Murder at Chateau sur Mer

by Alyssa Maxwell

  Only the day before I had overheard Harry Lehr’s intentions toward her. While certainly not homely, Miss Maude would not be considered a beauty, and Mr. Lehr’s fondness for beautiful women was notorious. I vowed then and there to intervene should I spy the merest hint of Miss Maude falling prey to Harry Lehr’s charms.

  “I’ll take over from here.” Jesse gestured at the doorway, and the uniformed officers took their cue to leave. “Close the door,” he added quietly.

  “Wait.” George Wetmore stood. “Edie, Maude, go back to your rooms for now. Take the back stairs.”

  His wife winced at this reminder of the body lying at the foot of the main staircase. Maude started to rise, but her elder sister stayed her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Father, please. Maude and I aren’t children. We’re thoroughly capable of hearing what must be said.”

  “Girls.” It was their mother who spoke. “Do as your father says. If you wish to be of use, then be on hand when your brothers awaken. They’ll want to know why they aren’t allowed downstairs.” She turned a remarkably calm face in my direction. “We’ve posted a footman outside Rogers and Billy’s room.”

  I merely nodded. The sisters paused another moment, silently conferring with a look that passed between them. Then both turned to scrutinize me, no doubt wondering about my presence there. Their chins jutted in nearly identical ways as they took my measure. Then, almost as one, they stood, leaned to kiss their mother on either cheek, spared a glance for their father, and swept by Jesse and me.

  Their parents each released a breath of relief. Then Mrs. Wetmore stood and approached me. “Miss Cross, thank you for coming. Please, sit beside me.”

  Taking my hand, she led me to the chair Miss Maude had vacated, and then resumed her own seat. She continued to hold my hand even after I settled in next to her. I still couldn’t fathom why she’d sent for me, nor could I ask in such deplorable circumstances. I trusted that the answer would unfold in the next few moments.

  Apparently, George Wetmore felt equally puzzled by my presence. He glared at me from across the table and spoke quietly to his wife. “Why is she here, my dear? Don’t you realize what this young woman does here in Newport?”

  My pulse quickened. I didn’t like being talked about as if I weren’t in the room—or perhaps didn’t warrant being spoken to directly. But then, not everyone in Newport treated me as my Vanderbilt relatives did. Though they acknowledged me as their poor relation, they nonetheless esteemed and respected me for the person I was. There were plenty of others among the Four Hundred who considered me of little account, who put up with my presence at their social gatherings because they enjoyed how I reported on the splendor of their homes and the lavishness of their wardrobes.

  I had thought better of George Wetmore. I had believed that as a year-round resident of the city, except when his senatorial duties sent the family to Washington, he might hold his fellow Newporters in higher regard.

  Mrs. Wetmore seemed to take issue with neither her husband’s disapproval nor my status as a reporter. “I do, George, but that is not why I asked Miss Cross here. I will trust her to keep our confidence.” She glanced at me. I nodded my pledge of discretion. But I was no less mystified than before.

  A knock sounded and the door into the hall opened. A man with dark hair, silvered at the temples, took one stride over the threshold and stopped. He was dressed in formal black and wore white gloves. I noticed his shoes made no sound when he stepped in. The butler, I deduced, correctly. “Sir, the servants are all awake and accounted for.” He spoke with a cultured English accent.

  Mr. Wetmore, sitting with his back to the door, didn’t bother turning. “Did you find everyone in their rooms?”

  “Everyone, sir, except Lucy, who was already up and preparing for her day.”

  “I’ll need to speak with this Lucy,” Jesse said to Mr. Wetmore.

  “Lucy’s a good girl,” the senator retorted. “She didn’t do anything. Thank you, Callajheue, that will be all for now.”

  The butler bowed and retreated, closing the door behind him.

  Jesse took a seat at the table. “Now then, sir, what can you tell me about the woman, Lilah Buford? She approached you at the match this afternoon?”

  “Not exactly. She was attempting to make her way from the general seating on Morton Hill to the grandstand. The police stopped her, and one of them came to me and informed me of the matter.”

  “Did you see her face, sir, and if so, did you recognize her?”

