Murder at Beechwood (10 page)

Neily was in fact sitting in the parlor with Nanny when Grace and I arrived home. My heart squeezed at finding him holding Robbie and looking down at him with something approaching awe. He came to his feet immediately upon seeing us, offered me a look of mixed guilt and apology, and then showed Grace a broad grin.

“Oh, Neily,” she said before he could speak. She crossed the room to him and cupped her hand over Robbie's head. “He's darling. And how darling to see him in your arms. Why . . .” She raised the same hand to dab at the corner of her eye. Was she imagining a similar family scene, but in a home shared by Neily and herself?

She surely looked out of place in my home, like a flower among a garden of weeds. Shame crept hot along my neck as I regarded my lumpy settee with its faded pillows, my scuffed area rugs, and the faint paths of soot that traveled up the walls from my oil lamps and the old gas sconces.

Then I glanced at Grace again and realized she hadn't noticed any of this, or if she had, she didn't care. All that mattered to her in that moment was Neily and the promise of their future. If any doubt lingered in my mind, Grace banished it by turning to me, her eyes filled with gratitude, and mouthing a silent thank you.

We gave them a few minutes to fawn over the baby, after which Nanny smoothly reclaimed him. She and I slipped out and went to the kitchen, leaving Grace and Neily alone. We fed and changed Robbie, but my thoughts kept me distracted. An idea had formed, and I was waiting for the right moment to put it into action.

A
t the sounds of Neily and Grace preparing to go their separate ways, I hurried back into the main part of the house. “Neily, I'm wondering if you might do me a favor.”

“Of course, Emma. Anything at all.” It was Grace who had spoken. She addressed her next comment to my cousin. “After how good she has been to us, can there be any other answer?”

With a fond expression that tugged at my heart, Neily raised her hand to his lips. Then he turned to me. “What may I do for you, Emmaline?”

“I wish to take a look at the Monroes' sloop. Can you escort me into the Yacht Club? Tonight?” Like all the Vanderbilts, indeed virtually the entire Four Hundred, Neily was a member of the New York Yacht Club, and its station here in Newport. I was not, and neither were my parents. Even if they had been in the country and were able to afford the exorbitant membership dues, they would not have joined. Mother's first husband, my half brother Brady's father, had gone down with a yacht and she swore she would never have anything more do with sporting boats—or men who sailed.

“We're going sleuthing, are we?”

Grace's question came all too eagerly and I realized my mistake. “No, Grace. I want to go after dark, and I think it would be better if Neily and I went alone—”

“Don't be silly.” She tossed her head, rustling the ribbons and silk flowers adorning her hat. “Dark or daylight, Neily and I are both members. What better diversion than three friends wishing to view the yachts moored along the pier. Even if we're seen inspecting the sloop, other members will simply assume we're curious.” She wrinkled her nose and tilted her head. “But why do you need to bother? Weren't the police going to check for tampering?”

“They already have, but it's not exactly signs of tampering I'm looking for,” I clarified. “I'm more curious about who was positioned where on the boat, and what their role was as part of the crew.”

“That doesn't sound very dangerous.”

“Grace, please, I just think—”

“If you believe it could be dangerous,” Neily broke in, “then I don't think I should bring you, either, Emmaline.”

Somehow I managed to convince him, just as Grace convinced me to let her accompany us. A few minutes later Neily climbed into his curricle while Grace and I boarded her carriage. Her driver brought us to Shady Lawn Manor, her parents' mansion just off of Bellevue. Neily followed, though he took a roundabout way there. Last summer his father's financial secretary, Alvin Goddard, put tails on Neily at Cornelius's request. Mr. Goddard no longer occupied this earth, but that wouldn't have thwarted Uncle Cornelius's plan to spy on Neily and keep him under his thumb.

We dined informally on the veranda at Shady Lawn and waited until dark, whereupon we squeezed into the curricle and drove into town. We had no trouble entering the Yacht Club. As Grace's and Neily's guest, no one questioned my presence there.

The New York Yacht Club station Number Six comprised a two-story, boxy building with upper and lower porches in front and a cupola used for spotting incoming yachts. In back, a pier extended into the harbor.

“Where to first?” Neily asked as he held the door open for Grace and me.

“Are there any records kept on informal races?”

“Of course. Everything is recorded,” he replied with a note of exasperation, as if my question were a ridiculous one. “This way.”

