The Magnolia Palace

Chapter Eighteen

1919

In the library, a slew of faces stared at Lillian: Mr. Childs, Mrs. Dixie, Miss Helen, Mrs. Frick, and the attorney. She shrank into her seat, aghast at what was being implied: that she had doctored the drink that caused Mr. Frick to overdose and die.

“I didn’t add anything to the glass of water,” Lillian blurted out. “I simply handed it to Miss Helen, I assure you.” In the early-morning hours, she’d been tired and confused, but certainly not enough to accidentally add something to the glass. Someone else had done that, and left it waiting for an unsuspecting person to administer.

“Maybe the nurse made a mistake and left a second dose out,” said Miss Helen.

“Then why would she come to me?” answered Mr. Childs. “She wouldn’t have to say anything and we would be none the wiser. No. She suspected someone did so intentionally. And because of that, I’ve asked a private detective to join us.” He rose and went to the door, calling down the hall for Kearns. “Tell Mr. DeWitt we are ready for him.”

“How dare you, Childs?” said Miss Helen. “You went with us to bury Papsie, knowing all the time that you would challenge the will with this false accusation. What if the bulk of the money had come to you, would you have simply sent this detective person away?”

“I’m simply trying to get to the bottom of what happened the night Father died.”

“It’s terrible enough, Childs,” said his mother, a handkerchief clenched to her mouth, muffling the words. “How could you?”

The private detective—a slight man with a pink turned-up nose—entered, and Mr. Childs addressed the family’s attorney with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if he were a mere chimney sweep. “We are done with your services for now, Mr. Smith.” As the attorney scurried out clutching his stack of papers, the private detective surveyed the room’s interior. Lillian imagined him calculating the total cost of the artwork, furniture, and drapes, estimating how much he could make off the Frick family’s squabbles.

Her first impulse was to run. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but how easy would it be for Mr. Childs to say that she’d been in cahoots with Miss Helen?

She tried to shake off the shock at this strange turn of events, to think clearly. Anyone in the family might have wanted to kill Mr. Frick. As ludicrous as it sounded, even Miss Helen—if she’d known that her father was planning on changing his will—had motive. But if he had no intention of updating his will, Mr. Childs had every reason to see his father dead in a suspicious manner, one that would clear the way for Mr. Childs to contest the will or, even better, have Miss Helen blamed for the death and stripped of her inheritance. To be perfectly honest, even Mrs. Frick, who had endured years of teasing and disaffection from her husband, might have wanted to free herself of his torment. But while the family was certainly not the happiest of clans, would one of them really be capable of such a deadly act?

Mr. DeWitt spoke. “I understand that there is some discrepancy regarding the death of Mr. Frick. I’ve already interviewed the nurse who was on duty that night, per Mr. Childs’s instructions. She has informed me that it appears that Mr. Frick was given a second, deadly dose of sleeping medicine. I’ve also been told that there is another possible crime surrounding his death. That a cameo containing a valuable gem was stolen from his coffin a week prior. Is that right?”

Miss Helen nodded. “Yes. I placed it in his hand myself, and then it was gone.” Her gaze turned to Lillian. The one person, other than Miss Helen, who had been present on both occasions.

Would Miss Helen have it in her to set Lillian up to take the fall for her father’s murder?

Lillian stared back at her, terrified.

“I understand you and your private secretary”—Mr. DeWitt consulted a small leather-bound notebook—“a Miss Lillian Carter, were present in both instances.”

“Yes, we were,” Miss Helen said uneasily, as if she didn’t quite believe it.

“And you”—he turned to Lillian—“are the private secretary?”

“I am.”

He addressed the wider group. “Is there any reason Miss Lillian would want to see Mr. Frick dead?”

A chill settled over the room. Miss Helen’s lips moved, but no sound came out at first. Lillian could practically see Miss Helen’s mind spinning to find an explanation, wanting to deflect blame. And Lillian made the perfect target.

