. “Had you taken the time to check more thoroughly, you surely would have found the defect. I have no choice but to let Mr. Vanderbilt know you have been derelict in your duties. I'm sure he'll wish to employ another handyman.”

“I didn't come out in this foul weather to be insulted
or
threatened.” Mr. Royston's grip tightened around the handle of his toolbox. “I know my business, sir. If I tell you the pipes were sound, the pipes were sound. Someone must have tampered with the fitting.”

“Any why would someone wish to do that?”

Why indeed. I could think of only one reason.

“I believe the pipe in Miss Marcus's room was a diversion,” I told Jesse some minutes later when we found ourselves alone in the library. To make certain we remained alone, I closed the pocket doors that separated the library from the drawing room. Outside in the growing dusk, the rain hammered the roof of the adjoining piazza, while the wind sent sticks and old leaves scuttling across its marble floor. Although the windows in the library had been shut against the weather, the scents of damp earth and foliage permeated the room to mingle with the pungency of leather and stale tobacco. My gaze immediately found the silver ashtray I had left on the sofa table. I flipped the lid open to find it littered with stubs, ash, and bits of tobacco. The porcelain Capodimonte vase hadn't been returned to the room.

“It very well might have been,” Jesse replied. “But again, until the coroner makes his report, we can't call this a murder. All we know is that Monsieur Baptiste's lungs were filled with water, and the fact of it being saltwater had brought his death on that much quicker. But as for the red smudges on his ankles . . .” He shook his head.

“If those marks turn out to be bruises, we might be able to match them to the size and grip of an individual.”

“We might.” Jesse sank onto the silk brocade sofa and pressed back against the cushions. He let his head fall back until he stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh dear.” I abruptly sat down beside him.

“What?”

I felt his gaze boring into me even as I stared down at the mythical creatures woven into the area rug. I had all but forgotten to convey a possibly vital piece of information. Could I blame the commotion and upset of the past hours for having caused me to forget? Perhaps, yet even now I hesitated to explain my father's artistic hoax—partly out of loyalty and the desire to respect my parents' confidence, but also, I must admit, out of a sense of chagrin that my own father would perpetrate such a childish prank.

“Emma, if there is something you need to tell me—”

“There is,” I interrupted. Trying to ignore the heat that climbed into my cheeks and loath to look Jesse in the eye, I repeated what my parents told me about the painting hoax.

He listened in silence, but I sensed him growing rigid and saw the tension building in the opening and closing of his fists. He was angry with me and rightfully so.

“You might have told me this right away.”

“I'm sorry. It was thoughtless of me to wait.”

“Yes, it was, Emma.” His tone cut in a way it never had before, and I was shocked at the sting of moisture behind my eyes. “Withholding information from me puts you in danger, and that is intolerable. I've come to rely on your instincts and your deductive reasoning—you're as clever as any man, perhaps more so. No, not
perhaps
, most certainly. But if you can't trust me enough to be honest, and if I can't trust you enough to know you're being honest in turn, then I'll no longer seek out your investigative skills as I have in the past. And that would be a great loss to me, and to Newport.”

His voice softened at those last words, yet that stabbed at me even more acutely than his anger. “I'm sorry,” I said in a small voice but he silenced me by placing a hand over both of mine where I clutched them in my lap.

“No, I'm sorry.” He offered me a conciliatory smile. “I can't endure the idea of you putting yourself in danger. Promise you'll tell me anything you learn, as soon as you learn it.”

“Yes, I promise.”

That fondness from which I so often hid blossomed in his eyes, and this time I couldn't look away, couldn't pretend his feelings for me didn't exist. Nor could I deny his vulnerability when it came to me. An understanding passed between us and I let it. I acknowledged it with the slightest of nods, for I couldn't be so cruel at that moment as to feign ignorance or indifference. Yet what I also could not do was reply in kind, for that too would have been the height of cruelty, unless it had been possible for me to return his feelings wholeheartedly.

My heart was not whole, however, and not entirely mine to give, not then. I had been granted the esteem of two men: one whom I could happily accept, were we not entirely mismatched socially, not to mention his mother would never welcome me into her family, and marriage between us would force me to make difficult, even painful changes to my life; the other, Jesse, was a Newporter, an old friend, and suitable in every way except one—he didn't spark my passion, not as Derrick Andrews did.

