Chapter 20
Although late afternoon shadows draped the Casino, bright electric lights lit the lawns inside. The throng ranged around the tennis court seemed but a mirror image of Mrs. Fish’s Harvest Festival, with so many of the same people in attendance. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Fish, Aunt Alva and Oliver Belmont, the Oelrichses, the Astors, and countless others. Up on the restaurant’s patio, Mr. and Mrs. Clemson were having dinner, but Thea was not with them. I spied her a few minutes later, strolling with her hand firmly ensconced in the crook of Charles Eldridge’s arm. As he had partnered Katherine at Crossways that night, he seemed to effortlessly guide Miss Clemson along the walkways. In her tiered silk gown, she appeared to float at his side.
At first I thought it strange that she would agree to walk with him; then I realized she must have wished to escape her parents, even for a short time, and perhaps allow them to believe she had moved on from her infatuation with Prince Otto. I did not believe she yet understood the reason for her mother’s vehement objections.
Hannah and I made a circuit of the pavilion. I heard Brady’s voice before I laid eyes on him. Though he hadn’t been there when we’d first passed by, he now stood in front of the clock tower; or rather, he wavered unsteadily and shouted partially incoherent encouragement to the tennis players.
Hannah grimaced at one particularly ribald shout. “Oh, dear. Perhaps we shouldn’t have come,” she murmured to me.
I strode resolutely toward my brother. A pair of matrons nearby turned their mouths down in distaste at his antics and sidestepped away from him. Brady seemed oblivious and went on shouting and waving his arms about as though signaling directions to the players. My heart ached that my brother had fallen so low in so short a time. He had made such strides in his life, only to come to this.
But he was not beyond hope. When I reached him I attempted to slip my good arm through his. “Brady, I think you’ve had enough tennis for today.”
“Em!” he cried out with undue enthusiasm. “What a surprise to see you here. And Hannah! Well, this is jolly, isn’t it?” His eyebrows converged in a frown as he noticed the sling holding my arm. “What the holy hell happened to you?”
“A small accident. Would you please lower your voice?” I glanced around us. “You’re creating a scene. People are staring.” Indeed, a number of people had turned around to convey their disapproval. I was glad Mrs. Fish hadn’t seen me and decided to leave her friends to join me.
“Let ’em stare.” Brady’s voice rose. “Go ahead and gawk, all of you.”
“Brady, please come with us.” Hannah flanked his other side and tried to latch on as I had. “We can have a nice quiet dinner together.”
“And miss the tennis? Don’t be silly.” He pulled his arms free, only to slip one around Hannah’s shoulders in a manner that made her blush violently and attempt to pull away. He held her fast and leaned in closer. “Emma thinks you and I should wed. What do you think, old girl? Is she right?”
“Brady, please,” Hannah pleaded in a fierce whisper. Tears threatened.
“Let the young lady go, Brady.” Startled, we all three glanced up at Charles Eldridge. Thea Clemson stood off to one side, her back to us as she scanned the crowd, or pretended to. I guessed she merely wished to avoid being part of an unpleasant scene. Mr. Eldridge took Hannah’s hand in his slender, sinuous one, and gently extricated her from Brady’s hold. “Are you quite all right, miss?”
Hannah gazed up at him as if entranced. His eyes narrowed in return as he took in her features, and I thought I saw a hint of speculation in his gaze. Before I could be sure, Hannah nodded and thanked him, and he released her hand. I introduced them, but their greetings were summarily drowned out as Brady voiced a protest about Hannah leaving his side.
Another man came up behind him. He was tall like Mr. Eldridge, but without his elegance. No, a slight cragginess in Harry Forge’s face spoke of past brawls, resulting in a former break in the bridge of his nose. Had I once thought him handsome? I cringed at the memory of my last encounter with him. As welcome as Mr. Eldridge’s intervention was, I felt no gratitude toward Mr. Forge and only wished him to go away.
“Harry, there you are.” My brother, on the other hand, seemed genuinely pleased to see him. “I thought you’d gone.”
