Murder at Kingscote Read online

  “I don’t understand.” I appealed to both Derrick and the attendant. “Who is he?” Then, realizing we were talking about the man as if he couldn’t hear us, or as if he weren’t there, I gazed back at him. “Who are you?”

  “Harry,” he said with a grin. He formed his hands into fists, holding them up but making no move to use them. “The Hawk.”

  “The Hawk,” I repeated, and he smiled broadly, nodding. My heart dropped as I realized his was the mind of a child.

  Derrick’s hand touched my sleeve. “Harry Ainsley was a fighter, a good one, well on his way to becoming an East Coast champion. Fought mostly in Providence and Boston, although if I remember correctly, he was on his way to Madison Square Garden to fight the greats. Never made it, though.”

  “What happened?”

  Harry Ainsley had resumed his dance, striking the air with his fists in short, sharp jabs. The attendant positioned himself between his charge and Derrick and me. He said, “He was put in a coma during a fight, and when he woke, he was like this.”

  “Good heavens. What happened to the other fighter?”

  Derrick shook his head. “He was fine apparently. He disappeared. You see, this wasn’t an official fight. This was at one of the backstreet clubs where amateurs could challenge each other to make a little money. A lot of it was bare-knuckled street fighting. But not this fight. They used gloves, which were just beginning to be used at the time.”

  I didn’t understand what he was getting at. “Don’t gloves make boxing safer?”

  “Not at first. If anything, they made matters worse,” he explained.

  I shook my head. “How so?”

  The attendant held up his fists. “The gloves not only protect the hands, they dull a man’s sense of how hard he’s hitting. Because he doesn’t feel the pain in his knuckles, you see.” He gestured toward Harry Ainsley. “Nowadays there are rules about where and how many times a man can be punched in the same place before the referee steps in. In that fight, Harry was knocked senseless and then some.”

  I shook my head, still mystified. Derrick said, “Harry suffered a barrage of punches to the head before the referee could stop the fight. His opponent practically had to be pried off. Harry had lost consciousness well before he hit the floor. They didn’t think he’d live.”

  “From what I’ve been told, it was a miracle he did,” said the attendant. In the next moment, he shrugged. “On the other hand, not such a miracle. Not what anyone would wish for. But back then, no one realized what kind of difference gloves would make, and they were late in changing the rules.” He glanced back at the patient. “Too late for Harry.”

  My throat tightened as I contemplated this poor man’s loss. “Did no one hold the other fighter accountable?”

  Both the attendant and Derrick shook their heads. Derrick said, “He entered under a kind of stage name, the Bald Eagle, if I remember correctly from the articles my father ran in the Sun. But nowhere had his true name been recorded. Those amateur clubs were like that.”

  “Besides, the other fighter really didn’t do anything wrong,” the attendant pointed out. “Not legally, anyway. It was the rules that were wrong.”

  With mounting sadness, I regarded Harry as he resumed sparring with the air. “Have you worked with him long?”

  “Only these past two years. I came here from another hospital. Because of my size, I was given the responsibility of taking Harry out for his daily exercise.”

  Derrick studied Harry’s movements. “Does he often become combative?”

  “Not usually. But sometimes when he encounters another man he doesn’t recognize—not one of the doctors or orderlies—a man like yourself,” he said to Derrick, “he goes off a bit. Nothing I can’t handle. You saw how fast I calmed him.”

  “What a terrible fate,” I murmured.

  “He’s not alone,” the attendant surprised me by saying. “It happens more than most people realize. Maybe not this severely, but when a man gets knocked senseless over and over again, it takes its toll. I’ve seen it before.”

  My opinion of the sport of boxing, already low, plummeted farther still. Several words sprang to mind: ridiculous, foolhardy, childish, to name a few. I kept them to myself, for while my ranting might allow my anger some release, it wouldn’t change Harry Ainsley’s condition.

  “We should be going,” I said quietly. “Thank you for speaking with us—” I broke off as one more question occurred to me. “This is a private institution. Who pays for his room and board?”

