Lily Allingham lay on her right side. Her fair hair was spread out in an accidental halo on the sand around her; she had met eternity in a gown of fragile pink lace, with pearls sewn carefully into its bodice.
There was a single large wound on the left side of her head. Lenox saw why Schermerhorn had been so definite: plain murder, it was clear. There could be no other explanation. On a different part of the beach he might have suspected an inebriated fall, but where her body lay the shore was soft and sandy, with none of the great jagged rocks that began a few hundred feet south of the steps.
No, the wound had come from a human hand, or else the body had been moved after it fell—itself a sign that at a minimum, someone had been present at her death. There was also a livid mark on one of the girl’s wrists. It might have nothing to do with the murder, but Lenox’s best guess was that it did. A violent grip. He was looking for someone in the hold of an awful passion, another argument for the idea that it was one of Lily Allingham’s suitors who had killed her.
Lenox’s practice at scenes such as this, one he had carefully developed, was to walk in gradually increasing concentric circles around the body. He started now by gently inspecting Miss Allingham herself. He found nothing, but he did note a scent of gin on her body. That surprised him—not a lady’s drink, unless America was different from England.
He began to walk his outward circles, but there was little to see. The body had fallen cleanly into the sand and stayed there, and there were no objects nearby. Nor were there any useful markings—hundreds of footprints, but that was hardly a surprise, given how many people had been around the area.
When he had finished his inspection of the area, Lenox crouched by the body one last time. He would not have another chance to see Lily Allingham. She was beautiful indeed, even in the repose of death, at once ethereal, in the fine shape of her eyes and her fair hair, and sturdy, of the world, slim but substantial. He studied her right wrist, her left temple. What kind of weapon? He tried to think like McConnell. Something small and hard, he thought the doctor would have said. A rock. A pistol.
Then he noticed something else: a faint discoloration where a ring must have once been on her third finger.
Had it been removed recently, or several lifetimes ago, at least in the world of a young woman? She might have been engaged before and broken it off. He asked Welling if there was a ring missing from her hand, but no one present could say, and no one knew whether she had been accustomed to wearing one, including Blaine. They would have to ask someone closer to her. Her parents would know. Though that was a conversation Lenox knew would be grim.
He started his careful circles again, just to be sure, stopping only when, still having found nothing, he reached the sheer face of the cliff.
He looked up, and it was then that he realized that of course he must inspect the cliff top too. After nodding that he was done to Partridge, the police chief, Lenox took the stairs again, Blaine and Clark behind him. The rest remained below to wait for the coroner.
Up on the Walk (as Clark called it) Lenox carefully surveyed the trampled-down path two or three feet from the edge of the cliff. The vista from here was almost coldly stunning, a vast expanse of sea and cliff, indifferent to human activities.
Finding nothing on the path, Lenox stalked in among the knee-high grasses closer to the precipice. “Has this area been searched?” he called down to Partridge and Welling.
“No, sir,” the police chief said. “Not by myself or my men, leastwise.”
Lenox knelt down carefully and combed through the grass with his hands. He moved forward in a low stoop, no doubt resembling one of the lesser primates, but after ten or twelve feet, he had his reward—or at least, saw something unexpected.
He brushed the grasses aside to reveal the object, glinting dully in the daylight. He picked it up with his handkerchief. It was small and weighty, but despite this Lenox scarcely dared to believe it was their weapon—until he saw, on its shiny golden surface, a smear of what could only be dried blood.
A thrill of discovery in his heart.
“What is it?” asked Blaine, who had stuck to the walking path.
Lenox held the object up. “A flask,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”
Blaine stepped cautiously closer to look. The flask was an expensive object, gold, with a large inlaid ruby in its center and a grooved top that was attached by a little arm to the body.
Blaine shook his head, disappointed. “No.”
Lenox opened the flask and smelled. “Whisky,” he said. “Still a few drops left.”
He closed the flask again and squinted around. Not gin, he observed, despite the scent on Lily Allingham’s body.
Nevertheless, the circumstances seemed clearer. If he were putting together the story of the previous evening, he would hazard that the murderer had never even been down to the beach. No, he had killed Miss Allingham on this cliff top. Then he (or she, Lenox supposed) had rolled the body off the cliff to delay its discovery, and perhaps somehow, in this progression of events, lost this weapon in the dark. Even in broad daylight Lenox hadn’t spotted it immediately. Late at night, possibly drunk, the murderer would have had a very difficult time recovering the weapon, even with a good hunt.
“Mr. Lenox. Mr. Lenox!”
Lenox turned and saw a small, well-dressed man striding across a great expanse of lawn to him from the nearby house, waving to get his attention.
“Mr. Schermerhorn,” said Blaine.