The large main room consisted of tables and chairs, a fireplace, and a service bar where incoming yachters could find coffee and light refreshments. There was also a telephone for arranging transportation to the various summer cottages and accommodations in town, or for summoning the Life-Saving Service in the event of an emergency.

A few people milled about or sat at tables, the women in summer-weight fabrics emboldened with vibrant stripes and military tailoring, the men in sporty linen suits. A man with thinning white hair and a mustache fashionably turned up at the corners moved through the assemblage asking questions and jotting down replies. I assumed he was a Yacht Club official recording these newest arrivals. Activity bustled beyond the rear-facing windows as steamer trunks were unloaded onto the pier and yacht captains prepared to cast off and anchor their vessels farther out in the harbor.

Neily led us through the main room and into a smaller corner office. Mahogany shelves lined two of the walls, stuffed with books, ledgers, and periodicals. A formidable oak desk sat beneath the main window, its surface gouged and pitted from years of use.

“This is the administration room and records library,” he said. A counter ran along a third wall, where another telephone was mounted. Neily lifted a ledger book from the counter and flipped through, holding the page he sought with a finger and waving me over. “This is what you're looking for, I should think.”

I took the volume from him and set it back on the counter. Neily moved a kerosene lamp closer. Columns that spanned the two open pages before me recorded the details of each vessel registered for the race the day of Mrs. Astor's lawn party. Each column bore a heading:
Displacement, Length, Beam, Draft,
and
Sail Area.

“What do these designations mean, and remember you're speaking to a landlubber.”

Neily obliged, but other than the correlations between the size and power of each ship, the technicalities meant little to me. A notation stated that Wyatt and a Yacht Club official had inspected the vessel the day before the race; no issues were recorded.

A faint discoloration on the page caught my eye, one I easily could have missed. Ordinarily I would have disregarded it, but I had come here searching for any clue, however miniscule. “Neily, pull the lamp closer.”

He did and I leaned lower. On the lines indicating the helmsman and port trimmer, I ran my fingertip over the names,
Virgil Monroe
and
Wyatt Monroe,
respectively. The paper felt raised and hardened beneath the ink.

“Do you have a pocketknife on you? Or anything with an edge?”

Neily reached into a coat pocket and handed me his money clip. “Will this do?”

“Let's try it.”

After handing him the bills, I placed the edge of the silver clip on the paper and carefully scraped back and forth. A few moments later, I'd collected a small pile of shavings in the crease of the book and uncovered two different names on the ledger lines.

“They were reversed,” I said with a grim smile. “Whoever did it used paint the color of the paper to hide the fact.”

“Clever,” Grace said with a hint of admiration.

Neily looked over my shoulder at the page. “So Wyatt had originally registered as helmsman, and Virgil as port trimmer. I wonder why the change.”

“More importantly,” I said, “whatever the reason for the switch, why hide it with paint?”

“You'd be surprised.” Grace hovered at my other side. “Some of these older members are sticklers when it comes to the records. The very idea of scribbles and corrections makes their administrative skin crawl. It could simply have been an attempt to keep the ledger neat and tidy.”

“I suppose . . .” I stared down at the names, my face tightening with concentration as I tried to make sense of this new information. “Who usually captained the
Vigilant
?”

“Wyatt,” Neily said. “He's considered an expert helmsman, has won loads of races. He might even have taken the America's Cup last year if the winds hadn't shifted and allowed Uncle Willie's team to outmaneuver him on the last leg.”

I gripped the book and lifted it off the counter. “Who initiated the switch—Wyatt or Virgil?” I didn't expect an answer. As was my habit, I was merely voicing my thoughts out loud.

Could Wyatt have convinced his brother to take the helm in order to stage the accident? It almost made sense . . . almost . . .

I slapped the book back down. “I need to see the boat.”

Neily gestured toward the main room and the door that led to the pier.

Gaslit globes illuminated the area, each reflected in the black water like a shivering full moon. The men I'd seen earlier were gone, and the newly arrived yachts had been moved back out into the harbor for mooring. Only a dozen or so boats filled the slips along the pier and a few others were anchored close by—so close one might have leaped from deck to deck like steppingstones. A low hum of voices could be heard from inside, and farther out the buoys tolled and light waves slapped along hulls and pilings.

The night watchman strolled around the corner of the building, whistling a tune. He saw us and touched his cap brim in greeting. “Good evening, Mr. Vanderbilt. Miss Wilson.” He offered me a polite smile before continuing his patrol.

