Lillian shifted uncomfortably. She’d put everything she had into the preparations for Mr. Frick’s viewing, ensuring that they were executed precisely to her specifications, mainly because she hadn’t been able to do so with Kitty. On that cold February day, the undertakers had clumsily maneuvered the stretcher carrying her mother’s body down the stairs of their apartment building, slid her into the back of a dirty truck caked with mud, slammed the doors shut, and driven off. Miss Helen’s father would receive a very different send-off; Lillian would make sure of that.
Miss Helen took the cameo out of her pocket. Inside the coffin, Mr. Frick appeared serene and pale yet still strangely present, as if he’d just closed his eyes to remember something important and would open them at any moment.
Miss Helen placed the cameo in his palm and closed his thick fingers around it. The same hand with the scar from Martha’s pain now held Martha’s pink diamond. A fitting pairing. Maybe Miss Helen had been right, and this would be a way to lay to rest the ghost of the lost daughter and her father at the same time, to let them both go.
Bertha popped back in to say that the florists had arrived, and Lillian oversaw the placement of the arrangements while Miss Helen went up to dress. Then it was down to the kitchen to check in with the cook and back up to the gallery to go through the final checklist.
As the notes of the organ floated down the hall, Lillian stood next to Miss Winnie and watched as the family gathered around the coffin in a quiet moment before the other guests arrived. Mr. Childs stood next to his wife, Dixie, at the foot of the casket. Mrs. Frick blew loudly into a handkerchief as she and Miss Helen approached and took up a position on the side.
But Miss Helen immediately jumped back, as if pushed by an invisible force.
“It’s gone!” She turned to look at Lillian. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Mrs. Frick blew her nose again.
“Martha’s cameo, with the diamond!”
Now she had the family’s attention. “What diamond?” asked Mrs. Dixie.
“What on earth did you do with it?” demanded Mrs. Frick.
“I put it in Papsie’s hand, to take with him,” said Miss Helen. “But it’s not there.” She pointed into the coffin. Miss Winnie and Lillian drew close. It was true: Mr. Frick’s lifeless fingers were outstretched, not curled around the cameo the way Miss Helen had left them. Miss Helen reached in and lifted the hand, but there was nothing underneath.
Someone had taken the cameo.
* * *
The week the family was away for the burial, the whole house felt dark and muted, as if it were draped in velvet. Lillian went about her duties, assembling the towering stack of condolence cards for Miss Helen to respond to, watching as the flowers in the art gallery faded away, selecting which ones ought to be tossed out.
Before they’d left, Miss Helen had instructed the head housekeeper to search every servant’s room, but the cameo remained missing. Someone had taken it right out of Mr. Frick’s hand, a gruesome thought. How did whoever took it know what they were looking for? Only Lillian knew that Miss Helen had placed it there. She prayed it would turn up soon.
Lillian spent the afternoon before they were to return working among the archives in the bowling alley. She’d done everything she possibly could with regards to her regular household duties, and knew that Miss Helen had been planning on examining the contents of several crates filled with archival documents before her father had taken ill. She figured she’d get a jump on it and please Miss Helen with her initiative, get her enthused about creating a library instead of rushing into an ill-advised marriage. The quiet of the room, deep underground, soothed Lillian, as did the act of arranging the many invoices for art purchases by date. Degas, El Greco, Manet—the total value for the bronzes and paintings had to be in the tens of millions.
Yet Miss Helen valued that cameo with the diamond most of all. If they didn’t find it, she didn’t know what would happen.
“Miss Lilly?”
A man’s voice called out from the stairway, and Mr. Graham came into view. Even though he was silhouetted by the lamps in the stairway, his thick shock of hair gave him away immediately.
“Mr. Graham. What are you doing down here?”
“Kearns mentioned I might find you. I came to pick up my paycheck.”
She’d completely forgotten, which wasn’t like her. But the week had been a strange one. “I do apologize for that. I’m a little topsy-turvy, and I’m afraid I forgot to ask Miss Helen to sign the check before she left.”