“Yes, indeed. It is always sad when parents and children are estranged.”
“And when children so singularly fail to live up to their parents' expectations.”
Ames thought of his own father. They had not been close, but at least his father had never evinced any disappointment in him. When Ames declined to join his father's law practice, the decision had been accepted with a mere lift of an eyebrow; nothing more. And if the older man had been puzzled by his son's failure to settle on a profession, he had never indicated it by so much as a single remonstrance.
Which had been, in itself, a kind of abandonment, Ames thought now. Surely most fathers—like old Longworth, for instance—tried to influence their sons' chosen life paths? He realized now, really for the first time, that perhaps his own father had been remiss. Not that he himself would have wanted pressure of any kind; he would have resisted it, thus perhaps creating a breach such as existed between the Longworths, father and son.
No. It had been better the way his own father handled the matter. Or failed to handle it.
They reached the corner of Berkeley Street. To their left lay the Charles, gray and ruffled in the autumn wind. Straight ahead, on down Beacon Street past the Garden, lay Charles Street and Beacon Hill: home.
But Ames did not want to go home, not yet. Val might be there, seeking solace, seeking help that so far he had been unable to give.
He paused at the curb. A handsome equipage was just passing, a shiny maroon brougham drawn by a spirited pair of matching bays. The passenger—an attractive woman— seemed to be nodding to him, and so although he did not recognize her, he lifted his hat.
Then, energized by the incident, he turned to MacKenzie and said, “Let us pay a call, Doctor, on someone very different from Mr. Longworth.”
AT THE BERKELEY ARMS, AN ELEGANT APARTMENT HOTEL on Berkeley Street between Commonwealth and Newbury, the uniformed doorman scrutinized Ames and MacKenzie briefly; then he opened the door to admit them to the marble and brass and darkwood lobby. A concierge sat at a desk; he was small and dark and foreign-looking, very haughty.
He examined Ames's card and nodded once, abruptly, waving his hand toward the elevator. “Numbair seex-seventeen,” he said.
They went up. On the sixth floor, they turned down a thickly carpeted corridor. The place was hushed, redolent of money.
Six-seventeen was a door like all the others: gleaming wood with a bright brass number, a push-button bell to one side. Ames had just positioned his gloved finger to press it, when the door burst open and a young man came rushing out, nearly colliding with them. He was tall, and handsome in a pretty way; his brown hair was tousled, his flushed face bright with laughter.
“Oh—I say! Sorry!” he exclaimed. He recovered himself and went jauntily down the corridor.
Ames glanced after him and then turned to the open door. A woman stood just inside, a smile still lingering on her face. Ames realized with a little shock that it was a beautiful face. Astonishingly beautiful—the kind of beauty that one seldom encountered. A perfect oval, creamy white skin, crowned by a mass of auburn hair; wide greenish eyes under dark brows, a lovely line of cheek from forehead to chin, a full red mouth revealing twin rows of perfect teeth.
“I beg your pardon,” Ames began. MacKenzie noted with amusement that he seemed a trifle flustered.
“Certainly,” the woman said. She drew herself up; under the fabric of her green silk gown, they could see the outlines of a magnificent body. She seemed not to be wearing a corset—or, indeed, undergarments of any kind.
“I—ah—Mrs. Vincent?” Ames said. He was fumbling for his card case.
“Yes.” She was perfectly composed now, surveying him—surveying them both—with those wide eyes, heavy dark eyelashes sweeping up and down as she took them in. Behind her hovered a maid.
“I wonder if you—” Ames had finally found his card; he held it out to her.
She took it and glanced at it. The expression in her eyes cooled, became suddenly wary; her smile had vanished entirely.
“Yes, Mr. Ames?”
“I—we—wondered if you would be so good as to give us a few moments of your time,” Ames said. He had recovered his composure, and he spoke with his usual courteous, confident air.
