Still Life With Murder (23 page)

“Mrs. Hewitt, don’t you think it would be better if
you
handled this end of things? After all, you know Jack Thorpe, and I’ve never met him.”

Viola shook her head resolutely. “It’ll be easier for you to sneak away. August is so solicitous of me—he follows my every move. And as I’ve said before, men respond to you. You’re likely to have better luck talking Jack into this than I would.”

Nell felt as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire of William Hewitt’s making.

“Assuming Jack does agree to represent Will,” Viola said, “he’ll need to know where to find him.”

“He’s staying at the Belmont.”

Viola cocked her head. “Is that a hotel?”

Uh-oh…
“I think so. He said you knew it.”

The older woman raised her gaze to the ceiling and poured some more cognac. “There
is
no hotel called the Belmont. This is what he would do whenever he and August had a row and he ran off by himself. He’d leave word he was staying at some hotel I was supposed to know about. I would pretend to August that I did, but there was never any such place. I don’t know how Robbie used to find him.”

Perfect
. Nell took a healthy swallow of cognac. “He told me he doesn’t lie.”

“Oh, he’s always hated to lie, but if he feels he’s got no other choice, he will. And making up this hotel…It’s not so much a lie as a…dig, a way to let me know he’s still in control. And a bit of a jest, I suppose. He always had a fairly droll sense of humor. He made light of the oddest things.”

“He still does.”

“Find him,” Viola implored, reaching out to grasp Nell’s hand. “And help him. Please. Don’t let him hang, Nell. Promise me you won’t let my baby hang.”

CHAPTER TEN

“H
AS ANYONE SEEN THE NEW
production of Offenbach’s
Bluebeard
at the Tremont Temple?” inquired Mrs. Thorpe as she daintily prodded her meringue a la crème with a pastry fork. Eugenia Thorpe was fine-boned and drearily elegant, in striking contrast to her husband Leo. So dusty-pale was she from head to toe—hair, skin, gown—that she might have faded away altogether in the rosy-gold haze of candlelight were it not for the glitter and snap of her jewels, the flashing stab of that fork.

“We saw it!” replied Winifred Pratt, a chittering little sparrow of a woman. “We thought it was smashing!”

“We have tickets for next Friday,” Viola said, “Mr. Hewitt and the boys and I. I’m so looking forward to it.” Her spirits had risen steadily in the five days since her cognac-fueled tête à tête in Nell’s room, bolstered by the prospect of securing Jack Thorpe’s help in freeing her son. Her good spirits seemed to have rubbed off on her husband as well. When she’d confessed to him, in the midst of a searing hangover Tuesday morning, that she’d drunk up his hundred-year-old cognac, he’d stared at her for a long moment, then calmly forgiven her. It was his fault, he’d said. She’d been distraught; this had simply been her way of making him see that.

At Viola’s request, Nell had made inquiries at dozens of hotels and rooming houses this past week in an effort to ferret out her son, but to no avail. Still, Viola remained optimistic, as did Nell, at the prospect of recruiting Jack Thorpe’s help in finding Will and saving him from the hangman.

Having evidently judged the meringue and found it lacking, Mrs. Thorpe laid down her fork and lifted her glass of sherry.
“Yes, well, we saw
Bluebeard
in Paris when it opened two years ago, and I must say, I was unimpressed. I understand it’s intended to be a comic operetta, but at times it bordered on the burlesque. You must let me know what you think of it, Viola. Your taste is so much more…eclectic than mine.”

“Tasty!” Gracie, seated on Nell’s lap in her best organza frock—which made her look like a faerie child emerging from a chrysanthemum—pushed a spoonful of glacè pudding into her governess’s mouth. “Yum?”

“Yum.” It
was
yum, as had been the entire meal, the courses for which—served one after the other,
à la Russe
, by a hushed battalion of servants commanded by Hodges—were beautifully inked on menus propped against salt dishes at each place:
Raw Oysters, Champagne; Green Turtle Soup, Sherry; Salmon in Hollandaise Sauce, Chablis; Vol-au-vent a la Financiere, Champagne; Pâté de Foie Gras Suisse, Madiera; Roman Punch; Roast Fillet of Beef with Mushrooms, Burgundy; Salad, Italian Style, Cheeses; Quails a la Maitre d’Hotel, Port; Pastries, Ices and Jellies, Sherry; Fresh Fruits, Claret; Nuts, Candied Ginger, Sugar Plums, Coffee, Liqueurs
.

