No Mortal Reason (12 page)

 “Shall we walk on?” Mrs. Saugus asked. “I am quite recovered now.”

“I think we should, and quickly.” What had been only an occasional drop of rain had suddenly become a steady drizzle.

Moving as fast as corsets and bustles would allow, the two women scurried toward the hotel. “Wait,” Mrs. Saugus begged as they reached the turning into the long driveway. “I need to catch my breath.” She ducked under a convenient maple tree and Diana followed.

The leafy branches overhead did not offer much protection, especially when the drizzle turned into a downpour, but there was no going on then. They’d have to wait out the rain.

A cold rivulet of water slid inside Diana’s collar and down her back, making her shiver. “Useless bit of fluff,” she complained, pulling off her hat and shaking moisture from the brim.

“Perhaps you could borrow that one,” her companion suggested, pointing to the enormous straw chapeau sported by a scarecrow in a nearby field. Its stuffed appendages flapped with every gust of wind, calling attention to the rest of its natty attire—a ragged plaid shirt and overalls.

Diana laughed. “Perfect for providing protection from the rain, but
so
unstylish!”

They stayed where they were until the storm abated, but Diana learned nothing of use about her companion. Mrs. Saugus kept the conversation on fashion, about which she seemed to know a great deal . . . most of it dead boring.

At length, they continued on toward the hotel through heavy mist. By the time they reached the veranda, they were both thoroughly damp. With no more than a perfunctory farewell, Diana went to her room to change into dry clothing.

Twenty minutes later, wearing a silk wrapper, she sat with lower limbs curled beneath her on the window seat, a pencil in one hand and one of the notebooks she always carried with her resting in her lap. As she recorded her impressions of the morning, she couldn’t help wishing she’d followed Mrs. Saugus’s example and purchased China tea at the general store. She’d used the annunciator to have one of Mrs. Ellington’s hot brews sent up but she did not recognize the taste and could not say she cared for it. She set the cup aside and consoled herself with gumdrops.

There was much to consider, Diana thought, as she nibbled one of the sweet candies, but if Belle Saugus
had
been an actress, Diana knew exactly who to consult to find out more about her. Her landlady in Manhattan, Mrs. Curran, knew everyone who’d been involved in theater for the last forty years.

She would write to Mrs. Curran, Diana decided, describing Belle and asking the older woman to find out what she could. She paused, pencil over paper, as a thought struck her. She could do better than that. If Mercy’s discarded drawings were still in the kitchen kindling box, she could include one of them with her letter.

Pleased with this plan, Diana pondered what else to write. Should she make some mention of the Saratoga trunk and the boxes she’d left stored in the house on Tenth Street? She
could
ask Mrs. Curran to send them directly to Maine. That way, there’d be no need for her to return to New York . . . if she resigned her position at the
Independent Intelligencer
by telegram.

But was that what she really wanted to do? Her recent conflict with Ben still fresh in her mind, Diana sighed. She hoped the tension between them was just pre-wedding jitters, but what if it was more than that? So far, Ben had yielded every time she had insisted upon having her own way, but what if there was a limit to his tolerance?

With another, deeper sigh, Diana rose to dress. She would go down to the kitchen, filch a sketch of Belle Saugus, then retire to the writing room to compose her letter to Mrs. Curran. She would not ask that her trunk be sent on. Not yet.

Diana had not set out to test Ben’s limits, but she had to be practical. She would be far better off in the long run if she found out what they were
before
she married him.

Chapter Six

By the time he returned to the livery stable that afternoon, Ben had wasted a great deal of time trying to speak to Myron Grant. If he was in the hotel, he was avoiding Ben. Ben hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of Norman Saugus or Floyd Lyseth either.

A rain shower had delayed him further. He’d waited it out in the company of Sebastian Ellington, playing a game of billiards to pass the time. The young man was pleasant enough to talk to but had carefully steered the conversation away from anything to do with his family. About Elly Lyseth he knew nothing. “I’ve lived here less than two years,” he told Ben. “I’d never even heard of the woman until they dug up her bones.”

 When the precipitation at last let up, Ben set off for town. He half expected to encounter Diana on her way back from the Lyseth house. He did not. He assumed she’d returned earlier. Either that, or she had taken shelter in one of the stores in the village.