Mrs. Vincent hesitated for a moment. Then without a word she stood back to allow them to enter. MacKenzie could see the maid's look of disapproval; then he was surprised to hear her say, “No time for it, Missus.”
“It's all right, Hilda,” said Mrs. Vincent. “They won't be long—will you, gentlemen?”
She had turned to lead them inside. As they passed through the foyer, Ames saw a handsome fur draped across a carved wooden chest. A handsome fur: a sable cloak, in fact.
“Will you sit down?” Mrs. Vincent said with a graceful movement of her hand. “It is too late for me to offer you tea, I am afraid—I must be at the theater in less than an hour—but I can give you a little time.”
Her parlor was tastefully furnished with sofas and chairs covered in silk and brocade in soft shades of green; a fire crackled on the hearth beneath a white marble mantel, and a small Yorkshire terrier lifted his head from the large silk pillow where he lay to briefly examine the newcomers. He growled once, but at a word from his mistress he subsided.
Mrs. Vincent positioned herself on a pale green love seat fringed in darker green; Ames introduced MacKenzie, and both men took chairs opposite.
“I apologize for the little contretemps at the door just now,” Mrs. Vincent said.
The maid had not offered to take their things, and so now Ames sat perched on his seat, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. His gloves, MacKenzie noted, had fallen to the flowered carpet, which, like everything else in the room, including its mistress, looked to be of high quality, very expensive.
“We did not mean to interrupt—” Ames began.
“Not at all. He was just leaving. Young men can be so careless and impetuous, can they not?” She was smiling again; it was a devastating smile, one that MacKenzie imagined must have devastated many men, young and old alike.
“They can be, yes,” Ames replied.
“He was careless and impetuous last summer at Newport, as well. I had to rescue him.”
Newport again, Ames thought. Where Val had had her own troubles two summers before. Well, whoever this young man had been involved with there, thank heaven it wasn't his young cousin, who had been safely in Bar Harbor.
He tilted his head, inviting her to elaborate. Which, Mac—Kenzie realized, she was only too happy to do. It was her way of establishing herself with them—establishing a kind of authority over them. Her voice was enchanting, vibrant and low, but he had the sense that onstage, she could project it to the farthest seat in the second balcony.
“He was discovered in—well, in an embarrassing situation. In flagrante, in fact. He had to make a hasty exit, and so he came to me. Fortunately, I was a guest on Commodore Vandergrift's yacht—do you know him? He is from New York—and I was able to give him, literally, a berth.”
“How fortunate for him.”
“Yes, wasn't it? Unfortunately for me, now he thinks he's in love with me.”
“I imagine that many men do.”
Mrs. Vincent included MacKenzie in her glance. “One of the hazards of my profession, Mr. Ames.”
“Indeed.”
Ames was remembering that he had met this woman once or twice, years earlier, when she was still a member of his small, chilly circle. But beyond the fact that he had met her, he had no memory of her, and how could that be? Surely a woman so exquisitely beautiful would have made some impression on him.
And now she sat before him, perfectly composed, speaking of her profession—her profession!—as easily as she might have spoken of the weather.
As he well knew—and certainly she did, also—her profession was considered to be no better than that of a scarlet woman. Her profession was one that no decent female would adopt. Her profession was o
ne that she herself had adopted only in the extremity of her disgrace, having been divorced by her husband in the aftermath of a scandal fomented by Colonel William d'Arcy Mann.
“You are having a success in your current production,” he said.
She smiled. Ames felt an unfamiliar sensation in the region of his heart. “Yes,” she said; she was not embarrassed at all to say it.
“It must be a tiring schedule—”
“Mr. Ames, I am somewhat pressed for time. What do you want of me?”
Her bluntness—her near rudeness—startled both men. Perhaps, thought Ames, she has been coarsened by her years in the rough and tumble world of the theater.
Then again, he had no doubt that she knew, at least in a general way, why he wanted to speak to her. Surely she read the newspapers; surely she knew that he had discovered the Colonel's body.
