Smoke and Mirrors Page 4

  ‘It’s a long way from Bethel.’

  He must have been thinking exactly the same, for next to me on the leather seat, Phin put a hand on mine and gave it a squeeze even as he looked beyond me toward the house he’d just had built. It was a sprawling brick mansion made to look, as was the current fashion, like an Italian Renaissance villa with porches and balconies, wide eaves and a square tower that rose above it all, even taller than the cupola in the center of the roof.

  ‘It is a lovely place,’ I told him, though he surely knew it and did not need to hear it from me.

  Still, Phin chuckled. ‘It will be lovelier and I will surely be poorer by the time Charity is done choosing the furnishings. She was looking at wallpaper for the dining room when I was called away this evening. Artichokes.’ He didn’t so much sniff at the word as he gave it a curious twist. ‘Why the deuce would I want to look at artichokes on my walls when I am eating them on my plate?’

  ‘Charity has excellent taste.’ This was something else I didn’t need to point out, but it seemed the polite response. ‘The house will be as lovely inside as it is out.’

  ‘And, dash it all, I suppose once it is I will be required to invite the neighbors in.’ Since Phin is the most amiable and social person I know, I knew the protest was for show, but then I could hardly blame him if he were nervous about the reception he might get from the people whose grand houses surrounded his. They were bankers and merchants and politicians, and an upstart showman with a penchant for the bizarre and an uncanny knack of turning other people’s taste for the fantastical into dollars made Phin something of an oddity himself.

  When the carriage stopped outside the front door, he didn’t wait for the coachman but jumped out and handed me down himself. Before either of us could say another word, the front door opened and light spilled onto the steps.

  ‘Portman.’ Phin nodded and handed his hat to the man who waited inside. I did not bother with my cloak or bonnet but headed directly for the stairs.

  ‘I’ll just say goodnight to the children,’ I told my brother. ‘Then I’ll be back down again.’

  ‘It is very late.’ Charity’s voice drifted from the parlor on the other side of the broad marble hallway. Her words were not light and airy, more like a cloud that foretells a coming rain: not so threatening in and of itself – not at that moment – but simply a reminder that there is a chance there are darker things to come. ‘The children have been asleep for hours.’

  I paused, my hand on the bannister and one foot already on the bottommost step, and I would have looked my brother’s way if I knew I would find any support there. It was not that Phin was cowed by his wife, it was just that he knew she was usually right. As she was this time. With a sigh, I turned away from the stairway.

  ‘Of course.’ I made sure I spoke loud enough for Charity to hear and looked toward the parlor, but the door was partially closed and I knew that, from where she sat, my sister-in-law could not see me. That allowed me to take a moment to swallow my disappointment. Phin and Charity’s daughters, Caroline, Helen and Frances, along with dear little Walter, were the joys of my life and, if I was early enough, I always visited the nursery when I returned from the museum.

  ‘You did hear me, didn’t you?’ Charity’s voice might have been muffled by the half-closed door but there was no mistaking the fact she would brook no argument. ‘The girls and my son have been asleep these few hours already.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I pulled off my bonnet and cloak and handed them to Portman who, ever capable, stood nearby, and by the time I entered the parlor I’d already smoothed my gown, touched a hand to my hair and wiped any trace of emotion from my face.

  Because it was at the center of the family’s life – for receiving friends and for those business appointments Phin chose to make away from the museum – the parlor was one of the rooms Charity had made sure was finished soonest and, just as I’d mentioned to Phin in the carriage, she had done it with a sense of taste and refinement which I am told is unusual for the newly wealthy. The walls were papered in tasteful cream and maroon and the draperies were of the same colors. Thanks to Portman and a staff that included Cook, a housekeeper, a nursery maid and two young girls who did not live in but came each day to handle the cleaning, every inch of the place gleamed, from the white marble fireplace to the mahogany table where Charity sat in a chair with an elaborate scrollwork back and upholstery that matched exactly the color of the draperies. Otherwise, she would not have purchased them.