She finally broke the silence with a low murmur that only Lillian understood. “The payment.”

“I’m sorry, what?” said Mr. DeWitt.

“My father had a secret arrangement with Miss Lilly, that she would get a sum of money upon my engagement. When I found out about it, I tore up the check.”

Lillian rose. Better not to deny what was true. “Mr. Frick offered to pay me a thousand dollars, yes.” Mr. DeWitt’s eyebrows rose, and the entire Frick family, other than Miss Helen, gasped. “But I never planned on taking it, I didn’t think it was right. I mean, at first, I thought about it, but once I got to know Miss Helen, I decided against it.” She was talking herself right off a cliff. Better to be blunt. “I was relieved when she tore up the check.”

Mrs. Dixie cried out. “Perhaps that’s why Miss Lilly stole the cameo with the Magnolia diamond, to make up for the lost money.”

This was getting out of hand, and the private detective didn’t appear to be interested in doing anything to stop the false accusations from flying around the room. In fact, he looked quite pleased with himself.

Miss Helen gave a hard shake of her head, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d started. “No. I can’t believe Miss Lilly would do such a thing. Something else is going on here, but I don’t understand it.”

“It’s not your job to understand, Miss Helen,” said Mr. DeWitt. “It’s mine. For now, I’d like everyone to go to their rooms. I’ll interview the servants first, and then each of you.”

“Very well.” Mr. Childs appeared quite satisfied with the outcome. “Dixie and I will go to Father’s study and wait. You will find us in there. If we have a scoundrel in our midst, the private detective will find him—or her—out. Mr. DeWitt, keep in mind the last thing we want is a scandal. We’d like to keep this within the family, if possible.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Childs.”

Lillian went upstairs to the third floor, stopping first in the women’s bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face in an effort to compose herself. If she had time to think, she could figure a way out of this mess. Someone had set her up; she just had to determine who. She dried her face with a towel and took some deep breaths before heading back to her room.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Miss Winnie was coming from the other direction. She pulled Lillian close. “These accusations are baseless, they’ll come to understand that. You are not a scoundrel, I know that, and they do as well. It’s their grief getting the best of them.”

What a relief to have one person who believed her. “Will you say something to Mrs. Frick on my behalf? Please, anything you can do.”

“I will. I’m sure this mess will be sorted out soon.”

But Lillian wasn’t so certain.

She retreated to her room and paced the floor, going from the door to the window, back and forth. She was already suspected in one murder, and now this? What if Mr. DeWitt figured out who she was? Her life might as well be over.

She went to the window and opened it, letting the cool air rush over her. How could she convince them that she hadn’t done anything wrong? Mr. Childs was out for blood—that was obvious. Lillian’s head swam with the accusations, with the double-crossing that might be going on. Mr. Childs had never had much of an affinity with his father, to say the least. Could he have masterminded the whole thing, then called in a private detective—who was probably in his pocket—to finish it off?

A tap sounded at the door. Lillian braced herself, but it wasn’t Mr. DeWitt on the other side of the door. It was Miss Helen.

She rushed in, closing the door softly behind her. “Everything is spinning out of control.”

Lillian had one chance to ensure Miss Helen believed her. She couldn’t waste it. “I promise you, I walked into the bathroom and saw the glass, and then a moment later you came in and took it from me. There would have been no time for me to add something to it, nor did I have any kind of access to a sleeping powder. I swear, I had nothing to do with either the cameo or the draft.”

Miss Helen nodded. “I believe you. That private detective and Childs, they’re in cahoots. They’re trying to break me.” She walked over to the window, arms crossed, her shoulders caving in. “For all we know, Childs paid off the nurse to make the accusation so he could contest the will and get at Papsie’s money. Even at the funeral, I could tell that Childs was furious. He was no better than the rest of the so-called mourners, saying kind things but simmering with jealousy at our family’s success. I knew what they were really thinking.”

