Murder at Beechwood (19 page)

Round and round I went, as if on a carousel but never grasping the brass ring. Perhaps it would always elude me. I wanted answers, but I also wanted to be entirely wrong about suspecting Lawrence and Daphne. The sun grew hot on my back, sending a trickle of perspiration between my shoulder blades. I followed their path back to the house. Just before I reached the covered loggia, movement in an upper window caught my attention. I glanced up to find Nate holding a curtain aside and staring out at me. Solemn-faced, he didn't wave. Well, he would be pleased with the results I'd achieved, once he learned of them.

Inside, a telephone rang from some distant room—an office, perhaps, or a service room. The bell set my teeth on edge, but this wasn't my house, or my call. Otherwise the house remained quiet, the open windows admitting a fresh, salty breeze to the airy rooms. My footsteps echoed in the stillness. I had served my purpose here, and I needed to find a servant who could arrange my ride home to Gull Manor.

In the entrance hall, a footman approached me. “Miss Cross?”

“Yes, that's me. I was looking for someone who might have a carriage sent round . . .”

“There is someone calling on the telephone for you. If you'll please come this way.”

“Oh. Yes, thank you.” Puzzled, I let him lead me past the dining room and into the butler's pantry, where a call box hung from the rear wall. The ear trumpet lay on the writing table beside the telephone. I picked it up, and the footman bowed and left the room.

“Hello? This is Emma Cross.”

“Good afternoon, Emma, it's Gayla,” said Newport's main daytime operator. “Hold on, I have Miss Wilson on the other end.”

The line clicked a few times and then Grace's voice sounded in my ear. “Emma, I'm calling on behalf of Marianne. She came home from town a little while ago, and it's taken this long to track you down.”

My heart sped up, then skipped a beat. “What is this about, Grace? Is it Neily? Or Uncle Cornelius? He isn't—”

“No, Emma, they're fine as far as I know, and Neily would have telephoned immediately had there been any developments concerning his father. Hold the line and I'll have Marianne explain.”

I heard another click and a burst of static.

“Miss Cross?” Though the line continued to crackle and buzz, Marianne's English accent identified her to me.

“Yes, Marianne. Do you have information for me?”

“I do, indeed. I was in town today doing some shopping for Miss Wilson, when I was approached by a young lady—a girl, really, perhaps in her late teens. She would not tell me her name, nor anything about herself. By her clothing I judged she was not a person of quality, yet there was something in her manner, a deference, that led me to believe she might be a maidservant.”

This lengthy description mystified me. “What did she want?”

“To talk to you, Miss Cross.”

“Why doesn't she contact me directly, then?”

“When I suggested the very same, she became downright agitated. She said she daren't approach you or go to your home, or contact you in any other way that might link her to you. But she said she had vital information, and gave me a time and a place where you and she might meet. This evening.”

Vital information.
Could she know something about Virgil Monroe's death, or . . .

“Oh, Marianne . . . do you think she has information about Robbie?”

“That was exactly my thought, Miss Cross, for what else could it be? She was no one I recognized from among the servants at the Beechwood gala, so I don't believe she could know anything about the boating accident other than what is public knowledge. No, I believe you are right. This person might be able to enlighten us about the child.”

“Where am I supposed to meet her?”

Marianne hesitated. “I cannot say. Not over the phone, for she made me promise I would only tell you face-to-face. If you could come to Shady Lawn, or I'll meet you at your home—”

“No, I'll come directly there.” I glanced down at the brass clock ticking away on the desk. Five o'clock. My pulse clamored in fits and starts. “Can you at least indicate
when
she wants to meet me? I don't want to miss her.”

“Eight o'clock.”

As the sun would be setting, I thought, and the shadows lengthening. Several more clicks in my ear reminded me that Marianne awaited my response. Into the mouthpiece I said, “I'll be there as soon as I can,” and hung up.

“Excuse me,” I called out, hoping to attract the footman's, or anyone's, attention. When no one came, I returned to the call box, lifted the ear trumpet once more, and tugged at the crank.

“Operator, how may I direct your call?”

“Gayla, it's Emma again. Will you connect me to Gull Manor, please?”