And since she had been mentioned in the Colonel's galleys, and since he'd seen her sable cloak just now in the foyer, surely she was the woman whom Redpath had encountered at the Hotel Brunswick on Monday evening. She could, therefore, just possibly be of help to him.
“I am looking for a certain packet of letters that belong to a young friend,” he began. “Somehow, I do not know how, they fell into Colonel Mann's hands.”
He thought he saw her tense.
He continued: “And the Colonel—”
“Was blackmailing your friend, and so you went to his suite to try to get them back.”
“That's right.”
“But instead, you discovered his body.”
“Yes.”
A sardonic expression came over her lovely face. “It is almost like an excellent play I read last year,” she said. “I declined the role because my part had too few lines, but the basic situation of it was very good. According to the police—in the play, that is—the person who found the body was the one most likely to have done the deed.” Her gaze swept over him again. “Did you kill the Colonel, Mr. Ames?”
“Hardly.”
“Well, someone did, didn't he? And we are all very much indebted to him, are we not?”
“Did you see anyone else when you visited Colonel Mann on Monday evening?” He could see that the question startled her, but only for a moment.
“No.”
“But you do acknowledge that you went to see him?”
She pulled herself up; her expression became arrogant— prideful. If she were older, MacKenzie thought, she might be described at this moment as a grande dame, but she was still too young for that. Not more than thirty-one or -two, he thought.
“That is what the police wanted to know,” she replied.
“Ah. They have questioned you?”
“They most certainly have. And as rudely as can be, I must say. What is the name of that dreadful little man—?”
“Crippen,” he supplied; it was not a guess.
“Crippen, yes. Horrid person! He behaved as if he believed I was the guilty party, can you imagine?”
“Yes. I can. He is not a man of—ah—delicate manners. But then, in his position, he can hardly afford to be.”
She shuddered. “It is too galling to think that we pay him to abuse us like that. Why, he practically accused me of the crime!”
Ames allowed her a moment to banish the odious Crippen from her thoughts, and then he asked, more gently than he had intended, “But you did go to see the Colonel on Monday evening?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't see anyone else?”
“I passed a man in the corridor. But in the Colonel's suite—no.”
“Just the Colonel?”
“Yes.”
“Without success, I take it?”
“Without success.” Her voice was suddenly flat. “If you had ever had any dealings with Colonel Mann, Mr. Ames, you would know what a hard, hard man he was. He had not a drop of mercy—of simple human kindness—in him. So, no, I was not successful. He was demanding a sum of money that was far beyond my ability to pay. And in any case, since he so thoroughly destroyed my reputation some years ago, I was not about to pay him this time around.”
“So why did you go to him?”
“To—to try to make him see reason, I suppose. It was foolish of me, I admit. Reason, to a man like that, was simply and only money. I knew the moment I stepped into his room that I had gone on a fool's errand.”
“How long were you there?”
“Not more than ten minutes.”
“And when you left, you went to the theater?”
“No. Monday is my night off. I came back here.”
“Which your maid will attest to.”
“Of course.” She gave him a wry smile. “What do I pay her for, Mr. Ames, but to say what I tell her to say?”
“In a situation like this, I hardly think it is a matter for jest—”
“I am not jesting. I am simply telling you the truth. I was here on Monday evening, all during the time that someone—finally—killed the Colonel, and Hilda will swear to that.”
Ames shifted a little on his chair, and finally he put his hat on the floor on top of his gloves.
“Do you know a man named Richard Longworth?” he asked.
“Richard Longworth?” She hesitated; then: “Yes.”
“How well?”
“That is rather impertinent, Mr. Ames.”
He shrugged. “I beg your pardon.”
She eyed him narrowly. “Richard Longworth? I have met him.” She lifted one shoulder and let it drop; it seemed an extraordinarily sensuous gesture. “I could not tell you where, but I do recognize the name. Does that satisfy you?”
Not quite, he thought, but he let it pass.