“I had deduced as much,” said Lenox.
He quickly folded the flask into his handkerchief and placed it in his jacket pocket.
As Schermerhorn neared them, Clark materialized. Clark’s employer ignored him, however, his concentration set upon Lenox. Schermerhorn was handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair and high, prominent cheekbones in a small, neat face. The chief impression Lenox had from his bearing was of pride—pride in his house, in his person, in his name—and of wealth, a watch chain glittering with tasteful jewels (inasmuch as jewels could be tasteful), a suit of clothes clearly cut to Schermerhorn’s frame by an expert tailor.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Lenox,” said the American, fixing Lenox’s hand in a hard handshake.
“Yes. It’s a terrible crime.”
“We are shaken—extremely shaken. A fine young woman, Miss Allingham.”
Lenox murmured something sympathetic. Schermerhorn, looking around with a rattled grimace, began to racket on rather pointlessly—good family—charming girl—most attached—good works.
The suit was well cut, but it was a sober gray, and Lenox spotted in him the same kind of old Knickerbocker, ostensibly allergic to the new fortunes flooding New York, that he had met at supper the night before.
“May I invite you inside for a drink?” said Schermerhorn at last.
The detective was by no means sure that the man in front of him was an impartial party to all of this.
“I had planned to call on you after breakfast tomorrow, with your permission,” Lenox said. “The first hours are vital in an investigation such as this. I must discover what I can now. But I should very much like to speak to you in the morning.”
“Oh! Of course.” Schermerhorn looked nonplussed. “I should have thought you would want to hear the details of last night as soon as possible.”
He did. “Of course,” he said. “I think official courtesy requires that I seek them through the proper channels first, however. I am here in America as the Queen’s representative, as you may know.”
Schermerhorn looked indifferent to the claims of Newport officialdom, but more alive to the claims of a Queen.
“Of course,” he said. “Mr. Clark will take you wherever you need to go. Clark, any of the carriages is at your disposal.”
Lenox put up a hand. “Thank you, Mr. Schermerhorn, but I have Mr. Blaine here—besides which I must settle myself wherever my valet has found rooms.”
Schermerhorn noticed Blaine for the first time then, standing off to the side. “Oh, hello, Teddy. I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Hello, Mr. Schermerhorn.”
“Terrible, isn’t it? Miss Allingham.” He paused fractionally, thinking something private—Lenox would have paid good money to know what—before turning his attention back to the detective. “I was sure you should stay at Cove Court, though, Mr. Lenox.”
Lenox was only able to extricate himself from this invitation, and from Clark, with more words than he cared to spend, but at last he and Blaine went free. They did accept an offer to drive them into town from the mayor, Jack Welling, who happened to be leaving the coroner and police chief to their business on the beach. It was in his small barouche that at last Lenox and Blaine heard the details of the case.
At four o’clock that morning, around first light, Welling said, a small fishing yawl with three men aboard had spotted Lily Allingham’s body. There were several witnesses who had been on that part of the beach as late as midnight the evening before; that added up, Welling said, because Miss Allingham hadn’t left the ball at Cold Farm—some eight or nine houses down the Cliff Walk, he said, when Lenox inquired—until nearly midnight.
“Did she leave the ball with anyone?” asked Lenox.
“She left alone,” Welling said. He looked momentarily uncomfortable, but principle won out. “There is a report from the party that Mr. Schermerhorn the Fifth went after her, though. Mr. Partridge and his men are investigating it. They spoke to him briefly this morning.”
They had taken two turns and were driving down a series of streets lined with enormous oak trees, which towered over a variety of handsome old New England houses, trim saltboxes with manicured gardens and American flags hanging from their front porches. Very different from the cottages, as he supposed he must call them, but in their way just as pleasing, or more. They looked beautiful in the falling spring sunlight.
To Welling, Lenox said, “How does the younger Mr. Schermerhorn account for his leaving the ball?”
“He says he went to look for Lily Allingham but couldn’t find her.”
“He was interested in her romantically, I understand?”
Welling nodded, his large, reddish face, with its bushy mustache, in what looked like an unwonted attitude of worry, concern; he was a man who preferred to be on easy terms with the world.
“So I understand.”
“There is O’Brian,” said Blaine.
They had stopped in front of a tavern with a pair of small cannons outside its door. O’Brian was sitting at a table in front but leapt up when he saw Lenox.
“I shall wish you good day, then,” said the detective. “Mr. O’Brian, where are we staying—Mrs. Berry’s? Mrs. Berry’s. Gentlemen, you may find me there. For now I must get some food and drink into me or I shall shatter. Good day, Mr. Welling. Mr. Blaine, I will see you in the morning, if not before?”