With the morning sunlight slanting across his features, he looked even older than usual, or perhaps a late night had deepened the creases across his brow and beside his eyes. I wondered what—or who—might have kept him up.
“Miss . . . Cross, I believe? To what do I owe the pleasure?” His expression didn’t register pleasure, only perplexity.
I wasted no time with niceties. “May I come in, Mr. Rutherfurd?”
“I . . . uh . . . I suppose . . .” He gave his lightweight morning coat a dignified tug as he stepped back from the threshold. Katie and I stepped into a dim foyer, made all the darker by the brown and beige pattern of the wallpaper.
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” I asked, my bluntness obviously taking him aback once more.
He glanced around at the various doorways opening into the foyer, then seemed to settle on a direction. “Follow me.”
Katie moved to trail me, but I gestured for her to wait by the door. I trusted my maid, in my employ since the spring, to a point, and I felt not only protectiveness, but a sincere fondness for her. But I had to admit the young Irishwoman possessed a nervous constitution and could be something of a chatterbox. I couldn’t take the chance of her blurting private information to the greengrocer, the butcher’s wife—or whomever else.
I followed Winty across a parlor furnished in rich leather and through another doorway that led down a narrow passage. A wary tingle grazed my back—where was he taking me? But finally we entered a morning room much like my own, with sturdy oak furniture and a homey, informal air. We were no longer alone; a footman busily gathered plates from a sideboard and voices drifted from an open door through which I glimpsed a service pantry.
Good. Though my fears were certainly unfounded, a woman had been murdered yesterday, and until the murderer was apprehended I shouldn’t fully trust anyone.
“Please have a seat, Miss Cross.” Winty pulled out a chair for me at the table. “I’d just finished my breakfast when you knocked, but may I offer you some coffee or tea?”
The footman stopped midway to the pantry, the stack of plates balanced precariously in his hands. When I shook my head and said no thank you, the young man nodded and continued on his way. Winty sat at his own place, where the morning issue of the Newport Daily News blazed a headline up at me.
MURDER AT MARBLE HOUSE!
A part of me selfishly wished Winty subscribed to the Newport Observer instead, and that it was my article splashed across the page. I still didn’t understand it. I’d rushed into town yesterday evening to deliver my account of the murder before the presses stopped for the night. For once I’d beaten Ed Billings at his own game, and Mr. Millford, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Observer, had assured me my article would run in the morning’s edition.
“Nasty business, that,” Winty said, pointing at the paper. The comment roused me from my ambitions. “Poor Consuelo—uh, Miss Vanderbilt. Tell me, how is she taking it? Is she very distraught?”
He sounded sincerely worried about my cousin, although who knew how accomplished an actor he might be? “Have you spoken with my cousin recently?” I asked.
He blinked and then raised his eyebrows. “No, how could I?”
I ignored his question and asked another. “You’re quite sure you had no word from her yesterday?”
“I wish I had, Miss Cross. Maybe I could have comforted her. I’ve been trying to speak with Consuelo ever since she arrived in Newport, but that wooly mammoth of a mother of hers won’t let me anywhere near her. Not in person and not by telephone.”
I’d never heard Aunt Alva described in quite those words and, despite the seriousness of my visit, I stifled a snort of laughter. “So you’ve had no communication with Consuelo all summer?”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that. There was the Astors’ ball last month. We were both there, and when her mama wasn’t looking we managed to exchange a few words. Someone obviously saw us, though, and reported back to Mrs. Vanderbilt.”
“So that’s why my aunt had Consuelo virtually under lock and key in recent weeks.”
His gaze swept over me before connecting with my own. “What is this all about, Miss Cross? I understand Consuelo must be terribly upset over what happened in her gardens yesterday, but why are you here?” His eyes sparked with alarm. “Has something happened to Consuelo?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Miss Cross, I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles.”
“But that’s precisely what this is, Mr. Rutherfurd. A riddle.” I paused to choose my words carefully. “You see, Consuelo isn’t . . . presently at home. I don’t know where she is—”