“Of course, dearie. One moment.”

I spoke to Katie, and then to Brady. “I need you,” I told him without explanation. “I'm at Beechwood and I need to get to Shady Lawn immediately.”

“The Wilsons' place?”

“Yes, please harness Barney and hurry over to Beechwood.”

“I'll do better than that. I'll call over for one of Cornelius's curricles and a sure-footed Cleveland Bay.”

“I don't care if you come in a chariot drawn by unicorns, Brady. Just be here soon!”

“A
lone? I don't think so, Em.”

Brady and I stood on Shady Lawn's front veranda with Grace and Marianne. Marianne had explained the instructions the mystery girl had given her.

“I don't like it either,” I said. “Along the railroad tracks north of the Point? There's nothing there.” A chill skipped across my shoulders. “Nothing and no one except a few stray dogs looking for garbage tossed out of the train windows, poor things.”

“At that time of night there won't even be any trains passing through.” Grace was right. The tracks ran from Long Wharf to the northern tip of the island, where they crossed the narrowest point of the Sakonnet River and continued on to Tiverton, Providence, and ultimately, Boston. But service became sparse after five in the evening, and only ran on certain nights. “You mustn't go, Emma. It's too dangerous.”

“I don't know what other choice I have.” I glanced at the golden sunlight slanting through the trees. I would have to leave soon if I was going to arrive at the assigned meeting place at the correct time. “Her need for secrecy could simply be for Robbie's protection. If she is the individual who left him on my doorstep, she went to a lot of trouble to ensure no one else knew about it. Perhaps she's ready now to tell me where he came from, but doing so openly might endanger her life . . . and possibly Robbie's.”

“And what about yours?” Grace reached for my hand. “Do not go, Emma.”

“I have to.” I gave her hand a squeeze, trying to impart a measure of reassurance. “For Robbie's sake.”

“I'm going with you, and no argument.” Brady widened his stance like a boxer.

“I think that's a good idea.” Marianne adjusted the brim of her squat straw hat and raised her chin. “And I'm going, too. The girl already knows my face, and if anything happens I can help Miss Cross get away while Mr. Gale fights them off.”

Brady swung round to face her. “Fights off whom?”

“I don't know.” Marianne shrugged and tossed up her hands. “Brigands. Whomever this girl is hiding from.”

“Come to think of it,” Brady said, “how did she know you?”

Marianne shook her head. “She would only say she had her ways.”

“Servants have means of finding these things out,” I said. “Enough debate. It's time to go.”

“Emma, you can't!”

“It's all right, Grace. Brady, are you ready? Marianne, are you certain you want to be involved any further?”

Marianne nodded and opened her mouth to reply, but Grace spoke first. “Then I'm going, too.”

“Oh, no, you are not.” Brady, Marianne, and I spoke at once, an army of three against one. I smiled to soften the blow. “I've already put you in danger once, Grace, and that is more than enough. Neily would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

That seemed to mollify her. At any rate she reached her arms around me in a tight hug. “Be careful.”

However nimbly Brady handled the reins, it took a good while to negotiate Uncle Cornelius's curricle through town. With evening came concerts, plays, dinner parties, and balls, and the fine carriages of the summer set clogged the roads. Nervously I watched the sun dip behind rooftops and bit my tongue to keep from crying out that we must go faster. We went as fast as we were able, but our trek seemed to take an eternity.

Eventually we left the bustle behind us. The Point lay quiet but for the occasional carriage or horseback rider, and the voices of people through windows or from back gardens. We continued traveling north, away from the Point, past the U.S. Naval War College on Coasters Harbor Island, along a bumpy, pitted road that ran parallel to the train tracks. We were far from any depot, and at this time of night the rails and their flanking embankments felt empty and abandoned.

“There!” Marianne pointed several dozen yards ahead, to a scrap of fabric tied to a scrub pine beside the tracks. It danced and fluttered with the breeze, a forlorn little flag of welcome. “She said that would be her marker, and that you should wait for her there.”

I unclenched my hands in my lap. Was this some kind of trap? “Brady, stop the carriage here. I'll go the rest of the way on foot. Alone.”

