by Nash, Jean
“Oh, no,” Susanna cried softly. “Not Teddy. It’s impossible. I don’t believe it.”
“My dear, are you all right?” Griffith stood up and came around the desk. Susanna’s face had gone suddenly ashen. He took her wrist, monitored the pulse, and found it racing. “I’m sorry, Susanna. I had no idea you’d be so upset by the news.”
“He was so young,” she said in a daze. “The newspaper says he took his own life, but he wouldn’t do such a thing. I don’t believe it.”
After she left Griffith’s office, she went directly to the telegraph office and wired Jay at the Imperial in New York. She waited for the reply and read it rapidly when it came.
“Jay not in town to my knowledge,” the message said. “Will alert his other hotels to try to locate him.” The wire was signed, “Leonard Thorne, Manager, Imperial Hotel.”
Susanna knew Leonard. She’d met him when visiting New York this past winter. He was of the same dynamic breed as Jay and Teddy, and as manager of Jay’s flagship hotel, he was one of the elite of Jay’s staff. If anyone could find Jay, it was Leonard.
She returned to the Excelsior, disappointed but hopeful. When she entered the suite, she was greeted at the bedroom door by the personal maid Jay had engaged for her. Grace Pascal was a handsome woman in her forties, a childless widow whose husband had died almost three years before in the short-lived war with Spain. Susanna had liked her immediately, but she couldn’t help wondering why Jay hadn’t let her choose her own maid. It didn’t matter, of course. Jay knew best about servants. Besides, Grace was so efficient that Susanna could hardly complain because the choice hadn’t been hers.
“Mrs. Grainger, you look exhausted!” Grace said.
Mrs. Grainger. It still gave Susanna a thrill to hear herself so addressed. As Grace took her things, she admitted, “I am a little tired. And I’ve just had some dreadful news. One of Mr. Grainger’s employees was found dead in Boston.”
“I read about it this morning, ma’am. Come along now,” she said soothingly. “Get out of those clothes and into a soft robe. I’ll call down for a nice hot toddy for you. A few hours sleep will make you feel right as rain again.”
The toddy was soothing, but when Susanna climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep, she had a disturbing dream. She was at the Sea Star with Teddy—except that Teddy looked like Dallas—and Jay was there, too. Jay was angry. He kept shouting at Teddy/Dallas and insisting that he must leave. Susanna tried to intercede. She was holding a child in her arms. “You can’t discharge Teddy,” she said. “He’s the baby’s father.” Which sent Jay into a rage. “I knew he had betrayed me,” he said. Then he turned on Teddy, put his hands around his throat and began to choke him.
In the dream, Susanna screamed. She wanted to help Teddy, but she was hindered by the child in her arms. “Jay, stop it!” she cried. “You’ll kill him.” Jay released Teddy and turned violently on Susanna. The dream was so real. She could feel his hands bruise her arms. She felt his breath on her face. Terrified, she screamed again, then woke with a start and looked up to see Jay looming over her.
His hands dug into her arms, his eyes were wide with alarm. “Susanna!” He shook her when she stared at him in petrified silence. “What’s the matter? Why were you moaning?”
She couldn’t help it, she cringed. She was still half asleep and the memory of the dream was too vivid, too appalling. Jay’s hands seemed to burn into her flesh. His eyes, dark with worry, looked to Susanna like rage. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered hoarsely. “Let me go.”
“Susanna, for God’s sake, what’s wrong?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and brought her firmly into his arms. She stiffened at first, but then, as his strength and familiar warmth brought her fully awake, she relaxed in his embrace with a sob.
“What’s happened? Why are you like this?” His voice was rough with fear. “Where the devil is Grace? By Christ, I’ll have her head.”
“Jay, don’t be angry with her,” Susanna said swiftly. “I told her I wouldn’t need her for a few hours. It’s so silly....” She shook her head in embarrassment. “I had a dream, that’s all, a silly dream.”
He held her a little away from him and eyed her dubiously. “What kind of dream could have scared you so badly?”
