Murder at Kingscote Read online

  Books by Alyssa Maxwell

  Gilded Newport Mysteries

  MURDER AT THE BREAKERS

  MURDER AT MARBLE HOUSE

  MURDER AT BEECHWOOD

  MURDER AT ROUGH POINT

  MURDER AT CHATEAU SUR MER

  MURDER AT OCHRE COURT

  MURDER AT CROSSWAYS

  MURDER AT KINGSCOTE

  Lady and Lady’s Maid Mysteries

  MURDER MOST MALICIOUS

  A PINCH OF POISON

  A DEVIOUS DEATH

  A MURDEROUS MARRIAGE

  A SILENT STABBING

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  MURDER AT KINGSCOTE

  ALYSSA MAXWELL

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Author’s Note

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Lisa Manuel

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2020935630

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2073-3

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2079-5 (ebook)

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-2079-2 (ebook)

  To Lisa Stuart and the members of the Point Association of Newport, RI, for their passion and dedication to preserving the history and well-being of this unique American treasure that is the Easton’s Point neighborhood.

  Lisa, thank you for adding magic to our yearly trips to Newport! Your friendship means the world to us!

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, I must thank the Preservation Society of Newport County, not only for the invaluable work of preserving Newport’s legacy, but for providing a wealth of information to all who seek it. Special thanks go to tour guide Carla Francis, who not only led us on a very enjoyable tour through Kingscote, but helped me straighten out a few of my details. If I have made mistakes, they are mine and not hers.

  * * *

  Heartfelt thanks also go to John Scognamiglio and the entire Kensington team for their continued support of this series, and to Evan Marshall for his encouragement and assistance every step of the way.

  Chapter 1

  Newport, Rhode Island, July 1899

  Bellevue Avenue teemed with color, fragrance, and a wide-eyed wonderment at the country’s newest technology. It was the summer of 1899, and something extraordinary had arrived on the shores of Aquidneck Island—something that promised to change our world forever.

  Overhead, a deep cerulean sky embraced a vista of gleaming, sun-golden clouds, while the deepest greens of the European beech trees swept the avenue’s front lawns and gently grazed the borders of perfectly geometric flowerbeds. But, oh, the spectators who had gathered today. A sea of people had turned out in their very best summer attire, wealthy vacationers and workaday Newporters alike having dug deep into their wardrobes, trunks, and cupboards. Seersucker and linen and fine flannel suits for the men. And for the women, silks, cottons and muslins, moirés and taffetas, all in vivid florals and stripes, each outfit topped by a hat sporting blossoms and ribbons and feathers and even whole birds, dyed impossible hues to match the wearer’s attire . . .

  “Good gracious, Miss Cross, have you ever seen such frippery?” The speaker hovered at my shoulder, his notepad and pencil at the ready. Ethan Merriman held the position of society journalist for a small local newspaper, the Newport Messenger, and I, Emma Cross, had the unlikely distinction, as a woman, of being his editor-in-chief. “Why, I keep thinking some of these chapeaux are going to take wing and fly right off the wearers’ heads.”

  I replied with a laugh and said, “In New York, such hats have been all the rage for some time now.”

  “Poor birds,” he cried heartily and scribbled some notes.

  I returned my attention to the crowd. It seemed all of Newport lined Bellevue Avenue from Bath Road, past the Casino shops and along the fence lines of the city’s most costly properties, all the way to Ledge Road at the very southern tip of Aquidneck Island. Adults stood a good half-dozen deep along the sidewalks on either side, and children perched in threes and fours on gateposts and perimeter walls, or straddled the lower boughs of trees.

  “Is anything wrong, Miss Cross?” Ethan had stopped scribbling, his pencil held aloft over the page while he studied my expression.

  Had I forgotten to school my features? It seemed, at least to me, that only one individual in this happy multitude was experiencing twinges of apprehension and finding it necessary to admonish herself time and again not to show it. Experience in recent years had left me cynical of such crowds; hard lessons had taught me at best to suspect the antics of our wealthy summer cottagers, and at worst, to dread them.

  “It’s nothing, Ethan. Just something I . . . need to do when I return to the office.”

  “You should enjoy yourself, Miss Cross. Parades like this don’t come about every day, you know. And there’s that fat envelope you’ll receive at the end.”

  “You’re absolutely right.” The envelope he spoke of would contain a portion of the entrance fee from the participants in the parade. Today’s event wasn’t merely for the entertainment of Newport’s citizens, but would raise funds for several charities, including one near to my heart, St. Nicholas Orphanage in Providence. Ethan was right, and I put on a cheerful face for the children’s sake. This seemed to appease him, for he returned to jotting down his observations.

  Perhaps I worried for nothing and I’d be proven wrong. Perhaps it was nothing more than that, unlike the colorful multitude, I wore my typical workaday outfit: a dark blue pinstriped skirt and a starched shirtwaist that boasted a mere smidgeon of lace at the collar and a bit of ribbon piping at the cuffs. My plain straw boater sat straight and smart on my head, my hair pulled back into a tidy French knot. I hardly presented an aspect one would consider festive.

