Murder at Chateau sur Mer

by Alyssa Maxwell

  I leaned toward her in a gesture meant to gain her confidence. “Why was that?”

  “He’s . . . he’s not a nice man. Not that all of them are, mind you. But Whittaker . . . he could be mean. He wanted . . . things other men didn’t ask for.” She rubbed her forearms up and down. Was she remembering past bruises, like the bruises that marred poor Lilah’s body? I thought, too, of Whittaker’s wife, Bessie. Did he treat her in kind, or did he spare her and take out his frustrations with women who were unlikely to complain? Did she know of his predilections? Perhaps so. Rumors often circulated about parties at the Whittakers’ cottage, the details making their way through the servants’ networks straight to Nanny’s ears. She never told me specifics, and that in itself spoke volumes about the kinds of things that went on. Shameful things. Word had it Bessie Whittaker would take to her room and not emerge until the last guest had left.

  These girls had no such luxury. The coroner had found bruises, new and old, on Lilah’s body. Whittaker? I didn’t doubt it.

  “What about the others, his friends?” I prompted. I turned back to the girl at the opposite end of the sofa. “You said you’d entertained Robert Clarkson.”

  “Only a time or two, miss.”

  “Did he prefer Lilah?”

  My question produced a wounded expression on her youthful features. “I told you, he doesn’t come very often. I don’t know if he ever called on Lilah.”

  “And Harry Lehr?” I kept on.

  Chuckles circulated among the girls, and the brunette said, “King Lehr, they call him. Did you know? Anyway, he always spends his time in the smoking room down the hall. Mind you, he pays for the privilege, but he just sits there smoking his cigarettes, drinking our best brandy, and staring into space. If any of us offer our services, he just shrugs and keeps staring.”

  I sat back. “That’s odd. He’s never asked for any of you?”

  All four shook their heads and exchanged knowing looks I didn’t understand.

  “He never asked for Lilah either?”

  Miss Perry, silent all this time, spoke up. “Never that I know of. Don’t know why he bothers coming.”

  Again, that secretive look passed among Madam Heidi’s girls. He must have had some reason. Harry Lehr was a known womanizer. Perhaps he missed the thrill of conquest in a place like this, where the women needed no coaxing to ply their trade. I set the matter aside for now. “Did Lilah entertain other customers of note?”

  “Sure, there were other society bucks, but mostly young ones,” Miss Perry said. “You know, raw youths in search of wives, but who wanted to learn a few things first. No one as regular as Whittaker, though.

  “But there were others?” As they nodded, I noticed disparaging expressions among the girls. “Did any—or perhaps all—of you have reason to resent Lilah?”

  “She was taking business away from the rest of us,” the brassy blonde said with a scowl. “Good business. Even if it was rough sometimes.”

  “Did any of you wish her ill?” I bluntly asked.

  “Sometimes I did,” the brunette said with no hint of apology. “Anyway, I wished she’d go away.” With a glare at Miss Perry, she gathered her dressing gown around her as if gathering her dignity.

  The others nodded their agreement, except, I noticed, for the one at the other end of the sofa. She’d gone quiet again, drawn in on herself.

  “One more question. Do you all know who George Wetmore is?”

  “O’ course.”

  My blood ran cold at the eager and unanimous answer, until the brunette continued speaking.

  “We do get out upon occasion, you know. Mr. Wetmore presided over this year’s July Fourth celebrations in town. Those Wetmores, they’re different from the rest of the quality. They’re Newporters.”

  “Yes, they are,” I agreed. “And that’s how you know of Mr. Wetmore?”

  They seemed puzzled by this until Miss Perry chuckled. “Are you suggesting Mr. Wetmore has been here? Hardly, though we’d surely not turn him away should he ever come knocking. Don’t think he will, though, more’s the pity.”

  Were they telling the truth? Had they been paid or threatened into silence on the matter? I gazed from face to face, detecting no sudden tension that hadn’t been there previously. “Have any of you ever known Lilah to behave in a reckless or erratic manner?”