My only solution thus far was to make no decision at all. Cowardly? Yes, although I preferred the term
prudent
.

Jesse nodded once as if he'd reached a decision, or perhaps an acceptance. With a slap to the arm of the sofa he pushed to his feet. “It's time we had a frank talk with your uncle Frederick's tenants. All of them, including your parents.”

A
s if parting a pair of stage curtains, Jesse slid the library's pocket doors open to find an assembled audience seated and waiting. Seven faces turned in our direction, all of them filled with questions. Jesse and I had precious few answers to offer.

But we did have questions of our own, and Jesse didn't waste a moment prevaricating. He forged a path to my father, who stood with his arms folded in front of the rear-facing French doors. Storm clouds and driving sheets of rain framed him while the electric lamps tossed an eerie contrast of light and shadow across his features.

“Who is this art buyer you've managed to enrage?”

My father's face twitched as his gaze swerved over Jesse's shoulder to me.

“I'm sorry, Father. I should have told Jesse sooner. At this point there can be no secrets.”

“An enraged art buyer? Whatever are you talking about?” Miss Marcus was seated on the sofa beside Mrs. Wharton, the two women creating a striking contrast with each other. The latter was lean, dressed in clean, classic lines, and sat primly upright. The former was full-figured, her ample bosom half-spilling from her bodice, and she lounged back against the cushions in a way my aunt Alice would have declared slovenly.

Mrs. Wharton placed a hand over Miss Marcus's, not in comfort, I surmised, but in an attempt to curb the woman's tongue. Her next words seemed to confirm this. “We agreed to let Detective Whyte do his job, Josephine. And you promised to remain calm.”

Miss Marcus responded by eyeing the brandy cart beside the fireplace. Vasili Pavlenko hunched in an armchair near it. From one hand dangled a crystal tumbler half filled with clear liquid I guessed wasn't water. He looked dreadful, as if he had awakened only seconds earlier from a particularly harrowing nightmare. His gaze darted about the room from beneath the now ragged fringe of his wavy golden hair, his eyes glazed with suspicion.

My father sighed heavily and shoved a hand in his coat pocket. “The trouble is, Jesse, I don't know who they are. Thieves and black market dealers don't ordinarily leave calling cards, do they?”

“Father, sarcasm isn't helping.”

Jesse turned to address the others. “Do the rest of you know anything about this?”

Heads shook in denial, all except one. Niccolo Lionetti sat motionless in his chair, silently chewing his bottom lip. Jesse went to stand in front of him with a wide-legged stance. “Signore?”

“Randall . . . he may have said . . . something . . . to me . . .”

“
Might
have?” My father lurched away from the French doors.

Without turning around Jesse held out a hand in an obvious demand for silence. He ruminated down at the musician. “Explain.”

Niccolo shrugged. “He was most agitated—back in Paris—and when I asked him why, he said some things. Eh, something about a painting, and how he would be made to pay. I did not fully comprehend at the time.” He raised an accusing gaze to my father. “Randall said it was
your
fault, Arturo.”

“
My
fault?” Father's voice boomed with indignation. “I didn't force Randall into our scheme, and I certainly never meant things to become so out of hand. It was to have been a prank, nothing more.”

My mother rose and went to his side, and lightly touched his forearm. “Arthur, I'm sure Randall understood that.”

“Did he?” He flinched, taking his arm out of her reach. “And now Niccolo is practically accusing me of . . .”

Jesse whirled to face him. “Of what?”

Father's mouth hung open. He closed it and shook his head. His brow furrowed as he regarded Jesse with a pained, baffled look, as if he believed Jesse's suspicions had turned in his direction.

Had they? Queasiness roiled deep in my stomach.

“If you wish to put blame where it is deserved, look to
him
.” Vasili Pavlenko pointed directly at the cello player. “Niccolo.”

The name all but slithered from the Russian's tongue. The man in question lunged to his feet so violently his chair rocked, nearly tipping over backward before righting itself. “Liar! I was nowhere near the cliffs when Randall died.”

