by Blythe Baker
She grabbed the microphone with ease, showing her familiarity with the spotlight, and began to sing. A few notes in, a piano joined her, but she barely needed it. Her voice was smooth and warm. Goosebumps raced up my arms and down my legs as she sang, swaying along with the words. Everyone around us paired off, moving together in the dark to Everilda’s voice.
This had to be the woman Frederick had been seeing. George Hoskins told me he’d been speaking with a singer at the club, and so far, she appeared to be the only singer The Chesney Ballroom had.
I’d almost forgotten about Edward, so when he cleared his throat next to me, I jumped.
“Do you want another dance?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, quickly reaching out to grab his hand. I didn’t really want to slow dance with my cousin, but I wanted to stay close to Everilda. I wanted to be in the center of the room, so I could easily follow her wherever she went after the song was finished.
“Didn’t you used to have a birthmark?”
I looked up at Edward, and it took me a few minutes to comprehend what he was saying. A mark? No, I never had a mark.
But Rose did.
“You showed it to me when we were kids,” he continued. “It was on your shoulder. Pretty large, if I remember right. And wine colored.”
I nodded, turning slightly to look at my bare shoulder. “Yes, I used to. It faded away years ago, though.”
“Did it? I didn’t realize birthmarks could fade away with time,” he said, his voice trailing off.
Luckily, I was saved a response by a brunette woman in a peach gown. She swirled up next to us and tapped Edward on the shoulder. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she carried herself with confidence.
“Are you claimed for the next dance?” she asked. Normally I would have found the way she ignored me entirely rude, but she looked smitten with Edward.
“He is absolutely free,” I said, disentangling myself from him. “Have fun, cousin.”
Edward opened his mouth, but no words came out. I couldn’t tell whether he was grateful or annoyed by my act, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. Everilda was wrapping up her time on the stage, bowing to the clapping crowd.
As soon as she finished, the full band began to play, filling the club with music that vibrated the floor, and Everilda slipped off the side stage stairs. A few men stopped her as she moved through the club, but she paid them little mind. I trailed her around the edge of the room until she ducked inside the door in the back corner I’d noticed earlier. The one the other performers were coming and going from.
I hesitated outside the door and turned to find Edward. I didn’t want him to see me, but it was clear by the way he was staring at his dance partner that he had forgotten about me entirely.
Good, I thought. Perhaps they’ll hit it off and Edward will find a better way to spend his time than trying to catch me in a lie.
Certain I was in the clear, I reached for the door with confidence, pulled it open, and stepped inside.
12
The hallway I stepped into was dim and filled with smoke. I could hear laughter and voices behind every closed door I passed, but it wasn’t until I reached the end of the corridor that I saw Everilda’s name on a slip of paper next to a wooden door. I knocked.
“Come in,” she shouted, not bothering to answer the door.
I pushed it open to find Everilda sitting in front of a vanity, hair pins sticking out of her mouth as she twisted strands of her hair into place.
“Who are you?” Her voice wasn’t angry or accusatory, merely curious.
“Rose,” I said, smiling. “You sounded wonderful out there.”
“Thank you,” she said, clearly flattered. “But customers really aren’t supposed to be back here. Tom won’t like it.”
“Tom?”
She nodded. “Tom Chesney, the owner. It’s against the rules, and he’s a stickler for rules.”
“I’ll be quick,” I assured her. “I just have a few questions for you.”
Suddenly, her body stiffened. Her kind face shifted into a mask. “Is this about Frederick?”
“Oh, well…” I stuttered.
“I already talked to the police,” she said, standing up and smoothing out her dress. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
“I’m not with the police. I have a friend, George Hoskins. He was in here the other night. He said he spoke to you?”
Everilda looked cautious, but the mention of a mutual friend had softened her. “Yeah, I know George. He’s been in The Chesney occasionally. We spoke for the first time the last time he was here.”
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
It looked like she was prepared to answer my question, but then she stopped, turning her head to the side. “Are you the girl from the alley? The one they say was a witness?”
I wanted to lie, but what good would it do? Clearly, people already knew a woman had witnessed the crime, and then I showed up asking about it. I didn’t know much about Everilda, but I didn’t assume she’d be dumb enough to see my visit as a coincidence. “Yeah, I am,” I admitted.
“I should be the one asking you questions, then,” she said. “Didn’t you see Frederick get into a fight minutes before being killed? Tell the police who you saw him with and we’ve as good as solved this case.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” I said, not wanting to go into detail about how complicated the entire situation actually was. Instead, I reclaimed the conversation. I was there to ask the questions. “George said Frederick didn’t like him talking to you and caused a scene? He said they got into a fight.”
She rolled her eyes. “When didn’t Frederick cause a scene? He was constantly in a fight. It was hard to keep up with.”
“He had enemies?” I asked.
She laughed. “I’ve never met anyone less likeable than Frederick. You’d be hard pressed to find someone he could call a friend.”