  “Gracious, no.” Miss Perry whisked strands of hair back from her face. “Lilah, she knew how to act a part. Could be quite the lady when she wanted to be. That’s what kept the rich gentlemen coming back, why they paid court to Lilah almost as if she was one of their own. One willing to let them do, you know, what their wives and sweethearts wouldn’t. Hell, even their mistresses wouldn’t let ’em do what Lilah let ’em do.”

  I schooled the distaste from my features while the girls agreed with Miss Perry’s assessment, albeit begrudgingly. My questions answered for the moment, I prepared to rise. I had one more request. “Might I see Lilah’s room?”

  “Suit yourself.” Miss Perry came to her feet and led the way up another flight of stairs.

  A hodgepodge of scents greeted me at the top: rosewater, lavender, and a spicy citrus scent mingled with that of tobacco and a sweet hint of spirits, brandy, I surmised. We had arrived at a rectangular landing covered in a well-worn Turkey carpet. Several doors opened directly onto the landing. I glimpsed unmade beds, clothing tossed over chairs, and dressers covered in a scattering of personal items.

  It all seemed so . . . ordinary. These could have been any young women’s bedrooms. I don’t know what I had expected. Perhaps colorful silks and velvets, as one might find in an exotic harem. Or perhaps insects crawling on the walls, rats scurrying about, and drunken men sprawled across the floors. But this—this was somehow worse than anything my imagination could conjure. This brought home to me how easily any woman might find herself in such circumstances, forced to work in whatever means she could in order to eat and have a roof over her head. Ordinary young women of decent background, fallen on hard times . . . Ordinary young women like myself, had my life been different. In theory, of course, I had always known this. I had met, housed, fed, and helped women such as these begin anew. But I had never before contemplated how very like me they were.

  Oblivious to my revelations, Miss Perry led me to a room on our right. “This is Lilah’s.”

  This could have been my own room at home. Simple furnishings, iron bedstead, and a patchwork quilt that made me wonder if Lilah had made it herself. The homey touch banished what lingered in my mind of the sordidness of such a place, or nearly so.

  As I made a circuit of the room, I absently ran my hand over the pine surfaces. Personal effects littered the dresser top. Jars of powder and rouge, hair combs, a brush and mirror, a tattered fan . . . These abandoned items brought an ache to my throat.

  What had brought Lilah to the Blue Moon? Had she had plans to leave, or had she given up believing her life could be anything more? Somehow, whatever path she had traveled, and the reasons for it, had led her to the bottom of the Wetmores’ staircase.

  Coming back around to the dresser, I opened the top drawer. Once again I was struck by the ordinariness of the contents. Linens, handkerchiefs, stockings, gloves, a buttonhook. The other two drawers yielded similar results. I rummaged through them all, uncovering nothing more significant than undergarments, scarves, a string of glass beads, extra buttons. In the night table beside the bed, I found a pair of spectacles.

  “Lilah wore glasses?”

  “I suppose. Not often.” Miss Perry thought a moment, then grinned. “She wore them to read your column out loud to us.”

  The comment pierced me unexpectedly. It drew a connection, however tenuous, between Lilah and myself. I was about to close the drawer when the edge of something brown and gold caught my eye. I reached in and drew out a leather-bound photograph album, its pages edged in gold leaf.

  “I’d forgotten about that.” Miss Perry perched one hip against the end of the dresser.
“She used to look through it sometimes,” she said unnecessarily, for why else did someone keep a photograph album? Though perhaps Heidi Perry found dwelling on the past a fruitless occupation.

  I flipped through. That ache returned as a child of about five peered at me through the camera lens. With each turn of the page Lilah aged—a year, perhaps two—but the resemblance remained strong. I’d found some people were like that—features evident in childhood changed little into adulthood.

  In some pictures a woman who must have been her mother held her hand, or sat with Lilah in her lap, the two of them still and solemn while the photography worked its magic. Then a man appeared, obviously wearing his Sunday best. Her father, I presumed. And then a second child joined the family circle, a boy, though in the first few pictures he sported the sack-like dresses little boys typically wore until they were old enough for knickers. Here and there, a picture went missing. Had they fallen out, or been removed?

