“But why didn’t you take it with you?”
“I was unsure what to do with it, how to dispose of it, when I remembered the compartments behind the panels. That was where Mr. Frick kept the lock of Martha’s hair, before his study was moved to make room for the enamels.”
“The lock of hair that you and he drank to on the anniversary of her death?” asked Lillian.
“I told you about that, did I? Yes. They’d unscrewed the knobs, but I used a hairpin to pry one of the doors open and tossed the cameo inside.”
“But then you let me take the blame for it,” said Lillian.
Miss Winnie didn’t meet her eye. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t know the Magnolia diamond was inside until I heard Miss Helen getting upset.”
“You’re not deaf,” said Veronica. A statement, not a question.
“No, not even at my age, now. I can hear perfectly fine.” Miss Winnie puffed with pride. “Everything else is shot, but my ears are good.”
“So why did you pretend?” asked Lillian.
“It made it easier to sit for hours with Mrs. Frick. How she would go on and on, about her ailments, about the terrible injustices against her. I sympathized to a point, but she knew nothing of how hard life could be in the real world. I’d come from true poverty, was put to work at the age of thirteen, and spent most of my time fetching tonics and administering salves for a woman who ate too much marzipan and then complained of indigestion, who found sunny days a personal affront. I began to notice that my false infirmity made people more willing to speak freely around me. I would hear things I shouldn’t. Oh, people dismissed me as a batty idiot, but I was always listening, always.”
She regarded Lillian. “I felt guilty at what happened to you, shouldering the blame, but you were an interloper, coming in, getting in everyone’s good graces. I never trusted you. And then that business with Helen’s suitor. I knew you were a bad apple. So pretty, had to lord it over Miss Helen, who never had a chance. I did what was best for her, for the family.”
The sharp sting of guilt over Lillian’s dalliance with Mr. Danforth hadn’t lessened over the years. But she kept on. “Like leaving a water glass out for Mr. Frick after putting a sleeping draft in it?”
A small, triumphant smile appeared on Miss Winnie’s lips. “That wasn’t my idea. A good idea, but not mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I walked by Mr. Frick’s bathroom, and there she was, that same maid—what was her name, Bertha, yes, that was it—hovering over the sink, a bottle of Veronal in her hot little hand. She didn’t see me, but I watched her as she began to tip it into a glass, then stopped. She looked at herself in the mirror, set the bottle down next to the glass, and ran off. Coward.”
“So you poisoned him instead.”
“I figured I’d finish what she started. I poured the powder into the glass, hid the bottle in my pocket, and then filled the glass with water and left it on the edge of the sink. I didn’t kill him in the end, you see. It wasn’t my idea, even.”
“But then Helen went and gave it to him,” said Lillian. “You put her in a terrible position.”
“I hadn’t meant for anyone to get in trouble, that meddling nurse . . .” She didn’t finish the thought. “I freed Miss Helen from the restraints of being her father’s daughter. She was better off without him.”
“If anything, it made it harder for her to let him go, to move on with her life.”
“I did them all a favor, and served Martha’s memory. They are grateful to me for my service to the family. It’s because of their largesse that I’m here.” Miss Winnie gestured around the solarium. “Everyone ended up just fine.”
The woman had twisted reality around to suit her own purposes.
“Except Mr. Frick,” said Lillian.
Miss Winnie leaned forward, furious. “Don’t you judge me. You were one of the pretty ones. Miss Helen never had a chance, with that horsey face. Not with her father, not with that suitor. A girl like that, she needed my protection.”
“That’s audacious, coming from you,” answered Lillian. “You say you were taking revenge on Mr. Frick, but you were exactly like him. Judging people by your own harsh standards, making assumptions. Manipulating those around you who trusted you.”
“I certainly did not.”
“You certainly did.” Helen emerged from where she’d been hiding, Joshua right behind her.