Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets

by Rosemary Simpson

  Books by Rosemary Simpson

  WHAT THE DEAD LEAVE BEHIND

  LIES THAT COMFORT AND BETRAY

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  LET THE DEAD KEEP THEIR SECRETS

  ROSEMARY SIMPSON

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  Author’s Note

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Rosemary Simpson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2018944170

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1573-9

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1575-3

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-1575-6

  To well-remembered friends and relatives.

  CHAPTER 1

  Josiah Gregory folded the New York Times of February 21, 1889, into a neat rectangle and placed it on his desk so the review of Aïda was uppermost. Miss Prudence and Mr. Hunter had been in the opening-night audience. He wondered whether they would agree with the unsigned review applauding the staging of the opera, but not the worn-out voice of the famous diva singing the title role. Josiah sighed. Age and its indignities came to everyone.

  “Anything new?” asked Prudence MacKenzie. A puff of frigid air invaded the office as she took off her hat and long, curly black astrakhan fur coat. “It’s bitterly cold out. Kincaid put warm bricks in the carriage, but my feet are still frozen.”

  She peeled black kidskin gloves from her hands and stuffed them into the pockets of the coat, running appreciative fingers over the thick bands of contrasting gray fur bordering the sleeves and running from neckline to hem. They exactly matched the color of her eyes. The coat was an extravagance Prudence would not have purchased for herself; it had been a gift from an eccentric aunt to a beloved and seldom-seen niece. The astrakhan turned heads whenever and wherever she wore it.

  “I assume you’ve seen the Aïda review?”

  “I agree with it,” Prudence said. “The staging was magnificent, and Frau Schröder-Hanfstängl had her moments, but there were far too few of them. We had complimentary tickets, so I shouldn’t complain too much.”

  “How was your supper after the performance?” Josiah had made a hard-to-get opening-night reservation at Delmonico’s on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street. He prided himself on being able to do the impossible.

  “We canceled,” Prudence said. The shocked look on her secretary’s face prompted an explanation. “Miss Buchanan sent a note thanking us for the invitation, but regretfully declining for reasons she didn’t specify. She asked if we would meet with her today instead. Here in the office.”

  “Shall I start a file on her?”

  “She didn’t say she was coming as a client.”

  “She will be,” he predicted, writing Buchanan across the top of a new cardboard folder.

  “Is Geoffrey in?” Prudence picked up the Aïda review.

  “He wanted to be informed as soon as you arrived.”

  “You’d better join us, Josiah. I don’t think we filled you in on everything that happened while we were in England. If you’re right and Claire Buchanan does want to consult us professionally, you’ll need background information to put in that file.” Prudence crossed to Geoffrey’s office, knocked, and entered, leaving the door open for their secretary to follow.

  The man who stood up behind his desk when Prudence appeared in his doorway was well over six feet tall. He had broad shoulders, long legs, and an athletic grace that spoke of years spent on horseback. Hunter was a Southerner born and bred, an exile by choice from the North Carolina plantation where his family still lived. Unlike most men of his social standing, he was clean-shaven. Black-haired and with eyes so deeply brown they looked like polished onyx, he inevitably drew the attention of the ladies. All of whom he kept at arm’s length. Except for Prudence.

  “Claire will be here at eleven,” she said, laying Josiah’s copy of the New York Times on his desk, placing the opera singer’s note beside it. Her father had trained her to line up evidentiary artifacts like a row of soldiers on parade. It was a habit of which her ex-Pinkerton partner heartily approved. “Josiah thinks she’ll be a client.”

  “I’ve never known him to be wrong. Do you have any idea what this is about?” Geoffrey asked.

  “None whatsoever. Now that I think back over the conversations we had on the ship, I realize how seldom Claire spoke about herself. I don’t think I know much more than what Aunt Gillian was able to tell us. She’s been a cover singer in opera companies in London and several European cities. Everyone expects she’ll join the ranks of the divas before too much longer.”

  “Is that what opera understudies are called? Cover singers?” Josiah served them coffee, warm milk, lumps of brown sugar, and a plate of pastries from a German bakery he passed on his way to work every morning.

  “Exactly. I hadn’t mentioned her before the tickets came because I thought it was likely to be one of those shipboard friendships that doesn’t persist onto land,” Prudence said. “We met Miss Buchanan when we stayed with Aunt Gillian in London. It was a very long month. I don’t think there was an exhibit or gallery anywhere in the city we didn’t visit.”

  “Don’t forget all the parks and museums,” Geoffrey put in. “I’ve never been so wet and cold in my life.”

  “You didn’t complain about it then.”

  “It would have been churlish. And Lady Rotherton is not the type to tolerate bad manners.”