  The last couple of pages featured an older Lilah, perhaps thirteen or so, looking sweet and smart in a dress cinched at the waist with a wide sash and a matching ribbon in her long, loose hair. The garment appeared to be of passing good quality, and it struck me that the mere existence of this album, with its many photos, suggested the family had not been poor. Downstairs, Miss Perry had said Lilah knew how to act the part of a lady. Perhaps it was no act, but rather the lessons imparted to her by her own mother.

  What had happened to them? Why did Lilah leave her home? In those last pictures, her face held all the fresh, eager promise of any girl of that age. But all too soon, the pages turned blank, and I glimpsed no further insight into Lilah’s life during the years prior to her arriving at the Blue Moon.

  “Do you know what happened to the family?”

  Miss Perry pushed away from the dresser and came to glance over my shoulder. Reaching down, she turned back the pages to ones holding photographs of the whole family. “She told me diphtheria took her parents. I asked about the boy in the pictures and she said he was dead, too. She talked about it once and never spoke of it again.”

  I had looked for the reason that brought her to the Blue Moon, to this dismal life, and I had found it. It was exactly the sort of thing that could have brought me here, or anyone. What money the family might have had most likely went to paying doctor’s bills or debts, or had been stolen from the young girl who had found herself alone in the world.

  “And you don’t know who raised her afterward?”

  “Missy, one of my hard and fast rules here is no questions. If a girl ain’t telling, I ain’t asking. Lilah never said.”

  I gazed down at the album. “May I take one of these?”

  “Suit yourself. That book’s no good to anyone anymore. Take the whole thing, if you like.”

  I did. Then I not only thanked Miss Perry for her time, I reached into my purse for a few coins, all I could spare. When I held them out to her, she regarded them a moment, and then smirked. “You keep that, missy, I won’t have your money. You couldn’t afford me if you wanted,” she added with a laugh. “Now, that house of yours, out on Ocean Avenue? Yes, I know where you live. You could really do something with it, make yourself quite a showplace. Attract the crème de la crème. You and I together . . .” She laughed again at my wide-eyed look as I gathered her meaning. “Never mind.”

  My last words to her exacted a promise that neither she nor her girls would divulge any of our conversation. I hurried down the three flights, relieved to emerge into sunlight and fresh air, or what seemed fresh after the oppressive atmosphere of Lilah Buford’s bedroom. A voice called my name before I’d taken many steps.

  “Miss Cross, wait.”

  * * *

  I turned to see the young golden-haired girl standing in the tavern entrance. She approached me with a wary expression. “It’s true, then, Lilah is dead.”

  I couldn’t help treating her to an incredulous stare, until I realized the full impact of someone’s death often took time to set in. It’s not that she hadn’t understood me upstairs in the parlor, but that she hadn’t truly accepted it until now. “Yes,” I said gently. “I’m afraid so.”

  She had traded her nightgown and robe for a proper cotton day dress and shawl, her slippers for a pair of low-heeled boots. She looked like a child, like the Lilah of the last pages of the album.

  “I didn’t want to say in front of the others, but Lilah was afraid. She told me she overheard something—men talking. Her last customer had just left, and she’d come down here for a breath of air and to see if there might be anyone loitering about. Lilah was real good at drawing in the ones who hadn’t quite made up their minds whether they wanted to come in or not. It was a talent she had. Anyway, there were two men—leastwise she thought there were two—talking just around the corner of the building.” She said all this in a rushed whisper.

  I drew her farther away from the tavern, up along the walkway that led back to the street and out of sight of the Blue Moon’s windows. “What is your name?” My question wasn’t simply a means to be friendly. In the event she revealed something vital, I wanted to know whom to ask for should I need to speak with her again.

  “I’m Florence, but everyone calls me Flossie.”

  “Well, then, Flossie, what is it Lilah heard?”

  “Like I said, two men talking. About that Mr. Wetmore you mentioned. They were angry about something and wanted to . . . oh, what were the words she used?”

  “Take your time,” I said patiently, while half wanting to shake it out of her.

  “Now I remember. They wanted to see a good bit of mud splattered on the Wetmores’ doorstep. A funny way of putting it, I thought, and I laughed. A lot of us hereabouts wouldn’t mind seeing a little mud splattered on some of those cottagers. Serve ’em right. But Lilah, she said I shouldn’t laugh, it wasn’t funny. She said the Wetmores were good people and someone had to warn them.”

