TWENTY-FOUR

The evening finally came. Marines were posted as extra security to prevent any catastrophes, such as the one at the Textiles Building. I shivered at the thought. Mrs. Palmer had insisted on extending invitations to M. Worth, his brother, daughter, soon to be son-in-law, and the young M. Poiret. She’d even asked for Mlle Arquette and staff from the House of Worth to set up a cloakroom on the fourth floor in the ladies’ area. It was as if she were either tempting fate or showing the locals how to do it. In either case, I knew I would be relieved when the evening came to an end.

Of course, it was a perfect occasion for her to knock heads once again with Mrs. Johnstone in the contest of who had claim to superior considerations. There were two separate receiving lines, one featuring the ambassador, with Mrs. Johnstone and her husband at the end. On the opposite side of the room, Mrs. Palmer had arranged the members of the United States commission for the Exposition, including some of the wealthiest men in the country. Her line also had the enviable merit of finishing just at the start of the cold buffet. Mrs. Palmer herself was unruffled in her magnificent gown, adorned with the cornstalk pattern, and she wore the pearl choker, as she’d said she would. Mr. Palmer had declined to stand in the receiving line, and instead sat comfortably sipping his champagne and admiring his wife. I thought I saw Mr. Johnstone shooting him an envious glance from across the room.

I stood near the door. It was a hot evening, and the air was heavy and still. It made you want to move, just to keep your clothing from sticking to your skin, and to create your own little breeze, however fleeting. But we soldiered on. My husband was ensconced with Potter Palmer on the round red plush seats in the middle of the room. Stephen looked unbothered by the heat as he sipped champagne from a crystal flute, while keeping an eye on the older man. I caught my breath at the sight of him, content to know he was there, my rock in this sea of shifting figures.

But I wasn’t comfortable, especially with the elbow-length kid gloves that encased my hands and arms. I was glad I’d worn my old pink silk gown, as I feared it would suffer from the sweltering conditions and I would have hated to damage the borrowed Worth gown. The air held the threat of a thunderstorm.

“Mme Chapman, it is a pleasure to see you again.” M. Jean-Philippe Worth took my gloved right hand and raised it to his lips. I had to restrain myself from pulling away, I was so unused to that custom. At once I regretted not wearing the Worth gown as I saw his eye run over my figure. How intimidating to stand before a man whose business it was to clothe the wealthiest and most beautiful women in the world.

I greeted him and asked after his daughter. He snatched two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and turned to offer me one. “She visits Mlle Arquette on the upper floor to ready herself with last minute adjustments. I await her. And M. Cartier, likewise.” That young man stood a few steps away conversing with M. Worth’s brother, Gaston, in French. M. Poiret entered and made a formal bow to us, but M. Worth chose to ignore him, and the younger man proceeded to the reception line without stopping. M. Poiret quickly took in the situation and chose Mrs. Palmer’s line.

“M. Poiret is a talented young man, from what I’ve heard,” I said.

M. Worth frowned. “Perhaps, but he is too much for the informal. He has not the taste for the grand style. And he has the other faults of the young man.”

“What faults are those?”

“The women…the parties…the horses.” He waved a hand. “It is the way with all the young men. They want to try their luck.”

“Does M. Poiret gamble, then?”

“Of course, as with all the men. He boasts of his winnings.” He leaned towards me. “But he is quiet about his losses, eh?”

“I see.” I would have questioned him further, but at that moment there was a disturbance behind us that was too loud to ignore.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to do.” It was Lydia Johnstone in a strident voice. Both M. Worth and I turned instinctively at the sound. She wore a black satin gown with a design of raised velvet. The neckline dipped dramatically and it had bell sleeves that came down almost to her elbow-length black kid gloves. She had a lacy black fan open in one hand and a black plume ran across her head, from one ear almost to the other. Despite her mother’s protests, she wore a heavy gold and silver necklace with matching drop earrings. The gown was luscious, but her face was an ugly red, and she seemed to sneer at Edith Stuart who was pulling away from the clasp of her hand. Edith wore a gauzy purple chiffon gown with silver satin ribbons, and a corsage of white camellias at one shoulder. Her eyes were closed to a slit and her teeth were bared.

“Oh, you won’t get rid of me that easily,” she said, in an unpleasantly raspy voice.

“Please, Edith, Lydia.” Grace Greenway Brown seemed to be the only one of the group to be aware of all the eyes turning in their direction. She wore a white silk gown with pink and gray trim in the shape of twining vines around the hem and a closely embroidered pattern on the bodice. It had been pointed out to me as a Jeanne Paquin design. Edith reached out a gloved hand to clutch at her.

“Grace is going to move out and get a place with me. On rue Royale, aren’t you?” She turned back to smirk at Lydia.

“Nonsense, she’s got barely more money than you do,” Lydia said.

I turned away in an attempt not to overhear any more.

“Don’t be so sure of that. You’ll see what I can do,” I heard Edith say.

I looked around, surprised not to see Lord James, given his earlier comments about Lydia Johnstone and Omaha. I’d seen him earlier but he’d since disappeared. Luckily, Countess Olga and her daughter entered just then and greeted me warmly. The countess looked more aristocratic than I had ever seen her. She wore a dress of ivory satin and lace, heavily beaded with pearls, and embroidered with sequins and gold thread. She also wore more jewels than I had ever seen on her before—a tiara, necklace, earrings, and a matching bracelet, all of diamonds set in platinum.