Grace had been right. The three of us together, specifically two ladies escorted by a gentleman, attracted less notice than if Neily and I had come alone. That might have raised questions in the watchman's mind, but as we were, we formed a socially acceptable group of young people simply looking at the boats and enjoying the evening air.

He disappeared around the far corner of the clubhouse. I set off at once down the pier with Neily and Grace following. The damaged sloop bobbed gently in its slip. The vessel sat low in the water, its broken mast a jagged shadow against the sky. The shattered boom lay lengthwise across the deck like a drunken sailor. I held my skirts and hopped down from the pier. Neily stepped down beside me. Grace stayed on the pier.

“If you'd like to wait back at the clubhouse, it's fine,” I whispered up to her. Why I whispered I couldn't say, since we hadn't tried to hide our presence from anyone. I suppose my clandestine reasons for being there made me feel suddenly shy of using my full voice.

“No, that's all right. I'll wait here.” However, it wasn't long before she crossed the pier to view the sleek ketch across the way. That was fine with me. Better Grace stayed occupied while I poked about.

First, I went to examine the rigging on the main mast. With only one lantern mounted several pilings away, I struggled to make out the details clearly. I picked up the severed lines and slid them between my fingers, distinctly feeling where the hemp thinned and the fibers had snapped. I pointed this out to Neily.

“Could one of the crew have weakened the line, planning to sever it completely at the right moment during the race?”

He squinted a bit as he fingered the rope as I had done. “It's possible. He'd have to wait until everyone else was occupied, though, or someone would have noticed.”

“Perhaps while maneuvering through one of the turns in the course,” I suggested.

“Possibly.”

“Who in the crew would be in the most likely position to accomplish this while the others were busy?”

He considered, then said, “The main trimmer, actually.”

“Lawrence?” My pulse gave a little leap. Virgil refused to allow him to marry Daphne. Did Lawrence love the girl enough to commit patricide?

I didn't want to believe it, nor did it fit with the conclusions I had thus far drawn about the young man. True, on the night of the ball he had revealed an angrier, darker side, but only momentarily. The hours I had spent this afternoon with him and Daphne had been pleasant ones. Despite the obvious pall hanging over the day, Lawrence—and Daphne, too, now that her doldrums seemed to have passed—had been cordial, accommodating, and intelligent, and had even shown a quiet sense of humor.

Or had I simply resolved to pin my suspicions on Wyatt and ignore other potential suspects? His anger toward his brother had been clear and palpable, even from down a hallway and around a corner the night of the ball. Wyatt had also been too quick to implicate Derrick, as if to cast suspicion away from himself.

“Can you show me exactly where each man would have been positioned, and what his duties were?”

To demonstrate, Neily moved around the deck, from port to starboard, stem to stern, carrying out a pantomime as he explained the various functions of the crew.

“And so when the boom swung around to port side,” he said as he concluded his tutelage, “Wyatt could easily have been slammed in the chest or back or even the head. In that event, he wouldn't likely have been able to overpower his brother.”

I sighed. “So my theory would make a lot more sense if Wyatt had captained the sloop, instead of Virgil.”

“There's another possibility. Wyatt might have been the intended victim.”

“Then how is it his brother is dead?”

“That would be the whim of storm and sea. Nothing is ever certain out there, Emmaline. But do you really wish to know what I think?”

I regarded my cousin in the darkness. The beard he had grown in recent months, shaped to a dapper point beneath his chin, wasn't all that made him seem years older than a summer ago. Neily had matured, grown wiser and more seasoned, no longer merely the pampered son of a millionaire, but a man in his own right who did as he saw fit, who deserved respect.

“I'd very much like to hear what you think,” I said fondly.

“I think Virgil's death was an accident. I think the frayed ropes are merely a coincidence, somehow overlooked during the inspection. Yes, I know—” He spoke over me when I began to protest. “To miss something as important as frayed ropes is unconscionable, and yes, Wyatt is an expert sailor. But that doesn't mean he never makes a mistake. Or that he didn't rush the inspection. As it is, the boom did fall during the storm—a combination of failed rigging and heavy wind and seas. But again, an accident.”

“I don't believe that.” I glanced around at the damaged vessel. “Even Wyatt and Virgil's sons don't believe it was an accident. And I will not stop probing until I find the truth.”