A Sense of Entitlement (A Hattie Davish Mystery)

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  After the two men left the room, Mrs. Johnville hesitated, staring down at the bloodstained carpet.

  “Who would do such a thing?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, answering her rhetorical question.

  “He was such a decent man, a reasonable employer. I can’t imagine who could’ve done this.”

  “He had no obvious enemies then? No one he might’ve wronged? No one he might’ve argued with over business or politics or . . . ?”

  The housekeeper shook her head. “No, nothing, except of course the usual quarrels with . . .”

  “With his son?” I said, finishing her thought. I remembered the argument between the two I’d seen just yesterday. She frowned but nodded slightly. I waited, but she said no more about it.

  “And then there’s the pamphlet,” she said cryptically.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “I know how Mr. Whitwell came to have it,” she whispered.

  “You do?”

  “That man they were talking about has been passing out those pamphlets at all the cottages in town. I don’t know why. He is not not going to get any of us to strike. So why bother?”

  “And he came by Glen Park when?”

  “A few weeks ago. Only me and a few others were in the house at the time, getting it ready for the Whitwells’ arrival. I couldn’t get him out of my doorway. The man wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I took some pamphlets, to make him leave. As soon as he was gone, I threw them away.”

  “If you threw them away, then why do you think you know how Mr. Whitwell got one?”

  “Because I saw one of the pamphlets on the table after breakfast the next day. When I threw it in the trash, I noticed that the stack the man gave me was gone. Someone had taken them out of the bin. I’d wondered why anyone would want to do that. I think now someone gave them to Mr. Whitwell or”—she hesitated—“he found out who had them.” And he’s dead now because of it? I wondered. From the look on her face, Mrs. Johnville held the same thought.

  “I must be going,” the housekeeper said abruptly.

  I was torn. What was I to do now? I should follow Mrs. Johnville downstairs and return to Rose Mont. But what I wanted to do was go with Chief Preble to Mrs. Whitwell’s bedroom. Would he implicate her son in the crime? Or would the chief refrain from mentioning his suspicions? Either way, I knew my duty was to Mrs. Mayhew. My curiosity was not to be satisfied today.

  As I followed the housekeeper down the hall toward the servants’ door, the butler and policemen had paused to speak to two housemaids, with red puffy eyes, draping crape over a mirror on the wall. The two men began climbing the grand staircase, hand-carved from sandstone and marble with a balustrade supported by dolphins and mermaids, when Chief Preble called, “Miss Davish?”

  “Yes,” I said, turning to face the man on the stairs.

  “Did you deliver your invitation?”

  “No, she didn’t want it,” I said. Why would that be any concern of his? I wondered. The invitation to tea was moot now with everything that had happened.

  “Do you want to face Mrs. Mayhew with less than what she expects?” I chuckled to myself. Chief Preble was giving me an excuse to accompany him. He obviously knew Mrs. Mayhew’s invitation was prompted by her desire for gossip about last night’s fires. My employer, knowing I’d been witness to this tragedy, would want nothing less than a full, titillating report.

  “Thank you, Chief,” I said, excusing myself from the housekeeper and quickly joining the men as they ascended the stairs. “I wouldn’t want to be remiss in my duty.” The butler scowled at me but said nothing.

  When we entered Mrs. Whitwell’s bedroom, a soothing mix of white furniture and blue fabrics, silks on the bed, damask on the wall, her lady’s maid, a housemaid, a nurse, and Dr. Guthridge were in attendance. I purposely avoided looking at the medical kit, with its shiny metal instruments the physician had laid out on a dressing table. I couldn’t look at the doctor either as he attended to Mrs. Whitwell, lying on her bed, propped up with almost a dozen white lace-covered pillows. Despite knowing Walter, I still held deep resentment and fear toward physicians. In my mind, they killed my father. Instead I stood quietly out of the way and focused on the back of Chief Preble’s head.

  “Can I talk to her?” the policeman asked the doctor.

  “I’ve given her a sedative, but she’s awake,” the doctor said, stepping back from the bed.

  “Mrs. Whitwell?” the policeman said.

  “What do you want?” she sighed, her eyes closed. “Have you arrested that Sibley man yet?”