“Not yet, old man. I was waiting for you.” Harry’s gaze skipped from face to face, lingering a moment longer than necessary on mine. A shiver traveled my back. Then he regarded Brady with a wide grin. “I detect your sister putting a damper on your evening. Shall we go?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Despite Brady’s words, his pleased look continued, and it appeared he would happily go with Mr. Forge.
I stepped between them. “My brother doesn’t need to go anywhere with you, Mr. Forge.”
“He’s not himself, obviously.” Harry Forge spoke quietly, for my ears only. “I merely mean to convey him home and fill him with strong coffee.”
“No, thank you.” I turned away from him in dismissal. “Brady, let’s go.”
My brother dug in his heels. “I don’t need you playing nursemaid, Em. Or any of you. If Harry and I have other plans, it’s none of your business.”
“That’s the spirit, old man.” Mr. Forge’s high humor restored, he slapped Brady on the back, a gesture that threatened my brother’s balance. At a cheer from the crowd, Brady’s attention swerved back to the tennis match. In that instant, Harry Forge again spoke quietly to me. “Let me bring him home. I promise no harm will come to your precious brother. Would you rather he remain and continue to make a fool of himself? Not all reporters will be as charitable as you with his good name.”
I gritted my teeth and sized the man up. I didn’t trust him; I had no reason to. Could he possess a modicum of decency? He hadn’t shown me any, certainly. He seemed steady enough on his feet, but still I wondered if he had imbibed a cocaine-laced elixir tonight. I decided to speak the truth. “I don’t trust you, Mr. Forge. Not after what you did to me when I visited you in your home.”
“No harm came to you, did it?” An eyebrow went up in question.
Before I answered him, I caught sight of Hannah’s wretched expression. My determination to resist Mr. Forge’s offer of assistance began to dwindle. It was Charles Eldridge who presented a solution.
“Miss Cross, if I may.” Mr. Eldridge bent his head to accommodate my shorter stature. “If your brother is willing to go quietly with Harry, I suggest you let them.”
“But—”
“My carriage is larger than Harry’s. You and your delightful friend here may ride with me. We’ll follow to make sure your brother arrives home safely.”
Relieved, I quickly agreed, then felt a twinge of misgiving. I gestured toward Thea Clemson, who had thoroughly ignored us these many minutes. Mr. Eldridge stepped to her side.
“Miss Clemson, will you excuse me temporarily? I promise I’ll return before too long, but I always say if one can render a good deed, then one must. Don’t you agree?”
To my astonishment, Thea shrugged. “You needn’t hesitate for my sake, Mr. Eldridge.”
“I shall return you to your parents, then.” He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. “Are you quite sure you won’t mind, my dearest Miss Clemson? I wouldn’t wish you to feel neglected.”
I frowned. Unless I was greatly mistaken, Charles Eldridge had entirely switched his affections from the unfortunate Katherine Pendleton to the very much alive Thea Clemson. In so short a time? Had he only been humoring Mrs. Fish the other day at Belcourt when she had teased him about setting his cap for Katherine? Had he only danced with Katherine while he waited to partner Thea at the next opportunity? Perhaps so. It seemed to me, and I guessed anyone else watching, that Charles Eldridge’s cap was firmly set for Miss Clemson.
But as for the young lady herself? I felt a surge of sympathy for Mr. Eldridge, as I believed it would be a long while before she allowed herself to fall in love again.
The two carriages were brought up to the Casino entrance. Hannah and I watched as Brady climbed precariously into Harry Forge’s curricle. I studied Mr. Forge for signs of inebriation. Then again, I had driven my gig under the influence of cocaine and done well enough. The memory of that day once again filled me with outrage, and I loathed trusting the man with my brother’s welfare. I half wished Brady had refused to go along with Mr. Forge. My only solace was that Hannah and I would be following closely in Mr. Eldridge’s larger phaeton.
He offered his hand to help me up, taking extra care to steady me as my incapacitated arm set me off balance. Once I’d settled on the leather and velvet seat, he offered Hannah assistance.
“I suddenly remember where we’ve met previously, Mr. Eldridge,” she said.
The gentleman hesitated before asking, “Have we met? Forgive me, I can’t seem to recall. . . .”