The livery stable smelled of leather and horses. Three men were already present when Ben entered. Luke, Mercy Grant’s swain, was hard at work cleaning harness. The other two, Castine the blacksmith and another man of about the same size and proportions, had abandoned labor to tip back in two identical wooden chairs and drink coffee.

“He was a fool not to have more insurance,” Castine was saying as Ben came in.

“Any man who can’t rebuild a barn for $300 shouldn’t be farming,” his companion argued.

“Got to insure more than the building,” Castine countered. “What if he’d lost livestock in the fire?”

“But he didn’t. That’s the point.”

“How much insurance you got on that store of yours, Elmer?”

“$10,000,” Elmer grudgingly admitted. In a defensive tone, he added, “That’s how much I’ve got in stock. Got to protect my investment, don’t I?”

Castine was chuckling when he looked up and saw Ben. “Dr. Northcote. Come for that surrey?”

“Looks like I won’t be needing it today, after all.” With a silent apology to Diana, he put into effect an idea he’d had while walking from the hotel to the livery stable. “I wanted to get the wife away from here, what with finding bones under the building and all, but she won’t budge. You know women. Stubborn as all get-out.”

They agreed that women were the very devil to live with.

“That Norman Saugus has got the worst one, though,” Elmer said. “Never marry a red-headed woman.”

“Have you seen Saugus today?” Ben asked. “The hotel is all but deserted. I haven’t caught a glimpse of him, or either of the Grants, or even Floyd Lyseth.”

“Floyd drove Howd and Myron past here early this morning,” Castine said. “Came back during the rain storm, but Myron was the only passenger.” He shrugged at Ben’s raised eyebrow. “Can’t get much of anywhere without going past my place.”

“Funny about them bones,” Elmer said, breaking into Ben’s speculations.

“This here’s my brother Elmer,” Castine said. “He owns the general store.”

“You got a real close look, Doc,” Elmer said. “Was she murdered?”

“I got a close look, too,” Castine objected, “seeing as how I was a juror and all.”

“It’s hard to say after all this time,” Ben answered. “It was sheer luck we were able to identify her. If she hadn’t been wearing that locket Howd Grant gave her—”

Too late, Ben realized that the locket had not been mentioned at the inquest. Coroner Buckley had simply stated that the bones had been identified as those of Elly Lyseth.

Elmer shot out of his chair, sending it tumbling over backwards. “By God, Erastus! What were you thinking? How could you let him off?”

“What’s this about a locket?” Castine asked Ben.

“Howd Grant identified the necklace Miss Lyseth was wearing as one he’d given her shortly before she disappeared.”

“He was
courting
her?”

“It appears that way.”

“Should have locked him up and thrown away the key,” Elmer muttered.

“That’s quite a leap,” Ben said, righting Elmer’s chair, “from giving a woman a gift to taking her life.”

“Just once, Howd Grant ought to get what he deserves.” Elmer’s eyes gleamed with suppressed fury. “Thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Well, he ain’t.”

Ben tried in vain to make sense of the colorful spate of words with which Elmer Castine proceeded to cuss out Howard Grant. He wound down after a while and, having vented his spleen, abruptly declared it was high time he got back to the store.

His brother watched him leave the livery stable, shaking his head. After a moment, he turned to Ben. “Some people just never let go. Elmer and Howd were rivals once upon a time for the hand of Mercy’s mother.”

“He’s not the only one who never lets go,” Luke grumbled from his perch in the adjacent tack room.

The blacksmith’s countenance darkened. “I told you why you’re to stay away from that girl.” Lowering his voice, he said, for Ben’s benefit, “I ain’t entirely sure she’s not his cousin.”

“But if she married Grant—”

“It was
after
that Howd and Elmer fought over her. Elmer said he wasn’t treating her right. Howd denied it. Then he near killed Elmer with his bare fists. Some say Howd’s got a temper worse than Myron’s.”

“Has he ever been violent toward women?” It was one thing for men to get into fights, quite another for a man to abuse a member of the weaker sex.

“As to that, who’s to say? What goes on in a man’s home is between him and his wife. But I will tell you this. Howd Grant is a real strange duck. Goes off by himself a lot. No real friends. He thinks more of animals and birds than he does of his fellow man.”