  “No, ma’am. But I do have a few questions. Did your husband own a handgun?”

  “He belonged to the shooting club,” she said vaguely. “Clay birds or something.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But I’m asking about a handgun, possibly a derringer, not a shotgun.”

  “You mean like the small silver, pearl-handled one he had?”

  “Yes, can you tell me about it?”

  “Everyone in the shooting club has one. It’s just a token, engraved with their name on it when they join. But why do you ask? That little thing couldn’t kill my husband.”

  “At very close range, I’m afraid it can be very deadly. Where does he keep it, ma’am?”

  “What?” Mrs. Whitwell said drowsily.

  “The gun, ma’am. Where did your husband keep the gun?”

  “In the safe. Is that all?”

  But the safe was empty, I thought. Could that have been what Nick was hiding under his waistcoat? If so, where was it now? Did Nicholas Whitwell kill his father?

  As if the policeman had read my thoughts, he said, “Almost, but I need to ask you about your son, Nicholas.” Jane Whitwell’s eyes shot open and she lunged up from the bed.

  “Oh my God, is Nick okay? Where’s my son?” The doctor rushed over and quickly injected something into her arm. The sight of the long needle sent my head reeling. Nausea rose in my throat as I groped for the back of a chair to keep myself steady.

  The doctor and nurse eased Mrs. Whitwell back to her pillows.

  “I’m sure your son is fine, Mrs. Whitwell, but we don’t know where he is. I was hoping you might know.”

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Half-past ten, ma’am,” Mrs. Whitwell’s lady’s maid said, consulting the clock on the marble mantel.

  “Then he and Eugenie are at the Casino playing tennis or on their way to Bailey’s Beach.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Whitwell. We’ll leave you in peace now.”

  “Why do you want to know where Nick is?” she asked almost as an afterthought.

  “We would just like to ask him some questions.” The policeman tipped his hat. “Good day, Mrs. Whitwell.” He turned to leave, with me following closely behind. Without the policeman there, I didn’t want to have to explain my presence.

  “No,” Mrs. Whitwell said from her bed.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” the policeman said, stopping in the doorway.

  “I said no.”

  “No, to what, ma’am?”

  “You will not ask my son any questions.”

  “But—”

  “No!” Mrs. Whitwell said, cutting the policeman off.

  “You must rest now, Mrs. Whitwell,” the doctor said. “You mustn’t tax yourself.” His patient ignored him.

  “You’re to arrest Lester Sibley, Chief Preble. And do nothing else. Do you understand me? You are not to question my son, my daughter, my servants, my friends, Harland’s business associates, no one. This investigation ends now.”

  The room fell silent. I’ve known people who expected their directives to be taken as law, but Chief Preble was the law. How could Mrs. Whitwell speak to him like that? And what did she expect him to do, arrest a man who was innocent of the crime? Chief Preble had already explained to her that Lester Sibley couldn’t have killed her husband. Someone else had. To find the killer, the chief had to investigate.

  “Very
well, ma’am,” Chief Preble said, frowning. “If that’s how you feel, I won’t bother you again.” He tipped his hat again and disappeared through the door.

  I was stunned. This was preposterous! How could he let her get away with this? She obviously realized that the police suspected her son and she was covering for him. But if he was guilty, her son had murdered her husband!

  I handed the lady’s maid the invitation without explanation, raced after Chief Preble, and caught up with him in the hall. “Chief,” I said, “how could you do this? How could you drop a murder investigation simply because Mrs. Whitwell’s afraid her son is involved?”

  “You know who the Whitwells are.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  The policeman shrugged. “I have a job to keep, Miss Davish. And speaking of keeping one’s job, I’d get back to Rose Mont, if I were you.” I stood speechless as the head of Newport’s police force walked away.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Mrs. Mayhew has been ringing for you for ten minutes!” Mrs. Crankshaw said when I arrived. Mrs. Mayhew was probably anticipating the answer to her invitation. She was in for a surprise, I thought. But instead the surprise was for me.

  “Finally! I’ve seen a can of spilt molasses move faster than you, Davish!” Miss Lucy said when I knocked and entered the drawing room.

