A Sense of Entitlement (19 page)

“Ah, Mr. Mayhew forgot something, did he?”

“Yes, that’s it,” I said. The man nodded and with barely a glance, leaped into the rowboat. It rocked wildly beneath his feet.

I can’t get in that,
I thought.
I can’t do it.

As I took a step back, he held his hand out to me. “Come on, now. It’s only a little dinghy, and I ain’t gonna bite ya.” My panic must have shown on my face. “Come on, now.” His smile was reassuring and his rough, calloused hand looked strong.

I took a deep breath, brushed imaginary dust from my sleeve, grabbed the man’s hand, and stepped aboard. “Aah!” I gasped as I nearly fell, the whole boat lurching beneath my feet.

The boatman guided me to the bench. I grabbed hold of the sides of the boat and focused on its bottom as he sat down and shoved us away from the dock with an oar. “Landlubber, eh?”

“What?” I said, concentrating on my grip as the boat glided through the water.

“Not fond of boats, are ya?”

“No, sorry,” I said, looking up and attempting to smile. I immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea threatened to make me sick. I focused on the floor of the boat again.

“Well, sit tight and I’ll have you out to the
Invictus
in a few minutes.”

I took his advice and tightened my grip. After barely a minute had elapsed, though I admit it felt like more, we were gliding through watery alleyways between dozens of yachts, most of which towered over our little boat, often sending us into shadow. The only sound was the slapping of water as the oars broke through, the cry of seagulls overhead, and my ragged breath.

Maybe this isn’t so bad.
I calmed my breathing and even dared to loosen my grip as moment after peaceful moment slipped by without incident. When I finally looked up it was to stare into a wall of white completely filling my view. We’d pulled up next to one of the largest yachts in the harbor.

“Here we are, the
Invictus,
” the boatman said. With three towering masts, the yacht was over two hundred feet long. Without another word, he threw a small anchor overboard the dinghy and helped me to board the yacht.

Once onboard I grabbed the railing, expecting the need to steady myself. The yacht barely moved. Soon I was treading lightly through the parlor, the dining room, several bedrooms, the kitchen, and even an engine room, all lavishly appointed in brass, marble, and mahogany, looking for any signs that a woman was living aboard. I discovered a small area dedicated to a rowing machine, chest weights, medicine ball, and striking bag where Mr. Mayhew could maintain his daily exercise routines. Yet after what seemed an eternity but was probably less than ten minutes I’d covered the entire ship and found almost nothing. The beds were made, though one was slightly rumpled. The kitchen was spotless, not a single crumb on the table or unwashed teacup in the sink. The wastebaskets were empty. In the bathroom, I found no hint of occupation, no dirty shaving mug, no bottle of perfume or its scent; even the cake of Colgate’s Cashmere Bouquet Soap was still in its paper. I had found a pair of men’s patent-leather dress shoes, a couple of nautical books,
Patterson’s Illustrated Nautical Dictionary
and the New York Yacht Club’s
Code of Yachting Signals,
and two thick pamphlets,
Why the Purchase Clause of the Act of July 14, 1890 (Called Sherman Law) Should Be Repealed
and
Newport Shooting Club: Directory and Club Rules,
strewn about on a table, but absolutely nothing to indicate that a woman had been aboard. I was relieved that I would finally have something positive to report to Mrs. Mayhew.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” the waiting boatman asked when I appeared back up on deck.

“On the contrary,” I said. “He’ll be pleased that I didn’t find anything.” The man knitted his brow but said nothing more. He helped me back into the rowboat and we made our way back to the dock. Back on land, I took several deep breaths, but my hands and knees were still shaking.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” the boatman said, laughing.

I managed a weak smile. “I’m Hattie Davish, by the way.”

“Call me Mack.”

“Thank you for your help, Mack.”

“Sure,” he said as he tied the boat to the dock. “Anything for a pretty lady. Even if you are a landlubber.”

