The Body in the Ballroom Read online

  “You got me out?” he asked.

  “Miss Alice swore you couldn’t have been there,” I said.

  “Well, thank you very much, Miss Roosevelt,” he said. “I’m still trying to find out why I was arrested in the first place. We just had an argument, that’s all.”

  “We have much to discuss, and you look like you need something sustaining.”

  “I was woken up the small hours and was questioned pretty sharply by a team of Irish cops all night. Nothing to drink, and no breakfast this morning.”

  “Let me buy us all an early lunch and see what we can do. There should be someplace here we can get some sandwiches.”

  “I would appreciate that,” said Peter with a grin. Alice stepped forward quickly, but Peter hung back to talk to me.

  “What does she mean, ‘see what we can do’?” he asked.

  “She likes playing detective. And she isn’t half bad at it,” I said.

  We easily found a restaurant not far from the Tombs. The waiter gave us a look, and although Alice didn’t seem to notice, I did. And so did Peter. We were seated at a table, and a few minutes later, the manager came over looking a little flustered.

  “I am terribly sorry, miss, but it is customary here, that is, regarding your guest…” His eyes darted to Peter, and that’s when she figured it out.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course, Miss Roosevelt,” he said. Alice’s photographs had been published far and wide.

  “Then you must know that my guests are welcome at any establishment in this city. In this nation. You will see about getting us three beers and a plate of sandwiches.” He looked like he was about to say something else, thought better of it, and left.

  Peter looked a little abashed. “Sorry if I caused you any embarrassment, Miss Roosevelt,” he said.

  “Don’t apologize,” I said. “Miss Alice loves causing scenes.” Alice gave me a dirty look, and Peter laughed.

  “Then I’m glad I could oblige,” he said.

  He looked a lot better after he had eaten and drunk a little, and then Alice got down to work.

  “So, Mr. Carlyle, I understand that the police accused you of poisoning Lynley Brackton. Tell me about the argument you had with him.”

  Peter shrugged. “It wasn’t that much. He was always fussing about something. I had to do a lot of work on his motorcar. He had been running it hard and not bringing it in for care like he should. I was used to it. Nothing to kill him over. Anyway, the cops kept wanting to know where I was that night and if anyone could confirm it. But I couldn’t tell them.”

  “Just between us here, where were you?” Alice asked.

  “Private meeting,” he said.

  Alice sighed. “Don’t be coy with me. What were you doing? Playing cards? Shooting craps?”

  Peter laughed. “No, none of those things. I don’t gamble. It was just a … private meeting.”

  “So were you with a woman? Were you at a bordello? As Mr. St. Clair will tell you, I am not as sheltered as people think.”

  He just looked away in embarrassment, and I felt the heat rising to my face. “For God’s sake, Miss Alice, you can’t talk about things like that,” I said.

  “There’s a delightfully old-fashioned streak running through you, Mr. St. Clair. But we don’t have time for old-fashioned niceties. We’re dealing with the death of one man and the possible conviction of another. Mr. Carlyle, stop being silly. Where were you, so we can establish an alibi?”

  But Peter just shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, either of you, and don’t think I’m not grateful. But it’s not just my secret. It’s someone else’s, as well. Anyway, it wasn’t anything illegal, not in New York.” He gave Alice a wry look. “And no, Miss Roosevelt, this isn’t about being anywhere I shouldn’t.”

  “Men are so silly,” said Alice. “Very well, be that way. But we still need to proceed to find out who killed Brackton. I don’t suppose you have any insight into who might’ve done that?”

  Peter shook his head. “All I can tell you is that he was known for starting arguments. Proud as the devil. He was in the garage once, and one of the other mechanics dropped something on his foot, and Brackton laughed. He just laughed. A real joy in someone else’s pain. I didn’t kill him, but I won’t pretend I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  Alice nodded. “Yes, that sounds like Brackton. A range of motives. We have to winnow the suspects. I need a better sense of what happened at the party. We’ll call on Philly Rutledge next.”