In a halting voice, she recounted the nightmare as best she could, shuddering as she remembered Jay’s violence. His arms tightened protectively about her, but when she told him of his attempt to strangle Teddy, his hold loosened, a strange look crossed his face, and he rose and went over to the window. He drew back the curtain and looked out at the gathering dusk.
“Jay, you do know what’s happened to Teddy?”
He didn’t answer at once. Then: “Yes, I know.”
“Why did he kill himself?” She almost choked on the words.
Jay shrugged. “Out of remorse, I imagine. He left a note saying that he and Alan Devlin were partners in the embezzlement scheme. When Teddy tried to collect his share, Alan refused to give him the money, so Teddy killed him. He said in the note that he could no longer live with the guilt.”
Susanna stared at him incredulously. “Teddy? An embezzler and a murderer? I don’t believe it.” And when Jay said nothing but only watched her in grim silence, she said, “You don’t believe it, do you?”
“If it isn’t true, Susanna, why did he kill himself?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Jay moved away from the window, settled on a chair near the bed, and lighted a cigarette. “In any case,” he said, “I suspected Teddy’s involvement with Alan. That’s why I sent him to Boston when he so desperately wanted to go to Baltimore. The money is still missing, you see. Alan must have hidden it well, because neither Teddy nor the Baltimore police could come up with a penny of it.”
“You suspected him all along?” Susanna was confused. “Then you weren’t jealous of him and me?”
“Not entirely. I did think your admiration for him was excessive, though. I don’t have to tell you how much that enraged me under the circumstances.”
A vague uneasiness stirred through Susanna. She rose, slipped on her robe, then sat on the edge of the bed, facing her husband. “Why didn’t you tell me you suspected him? Didn’t you trust me?
“It wasn’t a matter of trust, Susanna. I simply thought that the fewer people who knew about it, the better. Don’t forget, it was only a suspicion on my part. Teddy’s suicide would seem to have confirmed it.”
Susanna shivered and hugged her arms. She still couldn’t believe it. “Jay,” she said hesitantly, knowing the question was morbid, “how did he die?”
“He hanged himself,” Jay said. “He hooked a curtain tieback over the ceiling light fixture, wrapped it around his neck, and stepped off a chair.”
“Dear God,” she whispered, her hand going instinctively to her throat.
“I discovered the body,” Jay said.
“You?” A horrible thought crossed Susanna’s mind, which she instantly dismissed. Dreams are not reality. “What were you doing in Boston?”
“I had someone watching Teddy. I wanted to see if he’d tip his hand. Little did I know....” Jay shook his head and put out his cigarette. “Well, it’s a dead issue now, isn’t it?”
His tone was resolved. The mystery was solved. But a look in his eyes led Susanna to believe that the issue was still very much alive.
Try as she might, Susanna couldn’t get Teddy Addison out of her thoughts. At a time when she should have been her happiest—newly a bride, carrying the child of the man she loved—all she could think of was betrayal and death and deception. That she could have so badly misjudged Teddy was difficult to grasp. Even Dallas, whom she hadn’t seen since the wedding, was shocked and disbelieving when she told him the dreadful news.
He didn’t say much, but Susanna could tell how upset he was. Dallas had been as fond of Teddy as Susanna had been. She’d worked side by side with him. She’d known him intimately. There were times she used to think she
knew Teddy better than she knew Jay. Surely she couldn’t have been so wrong about his character. There must be more to this situation than was meeting the eye—or perhaps there was more than Jay was telling her.
Only a week after Jay returned to Atlantic City, he said to his bride, “I hate to leave you again so soon, but I must go to Chicago. I’ve been thinking of opening a hotel there, and an opportunity has come up that I’d like to look into.”
“Why don’t we go together?” Susanna suggested. “We can make it a combination business trip and honeymoon.”
Jay shook his head apologetically. “That’s not a good idea. I’ll be busy day and night. When we take our honeymoon, I want to devote all my time to you.”