  My sister-in-law did not look up when I walked in. She was too busy studying a piece of wallpaper that featured a riot of foliage on a yellow background along with those artichokes – very large, very green artichokes – that Phin had noted earlier. They must have been interesting artichokes, indeed, for she still didn’t look my way even when I said, ‘I’d forgotten how late it was.’

  Charity Hallet Barnum was two years my brother’s senior, a small woman with dark hair which she wore in ringlets that bobbed over her ears from beneath her lace cap. She had a thin face and a long nose and, though she was but thirty-four and her skin was smooth and her eyes yet bright, I often found myself thinking that, when she was elderly, she would have the narrow, pinched look of a weasel. It was unkind of me, not to mention small-minded, and this time, like all the other times the thought struck, I firmly set it aside.

  ‘It is unseemly for a woman to be out at such late hours.’ Charity set aside the piece of wallpaper, the better to skewer me with a look. ‘At least you had Phin with you tonight to accompany you home. If you were alone—’

  ‘I am often alone when I travel home from the museum.’ I sat down on the opposite side of the table from her and wondered who had convinced her that these chairs had been made for comfort. My shoulders are wide for a woman’s and my legs are long, and I squirmed to settle myself. ‘I was grateful to have Phin with me tonight.’

  ‘Yes. Tonight.’ Charity folded her hands together on the table in front of her. ‘There is talk of unpleasantness.’

  Thinking of the events of the evening as no more than unpleasantness rather deadened the impact of murder, but before I had the opportunity to point this out Phin sailed into the room and gave Charity a peck on the cheek. When her hands fluttered as if she would have liked to do nothing more than push him away, I pretended not to notice.

  ‘You must be especially kind to our dear Evie tonight,’ he told his wife. ‘She has had a shock.’

  Charity’s brows rose a fraction of an inch and I knew I had her permission to explain. ‘It was Andrew,’ I said. ‘Andrew Emerson.’

  ‘From Bethel?’

  I couldn’t tell if she was surprised or if she thought all along that being from Bethel made Andrew somehow more likely to be murdered than if he had been, say, from Bridgeport.

  ‘What is he doing in New York?’

  ‘He is … he was …’ I adjusted to this new way of speaking about Andrew and lied with far more ease than I would have thought myself capable of but a few years earlier. ‘He had business to attend to here in the city,’ I told Charity. ‘At least, that is what he told me when we spoke this morning.’

  ‘You spoke to him? A man who was set upon and murdered?’

  ‘She obviously spoke to him before he was murdered,’ her husband reminded her. ‘And they were dear friends, were they not, back home? Our Evie has had a shock, finding Andrew Emerson like that.’

  Charity’s face paled to the color of the lace at her collar and her blue eyes goggled as surely as they would have had Phin announced that I was the one who’d hatcheted Andrew. ‘You? You found him?’

  I couldn’t help but think that, for once, my sister-in-law might live up to her name. ‘I am fine,’ I told her. ‘Though I am grateful for your concern. It was a terrible—’

  ‘It is unacceptable, to be sure.’ Charity rose and swept toward the door. ‘It is unacceptable and unseemly and I …’ She paused and put a hand to her cheek before she stepped into the hallway. ‘
It is late and hearing that you have again been involved in something so inappropriate, it is … it is … I must lie down. Good night.’

  I waited until I heard her footsteps on the stairs before I dared speak a word. ‘You’d think she was the one who’d found a man with his brains bashed in.’ Instantly, I held up a hand to stop the protest I knew would come from my brother. He might have agreed with me, but he was a loyal husband and I did not want to put him in an awkward position. ‘I know, I know, she is of a delicate nature and I shouldn’t be so unkind. Still …’

  ‘Still, I was right when I said you’ve had a shock.’ Phin went to a sideboard, filled two glasses from a crystal decanter then handed one to me. ‘Sherry,’ he said, ‘and if anyone deserves a drink tonight, it is you.’