“Em . . .”

“No, it's all right. You'll be able to see me, but perhaps this way we won't frighten her off.” I climbed down from the gig, weeds and twigs crunching beneath my feet, and looked up at them one more time in warning. “Stay here.”

Why did it seem the farther I walked from the curricle, the darker the evening grew? Though the tracks were clear, the vegetation around me consisted of clumps of pine, waist-high tangles of weeds and thickets, and tall, overgrown shrubs whose faded blossoms drooped from the weight of the summer heat. I searched the shadows for any sign of movement while that scrap of fabric, a strip of calico from an old dress perhaps, beckoned me on.

“I said to come alone,” a voice hissed across the tracks from me.

I stopped short and turned my head to find the source of the whisper, but there was only the gently swishing foliage. “Where are you? Please show yourself. I—I only brought my brother and Miss Reid. You've already spoken to her, so you must have found reason to trust her.”

There was silence and then a rustling. Had she run away?

“Please, if you have information for me, I very much wish to hear it.” Desperation reduced my voice to a feeble murmur. “Is it . . . is it about Robbie?”

“Robbie?” So she hadn't gone away after all.

“The child,” I clarified, but went no further.

There was more rustling and then a figure in an ill-fitting, faded pink frock stepped out from behind some trees. I remained perfectly still while she slowly picked her way through the brush and then over the tracks. I watched her, afraid to even peek over my shoulder at Brady and Marianne. Afraid to breathe too loud for fear of frightening this wraith off.

She was indeed young, perhaps no more than sixteen, with straight dark hair pulled tightly back beneath an old-fashioned cloth bonnet. A wan face peeked out from beneath the brim, her eyes large. She reminded me of Clara Parker, a young chambermaid who until last summer worked for my aunt Alva at Marble House. But unlike with Clara Parker, this girl's face struck no spark of recognition. She was a stranger to me, which meant she could not hail from Newport.

“Who are you?” I asked, still whispering, and afraid any sudden noise or movement would send her scampering. Looking at her thin shoulders and narrow build, I almost felt silly for having brought Brady and Marianne along for protection.

“My name is Naomi.” She pushed her bonnet back off her face. “That's all you need to know. It's who I worked for that's important.”

“And who is that?”

She touched a trembling hand to her lips, as if she didn't quite trust the power of her own voice. “Is it true what they say, that Virgil Monroe is dead? That he went into the water and never came out?”

“Yes, it's true.” But was it? I continued to wonder, and even feared he might be hiding somewhere close by at that very moment. I guessed, however, that any doubt on my part would silence this girl, this child, forever. So I said nothing more and waited.

“Are you certain they can be trusted?” She poked her chin toward the curricle.

“With my life, and yours. I swear it.”

Before she spoke another word, she held out her hand and uncurled her fingers. Across her palm stretched a piece of delicate lace, shot through with golden thread.

I drew a shaky breath.

“I brought him to you, Miss Cross. I'm not from here, but I'd heard of you. What you do at your home . . . at your Gull Manor . . . is known throughout Rhode Island. Farther, perhaps.”

“And so you brought him to us because you knew he'd be safe,” I said to encourage her. “But from what?”

“From his father. And from growing up in the orphanage I was instructed to bring him to.”

“Naomi, was Virgil Monroe your employer?”

“He was.”

“And was he Robbie's . . . that is . . . the child's father?”

“That I don't know for certain. Virgil Monroe hired me to care for a woman living across the island, in a house in Portsmouth. It was an isolated place, no neighbors in sight. The woman was in the family way, Miss Cross, nearly eight months gone when I met her, yet she did a good job of hiding it. Until the very last weeks she might have gone anywhere wrapped in a light cloak and no one would have guessed. Some women carry that way. My older sister did.”

Eight months gone and hardly showing. That last time Judith had turned up at home—how long had she stayed? Derrick hadn't said. Had it been a brief stay before she left again?

“Can you tell me who the woman is?” Once again, I held my breath.

“I never knew her name, but was instructed by Mr. Monroe to address her always as madam. I never knew his name either, until I saw his photograph in a newspaper the day after he drowned.” She shuddered. “He was not a good man, Miss Cross.”

