August 22, 1922
Here, for my descendants, should I be lucky enough to have any, and for the historians and the detective inspectors, is a real and true account of the events of August 19 and 20, 1922. I’m not a gifted writer, nor, up to this point in my life, have I been particularly introspective, but I feel I must put these words down, if only to exorcise them from my soot-stained mind.
My wife, Dahlia, and I held a dinner dance in the ballroom of my hotel this past Saturday. The evening started with turtle soup, followed by beef Wellington and lobster tails, and everyone enjoyed gin cocktails and champagne. Dahlia got quite tight, as always. She flirted shamelessly with Chase Yorkbridge and asked him to escort her up to our suite as a way to make me jealous—but I was not jealous at all, only relieved. I left the party directly after Dahlia and headed up to the attic storage closet to see Grace.
Grace Hadley, my mistress. I was in love with her. I am in love with her still.
Edie looks up. “This is why Mint Benedict wanted us to read it. Grace Hadley was Jackson Benedict’s lover.”
Alessandra shrugs. “I always assumed that.”
“You did not,” Lizbet says.
“A chambermaid shacking up in the fourth-floor storage closet?” Alessandra says. “What did you think she was doing up there?”
Lizbet waves a hand. “Keep going, Edie.”
When I knocked, Grace cracked open the door, cautious as always. She was afraid that one night she would find Dahlia pointing a revolver at her forehead.
Grace knew Dahlia far better than I, as it turned out.
When I returned from Grace’s room, Dahlia was snoring and didn’t stir. I figured, as I did every night I spent with Grace, that I had gotten away with something.
I awoke in the middle of the night shrouded in a thick cloud of black smoke. The chintz armchair by the window was on fire, and fire was sprinting up the drapes. I called for Dahlia. I checked her dressing chamber; she was not to be found. I stepped into the hallway to find people shouting. Leroy Noonan, the hotel’s general manager, was intent on rushing me out.
I was thinking only of Grace. “I have to make sure she’s okay,” I said. Noonan, naturally, thought I was referring to Dahlia. He said, “She’s on the street, Mr. Benedict. Let’s go now, please, sir.” He hurried me toward the stairs but I fought him, saying, “I need to get to the fourth floor.”
“The fourth floor is on fire, sir, you cannot go up there.” Noonan is a big man, six foot four and nearly three hundred pounds; he could have thrown me over his shoulder and carried me out of the building. And that was what he would have to do, I decided, because I was determined to rescue Grace. I fought my way through the panicked stream of guests in their nightclothes to the bottom of the back stairway. But the entire stairwell was a fiery inferno. There would be no going up.
When I reached the street, I found Dahlia looking perfectly calm amidst the pandemonium. She had her silk robe belted neatly over her dressing gown, she had on her slippers, her hair was curled, she wore lipstick, she was smoking, and…she held our cat, Mittens. Something registered in me then, something I couldn’t bear to think. I searched through the mob for Grace. Was she here? Had she escaped? I didn’t see her. I told myself she would, naturally, be hiding because she had no good reason to be at the hotel at night. I approached the fire marshal, who assured me the fire was under control and everyone got out safely.
“Everyone?” I said. “Even the people on the fourth floor?”
“There was no one on the fourth floor,” he said. “We checked.”
He’d checked the fourth floor. Grace had escaped and now, I suspected, was lurking in the shadows somewhere.
I returned to Dahlia’s side. She said to me, “The girl didn’t get out. I locked her in from the outside.”
I grabbed Dahlia’s arm. “What have you done?” I said. I saw the orange ember at the end of her cigarette as an evil, glowing eye. “Did you set this fire, Dahlia?”
The cat wriggled free of Dahlia’s arms and jumped to the ground, despite its bad leg. “I wouldn’t say that too loudly. The insurance, Jack. If there’s no insurance, you’ll be ruined.” She put a finger across my lips. “Accidents happen.”
I wanted to rage against her but it only took a moment for me to realize that she was right. She had set the fire and locked Grace’s door—but I was the one who had set Grace up in the attic, kept her the same way that Dahlia kept the damn cat. If Grace had defied me, I would have had no choice but to fire her and make sure she didn’t find a job anywhere else on the island. I am responsible for the death of my beloved mistress, Grace Hadley.