  “I appreciate all this, both of you,” said Peter. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”

  “It’s possible we may need an investigative team for this before we’re done,” said Alice.

  We finished the beer and sandwiches. Alice paid and took a moment to glare at the manager on the way out. We gave Peter a ride back to his garage, where he also had a room.

  “Your boss going to be all right with this?” I asked. “Miss Alice and I can have a word with him if you want.”

  “Oh, he won’t hold it against me, but thanks. J. Pierpont Morgan’s driver brought in his car earlier, and I’m the only one who knows how to fix it. A few hours’ sleep and back to work. Thanks again for getting me out, and for lunch.”

  “Don’t thank her too much,” I said. “You’ll give her a swelled head. And she only did it so you’ll let her drive in the garage again.” Peter laughed at that.

  “Mr. Carlyle, I confess I think less of you for making friends with someone as rude as Mr. St. Clair. I am pleased I could oblige, and we will talk again soon.”

  She waved her hand, and we were off to the Rutledge home.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Rutledge mansion was uptown from the Tombs. I remembered the address from the other night. Heck, everyone knew where the Rutledges lived.

  “What do you think Peter was doing that he couldn’t tell us?” asked Alice as we drove.

  “He may just like keeping his private life private,” I said.

  “I don’t see why. He needs an alibi. Surely whatever he was doing wasn’t that shameful.”

  “Miss Alice, you may not understand, but it doesn’t come naturally to men like Peter Carlyle to fully trust.”

  “Men like him?”

  “Colored men. I know you did him a great favor. But still. He won’t trust white people easily.”

  Alice started to say something, then thought better of it, and we rode the rest of the way to the Rutledge mansion in silence.

  It must’ve been one of the biggest homes in New York. I couldn’t see much of it the night before, but today, I could see just how impressive it was, how much effort had gone into the design, from the stonework on the walls to the oversize black door and bright brass fittings. Even the street in front of the house seemed cleaner here, which it may have been. The Rutledges employed a lot of people.

  The door was promptly answered by the butler.

  “We’re here to see Miss Philadelphia. Please tell her Miss Alice Roosevelt and”—Alice slid her eyes over to me—“escort have called.”

  “Very good,” said the butler. We were shown into a very nice parlor, the kind where the furniture looked too good to sit on. I liked a couple of paintings on the wall. From time to time, I got to briefly see some of the better rooms in the great houses, and the portraits were usually as exact as possible. But one of these was softer, a painting of a mother and children, and I found it really caught my attention.

  “Mary Cassatt,” said Alice, following my gaze. “She’s an American artist but lives in France. I wouldn’t have thought she’d engage you, Mr. St. Clair.”

  “You look at this, and it really makes you wonder what the people in the painting are thinking,” I said. Alice cocked her head, as if she was considering that, too.

  “Do you ever think about how difficult things are because you don’t know what people are thinking?” she asked.

  The butler came back into the room. “M
iss Roosevelt, Miss Rutledge can receive you upstairs. Your … escort … can remain here.”

  “Oh, but I do want Philly to talk with you, too,” she said to me. “She’s probably just getting up. Debutantes always sleep in the next day, and she’s no doubt eager to gossip some more. Anyway, I’ll bring her down here when she’s ready.” With that, Alice followed the butler out of the room, leaving me alone. I thought the butler seemed a little worried about leaving someone like me by myself in a fine room, but maybe it was just my imagination. Still, it gave me more time to look at that painting, and I thought it was no easier to read Cassatt’s characters than it was to read people in real life. I admired Cassatt for that. I admired Alice for realizing it.

  The door opened, and a maid walked in. She was young, probably around Alice’s age, with a pale Celtic face and a strand of red hair slipping out from under her cap. She was no doubt Irish—there were Irish maids in every grand house in Manhattan.

