The Spiritualist (17 page)

“I’m already involved, wouldn’t you say?” I asked. “You’re right when you say I can’t fight Peter’s family, but this is something I
can
do. Would you really keep me from trying to save myself?”

“This is not a game, Evelyn.”

“No, it’s not.” I met his firm tone with one of my own. “I’m an investigator’s daughter. If I’m at Dorothy’s, I’ll be right in the midst of things.”

“That’s exactly why I can’t allow it. Jourdain is a dangerous man. Peter would never—”

“Peter is dead,” I said harshly. At Ben’s stricken look, I softened. “Perhaps he wouldn’t have allowed it. But he would not have wanted me to hang for his murder, either.”

“Your father was the investigator, not you. You did his books—”

“He taught me a great deal.”

Ben leaned forward. He looked as if he might take my hand, but then stopped just short of doing so. “You are a dear, dear friend, Evie, and I want to help you—but Jourdain’s already killed Peter. I don’t think he would hesitate to kill you, and that I could not bear. Please don’t ask it of me. This is real, not some game you must win at all costs. Let me handle this.”

I drew back, stung. “You don’t believe I can find proof that he murdered Peter?”

“It’s not a matter of believing or not. My conscience will not allow me to let you try.”

“Will your conscience rest easier when I’m swinging from a scaffold?” I demanded harshly. “When the Athertons are congratulating themselves for getting rid of me so neatly?”

He shook his head in frustration. “You must believe I won’t let that happen!”

“You’ve said yourself we’re dealing with the power of the upper ten. All of the city is against me but for you and Dorothy Bennett and that circle. If you and I both believe the secret to Peter’s death is in that house, and she’s offered me a way in—how can I refuse it?”

“I’ll continue to go to the circles,” he insisted. “We’ll discover it that way.”

“Not if you’re right, and Michel is Peter’s killer,” I pointed out. “He lives in that house. How much better would it be for me to be able to watch what he does all day long?”

“I don’t think—”

“I’ll know where he is every moment. I can discover what his hold is on Dorothy. I can search his room for evidence. How would you be able to do that just attending a circle?”

I saw him hesitate. I knew I’d swayed him and pushed ahead. “I know to be careful. But I must tell you, Ben, that if you don’t join me in this, I’ll find a way to do it without you.”

I never took my gaze from his face, and so I saw when his surprise changed into an expression of admiration. It was the expression I’d seen many times on my father’s face, and I knew what it meant: I had won.

Then, slowly, Ben said, “By God, I’ll bet you would.”

I said nothing. I waited.

“Very well,” he said finally. “We’ll try it your way. But only for a time, Evie. If I feel things have grown too dangerous, I shall want you to leave.”

“When that happens, I’ll consider it,” I said.

“You’ll promise it now,” he said.

I nodded. I could always persuade him otherwise if I needed to. “Very well.”

“Then I’ll make the arrangements,” he said, pounding on the roof of the carriage to tell the driver to stop.

W
hen we arrived at Dorothy’s that evening, Benjamin let me go with a comforting reminder. “If you need me, you’ve only to send a message.” In the hours it had taken Ben to make the arrangements with the court and with Dorothy, we had contrived a plan: I was to question Dorothy and Michel and the others, but subtly, so Michel especially would not think he was a suspect. If I learned anything, I was to contact Ben immediately.

The task was not difficult, and I was certain of my ability to manage it. Hadn’t Papa always said I had a discerning eye? But once I stepped foot on Dorothy Bennett’s porch, my uncertainty returned. It was one thing to resolve to find proof of Michel Jourdain’s perfidy; it was quite another to be in the same room with his charm and ease and not be swayed. The fact that I had admired his ingeniousness worked against me now. I found myself equivocating—Ben’s belief in Michel’s guilt was unshakable, and I knew without a doubt Michel’s ability to take advantage of people. Yet that was hardly the same thing as murder.

I would have to keep my head if I wanted to find the truth, and the last days had left me so exhausted and battered that I determined to start nothing until I’d had a decent night’s sleep to restore me. I hoped, in fact, to keep from seeing either Dorothy or Michel until then, as Dorothy had been kind enough to cancel tonight’s circle so I could get settled in.

