“So Dorian shot him during the battle. On your command?”
“Dorian might not be terribly smart, but he does follow orders.”
The idea of a soldier killing one of his own—the betrayal and the brutality of it—sickened me. “The only person to question what happened was his mother.”
“And you, Miss Cross.” His fingers tightened, digging into my neck and causing my face to throb hotly. “I’d hoped you’d learn to mind your business, especially after I offered to pay your electrician friend’s legal expenses.”
“Dale.”
“Indeed. I foolishly believed you might back off and trust in the legal system. Not that the attorney I hired would have succeeded in having him absolved. Quite the opposite, but you couldn’t have known that, not then. You’re uncommonly stubborn, Miss Cross. Not even a blazing house would deter you.”
I didn’t bother to respond to that, for it didn’t surprise me. Besides, I was too concerned with drawing each breath. Then his hold eased a bit, and with my next full breath came another realization. “It was you at Fort Adams that day. Talking to Dorian in the tenaille. You were discussing Oliver, reassuring Dorian that Oliver’s death was considered an accident. And you were discussing me, too, I believe.”
“What?” Surprise gave his voice an edge. I’d clearly startled him. “How could you know that?”
“I was there. I overheard you both talking.” Explaining about the listening tunnels didn’t seem worth the effort. “And Silas Griggson? Whose idea was it to kill him?”
“Griggson had become too sure of himself. He thought he could marry Cleo and control her, keep her from telling anyone what she and Oliver had learned. But he thought wrong. She wanted nothing to do with him. She became a liability, and so did he, once you began sniffing his trail.”
“The tenement collapse.”
“Yes, indeed. He handled it messily, and it was only a matter of time before some eager reporter decided to take a closer look. I just didn’t think it would be a slip of a girl.”
“It’s been you all long, pulling the strings but letting others do your dirty work.” I shook my head in genuine disgust. “I assume you had Dorian rig the electrical wiring that ended Cleo’s life. But you were also in that room at some point. You gave Beatrice the rose, didn’t you? Was it a bribe so she wouldn’t tell anyone she’d seen you?” A cold fear ran through me. Would Patrick feel the need to permanently silence a child?
“I figured out the wiring, and then Dorian did the work. And yes, the brat caught me. She needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.”
I yanked out of his grip, the act wrenching my neck with pain but I didn’t care. I spun to face him. “Leave her alone. She’s a baby, and no one takes anything she says seriously. You don’t have to hurt her.”
“We’ll see. Now move.” When I hesitated, he reached into a trouser pocket and drew out a gleaming length of polished wood that fit snugly in his palm. He gave a flick, and with a flash of light a blade some six inches long sprang forward, its lethal tip pointing directly at me. In the next instant I felt a nudging prick against my abdomen. “Turn around, Miss Cross, and proceed.”
My legs could barely hold me for their violent trembling. The elevator door, with its panel of switches beside it, beckoned. I found myself counting the remaining steps as though they might be the final seconds of my life.
I wished to prolong those seconds as long as possible. Would Derrick return and bring Jesse with him?
I remembered what Jesse had said earlier about powerful men with their hands in legitimate concerns as well as illegal, and how they held power over the New York City authorities. With as much bravado as I could muster, I asked, “How long have you been part of the Five Points Gang?”
“Very good, Miss Cross. I’m surprised you figured that out.”
He reached around me to push the switch summoning the elevator to the second floor. The cables began their ritual whine as the contraption rose. I prayed someone would be in it, preferably one of Mrs. Goelet’s brawny footmen. But, unlike the elevators in New York’s office buildings, this one was fully automated, requiring no operator inside to bring it to those awaiting its arrival.
“Exactly how did you reach such a conclusion?” Patrick wished to know.
“Griggson had a star tattooed on his wrist.”
“Yes, a stupid tradition from the early years of the gang. Dorian was supposed to have removed it this morning.” He sounded peeved.