“Magnificent,” M. Worth said, when she and Sonya, who wore her champagne-colored Worth gown with the garlands of pink fabric roses, had passed on to Mrs. Palmer’s reception line. “They are the family jewels, you know…the husband’s family in Russia.”

“Apparently she has joined Mrs. Palmer in refusing to be intimidated by the jewel thief,” I said. “We heard there were two more robberies.”

“It is true.” He nearly clapped his hands. “It is good, you see. It is not only at the functions of the House of Worth that these things happen. We were there, too, when they had the most recent robberies. But my poor Andrée, she had already lost her only precious stone. It was not she who was robbed.”

As if in response to her name, M. Worth’s daughter arrived from the elevator and they proceeded in. I greeted a few more newcomers and helped them determine which line to join. The crowd thinned a bit as people spread out to adjacent rooms or up the metal stairs to the upper floors. Sometime later, the air was still heavy, and I was about to gather my limp skirts and abandon my post by the door to find my husband, when I noticed Countess Olga making her way through the brightly colored throng of people. She looked quietly distressed and headed for Inspector Guillaume who stood in evening dress near the doorway. Something was wrong with the countess, but before I could determine what it was I thought I heard a scream. There was a rustle through the crowd, like a breeze through leaves. People stopped, listened, then began to talk again, as if to ignore and blot out some slight embarrassment. But suddenly there was another scream from the second floor.

With the instinct of a mother who hears the tone of her child’s cry and knows it is serious, I picked up my skirts and hurried up the curving metal staircase and out through the arches to the balcony where I’d stood with Lord James that morning. Honoré Palmer was there, leaning over the railing. Beside him, Sonya Zugenev gulped sobs and clutched the stone balustrade as she shivered, her hair falling across her face.

“What is it?” I asked, but by then I, too, was looking over the balustrade, and I could see a body lying on the stones below. “Oh, no.”

“No, no, no,” Honoré groaned. An expression of deep anguish spread across his face. He jumped back and ran to the steps, pushing his way through the confused people heading in our direction.

I followed, calling out to my husband as I descended. By the time I was out on the rue des Nations, Bertha Palmer, her husband, and Inspector Guillaume had reached the prone figure. Honoré was on his knees, his hand on the woman’s shoulder, lifting it so he could see the ruined face. My husband pushed through and bent down to examine the smashed and bloody form.

“She’s gone,” he said. He looked up at me. “Who is she?”

“Edith Stuart,” I said. The dead woman’s limp hand seemed to reach out towards me on the gray stone walkway. I saw a bright reflection winking in a little pool of water, just beyond the reach of her fingers. It came from a bracelet of tiny diamonds. What had she been doing with that?

Inspector Guillaume waved an arm and had men surround the little tableau, pushing the curious guests back. “Return to the pavilion, please. All of you,” he directed. The policemen began to herd people away. The inspector studied the figures before him. “M. Palmer, you will come with me, please.” Guillaume motioned to two of the uniformed officers, who stepped up to Honoré and took his arms as he rose from Edith’s body. When he tried to shake them off one of them twisted his arm. Reaching into Honoré’s pocket, he pulled out a shiny string, whipping it away from the young man. “Regardez!” he yelled. It was a string of diamonds…a necklace. I remembered Countess Olga talking to the inspector just before we’d heard the screams. Not another theft, surely?

“No, wait.” Bertha Palmer was avoiding the officer who was attempting to direct her back inside. “You can’t take him. Honoré, what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Madame, it will be necessary for you to go inside. I must talk to your son.”

“No.” This time it was Potter Palmer who stepped forward unsteadily. “Enough of this, there will be no more, there will—” He stumbled. I watched with growing horror, as I saw him fumble and reach out, as if to grasp something. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell heavily, but Stephen lunged forward and caught him before he could hit the hard stones of the street. He crumpled in my husband’s arms and Bertha Palmer ran to them.

“He’s ill.” Stephen lowered him gently and loosened his collar. “We must get him to a hospital immediately.” He looked over Bertha’s trembling shoulders to Inspector Guillaume.

The inspector called out to his men and, in a moment, a carriage pulled up. They lifted Mr. Palmer into it and Stephen joined him. Bertha began to follow them but she saw that Honoré was being held back by two policemen. “Mother,” he called.

“Let him go,” she said.

“No, madame, I am sorry, but he must stay,” the inspector said.

Her face was a picture of agony. “Go,” I told her, stepping forward. I exchanged a glance with Stephen over her shoulder. He looked grave, so I feared for Potter. “I’ll stay. I’ll watch over Honoré. Go.”

Suddenly, Lord James was at my side. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Palmer, we’ll take care of Honoré. You go with Mr. Palmer.”

She was pulled into the carriage, where she collapsed in tears. As they galloped away I turned back to follow the officers who were dragging the squirming Honoré into the pavilion. For once, Bertha Palmer’s plans had all fallen apart in a manner that could never have been predicted. Incongruously, I thought of one of my children’s favorite rhymes—“Humpty Dumpty fell off a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”