Under a Gilded Moon(49)

“So, the braw and bonnie Mrs. Smythe speaks from experience, does she?”

“Let’s just say I had my share of opportunities offered.”

Through the crack in the door, Kerry could see Moncrief dropping a theatrical bow. “And long may your lum reek, I say.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Long may your chimney smoke, that is. Long may you live and prosper.”

Mrs. Smythe huffed as she turned to exit the library. “Moral,” she called back to Moncrief, following not far behind, “turpitude.”

“Aye.” A chuckle rumbled below Moncrief’s words. “Moral bloody turpitude.”



Cheeks still flaming—from anger now more than embarrassment—Kerry slipped out of Vanderbilt’s office as laughter and shouts broke just outside the library’s glass-paned doors. Several figures—people and horses—appeared suddenly on the bowling green that bordered the south side of the house. To reach the bowling green, one had to take a stone staircase—that Lilli Barthélemy had evidently just ridden her horse up.

She dismounted, head thrown back, and gathered her reins to hand to someone. Marco Bergamini, Kerry saw now. Who must have come sprinting across the front of the house from the stables when he’d heard the commotion. As the other guests milled about Vanderbilt and his horse, Lilli Barthélemy paused for just an instant near the library’s windows as the Italian reached her. Kerry could only see his face, but his eyes were all thunder and clouds.

Closer to Vanderbilt on the lawn, John Cabot suddenly turned. Unlike all the others, he stood unmoving. His eyes appeared to rest on Lilli Barthélemy. Tracking her.

Like a barn owl, Kerry thought, stays perfectly still. While it watches a mouse.

What was it Madison Grant had said? In love with the same woman.

“Ah, Kerry, there you are!”

Kerry snapped the drape and spun around.

Pursing her lips, Mrs. Smythe leaned toward the window as if she’d settled on what had drawn Kerry’s interest. “Mr. Grant it was I saw. On the loggia with you.”

Drawing herself up, Kerry reached to unload a stack of books from a crate. “The guests here can apparently move about as they please. Even places someone else has gone with the motive”—she met the housekeeper’s eye squarely—“of sweeping.”

“Sweeping, yes. It’s the sweeping that was needed.” Mrs. Smythe’s voice was tight, nervous. And then seemed to change direction. “The vase here, did I tell you? Ming dynasty, that.” She brushed the feather duster over its broad circular rim. “Which was . . . I’ve no bloomin’ idea when. Very old.” She lowered her voice. “And Chinese. There’s your Exclusion Act here. To not let any more of them in, mind. The people, not the vases. A muddle, if you ask me.”

Kerry looked up from the leather-bound copies of the Atlantic Monthly and the American Architect she was unpacking. “You had something in particular you’d like to say, Mrs. Smythe?”

The housekeeper frowned. “There is, yes. About what I observed—”

In a blur of brown-and-white fur, Cedric bounded up just as George Vanderbilt appeared at the doors opening to the bowling green. Nodding to both women, he approached the shelving where Kerry stood.

“Yes, marvelous. Thank you,” he said. “Just onto the shelves, obviously, that have been properly finished. And has everything made the journey intact?”

Mrs. Smythe was first to respond. “All the books are arriving in brilliant shape, sir. Kerry here works like a ferry on the Channel, never sitting off for a rest.”

Vanderbilt smiled down at her. “Glad to hear it.”

But then his smile faded. Gesturing to the top of the stack of American Architect in Kerry’s arms, he shook his head. “See the bookmark in that one?”

Glancing down, Kerry nodded.

“Open it, please.”

She did, the pages falling open to an article with large photographs of wood-paneled rooms and marble floors and carved pillars. “Royalty in Louisburg Square,” she read aloud from the title. Then looked up. “One of your homes?”

Mrs. Smythe’s face behind him said that last comment must have sounded presumptuous.

But he merely shook his head. “My friend John Cabot’s family, actually. We met in Maine just before the article ran, so I marked it. But then—”

Tail flapping, Cedric charged for the door.

“Ah. Speak of the devil. There you are, John. I was just mentioning . . .” But there he stopped, reconsidering. With one finger, he closed the volume. Handed it back to Kerry.

Cabot’s gaze swung over the room. Then stopped on her. Unblinking, she returned his look.

If he’d been in love with the same woman as the Times reporter, could Cabot have been the attacker? Madison Grant might be a vile man with loathsome ideas, but John Cabot could still be the prime suspect for the reporter’s murder, especially if he were as prone to violence as had been suggested.

By Grant, she reminded herself.

Aaron Berkowitz had tried to warn Marco Bergamini about at least one of the gentlemen: Watch out. The murdered reporter must have had information about one or the other or both of them. And that information, perhaps, had been enough to get him killed.

Vanderbilt clapped Cabot on the shoulder. “Let’s take a ramble down to the Bass Pond, shall we?”