“He did. But I’d seen it before. When you sent him to bully me into selling my house.”
Patrick let go a laugh. “For all your stubbornness, it looks as though I shall have your property after all.”
“You’ll never have Gull Manor,” I snapped. Patrick rewarded me with a sharp jab between my shoulder blades.
The elevator arrived with a clang and a rattle. Patrick’s blade jabbed me a second time. “Open it. First the door, then the gate. Slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them or this blade will become intimately acquainted with your right kidney, Miss Cross. Or your left one. It’s all the same to me.”
I did as he said. The door opened outward like an ordinary door. I then pushed the gate to its folded position. Another jab sent me into the car, a step up since it had stopped a good few inches above the threshold. This lack of accuracy was the reason public elevators were manned by attendants. No such luck for me. Patrick stepped in behind me, grabbed my shoulder, and propelled me in front of him once again.
“Close the door and the gate.”
As I did, I asked him, “And Ilsa? Surely you have no intention of marrying her.”
“I haven’t decided, actually. It could prove useful to marry her. As her sister pointed out, she can be wearisome, but she’d certainly never question me.”
I ventured a guess as a renewed sense of queasiness settled in the pit of my stomach. “As your wife questioned you?”
He sniggered meanly. “Matilda should have remembered her place.”
“You weren’t away the night she died, were you? Or did you send Dorian to open the gas jets in her bedroom?”
“No, that was something I managed on my own, thanks to an old and seldom-used back staircase.” With the door and the gate secured in place, Patrick wrapped his hand around the control lever. The car lurched into motion, intensifying my queasiness. The point of his knife continued to tease the small of my back.
“Won’t Ilsa be wondering where you are?”
“I’ll tell her a telephone call came for me. She won’t question it.”
“Please, leave her alone. She’s lost enough already.”
“If I were you, Miss Cross, I’d worry about myself. But if it makes you feel any better, I have no plans at present to hurt Ilsa in any way. As long as she behaves.”
Through the gate I saw that we overshot our destination by several feet. Patrick reversed our motion, lowering us inch by jerking inch. Finally, with a jolt that threatened the contents of my stomach, he brought the elevator to rest. Without waiting to be told, I unlatched the gate and pushed it aside.
I opened the main door onto a whitewashed, utilitarian hallway. Not a sound could be heard. Directly across the hall from me were closets whose doors stood open, revealing a diverse assortment of costly-looking clothing in a burst of color that seemed to spill from the interiors. I found this odd. If these closets were used to store the family’s extra summer wardrobes, why had the doors been left open?
And did Patrick intend to stuff me into one of them, shut the door, and leave me to molder until someone happened to find me?
“Mr. Floyd, please think this through. With both Sam and Dorian under arrest, and Camille being held for questioning, you’ll come under suspicion when I turn up missing. Who else in this house will be blamed?”
“Any number of people. A servant, a worker, a deliveryman. But once I attest to having seen you leave Ochre Court, it will be another good while before anyone realizes you’re missing. By then, I�
�ll be on my way back to New York, whereupon I’ll board a steamer bound for Europe. With or without our charming young Ilsa,” he added with a grin of amusement. “Now, if you please, step out.”
With a poke at my back assuring me I had no other choice, I stepped into the corridor. As I did, movement to my right caught my attention. I very nearly turned my head to acknowledge what I’d seen, but some God-given instinct prevented me from doing so.
I moved another couple of paces away from the elevator door. Patrick’s step creaked behind me, followed by the airy whir of a rapidly moving object. I heard a clunk, and then the thud of a body collapsing to the floor.
When I turned around to confirm that I’d heard correctly, Nora Taylor lowered the fire extinguisher she held to her side. She panted heavily and stared down at Patrick Floyd’s prone form as if not quite sure what she had done. Then she looked up at me, her eyes glazed with shock and urgency. “I heard everything. I was on the third-floor gallery.” With her free hand she pressed her stomach, bending over slightly and continuing her effort to catch her breath. “I ran up . . . to be here when the elevator door opened.”