  She seemed a little surprised to see me. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. I was sent to clean.” There didn’t seem to be a speck of dust, but who was I to argue with her? She waved her feather duster over the figurines, fragile and expensive, and all the other little bits and pieces scattered around the room. Suddenly, her eyes darted to the door, and then she turned to me.

  “Sir, are you a policeman?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I’m Miss Roosevelt’s bodyguard.”

  “Yes, sir. I saw you last night. But are you a policeman?” she asked again and sounded almost desperate, trying to find out who I really was. It seemed a lot more than idle curiosity, and I was sure maids weren’t supposed to chat with guests. Even those like me, who weren’t true guests. Being with Alice as I was, I guess she thought I was someone in authority, but in my Western riding coat and Stetson, perhaps I seemed less threatening than a city cop.

  “I’m not a New York policeman, if that’s what you mean.” I took out my badge. “I’m a Secret Service agent, and my boss is the president in Washington, not anyone in the city.”

  The maid seemed a little confused, and I could see her struggling with what to say next. “It’s just that, sir, I was wondering if you knew if they found out who killed the guest yesterday. I heard someone was arrested but let go.” Again, she seemed worried about it, not just fishing for gossip. I was surprised it had already gotten around that Peter had been arrested and then released, but tales like that could fly fast.

  “I can tell you they arrested someone, but he was released because it seemed clear it couldn’t have been him.” I smiled. “You’re not worried he’s going to come back and kill more people, are you?”

  “Oh, no, sir. That’s not it at all. I—I’m sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to say that no servant could’ve done it, sir.”

  I heard footsteps in the hall outside, and I knew our conversation was coming to an end. I pulled a card out of my pocket. “Take this. It has my name and tells you where you can find me. I’ll keep whatever you say secret from the city police. Can I have your name?”

  “Cathleen, sir. Cathleen O’Neill.”

  “When do you have some time off, if I want to talk more with you?”

  She paused. Cathleen didn’t want to answer but clearly didn’t want to lie to me, either. “Tomorrow afternoon. But I’m … I’ll be busy.”

  Then Alice and Philly came in, and Cathleen slipped out the door.

  Philly didn’t look any worse for having been up late the previous night. She was dressed in a simple daytime dress like Alice. In the daylight, out of her fancy ball gown, I could see how young she looked. She was pretty much the same age as Alice, but I tended to forget how young Alice was, too.

  “Philly, you remember Mr. St. Clair from last night. He has to come with me everywhere.”

  Philly extended a hand to me. “Of course. I didn’t get a chance to say so last night, but I’ve felt I’ve known you for months. Alice has spoken of you frequently.” Another woman might’ve said that with a wink and a smirk but not Philly, who spoke plainly. She didn’t even notice that Alice, just a step to her left, had turned a little red. She glared at me, saying with her eyes that if I ever teased her about that she’d never forgive me.

  “It’s only because I am constantly having to explain why I’m followed everywhere I go by an armed cowboy. But we have more important things to discuss,” said Alice. We took seats, and I said a quick prayer that the fancy chair could support me.

  Alice turned to me. “I just gave Philly a quick summary of what happened at the party last night. I told her you had spoken with her father and that Lynley Brackton was heard arguing with him, as well.”

  “Mr. Brackton was always arguing with someone. Father didn’t even like him very much. But it would’ve been awkward not to invite him.”

  “Philly, this isn’t just idle gossip. A friend of ours was arrested last night. We got him out because there were no witnesses, but the police have to find someone, and they’ll come back for him if they can’t find out who really did it.”

  “Arrested someone? You mean a guest? It couldn’t have been one of the servants, or we’d know by now.”

  “No, not a guest. Not someone who would ever get invited here. We’ll discuss that later. Right now, I’m trying to figure out who hated Lynley Brackton so much that they killed him.”

  “Alice! You don’t think my father—”

  “Of course not, Philly. But do you know anything? Was your father involved in some sort of business? If there was bad feeling with your father, there may have been bad feeling with someone else.”