  I couldn’t have agreed more. I took a sip of sherry and closed my eyes, refusing to concentrate on the picture of Andrew’s body that materialized in my mind and, instead, allowing myself the luxury of enjoying the sensation of warmth that traveled down my throat and thawed some of the ice that had built inside me in the hours since I’d walked out of my office and into the horror that awaited me in front of our mermaid. Another taste of sherry and I felt more capable of rational conversation.

  ‘Who would do such a thing?’ I asked my brother. ‘And why?’

  He downed half the sherry in his glass. ‘You heard what the constable said. Jeffrey Hollister—’

  ‘Is not a killer. You and I both know that.’

  ‘We do.’ Phin acknowledged the rightness of my statement with a nod. ‘And yet, he’s gone.’

  ‘Yes.’ I shook my shoulders to be rid of the chill that had settled there and wished it had helped. ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Jeffrey can take care of himself.’

  ‘That is exactly what I’m worried about. He was on display today. His skin was dyed that bilious green. If he’s seen on the streets—’

  ‘Good heavens! Let us hope not. If people think our oddities can be seen about town—’

  ‘I am not talking about business now, Phin. I’m talking about Jeffrey. He is surely quick to anger, and if someone taunts him—’

  ‘Do you think Andrew Emerson might have done as much?’

  In spite of everything that had happened that night, and everything I’d seen, this was one thought that had not crossed my mind. ‘Andrew was not unkind,’ I reminded my brother.

  ‘But you said Hollister attacked him earlier today.’

  ‘Only because Jeffrey thought I was in danger.’

  ‘Then if Hollister thought you might be in danger again—’

  ‘There was no reason for it!’ It wasn’t until my own sharp words ricocheted back at me from the high ceiling that I realized I must bridle my temper. I wrapped my hands around my glass and drew in a breath. ‘I was in my office all day except to pay our oddities, and when I gave him his wages, Jeffrey was calm. He asked after my welfare.’

  ‘And you told him?’

  ‘The truth. That I was fine. That Mr Emerson had never meant me any harm. That he was, in fact, a friend who I have known these many years. And yes, before you ask, I did remind Jeffrey that he must never resort to violence inside the walls of the museum because that would be bad for the reputation of the place and, while I was at it, I mentioned that such behavior reflects badly on your reputation, too. You know how much he admires you, Phin. I don’t think he would dare do anything to arouse your anger or make you look bad in the eyes of the world. To kill a man in so public a place? No.’ I shook my head. ‘I cannot believe Jeffrey Hollister had it in his heart, and I cannot believe he would be so careless with the welfare of our family.’

  ‘Then who?’ Phin sank into the chair recently vacated by Charity and, just as I had in mine, squirmed against the seat. ‘And why there? Why in my museum?’

  I was sure he wouldn’t be satisfied with a lift of my shoulders so I sighed and tried to reason my way through the morass. ‘He was not robbed,’ I said and knew the moment I did – and the second Phin’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch – that I should not have mentioned it. ‘His watch,’ I said because it seemed a far more acceptable explanation than admitting I had gone through Andrew’s pockets. ‘When I saw the body, I could easily see that his watch was not taken.’

  ‘Perhaps his money was. As deplorable as it is, greed at least is a reason a man might take another man’s life. I will speak to Slater about it in the morning.’

  A tiny noise of derision escaped me before I could stop it. ‘Slater cares only if you might allow him free admission into the museum.’

  ‘Bah! Why not!’ Phin waved away my concerns with one thick-fingered hand. ‘It will cost me but fifty cents to allow him and his good wife into the place.’

  ‘No doubt they will bring a gaggle of children,’ I told my brother.

  His eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘No doubt you are right. I wonder how many of them will actually be related to the constable!’ He wagged a finger in my direction. ‘You see, Evie, you are finally learning to trust your instincts and to read people much the way I do. Soon, you’ll truly be working at my side, not just studying the books and keeping them tidy and making sure the staff is working to the best of their abilities, though you know I appreciate it all and how well you discharge your duties. But soon, you’ll be dreaming of new exhibits the way I do. You’ll be looking for new ways to entice the public into entering our magical fairyland.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ It was such an impossibility to think my mind might ever work as my brother’s, it made me laugh and I realized how grateful I was to feel such lightness after hours of grief and worry. No doubt Phin had known exactly how I would respond. No doubt it was exactly why he’d brought up the subject. ‘I have no showman’s blood in me. Not like you do, Phin.’