* * *
“You should really get to the hospital, Whyte. Have a doctor take a look at that head wound. Perhaps Mrs. Goelet will lend you the use of her driver and carriage.” Derrick poured coffee into a mug and pushed it toward Jesse. “Drink.”
He, Jesse, Nora, and I sat at the table in the servants’ hall, going over everything that had happened in the past hour. The police had been telephoned and were on their way back to Ochre Court. After Nora knocked Patrick Floyd out cold, I’d sent her down to the kitchen level to find a pair of footmen. They had restrained Patrick and, upon his awakening, locked him in a storeroom. He, too, would need a doctor to tend the head wound inflicted by Nora’s quick thinking with the fire extinguisher. I now understood why the closet doors near the elevator on the fourth floor had stood open. They were mirrored, and Nora had opened them to prevent Patrick from seeing her beside the elevator door, waiting to render him unconscious.
“I’ll call for the carriage,” she said now and started to rise.
“There’s no need for that. Thank you, Miss Taylor.” Jesse aimed his next comment at Derrick and spoke with noticeable impatience. “I’m perfectly capable of driving back into town on my own. And I don’t need a doctor.”
“Stubborn,” Derrick murmured, pouring coffee into his own mug.
Jesse winced as he touched his fingers to the back of his head, where bits of dried blood still clung to his auburn hair. Derrick had found him beneath the hydrangeas along the side of the property, unconscious. I’d wanted to throw my arms around him, so great was my relief at seeing him safe and on his feet. Yet I’d restrained myself from giving in to the instinct. Though I’d said nothing to anyone, when faced with the bleak prospect of Derrick returning to Providence, my heart had made its decision.
At least, I believed it had. My reaction to Derrick’s news had been swift, unexpected, and, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, earth-shifting. It had forced me to face a truth. I cared for Jesse deeply. But I could no longer allow him to hope for more, for something I would never quite feel, no matter how much I might try.
As for the severity of the injury Patrick had inflicted, we wouldn’t know until and unless we could persuade Jesse to see a doctor. When he and Derrick had come in through the service entrance, Nora had hurried to bring ice, a basin of water, and a cloth, had tended to him as best she could before he finally thanked her but waved her away.
“I’m fine,” he insisted now with a scowl that attested to Derrick’s one-word summation of his character: stubborn.
“You don’t look fine,” I observed. I reached over and patted his hand, which felt damp beneath my palm. “You’re as white as a sheet and as clammy as one left out in the rain.”
“Fine. I’ll stop by the hospital after I drive back into town.” I wasn’t convinced, but I let it drop. He took a careful swig from his mug. Then his scowl smoothed away and he returned his attention to Nora. “Miss Taylor, are you sure you’re all right? That was an awfully brave but risky thing you did.”
I reflected briefly that he had yet to make a similar observation about me – hadn’t I been brave as well? But then I noticed a certain glint in his eye that sent my thoughts in a wholly different direction. Meanwhile, a wash of scarlet engulfed Nora’s features.
“Me? Oh, I’m as right as rain, Detective. It was quite a dash up those stairs, and for certain some angel musta kept me from trippin’ over my own feet, but thank the good Lord I made it before that elevator door opened or . . .”
“Or I might not be here right now,” I finished for her. “Thank you, Nora. You saved my life.”
She blushed brighter still, her green eyes glittering like gems. She hazarded another glance at Jesse from beneath her lashes. “’Twas nothing, miss.”
“Well, I’m very glad you were there.”
I took several fortifying sips of coffee before placing the flats of my hands on the tabletop and pushing resolutely to my feet. “Someone has to explain things to Ilsa, and I suppose that someone should be me.” I heaved a breath. “This is going to devastate her. She’s lost so much already.”
“I could telephone her father,” Nora offered and came to her feet. “And ask him to come here.”
