A Fatal First Night

by Kathleen Marple Kalb

  I saw Gil wince a little. So did Hetty and I. We were no barristers, of course, but we’d followed enough trials to know it was a premature move.

  “Not on your tintype, Counselor. Prosecution may cross-examine the witness, and you’ll all make your closing arguments as planned. The jury will decide this case. Not me, not you, and not our lovely flower seller.”

  Mrs. Naylor blushed just a bit as the judge gave her an actual smile. “Why, thank you, Your Honor.”

  “I prefer violets in April, too, ma’am.” The judge turned his face and glare back to the lawyers. “Get to it. We still have a trial to finish.”

  Finish they did. The judge, no gentle taskmaster, drove the lawyers right through luncheon, with the plan of turning the case over to the jury by early afternoon. At least in this courtroom, the wheels of justice were not going to grind slowly if he had anything to say about it.

  They ground quickly, indeed. The jury adjourned for their luncheon at about two, with deliberations to follow, leaving the rest of us to return to our lives while Amelie Van Vleet waited to learn her fate.

  Chapter 12

  While Awaiting the Verdict

  Outside the courthouse, it was a relief to be in the clean fall air. Hetty planned to go back to the news office and file her story, then return for what would likely be a long evening of deliberations. Since I was back onstage the next night, I was glad of my quiet plans with Tommy, Montezuma, and poor starving Father Michael. A few days of boiled dinner would drive anyone to distraction, religious calling or no.

  “Shall we share a hansom, ladies?”

  Gil was standing behind us. Hetty, the reporter on duty, bristled a little, and she was clearly ready to tell him she didn’t need any male protector. But I was quite curious about what game he was playing here. I shot Hetty a quick, squashing glance and bowed to him.

  “That would be lovely. We’ll go to the Beacon, and you can walk me home after Hetty returns to the newspaper office.”

  “As good a plan as one could wish for.”

  Once we were properly handed up into the cab, the conversation turned on the obvious topic.

  “Do you think they’ve proven the case?” Hetty asked him.

  “I know you’d love to see her at the end of a rope, but I’m sorry, no.”

  “Actually, the electric chair these days,” she corrected him with a scowl. “But I have to agree with you.”

  “Even before the last witness, it was a weak case, and with that good lady’s help, and her lawyer pointing to the evidence that the killer had to be taller, then looking at Lescaut every second, it’ll be hard for the jury to convict her.”

  “They don’t like her,” Hetty said. “I don’t like her.”

  “Fortunately, we are not permitted to condemn people because we don’t like them,” Gil reminded her.

  “It’s rather more than that. She almost certainly broke her vows with that nasty lizard Lescaut.”

  “Don’t insult lizards.” When she didn’t smile at my comment, I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone’s been stoned for adultery in the past few centuries. At least not here.”

  “Well,” Hetty replied irritably, “if you’re going to trouble to marry a man, you should at least be faithful to him.”

  “Of course.” I very carefully kept my gaze on Hetty and not Gil.

  “Oh, I know people in those fancy circles hand spouses around like we do books, but it doesn’t make it right.”

  “It may be wrong, but if her husband didn’t mind, there was no reason to kill him,” I pointed out very sensibly.

  “Of course he minded. All men mind.” She turned to Gil, who had been diplomatically silent during the exchange. “You wouldn’t want your wife running about with some slithery Frenchman, would you?”

  “Ladies, while this is a most fascinating discussion,” he began, with what certainly looked like a trace of a blush, “you may wish to look more to the facts of the case.”

  “No doubt we should,” I put in quickly, hiding my amusement at his discomfort. “Her lawyer proved that someone could easily have gotten into the house to kill Mr. Van Vleet, and even gave them a viable suspect.”

  “Exactly. People will believe the impossible when it’s the only option left, with a nod to Mr. Holmes.” Gil smiled slightly, clearly relieved to return to criminology. “But if they have any other theory, they’ll take it before believing that their sweet wives would stab them fourteen times.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.” Hetty shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “You aren’t really required to believe anything, Miss Hetty. If she’s acquitted, she’ll walk away with the legal presumption of innocence, as any of us would—no less . . . and no more.”

  “There’s that.”

  “And I suspect the social sanctions for this will be rather severe.”

  “No doubt,” I agreed.

  After we left Hetty at the Beacon, Gil offered his arm, and we walked the few blocks back to the town house.

  “So did you get some good insight into the American judicial system?”

  He didn’t look at me. “Some, for certain.”

  “Perhaps you’d like a bit more.” Time to put my expert to work.

  “How so?”

  “Albert’s lawyer is a junior partner at Paul’s firm and well out of his depth. Your expertise could help.” The thought that skill might make a life-and-death difference had occurred to me while watching Alteiss argue for his client.

  “You are not defending that man.” Gil’s arm tensed beneath my fingers.

  “He’s a member of my company. And everyone is entitled to a defense, Barrister.”

  “That is true.” He gazed down at me with something that might just be protective concern. “But he slashed a man’s throat in his dressing room. A few doors down from you, and at your premiere night, Shane.”

  “He swears he didn’t.”

  “And you believe him?” He studied me with a searching gaze.

