“I know who you mean. Loose-limbed sort of young man. I’ve seen him here.”

  “Yes. Hitchcock Springer.”

  “That’s all very well but immaterial. You said Roen was with her.”

  “Not only with her. He was protective of her.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He tried to shield her from me. She turned her face away and he stepped between us. Naturally I was curious. I greeted her as I typically do. I have learned not to expect a reply because she is both shy and wary. Tonight was no different. Mr. Shepard did not exchange introductions. He was occupied helping Miss Chen. I held the door open for them when we reached it. It was then that the light from inside the house allowed me a glimpse of Miss Chen’s face. Her features were distorted. The simple explanation is that it was a trick of the light, but that would be incorrect. The left side of her face was clearly swollen. Her eye on that same side was only partially open.”

  “Did you express concern? Ask her what happened?”

  “No. That would have been inappropriate. I’m asking you.”

  “And that’s appropriate?”

  “I believe it is. Did you strike her?”

  “That’s a ridiculous notion.”

  “But not an answer to my question.”

  “She probably tripped over that child who was clinging to her skirts. Or perhaps she walked into something.”

  “She is the definition of grace.”

  Victorine’s eyebrows rose. “Why, Mr. Cabot, I believe you have found something to admire about her. I find that repugnant and a betrayal of your Christian upbringing but will not endeavor to make you see reason.”

  “She was mine,” he said quietly.

  Victorine’s head tilted to the side. She regarded him oddly. “What?”

  Martin could not help it. He teared up. “She was mine.”

  Victorine shivered. The cold water had nothing to do with it. “What do you mean, she was yours?”

  As quickly as his eyes had watered, they dried. “I had plans for her and you ruined them. You ruined her.”

  “I did nothing. Nothing.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “If you believe that, then why even ask me if I struck her?”

  “I thought you deserved an opportunity to defend yourself.”

  “Defend myself? That assumes I did something requiring a defense. I didn’t. There. That is my defense. I am not guilty of whatever it is that you think I’ve done.”

  Martin sighed. “An opportunity squandered. You really shouldn’t have touched her face. It was perfect. Perfect.”

  Victorine had nowhere to go. She tilted her head backward to watch Mr. Cabot rise from his stool, and she flinched when he kicked it out of the way. It was impossible not to shrink from him as he bent over the tub. She felt his hands on her shoulders before he actually set them there. All that remained for her to do was confess.

  “Yes,” she said hastily. “I slapped her.”

  Martin did not remove his hands. His thumbs were very near the hollow of her throat. “You must have struck her very hard. Perhaps you did it more than once.”

  “Twice.”

  “Not more?”

  She shook her head. It was both a negation and an attempt to loosen his grip.

  “All right. Tell me why.”

  “She was insolent.”

  “A perceived slight, no doubt. Miss Chen does not possess the wherewithal to be insolent.”

  “You’re wrong, but I will admit that her impudence was unexpected.”

  “So that’s all of it.”

  “Yes. The truth. I swear it.”

  “I believe you. Do you want to take a breath?”

  “What?”

  “It will take longer if you do. I’d like that. You owe me that after spoiling her beautiful face.”

  “I did not—”

  “Breathe,” he said, and pushed her under.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  It was early when Roen and Ben arrived at the Butterworth. Circumstances dictated that Roen tell the sheriff that Victorine was not at her finest in the morning. That bit of intelligence decided Ben that the better course was to wake her.

  There was no one in the dining room, but Abe Butterworth was at his post behind the registration desk. He welcomed both men warmly. “If you’re looking for your mother, Ben, she’s already gone to the butcher’s. Best cuts are always at the start of the day, she says.”

  “Not looking for her actually. We don’t expect to be long, so give her my best if I miss her.”

  “Certainly.” He looked from Ben to Roen and then took them both in. “So what is your pleasure?”

  “We’d like to visit Miss Headley,” said Ben. “What room is hers?”

  “She has a suite, but she’s a late riser, and with no companion to help her dress and do whatever she does to her hair, Miss Headley doesn’t come down for breakfast until after ten.”

  “We assumed she would still be sleeping, Abe.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know. The privacy of our guests is—”

  Ben stopped him. It was not often that he had to point out that he was the law, but he did so now, opening his coat and tapping the star on his jacket.

  “Right,” said Abe. “She’s in 301.”

  “The key?” said Roen, holding out his hand.

  “Yes, um, the key.” Abe gave them his back while he retrieved the key. “Odd,” he said, staring at it.

  “What’s odd?” asked Roen.

  Abe turned around and dropped it in Roen’s palm. “It was in its cubby backwards. Ellie and I always put the keys away in the same direction, with the head out and the working end in. No particular reason for it; I’ve just always done it that way and Ellie followed suit. I guess one of us could have put it in differently. It’s just that it’s not the usual thing.”

  Roen closed his hand around the skeleton key. He wasn’t particularly interested in Abe’s story but he listened politely and suspected Ben was a tad more impatient as he had experience with Abe rambling.

  “Thanks, Abe,” said Ben. He nudged Roen toward the stairs. “We’ll bring it back.”