“What were they thinking?” Lillian could feel the muscles and nerves in her body releasing, ever so slightly, as she and Miss Helen joined forces.

“That my father made his money on the backs of common workers. That he was single-minded and at times vicious in his business endeavors. Oh, the envy in their eyes! For goodness’ sake, one of the local Pennsylvania newspapers wrote an entire article rehashing that awful flood, which happened years ago. The inquiry determined that Papsie wasn’t to blame. Can they not let the man rest in peace?” She looked at Lillian straight on. “I keep thinking of the night he died, and wondering what I should have done differently. Miss Lilly, do you think I could have accidentally killed him? The way it happened, right after I handed him the glass, makes me think the liquid inside couldn’t have been only water. But if someone did add a sleeping draft to his water, who could it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we’re in this together.” Miss Helen surveyed the small quarters, as if just remembering where she was. “This is where we put you?”

Lillian viewed it through Miss Helen’s eyes. The furnishings were simple, austere. Miss Helen wouldn’t know what to do with herself in a room like this. She’d go mad in a matter of hours at the lack of luxury: the cotton quilt on the bed, which Lillian was glad she’d made that morning; the hooked rug; the dresser where her brush and comb sat.

And on the nightstand, a stack of letters.

Lillian’s heart stopped.

She’d taken Mr. Danforth’s passionate letters out of the top drawer the night before and reread them, as a reminder that she had been loved once, ever so briefly. His rejection, even if it had been of her own making, still stung. He’d been willing to throw away the Frick fortune for her until she’d scandalized him with her past.

She moved toward the door, hoping to encourage Miss Helen to do the same, but Miss Helen was frozen, staring in the direction of the nightstand.

“Is that Mr. Danforth’s handwriting?” Miss Helen asked, stepping closer.

Lillian scooped the letters up and tucked them into the pocket of her skirt. “I was going to add them to your files today. I’ll take care of it later.”

Miss Helen held out her hand. “No. I ought to go back to my rooms and await that ridiculous private detective. I’ll bring them with me and leave them on the desk.”

Lillian slowly pulled them out of her pocket and handed them over, the blank side up.

But Miss Helen turned them over and squinted at the handwriting. “Why is your name on the envelope?”

There was nothing to say, no way to stop her. Miss Helen opened the first one and read it, staring up at Lillian for a moment afterward. Then she sat down on the chair and made her way through each one, her face ashen, the only movement that of her eyes as she read the wretched words of love written on them. Love for Lillian.

Miss Helen finished the last one and then stood, letting them all drop to the floor in a cascade of white.

“It was a mistake, Miss Helen, I’m sorry. I said no.”

“So all this time I thought Mr. Danforth was pursuing me, he was pursuing you?”

“He’s not deserving of you. How could he be? I’m terribly sorry, I tried to put him off.”

“I’m too plain. Is that it? He found me too plain?”

That Miss Helen would turn on herself instead of turn on Lillian at a time like this broke Lillian’s heart. The poor woman had always been found unworthy, her father constantly reminding her that she was not good enough. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

“Who should I blame?” She stepped closer, staring hard at Lillian.

“Him. Mr. Danforth.”

When Miss Helen finally spoke, all of the uncertainty was gone, replaced by a steely voice belonging to the richest unmarried woman in America. “You fooled me, didn’t you? You took advantage of everything I gave you and then you took everything I had. I will take you down, Miss Lilly, for this. How dare you make me look like a laughingstock? I know what you are, now. A treacherous liar.”

She was so close that Lillian could see the thin red veins in her eyes.

“And not only that. You’re a murderer.”

The detective came to Lillian’s room a few hours later and questioned her about the particulars of Mr. Frick’s death and her relationship with Miss Helen, whether she harbored resentment toward the family, what kinds of interactions she’d witnessed between Mr. Childs and Miss Helen. She answered as honestly as she could, relieved that the love letters were never brought up. Miss Helen probably didn’t want the fact that her suitor had been stolen by her private secretary brought out into the light. It would be a private grievance, not a public one.

