“Amory, look at me,” Milo said gently.
I pulled my eyes from the fireplace to look into his. “The weight of all of this is not yours to bear.”
“But…”
“No,” he said. “You don’t have to take it all on yourself.”
I knew he was right, in a way. But that didn’t stop me from feeling that I needed to do something.
“I’m too tired to think about it anymore,” I said, feeling as though I was on the verge of tears.
“Yes, I think you’re overwrought. Come. Let’s go to bed.”
He stood and helped me to my feet. I felt suddenly as though I was very old.
“Poor Mr. Palmer.” A stray tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m sorry for him.”
Milo reached over to wipe my tear away, his hand resting on my face. “Whatever else it was, it was quick.”
I nodded. That was something at least. From the position of his body, it appeared he had lain where he had fallen. At least he hadn’t suffered.
“Why do you suppose bodies are always turning up wherever we go?”
“I suppose the most likely answer is that we are unknowing harbingers of the Grim Reaper.”
“Don’t joke, Milo. I can’t bear it.”
“Death happens, darling. We just happen to travel along the same path occasionally.”
I supposed that was as good an answer as any. He was wrong about one thing, though. I did feel as though I needed to take this on myself. I hadn’t the energy to argue with him about it tonight, but I knew already that, in one way or another, I was going to have to help discover who had killed Grant Palmer.
We got into bed, and I moved close to Milo, who drew me against him. Feeling safe in his arms, I pushed the horror of the evening from my thoughts and fell into a deep sleep.
10
I SLEPT VERY late the next morning, though I imagined everyone had after being up for the majority of the night.
Milo was, surprisingly, no longer in bed when I awoke.
I was just about to force myself to get up when there was a tap on the door.
“Come in,” I called.
“Oh, madam,” Winnelda breathed, hurrying into the room. “I can’t believe there was a murder here!”
I had hoped to avoid thinking about the matter for a few minutes at least, but it seemed it was not to be. I sat up, pushing back my hair from my face. I was trying to think of how best to go about telling her what had happened, but it seemed that Winnelda had no need for my explanations. Apparently, the household gossip network had already been at work, and if there was ever anyone attuned to gossip, it was Winnelda.
She plunged ahead without waiting for me to share any of what I knew.
“They think it has to do with Leon De Lora.” She said this with some authority, and I wondered if she already knew something I didn’t.
I pushed ahead with my question before she could continue. “What are they saying about Mr. De Lora?”
“Well, Mr. Palmer worked for him, everyone knew that, but then he went away to work for another gangster, one called Frankie Earl, and people think Mr. De Lora may have wanted revenge. And, after all, this is just the way gangsters go about killing each other.”
Winnelda had been in New York for all of four days and already appeared to be well-versed on American criminal culture. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she already had a working knowledge of the subject.
I was, frankly, impressed. After all, I had heard nothing of Frankie Earl, or that Mr. Palmer had left Mr. De Lora’s employ. Disloyalty did seem as though it might be a valid motive for murder, especially from a gangster’s perspective.
“What do you know about Mr. De Lora?” I asked her.
Winnelda had a finely tuned sense of scandal. I suspected she had already picked up the latest New York gossip rags and had begun to familiarize herself with them. I avoided the scandal sheets myself, but I could always count on her for the very latest information and, indeed, information from well into the past. She had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the rich and famous and all their transgressions.
“Oh, all sorts of things,” she said casually.
“You’ve certainly taken the lay of the land quickly.”
“Even back in England I followed a lot of the stories about him. The gossip columns talk about him often. He’s very handsome, you know. Like a cinema star.”
This I had not expected. The knowledge of the man’s illicit activities had conjured up in my mind a menacing figure with sinister features and a cigar clamped between his teeth. Of course, handsomeness and villainy were not mutually exclusive.
“Or perhaps more like a character played by a cinema star,” she mused. “A pirate, perhaps. He has a scar on his face, you know. Here.” She drew a line with her finger across one cheek, just below the eye. “But I think it gives him a dashing air. A great many cinema stars have been seen in his company, in fact,” she said. She then began to recite a list of well-known ladies in the film industry who had been photographed with Mr. De Lora.
“Do you know anything about his past?” I asked, when she had paused for breath.
“They say he grew up very poor and that he was in the war. After that he started bootlegging and became very rich from all his illegal activities. He’s credited with a long list of crimes, and his criminal enterprises have caused law enforcement in this city considerable trouble.” I began to think she had memorized the articles she had read word-for-word.
“Then why hasn’t he been arrested?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s much too clever for that,” she said. “Everyone seems to know that he’s responsible for a great many wicked things, but there is never any way to prove it. He always has someone else do the deeds, you see.”
“Yes, I do see,” I said. I wondered if he had had someone else do the deed of killing Grant Palmer.
“He owns a speakeasy called De Lora’s,” Winnelda went on. “That’s where they sell illegal alcohol. All the famous people enjoy going there.”
I tucked this bit of information away, feeling it might prove useful in the future.