That seemed harsh. George hadn’t said very kind things about Frederick, either, but I’d expected his girlfriend at least to like him. None of this made any sense.
“I’m sorry. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something,” I said. “I thought you and Frederick were an item.”
Everilda brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and shrugged. “We went out a few times.
“Were you two seeing one another at the time of his murder?” I asked, memories surfacing. “Because the argument I overheard had to do with Frederick not wanting George or any other man to speak with you.”
She shook her head. “Like I said, we went out a few times over the years that we worked together. Frederick may have believed our relationship to be more than it was, but that isn’t any fault of mine.”
“I would never seek to blame you,” I said.
She continued, talking over me, the words coming out in a heated tumble. “Frederick wasn’t as mean to me as he was to everyone else, so I let him hang around me occasionally, but that didn’t make me blind. I could see his faults. He had a temper and no way to control it. As sad as it is, I’m not surprised he’s dead. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
I nodded, trying to take everything in. Everilda hadn’t exactly discounted George as a suspect, but she had given almost every other person in Frederick’s life a motive. The man was not nice, and it sounded as though he had given plenty of people reason to want him dead.
“Do you know anyone who may have wanted to kill him? Any recent arguments or fights? Had he mentioned anything to you?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police when they came around,” she said, hand on her hip. “Your friend George wasn’t the only person to have a quarrel against Frederick. Our boss didn’t much care for him.”
“Tom Chesney?” I asked.
“The very same,” she said. “Frederick liked to blackmail people. Trust me, I should know. I don’t know what he had on Tom, but based on the tension between them, it had to be something
good. Otherwise, Tom would have fired Frederick months ago.”
“Was he blackmailing you?” I asked. I didn’t miss the small aside in the midst of her speech. It sounded as though she knew about Frederick’s blackmailing first hand.
“Did you come back here to solve a murder or to try and get me to divulge my secrets?” she asked with a cheeky smile. “I prefer to think my secrets died with Frederick, thank you very much.”
I could understand a woman wanting to be the keeper of her own secrets, so I responded with a knowing nod and moved on. “Do you think Frederick was blackmailing anyone else?”
“Honey, we don’t have time to go through the whole list,” she joked. “But the only other person I can think of is a regular. His name is Artie or something. I’m not sure, but he goes by ‘Art.’ He and Frederick never liked one another, but a few nights ago, things escalated. Art left here with a black eye and a bloody nose with Frederick shouting at him down the street, telling him to never show his face in here again. And so far, he hasn’t, though he made his own threats that night.”
“Art threatened Frederick?”
She nodded. “It was all very cliché. You’ll pay for this. I won’t be treated this way. Nothing that gave me any reason to believe he meant it. Art had been drinking and he and Frederick had fought before. It seemed like just another night at The Chesney.”
Everilda spoke of the incident as though it had meant nothing; whereas, I’d seen George and Frederick arguing in the alleyway and run away in terror. Clearly, I wasn’t as brave as I liked to think.
“I really need to go,” Everilda said, sliding past me and into the hallway. “I have another song in a few minutes, and like I said, Tom won’t be happy to find you back here. You should get back into the club.”
Everilda began to turn and then stopped, facing me. “Oh, and would you please not mention any of this to anyone?”
“Any of what?” I asked.
“Me and Frederick,” she said. “There are already rumors, of course, but I’ve convinced Tom that is all they were. He has strict rules about employee relationships. I’d be fired if he knew Frederick and I were ever involved.”
“Of course. I won’t say anything,” I promised.
Her lips pulled into a smile that made her squint and then she walked towards the door that led into the club, leaving me alone in her room. I looked around the small space. At the dresses hanging from a pipe on the wall, the shoes piled up on the floor, the thick caking of makeup dust on every surface. She had given me the perfect opportunity to search the room and look for something suspicious, but perhaps that was the exact reason I didn’t need to search anything. Everilda clearly had nothing to hide. Plus, I needed to get back before Edward realized I was missing. I’d been gone just long enough that I could reasonably claim I’d been in the ladies room without raising too many eyebrows, but much longer and I’d be pushing it.
As I walked down the hallway, I repeated the names of my suspects, committing them to memory. George. Tom. Art.
George, the chauffeur and Chesney Ballroom regular, who got into a fight with Frederick the night before his murder and again the day of his murder.
Tom, the club owner who was possibly being blackmailed by Frederick.
Art, a regular who’d had run-ins with Frederick in the past and had threatened him shortly before his murder.
Three men with different motives, all with one thing in common: The Chesney Ballroom.
Edward had come with me that night to determine whether the club was respectable, but I was beginning to think it was anything but.
When I got out to the main room, Everilda was walking onto the stage to a round of raucous applause, and Edward was leaning against a wall on the side of the room. He seemed to be enjoying the music. His foot was even tapping along with the beat. As I made my way towards him, he looked up. Immediately, his easygoing expression morphed into a mask of annoyance.