  “Family, I would imagine,” Derrick said, but I doubted that very much.

  “Do the sons of wealthy families become boxers?” I observed, rather than asked. The attendant shook his head.

  “Back in the day, Harry had several wealthy patrons who took pity on him. Set up a fund to pay for his needs. Good thing, too, because he doesn’t have any family.”

  A hollow sensation formed in the pit of my stomach. “No one?”

  “If he does, they don’t come to visit.”

  How tragic. How deplorable to be locked away and forgotten. It at least gladdened me that this attendant seemed to care about his patient, and his ability to calm Harry Ainsley indicated that they had established a kind of rapport. I gazed at the manicured grounds, and then up at the brick building with its Gothic architectural features and lack of barred windows. I thought about the report Nellie Bly had written about the asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Harry’s life, I believed, could have been worse. Much, much worse.

  * * *

  Derrick and I arrived at the Messenger by late afternoon. At first, his desire to accompany me there surprised me, and I began to explain that my work would keep me occupied a good while, until I remembered the newspaper belonged to him and he had every reason to be there.

  As it turned out, we didn’t settle in for long. I had no sooner opened the sales ledger to view the morning’s revenues when the telephone on the wall summoned me with a sharp jangle. Upon raising the ear trumpet and letting the caller know he or she had reached the Messenger, a breathless and familiar voice came over the wire. “Miss Cross, this is Gwendolen King.”

  My surprise could not have been greater. Although I spoke fairly regularly to my Vanderbilt relatives on the contraption—one of which my uncle Cornelius had installed at my home—members of the Four Hundred typically did not make telephone calls. Rather, they adhered to the tradition of sending calling cards to the homes of their friends, letting them know they could expect a visit during “morning calls,” which actually occurred after lunch.

  “What may I do for you, Miss King?”

  “Can you come out to Kingscote?”

  “I . . . suppose so, yes. When might be a convenient time?”

  “Is now too soon?”

  Good heavens. “Has something happened? Has your brother . . .”

  “Philip is still locked in his room. No, this has nothing to do with him. But I don’t wish to speak of it on the telephone. Please, will you come?”

  “Of course. I must do one or two things here and then I’ll be on my way.”

  We disconnected and I hurried through the offices searching for Derrick. I found him in the typeset room, watching as an afternoon extra was prepared for the press. Drawing him aside, I quickly explained my cryptic call from Gwendolen King. Minutes later we exited the building on Spring Street and walked toward the harbor, to Stevenson’s Livery on Thames Street to retrieve my horse and carriage.

  Afternoon traffic clogged the roads coming into town and slowed our progress, but since Kingscote sat near the Newport Casino, we didn’t keep Miss King waiting long. Another carriage sat on the circular drive not far from the front door, a gleaming, lacquered two-seater with plush leather seats, its top down, harnessed to a beautifully proportioned bay horse who dozed where he stood.

  “Someone is here,” I said unnecessarily. “I wonder if this visitor has anything to do with Miss King’s call.”

  “We’ll find out momentari
ly.”

  As we stepped down, the front door opened upon my society columnist, Ethan Merriman, in his formal butler’s attire. At the same time, a man in brown tweeds and a shallow derby came striding around the house and asked whether Maestro needed tending. He spoke to Derrick, and seemed nonplussed to discover the horse and carriage were instead mine.

  “He’s fine where he is,” I said. “Thank you.”

  The man, sinuous and not much taller than I, his mutton-chop sideburns grizzled a deep iron hue, tipped his hat. “Very good, miss.”

  He started to walk away, but I stopped him with a question. “Are you Mrs. King’s full-time groom?”

  He turned back and removed his derby as he addressed me. “I’m her only groom, miss.”

  “And you were not here when Mr. Baldwin’s accident occurred. Is that right?” I could feel Derrick’s puzzled gaze on me. Jesse had already verified the man’s alibi for the night, yet I had my reason for asking again. Ethan, too, waited at the front door with a perplexed expression, probably wondering how long I would require him to hold the door open for us.