  Those words practically echoed what I’d heard at the polo match. Robert Clarkson, Harry Lehr, and Stanford Whittaker—and the Dingley Tariff Act. Could it all be as simple as that? “Did the men say why they wished ill on the Wetmores?”

  “I asked the same question, and I think Lilah knew, but she wouldn’t tell me. She said I was better off not knowing, and she had already said too much.”

  Lilah thought she’d heard two men talking, but perhaps there had been three. Had my disgruntled trio discovered that she had eavesdropped, killed her, and brought her to Chateau sur Mer? If so, then finding justice for both Lilah and George Wetmore lay within reach, for Mr. Wetmore had done no wrong. He had no connection to Lilah Buford, except that she had wished to do the right thing and warn him.

  But why had she insisted on speaking with Mrs. Wetmore? Did she merely believe another woman would listen to her and take her warning seriously? No, it could not be this easy. A piece, or several, still lay hidden. It seemed I needed to speak with Mrs. Wetmore again.

  Flossie turned to run back inside, but I stilled her another moment. “I could see upstairs that the others aren’t overly distressed about Lilah’s passing.”

  A sadness entered her eyes. “I liked her, Miss Cross. She was like an older sister to me. I didn’t care if the customers preferred her. They couldn’t help it, and neither could she. The others, well, I suppose they couldn’t understand that.”

  “Had Lilah had words with any of them?”

  “All the time. We’re always having words. But it doesn’t mean anything,” she added hastily, looking wary once more. “Like sisters. Do you have any sisters, Miss Cross?”

  I shook my head, but said, “I have a brother, and yes, we sometimes argue.”

  “Then you know. Well, I’d . . . I’d best go back inside. And you, Miss Cross, you shouldn’t linger here any longer. It wouldn’t do for you to be seen talking with me.”

  “Thank you for your help, Flossie.” Before I’d quite finished expressing my gratitude, she was gone, the tavern door banging behind her. I wished she had lingered
another moment, for I had wanted to tell her that if she ever needed help, or perhaps wished to leave this life, the door at Gull Manor would be open to her.

  Disappointed but resolved to convey that message at a later date, I turned away, back toward Thames Street. A looming figure blocked my path, and a broad, square face like that of a bulldog leered down at me. I froze, a cold lump of fear growing in my stomach.

  The wide mouth stretched in a grin that sent me a step backward. “Well, if it ain’t Miss Emmaline Cross.”

  I drew a steadying breath. “Please step out of my way, Mr. Dobbs.” I couldn’t walk around him, as the narrowness of the passageway forbade it.

  “It’s Detective Dobbs, or was, until you stuck your prim little nose into my affairs.”

  I said nothing, but took a quick survey from his toes on up to his slouchy tweed cap. He wore workman’s clothes, stiff and thick and none too clean. Coal dust caked his hands and smeared his face.

  “That’s right,” he said with mock cordiality, “I’m shoveling coal brought in from the barges into the warehouse, and then into the delivery wagons. Quite a step down for me. Happy?”

  I gathered my courage and looked him in the eye. “Have you forgotten that if not for my intervention, you very likely would have been hanged for a murder you did not commit?”

  “Your saving me from the hangman’s noose was an unfortunate accident for you, a convenient one for me. Either way, you were out to destroy me. Did it to get even for Brady, didn’t you, Miss Cross?”

  It was true that I’d long since concluded that Anthony Dobbs, former detective with the Newport Police, was a menace to decent society. He had hounded my brother for years, locking him up for the slightest offenses and more often than not knocking him about in the process. Dobbs had been all too happy to arrest Brady on suspicion of murder two summers ago, but when the tables turned soon after and it was Dobbs accused, I’d fought to prove his innocence. As I would have done for any individual wrongly accused. No, I didn’t like the man, but neither had I ever done him an ill turn. He had done that himself when he decided to extort local businesses. The truth of it came out during his incarceration for suspected murder. He’d supplemented his detective’s salary quite nicely in exchange for his “protection” and looking the other way when merchants weighted their scales or blatantly broke laws concerning fair business practices.