Death on Beacon Hill (24 page)

Merritt cleared his throat.

Vera didn’t move.

“Miss Pratt,” the butler said. “You have visitors.”

Very opened her eyes, took in Nell and Will, blinked. “Oh.” She smiled, lowered her arms. “Oh, my word. How lovely to see you both again.”

Nell and Will both nodded stupidly until Will finally said, “We were just, er, walking past the house, and we thought we’d drop in and say hello.”

“I’m so glad you did.” Vera’s smiled faded. “I suppose you were actually looking for the rest of them, but they’re dining on the Abbots’ yacht tonight. Perfect evening for it, don’t you think?”

“Yes, indeed,” Nell said. Pity Vera wasn’t invited.

“Is that where Emily is?” Will asked.

“Oh, no, Emily can’t bear that sort of thing. She’s out walking with Dr. Foster.”

“Isaac Foster?” Will said.

“Yes, he came calling this afternoon and asked if she might like to join him after supper for a stroll in the Commons. Winnie wanted me to go with them—you know, for propriety’s sake—but Emily said she wouldn’t go if she had to drag along a chaperone. Winnie didn’t insist. She’s just so excited to have a gentleman like Dr. Foster taking a fancy to Emily. Very pleasant gentleman, I think.”

“Yes, he seems like a fine fellow.” Will glanced at Nell.

“Miss Pratt,” Merritt said, “would you and your guests care for some coffee?”

“Oh!” Vera seemed rattled, as if unused to entertaining guests. “Yes, I suppose...” Turning to Nell and Will, she asked, “Would you...would you like...?”

“That sounds delightful,” Nell said.

“Well, then, yes,” Vera warbled. “Thank you. Thank you, Merritt. Marvelous idea.”

The butler left. Nell, Will and Vera stood staring at each other in the candlelit courtyard. When Nell’s gaze lowered to the chalk drawings, Vera said, “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing.”

“Er, well...” Nell didn’t know whether to nod or shake her head.

“Yes, actually,” Will said.

“I’m attempting to call up a departed spirit,” Vera said, as casually as if she were talking about asking a neighbor to tea. “I’ve seen H.P.B. do it, and she’s tried to teach me how, but I’m...I don’t know. She says I lack the mental discipline. Everyone always says I’m a little...” She wagged her fingers around her head. “But I’m determined to keep on trying till I’ve got it. Chairs?”

“I...beg your pardon?” Nell said.

“Would you like chairs to sit in? You would, wouldn’t you, if we’re to have coffee.” Vera looked around, hands fluttering. “I pushed them to the side...”

“I’ve got them.” Will dragged three chairs into a little circle and guided the ladies into their seats. Merritt reappeared, set up a tray table laden with coffee, port, fresh raspberries and candied ginger, bowed, and left.

Vera poured the coffee; Will poured the port, which Vera declined. “Strong spirits sap our mental auras, thus weakening our connection with the spirit world.”

“Funny they didn’t mention that to me in medical school,” Will said as he poured Nell and himself rather stiff ones.

“It’s a pity Emily’s not here,” Nell said. “We’d very much wanted to talk to her.”

“Yes?” Vera blew on her coffee, which she took black and sugarless.

“I don’t know if she told you that Fiona Gannon’s uncle is a friend of mine.”

Vera gasped, her hand pressed to her chest. “The poor man! Having a murderess for a niece.”

“That’s the thing,” Nell said. “He believes her to have been innocent—and after looking into things a bit, Dr. Hewitt and I have come to share that belief.”

Vera looked back and forth between them. “If Fiona didn’t do it, who did?”

“We’re not sure,” Will said. “But what we do know, with absolute certainty, is that there was a third person involved. No one who’s seen the room where those women were killed could have any doubt about that. Our aim is to have the case reopened and see that Fiona Gannon is publicly exonerated.”

“My word.” Vera paused to digest all that. “But, er...what does this have to do with Emily?”

Choosing her words with care, Nell said, “Some rather curious things have come to light—things we need to discuss with her.”