  “I’m not sure.”

  We walked in silence for a few moments, before he finally let out an exasperated breath. “What would you like me to do?”

  “Look at the autopsy report.”

  A muscle flicked in his jaw. “All right. For you, Shane.”

  “Thank you most kindly. I’ll have it sent to you. It will be a good use of those criminology principles you demonstrated last night.”

  “Ah. That’s what gave you the idea.”

  “You did. So it’s your own fault.” Rather than trouble him with my doubts, I gave him a teasing smile. “If you’d kept the conversation to books and the weather, I wouldn’t be asking you to pitch in.”

  The tension in his face eased a little, and he chuckled. “All right.”

  “Well, your own fault and that of my aunt Ellen.”

  One of his perfect brows arched. I had told him about my aunt’s prediction that a tall dark man would bring me trouble during his last visit to our shores. “The second sight again?”

  “What else? She says Albert is innocent and deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

  Gil sighed. “Well, I’m not a great believer in the second sight, but your aunt has rather nicely summed up the legal ethics in play.”

  “Don’t forget, she raised ten, plus me. She’s spent her life as judge and jury in sibling disputes.”

  He smiled. “My mother had only my sister and me, but we kept her docket full, as well.”

  As we continued on, enjoying the mutual warmth of our conversation, I remembered Tommy’s advice about a walk and some persuasion. No time like the present. “I am aware that you did not cross the ocean merely to sit at my feet and discuss stab-wound angles.”

  I felt his arm tense beneath my fingers again, and he turned sharply to look down at me. “What do you think—”

  “I don’t think anything.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “I just know that you would never cross the ocean for the purpose of seeing me, when
I am going to be in London three months hence.”

  “True. Not that I hadn’t considered it . . .”

  “You’ve never fed me pretty lies before. Don’t start now.”

  He stopped walking and took my hands. “Shane, I will never lie to you. There will be times, and this is one, that I can’t tell you things, but I will never lie to you.”

  “Nor I to you. I assume I have the same right to leave out matters you don’t need to know?” Of which there could well be many.

  “Of course.” To his credit, he didn’t even hesitate.

  “So you can’t tell me why you’re here.”

  “All is can say is I am doing a favor for a friend. And I will admit I seized on the chance to see you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “As am I.” He gazed down at me again, and his eyes lingered on my face, then briefly on my lips. It did not take a barrister’s understanding of evidence to know he was remembering our kiss. He took a breath and spoke briskly. “And I had best get you home safely to your cousin.”

  We started walking again.

  “Seized on the chance to come here?” I asked once his eyes were safely on the sidewalk once more.

  “With both hands, sweetheart.”

  It was the first time he’d used an endearment for me, and it was probably at least a mild violation of protocol. But I didn’t mind, even if I should have. “I’m glad you did.”

  We were at the town house, and the gaslights were starting to come on. In the window, I could see the sizeable shapes of Father Michael and Tommy at the checkerboard. “You are welcome to stay to dinner if you like.”

  “I would, actually.”

  “I warn you, you’ll likely have to referee a dispute between the boys.”

  “Not impossible.”

  “But there will be compensations.”

  “Oh?” A faint note in his voice hinted of compensations entirely forbidden to couples with a mere “understanding.”

  He almost certainly couldn’t see my blush in the fading daylight. “Father Michael’s been living on boiled dinner, and Mrs. G will be feeding him up.”

  “That bodes well for us all.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  While I do not believe in the second sight, of course, I am well aware that our modern science does not yet understand all the various thoughts and signals that the brain can absorb. And so I cannot say that it is entirely impossible that one person could pick up messages from another, in what could appear to be some sort of magical insight.

  Say that Mrs. G might somehow intuit that a certain half-Scots Briton with a fondness for shepherd’s pie would be staying to dinner. Father Michael is equally fond of same, and her admirable version of the dish would undoubtedly have been a strong possibility for the entrée on that reason alone. And I can say with great authority that Mrs. G was both surprised and pleased to see the duke walk me inside as she was bidding her good nights to Tommy and the priest.

  At any rate, we shared a most convivial meal and discussion of various new books and other interesting matters. Consensus of the table: there are too many books of Lincoln’s letters and not enough of people’s recollections of the man, cities must work to find better ways for horseless carriages and traditional ones to coexist in the streets, and the Prince of Wales is really much too old to be misbehaving in such a fashion.

  I need not tell you that no one went very far into the details of said misbehavior.

  After we finished with Mrs. G’s lovely meringue torte (which only added to my suspicions, because all that lemon curd for Preston’s tarts leaves a lot of extra egg whites), we retired to the parlor for a bit. It felt quite like a happy family moment, sitting on the settee with Gil as Tommy and Father Michael played checkers, with the occasional outraged appeal to us. We were the very picture of appropriate courtship as we leafed through my album of postcards from our recent San Francisco stand, and Montezuma contentedly observed from the bookshelf, sharing his own happy memories: “Grapes! Sweet!”

  “Extra! Extra!” came the cry from the street. “Verdict in the Van Vleet murder!”

  “Extra! Extra!” echoed Montezuma. “Verdict!”