  “I did, and no, I’d never laid eyes on her before in my life,” the senator stated as if sitting in a witness box.

  Jesse’s brows drew together. “Any idea, then, why she specifically asked for you by name?”

  “She did not, Detective.” Mrs. Wetmore’s grip on my hand tightened. “She asked for me.”

  “Edith.” Mr. Wetmore’s voice hissed with warning.

  She met his caution with a righteous lift of her eyebrows. “That is what you told me, George. We must tell the detective the truth.”

  “Had you ever seen her before, ma’am?” Jesse asked.

  George Wetmore held out his hand to forestall his wife’s answer. “Of course she hasn’t. What can you possibly be thinking, asking my wife such a question? This woman broke into our home, undoubtedly to rob us and murder us in our beds, and . . . she fell from our staircase. Drunk, I suspect, as she must have been drunk earlier today at the match.”

  “She might have been inebriated tonight, sir,” Jesse said evenly. “That’s for the coroner to determine. But the officers who ejected her from the polo grounds reported no odor of alcohol hanging about Miss Buford. They made a point in their report to state she did not appear in any way incapacitated.”

  “Then how do you explain her behavior?” George Wetmore’s voice rose to a near bellow.

  “That’s what we are going to find out.” Jesse flipped open a notepad and set his pencil to the paper. “But as for murdering anyone in their beds, no weapon has been found on the body.”

  “Surely you haven’t checked everywhere,” Mr. Wetmore challenged. “It could be hidden . . . somewhere on her person.” He darted a glance at his wife, whose face suffused with color at this indelicate reference to where on a woman’s person a weapon might be hidden. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said sheepishly, and reached over to pat her hand.

  Jesse repeated his question. “Now then, Mrs. Wetmore, had you ever set eyes on Lilah Buford before yesterday morning?”

  “You don’t have to answer that, my dear.”

  “No, George, it’s perfectly all right. The answer is no, I have not. And I do not know what she could have wanted with me. Although, I am involved with numerous philanthropic projects here in the city. Perhaps she thought I might be persuaded to give her money for some cause or other.”

  Jesse’s and my gazes met. While approaching a wealthy woman in a public place might seem more advisable than attempting to call on her in her home, where Lilah undoubtedly would be turned away, the prostitute’s demeanor at the match had spoken of greater urgency than simply wanting a handout.

  Jesse appeared to read my mind. “The servants will be questioned to make sure Miss Buford never attempted to visit you here.”

  “Preposterous.” Mr. Wetmore scoffed. “If she had, don’t you think I would have been informed?”

  “Still and all, sir, it behooves the police to ask. Now then.” Once more Jesse set his pencil to the page open before him. He had been jotting down his observations, which I knew from experience included more than simply the replies of those he questioned. He also recorded their expressions, hesitancies, gestures. “I wished to spare Mrs. Wetmore the more sordid details of this case, but since she insists on being present, I must now speak of Lilah Buford’s activities in town.” His own expression became apologetic.

  The senator cleared his throat. “Must you?”

  “George, let the detective speak.”

  George Wetmore appealed
to his wife in what I expected was not the first, or even his second attempt to shield her from the unpleasantness. “My dear, wouldn’t you rather leave this to the detective and me? Take Miss Cross into the Green Salon and ring for tea. I promise to apprise you of any revelations we might happen upon.”

  The truth suddenly dawned on me. Mrs. Wetmore didn’t know how Lilah Buford made her way in the world. No one had told her. Nor, I assumed, did her daughters know. No wonder George Wetmore had wanted them away. No wonder he now gazed at his wife from beneath hooded lids, his complexion dark with foreboding.

  She cast him a puzzled look in return, and said to Jesse, “Please go on, Detective, and don’t feel you must spare me. I am not as delicate as all that.”

  Jesse drew in a breath and let it out audibly. “Mr. Wetmore, had you ever had occasion to call upon Miss Buford for the purpose of engaging her services?”

  “No, I have not.” At the same time he spoke, his wife said, “George, what does he mean by that?”

  A growing dread forced my eyes closed. I longed to be home, eating Nanny’s warm johnny cakes and drinking her strong tea, rather than in the middle of this domestic storm about to break over my head.