Was it just me? Did I bring out this mean side to him? Or was he this way with everyone? I knew it could have something to do with the fact that I was the only person standing in the way of him inheriting my family’s fortune, but that felt extreme. The only way I would have fully understood his anger was if he knew I was lying about being Rose to claim the inheritance for myself. However, if he truly had a suspicion about my identity, certainly he would have said something by now? I had already been to the family solicitor to discuss my monthly payments. The paperwork was signed. It was too late now.
“Where were you?” he asked.
I tried not to let my guilt show. “When I left, you were with a beautiful woman. I didn’t think you’d miss my company.”
“I’m not here to meet a woman,” he snapped. “I accompanied you in order to keep an eye on you, and you disappeared.”
“Do not be so dramatic, Edward. I didn’t disappear. I’m right here,” I said, splaying my arms out and spinning in a small circle.
Edward hummed in the back of his throat. “Are you ready to go?”
“You want to leave?” I asked.
Judging by the expression he gave me next, I assumed his answer was yes. So, to avoid angering him further, I agreed. Before we walked outside, I turned for one last look at Everilda. She had the microphone in one hand, her other arm thrown behind her while she belted out a high note. However, somehow, she managed to look across the room and find me. Our eyes met momentarily, and I turned away quickly, shy under her gaze.
Edward was about to hail one of the cabs lined up on the street when I saw George parked further up the road. I pointed him out.
“That stubborn man,” Edward grumbled.
When we got to the car, George jumped out and ran around to open our doors. It looked as though he’d been sleeping, but when his eyes met mine, I could see the question behind them. He wanted to know what I’d discovered. I offered him a smile and little else.
“I told you to go home, George,” Edward said, though his voice sounded more amused than disappointed.
“I didn’t mind waiting. It’s a beautiful night,” George said, closing the door behind us.
He moved around to the front of the car and once again he tried to catch my eyes through the window, but I looked down at my lap, playing with the beadwork of my dress. I had a few more leads, but I didn’t yet know enough to make George any promises.
13
When Alice had asked me to tell her everything about the jazz club, she’d meant it. It was all she wanted to talk about for days. I tried to impress upon her how ordinary the experience had been, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“I bet it was magical,” she said, her eyes dancing with excitement. “Did you meet anyone there?”
“I talked to one of the singers,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
Alice groaned. “No, like a man. Did you meet a man?”
Thankfully, Lady Ashton made an appearance at that moment and I was spared answering Alice’s invasive question, at least for the time being.
Edward barely acknowledged my presence in the days after we returned from the jazz club. He stopped watching me from his bedroom window and interrogating me over meals. He wasn’t exactly nice or polite, but it was still a vast improvement. And George seemed to be more at ease around me. Every day that passed without his being arrested or fired, he relaxed a bit. I still hadn’t decided what I planned to do about what I knew, but it was nice to not feel him staring at me every time we took the car anywhere.
All of that, though, took a backseat to my main focus: Achilles Prideaux. I’d called his number two days after my night at The Chesney Ballroom and he had finally picked up.
“Mademoiselle Rose?” he’d asked, doubt filling his voice.
“Yes, from the ship,” I said. “Rose Beckingham.”
“I did not expect you to call,” he said.
“I did not expect to call,” I responded truthfully.
He agreed to meet me the next morning over breakfast. After a restless night of sleep
, I rose early the next day, dressed in a sage green tea dress with loose sleeves that hung down to my elbows and a cream cloche hat that matched my heels, and set out early. I didn’t want anyone in the family, George included, to know where I was going, so I walked a few blocks to the main road and hailed a cab.
This time, when I knocked on Monsieur Prideaux’s door, he answered after the first knock.
“Mademoiselle Beckingham,” he said, arms spread wide, as if he were going to hug me, though he stayed firmly on his side of the threshold.
He looked tanner than he had the last time I’d seen him, though he still sported the same thin, black mustache. And I still detested it.
“Monsieur Prideaux,” I responded, smiling. “It is good to see you again.”
“Please, come in.” He stepped aside, and I walked into his house.
It looked nothing like I’d expected—partly because I’d expected him to live in a one-bedroom flat with blacked out windows and a single spotlight shining down on a metal chair where he interrogated people. Of course, he actually lived in a spacious two-bedroom flat with an abundance of household plants scattered amongst his full bookshelves and artwork. Morning light poured through his open windows, giving the place a light, airy feel.
“You have a beautiful home.”
He laughed. “You sound surprised.”
“Wow, you are a word-class detective,” I teased. “When did you get back from Aden?”
“Yesterday morning. I’d only been home a few hours when you called.”
“I hope I am not inconveniencing you by calling so soon after your arrival home,” I said.
“Of course not. If you were, I would have told you so,” he said, smiling. “Though I suspect the feeling may be one-sided, I quite enjoy your company, Mademoiselle.”
Achilles directed me to take a seat at his dining room table. He poured two cups of tea and then took the seat across from me. “I assume you are not here to discuss home décor.”