Relieved to be back on land and with good news to report, I was in high spirits. I nearly skipped down the sidewalk. As I returned along the harbor, I noticed the cloudless sky, the sparkling sunshine on the water, the strong mingling scents of salt, fish, and hydrangea in the air. I felt buoyant and hopeful. I’d conquered my fear of boats, albeit for a short time. I’d kept my position despite disappointing Mrs. Mayhew. Maybe I could even convince Mrs. Grice I was worthy of her son. With such thoughts on my mind, I followed a narrow lane that led down to the water, promisingly overgrown with bramble and brush. I was rewarded with a sighting of three-foot-tall flowering yellow thistle! Without hesitation, I waded into the shrubs, acquiring more of the beggar’s-tick seeds on my dress and stockings than I’d encountered on an earlier hike. The plant was everywhere! But an hour of picking off the sticky seeds would be worth it to add yellow thistle to my collection. Glad to be wearing my gloves, I knelt down to pull the plant from its roots. It didn’t budge, more firmly rooted than I would’ve thought. The prickly, spiny leaves scratched my bare arms as I pulled harder and harder. Finally I stood up and yanked the plant with all my strength. As I succeeded, jerking the thistle loose from its earthy home, I lost my balance. I stumbled several feet before falling backward into the brush. I grimaced, anticipating the pain when my back would hit the ground, but something had broken my fall. I sat up and twisted around to see what it was.

“Aaaaahhhh!” I screamed, leaping away. Beneath me wasn’t the ant mound or a pile of plant litter I’d expected, but the body of a man with a bloody hole in the middle of his chest.

W
ho was it? I wondered. His face was hidden beneath the brush. I had to know. I knelt down beside him and pushed the branches away. Lester Sibley! I scrambled out of the bushes as fast as I could and I ran to the top of the lane, down the street, and straight toward the police station. I wanted desperately to return to Rose Mont and never think of Lester Sibley again, but I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

No, that’s not right,
I thought. What I really wanted to do was go to the Ocean House and find Walter. He’d been there for me at other difficult times. I wanted to draw strength from his professional calm. I wanted to feel his arms around me, hear him tell me everything would be all right. But I didn’t. Despite refusing to defy the wishes of the likes of Jane and Nicholas Whitwell, Sam Preble was Newport’s chief of police. I had to tell him what had happened. I continued along the bay toward the police station. I never made it that far.

“Chief Preble!” I yelled. The policeman, his cap pushed far back from his forehead, was standing on a dock dangling fishing line tied to a branch into the water. The line suddenly went taut and he jerked it back. “Chief Preble!” I yelled again. He looked up at the sound of his name. He grimaced, loosening his grip on the line as I ran toward him.

“Miss Davish?” Out of breath, I bent over as soon as I reached the dock. He quickly closed the distance between us. “Now take a deep breath and tell me what the trouble is.”

“Down the lane . . . he’s dead,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

“You’ve found another dead body?”

“Not another body, Chief Preble. Lester Sibley’s! And he has a bullet hole in him like Harland Whitwell.” With the implications left unspoken the policeman led me to a patrol wagon parked nearby, leaped in, took the reins, and then offered his arm to help me in. Flicking the reins, starting the horses trotting, he said, “I’ll have to stop at the station first and then you can take me to him, Miss Davish.”

After Chief Preble relayed orders to his officers at the police station, I led him back to the stand of bushes and pointed. “He’s in there,” I said.

“However did you find him?” the policeman asked, alighting from the wagon. I opted to stay right where I was. I had no desire to see Lester Sibley’s dead body again.

“I was plant collecting. I’d found a specimen of yellow thistle among the bushes and stumbled upon him by accident.” I had no intention of telling Chief Preble the real reason I’d been in the vicinity was to trespass on Mr. Mayhew’s yacht.

“Did you move anything? See anything else unusual?”

“No.” I watched as Chief Preble waded into the bushes, pushing branches away to get a better view of the dead man’s body. He put his fingers on Lester Sibley’s wrist. Then he pushed the man onto his side, placed him on his back again, opened his coat, moved his head back and forth, and examined his scalp with his fingers.

“Well, it’s obvious the cause of death is the bullet wound, though both of his arms appear to be broken and he’s been beaten around the face.”

Lester Sibley’s death couldn’t have been a suicide like Harland Whitwell’s then. No one could kill himself with two broken arms.