I let that go without debate. “So he hired you to be this woman's maid. What then?”

“I helped her deliver her child, and when Mr. Monroe deemed enough time had passed, he charged me with taking the infant to an orphanage in Tiverton. He gave me money for my troubles, but he also threatened me, told me to go directly there and then to go home and never tell anyone what I'd seen or done . . . or he would find me and make me sorry.”

“How cruel. For you, the child, the mother . . .” My heart ached for that new mother whose child had been stolen from her. “How did she react?”

“Dreadfully. Her screams followed us as we drove away, until I put my hands over my ears because I couldn't bear it. I thought she'd die from grief.”

“Good heavens.” Tears pushed at my eyes.

Naomi's remained dry, and as hard as ice. “That devil Monroe, he said no one could ever know about the child, it would ruin them and their families.”

What it would have ruined, I thought, was his being able to divorce his wife and leave her with nothing. “You said, ‘
We
drove away,'” I prompted, remembering the poor man shot along Ocean Avenue the morning Robbie came to Gull Manor. This could no longer be a coincidence, not that it ever was in my mind.

“I convinced Charlie to help me,” she said. “He was supposed to take us off the island, but he had a heart, he wasn't like Mr. Monroe. We realized we were being followed to your house and Charlie decided to cut off Ocean Avenue. He did it where the road curves sharply and the other carriage wouldn't see us. We'd barely come to a stop when Charlie pushed me out with the baby. I fell onto my knees, and I could hear Charlie whispering at me to run, to hide somewhere off the road. Then I heard the other carriage pass by on Ocean Avenue. After that it's all a blur. I kept well to the side of the road while I made my way to your house. It was full dark by then, but I still feared being seen, that the other carriage would turn around and I'd be caught. No one passed me, though. Whoever followed us must have kept going. . . .”

“He did,” I said bleakly. “He went on ahead, and when he realized your carriage was no longer in front of him, he must have stopped and waited for Charlie to turn back onto Ocean Avenue. He must have believed you and the baby were still in the carriage.”

“Charlie's dead, isn't he, Miss Cross?” She hung her head and a quiet sob dissipated into the deepening twilight.

“I'm very sorry, Naomi.”

“Oh, Charlie,” she whispered, a tight, forlorn sound. She raised her chin, her cheeks shiny with tears. “Now that I've told you everything, I want to leave this place and never come back. I want to go home.”

“Where have you been staying until now?”

“A boardinghouse in town. I spent all but the train fare I'll need to get home, but I stayed because I wanted to find a way to meet with you without anyone discovering us.”

“And you have family to go to?” If not, I'd bring her to Gull Manor.

She nodded. “I just want to go home, Miss Cross. I wish I'd never left.”

“I'll help you get home, Naomi. But first, can you describe the child's mother to me?”

The girl shrugged. “She was like any other society woman. Beautiful and stylish, even while carrying the child. She—”

An explosive
pop
and a burst of flame mere yards from the tracks sent me stumbling backward. A wave of hot sulfur shoved me to my knees. Brady's and Marianne's shouts fought with the ringing in my ears. My eyes stung and I blinked rapidly. A smoky haze lingered in the air, and through it I saw Naomi still standing, hovering, her face frozen in bewilderment.

Then her knees buckled. She collapsed to the ground and rolled onto her back.

I struggled to my feet. “Naomi?” I coughed, my throat stinging from the sulfur.

From behind me someone gripped my shoulders and pushed me face-first to the ground. “Stay down,” Marianne shouted.

“Naomi's hurt,” I shouted back, but Marianne used all of her weight to pin me in place. Leaves and pebbles dug into my cheek. I tasted soil on my lips.

From the corner of my eye I glimpsed Brady's dark form dashing across the tracks, heard the thrash of his footfalls through the foliage. He was shouting, cursing. The din he made receded farther and farther.

And then silence fell.

But only for the span of several breaths. Then Brady was shouting and running again, only this time it was toward me, not away.

“Em? My God, are you hurt? Were you shot? Em?”