Vera stared at Nell, her face chalk-white in the semidarkness. “You don’t think...” She laughed uneasily. “You can’t think Emily had anything to do with...”

“We’re not sure,” Will said. “That’s why we want to talk to—”

“She’s a wonderful girl,” Vera said, her quavery voice rising in pitch. “Spirited, yes, but a girl of the highest moral character.”

Of course Vera would want to defend her niece, Nell thought. Emily was her only friend in this house, perhaps in all the world.

“Did you know she stole her father’s Lefaucheux?” Will asked.

Vera’s gaze shifted away from Nell and Will. She started tidying items on the tray table. “I...she...”

“You did know,” Nell said.

“N-no. No. I have no idea what you’re—”

“Miss Pratt,” Will said, leaning toward her. “We know for a fact she had the gun. She must have been the one who stole it.”

Vera bit her lip, her eyes glimmering. “I promised Orville I would never tell anyone.”

“You’re not.” Nell took Vera’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re telling you. We already know. All you need to do is just...fill in some of the details, let us know why she took it. If it was just an impulsive act on her part that had nothing to do with the murder, you’ll be doing her—and your brother—a favor by clearing things up.”

Vera looked thoughtful for a moment; she nodded as she sorted that out. “Yes. Perhaps...perhaps you’re right. And I suppose it can’t really hurt Emily, me telling you these things, because no matter who finds out, Orville would never press charges—about the, the gun, I mean. He wouldn’t risk the scandal.”

“Of course not,” Nell said.

“The gun... That was just a girlish...” Vera flapped her hands as if that would help her to come up with the right word. “You know. To punish her father for cutting off the purse strings and bringing her home. Of course, it was a foolhardy thing to do, and I told her so, but she’s got a mind of her own, and Orville, after all... You must understand—he’s a good man deep down, but he can be insufferable about some things.”

“The next evening,” Nell said, “you and she followed your brother to Mrs. Kimball’s house on Mount Vernon Street.”

“Emily had come to me, very agitated. She’d overheard her father talking to his valet in his study. Burns—the valet—was saying he needed ‘the five-hundred’ because it was time to go meet someone named Clara on some street corner. Orville, well, he’d been drinking all afternoon. He started ranting about Virginia Kimball, saying she had his Lefaucheux and he meant to get it back. Emily heard Burns asking Orville if he really thought he should be taking that dagger, but Orville just ignored him and left.”

“So you followed him, you and Emily,” Nell said.

“What else could we do? We thought he might actually kill her over that gun. Imagine how Emily felt. It was all her fault, after all, because she’d been the one to take the gun, and now Orville thought Mrs. Kimball had done it. We ran after him in the rain and tried to keep him from going into Mrs. Kimball’s house, but he...well, he said some rather rude things about our...interference, and ordered us to go back home. We didn’t, though. I wanted to, but...Emily insisted, so we...we followed him into the house. We came in behind him, quietly—he didn’t realize we were there. The things he was saying to Mrs. Kimball, and that Thurston fellow...well.” Vera shook her head. “I hated for Emily to hear it, to see her father like that, to know...those things about him.”

“And the next day,” Nell said, “Emily tried to sell the gun.”

Vera sighed as she took a sip of coffee. “She wanted money to continue her travels. I think she considered it...what is the word—ironic?—using Orville’s gun to pay for that.”

“Did you know the gun had turned out to be a fake?” Will asked.

Vera nodded. Night had fallen, and there was very little moon; the wavering light from the candles softened her haggard features. “Emily was beside herself. I told her since the gun was worthless, she should just put it back in her father’s study. She said she’d been thinking about it, and maybe it wasn’t so worthless after all.
She
knew it was a fake, but her father didn’t.”

“What did she mean by that?” Will asked.

“She didn’t tell me. I don’t think she fully trusted me—which hurt, but it was really for the best. I would have fretted something awful if I’d known.”

Nell leaned forward. “Known what?”