“He had the program from your play in his room at the Hotel Brunswick.”
“Many men have the program from my play in their room.”
“I am sure they do. But his room is adjacent to Colonel Mann's.”
She made no reaction.
Ames was aware that he was too warm. He felt awkward in the presence of this woman, and it was not a sensation to which he was accustomed.
And time was passing, and he was no nearer to finding Val's letters. He reminded himself that doing so was the object of his visit to this woman; he must not let her deflect him from it.
“Mrs. Vincent, do you own a pearl necklace?”
“A pearl necklace? Why, yes, I do.”
“Could I see it? I assure you this is not idle curiosity.”
She contemplated him. “I would be happy to show it to you, but unfortunately I cannot. It broke last week. It is at the jeweler's, being repaired.”
“Do you—might there be some matching piece to it? A bracelet, perhaps?”
Now she was smiling at him again. “No. Not a bracelet. But earrings—yes, I have those, if you are so very interested in my jewelry.”
“If you wouldn't mind.”
Gracefully, she rose and left the room. Ames glanced at MacKenzie and quirked an eyebrow. He did not want to speak; undoubtedly, the maid would be listening. Unless she'd been dispatched to fetch the earrings—but no, here was Mrs. Vincent, back again, the earrings cradled in her palm.
She held them out to him. He needed only one glance to see that they did not match the pearl he'd seen in the Colonel's suite.
“Thank you,” he said. Since she did not resume her seat, he rose. “And I thank you for seeing us. My young—ah— friend is most distressed, as you can imagine, and as you see, I am putting aside all courtesy in my attempt to help her.”
“Not at all, Mr. Ames.” Although her face was grave, she seemed nevertheless to be secretly smiling at him.
She was moving toward the door, and Ames and Mac—Kenzie followed.
“Mrs. Vincent—”
“Yes, Mr. Ames?” She turned to look at him. She was tall for a woman—five foot seven, at least, MacKenzie thought —and with a regal yet graceful way of moving that must serve her well onstage.
“Why did you stay in Boston?” The moment he'
d spoken he was appalled at himself. It was not the way he'd intended to say it; in fact, he'd not intended to say it at all. It had just erupted from him—why, after her disgrace, after having had every door in the city shut to her, after being left destitute, friendless—why had she stayed here?
“I mean,” he added, trying without success to cover his embarrassment, “would you not have done better to go to New York? Or even abroad—London, perhaps?”
She did not seem offended; she looked at him calmly, almost pityingly. “I had to stay here,” she said simply.
“Had to—?”
“Yes. Of course. Can you not understand that? Even if we were never well acquainted, you know me, you know my family. You know what happened to me—thanks to the late and unlamented Colonel Mann. And so because I became a pariah here, it was important to me to stay here and make people acknowledge me once more. Even if it is the kind of acknowledgment that comes with being an actress.”
“I don't—”
“And I have done that, Mr. Ames. Far more than I could have imagined. Why, I fill the theater every time I step onstage!” She spoke without conceit; she was, they understood, simply stating a fact. “Success in New York, or anyplace else, would not have meant half so much to me. Even though I am no longer received in so-called ‘polite society,’ Boston cannot ignore me. I am a presence here, whether people like it or not. That is my triumph, Mr. Ames. And believe me, I savor it.”
He felt as if she'd slapped him across the face, and it took him a moment to regain his composure—what little he'd had, in her presence.
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I did not mean to pry—”
“I would never let you do that,” she replied. They were at the door. She gave him her hand; he took it, wondering if her touch would sear his flesh.
“Would you care to come to a performance tomorrow evening?” she asked, taking in MacKenzie with her glance.
Ames had no idea what he was scheduled to do tomorrow evening, but suddenly it did not matter. “Thank you,” he replied. “That is very kind of you.”
“Not at all,” she said, and it was the truth. “Call at the box office; they will give you chits for my private box.”
The DEATH OF COLONEL MANN Page 12