“But, Jay—”
“I’m sorry, Susanna. It’s impossible for you to come with me.” Then, seeing her disappointment, he said gently, “You above all women should know that a hotel man’s life isn’t his own. You knew what you were getting into when you married me. You don’t regret it, do you? You don’t wish you had married some nine-to-five banker?”
“Of course not,” she said indignantly. “I just wish....”
“What do you wish?”
“Nothing,” she murmured, ashamed of her childishness. “Go to Chicago if you must. I don’t mind.”
But she did mind, even more than Jay suspected she did.
He left toward the end of October. Susanna returned to the Sea Star and took up her duties there, though on a very limited basis. Jay had engaged Colin Baxter to assist her, a man who was as aggressive as Teddy had been. Colin was so efficient, in fact, that Susanna found herself with more leisure time than she cared to have. When Augusta wrote to her, inviting her to New York for the Thanksgiving holiday, Susanna readily accepted, glad of something to do, which pleased her delighted mother to no end.
“Marriage has changed you, darling,” Augusta said to her as they rode home from the train station in the elegant Weston brougham. “There was a time wild horses couldn’t have dragged you away from the Sea Star.”
“The Sea Star doesn’t need me anymore,” Susanna said dolefully. “Jay’s people are so capable that the hotels they manage practically run themselves.”
Augusta studied her with a mother’s perceptive eyes. “Now that you’re married and expecting a child, Susanna, you have to expect that your life is going to change.”
“I do, Mother.” Susanna’s tone was touchingly wistful. “But I never expected to have an absentee husband.”
Augusta sighed. “Where is he this time?”
“He’s in Chicago. Didn’t Ford go with him?”
“No, he didn’t. What is Jay doing in Chicago?”
“It’s another hotel, naturally. But isn’t it strange that Ford didn’t go with him to handle the legal details?”
“Darling, don’t ask me to explain the mystifying motives of that husband of yours. All I know is that we’ve been in New York ever since we returned from Hartford.”
“Hartford? Oh, yes. How is Ford’s brother?”
“Not well, I’m afraid. The doctors say that if he doesn’t stop drinking, he’ll be dead within a year.”
Augusta shook her head as if shaking off unpleasant memories. “Let’s not talk about that, darling. I want us to enjoy our visit. I wish Dallas had come, too. This way I could have had both my babies with me.”
Susanna laughed, her thoughts neatly diverted by Augusta’s maneuvering. “We’re hardly babies, Mother. I’ll be having one of my own soon.”
“You two will always be my babies,” Augusta maintained. “When your daughter is twenty-five years old, Susanna, you’ll know what I mean.”
Susanna, who couldn’t begin to imagine having a daughter that age, was unable to think of a reply.
Her second visit to New York wasn’t nearly as exciting as her first. For one thing, she had experienced almost everything the city had to offer. For another thing, and more important, Jay wasn’t with her. She tried not to brood on his absence. After all, she’d gone into this marriage with her eyes wide open. She knew how he was. She had wanted him anyway. If he were different, less driven, he wouldn’t be the man she loved. Still, in her heart of hearts, she was a little resentful that he could leave her so easily.
She did get to visit Morgan and her family, which was enjoyable, especially since Cornelia wasn’t there. Morgan was the same breathtaking bundle of energy Susanna remembered so fondly.
“A baby?” she exclaimed when told the happy news. “I couldn’t be more pleased! Jay needs a family of his own. Oh, Susanna, you’re going to make a new man of my brother!”
Susanna smiled as if in agreement, but she had her doubts about that.
Most of her afternoons were spent shopping with Augusta, who insisted on buying virtually every juvenile article available at Stern Brothers and B. Altman’s.
“It’s my first grandchild,” Augusta would defend herself against every protest Susanna made. “Surely you won’t deny me the pleasure of purchasing a few necessary items.”
The “necessary” items included an oak clipper sled, a replica of Noah’s ark with two hundred carved animals, a perambulator fit for a royal heir, a christening dress handmade in France and trimmed with Valenciennes lace, and, of course, a sterling silver spoon and porridge bowl from Tiffany & Company, which no self-respecting infant could do without.
