CHAPTER TEN #2
“Audrey, his wife Geneva Van Wyn, and setting a good example for the children. About shaming their good name. She thinks he married too young, and Geneva is too good for him.”
“My, you heard quite a bit,” Leona said mildly.
Winifred’s pale blue eyes flashed. “I was worried about her, Mrs. Gladney. Audrey always fusses over her, reminding us of her poor health, making sure she takes her medications and eats a nutritious diet—” Her cheeks pinked as she picked up her teacup, then put it down again untasted.
“But she was my responsibility that night.”
Leona gave herself a mental kick for upsetting the girl. “I understand, please, go on.”
“He is not a nice man,” Winifred said. “But he is all she has. She loves—loved her grandchildren to distraction and always talked about them to me. Oh, I can’t believe she’s gone!”
Winifred wept into her hands until her mother handed her a handkerchief, her eyes filling with tears as she observed her daughter’s pain. Leona removed her own handkerchief from her reticule and wiped at her eyes. But back to analysis and the bigger picture.
“So, they fought. Did Mr. Van Wyn leave after that?”
“With a great slam of the door—the crystal in the hall shook with it.”
“Who else was living in?”
“Mr. Timothy usually did. He came from the mansion on Columbus Mr. Van Wyn lives in now with his family. Vera, too. But he went home because his brother died. Vera lives in but sometimes stays with her sister.”
“Did she go to her sister’s that night?”
“I remember she had her hat and coat on and a little carpet bag. The house was very quiet eventually. Audrey had left me a note about Mrs. Van Wyn’s nightly routine.
Some quiet reading time, laudanum, quite a large dose and then to bed by 9 o’clock.
In the Lavender room, she sat up reading and asked me to keep her company, so I took my knitting in.
When it was time to give her the laudanum, she said she didn’t want it.
She told me sometimes she only pretended to drink the concoction Audrey made her because she preferred a clearer head.
In fact, she was considering finding another nurse to take care of her, as Audrey seemed to prefer her dull and sleepy.
And you, Mrs. Gladney, seemed to support her suspicions about the laudanum. ”
“It’s my opinion Mrs. Van Wyn knew those two were up to something,” Winifred’s mother said.
“She mentioned this to her friend Mrs. Eliza Rackham,” Leona added.
“If I thought she was in any danger that night, I would have—I don’t know what but something.”
“You’re very brave for speaking to me, to trust me,” Leona said. “I’m under suspicion too, you understand? My husband and I are in a bit of a financial bind, which puts us closer to this mess than I am comfortable with. I’ve also spoken with Detective Gideon Day.”
“No police,” Winifred’s mother said firmly.
Winifred gripped Leona’s hand. “Please—you don’t understand what we’ve been through. I have no position and no reference now that Mrs. Van Wyn is gone. No one to speak up for me.”
They were both like the innocent Le Bon in the Poe story, arrested simply because he delivered two bags of coins to the murdered ladies on Rue Morgue.
“Mrs. Van Wyn trusted and loved you,” Winifred’s eyes glittered again, though the tears did not fall. “Please, for my sake, don’t make me go to the police.”
The jewelry theft was only half the story. Someone must have known Mr. Timothy would be absent, and Vera gone to her sister’s that night. Only timid, bony Winifred left behind to mind Mrs. Van Wyn.
The links ran through her mind. The broken lock, the nearly empty house, the fight with Benedict, the theft, Daphne’s death.
Almost the same as before—but who else knew the butler, Audrey, and Vera would be out that night?
It spoke again of someone from the household, an opportunist, not a random robbery.
“I won’t tell anyone, and I will help you any way I can.” Leona couldn’t afford to lose this young woman’s testimony, and she really did want to help. “Please go on.”
“We talked a little longer. She asked me about my life and what I wanted from it. She said I was clever, and my knitting was good.” She blushed bright pink, appearing unused to praise.
“They were only socks for Da.” She wiped her eyes again.
“She said I was welcome to any books in her library if I wanted and need only tell Mr. Timothy if I wanted to take one home to read. She was so good.”
Oh, dear. Here came the tears again. Leona choked back a sob.
“Just let it out, my girls,” Winifred’s mother said patiently. “Have a good boo-hoo and get it over with. Mrs. Van Wyn was a kind-hearted woman, but she had a snake in her house.”
After a few hearty sobs, Leona gulped the rest down. “I’m going to find that snake, Mrs. Haussman. So, you helped Daphne to bed. Then what happened?”
“I locked the front door and the back door, but you know that lock is broken and only holds when it wants to. I walked through the house turning down the gas lamps. It made me a little nervous to be alone there.”
Alone. The word rang through Leona’s mind.
On a night when three of the live-in staff were absent, a robbery and a death had occurred.
Had Audrey left Winifred in her place because she knew what was going to happen?
Had—planned it? Had planned it so Winifred would take the fall for the robbery and worse?
“And I went to bed in Audrey’s room. On my walk through the house, I stopped in the library and chose a book.
Hans Christian Anderson. I read The Snow Queen until the clock chimed eleven.
Then I put out the light and went to sleep.
I woke up when I heard a noise. I went through the house again—my, I was frightened then!
Mrs. Van Wyn was sound asleep, and nothing seemed amiss—”
“What noise?” Leona asked.
Doubt crept across Winifred’s freckled face.
“I was cold. I remember dreaming about the cold splinters of the mirror, the ones the evil sprites built and shattered, and thinking one had got into me. I woke up shivering and saw the fire had gone out. Then I heard a noise, a thump, and I thought, a voice.”
“Male or female?” Leona demanded. “Your very first thought when you heard it.”
“Male,” Winifred said firmly. “But I was half asleep, my mind still on Kay and Garda. I listened and listened, then got out of bed to get an extra blanket. I didn’t hear anything else.
I went into Mrs. Van Wyn’s room, but she hadn’t stirred.
I found one of her pillows on the floor by stepping on it, so I replaced it on the bed.
Then I went back to sleep.” She stuttered out a sigh.
“The next morning, I went in to awaken her, and she was cold and blue and staring at the ceiling. I screamed but no one was there to hear me. I ran outside and screamed until the police came. When Mr. Van Wyn arrived, he noticed all the jewelry was gone and started shouting at me. They made me sit in the kitchen with a policeman, but after a while he told me to go home, so I did.”
Had Daphne even been alive when Winifred went into her room?
“And we talked about it and it’s me who told her I’d say she never came home, and I went to the police with that story,” Winifred’s mother said. “And so here you are. How did you find us?”
“Mrs. Geneva Van Wyn. I told her you were missing, which Detective Day told me, and she seemed concerned. She gave me your address.”
Winifred pulled a sour face. “Funny, she never spoke to me. Made it a point to not even see me when we were in the same room.” Winifred looked hard at Leona. “You are part of that society, yet you never behave like that, like you smell something bad when I’m in the room.”
“My grandfather is the poet and Transcendentalist William Harrison Earl, also a well-known egalitarian. He set a good example for all of us.”
“Egalitarian,” Winifred said, tasting the word. “Like—equal? Mrs. Van Wyn said you are a suffragist lady.”
A spark of an idea lit up in Leona’s mind. “Winifred, Mrs. Haussman. How about this? Let’s contact a newspaper. Would you be willing to tell your story to a reporter?”