“What she was up to.” Vera gazed wanly at the bowl of raspberries, chose one, and put it in her mouth. She ate it with a slightly pinched expression, wiped her fingertips on a napkin. “I didn’t know, though, until...it was about a week ago. Yes, a week ago today—last Saturday. I saw a Cunard ticket on Emily’s writing desk in her room. First class aboard the R.M.S.
Propontis
, sailing to Liverpool June twenty-sixth. I asked her how she’d gotten the money for the trip, and she told me...” Vera closed her eyes, slumped in her chair.

“She told you what?” Nell coaxed.

Vera opened her eyes, looking weary, drained. “You know that Fiona Gannon used to work here.”

“Yes.”

“It was Emily who got her the job with Virginia Kimball. I knew that, but I didn’t know why—I mean the real reason. It wasn’t just because Mrs. Kimball wasn’t as stuffy and demanding as Orville and Winnie. It was because Clara, well, she’d been more than a maid. She’d...she’d delivered the notes to the gentlemen and collected the money—for extra pay. We’d heard her say that when we were there that night.”

Will said, “So Emily convinced Fiona to offer Mrs. Kimball her services as bagwoman, which would vastly increase her income, thereby enabling her to buy her notions shop all the sooner.”

“I believe that’s the gist of it,” Vera said. “So Fiona went to work for Mrs. Kimball, and about...oh, I suppose it was about two weeks later, maybe a little more, Emily talked her into...well, the plan she’d had in mind all along.”

“Offering your brother his Lefaucheux back in exchange for five thousand dollars,” Nell said, “but making it seem as if the offer was coming from Mrs. Kimball.”

Fiona nodded. “He already thought she had the gun. Fiona agreed to it—rather reluctantly, according to Emily, because of the...I suppose the scope of the deception, and the fact that she’d grown fond of Mrs. Kimball. But she wanted that shop, and she and Emily were to split the five thousand equally, so...”

“So Pratt paid up,” Will said, “and Emily made plans to take ship.”

“Without you,” Nell said quietly.

Even in the dark, Nell could see the color rise in Vera’s cheeks. “Emily...she...she’s a very independent girl, very...” She lifted a piece of candied ginger, frowned at it, set it back down. “She’s young. She needs her freedom. She explained that. And she...she was very kind about it. She offered me some of the money—not much, but as much as she felt she could spare. I turned it down, of course. She was going off on her own, and, well, I’ve got Orville and Winnie, after all. I’ll never lack for anything.”

Except respect and decent companionship,
Nell thought.

Will said, “Why didn’t Emily return the gun to her father once she had the money?”

Vera looked heavenward and raised her hands, as if she’d pondered that question herself a thousand times. “To irritate him? She wouldn’t discuss it with me, and that’s the only reason I can come up with. If you could imagine having such a difficult relationship with your father...”

Nell met Will’s eyes. Neither of them had to imagine such a thing. They knew all too well what it was like.

“So he assumed Virginia Kimball was holding on to the gun,” Will said, “that she’d taken his money and reneged on her half of the deal.”

“That’s why I...” Vera ducked her head. “Oh, my Lord, Emily would be so put out with me if she knew what I did, but I just couldn’t let Orville go on thinking that about Mrs. Kimball. Not after I saw her floating there in her coffin, so...sad and beautiful.”

“You gave Orville back his gun?” Nell asked.

Vera nodded. “When we got home from the funeral. I tried to keep it a secret where I’d gotten it from, but he said he knew Emily had taken it, that he’d found out the day before, after the inquest. I begged him not to tell her I was the one who gave it back. Emily and I...we’ve grown very close, and I’d hate for her to think I’d...betrayed her, or...”

“I understand,” Nell said.

“Your brother knows the gun is a fake,” Will said. “Did he tell you that?”

“Yes. He said Emily had stolen it to sell, and it served her right that it had turned out to be worthless. He said it was a good lesson to her—he just wished it hadn’t cost him so much money. He said I wasn’t to let anyone know about the gun not being Stonewall Jackson’s, nor about Emily taking it—that it would shame the family if all that were to come out. But I...I think he would appreciate why I told you. I did it for Emily, so you’d understand that the gun was just a bit of youthful imprudence. It had nothing to do with Mrs. Kimball’s murder.”

Nell and Will both sat back in their chairs; they shared a sober look.