  But as a working woman, I had learned not to compete with the ladies of the Four Hundred, that elite number of guests who fit comfortably into Caroline Astor’s New York ballroom, and which had come to define the parameters of society’s most prominent members. My wearing anything approaching finery today would have been an affront to their sensibilities, an impertinent suggestion that I might be as good as they. Never mind that I was a cousin of the Vanderbilt family; that I was the great-great-granddaughter of the first Cornelius.

  Unfortunately for me, or perhaps fortunately, depending on one’s point of view, I traced my lineage through one of the “Commodore’s” daughters, and that formidable old curmudgeon hadn’t believ
ed in leaving much of anything to women. My lack of fortune combined with the benevolence of a great aunt who had left me with a house and a small annuity had led me to what I considered my vocation and a measure of independence most women never dreamed of.

  Speaking of my vocation, I very nearly opened my velvet handbag—rather threadbare at the edges, to be sure—to dig out my own writing tablet and nub of a pencil. It had become a professional habit during the past several years. But as editor-in-chief of the Messenger, a position I’d come into last summer, I was no longer required to take meticulous notes on every frock that entered my field of vision, or the height and shape of every boot heel, or which young lady held the arm of which eligible gentleman. That responsibility belonged to Ethan, and I knew I could trust him to make a fine job of it.

  “I should move through the crowd now,” he said, and I waved him on. His dark hair slick with Macassar oil, he weaved his tall figure along the sidewalk, his pencil flying across his notepad. From time to time he stopped to speak with this or that spectator and jotted down his or her reply. He possessed an unerring sense of which of our summer denizens sold the most papers to our readers. And yet it was with a twinge of envy, one I couldn’t entirely explain, that I watched him go.

  I threaded my own way through the milling spectators, stopping periodically to chat with friends and acquaintances. For a penny I purchased a small bundle of roasted peanuts from a vendor cart. In vain I searched the faces around me for Nanny, my housekeeper, and Katie, my maid-of-all-work, who had ridden to town in my carriage with me earlier. I couldn’t find them but never mind, we had an agreed-upon place where we would meet later.

  The crowd stirred with a tremor of excitement, like an electrical current that shivered through the air. Once again, a vague foreboding rose up inside me, and I found myself bracing for . . . I didn’t know what, only that it would not be anything good. Then, a woman with dark curly hair piled high beneath a hat sporting a bird as large as a cormorant, approached one of the objects of Newport’s present fascination.

  I could not have said what color the Duryea Runabout automobile might have been. Giant bunches of blue and pink hydrangeas bedecked every outer inch of the vehicle, along with an artificial tree sprouting American Beauty roses growing behind the leather seat. My relative Alva Belmont primly mounted the running board and climbed unassisted into the vehicle, where she stood on the floorboards facing out over the line of similarly decorated vehicles stretched out behind her toward Bath Road. In many respects, these motorcars didn’t appear much different from ordinary carriages, except for the engines mounted beneath the chassis or behind the seats. Aunt Alva had organized today’s event, and now at her signal, the other participants began clambering into their flower-strewn automobiles and readying themselves for Newport’s first-ever auto parade.

  Among them I recognized, of course, Vanderbilts and Drexels, Oelrichses and Goelets, Taylors and DeForests and a gaggle more who were brave enough to display their fledgling skills at the steering tiller. I noticed Harry Lehr helping a now aging Caroline Astor into his automobile, and Winthrop Rutherfurd, who had once been my cousin Consuelo’s sweetheart, handing Miss Fifi Potter onto the rich, brocade seat of a Riker Electric Triumph sporting green and white clematis and tiny Japanese lanterns. This was, after all, a competition, and prizes would be awarded to the most gaily decorated autos as well as the most proficient motorists.

  Farther down Bellevue Avenue, directly in the path of the vehicles, wooden figures littered the roadway, forming an obstacle course to challenge the drivers’ skills. For more than a week now, our summer cottagers had been practicing in fields and on their own driveways, resulting in several mishaps, or so my friend Hannah, a nurse at Newport Hospital, had confided to me. Injuries had been minor, thank goodness, and I hoped today would see no further accidents.

  Aunt Alva caught my eye, waved, and grinned as she pointed toward a Hartley Steam Four-seater with bright yellow wheel spokes, idling not far from me. Brilliant blue cornflowers enveloped the vehicle, with an umbrella of the same blossoms shading the front and back bench seats. Three individuals stood beside the auto, their heads together in some inaudible but fierce debate. I grinned back at Aunt Alva, understanding.

  I couldn’t resist moving closer to the Hartley. The engine puttered and tufts of steam panted from its exhaust pipe, while the chassis shivered on its wheels as if with pent-up excitement. I knew each of the individuals continuing their deliberations beside it. They were Newporters, albeit far above my own social and economic standing. The one closest to my own age of twenty-five saw me and offered me an encouraging smile. I approached the group.