  “Now, Lucy, dear,” Miss Lizzie said. “The girl has had a shock and had to walk from Glen Park, besides.” What was Miss Lizzie talking about? Surely they couldn’t know about Mr. Whitwell already?

  “I’ve been ringing for you,” Mrs. Mayhew said. “Wherever have you been?”

  “I was at Glen Park, ma’am,” I said. “As you requested.”

  “I know that,” she said. “What took you so long to come back? As Miss Lucy said, we’ve been waiting. Now tell us everything.”

  “You know?” I asked.

  “That Harland Whitwell was found with a hole in his chest a child could stick their hand through?” Miss Lucy said, eliciting a grimace from Mrs. Mayhew for her gruesome analogy. “Yes, we know.”

  “But how? It happened less than an hour ago. How did you even have time to come from Moffat Cottage?”

  “It’s the modern age, dear,” Miss Lizzie said. “We all have telephones.”

  “And luckily in this case,” Miss Lucy said, “the servants weren’t shy to use them!”

  “Yes,” Miss Lizzie said, “our cook is Jane Whitwell’s housekeeper’s second cousin, twice removed.” So Mrs. Johnville, somewhere between telephoning for the police and the doctor, found time to call her cousin to gossip. Amazing! “And she mentioned that you were involved, dear, so of course we came right over. You don’t mind, do you, Charlotte?”

  “Of course not, Miss Lizzie.” Charlotte Mayhew waved her hand impatiently. “Now, Davish, speak!”

  I recited slowly what I knew the three ladies were expecting, a detailed account from the moment I arrived at Glen Park to Mrs. Whitwell’s dismissal of the police.

  “Well, of course Jane’s not going to want the police spreading rumors that Nick killed Harland,” Miss Lucy said. “As long as she believes this labor man, Lester Sibley, did it, she can deny any wrongdoing in the family.”

  “What do you think, Charlotte?” Miss Lizzie asked. “Isn’t your Cora engaged to the boy?”

  “Yes, but as long as there’s no proof Nick did anything, it actually makes the engagement more desirable. Gideon’s always been concerned that Harland would cut Nick out. Now Nick will inherit after all.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Yet I knew to keep silent and to keep my opinion of their callous discussion from showing on my face. “And of course, it wouldn’t do well for her place in society if the police can prove Nick did it. This way, she’ll have everyone’s sympathy, instead of their derision.”

  A slight rap at the door stopped the conversation. Mr. Davies, the butler, stepped into the room.

  “There’s a telephone call for you, ma’am.”

  “Whoever it is, tell them to call back, Davies,” she said, annoyed at the interruption.

  “It’s Mrs. Whitwell, ma’am. She said it was—” Before the butler could finish, Mrs. Mayhew was up out of her seat and out the door. Mr. Davies followed, closing the door behind him.

  “Well,” Miss Lucy said. “I wouldn’t think Jane would be in any condition for making telephone calls. I mean, using the telephone before your husband’s even in the ground is a bit crass, don’t you think?”

  “But do you truly think the police won’t investigate any further?” Miss Lizzie asked.

  “She’s Jane Whitwell, Lizzie,” Miss Lucy said as if this were all the explanation needed. Miss Lizzie shrugged and nodded her understanding.

  “How are you, Hattie, dear?” Miss Lizzie said, noticing me for the first time since I told my story. “Do sit down.”

  “The girl’s fine, Lizzie. It’s not like this is the first dead body she’s come across,” her sister said.

  “That’s true,” Miss Lizzie said, still looking at me in expectation.

  “I’m fine, Miss Lizzie,” I said. “Thank you.” To my surprise, I had no need to prevaricate. I was fine. Seeing Mrs. Whitwell’s grief was more disturbing than seeing her husband dead on the floor.

  “It’s happening anyway!” Charlotte Mayhew said as she uncharacteristically burst through the door.

  “What’s happening?” the two elderly sisters asked simultaneously.

  “That was Jane. She’s hysterical. Her husband hasn’t been dead two hours and the rumors are rampant.”

  “About Nicholas?” Miss Lizzie asked.