Lambert was warmly polite when he greeted me at the door—as if it were an everyday occurrence that a newly accused murderess came to take refuge in his mistress’s house.

“Mrs. Bennett asks you to excuse her, but says you must make yourself at home,” he said. Then he called Molly, the upstairs maid, to lead me to my room on the third floor.

The hallway was lined with closed doors but for the end, where huge double doors were open to reveal finely polished bookcases laden with books—a library. At the other end, two nurses lounged on a settee outside a closed door.

“That’s Mrs. Bennett’s room,” Molly told me as she took me to the second door on the right. “An’ this one’s yours, ma’am.”

I stepped inside. The room itself had hardly registered—blue and white, elegant and beautiful—before I saw that Kitty and my trunks had preceded me.

“Mrs. Bennett asked me to pack your things,” my maid said with a short curtsey and a worried look, “and told me to come along. I tried to bring as many things as I could, ma’am, but there weren’t much time.”

It was a thoughtfulness I had not expected. “Thank you. I’m so grateful you decided to come… despite everything.”

“Oh, ma’am, I was glad to. They turned us all out. Miss Atherton says she’s no need of us. She only kept Cook.”

“They did what?”

“Turned us all out, ma’am. Cullen too.” Kitty’s eyes filled with tears. “And him being with Mr. Atherton since he was a boy and all—just let him go without even a warning.”

I was stunned, and angry—and angrier still at the impotence of my rage. I wanted to do something for them—but what? I had no money to give them; my references would mean nothing. “I’m so sorry. As you can see, there’s nothing I can do. No doubt you heard the rumors—”

“Yes, ma’am. But no one believes them.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, moved more than I could say.

Kitty nodded with an embarrassed little smile and helped me change from the black taffeta I now thought of as my jail gown. I shuddered as I stepped from the folds of the wrinkled fabric, and as Kitty moved to hang it up in the armoire, I opened my mouth to tell her to burn it, and then swallowed the words before they were said. Though I doubted I would wear it again, my future was not assured enough to destroy a perfectly good gown—how I wished it was. How I wished I could burn it to ashes and never be reminded of these last two days again.

Yet things were too unsettled, so I let it be and went to the china basin and washed myself as best I could. My hair was thick and abundant—it would need more water than the basin could hold to wash it, and so I resolved to bear it for the time being and let Kitty do what she could with it.

“There now, ma’am,” she said, when at last I was changed and recoiffed. “You look yourself again.”

It was only then that I allowed myself to relax and to look about the room, to see the luxury Dorothy accorded her guests. The pale blue silk damask that covered the walls seemed to shimmer in the gaslight. An armoire and desk and bureau were of white trimmed with gold, as were the settee and two chairs that stood before the Italian white marble fireplace, all with deep blue velvet cushions that echoed the colors in the velvet tapestry carpet. The bed was large and canopied, draped in blue with gold tassels. Dorothy’s kindness in offering me this place, in settling me so comfortably, touched me deeply. It also made me feel a bit guilty. I was here, after all, to disrupt her life. I consoled myself with the thought that if it was indeed true that the man she trusted was a murderer, she would thank me for it in the end.

I went to the window, pushing aside the layers of curtains—brocade and velvet and silk—to look out. The view from this window was of the side yard, and the snow-crusted windows of the brownstone next door, but it was angled just enough that I could see to Fifth Avenue, to the tree-shrouded grounds of the First Presbyterian Church across the street, with its high tower and Gothic architecture. I leaned into the window, pressing my cheek against the glass to see better, as curious as any child peeking into a shop window. It was then I saw the police watchman on the corner. He seemed idle enough, but I froze—I knew he was there for me.

The world I’d once belonged to—the world of women who promenaded the Avenue in sarcenets and bombazines and velvets, who spent the hours in idle chatter, in meaningless shopping, in receiving boxes delivered to the house that held fans and hats and veils that were soon forgotten and seldom if ever worn—had slipped away. It didn’t matter that I’d always felt as if I were play-acting; I had wanted it and embraced it, though I’d never been able to rid myself of the sense that those women knew some secret I had not been privy to, that if they would only share it, I would be happy too… .