  Abe didn’t respond. He was still mumbling to himself when they reached the first landing.

  “He’s particular,” Ben told Roen by way of explanation. “That’s why he and my mother suit so well.”

  “They’re both going to be unhappy when they find out that Fedora was hurt. Will they ask Victorine to leave?”

  “Probably.” Ben pointed to another stairwell at the end of the hall. “This way. Maybe they won’t have to. Maybe she’ll leave on her own.”

  “Doubtful, if she’s not ready. Can’t you send her packing?”

  “You’d think I’d be able to, wouldn’t you? There are limits to my authority. You heard Fedora. She doesn’t want to press charges. She doesn’t want any fuss at all. If she knew we were here, she’d be trying to stop us.”

  They reached the third floor and came to Victorine’s room almost immediately. Roen wasted no time inserting the key. He turned it and turned the knob. The door opened soundlessly.

  There was sufficient light in the room thanks to the parted curtains to see that Victorine was indeed in bed. She was lying on her back with a heavy quilt pulled up to her shoulders. Her flaxen hair was like a halo around her head, arranged there as if by an artist who wanted to capture her purity.

  Roen shook his head. It was an illusion.

  Ben shook his head for a different reason. Something was wrong. He nudged Roen with an elbow. “Light a lamp.”

  Roen found matches in a side table in the sitting area and lit the oil lamp on top of it. He held it up to throw more light on the bed. Victorine didn’t stir. He carried it over to where Ben was standing beside the bed and looked down at her. He saw her differently now, probably the way Ben had seen her from the first. The request for a lamp made sense to him.

  Roen thought he should feel something, and maybe he would later, but at the moment what he was, was empty. “She’s dead.”

  “Yes,” said Ben. “Here. Let me take the lamp. I’ll stay with her while you get my wife. I want Ridley to examine her. It’s better if you go. That way I know there’s been no tampering of evidence.”

  “I would not—”

  “It’s a precaution, not an accusation.”

  Roen nodded and handed over the lamp.

  “And don’t say anything to Abe or my mother if you see her. One or both of them will have questions when you return with Ridley. Just ignore them.”

  Roen’s dark humor asserted itself. “You’ve met your mother, haven’t you?”

  Ben answered with a faintly appreciative smile. “Well, do the best that you can.”

  Roen left, and Ben looked around to see if he could see any obvious clues that would explain Victorine Headley’s death. His gut told him natural causes were not to blame. All appearances had indicated a healthy woman. Ridley’s only remark regarding the pregnancy was that Victorine was likely to have a difficult delivery. Ben had stopped her from giving him more information so he didn’t know what prompted her to say it. After being present at the birth of his niece, there were things he simply didn’t want to know.

  He put that out of his mind as he walked around the bed and then moved to the sitting area. The suite was tidy. There was a neat stack of women’s fashion magazines on the settee. He wondered if she had brought them with her or got them from Mrs. Fish. There were pots of creams and scented oils on the vanity. The highboy had nothing on top. He walked into the bathing room. Except for tiny pools of water in the grout between the black and white floor tiles, there was no other evidence that she had taken a bath before lying down. The porcelain tub was dry. A bar of soap lay in a tray beside the tub. He touched it. It was dry on top but a little spongy on the underside.

  What had she done with the towels, then? Rang for someone to take them away? That didn’t seem likely. In fact, he would have guessed that Victorine was used to having someone pick up after her. The towels should have been on the bathroom floor and perhaps a washcloth as well. He looked in the cupboard under the sink and in the narrow closet beside it. There were none there.

  He returned to the bedroom area. He wanted to pull back the quilt on Victorine’s body, and if his wife had not been so readily available, he would have, but he had been reading lately about new forensic techniques in criminal investigation. Ridley’s medical journals were a surprising source of information in that regard. He did not want to be clumsy about this. Victorine was, after all, the daughter of Victor Headley. The man’s name was as well known to him as were the names “Jay Mac Worth” and “Cornelius Vanderbilt,” both of them early founders of railroad empires. Jay Mac and the Commodore were gone now but their legacy remained. Victor Headley inherited his kingdom and then grew it ten times over. The fact that he’d started with a leg up did not win him respect. He had had to earn that.

  Ben wondered how Victor Headley would take the news of his daughter’s death. And if it was murder, what then? Would he send Pinkertons to scour Frost Falls? He stopped. He was getting ahead of himself. First, he needed to find the goddamn towels.

  Never expecting to find them in the wardrobe, it was the only place left after he’d eliminated under the bed and the trunk at the foot of it. He found the towels bunched together at the bottom, partially hidden by two pairs of shoes and a folded blanket that he could assume came from the bed. He pulled them out—there were three, and one washcloth—and dropped everything on the floor. The towels had been wrung out but they were still damp and heavy. It wasn’t long before a water stain appeared around them.

  Ben had just seated himself in the chair beside the cold fireplace when he heard footsteps in the hallway. No one was speaking, which meant that neither his mother nor Abe was with his wife and Roen.