“In Providence. At the hospital.” Hannah accepted his hand and slid in beside me. A moment later Mr. Eldridge came around the carriage and stepped up. With only an inch or two to spare between the three of us, we set out a few carriage lengths behind Brady and Harry Forge. Dusk had descended over the island, the last rays of the setting sun streaking fire across the western sky.
“I’m afraid you must be mistaken, Miss Hanson.”
“Could I be?” She leaned forward to see around me and studied Mr. Eldridge’s aquiline profile. He faced forward, yet I sensed his keen awareness of her scrutiny. A wariness came over me, though I could not have explained it. Hannah continued. “No, I don’t think I am mistaken, sir. Were you not a medical student a few years back? Is it not Doctor Eldridge now?”
* * *
“No, indeed.” He sounded stern, almost angry. “I am not a doctor.”
Hannah sat back. “It’s uncanny, then, the resemblance.” Her features tightened in concentration. “But . . . Eldridge . . . the name is as familiar as your face. Yes, I’m certain it was you. You see, I was training to be a nurse at the time. This would have been four years ago.”
“No, Miss Hanson, I am afraid you are mistaken. My interests lie in my family’s coal mines in Pennsylvania.”
“Why, yes, I remember hearing about your family’s mines,” Hannah persisted.
Their conversation puzzled me, but I’d become aware of something else as my hand drifted to the seat at my side. Between the rows of tufting, velvet-covered buttons held the upholstery in place. Blue velvet.
A sense of dread crept over me as I thought back to the morning in the morgue when Brady, Hannah, Jesse, and I had viewed Gabriel Sturm’s body. There had been blue thread tangled in his fingers, as if he’d latched on to something for dear life. In his panic, had he blindly attempted to climb into this carriage, only to be dragged down off it? If I searched thoroughly, would I find a missing button somewhere on this seat?
Hannah continued to insist that she had met Charles Eldridge at Providence Hospital; he continued to deny it, his irritation evident. The carriage sped up, and I glanced down at his hands. They held the reins effortlessly, the long fingers conveying signals to the horse with the finesse of . . .
Of a physician. Only a physician, or one who had trained to be one, had such mastery of his hands.
Was Charles Eldridge so in love with Thea that he had considered Otto a rival who must be eliminated? But no, it couldn’t be that simple. At the Ocean House Hotel, the desk clerk had heard Gabriel Sturm say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” And Prince Otto had responded, “Make matters clear. I never bluff.” What was Sturm supposed to take care of? How did Charles Eldridge fit into their plans?
However much I burned to ask, to confront him, I had Hannah’s safety to consider, as well as my own. The streets were dark now, and Mr. Forge’s carriage no longer occupied the road ahead of us. That was because, I realized, we hadn’t headed west into the Point when Mr. Forge did. We had stayed on a northerly course, and now the tall iron fences of the cemeteries on Farewell Street loomed on either side of us. I wished Hannah would cease questioning Mr. Eldridge, but to my frustration, she persisted.
“I remember hearing you’d had to withdraw from your courses,” she was saying. “There’s no shame in that, Mr. Eldridge.”
“Do shut up, Miss Hanson.”
Hannah gasped. “What?”
“I said shut up.”
The carriage jolted as Mr. Eldridge veered off Farewell Street. The motion jarred my shoulder and I barely kept from yelping. In my rising trepidation, it took me a moment to gain my bearings. He’d turned in at the gates of the Common Burying Ground. The vehicle pitched and lurched over the rocky, uneven ground. My spine pressed against the back of the seat as we climbed the hill to higher terrain. A forest of stone arches and the occasional turret-shaped obelisk rose up around us.
“Mr. Eldridge,” I calmly began. A sharp point at my side silenced me.
“Not a word out of you. Either of you.” He jerked his chin in Hannah’s direction. “Convince her.”
I half turned to Hannah. “He’s got a knife at my side, Hannah. Please, do as he says.”
Her gasp reached my ears, but if I’d expected hysterics, she proved me wrong. I should have known a nurse of her experience would be well versed in keeping her fears in check. If only she hadn’t recognized him. Or had it been Mr. Eldridge’s intent all along to kidnap us?
To kill us?