  Tommy ran to the front door and quickly bought a paper from the newsboy, thankfully a Beacon, and we all gathered round.

  “Not guilty,” he read, though we could all see the banner. “She won’t get the chair.”

  “Miss Hetty is likely downcast,” Gil observed.

  “Not even a little.” I pointed to the paper. “She’s got the byline on the extra. She wouldn’t care if they’d proclaimed Mrs. Van Vleet Queen of the May.”

  “Absolutely.” Tommy nodded.

  “Still a tragedy, though,” the priest reminded us. “A man’s life taken in such a terrible way, and his wife’s reputation ruined, whether or not she dies.”

  “All true, Father,” Gil put in, “and there’s still a killer at large. Hosmer Van Vleet surely did not stab himself fourteen times.”

  “Well, at least Morrison can’t put Hetty back on hats anytime soon,” I observed.

  “Trust you to find the silver lining, Heller.”

  Chapter 13

  In Which Benefit Night Becomes Far Too Interesting

  Before the show next evening, Tommy and I had a difficult duty: talking to Ruben about that anonymous letter. Since nothing had come up in any of Toms’s inquiries or mine, we weren’t especially worried. But it might be something only Ruben and the letter writer knew, so we had to ask.

  Ruben’s dark eyes were worried and there was a small furrow between his brows when he knocked and walked into my dressing room.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Ella?”

  “We assume not, but we would be failing in our duty if we did not show this to you,” I said, looking to Tommy.

  “This was in our mailbox the other day.” Tommy handed the letter to him, and we both watched as he read it, his face freezing and his caramel skin going grayish.

  And then a shocking response: “Oh, no. I’ll leave at once.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “Really?” Tommy gave Ruben a disbelieving glare. “Why don’t you tell us about it first?”

  “How much do you know about Birmingham?”

  “Alabama, not England?” I asked.

  A small rueful smile played about his lips. “Yes, Alabama.”

  “Very little, I’m sorry to say.”

  “They did not take their defeat well,” Tommy said, sitting down on the dressing-table chair. “And I’ve heard reports of ugly incidents between the races.”

  “That’s a way to put it.” Ruben nodded. “Well, a boy named Royal Avery was born to freed slaves there a few years after the end of the war . . .”

  I looked to Toms. He nodded, clearly understanding, as I did, exactly where this was going, and that we did not need to hear any more. That it was better in fact not to give voice to the rest. Ruben deserved to be judged on his talent, not the color of his skin or his parents, and we had no intention of allowing some anonymous enemy to change that.

  “Well,” I began, “I’m sure he had a difficult and fascinating life, but I don’t know what he has to do with Ruben Avila, born in Havana.”

  “But I—”

  Tommy very carefully looked him in the eye. “There’ve been any number of hurricanes in Cuba over the years. I’m sure you and your mother were lucky to escape with your lives, never mind any records.”

  “Oh.” Ruben just stared at us. “So you—”

  “We know exactly who you are,” I said calmly. “A brilliant basso, an excellent performer, and a very good colleague. I have no idea what became of Royal Avery, but I’m quite sure there’s no way anyone can prove Ruben Avila is anyone other than who he says he is.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.” Tommy nodded. “There are advantages to upheaval. Even in the unlikely event that someone should find records of Royal Avery’s birth in Birmingham, or some su
ch thing, there’s no way to definitively prove a connection.”

  “And as far as we are concerned, we hired Ruben Avila and have no reason to suspect anything else. Full stop.”

  Ruben let out a long breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Absolutely nothing. Never speak of it again if you can avoid it.” Tommy shook his head. “There’s a lot of prejudice and unfairness in this world.”

  “And we won’t add to it.” I kept my tone cool, though my blood boiled for Ruben, as I’m sure did Tommy’s.

  We two nodded together. Someday, we surely hoped, the world would change enough that Royal Avery could have the singing career he deserved, but today all we could do was protect Ruben Avila. And that we would do.

  “Thank you.” Ruben’s voice came out soft and shaky. “I—”

  “Have a show to prepare for, as do we all,” I said firmly. “This incident changes nothing for us, so don’t let it change things for you.”

  He managed a genuine smile. “Right.”

  When the door closed, Tommy sat down on the settee. “So who would know—or suspect—that, and why would they threaten to reveal it?”

  “I don’t know. That feels a lot more like an attack on Ruben than on the company.”

  “True. Although surely anyone who knows us would know we wouldn’t just throw him out . . .”

  “Do they?” I stretched out on my side of the settee. “It’s not just the prejudice, after all. We don’t stand for lying, and someone might think we’d be angry about the deception.”

  “Deception for the best of reasons.”

  “For my money, it’s not deception at all. It’s survival.”

  “Right.” Tommy nodded decidedly. “At any rate, that wasn’t an extortion letter. That was intended to get us to dismiss him.”

  “True. So do we also have someone who’s after Ruben?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know what we have. Nothing that makes sense for sure. How could that be connected to the murder?”

  My tiny ormolu clock chimed the hour, and Tommy jumped up. “Blast it. I have to go fetch the Eaggers. You know tonight’s the benefit.”

  I nodded. “In addition to everything else.”