“I could tell something else was eating away at the old bloke when he showed up to return Father’s check, beyond the fact that he didn’t think he and Helen would make a good match,” intoned Mr. Childs.
“You’ve always been so intuitive, my dear. How on earth did he bring it up?”
“He mentioned that he’d come upon some damaging information and couldn’t bear to see our family’s good name tarnished, then suggested we get rid of Miss Lilly sooner rather than later.”
She’d repelled Mr. Danforth’s advances and, in turn, he’d set out to ruin her. For all of her mother’s training, the caprices of the upper classes were as foreign as some European country where Lillian didn’t speak the language or understand the customs. If she had, maybe she would have realized that Mr. Danforth’s proclamations of love were like the surface of a scummy pond, brilliantly hued but slimy to the touch.
“Good thing Mr. Danforth told you,” Mrs. Dixie sniffed. “Otherwise she might have killed us all off, one by one.”
“That’s what’s odd. Helen told me she has doubts about Miss Lilly’s involvement. Or Angelica’s. Whatever you call her. She doesn’t think the woman did it. Said that there wasn’t enough time between when she told her to fetch the water and when she came after her to get it herself.” Mr. Childs let out a long, audible breath. “It’s also strange that she didn’t confess when offered her freedom.”
“Maybe she didn’t believe we’d be true to our word.”
“She’d be right about that.”
So it had been a setup after all. Lillian doubted that Miss Helen knew about that part of the deal. Yet the way Mr. Childs and Mrs. Dixie were talking, it certainly didn’t appear as if they had planted the draft or stolen the cameo. The conversation ruled them out as suspects, unless Mr. Childs hadn’t included his wife in his plans.
Lillian’s head hurt from all the second thoughts and double crosses.
“Who else had access?” asked Mrs. Dixie, after a moment. “Your mother’s room is connected to Helen’s, which is connected to your father’s.”
“You think my mother killed my father?”
“She’d put up with enough nonsense from him over the years, after all.”
“Enough, Dixie. Stop with this. My entire family was seduced by this stranger with a nefarious background, and our children’s reputations are on the line. Someone needs to be held accountable.”
“Fine.”
“By the time the police have arrived, we’ll be gone, and they can take her away and do whatever they like with her . . .”
Mr. Childs’s voice trailed off as they moved indoors, but Lillian kept thinking about what Mrs. Dixie had said. If the pair of them were innocent, as well as Helen—her grief had been deep and real, and Lillian just couldn’t imagine she had instigated her father’s demise—could it have been Mrs. Frick? She was the only one left. Along with any of the servants, supposedly.
She thought back to both incidents, when Mr. Frick had died and when the cameo had been stolen. Something connected both events.
Someone.
Next door, she heard Bertha return to her room, humming under her breath.
Bertha.
Bertha was awake and in the hallway when Miss Winnie rushed to fetch Lillian that fateful early morning of Mr. Frick’s death.
Bertha had been coming out of the art gallery when Miss Helen and Lillian went in to place the cameo in Mr. Frick’s hand.
Lillian remembered the hateful look Bertha had given Miss Helen earlier today, as Miss Helen ransacked her own bedroom searching for Sir Robert Witt’s correspondence file. It had flashed across the maid’s face quickly, but Lillian hadn’t missed it.
Early on in their friendship, Bertha had mentioned where she was from.
Pennsylvania. Where Mr. Frick had garnered many enemies, and possibly been responsible for the death of thousands.
She could hear Bertha in the room next door, opening and closing a drawer. She was so close. How to reach her?
The window was dotted with ice; it had begun sleeting. Lillian lifted it open. Below her, a very narrow ledge and balustrade ran along the exterior of the house. She carefully stepped out, holding tight to the windowsill, and then executed a sideways shuffle step to work her way over to Bertha’s window. A couple of times her foot slipped, but she clung to the side of the house as if it were a lifeboat and waited until her heart stopped pounding to continue.
She finally made it. Bertha was lying on her bed, reading a magazine, but jumped up fast when she heard Lillian’s tap on the glass.