  “George,” Mrs. Wetmore repeated more forcefully, “what does the detective mean?”

  Mr. Wetmore emitted a sound from his throat, part cough and part rumble, and poor Jesse darted glances back and forth between them, a corner of his lip caught between his teeth. It was I, finally, who explained.

  “Mrs. Wetmore,” I said, barely above a whisper, “Lilah Buford found it necessary to depend upon the patronage of gentlemen in order to make her way in the world.”

  “The patronage of . . .” Her hand flew to her lips and her eyes popped wide. “Oh! Good heavens, you mean . . . ?”

  I nodded, and waited for the tempest. Yet, astonishingly, the storm did not break. Instead, I found myself anchored within the calm of the eye by Mrs. Wetmore’s relentless grip on my hand. So tightly did she hold me that my eyes watered and the shelves of leather-bound volumes across the room wavered in my vision. She turned back to her husband.

  “George, are you quite certain of your answer?” Her voice was flat, her expression blank, her eyes empty. She sat stoically straight in her chair, and once she had voiced her question she pinched her lips together.

  “Edith . . . you must believe me. I’ve never set eyes on that woman before yesterday. Nor any woman of her ilk. I swear it on my life. On my love for you, my dear, and our children.”

  His wife didn’t move a muscle, didn’t bat an eye. Did she believe him? She had wrapped herself in dignity, and I guessed that from here on she would not reveal a hint of her thoughts—not if she entertained even the smallest doubt concerning her husband’s integrity.

  “Mr. Wetmore, where were you last night?”

  The senator’s attention snapped from his wife back to Jesse. “Here at home, Detective Whyte, where else?”

  “All night?”

  “Every moment once we arrived home from the polo grounds.”

  Jesse scribbled in his pad. “What time did you go to bed?”

  “I believe it was ten thirty, perhaps a little after. I remember the long case clock chiming the half hour.”

  Jesse turned to Mrs. Wetmore. “Did you retire at the same time as your husband?”

  She nodded, her lips tight. Much to my relief, her fingers eased slightly around my own.

  “Did you both sleep through the night?” Jesse asked.

  “Until a noise woke me.” George Wetmore raised a hand to the bridge of his nose and pinched it. “I almost believed I’d dreamed it, but something didn’t feel right. The house didn’t feel right to me. I rose, put on my dressing gown, and came downstairs. That . . .” He broke off, swallowed, and shook his head several times in rapid motions. “That is when I saw her.”

  Jesse nodded coolly as he took notes. “And Mrs. Wetmore, when did you first realize something wasn’t right?”

  She breathed in sharply through her nose. For a moment I feared she would refuse to answer, but then she raised her eyebrows and said, “I awoke and discovered George’s side of the bed empty.” She blushed and lowered her gaze. Most wealthy couples maintained separate bedroom suites. I had no doubt the Wetmores each had their own bedroom, but perhaps had taken to sharing a room nonetheless. That alone spoke volumes about the nature of their marriage.

  When she said no more Jesse prompted her. “You discovered your husband gone and then what?”

  “Must you goad my wife, Detective?”

  “I must get at the truth, sir. Ma’am?”

  Mrs. Wetmore gazed over at me and I gave her a nod of encouragement.

  She sighed. “Well, coming fully awake, I decided to go downstairs and find him. I thought we might sneak down to the kitchen and make tea or warm some milk. But when I turned at the half landing, there he was, kneeling at the bottom, leaning over that . . . that . . .”

  “Don’t, Edith.” Mr. Wetmore scrubbed a hand across his face. “Please don’t think of it. Don’t think of her.”

  “We have no choice, George, do we? We must think about her, and how she entered our home and died.”

  There came a knock at the door, and it opened upon Scotty Binsford. “The coroner is here, sir.” Jesse nodded his acknowledgment, and Scotty continued. “It looks as though she came in from the veranda and through the ballroom. One of the doors appears to have been jimmied open.”

  “Have you found where she likely gained entrance to the grounds?” Jesse asked him.