  “That’s right, miss. I was visiting my family.”

  “Oh. And where do they live?”

  “Up Broadway, miss, just past the Middletown line.”

  Which meant most of his business would have been conducted in Newport. I got to the point. “I’ve lived in Newport all my life, and you aren’t familiar to me, sir. Not very much, at any rate.” Perhaps I had seen him in town a time or two. Surely we had never before spoken.

  His eyes registered surprise at my use of the term sir. It was simply my habit to treat others respectfully, regardless of their occupation.

  “I’m from Tiverton originally, but I came with the Kings up from Washington when they took over the house a few years back. My family moved here to the island when they inherited a house from a great uncle of mine.”

  “That would explain it, then.” Or at least well enough, I supposed. Jesse had said not only the family, but some of the neighbors had vouched for the man’s whereabouts the night of Baldwin’s attack. Seeing his unfamiliar face had made me leery nonetheless. I held out my gloved hand to him. “I’m Emma Cross. I run the Newport Messenger.”

  If I had taken him aback by addressing him as sir, I’d dumbfounded him by introducing myself and offering to shake his hand. He fumbled a moment before briskly wiping his hand on his trousers. “Brian Farrell, miss.”

  I let him get back to his domain in the stables at the rear of the property. As Derrick and I walked up the path to the door, where Ethan continued to wait for us, I murmured, “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

  “Don’t you trust Jesse’s instincts?”

  “Jesse didn’t interview him. One of his uniformed officers did. As soon as I saw him I knew he couldn’t be a local Newporter.”

  “Do you know every single soul who lives within these borders?”

  “If they were born and raised here, yes.” While Derrick chuckled at that, I turned my attention to Ethan. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “I questioned the groom, too, as a matter of fact.” Ethan closed the door as we stepped inside. He took Derrick’s hat. “I could have told you his family was new to the area. There are his parents, an unmarried sister, and an elderly aunt. Farrell’s mother’s sister, I believe.”

  “Good work,” I said. “Is Mrs. King at home?”

  We spoke in whispers. Apparently neither Miss King nor anyone else in the household were aware yet that Derrick and I had arrived, and I wished to put these few minutes to good use.

  “No,” Ethan replied, “she’s attending a luncheon this afternoon.”

  Which perhaps explained Gwendolen King’s insistence that I come immediately. Whatever she wished to discuss with me, she must not want her mother knowing about. “Has something happened here today?”

  Ethan looked puzzled. “Nothing that I know of. Why?”

  “This isn’t a social call,” Derrick told him. “Miss King telephoned the Messenger and asked Miss Cross to come right over.”

  Ethan glanced up at the staircase. Seeming satisfied there was no one to overhear, he said in a rush, “I don’t know anything about that, but Miss King has been acting awfully strange. She’s always following me about. I’ve even caught her peeking around doors more than once. Her and her friend, Miss Wetmore.”

  “Maude?” I said.

  Ethan nodded.

  “Is that Maude Wetmore’s carriage on the drive?” Derrick gestured in the general direction.

  “No, that belongs to Francis Crane.”

  My eyebrows went up. “How long has he been here?”

  “About an hour. Been here nearly every day since the whole to-do happened.”

  “Sounds like our Mr. Crane is taking advantage of a situation,” Derrick said, referring to the young man’s desire to court Miss King. “While Philip is locked away, Francis will play.”

  “Philip has remained locked in his room, hasn’t he?” I asked.

  “He even has his meals there.” At a thud from upstairs, Ethan glanced up at the stairwell again and hurried on. “His mother isn’t taking any chances.”

  Derrick frowned. “That he tries to make his escape?”

  “No,” said Ethan. “That he doesn’t do anything stupid that will incriminate him further.”

  I changed the subject to one I deemed more urgent. “Have you been able to learn anything significant about the servants? Most especially John Donavan and Olivia Riley?”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow and nodded. “The rest all seem very straightforward, except for those two. John Donavan disappears into his quarters above the carriage house for hours at a time. When I tried engaging him in conversation a couple of times, he made excuses and hurried away.”