“Never mind Randall,” Vasili volleyed back. “I speak of tonight. Of Claude. Where were you when
he
died only hours ago?”

Niccolo shouted something back in Italian, and though the exact meaning was lost on me, I understood the sentiment well enough—so well I took an involuntary step backward, away from the scene fast becoming volatile. Miss Marcus, too, had come to her feet and began shouting protests at Vasili's implied accusation. Mrs. Wharton once again tried to calm her, but Miss Marcus shook off the other woman's efforts. Her high-pitched utterances created a staccato disharmony with the deeper male voices.

Jesse raised his hands. “Quiet—
now
—or I'll have you all arrested.”

I compressed my lips against a smile. Jesse would not have dared speak that way to my Vanderbilt relatives or any other member of the Four Hundred. Had he forgotten the Whartons were among those lofty individuals? The threat, however, had its immediate result. The room grew silent, until Teddy Wharton raised his chin defiantly.

“On what grounds?”

I realized the man had said little else thus far. A recollection came rolling back. The night Sir Randall went missing, I noticed grass stuck to Mr. Wharton's boots. He had gone outside and returned without bothering to change into house shoes. Why? Had he been in too much of a hurry to join the others in the Great Hall for Niccolo's performance? Or had his haste been for another reason? And there had been that incident when he rudely broke up a conversation between his wife and Sir Randall.

But while he might have taken issue with Sir Randall concerning Mrs. Wharton, I could conceive of no reason he might have harbored ill will toward Monsieur Baptiste.

In answer to Teddy Wharton's question, Jesse retorted, “Obstructing justice. Now then, Mr. Pavlenko, explain why you would question the whereabouts of Signore Lionetti tonight.”

Niccolo, about to retake his seat, straightened to full height again. “I was with everyone else, in Josephine's room. You all saw me. Everyone who was there.
You
were not there, Vasili. Why?”

“I was with Claude. We were downstairs in the billiard room until we went to our separate suites to change for dinner. Anyone might have gained entrance into Claude's room
after
the bursting pipe.”

Vasili was correct. If indeed the faulty pipe had been a diversion necessitating that everyone change clothes yet again, anyone might have slipped into Claude Baptiste's room to murder him. But as Vasili himself admitted, he hadn't been with the rest of us in Miss Marcus's bathroom. I had met him in the hallway on my own way back to change. He claimed to have been in the billiard room with Monsieur Baptiste, but who would have seen them?

After witnessing Vasili's friendship with the Frenchman, I found it nearly impossible to imagine him murdering the man. Jesse calmly repeated his question to Vasili. Why would he question Niccolo's whereabouts earlier?

The young man scowled. “He had cause to want Claude dead.”

“Liar! You know that is not true!”

“Signore Lionetti,” Jesse said calmly, “I will have you removed if you cannot control your outbursts. Now then . . .”

“He wanted Claude dead for Josephine,” Vasili said. The woman yelped a protest, but fell silent when Jesse turned a warning look in her direction. The Russian choreographer continued. “Her career is fading, and she was depending on Claude to help her rise again. When he would not, she became enraged. But what can a woman do? A woman is weak. She needed a man to avenge her, so she asked her lover. Niccolo did it for her.”

Niccolo sneered. “That is absurd.”

Miss Marcus added her vehement concurrence. “We are not lovers.”

But I wondered, for not only did a rancorous link exist between Miss Marcus and Claude Baptiste, but also between that same lady and Sir Randall. Their mutual acrimony had been palpable, although the reasons for it remained unclear. And it was no secret that she and Niccolo had forged some kind of relationship. Lovers? Perhaps. Conspiring killers? It was possible.

If that were true, then my father's art hoax had nothing to do with events at Rough Point. Unless . . .

Niccolo had admitted to knowing at least vague details about the hoax. Could he and Josephine have used this to their advantage, perhaps by initiating the theft and subsequent threats themselves? I conjectured about none of this out loud, but determined to discuss these possibilities with Jesse at the first opportunity.

“I think it's time for all of us to leave Rough Point. To leave Newport.” My father brushed a hand over his pomaded hair. “It's been a disaster of a visit.”

Through the murmurs of agreement Jesse's voice rang out. “No one is going anywhere until we discover what happened and who, if anyone, is at fault.”