  “Miss Cross, do lend your efforts to our own in persuading our mother to ride in the parade.” Miss Gwendolen King, only two years my junior, raised an eyebrow and winked with amusement. She wore her golden-brown hair upswept into a bun beneath a tilted straw hat crowned with a burst of flowers that matched those on the automobile. Her carriage suit, too, was of a brilliant blue, and the parasol she carried in her gloved hand promised an equally dazzling display once opened. “Mother is being most stubborn and not at all sporting.”

  “I hadn’t been aware your family had purchased a motorcar,” I replied with a laugh. As a former society reporter, I still kept track of such happenings. But Gwendolen King knew very well I’d never venture to persuade her mother of anything; it wouldn’t have been my place.

  “We certainly have not,” Mrs. Ella King said forcefully and with a pointed glare at the third member of their party, her son, Philip. For a middle-aged woman, Mrs. King, a widow these five years past, had retained a slim figure well suited to the elongating lines of her summer frock, of a paler blue than her daughter’s but which nonetheless complemented the vividness of the cornflowers. Her hair, too, was a lighter blond than Gwendolen’s, partly due to strands of encroaching gray, and framed her face with a middle part. She wore a hat with a large bow and a feather that curled cunningly along the line of her cheek.

  Mrs. King’s expression and tone lightened when she spoke again to me. “Nor do I plan to own one, Miss Cross, and you may quote me on that. Give me a sound horse any day. I’d far rather canter across the countryside than motor down an avenue. Really, what is all the fuss about? I don’t believe these contraptions will last as long as the paint covering them. And all the work simply to start them! Fill this tank with water, that tank with gasoline, open this valve, light the pilot—my head positively spins. We didn’t dare turn it off when we arrived. It’s all well and good to dress up a motorcar as we’ve done today for a bit of entertainment, but I hardly believe them dependable when it comes to daily life. What do you think, Miss Cross?”

  “I think time will tell, ma’am,” I replied tactfully. In truth, I envied the parade entrants and wished I’d secured an invitation to ride along. I’d ridden in an automobile while in New York City and had found the experience exhilarating, if a bit unnerving. “But I can’t see automobiles ever completely replacing horses.”

  Mrs. King gave a little sniff and tugged a lace glove more firmly onto her hand. “I should think not, indeed.”

  “Mother gave me no choice but to borrow for the occasion, though I’m eager to exchange my cabriolet for one of these beauties just as soon as can be. An electric one, though, if I have my way.” Twenty-one-year-old Philip patted the automobile’s rear panel as if stroking a prized horse. And he might have been, for it was obvious he coveted not only a vehicle of his own, but the status that went along with owning one. His boastful intentions reminded me of my younger cousin Reggie Vanderbilt, a young man with too much time on his hands and too few responsibilities to keep him occupied. And as with Reggie, I detected in Philip’s blue eyes the gleam of craving but no spark of ambition.

  Apparently, his mother thought so too, for she said, “If you want an automobile, son, you must choose a profession, work hard, and earn one. But your horse and cabriolet will prove far more trustworthy, mark me on that.”
/>   Philip rolled his eyes and emitted a long-suffering sigh. “Really, Mother, you’re positively archaic. And of course Miss Cross believes motorcars are the wave of the future, as do I and most other people. She’s simply too polite to say it.”

  Oh dear. I didn’t like being thrust into the middle of a family dispute. With the siblings being of one mind contrary to their mother’s opinion, I decided Ella King needed an ally. “What I do know is that Mrs. King is one of Newport’s most accomplished equestriennes, rides some of our finest horses, and is peerless in the art of dressage.”

  “Why, thank you, Miss Cross.” Mrs. King beamed with satisfaction. She was so delighted by my pronouncement that she placed her hand in her son’s and allowed him to help her up into the front passenger seat of the Hartley. She smoothed her skirts and leaned down to address me again. “Will you be following along on foot?”

  “I will, Mrs. King. I shan’t miss a moment of the fun.” The parade would proceed from our present location, on the avenue between the granite walls of Stone Villa and the shingle-style architecture of the Newport Casino, all the way south to Ledge Road at the end of Bellevue Avenue.

  Mrs. King nodded in satisfaction, but fidgeted with her purse strings and repeatedly compressed her lips. I turned to her son and murmured, “I trust you are knowledgeable when it comes to operating a motor vehicle?” As always, I felt protective of my fellow Newporters. I would loathe to see Mrs. King, a generous philanthropist, come to any harm.

  He replied with a laugh that did nothing to fortify my confidence in him, his breath being laden with a sharp scent of spirits. While he turned away to assist his sister into the Hartley’s rear seat, my stomach sank. Was Philip simply enjoying the day? I wished to believe it, but I knew better. I’d worked the society pages too long not to have heard the gossip about him.