  “The week before we left we went to Covent Garden to see a performance of Bizet’s Carmen. Miss Buchanan was the cover singer for the title role, but she was buried in the chorus that night. There are always galas after a performance. Aunt Gillian brought us as her guests to one of the most exclusive. The Prince of Wales was expected, but I don’t think he ever appeared. Did he, Geoffrey?”

  “You would have remembered if he had.”

  “The hostess at these affairs usually invites one or two members of the opera company. It’s a sing-for-your-supper command performance. Claire told me later that no one turns down an invitation, even though they know they’re only there to provide free entertainment. She said there’s always the chance someone important will hear her sing and realize she’s as good as the diva she’s covering. Many of the younger women singers hope to snare a patron or protector.
The hostess had requested arias by Donizetti and Rossini, so that’s what she sang.”

  “Her voice is one of the loveliest sopranos I’ve ever heard,” contributed Geoffrey. “Rich and full, but not shrill or heavy. There was very little conversation while she performed. It was a great compliment, given the amount of champagne flowing that night.”

  “My aunt introduced us, since we three were the only Americans at the soirée.”

  “I thought your aunt was American.” Josiah looked confused.

  “She was American a very long time ago. Now she’s more English than the English,” Prudence said. She couldn’t remember whether the topic of her mother’s sister had ever come up in the office. She thought it probably hadn’t. Josiah was notoriously Anglophile; he would have remembered every detail of Lady Rotherton’s story.

  “Aunt Gillian married a title twenty years ago, well before Jennie Jerome made it the thing to do. Willie, as she always calls him, was chasing her fortune, and she was in the mood to be caught. He died in a shooting accident and she became the Dowager Viscountess Rotherton within a year of the wedding. Since she hadn’t given birth to an heir, the estate and the title passed to a distant cousin, but there was a clause in her marriage contract stipulating the return of her dowry and giving her tenancy of their London house for her lifetime.”

  “She didn’t remarry?”

  “Nor did she come back to America to live. Aunt Gillian is the kind of woman who takes carefully considered chances that usually turn out to be sure things. My father told me that within a few years of Lord Rotherton’s passing, she’d doubled and then redoubled the value of her portfolio, with no guidance except the financial section of the London Times and shrewd common sense. He said she thinks of herself as a Hetty Green, with good jewelry and a title.”

  “From what I observed while we were there, a wealthy widow can lead a very fine life in Victoria’s London, even though the queen herself has been in mourning for as long as anyone can remember.” Geoffrey helped himself to one of the pastries.

  “Gillian returned to America only twice after she married, once to dance at my mother’s wedding and then to mourn at her funeral. She said she remembered me as a beautiful six-year-old child who reminded her so painfully of her younger sister that she fled back to London as soon as decently possible.” Prudence paused. “Nevertheless, she offered to chaperone me here in New York. I couldn’t decide whether she’s become bored with London society or tired of the winter weather.”

  “You turned her down?” Josiah’s sense of what was fitting and proper had long been offended by Miss Prudence’s decision to live alone after her stepmother’s fortuitous death. If he hadn’t been afraid of unforgivably offending her, he would have brought up the subject long before now.

  “Not quite. I left the idea hanging in limbo.”

  “When we met her, Claire had already made plans to come to New York,” Geoffrey said, steering the conversation back to its original subject. “She’d signed a contract to cover at the Met and persuaded the Royal Opera Company to release her. We were booked on the same ship.”

  “For which I was grateful,” Prudence said. “The Atlantic was so rough on the westward crossing that ladies didn’t dare stroll the decks. You risked being knocked off your feet by the wind. Geoffrey was the only passenger who consistently braved the weather. We used to watch him through a porthole, loping along like a drunken sailor, veering from rail to rail and then hanging on to the ropes that were strung against the outside walls of the cabins. I’m sure the crew thought he was foolhardy and more than a little crazy.”

  “It’s the best cure there is against seasickness,” Geoffrey said.

  “Claire and I spent a good many hours together in the first-class lounge playing cards. She taught me the tarot. She said that was how members of the opera company passed the time backstage and in the wings during performances and rehearsals. She gave me a deck of French tarot cards. They’re beautiful. I’ll bring them in to the office to show you.”

  “As it happens, Miss Prudence, I’m not unfamiliar with the tarot.”

  “You always surprise me, Josiah.”

  “Mr. Conkling insisted I learn what all the fuss was about. He had a client who wanted to bring suit against a fraudulent fortune-teller.”

  “They’re all fakes,” Geoffrey said. “With a very limited bag of tricks. Once you learn what they are, you can turn the tables on any one of them. If you want.” He smiled as though recalling a particularly enjoyable scam.