After several minutes of a teeth-clattering ride, he brought the carriage to a stop beneath some trees. Low headstones and simple markers dotted the sloping ground. Not far away, the fences converged in the far northeast corner of the cemetery: God’s Little Acre, where a century and more ago, African residents of Newport had interred their dead. To Newport’s shame, many of them had been slaves.
“Get out, Miss Hanson, but do so slowly. Very slowly.” He jabbed the knife point clear through the layers of my clothing, including my corset. I uttered the beginnings of a cry before I swallowed back the sound. “If you don’t cooperate,” he said, still addressing Hannah, “your friend will suffer.”
Without taking her eyes off us, Hannah slowly slid to the end of the seat and backed her way down from the carriage. Once she stood on solid ground, Mr. Eldridge pricked me again to set me moving. “Slowly, now,” he repeated.
He slid along the seat with me, never relinquishing the knife’s claim on my side. As I stepped down, Hannah reached up to help me. I had a fleeting urge to shove Charles Eldridge and start running, taking Hannah with me. But in the dark, and this far from the Burying Grounds’ entrance, it would not be difficult for Mr. Eldridge to catch either or both of us. There were headstones everywhere, some so small as to be virtually invisible until one tripped over them. Besides, with one arm in a sling, I wouldn’t have the balance to outrun him. No, I would stay alert for the first opportunity to oppose our captor, but I’d do nothing rash.
“We don’t understand what’s happening, Mr. Eldridge,” I said in a pleading tone. “Why are you doing this?”
He laughed, a low, deep sound. With the knife, he gestured for us to step away from the carriage. Doing so threw us deeper into shadow, for the branches above our heads blocked out the moonlight.
“How long have you been in love with Thea?” I asked him bluntly, seeing no reason to go on pretending ignorance.
“Forever,” he said. “Misguided girl, throwing herself at Otto. He was deceiving her, you know. He never loved her, not a bit.”
“Then why . . . ?”
He stepped closer and pointed the knife at me. “Because he’d been blackmailing her mother for years. He and Sturm. They knew the truth about Thea’s parentage. Good God, any fool with eyes could see it. They also knew her mother would go to any lengths to protect her daughter. I’m surprised she didn’t kill the pair of scoundrels herself.”
The truth of the prince’s perfidy threatened to make me ill. Despite the sort of men with whom the prince had spent his time, I had believed Thea’s claims of mutual young love. Of something earnest and not driven by lust or greed. But I’d been terribly wrong.
“You wanted to protect Thea,” I murmured, yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe Mr. Eldridge’s motives had been the least bit honorable.
“Of course I did. Do you think I’d let them continue to take advantage of her? They’d have ended up destroying her innocence. I’d seen their handiwork before. Ruined women, bereaved families.”
While I distracted Mr. Eldridge, I noticed Hannah peering about at the ground. Did she have an idea, a plan? These particular headstones dated back well over a century; some as much as two. Many were chipped, broken. Could we defend ourselves with a stone fragment? I kept talking. “You met Sturm at Spouting Rock, didn’t you?”
He nodded once. “He thought he was going to threaten me, intimidate me into keeping silent. I’d found out about the blackmail from Sturm himself months ago. Idiot got drunk one night in Vienna and hinted at the whole thing. It didn’t take much for me to figure out who and what he was talking about. So that night at Spouting Rock, I gave him the surprise of his life. Too bad he wasn’t surprised for long.”
That explained the conversation overheard by the clerk at the Ocean House. “And then you took care of Otto at Crossways.”
“I couldn’t let him take things any further with Thea. Her future was at stake. Our future.”
Judging by Thea’s reactions to him at the Casino, there would be no future between them. But I wanted to keep him talking as long as possible. Not that I had any hopes of someone coming along and intervening; not here, in God’s Little Acre. But I remained attentive for any avenue I might turn to my advantage. “How did you get the prince to meet you in the garden?”
“That was easy. I forged a note from Sturm himself. That idiot Otto hadn’t missed his minion yet.”
Gabriel Sturm and Prince Otto had been playing a dangerous game, and they had both lost. But there had been a third victim. “And Katherine Pendleton? What did she do to deserve her fate?”