  “Ridley showed me the back stairs,” said Roen, closing the door and locking it. “We avoided the kitchen help and everyone else.”

  Ben stood. Ridley was already at the bedside. She placed her medical bag on the nightstand.

  “Have you touched her?” she asked.

  “Waiting for you.”

  She nodded and placed two fingers against Victorine’s neck. “I’m getting a sense of temperature, not looking for a pulse,” she told them.

  Roen stood at the foot of the bed. “Does her death have something to do with the baby?”

  “I don’t know yet. I would think if she had a miscarriage, there would still be evidence of blood on the blankets, on the floor . . .” Ridley folded back the quilt to uncover Victorine’s shoulders. She reached beneath and drew out a limp, lifeless hand and examined it. “And under her nails. They’re clean, at least to my naked eye.” She opened her bag and took out a pair of small surgical scissors and clipped her nails. Ben passed her one of the envelopes she had placed in her bag for just this purpose. “This is largely to satisfy my curiosity,” she said to Roen. “There is not a great deal to be learned from it yet. I read an article in a German journal about blood typing in goats that piqued my interest. It may have applications for improved success with transfusions, but someday it might also have applications for narrowing a field of suspects.”

  “Ridley.” Ben said her name quietly with a hint of admonishment. He pointed to Roen standing at the end of the bed.

  “Oh, of course.” She regarded Roen over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles and offered an apologetic smile. “Ben is used to me waxing on. Sometimes I forget myself around others.”

  Roen nodded but didn’t speak. Victorine might have been anyone lying there and Ridley’s detached, clinical interest had no impact on him. He still felt nothing.

  Ridley handed Ben the envelope. He returned it to her bag while she made several more folds in the quilt. It now lay just below Victorine’s breasts. Ridley used the scissors to make a cut in the neckline of Victorine’s nightgown and then parted the material to reveal the neck and shoulders. “Well,” she said, “that tells a story.”

  Rather than crowd Ridley and Ben, Roen moved to the side of the bed opposite them and bent forward to see what they were seeing. The bruises on Victorine’s shoulders did indeed tell a story.

  “She wasn’t strangled,” said Ben. “There’d be some bruising around her neck if that were the case.”

  Roen looked up at him. “So she was what? Held down?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Ben asked Ridley to step aside. When she did, he bent over the body and placed his hands just above the marks on Victorine’s shoulders. “The thumbs would have been about here. The fingers placed more to the back. Like so.” He straightened and pointed to the towels lying on the floor beside the wardrobe. “I found those inside. The killer made an attempt to hide them. He took considerably more care dressing and posing her than he did getting rid of the evidence of his cleanup.”

  Ridley waved Ben back. She fingered Victorine’s hair at the ends, the scalp, and finally at the back of the head. “Damp,” she said. “Only here at the back and only faintly. The pillow has absorbed some of the wet.”

  Ben nodded. He asked them to follow him into the bathing room, where he pointed out the small puddles in the grout and the spongy underside of the bar of soap. “The tub’s bone dry. I think the killer used the towels to wipe it clean. He missed a few spots on the floor. He didn’t anticipate that she would be found this soon or there’d be nothing here to suggest that she’d been bathing when he came upon her.”

  “He?” asked Roen. “You’re certain of that?”

  “My hands were a good match for the bruises and it would have taken considerable strength to hold her under water. Nothing is certain yet, but I am confident enough at this juncture to say a man did this.”

  Ridley concurred. She returned to the bedside while the men remained in the bathing room speaking quietly. Without Roen present, she was more comfortable throwing back the quilt to reveal all of Victorine. The body still held surprises.

  “Ben. Roen. Come here. You need to see this for yourselves.” When they were standing on either side of her, she did not explain herself. There was no need. The outline of Victorine’s distended abdomen beneath her nightgown told its own tale.

  Ben frowned deeply. “What happened to her? Why is her belly poking sideways?”

  Roen stared at the curious contour of Victorine’s belly and answered Ben’s question before his wife poked him with her scissors, as surely she was tempted to do. “She’s not pregnant.” He looked at Ridley. “May I?” When she nodded, he lifted the hem of Victorine’s gown high enough to reveal the roundly shaped cushion loosely strapped to her abdomen.

  Ridley undid the ties and pulled off the cushion. She thrust it at Ben, who made a small oofing sound and clutched it to his stomach. “You really need to read that book on childbirth I gave you.”

  “Remington advised against it,” he said. In an aside to Roen, he added, “The illustrations scared my brother.”

  Ridley ignored him. She asked Roen, “Are you surprised?”

  “That she deceived me? Deceived all of us? No, that doesn’t surprise. I believed her, though. Not her claim that the child was mine, only that she was carrying a child. I cannot fathom how her mind worked.”

  Ben said, “I hope you’re grateful for that.”

  “I am.”

  Ridley lifted the hem of the nightgown and drew it down to Victorine’s knees, preserving her modesty for the time being. There would be no modesty when she performed the autopsy. She asked, “If you had not married Lily and were free to make other choices, would the knowledge of the child have been enough for you to marry Miss Headley?”