  “We said our good-byes when the ship docked and promised to see one another whenever Claire could find time between rehearsals and performances. The diva she’s covering is contracted for four different operas this season. I’ve kept an eye on the opera news in hopes of seeing Claire’s name, but she hasn’t been mentioned in any of the reviews or columns I’ve read.”

  “Cover singers are invisible until the night they replace a principal,” Geoffrey said.

  “It’s almost eleven o’clock,” Josiah informed them. He balanced his ever-present stenographer’s notebook on his lap and took a last bite of German pastry, managing not to spill the sugary frosting on his immaculate white shirt and meticulously brushed black suit.

  Clients weren’t always on time, but Josiah lived by the clock and the firm’s appointment book.

  * * *

  The woman Josiah ushered into Geoffrey Hunter’s office was tall and slender, elegantly dressed in a gown that could only have been fashioned in one of the couturier salons of Paris. The high-necked black wool afternoon costume gleamed and glistened with elaborate designs of jet-beaded passementerie, rosettes, twisted cording, and finely worked braid, its severe perfection lightened by a fall of snow-white lace from the interior of the narrow sleeves. The perfectly pointed V waist and naturally contoured bustle were the epitome of the latest European fashion as pictured in Godey’s Lady’s Book.

  “It’s wonderful to see you again, Prudence,” she said. “I hope you’ll forgive me for declining your supper invitation last night. The rehearsal schedule has been brutal.” The women exchanged kisses on the cheek in the French fashion; then Claire held out a gloved hand to Geoffrey. “I hardly recognize you when you’re not lurching about on the deck of a ship.” Her speech was lightly accented, as though she had spoken English as a child, then lived abroad for many years.

  She accepted the cup of coffee Josiah handed her, settling herself into the chair he placed in front of Geoffrey’s desk. With one penetrating look she seemed to take his measure; the slightest of nods indicated he would do.

  “Thank you again for last night’s tickets to Aïda,” Prudence began.

  “It wasn’t the best of performances,” Claire said. “There’s no point pretending otherwise.” She gestured toward the folded Times. “I see you’ve read the review.”

  “Will Frau Schröder-Hanfstängl continue?”

  “Everyone gets bad reviews occasionally. There was a rumor for a while that she was considering a teaching position at one of the conservatories, but nothing came of it. All performers grow thick skins. We wouldn’t survive otherwise. So, yes, she’ll sing for the rest of this season at the Met and probably for years to come.”

  “I’m sure you can’t help but wish it were otherwise,” Geoffrey said. He knew that some artistes spent their entire professional careers singing minor roles or lost in the chorus, waiting for the chance that never came.

  “Prudence mentioned that you’re a former Pinkerton agent, Mr. Hunter.” Claire Buchanan deftly sidestepped his comment. “The Pinkertons claim to be the best detectives in the world. Is that true?”

  “It’s a well-deserved reputation,” he answered.

  “I hadn’t realized there were lady detectives until Prudence told me about your partnership and that Allan Pinkerton had hired female operatives,” Claire continued. “You were kind aboard ship not to ask questions about my personal life. I’m sure I made it obvious I wouldn’t welcome them.” She smiled a
n apology. “I wasn’t keeping secrets to be deliberately mysterious. I thought that if I didn’t talk about it, the pain would eventually lessen. So I taught Prudence the tarot and avoided all mention of what I’ve lost.”

  “How can we be of assistance, Miss Buchanan?” Geoffrey asked. Josiah had been right, as usual. Their shipboard acquaintance had come to the office today with the intention of becoming a client.

  The opera singer reached into a velvet reticule whose passementerie matched the patterns on her dress. She took out a black cardboard folder slightly larger than her hand. “Open it,” she said, giving the folder to Prudence. “A part of me dies every time I look at it.”

  The cardboard was of the thickness used to mount and protect photographs, the two covers tied together by a narrow black silk ribbon. On the front was an embossed design of intertwined lilies surrounded by a stand of cypress trees, popular symbols of mourning throughout the Western world.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Prudence asked. She’d seen cabinet photos like this one too many times not to recognize what she’d been given. She glanced up in time to catch a twitch of aversion cross Geoffrey’s face.

  “Please undo the tie.”

  Prudence opened the folder. Inside, mounted within an oval cutout decorated with the same motif of lilies and weeping cypress trees, was the photograph of a young woman holding in her lap a perfect infant. Eyes open, tiny features composed and expressionless, the child had been posed with its head lying against the mother’s bosom, as though to be comforted by the sound of her heartbeat.

  Except that both of them were dead when the photograph was taken.

  The lifeless woman was Claire Buchanan.

  CHAPTER 2

  Prudence passed the cabinet photograph to Geoffrey, not saying a word, knowing that after the initial shock he would make the same connection she had.