  “Not yet. We’re waiting for more light to search for footprints, but she could have entered anywhere along the perimeter. The walls aren’t high enough to keep anyone out.”

  That was true. The stone walls surrounding Chateau sur Mer were far more ornamental than protective. While locked gates at the end of the main and service driveways would keep out vehicles, someone intent upon trespassing could simply climb over.

  “Check the Moongate,” I suggested.

  “Why there?” Jesse’s question didn’t challenge my suggestion as irrelevant, but rather, sought the logic of it.

  “She would not have been seen,” I replied. It was true that Lilah could have scaled the low walls at any point along the perimeter. The Moongate, however, presented an inviting alternative. The circular, ornamental gate, flanked on either side by arcing stone steps that met at a seat at the top, was located on the south side of the property, on quiet Shepard Avenue, rather than on Bellevue where, even in the middle of the night, an intruder risked being seen by homebound partygoers. The gate itself was a rather flimsy affair of thin, waist-high iron dowels and a laughable lock. If Lilah Buford managed to pry open one of the ballroom doors, she certainly could have done likewise to the gate. “Also, since the Moongate is on the south side of the property, it’s more in a direct line to the veranda.”

  Jesse smiled—just the barest curling at the corners of his lips intended for my eyes alone. He peered out the front-facing window. Gray light gathered over the lawn, revealing the mist-laden driveway and Bellevue Avenue beyond. “You should be able to see well enough now. Check for footprints. And check that veranda carefully.” Before Scotty backed out of the room, Jesse vacated his seat and approached him. “See if you can discover whether Lilah entered the estate alone or not.” Scotty nodded and left. Jesse addressed Mr. and Mrs. Wetmore. “I have to speak with the coroner. I suggest the two of you remain where you are until the—until Miss Buford has been removed.”

  Mr. Wetmore nodded, his face grim. Mrs. Wetmore shuddered. She had yet to release my hand and cringed when Jesse spoke my name.

  “Emma, a moment, if you would.”

  Mrs. Wetmore’s hand tightened around my own again. This only baffled me further. Although I had reported on family picnics, garden parties, and her daughter Maude’s birthday ball, I had never had occasion to speak personally with Mrs. Wetmore or her husband. At each of the affairs that brought me to Chateau sur Mer, I ha
d dealt with either the housekeeper or the butler. While I thoroughly understood why she had sent her two daughters upstairs, away from the unpleasantness, I could think of no reason why my presence should bring her any measure of comfort.

  She reluctantly released me and I followed Jesse into the Tapestry Hall. He closed the door behind us.

  “What is your sense of the Wetmores’ connection to Lilah Buford’s death?”

  I held out my hands. “I cannot say, other than that I don’t believe either one of them is capable of murder. But as to what brought Lilah here . . .”

  “Are you thinking blackmail?”

  I compressed my lips and considered before replying. “In other circumstances, it would seem the most likely scenario. But what can a woman in Lilah Buford’s position know about people like the Wetmores? They lead impeccable lives. I cannot think of a more upstanding and sensible family than the Wetmores.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” he reminded me.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps Lilah only thought she knew something about the Wetmores.” I was thinking specifically of a false allegation made against my relative Frederick Vanderbilt last autumn, and the terrible price paid because of it.

  Jesse bobbed his head at the memories we shared of that time. He smiled again, sadly, and raised a hand to graze my cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “But the fact remains, she entered Chateau sur Mer, and she died. Whatever her errand was, she either fell on her way up the stairs, or she was pushed.”

  “Are you sure the fall was the cause of death?”

  Jesse shrugged. “It certainly appears so. We detected no sign of blood, but the coroner will make the determination.”

  Scotty called to Jesse from inside the ballroom. “Sir, come look at this.”

  Jesse touched my elbow. “Why don’t you go back in with the Wetmores.”

  “I will, after we see what your men found.”

  Jesse knew better than to argue. We walked through the French ballroom with its varying shades of gray, gilded moldings, and bright floral-upon-yellow silk furnishings. As soon as we stepped out onto the veranda, I saw what the policemen had discovered. A line of black scuff marks marred the flooring from the edge that bordered the lawn to the door that had been forced open.