“And the feeling is that he might have wanted to kill Mr. Palmer for leaving his employ?” I said.
She nodded as she went about taking a forest-green dress from the wardrobe. “Gangsters do that sort of thing, madam.”
It was, on the surface, a rather loose theory but, I supposed, as good a place to start as any.
I paused to consider as a plan began to take shape in my mind. Perhaps this wasn’t the wisest course of action. I was in a foreign country, and the murder victim was not anyone with whom I had had a personal connection. All things considered, it might be best to stay out of things and let the police do their job. Especially if it was related to the criminal underworld. I had the feeling that Detectives Andrews and Bailey were perfectly competent men who would do all they could to see that Grant Palmer’s killer was brought to justice.
And yet. The instinct to do something was strong.
I pushed aside the satin bedspread and got out of bed, a plan beginning to form.
It couldn’t hurt to visit De Lora’s. After all, a great many people did so on a regular basis. It was almost de rigueur among the society set. It seemed unlikely that I would be able to find out the truth from one night spent there, but I didn’t think any harm could come of it.
Besides, I was curious about this Leon De Lora, the gangster with the film-star looks and the fearsome reputation.
“I wonder what he’s really like,” I mused.
She shrugged as she began to lay out my clothes. “I imagine he’s coarse and dangerous. I certainly wouldn’t care to meet him on a dark street. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
There we differed. I was very much interested in meeting Mr. De Lora. In fact, I thought the sooner I was able to make his acquaintance the better.
* * *
THOUGH THE THOUGHT of food wasn’t necessarily appealing, I dressed a
nd went downstairs to see about breakfast. The house had a somber quietness to it, as though the tragedy of last night still hung in the air. I went into the dining room and found Tabitha and Tom sitting at the table. They sat very close, talking in low tones, their food apparently untouched on their plates.
Tabitha seemed much more composed than she had been last night. Tom, on the other hand, looked dreadful. He was pale and there were dark circles around his eyes. His normally youthful face seemed to have aged overnight.
He started to rise as I came back into the room, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t get up. Please.”
He sank tiredly back into his chair.
“I’m very sorry about Mr. Palmer,” I told him. “I know he was a very good friend of yours.”
“Thank you. It’s such a shock.”
“Tom came to the house last night when I didn’t arrive at the nightclub, but the police wouldn’t let him in,” Tabitha told me, a frown creasing her brow. “I wish I had known. I would’ve come out and made them…”
“I was just glad to know you were all right,” Tom said, reaching out to cover her hand with his. “It was enough to know you were here, safe, with the others.”
“What did the police say?” I asked as I went to the sideboard and poured myself a cup of coffee and selected a piece of toast.
“Just that there had been a young man killed. I told them I was Tabitha’s fiancé, but they said they were conducting interviews with the family and that I should come back this morning. I didn’t know who it could’ve been. It never occurred to me that it might be Grant…”
He swallowed hard, tamping down his emotion, and Tabitha reached out to squeeze his arm.
I sat down on the opposite side of the table and took an automatic bite of my toast and sipped my coffee, thinking it was strange to go about the same morning rituals after someone had lost his life on the doorstep last night.
“I’m glad you came down, Amory,” Tabitha said. “We’ve just been discussing what we should do about the wedding, and we could use someone to talk to. We’re both a bit upset at the moment and nothing seems to make sense.”
“It would be kind of heartless, wouldn’t it?” Tom asked me. “If we went ahead with it as though his death didn’t mean anything.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to wade into this particular discussion. This was a very private decision, one that would best be made between the two of them.
“Then again, we’ve already got everything prepared,” Tabitha said, preparing to state her case. “We’ve sent out the invitations. If we change now…”
I could see her point. I knew how much went into such preparations, and it would be very hard to make adjustments at the last moment. However, if Tom didn’t feel that he could go on with things after one of his friends had been brutally killed, I didn’t think it would do their relationship any good to press him.
“Perhaps it might be best to wait a few days to make that decision,” I said at last. “You’ve both had a shock, and now probably isn’t the best time to think about such things.”
“You’re right, of course,” Tabitha said, rising from the table. “Let’s go somewhere, Tom. I need to get out of the house. You don’t mind, do you, Amory? I don’t want to be a bad hostess, but I feel like I’m going to scream if I don’t get away for a while.”
“I think it would do you good,” I agreed.
“Just let me run upstairs and get my coat and purse.”
“But those newspapermen…” Tom said.
I hadn’t considered the possibility that the murder might have drawn the press, but I supposed I was silly to have overlooked it.
“There are reporters outside,” Tabitha told me. “They’ve been taking pictures of the house all morning. It’s disgusting.”
“They’ll follow us if we go out,” Tom said. “I had a hard time getting in. They were asking me all sorts of questions.”
I felt sorry for the young man. He looked as though a great weight had descended upon him and he wasn’t sure how to go about carrying it.