August Hewitt’s scowl—a reflex with every noise or movement from Gracie’s direction—softened when he noticed his wife smiling at him from the other end of the long, flower-heaped dining table. Sixteen men and women in evening dress sat around that table, including the Thorpes’ daughters and their husbands—and of course their only son, whom Viola had seated, quite deliberately, directly opposite Nell.

Jack Thorpe was slim and pale and gravely handsome in white tie and tail coat, despite an errant lock of light brown hair that kept falling across his forehead, much to the amusement of his soon-to-be fiancée. Cecilia Pratt was the quintessential Brahmin marriage prize, as bright and golden as a freshly minted double eagle, with a giggle that could burst lead crystal.
She drew many an admiring look from the gentlemen at the table…as did Nell.

Nell assumed it was her gown that prompted those swift, covert glances, the gown for which Viola had chosen an opalescent silk that shimmered like peacocks’ feathers, reflecting a different burnished hue with every shift of the candlelight. Viola’s primary dictate to her dressmaker was that it be fashioned with a “décolletage just this side of indecent.” Unused as Nell was to such a display, she’d consented to the lowcut bodice and even to the tight lacing required to pinch an extra couple of inches off her waist, but she’d had to put her foot down when it came to an off-the-shoulder cut. She’d pleaded modesty, when in fact the problem was the nine-inch scar that crawled like a worm from the scapular end of her left clavicle over the outer swell of her breast on that side—the worst of her souvenirs from Duncan.

Even Jack Thorpe had appraised her once or twice over the rim of his wineglass, despite how sedate, even pensive, he’d seemed all evening—a reaction, no doubt, to the incessant toasts being offered up regarding his impending engagement and law partnership. The footman Peter, assigned to Jack’s section of the table, had been quick to refill his frequently emptied glass; he drank like a man who wished he were elsewhere, yet he showed little sign of inebriation.
Poor Jack, he really never wanted that, but Leo has his ways…

Viola caught Nell’s eye and gave her an infinitesimal nod; Nell nuzzled Gracie’s hair and said, “Time for bed, buttercup.”

“No…” Gracie moaned around the two fingers anchored in her pudding-smeared mouth. “Want to stay with Miseeney.”

“I know, but it’s well past your bedtime,” Nell said as she rose, aided by one of Jack’s young brothers-in-law, who leapt up to pull her chair out. “You’ll be cranky tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep tonight.”

“I won’t! I won’t!” Gracie swore frantically, squirming and struggling as Nell carried her upstairs.

Overtired as Gracie was, and excited from having attended her first dinner party, she took a good deal longer than usual to settle down and put to bed. Nell kept glancing at the ormolu clock on the nursery mantelpiece as she rocked the restive little girl, fretting over how long this was taking: forty minutes, forty-five…

It would take perhaps half an hour, no more, for the fruit course and coffee to be served. At that point, Viola would retire with the ladies to the Red room for bonbons and demitasse, while the gentlemen lingered at the table for an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to enjoy their cigars and brandy. While wheeling out of the dining room, Viola would pause to tell Jack how much she’d missed him, whispering that Miss Sweeney was waiting for him in the solarium to discuss a private matter.

Having finally rocked Gracie to sleep and tucked her in, Nell sprinted down the service stairs in her soft-soled satin slippers, uneasily aware that Jack must have been waiting for a quarter hour or more—assuming he hadn’t given up and joined the others by now. The footman Dennis passed her on the stairs with a sneering little bow, as if to say,
I served you at dinner tonight only because I had to. You’re no better than the rest of us, and we know it
.

Making sure she wasn’t seen—God knew what rumors would start flying in the servants’ hall if they saw her and Jack Thorpe meeting secretly—Nell squeaked open the door to the solarium, finding it lit only by a thin wash of moonlight from the floor-to-ceiling leaded glass windows. Clicking the door shut behind her, she made her way through a shadowy maze of paintings that were either partially finished or in the process of drying. Her silken skirts rustled so loudly as they brushed against easels and table legs that it sounded as if she were wading through a field of dried corn.