Here he shook his head and sneered. “Katherine, alas, decided to be a busybody. She saw that I had feelings for Thea. She told me my lovesick eyes gave me away. And of course she knew what Sturm and Otto were up to. I’d forgotten all about her predilection for their tonics. And damn it all if she didn’t sneak out herself to meet Otto in the garden at Crossways.”
“She saw you murder the prince?”
“No, but apparently she saw me out there. It was only the next day when his body was found that she put it together.”
“What were you doing at the Pendletons’ house?” I demanded. “Did you go there specifically to murder Katherine?”
“I had no such intention.” He sounded indignant. “I thought she had invited me to tea, to discuss banking matters with her brother. I’m a customer of their bank, you know. But when I arrived she made her accusations, threatened to go to both the police and Thea, and actually tried blackmailing me. Can you imagine? I suppose it was something else she learned from Otto and Sturm.”
“So you took the dagger from the display.” Beautiful, intelligent Katherine Pendleton had gotten in over her head. What a tangle, what a tragic waste of a young life. For Otto and especially for Sturm, I couldn’t work up much sympathy. Another thought occurred to me. “That wasn’t the first time you’d found a weapon at your disposal.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’d done so earlier that same day, on the docks. It was you who threw the dart at me outside the Narragansett. You must have followed us after we left Miss Pendleton’s house.”
“That’s enough talking. You’ve made the same mistake Miss Pendleton did. You and your friend here.” He waved the knife back and forth at us, and a dollop of moonlight slid along its length. It was long and slender, like Mr. Eldridge’s hands, and as sharp as a surgeon’s blade. “You—over there.” He motioned for Hannah to move several more feet away from me. “Now kneel there, and wait your turn.”
Hannah hesitated, a stubborn desire to refuse thrusting out her jaw. I caught her gaze and nodded. Several gravestones surrounded us, and one in particular arched upward almost waist high.
Mr. Eldridge stepped closer to me, until we stood face-to-face. He leered. With a flick of his knife he rent a small tear in the sling around my neck. He pulled back to thrust again, and I instinctively lurched backward, lost my footing over rocks or roots, I didn’t know which, and fell hard on my backside. My spine struck something solid behind me, and pain shivered up my back.
What happened next was a dark blur, but Hannah managed to lever her feet beneath her and dived at Mr. Eldridge’s legs. He tumbled backward. There came a thud and a crack, and as Hannah and I watched, frozen in place, Mr. Eldridge hung motionless, propped up by the headstone he’d fallen against. A second later he slid limply down the front of the stone and collapsed in a heap on the ground. The only sound came from the breeze and the frantic pounding of my heart. Then Hannah spoke.
“Gracious, did I . . .” A hand pressed to her mouth, she struggled to her feet. “Did I kill him? Oh, Emma, is he dead?”
With one arm, I used the headstone behind me, the one I’d struck when I fell, to raise myself to standing. Grasping Hannah’s hand, I leaned toward the fallen man and strained my eyes to see into the shadows. Something wet and oozing marred the top and front of the headstone. Mr. Eldridge’s blood. I saw no obvious wound in the face staring up at us—past us—but he had hit the stone with the back of his head. The body lay utterly still.
“It’s all right, Hannah. You did what you had to. You saved us both.”
“I’m a nurse. . . .” Her knees began to give way. I put my arm around her and supported her against my side.
“Come. We must get back into town. Marlborough Street isn’t far.” And on Marlborough Street, the police station. Hannah knew as well as I how close it lay, but I discerned her bewilderment, her lack of bearings. “Come with me, Hannah. We’ll go and get help.”
Obediently, like a small child, she moved her feet and matched my stride. “Will they arrest me, do you think?”
“No, Hannah. They will not arrest you. You acted in self-defense.”
“I wish . . .” She never told me what she wished, her voice dying like a soft wisp of night air. But I knew. We hurried along, hand in hand, stumbling as we went, almost as if we were being pursued. We were pursued, and always would be, by dreadful events over which we had had no control; by the sightless stare of a man forever burned into our memories. It was something I had learned to live with these past several years. But would Hannah? Only time would tell.