“We’ll slip out the back,” Tabitha said. “We’ll take the old car in the garage and go driving. Please, Tom. I can’t bear to stay here all day.”
He sighed. “All right. I suppose I could use some fresh air.”
“Thank you. I won’t be a minute.” She dropped a grateful kiss on his cheek and then hurried from the room.
Tom turned to look at me, his mouth forming a wobbly smile. “I suppose it’ll do us good to get out for a while. I … I almost feel as though I’m in some kind of a bad dream. It’s like my head’s in a fog.”
I nodded. “I know just what you mean. I think it feels a bit unreal to all of us, all the more so to those that were close to Mr. Palmer.”
“Yeah,” he said. He hesitated for a moment and then added, “I … I kind of wonder how Jemma’s doing.”
I looked up at him. “Jemma?”
He nodded. “Tabitha called her this morning and said she took it all right. That is, Tab said she was surprised and horrified like the rest of us, but not too upset. But I wonder…”
“Were she and Mr. Palmer … close?” I asked, seizing upon this bit of information. I had had the impression there was something between Mr. Palmer and Miss Petrie, or had been at one time, and it now seemed that perhaps I had been correct.
He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I … I really shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I won’t tell tales,” I said lightly.
“Oh, no! That’s not what I meant,” he replied quickly. “It’s just that … well, it’s a delicate subject. I should’ve thought before bringing it up.”
I smiled at this somewhat outdated sweetness. “I’m not so delicate as all that.”
“I think you’re a very fine lady,” he told me sincerely. That was all well and good, but it wasn’t getting me the information I was after. I fought down my impatience.
He seemed to correctly interpret my silence as encouragement to continue, for he cleared his throat and then went on. “They … they never seemed to care much for each other, at least as far as I could tell. There was always kind of an antagonism between them. But, a few weeks ago, I dropped Tabitha off at home after a late night out and decided to stop by and see Grant. I pulled up at his apartment and … I saw Jemma leaving.”
I waited for more, but he appeared to be waiting for my reaction.
Was that all? I was disappointed.
“Perhaps it was all quite innocent,” I suggested.
“It was very late,” he repeated, and I understood the implication.
“You never mentioned it to him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to cause embarrassment. What I mean is that I don’t know why they would hide a relationship from us unless it was something very … informal. Grant ran around with lots of girls and often hinted vaguely about his … conquests. If he was trifling with Jemma, I didn’t want to let on that I knew, for her sake. And that’s why I hope she’s all right.”
“I’m all ready,” Tabitha said, appearing in the doorway. She had donned a gray coat and green felt hat and had a large black handbag on one arm. “If we go out through the back door, I think we can get away without being seen.”
Tom rose from his chair. “You’re sure you don’t mind us leaving you here, Amory?”
“Not at all,” I assured them.
They said their good-byes and left the room then and I sat in the silence, nibbling at my toast. Truth be told, I was glad to have a bit of time alone. My head was swirling with thoughts of all that had already happened, and it seemed that things were getting more complicated by the minute.
* * *
IT WAS NOT until afternoon that Milo returned.
“Where on earth have you been?” I demanded as soon as he found me in the drawing room, where I had been writing letters for want of something better to do.
I had made it my habit not to be the sort of wife w
ho required my husband to constantly account for his whereabouts, but being left alone after a murder had just taken place seemed like a worthy exception.
“I had some business matters to attend to.”
“What sort of business?”
“Banking, sending wires, all to do with my investment with Mr. Alden’s company. Very dull stuff, darling. It’s not as though I’ve been out amusing myself.”
“You might have left me a note,” I pointed out, not appeased by this explanation.
“Yes, I might have,” he agreed. “Are we alone in the house?”
“I think Mr. Alden is somewhere about.” I had not yet seen him today, though I had once or twice heard footsteps in a heavy tread I had taken to be his. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for company, and I didn’t blame him.
“Will you come upstairs, darling?”
My eyes narrowed at this suggestion. “Milo, I’m not at all in the mood to…”
His smile flashed. “To what?”
“To put up with your amorous advances when I am still quite cross with you.”
“That’s not what I meant, but I welcome the challenge of changing your mind.”
I let out an impatient breath. “I’m not going upstairs. I haven’t finished writing my letters.”
“Suit yourself, darling,” he said, turning toward the door. He stopped in the doorway and lowered his voice. “However, I did neglect to mention that I heard a few rumors that might be pertinent to Mr. Palmer’s murder, and I thought you’d be interested to hear them.”
He left the room then, and I sat obstinately at the writing desk, staring unseeing at the half-finished letter to my mother. I knew very well that Milo was trying to bait me; I did not intend to give in so easily.
I sat there for perhaps five minutes before I roughly folded up the letter in a display of temper no one was there to witness and made my way upstairs.
I reached our room at the same time as Parks, who held the door for me.
“Oh, hello, Parks,” Milo said as we entered. “I’m going out tonight, so I’ll need you to see to my evening clothes.”
A Dangerous Engagement Page 10