And she had every right to grieve, thought Lillian, as she watched the sun set over Central Park from her window. The sky put on a show for what she figured would be her last night in the Frick household, a riot of purples and oranges. Tomorrow, she’d be taken to jail and her life would no longer be her own. She’d aimed too high and now it was all crashing down.

Around two in the morning, still unable to sleep, Lillian padded out of her room, down the back stairway, and then along the main corridor on the first floor. In the moonlight, the portraits on the wall seemed to glare down at her in disappointment. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but when she got to the front entry, a movement startled her. One of the footmen—one of the larger footmen—was sitting in the chair to the left of the door and rose as she approached.

He didn’t step toward her but instead moved directly in front of the door, as if he was expecting her to make a run for it.

Which maybe she had been, or at least checking out the possibility.

“Miss Lilly?” he said. “I’m afraid I must ask you to return to your quarters. The Fricks have asked me to not permit anyone to leave.”

“I see.” Lillian pulled her wrap close around her. “We’re trapped, is that it?”

“I don’t know, miss. I’m simply doing what I’m told.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

It certainly wasn’t his fault. Back up on the third floor, a door flew open right next to her, making Lillian jump and cry out in alarm. But it was only Bertha, rubbing her eyes.

“Miss Lilly, is everything all right?” she asked. “I thought I heard footsteps.”

“Oh, dear, you gave me a fright!”

“Everyone’s on tenterhooks.” She spoke in a whisper. “I can’t believe they think someone killed Mr. Frick. It can’t be true, can it?”

Lillian thought of what Miss Helen said right before she spied the letters, about how her father had amassed many jealous enemies. About the long-ago flood that had killed thousands of innocent people. Which meant that more than Mr. Frick’s immediate family had reason to want him dead.

No, Lillian was grasping at straws; shock and lack of sleep had rendered her incapable of clear thinking. The house was impenetrable; no one would’ve been able to sneak in.

“I have some whiskey, would you like it to help you sleep?” asked Bertha, stifling a yawn.

She shouldn’t keep everyone else up; that wasn’t fair. “No, I’m fine,” she said.

They parted, and soon after, Bertha’s snores droned through their shared wall. Lillian couldn’t sleep anyway. She had to figure out who had placed that draft if she wanted to clear her name. No one else was going to stand up for her.

The answer was there, in some behavior or word, she was certain. Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had happened the day before that didn’t make sense. But what was it?

She spent the rest of the early hours running through what the family had said at the will reading, how they had reacted, trying to put her finger on what was bothering her, with no luck.

At eight o’clock that morning, overtired to the point of exhaustion, she answered a knock at her door. A chambermaid stood before her. “Miss Helen has asked that you join her in the Fragonard Room in an hour, Miss Lilly.”

“Very well. Thank you.”

She cleaned herself up as best she could, the dark circles under her eyes like smudges of fireplace ash, and entered the room at the appointed hour. How fitting that she be fired, or sent off to jail, or whatever they were planning on doing to her, in the very room where she had first fooled Miss Helen into offering her the job. There, amid the panels where nymphs pranced and lovers blushed, solemnly sat Mrs. Frick, Miss Winnie, Miss Helen, Mrs. Dixie, and the private detective, while Mr. Childs leaned on a wall near one of the windows, an ugly grimace on his face.

Mr. DeWitt rose to his feet, took out his notebook, and addressed Lillian. “I’ve recently learned of a deception perpetrated by you upon the Frick family.”

So Miss Helen had told them after all. Lillian answered before he could go on. “I apologized to Miss Helen earlier, and I apologize to the family now. It was not my intention to attract the attentions of Mr. Danforth, I assure you.”

The last thing she wanted to do was further humiliate Miss Helen, but she had to try to explain. “He pursued me, and for a time I was briefly entranced, but then told him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested. I’m sorry for having hurt Miss Helen so, after all she’s done for me.”