Ford, not to be outdone by his wife, came home one evening with three sets of British toy soldiers: the Life Guards, the Grenadier Guards, and a kilted Highland regiment.
“You’ve squandered your money,” Augusta told him. “It’s going to be a girl.”
Ford smiled wryly. “Jay Grainger’s first child? Not on your life, my dear. It’s going to be a boy.”
Ford was wonderful to Susanna. During her visit, he couldn’t have been more loving than if he were her own father. One morning at breakfast, when they chanced to be alone, he said to her, “I can’t tell you what it means to me to have acquired a ready-made family.”
Susanna reached across the table and squeezed his hand. She was so fond of this man who had mended the shattered pieces of her mother’s life. “You’ll make a fine grandfather, Ford. And Jay’s son,” she said, acknowledging his prophecy, “is going to be the luckiest child in the world.”
“I hope so,” he said, his voice suddenly grim.
“What’s the matter?” Susanna asked uneasily. “Why do you say that?”
Ford put down his coffee cup and regarded her gravely. “No reason. It was stupid of me. Forgive me, Susanna.”
“Ford, something’s wrong. I insist that you tell me.”
He seemed reluctant to speak. After a pause, he said, “I didn’t want to spoil your visit by bringing this up, but I suppose you ought to know. Jay has dispensed with my services.”
“What?” She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “But why? Jay trusts you above all people.”
Ford laughed shortly. “Jay trusts no one, Susanna.”
“That’s not true,” she defended him. “Ford, why did he let you go?”
He gave this some thought, as if choosing one reason out of many. “Our relationship has deteriorated since I married Augusta. Jay disapproved of the marriage. He made no bones about that.”
“He told me you had quarreled,” Susanna said, “but he said that you talked it over and everything was all right.”
“No. Our relationship changed from that day. Jay stopped confiding in me. When I’d hear from someone else what I should have been hearing from Jay, I’d question him about it, and he would say that it had slipped his mind. It slipped his mind when he sent Teddy to Boston? It slipped his mind when the Boston police told him they suspected Teddy had been murdered?”
An icy chill froze Susanna. “Murdered? Jay said he hanged himself.”
“That’s what was first thought. But when Teddy’s body was examined, the marks on his throat were inconsistent with the cord from which he’d been hanging. The police think someone strangled him,
then strung him up so that it would look like suicide.”
“And Jay knew that? Why didn’t he tell me? Ford, if it was murder, who could have done it?” Before he had a chance to answer, another thought struck Susanna. “Do you think a third person was involved with Teddy and Alan Devlin? Maybe he killed Teddy to get the money.”
“A third person, Susanna? I don’t understand.”
She related what Jay had told her about Teddy’s involvement in the embezzlement. As she spoke, she saw Ford’s eyes narrow. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you know about Teddy and Alan?”
“No,” he said tightly. “That’s another piece of information Jay saw fit to withhold from me. Goddamn him! If I had any regrets about breaking with him, they’re gone now. I wish I’d known this when I talked to him. I’d have been a lot less civil than I was.”
“When did you talk to him?” As far as Susanna knew, Jay hadn’t seen Ford since the wedding.
“A few days before you arrived here.”
“Jay was in New York? But he told me he was going to Chicago to see about opening a hotel there.”
“I don’t know anything about that, Susanna. All I know is, he was on his way to Boston.”
“For what reason?” Confused and disoriented, Susanna felt as if she were discussing the motives of a stranger.
“Who knows?” Ford said bitterly. “Jay probably wanted to tell me but, like everything else, it must have slipped his mind.”
She couldn’t sleep that night. She lay awake for hours, unable to bring order to the chaos in her mind. It had been bad enough thinking that Teddy had taken his own life. Knowing he’d been murdered was too terrible to even contemplate.
Not only that, but who had murdered him? Susanna couldn’t conceive of one person doing away with another. For example, Ford was deeply angry with Jay, but Susanna couldn’t imagine Ford killing him. True, Jay had tried Ford’s patience almost beyond endurance, but civilized people simply didn’t murder one another.