“Miss Sweeney?” He materialized in front of her, a brandy snifter in one hand, unlit cigar in the other.

She pressed a hand to her chest to slow her tripping heart. “Mr. Thorpe. Thank you for meeting me. I’m so sorry to have made you wait.”

He waved away her apology. “I was grateful for the excuse to get away by myself for a bit.”

“How did you explain your absence to the other gentlemen?”

“I said I wanted to see what Mrs. Hewitt had been painting lately.” His slightly thick-tongued speech was the only evidence of how much he’d drunk during dinner. Looking around, he said, “She’s been busy.”

“Some of them are mine. She lets me work here.”

“Yes? Which ones are yours?”

She pointed. “I just finished that one, but it’s too dark to see.”

Setting his glass and cigar on a worktable, he retrieved a box of matches from inside his coat and lit one, holding it in front of the canvas, a loose-brushed depiction of Gracie and Martin walking down Tremont Street in the snow, hand in hand. In the wavering light of the little flame, she noticed that he’d combed back that stray lock of hair. “Oh, that’s extraordinary!” he said.

“Thank you.”

Jack studied the painting until the flame began to singe his fingertip, then he flicked it out. “You’re extremely talented.”

“That’s very kind of you.” She nodded toward his cigar. “You should light that.”

“Oh, no…”

“Please do.” She emptied some pencils and charcoal sticks out of a ceramic dish and handed it to him for an ash pan. “I enjoy the smell of a good cigar.”

“In that case…” He moistened the cap of the cigar with a drop of brandy, withdrew a clipper and carefully snipped the end.

Nell said, “I wanted to speak to you about a matter concerning an old friend of yours—the Hewitts’ eldest son, William.”

A little crease appeared between his eyebrows. Twirling the cigar over a lit match, he asked, “Did you know Will?”

Nell took a steadying breath. “I do know him. I met him a few days ago.”

He looked at her, held her gaze for a moment, shook out the match. Frowning, he blew lightly on the tip of the cigar until it glowed. “I’m sorry, Miss Sweeney, but surely you’re mistaken. Will Hewitt died during the war. He and his brother both, at Andersonville prison camp in Georgia.”

“Robbie died,” she said. “Dr. Hewitt escaped.”

He studied her as he drew in a puff of fragrant smoke and let it out. His movements had a slightly drawn-out, measured quality to them, as if the world spun more slowly for him than it did for others. “Surely his family would have heard from him before now.”

“He didn’t want them to. He’s been calling himself William Toussaint, but I’ve met him, and he’s definitely William Hewitt. Your father’s confirmed his identity, too, so—”

“
My father?
My
father’s
spoken to him?”

“He interviewed him in jail. Dr. Hewitt’s been arrested for murder.”

Jack lowered the cigar, stared at her.

“A merchant seaman named Ernest Tulley had his throat cut outside a place called Flynn’s Boardinghouse on Purchase Street Saturday night. Dr. Hewitt had been smoking opium, and he’d been seen fighting with Tulley earlier, presumably over a woman, although…well…who knows. He refuses to explain what really happened, won’t deny his guilt but won’t admit it outright, either. But they caught him literally red-handed, and they intend to hang him.”

Smoke fluttered from his mouth; he closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose with the hand that held the cigar. “Will…”
He slumped against the table, his face unnaturally white in the moonlight. “Jesus, what have you done?”

“I’m not convinced he really did it—nor is Mrs. Hewitt.”

“No. No, I didn’t mean…” He kneaded his forehead, as if trying to force his brain to process this new reality. “God, I’m not saying he did it. It’s…it’s not in his nature. I just meant…I suppose I meant that trouble just seems to
embrace
Will. Perhaps…I don’t know, perhaps because he doesn’t avoid it the way most men do. He courts it, in a way. He always has.”

“We first heard about his arrest Sunday afternoon….” She told him everything up to the point where she and Viola decided to ask Jack to represent Will. Best, perhaps, to ease into that.