“For God’s sake, you can’t even do that right.” But Mr. Childs’s angry words weren’t directed at Lillian. They were directed at his sister. He let out an ugly snort. “Danforth pursued a penniless working girl over you, an heiress? How Father would be laughing at this entire situation. At you.”

Miss Helen cried out. “You are too cruel, Childs. Mother, make him stop.”

Mr. DeWitt hadn’t been referring to the letters. In her panic, Lillian had opened up the wound she’d most wanted to avoid.

Miss Winnie and Mrs. Frick exchanged a glance, as if they weren’t surprised by the news. Poor Miss Helen, always the disappointment.

“That is not the deception I was referring to,” said Mr. DeWitt.

The family turned and stared at him. “What else?” asked Mrs. Frick.

“Miss Lilly,” asked Mr. DeWitt, “do you go by any other aliases?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“We’ve been informed that you are not who you appear to be. That you are also known as”—he glanced down—“Miss Angelica Carter. Or better known, simply, as Angelica.”

Lillian could tell by the way he was eyeing her that he knew exactly who Angelica was, had seen the suggestive illustrations in the press. Mrs. Frick and Miss Winnie simply looked confused, but Miss Helen sat frozen, mouth open. “The model?” she said.

“Yes,” answered Mr. DeWitt. “The artists’ model.”

All of her secrets were now out in the open, and for a brief moment she felt a flash of abandon, of being able to be exactly who she was and stop hiding. But that was quickly replaced by panic. A sliver of hope lay with Miss Helen, whose familiarity with the art world might make her more understanding of the role that models played in the creative process, less scandalized by her prior career. But deep in her heart she knew that only a few art collectors—Mrs. Whitney among them, as she was also an artist—entertained such liberal views. It would be one more reason to distrust her, not that she needed more reasons after seeing Mr. Danforth’s letters. Still, Lillian addressed Miss Helen, not the private detective. “I was a model, yes.”

Mr. Childs threw back his head and laughed. “All this time we’ve had the infamous Angelica under our roof? Wait a minute, didn’t Father say she was the model for the woman above the carriageway? Now standing right before us, in the flesh. That’s delicious.”

“Childs!” protested Mrs. Dixie.

“This is not a laughing matter,” said Mrs. Frick. “What on earth have you done, Helen?”

Miss Helen studied Lillian as if she were one of the portraits on the wall, taking in her shoulders, her waist, her hair, her feet. “You posed? For money?”

“I was an artists’ muse in the past. But I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Is it true that you murdered your landlord’s wife?” Mr. Childs was fully enjoying himself now, secure in his position in the family once again, having brought his sister to her knees.

“What on earth?” It was Miss Winnie’s turn to go pale.

This was all happening too quickly. Lillian couldn’t explain fast enough, not with so many people in the room staring at her. There was so much ground to cover: her mother’s death, Mr. Watkins’s proposition, Mrs. Watkins’s lifeless hand, the blood on the rug. The words wouldn’t come.

Mr. DeWitt grew weary of waiting for her response. “After I was informed of Miss Lillian’s true identity, I followed up with the investigation into the death of a Mrs. Watkins of West Sixty-Seventh Street. It does appear that Miss Lillian, or Angelica, is wanted for questioning in that case.”

Who had informed him? Most likely not Mr. Danforth, as she couldn’t imagine Mr. Childs confiding in him about the family’s current turmoil. He was an outsider, after all. It had to have been someone in the household. The only one who could possibly know about her was Mr. Graham. She remembered how he’d come to her in the basement with a warning. Could he have turned her in? With his job in jeopardy, would he have offered up what he knew in return for some kind of reward?

But that was the least of her worries. “I’m innocent, I swear.”

But the list of coincidences, all connected to Lillian, was impossible to surmount. She could tell by the looks on everyone’s faces, ranging from dismay to horror, betrayal to mockery. She was done for.