“You suspect one of us?” Beneath Mrs. Wharton's question ran a frisson of excitement, or so I thought.

“That's putting the cart before the horse,” Jesse replied. “We still haven't determined for certain if either death was accidental or suicide. At the same time, I can't rule any of you out either. You are free to leave Rough Point, but none of you may leave Newport until this investigation is complete.”

“Then I suggest you and I go home, Edith.” Teddy Wharton gazed in dismay out the French doors, where the rain continued to pound the landscape. “As soon as we may.”

“And what are we supposed to do until then? Sit here waiting for another of us to die in some gruesome way?” The beginnings of hysteria again edged Miss Marcus's tone and peeked out from the whites of her eyes. “Niccolo is innocent, of that I have no doubt. But how do we know one of these art thieves isn't in the house right now? Or that one among us hasn't become unhinged?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked directly at Vasili. “So I ask again. What are we to do? How can we be safe trapped here in this horrid house?”

“We stay together,” my mother said. “No one must be alone. And . . .” She perused the room, her gaze landing on the brass fireplace tools beside the hearth. “Perhaps we should arm ourselves.”

* * *

Jesse went to confer with his men, leaving the artists in the drawing room to bicker to their hearts' content. I followed him, passing Mr. Dunn on my way to the Stair Hall. He carried a tray of covered platters, and behind him trailed Irene and Carl, each carrying a similar burden.

“Food helps in situations such as these,” he said, and kept going. The comment took me aback, for I wondered what other similar situation he might have witnessed. Though last summer brought deadly circumstances to the homes of my other Vanderbilt relatives here in Newport, neither Frederick nor Louise, nor, by extension, Mr. Dunn, had been involved. Perhaps he merely meant stressful times in general.

I caught up with Jesse on the half landing. I begged his patience a moment and bade him sit with me on the little velvet settee beneath the stained glass windows.

“I remembered something else,” I said, and he grimaced.

“I thought you were going to tell me everything from now on, and not keep anything to yourself.”

“I certainly didn't intend to keep this from you,” I hastened to defend myself. “I'd forgotten, honestly. But last night when Randall went missing, but before any of us feared he had come to any harm, I noticed grass on Teddy Wharton's shoes.” I sat back, waiting for Jesse's reaction. I was to be disappointed, for he looked at me askance.

“He took a walk. If you're insinuating Mr. Wharton met Sir Randall along the Cliff Walk and pushed him, a few blades of grass on his shoes is not enough to prove it. Or even to give it serious consideration.”

“Don't you understand, guests in a house such as this always bring two complete sets of footwear—boots to wear outdoors, and shoes reserved exclusively for indoors. No well-bred gentleman would ever think to track remnants of the gardens into the house. So why didn't Teddy Wharton change his shoes?”

His incredulity eased from his features. “I wouldn't have thought of that.”

“No, I don't suppose I would have either if I hadn't grown up with relatives such as mine.” Indeed, most Newporters were lucky if they owned two pairs of shoes, one for every day and one for church. “And not only that, but I happen to have witnessed ill will toward Sir Randall on Mr. Wharton's part.” I lowered my voice. “It had to do with Mrs. Wharton.”

“You mean, Mrs. Wharton and Sir Randall . . . ?”

“No, I don't believe so, not at all. But Mr. Wharton may have believed it.” I glanced at the upper steps, where rain streaming down the stained-glass windows cast odd moving shadows against the stair runner. “It's a motive, isn't it?”

“But what about Monsieur Baptiste? Have you ever seen any hostilities between him and Mr. Wharton?”

“No, but that doesn't mean there weren't any. Perhaps Mr. Wharton is an insanely jealous husband, always out to avenge his wife's honor.” Even to me, that sounded melodramatic and hollow, like a scene from a deplorably written play.

Jesse obviously agreed with that assessment, for he summarily dismissed the possibility. “Anything else?”

I stared at those shifting shadows on the stairs again. “Well, there is Niccolo Lionetti knowing about my father's and Sir Randall's painting hoax, not to mention the animosity that existed between Miss Marcus and Sir Randall.”

“Which brings us back to your father again.”