“Mr. Cooper-Smith is going to have to answer a lot of questions.” Jesse frowned at the steam rising from his cup. “I can’t believe these men—Griggson, Norris, Caldwell, and now Floyd—were all mixed up with the Five Points gang, and Cooper-Smith knew nothing.”
“I think you’ll find Sam Caldwell innocent,” I said. “And I dearly hope Mr. Cooper-Smith proves innocent as well. They’ve most likely been threatening him. Jesse, please allow him to come and comfort his daughter. There will be plenty of time later to ask your questions.”
He nodded. “Please put that call through, Miss Taylor. Thank you.”
Her complexion still rosy, she nodded and stood. She and I left the servants’ hall together, parting ways in the corridor, she heading to the housekeeper’s parlor to use the telephone, and I to the stairs. I didn’t look forward to explaining things to Ilsa. How she must be wondering where Patrick had disappeared to, giving him the benefit of the doubt, certain he would return soon to whisk her away to a life of wedded bliss. Yet I must now reveal him as a monster, destroy Ilsa’s happiness, and rob her of her hopes for the future. Reluctantly I placed my foot on the first step, dreading each one that would take me closer to the miserable task ahead of me.
“Emma.”
I turned at the sound of Derrick’s voice. The step put us at equal height, and I gazed directly into his dark eyes. I saw in them a calm surety that steadied me after the shock and danger of my ordeal with Patrick Floyd, and renewed my conviction of last night. No longer did uncertainty rage within me concerning this man, Derrick. The same old barriers between us still existed—his mother’s enmity toward me, his family obligations in Providence, our vastly different backgrounds, my own need for independence. Yet I knew—simply knew—we would find a way to overcome them. Somehow. Someday. I smiled at him, my arms at my sides, my heart beating evenly, my mind serene.
“Yes?”
A subtle contraction of his facial muscles altered his expression to one of apology, regret, even sadness. Yet my newfound certainties continued to rest easily within me. “Emma, I wish I could say to hell with it. Turn my back on my father, the Sun, all of it. But I can’t. It isn’t only about my family. There are so many other families who depend on us for their livelihood. Their very existence. I can’t turn my back on them, and right now there is no one else to take over for my father someday. No one I can trust to continue the Sun’s success. For now, I have to return to Providence and make peace with my father.” He reached out and took my hand. His next words were a murmur. “I have to go, soon.”
I returned the warm pressure of his grasp. “I know.”
“Then I
’ll ask you again. Will you take over at the Messenger? Please?”
“Yes.”
He blinked, obviously startled. “Really?”
“Yes,” I repeated, smiling at his reaction. “Go make amends with your father. I’ll take care of your business here.”
“You won’t have to report back to me. I trust you fully. The Messenger is yours to run as you see fit. And no strings attached. I don’t expect—”
“Derrick, I understand. And the Messenger will be quite safe in my hands, I assure you.”
He nodded. For a long moment neither of us said anything, yet a world of sentiment passed between our clasped hands, our locked gazes.
Finally, I broke our contented silence. “I should go and speak with Ilsa.”
He released my hand slowly, and we turned away from each other. But the contentment, and my smile, lasted until I reached the second floor and set out upon this last errand at Ochre Court.
Author’s Note
Ochre Court is the second largest house in Newport, after The Breakers. Completed in 1892 and owned by the Goelet family until 1947, it was then donated by Robert Goelet (featured as a teenager in this story), to the Sisters of Mercy, who opened Salve Regina College that same year. Originally a women’s school, Salve Regina became coed in 1973, and a fully accredited university in 1991. Today, the campus encompasses sixty acres between Bellevue Avenue and the Cliff Walk, includes seven former Gilded Age estates, and over twenty historically significant buildings. Ochre Court serves as the university’s administrative building and, unfortunately, is not open for tours except under special, prearranged circumstances. It was an honor and a thrill for me to be able to enjoy a unique, private tour that greatly aided in the writing of this book.
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