  ‘I come by it honestly from our Grandpa Taylor.’ Phin’s eyes lit up the way they always did when he talked of our maternal grandfather, Phineas Taylor. ‘He liked nothing better than a jest, and he wasn’t shy about poking fun, was he? When I was born …’ He threw back his head and laughed and, though I’d heard the story more times than I could count, I couldn’t help but join in. Phin’s laughter was infectious. ‘When I was born he deeded me a parcel of land and he reminded me of it often in my growing-up years. The land, the land. How I had hopes for that land! Until I was ten, of course, and finally saw it. Worthless and barren, and not given in spite or to offend or wound me. Put in my name simply because Grandpa Taylor found it endlessly funny to talk about it and get me to believe in what was no more than a preposterous yarn!’ He wiped tears from his eyes. ‘You have his blood, too, Evie. You’ll see. Someday when your life is settled down and you allow yourself some joy in it again—’

  I did not mean to interrupt him. At least not with a sigh. ‘For now I will concentrate on the museum’s books,’ I told him and pushed my chair back from the table. ‘Don’t get up,’ I said because I knew he would the moment I stood. ‘You have had a difficult evening, too, and you needn’t bother with formalities, not with me.’

  ‘You’re going up to bed?’ he asked.

  I pressed a hand to my stomach. ‘As impossible as it seems, I’m hungry. I thought I might go to the kitchen.’

  Phin stood and walked me to the door. ‘We had lamb tonight, and I know Cook saved a plate of it for you.’

  I was actually thinking of something more soothing, a wedge of bread spread with butter, perhaps, or a bowl of Cook’s delicious apple soup, but since lamb was Phin’s favorite I did not mention it. Instead, I wished him a good night and headed to the back of the house and into the kitchen where I knew Cook would be waiting for me despite the late hour.

  I found her at the table, a cup of tea in front of her and another already made and waiting for me.

  ‘How did you know?’ I asked her even before I sat down.

  Ellen O’Donnell was a woman of forty with broad hands, a wide face and shoulders firm and steady enough to carry the weight of her household duties. She h
ad come to this country from Ireland but four years before my brother happened upon her cooking at the home of a friend, Bernard Rathbone. Phin – as he does – decided instantly that the good Mrs O’Donnell was the most talented and wonderful cook in the world, offered to double her salary and stole her away, and it says something about both Phin and his friend that Rathbone never held it against him. After all, Ellen was a widow and had three children to support; she needed the money and Phin was certain to invite Rathbone for dinner at least once every month so that he might still partake of her wonderful meals.

  ‘It’s a night you’ve had, to be sure.’ Without asking yet somehow knowing, Cook got up and went to the sideboard for the piece of bread with butter she had there waiting for me. ‘You’ll need to settle your stomach.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ I bit through the crunchy crust and the heavenly brown bread and chewed, then smiled gratefully before the sadness settled again and I said, ‘He was a friend. From back home.’

  When she nodded, Cook’s golden hair glimmered in the light. Her cheeks were always ruddy so it was hard to tell if my talk of home caused her embarrassment, yet I thought not. If there was one thing I’d learned from her it was that life is not always easy and that there are challenges we all must face.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said and sipped her tea. ‘As sorry as I am to hear that you were the one to find him.’ Her look was innocence itself. ‘That is, if the gossip I’ve been hearing is true.’

  ‘True. Yes. It was …’ My throat closed with emotion and I set down the slab of bread so that I might try and wash away the sensation with a sip of hot tea.

  ‘There, there, now.’

  I had a feeling Cook would have reached across the table and patted my hand if she didn’t think it unseemly.

  ‘You’ve had a shock and no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, so everyone keeps reminding me.’

  Cook’s eyes were as green as she claimed the fields were back home, and I met her level gaze.