I remembered saying as much to Benjamin not so long ago—only a few months, really, though it seemed a longer time than that. It had been late summer, after dinner, and the two of us sat at the chessboard, an elaborate and beautiful set whose carved marble pieces were usually a pleasure to touch. But I was halfhearted; I could not keep my mind on the game. Peter was at the pianoforte, running his fingers idly over the keys. The notes were discordant and melancholy. I’d felt his strange mood all through dinner, and any attempt I’d made to draw him into conversation had resulted in his snapping at me to leave him be.
“It’s nothing to do with you, Evie, can’t you see that?”

Ben had done his best to lighten things. He’d been the one to suggest a game of chess, but tonight I watched without much interest as he took my last bishop, and he looked up in surprise. “What? No protest? Are you ill?”

I smiled weakly at his tease. I would have replied in kind, but Peter said from the piano, “I don’t know how you can play with her. I won’t do it anymore. It’s unnatural for a woman to want to win so much.”

I felt my face burn at his criticism, but Benjamin looked at him and said, “Unnatural? That’s quite a condemnation, my friend. I’m surprised to hear such words from you.”

His tone was even, but I saw the way Peter scowled and glanced away. The room filled with tension, and I looked out the parlor window and said in a low voice, “Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I am unnatural. Certainly I can’t seem to be the wife he wants.”

Benjamin’s voice was equally quiet. “He’s unhappy. His mother’s death…”

“Yes. His mother’s death.” I sighed. “Sometimes it seems so unfair—why should everyone else be so happy when we’re not?”

“I don’t think everyone else is,” Ben mused. “I think everyone feels as you do—if others are so happy, why should they confess the truth of their lives and be found lacking?”

“Perhaps.” I looked back outside. A couple I didn’t know walked in the twilight. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, pulling her close to his side, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and smiled; it seemed they’d been put there just at that moment to underscore my words. “Look at them. It looks as if they have everything.”

Peter brought his hand down hard on the keys. I jumped a little, and Benjamin glanced at my husband. “It only seems that way. Everyone is hiding something, Evelyn. Happiness is just another mask we wear.”

Now, as I stared out the window at the policeman on Fifth Avenue, Ben’s words spurred an odd and troubling echo.
“Everyone has secrets
, Madame,
hmmm? I would think it especially true of women who find themselves so quickly in a better world.”

I drew back, letting the curtain fall again into place. And then, as if I had summoned him, I heard Michel’s voice at the doorway.

“I see you’ve arrived.”

Startled, I turned to see him. His smile was so disarming that I found myself smiling back. I had to remind myself of the fact that this man might be responsible for my husband’s death. We all had secrets, indeed.

I schooled my expression to careful pleasantness. “Yes, I arrived just now.”

“I think you’ll be comfortable here, eh?” He stepped inside the room. “Mine is just across the hall, should you need anything.”

There was nothing in his voice, no innuendo. But his charm allowed one to read whatever they wished into his words, and implied that he would accommodate. “I can’t imagine I will. But thank you.”

“I’ve come to escort you to supper.”

“Oh, I—”

“It’s early, I know. But it must be if we’ve any hope of Dorothy joining us. Her cordial dictates her hours.” He began to cough, motioning for me to wait while he grabbed his handkerchief, coughing so hard it seemed to wrack his body. When the spell finally ended, he tucked away the handkerchief with an apologetic smile.

I said, “New York is a terrible place to be in the winter. Perhaps a drier climate—”

“
Non, non
, it’s a cold, nothing more.”

“Then, perhaps you should rest.”

“One can’t rest one’s life away, eh?”

“Perhaps not, but a few hours… In fact, I thought I might rest myself, and take supper in my room. I’m really very tired.”

“How disappointed Dorothy’ll be.”

I was excruciatingly aware of how much I owed my hostess. My resolve to wait until morning faltered. If she took the trouble to come to supper, I could not stay away. “I suppose I could make the effort, if she decides to join us.”