“I take it folks in town had no idea he was courting Elly Lyseth?”

Castine shook his head. “Hard to picture what she’d see in him. She was a pretty little thing. Full of life.” He thought for a moment. “Kinda reminded me of the youngest Grant girl. Elmira. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to believe Elly runned away. Folks in my generation, we remembered when Elmira went. Kids Elly’s age would have heard the story from their parents. Some folks mighta made it into a real romantic tale. Anyway, when Elly disappeared, everybody in town just figured she’d up and followed Elmira’s example.”

Ben would have liked to ask more questions, but Castine had one of his own. He wanted to know why Ben had come to Lenape Springs in the first place.

“I heard the fishing was excellent,” Ben replied.

He wished he’d thought of another excuse when Castine launched into a discussion of angling that quickly left Ben in the dust. Ben had fished in the past, but was not an enthusiast. He counted himself lucky when he managed to extricate himself from the livery stable without agreeing to let Castine guide him to a favorite local trout stream.

All in all, Ben thought he’d rather spend a day bird-watching with Howd Grant than stand in icy running water, making endless casts with a fishing line.

* * * *

An hour after Diana’s return to the hotel, she had composed her letter to Mrs. Curran and was ready to put it in the mail. She exited the writing room and crossed the lobby to the check-in desk, behind which Mercy stood talking to Tressa Ellington and Myron Grant.

“Here she is now,” Mercy said, catching sight of Diana. She did not sound friendly.

Diana stopped in her tracks. “Is something wrong?” Her voice, annoyingly, broke on the question. Had Mercy seen her take the discarded sketch from the kitchen?

“We know about you.” Uncle Myron’s belligerent tone added force to his statement.

Diana felt the color drain from her face and she had to grip the front of the check-in desk for support. Somehow, they’d found out that she was Elmira’s daughter. A bit frantic, Diana looked around for Ben, but there was no sign of him. She glanced a second time toward the door to the veranda, wondering if she should make a run for it. She managed to quell the impulse, but her heart was racing as she forced herself to face the angry triumvirate.

“I did not set out to deceive anyone,” she said in a small voice.

“Liar!” Myron Grant was livid. His eyes, hard and unforgiving, bored into her.

Swamped by guilt—for she
had
lied to them—she suddenly wanted to confess everything. It would scarcely make them feel any more kindly toward her, but she hated the deceit, hated “acting.” Besides, she was no good at it. She never had been. She’d been laughed off the stage the two times she’d been persuaded to fill in for one of Evan’s ailing colleagues.

Before she could find a way to begin, Mrs. Ellington spoke. “You’re probably wondering how we knew,” she said. Although her arms were folded across her bosom and her face wore an implacable expression, Diana thought for just a moment that she detected a hint of amusement in the housekeeper’s eyes. “Scorcher reads telegrams before he delivers them.”

Diana blinked. What did Scorcher have to do with anything? Surely her mother hadn’t sent a telegram to the Hotel Grant.

“Not surprising, really,” Mrs. Ellington continued. “They all listen when the messages come in. Anybody who understands Morse Code can figure out what they say. And I’m quite sure Mr. Nicholls at the post office reads our mail if the letters aren’t sealed.”

Understanding swept through Diana, leaving her dizzy with relief. Scorcher had told them the contents of her telegram from Horatio Foxe. They didn’t know
who
she was. They only knew
what
she was.

Her sense of having been reprieved was short-lived. These good people still had plenty of reasons to be upset with her. Thanks to Scorcher, they must believe she intended to write an exposé about the hotel—a scandal-filled story built around the grisly death of a young female employee and culminating with the discovery of her remains and, if Foxe had his way, the arrest of her murderer.

“Are you a reporter?” Mercy asked. “Like that Nellie Bly who writes stories for the
World
?”

“Not quite like Nellie Bly.”

“I should say not,” Mrs. Ellington cut in. “She risks her life to expose the terrible conditions people have to endure. First it was the insane asylum, and since then she’s been locked up in jail, and worked in a factory, and exposed an employment agency that was—”

“I am a journalist, not a stunt girl,” Diana interrupted.