“I’m no medical examiner, but I’ll bet you this man’s been dead quite a while, probably killed late last night. We’ll get him to the coroner and have an autopsy done.” He examined the wound as he had Harland Whitwell’s, so close I thought he’d get blood on his nose. “Without the bullet, I can’t say it’s from the same gun, but the wound looks similar.” I nodded blankly, hoping my involvement was almost done. I was beginning to shake. “I’ll have the men look around the bushes for the gun and any empty cartridges.

“Ah, Miss Davish,” the policeman said, looking up from his work. “I’m sorry you had to be a part of this.” He stood, approached the wagon, and pulled a plain navy blue wool blanket from the back. “Here, wrap this around you.” The day was warm and fair, but I was shivering. I was glad when he drew it around my shoulders.

“We’ll wait here until the others arrive and I’ll have someone take you back to Rose Mont.” I nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around me. We sat in silence for several minutes before Chief Preble said, “I hear Sibley was found trespassing at the Mayhew ball last night?”

“Yes, you could say that,” I said. The policeman looked at me sharply, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Would you care to elaborate, Miss Davish?”

“Lester Sibley didn’t simply trespass, Chief Preble. He stormed the room, chanting labor slogans. He disrupted the whole evening.”

“You were there?”

“Yes, I was,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t need to elaborate.

“So how did the man get in?”

I hadn’t thought to wonder about this before but instantly knew the answer. “He couldn’t have come through the front. I was in the hall; I would’ve seen him. He must’ve come from the back portico, probably taking the Cliff Walk and then coming up the lawn.”

“Yes, that makes sense. The cottage residents still resist the idea that the Cliff Walk is public, especially Mr. Mayhew. He once placed a wall across it to prevent anyone from walking across his property. The wall came down, of course, since an old city charter guarantees that the Cliff Walk is open to all, but he still thinks it’s his personal path. If he had any security set up last night, he probably wouldn’t have thought to post anyone in the back.”

“There was a Pinkerton detective there, a Mr. Silas Doubleday,” I said.

“Yes, I know about him. He’s the one that roughed up the strikers picketing the other day.”

I nodded, relieved the policeman knew about that. “Mr. Doubleday escorted Lester Sibley off the property,” I said. “He probably broke his arms.” I told him about the detective’s threats and rough handling of Mr. Sibley the night before.

He nodded. “I’ll talk to him, find out where he was, when he last saw Sibley.”

“Do you think he could’ve killed him?” I asked.

Chief Preble snorted. “I can think of many people who might’ve wanted Lester Sibley dead. The man was causing a real fuss in town.” He shook his head, looking down at the bushes where the dead man lay. “I told him to leave town, to stop stirring up trouble. He obviously didn’t listen.”

We heard horses approaching and soon a patrol wagon, with two more policemen, arrived.

“The body is over there,” Chief Preble said.

As Chief Preble explained what he wanted the new arrivals to do, I sat in the wagon, staring out over the harbor, absently watching as two men in matching white caps struggled to raise the sails on a nearby yacht. What should I do? I wondered. I had information that might be relevant to Lester Sibley’s death. Should I tell Chief Preble despite my promises to keep them secret? Could there be a connection between Harland Whitwell’s death and the murder of Lester Sibley? Only a few people knew Harland Whitwell took his own life. Could someone have blamed Lester Sibley for Harland Whitwell’s death and have unknowingly killed him for a murder he didn’t commit? Or at least wanted it to appear they were related in some way?

Nicholas Whitwell,
I thought. He knew the truth behind his father’s death. In fact, he hid the suicide note and likely staged the death scene to incriminate Lester Sibley. Nicholas might still have his father’s gun. Could he have killed the labor man? And what about Eugenie? I hadn’t seen her since her father’s death. Had she been told her father committed suicide? If not, could she have attacked Lester Sibley? Could Jane Whitwell have done it?

Chief Preble walked over to the wagon. “I think you left this,” he said gently. He placed the uprooted yellow thistle on my lap. I nodded my thanks. “Collins, take this wagon and give Miss Davish a ride back to Rose Mont.” Looking at the hard-won thistle, already wilting in the sun, I decided I knew too much not to tell Chief Preble something. This was my chance.

“Chief Preble,” I said, taking a deep breath. I was about to walk a fine line between honesty and betrayal.