  Derrick made a dismissive gesture. “Not everyone has the desire to make idle conversation.”

  “No,” Ethan agreed, “but it’s more than that. Just this morning the groom was searching for him to ready Mrs. King’s carriage for her travels through town today. Farrell went to the carriage house, and I could hear him pounding on Donavan’s door for some minutes before he got a response.”

  I pondered that before concluding aloud, “Do you think Donavan was in there drinking?”

  “Heaven help him if he’s driving Mrs. King around town while intoxicated.” Derrick formed a fist and tapped it at the air.

  Ethan shook his head. “That’s what I assumed, but when he came down, he appeared perfectly lucid and steady. It’s very odd.”

  “And Olivia Riley?” I asked, once again changing the subject, knowing our time was limited.

  “I find the number of letters and wires she receives highly unusual.”

  “Telegrams, too?” This was unusual. Telegrams were expensive and generally reserved for emergencies. How would the family of a housemaid be able to afford such communications frequently? More importantly, what was so urgent it couldn’t wait for a letter to be sent through the mail? “Have you asked her about this?”

  Before he could reply, a woman called down from the top of the stairs. “Merrin, do I hear voices? Has company arrived?” A ruffled hem bordered with lace appeared at the turn in the staircase. By the time Gwendolen King had finished speaking, she had descended the steps fully into our view. “Good, you’re here, Miss Cross. And I see you’ve brought Mr. Andrews.”

  This seemed not to perturb her in the least. Derrick bobbed his head to her. “Good day, Miss King. I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “No indeed, Mr. Andrews.” She descended the rest of the way to the Stair Hall and extended her hand first to him, and then to me. “Thank you both for coming.” Her cordial expression cooled with annoyance. “Merrin, I hope you haven’t detained my guests longer than necessary. Why didn’t you let me know immediately that they were here?”

  “We’ve only just arrived,” I said hastily.

  “Yes, well.” Her mouth tightened in disapproval. “Merrin, please go up an
d ask Miss Wetmore to join us in the north drawing room. And then have tea brought in. After that I wish you to attend to the inventory of the picnic silverware. Mother hopes to have her outing as soon as matters are resolved, and if anything has gone missing she’ll need to know now.”

  Ethan did his best to hide his dismay at the prospect of counting untold pieces of cutlery. “Yes, miss.”

  Miss King issued him a final, silent rebuke as she gathered Derrick and myself on either side of her and walked us through the first drawing room and into the second. “Along with my friend Miss Wetmore, Mr. Crane is here as well.” I detected a note of impatience at this second pronouncement.

  “Will he be joining us for tea?” I asked, wondering if whatever Miss King wished to tell me involved that young man.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. He’s just gone to my brother’s room. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Peake, will let him into Philip’s room and stand guard until he leaves. Then she’ll lock the door again.”

  I searched for signs of distress as Miss King divulged this information to us. Was she distraught over her brother’s confinement? She showed no sign of it. Rather, she almost spoke with relief, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was because with Philip locked in his room, he could come to none of his usual mischief. Drinking, gambling money he didn’t have . . . these activities must have sorely taxed his mother’s and sister’s patience.

  We made ourselves comfortable while Gwendolen King passed several minutes remarking on the weather and the number of people who had descended on Newport for the summer Season. The floor-to-ceiling windows had been slid open to admit a temperate, slightly salt-laden breeze. Miss King seemed in no particular hurry to get to the point, and I had the distinct impression we were waiting . . .

  With brisk steps, Maude Wetmore crossed the adjoining room as though driven by a sense of purpose. I found her to favor both of her parents equally, possessing her mother’s genteel refinement and her father’s forthright determination. From both George and Edith Wetmore, she had inherited a keen intelligence and a disinclination to suffer fools. She and I had butted horns subtly several years ago, and I had come away with a healthy respect for the woman, one year my senior. And I, it seemed, had earned her regard as well.