  “Yes, and other terrible things. Thompson, Harland’s lawyer, has been there, from New York. He was to meet with Harland just this morning. Jane said he insinuated that Harland’s financial affairs are not in order as Jane supposed. And then Jane overheard Mrs. Johnville chastising a housemaid who said she and some of the other girls won’t work in a house run by a murderer. And the worst of it all, Jane’s already received four hand-delivered declines to her dinner party next week!”

  “But the woman’s in mourning,” Miss Lucy said. “She’d have to cancel the party anyway.”

  “Yes, but the proper thing to do would’ve been to wait for the cancellation and then send condolence cards instead. Those declines were a message.”

  Those declines were probably more of an attempt of the invitees to learn what was going on, precisely as the three ladies in front of me were doing, by sending a personal messenger to the house, then commenting on Jane Whitwell’s decline from society.

  “She can’t let this go on,” Mrs. Mayhew said. “It’s bad enough that someone murdered her husband. Now her place in society is at stake.”

  “What about the police then?” I asked. “They could investigate and spare Mrs. Whitwell the unnecessary speculation.”

  “Never,” Mrs. Mayhew said.

  “Then Davish here can do it,” Miss Lucy blurted out.

  “Miss Lucy!” I cried, shocked and disappointed she would suggest such a thing. I cringed as my outburst drew all eyes to me.

  “What do you mean, Miss Lucy?” Charlotte Mayhew said, still watching me.

  “What I mean is that Davish here has proven to be quite the detective. She discovered the culprit in the murder of our temperance coalition leader, Mother Trevelyan, last fall.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Mayhew said, turning to the elderly sisters.

  “She also cleared Sir Arthur Windom-Greene’s name in a murder charge this past Christmas,” Miss Lizzie said.

  “I do rely upon her,” Mrs. Mayhew said thoughtfully, as if she’d forgotten I was in the room. “But she’s a secretary!”

  “Yes, your secretary, dear,” Miss Lizzie said.

  “So?”

  “So,” Miss Lucy said. “You say you rely upon Davish in other ways?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Mayhew said suspiciously.

  “So rely upon her now to investigate Harland Whitwell’s death for you, instead of the police. S
he’ll find out the truth and Nick will be cleared of all suspicion.” I wondered how Miss Lucy could be so sure Nick Whitwell wasn’t involved.

  “And why would I do that? I need her working here with me, not gallivanting all over Newport playing detective. My ball is in two days, Miss Lucy. Two days!”

  “Because if Davish plays detective, she would report to you, and only you. Only you, Charlotte, will know the truth.” Mrs. Mayhew’s eyes lit up in understanding. “You wouldn’t have to worry about the success of your ball, Charlotte. You’d be the most sought-out woman in Newport.” With that last sentence Miss Lucy sealed my fate. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Of course I’ll still rely on you to sort my correspondences, send replies, attend to the bills, and remain diligent about updating the guest list,” Mrs. Mayhew said, spelling out the terms of my new role, “and you will remain available for hand deliveries.” To me nothing had changed except now she wanted me to add snooping into her neighbor’s tragedy for her own personal edification to my duties. “As to the ‘investigation, ’ I want a full report every morning immediately after Issacson brings in my breakfast; I’ll read it along with the newspapers. And above all I’m relying on you to conduct yourself in a proper and discreet manner. There’s no use having information if everyone else knows it too!” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Miss Lucy purse her lips.

  “Of course, Mrs. Mayhew,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. How was it that I kept getting into situations like this? I’m a typewriter, a secretary. Who would’ve thought I’d be probing into the personal life and death of Harland Whitwell? If J. P. Morgan asked for financial advice or Mrs. Caroline Astor invited me to tea I wouldn’t be more surprised.

  Just one more challenge, Hattie, I told myself. “I will do my best, ma’am.”

  “Best? Of course you’ll do your best. I expect nothing less. In fact, I expect you to solve the crime.”

  “But Mrs. Mayhew—”

  “But nothing, Miss Davish, I’m relying on you to find me the answer.” She held a finger up to punctuate her point. “And you will be the reason Caroline Astor will leave her calling card at Rose Mont. I’ll see the inside of her ballroom yet!”