“Yes?”

“I need to tell you that I saw someone try to run Lester Sibley down in a motorcar.”

“A motorcar? There are only two motorcars on the entire island and one of them belongs to the visiting sultan.”

“And the other belongs to Nicholas Whitwell,” I said. I knew he wasn’t driving that day, but Chief Preble didn’t. Maybe this would be the incentive he needed to include the Whitwells in his investigation without my revealing any secrets.

“I know what you’re insinuating, Miss Davish.”

“Nicholas Whitwell had an altercation with Lester Sibley at the ball as well. He accused Sibley of killing his father. And his father’s gun is still unaccounted for.”

“I think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Miss Davish,” the policeman said.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that Lester Sibley has a bullet wound in his chest like Harland Whitwell did? Possibly from the same gun?”

“We’ll talk again. Now go back and rest.”

I nodded, knowing I’d said all I could without compromising myself. I was relieved, as the officer snapped the reins, to be leaving the ugly scene. Now I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

But riding back in silence with Officer Collins, all I could do was think about it. Luckily the ride took only a few minutes, and after thanking the policeman I went straight up to my rooms. I purposely avoided the Servants’ Hall; I didn’t want anyone to know I was back yet. I wanted time to press my yellow thistle and to type up what was swirling around in my mind, a list of suspects. I listed eight people and these were only those who I knew had a possible, albeit sometimes a farfetched, reason to want the labor man dead:

1. Nicholas Whitwell—hated Lester Sibley, blamed him for his father’s death
   
2. Silas Doubleday—last person known to see Sibley alive, obvious dislike between them
   
3. Gideon Mayhew—considered the man a pest, furious over his trespassing on his party
   
4. Mrs. Crankshaw—blamed Lester for the loss of her position
   
5. James—blamed him for the loss of his position, came to blows with him
   
6. Charlotte Mayhew—similar reasons as her husband
   
7. Jane Whitwell—similar reasons as her son
   
8. Eugenie Whitwell—similar reasons as her brother and mother
   

With that accomplished I sat back and took a deep breath. I realized I hadn’t taken my hat off. I unpinned it and tossed it on the bed. I stood, went over to the dressing table, and poured water from the pitcher into the basin to splash on my face.

Why does this keep happening to me?
I wondered. At least I had good news to report to Mrs. Mayhew. I took another deep breath, dabbed my face dry with a towel, and brushed my skirt.

“Ow!” Something pricked my fingers. Beggar’s-tick seeds. I was covered in them. I hadn’t time to pick them off now, so I changed out of my dress into my brown suit and went to report to Mrs. Mayhew. She was dressed for a luncheon and was just pinning her hat on.

“Well, I am relieved to hear that, Miss Davish,” Mrs. Mayhew said when I told her I’d found nothing aboard her husband’s yacht. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Are you that terrified of boats, Miss Davish? You’re as pale as cold cream, and you’re shaking.”

I was terrified of boats, but the shock of finding Lester Sibley had to be written on my face. Obviously refreshing myself before coming down hadn’t helped. Should I tell Mrs. Mayhew what had happened? Chief Preble hadn’t instructed me either way. And why not? With the way rumors and news traveled in this town, she would know soon anyway.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mayhew, but I had an unfortunate incident from which I’m still not quite recovered.”

“What happened?”

“Lester Sibley, ma’am—”

“Did that horrible little man bother you?” she interrupted, shaking her head. “Don’t give it another thought, Davish. As soon as Mr. Mayhew returns from New York, I’m going to speak to him about ridding us all from this pest of a creature. If the police won’t deal with him, my husband will.”

“Mrs. Mayhew, Lester Sibley’s dead.”

She stopped her ranting and stared at me. “Dead? What do you mean?”

“That’s the incident to which I referred, ma’am. I found Lester Sibley dead in a thicket of bushes as I returned from my task at the yacht.”

“What were you doing in the bushes?”

Of all the questions she could’ve asked, I hadn’t expected this one to be the first. “I was collecting a specimen of yellow thistle, ma’am. I’m an amateur plant collector.”

“And how do you know he was dead and not merely drunk or sleeping?”

“He had a bullet wound in the middle of his chest.”