  Philly shook her head, but she seemed a little worried now. Maybe she was seeing the downside of having a murder in your house. “Father wouldn’t discuss something like that with me, not with anyone.”

  “Not your mother?”

  “Mother? Of course not. She’s still in her bed.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. Roosevelt women didn’t take to their beds when there was unpleasantness.

  “Well, we’re not going to let anyone’s refusal to discuss it stop us.”

  “Stop us from what?” asked Philadelphia, now looking genuinely confused.

  “I just told you. We have to find out who killed Lynley Brackton.”

  That only deepened Philadelphia’s confusion. “You mean, Mr. St. Clair? He’s Secret Service, I know, but I thought the New York City police would be handling this.”

  “Oh, good grief, the culprit would be dead of old age before the New York City police found him. They already made one wrong arrest, and they’ll do it again and hang the first person they can just to end a case where someone from a leading family has been killed. So let’s see what the three of us can do. Remember who was by the punch bowl table. It was you, me, and your father on one side, and Mr. and Mrs. Brackton by the other, with, oh, what was her name again? That rather striking dark-haired woman—”

  “Delilah Linde.”

  “Right. You and I were discussing how many of the young men were incapable of dancing, and then your father was asking me about my father. And the Bracktons and Mrs. Linde were having their dutiful glasses of that punch. Someone made a joke about how late it was for us to take our one glass.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Who was keeping track of who had their glass? If this punch was so terrible—no offense, Miss Rutledge—why not just say you had it?”

  Philly just shook her head, and Alice looked at me like I was an idiot.

  “That isn’t done,” said Alice. “You can claim a medical reason, like the doctor banned you from strong drink, or you’re one of those odd temperance ladies, but you’d better not get caught with anything else.”

  “Or you’d be considered unreliable,” I said.

  Now Alice looked at me like I was a good pupil.

  “Your memory is the same as mine,” Philly said to Alice. “You and I were talking to my father, and he was asking about your father, as you said, and none of us were really paying attention to what was happening
at the other end.”

  “But I think your father was,” said Alice. “I’m trying to remember. It was just for a few moments. We were laughing about something, and then I saw your father just staring at the Bracktons and Mrs. Linde at the other end of the table. Remember, after we were done laughing, you looked up, and your father was looking at the three of them.”

  “I think that’s when he noticed Lynley wasn’t well,” said Philadelphia.

  “Perhaps. It’s so hard to figure out the timing, though. Am I just imagining it, or was he noticing something before Brackton looked sick?” Alice frowned. “Things happen fast, and later, you don’t realize it.”

  “It was a busy room,” I said. “But Captain O’Hara said no one saw anything.”

  “But what if no one realized what they saw?” asked Alice. “I mean, someone must’ve dropped poison into Lynley Brackton’s glass. It was just us around the punch bowl at that time.” That made sense. If the punch was as terrible as Alice said, there would hardly be a line to get to it, especially as it was late, and apparently, most people had already taken their medicine.

  “Servants,” I said. “Both of you ladies grew up with servants. You’re surrounded by servants. If a servant with a tray of food or glasses of wine passed by, you wouldn’t have noticed. You wouldn’t have thought about it or remembered.”

  Alice looked startled at that. But then she smiled. “You are correct, Mr. St. Clair. When you have servants all your life, you take them for granted. Waiters and maids were walking around, not only serving but cleaning up. One of them could’ve gotten close to Mr. Brackton. All the gentlemen were a little drunk by that point, spilling things on their suits, and one servant or another was coming by with a cloth to help clean up.” She shook her head at the memory. “It would have been easy for a servant to get close, and no one would think twice.”

  “But our maids are good girls, most of whom have been with us for years,” said Philadelphia.

  “And I don’t see why one of your maids would’ve taken such an immediate, murderous dislike to Lynley Brackton,” said Alice. “But I’m sure your parents hired extra waiters for the evening. Perhaps one of them…” she mused.