The Magnolia Palace(95)

“Miss Lilly?” asked Veronica.

“My private secretary.”

Joshua nodded. “The one who stole your boyfriend. I’m so sorry this has caused you distress.”

Miss Helen’s mood changed like quicksilver. “It certainly has, you both nosing about in my home, reminding me of the worst day of my life. How dare you?” she demanded.

Joshua would lose everything if Miss Helen reported what they’d done. He’d be fired, and never get into graduate school.

Veronica’s decision to take the diamond had been a terrible one, she realized now. The Frick family had gone through a torturous time, and taking the diamond to help solve her own domestic travails was not the right way to go about things. In spite of Miss Helen’s wealth, this jewel meant more to her than all of the paintings and sculptures put together, and Veronica had no right to it. None at all.

But how to make things right?

She nonchalantly slid it out from her pocket, hiding it in her closed fist. “Hold on a moment, let me take another look.”

Veronica walked over to the second secret compartment, blocking their view with her back, and made a show of running her hand around the bottom of it.

“Wait a minute.” Slowly, she pulled out the diamond, as if she’d only now come upon it. Her sleight of hand was clumsy, even to herself. “Look, is this it?”

Miss Helen gasped. “Did you find it?”

“It must’ve fallen out of the cameo at some point.” Veronica carefully placed the stone in Miss Helen’s palm. Joshua cast a strange look at Veronica. He knew it hadn’t been inside the secret compartment earlier. He had to know that she’d pretended to find it. She was ashamed of herself. There was no excuse, and she hated that she’d let him down.

Suddenly, the electricity burst on with a glaring efficiency. The blackout and the snowstorm were over.

Veronica glanced up at the blazing light bulbs in the brass chandelier, then over at Miss Helen. “So you think your secretary stole the cameo?” she asked, desperate to divert attention from herself.

“At the time. But now I don’t think she could’ve done it.”

“Why is that?”

“She didn’t know about this compartment. It’s not something that you can see from just looking around the room; you have to know that it’s there.”

“But it was part of the scavenger hunt,” said Joshua.

“Mr. Danforth never made it to his fob, and I wrote all of the clues myself, without Miss Lilly’s help. It was a very difficult time for my family, and when everything fell apart, Miss Lilly was accused of two crimes: stealing the cameo and also poisoning my father. It was believed that she added a sleeping draft to his water, which killed him. When questioned, she always denied it, swore she was innocent, and then escaped before the police arrived to take her away. And now we’ll never know the truth. My brother and his wife are gone; my father, my mother, all dead. No one is left except me.”

But that wasn’t necessarily the case. “What if we found this Miss Lilly?” said Veronica.

Miss Helen shook her head. “After all this time? Who knows where she is. Probably far from here. She did reach out to me once, when my mother died. Sent a condolence note, said that she had something important to tell me.”

So she hadn’t completely disappeared.

“What was her full name?” Veronica asked.

“Lilly. Lillian Carter. Or Angelica.” She practically spat out the last word.

“I’m sorry?” said Joshua, confused.

“She went by Angelica back when she was a model.”

“You mean the Angelica? The Gilded Age muse?”

“You’ve heard of her?” said Miss Helen, surprised.

“I have. Wait a minute—so your private secretary was Angelica, who was the model for the relief at the entrance?” said Joshua.

Veronica remembered him mentioning the model during her tour, saying that she’d disappeared. The model and the secretary were one and the same. It was comforting to hear that the woman hadn’t met with a tragic end, as Veronica had imagined.

“Believe me, I had no idea who she really was,” said Miss Helen.

“How did she become your private secretary?” Veronica asked.

“A mistake. I’m still not sure how that happened. But we were good together, for a while.” Miss Helen swayed a little, lost in some distant time.

“When she wrote to you, was there a return address on the envelope?” asked Veronica. “We could track her down, see if she’s still alive.” She was desperate to keep Miss Helen talking, not let Joshua ask any questions about her miraculous discovery of the diamond.

“Good Lord, how would I remember that? It was 1931. I tossed it in the trash, where it belonged.” But then she froze, as if trying to conjure up the memory. “Upstate somewhere.”

“Do you remember the postmark, anything like that?” asked Joshua.

Miss Helen paused. “It was a tree. Pine something.”

“Maybe we can figure it out, help you find her,” suggested Veronica.

“It’s a lost cause. Don’t know why you’d bother.” But Miss Helen didn’t wholeheartedly object, either.

“We need a map of the state,” Veronica said. “Do you have anything like that?”