“What happens now?” asked Miss Helen.

“I’ll take her to the police station, and they’ll start an investigation,” said Mr. DeWitt.

“No!”

Mrs. Frick’s voice, usually birdlike, resonated loudly across the room. “We cannot have that kind of scandal associated with the Frick name. My husband spent his entire life creating this bastion of art and culture, and now, a week after his death, you plan to trot this woman out in public and shame us all? My daughter’s stupidity notwithstanding, I cannot allow that.”

Mr. DeWitt blinked a couple of times and looked over at Mr. Childs for direction.

Mr. Childs nodded. “She has a point. We don’t want our name besmirched. Can it be handled quietly?”

“I don’t see how, sir,” said Mr. DeWitt. “Angelica’s been missing for almost three months now. It will make news, no matter what you do.”

“Then give us a day,” said Mrs. Frick. “We’ll leave town, go up to Eagle Rock for the rest of the month, until it all calms down.”

“What do you want me to do with her in the meantime?” said Mr. DeWitt.

Lillian hated that she was being talked about as if she were a load of laundry. “Please, I didn’t do anything.”

“You lied about your identity,” said Mr. Childs. “You obtained a position on our staff fraudulently. You interfered with the affairs of my sister. You extorted money from our father. There’s a chance you poisoned him and, afterward, stole a cameo brooch and jewel that belonged to our dear, dead sister. Need I go on?”

Lillian dropped her head, staring down at the complicated parquetry floor, a series of interlocking diamonds. “I didn’t do it,” she repeated softly.

But no one was paying attention to her anymore. Her fate had been decided.

“We’ll keep her in her room until tomorrow,” said Mr. Childs. “After we leave, Mr. DeWitt can come and take her to the police station. There will be no mention that you discovered Angelica here. Can you promise me that, Mr. DeWitt?”

“I will do my best to keep the Frick name out of the police report.”

“You will be well compensated for that, as well as for so expeditiously getting to the bottom of our troubles.”

“I didn’t do it!” protested Lillian, louder this time. “For goodness’ sake, everyone in this room had a motive to kill the man.”

The collective outcry threatened to suck all of the air out of the room.

“How dare you!” Mrs. Frick said as Miss Winnie fanned her mistress’s face with her chubby hand. Miss Helen stepped up to Lillian, paused, and then slapped her hard across the face.

Lillian didn’t flinch. She deserved that, from Miss Helen.

Miss Helen turned to the others in the room. “I’ll take her upstairs.”

“Are you sure?” said Mr. DeWitt.

“There are footmen stationed at every door,” said Mr. Childs. “No one is going anywhere. Not until I give the order.”

Mr. Childs called for the housekeeper, and she and Lillian waited, without speaking, in the main hallway until the master key to the house was delivered into Miss Helen’s hand. They took the elevator up to the third floor, and Lillian took advantage of their forced proximity to plead her case again.

“I didn’t come here on purpose. I was on the street outside and Miss Winnie assumed I was an applicant. I was so thirsty, and she offered tea, so I went along with it. It wasn’t done to trick you.”

Miss Helen stayed silent. The elevator doors opened, and they walked down the long hallway toward Lillian’s room, which would soon be her temporary jail cell.

“I was a model, and a very successful one. But it wasn’t sordid in any way. My mother was with me whenever I modeled. I became more and more popular, and then my landlord became infatuated with me, after my mother died, and tried to take advantage. He killed his wife and suddenly my name was linked with his.”

“Much like you linked yourself with Mr. Danforth.”

There was no more to be said. Lillian had been a fool in many ways, but especially to think that she could have had a long-term position by Miss Helen’s side, that they could work together to build a spectacular library of art. That this could be her profession, her life’s work.

Miss Helen opened the door to Lillian’s room and motioned for her to enter. Lillian did; then Miss Helen slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside.