No Mortal Reason (5 page)

They went back the way she had come, Sebastian a few steps ahead, pointing to closed doors along the way. “Gentlemen’s room. Ladies’ parlor.” Diana caught a glimpse of the huge fireplace and the check-in desk as he whisked her past an arched opening on their right. “And this is a reception room.” It was long and narrow and dust motes danced in the light coming in through the windows. At the far end was another passage with doors opening off both sides. “Children’s and nurses’ ordinary,” he said, indicating the first. “The rest are private dining rooms. And this,” —He flung open double doors with a flourish— “is the newly enlarged dining room.”

It was huge.

It was also empty.

“Come on,” he urged, picking up the pace. “The kitchen’s on the far side.”

To Diana’s relief, this proved to be true. In one small, suspicious part of her mind she had been entertaining the possibility that her too-eager escort might be luring her into some private lair where he could attempt further liberties. She’d been prepared to scream very loudly—and kick him in the privates—if it became necessary.

As Diana entered the room, Cousin Mercy had just taken the kettle off the stove. “Almost ready, Pa,” she said to the man seated at the table, and poured hot water into a teapot. Without looking toward the door, she asked, “Do you want a cup, Sebastian? It’s chamomile today.”

“Yes, I do. And so does the lovely Mrs. Northcote.”

Startled, Mercy almost dropped the kettle. “Ma’am you shouldn’t be back here. Guests—”

“Are not permitted to eat?” Diana interrupted, her gaze focused on a plate of sandwiches and another overflowing with freshly baked cookies.

“I . . . that is, I did not think . . . I do apologize, Mrs. Northcote. I should have offered to bring something up to your suite.”

Diana hesitated, then decided she’d already broken the rules and might as well continue as she’d begun. “I am not accustomed to being treated as royalty,” she told her cousin. “I know some might think it a terrible breach of etiquette, but I will feel much more comfortable, Mercy, if you will call me Diana.”

This suggestion seemed to fluster Mercy even more, and caused her to slop hot water onto a sketch pad that had been left on the table.

The man she’d called “Pa,” her father, Howard Grant, moved swiftly to remove it from danger before it was completely ruined. “Only damaged the first few pages,” he said, examining them. “Do you want to save them?”

Mercy glanced at the sheets, now detached. “Those are the sketches I did of Mrs. Saugus. They aren’t very good.” After blotting up the excess moisture with a towel, she tossed them into the kindling box.

“I don’t know the lady,” Diana said, “but your portraits seem quite fine to me.” They showed a woman with a hard face and curly hair, wearing an elaborate hat.

“My daughter is modest.”

Mercy blushed. “You’re the artist in the family, Pa. I just dabble.”

“But you’ve a gift for faces and I have not. I specialize in birds,” he explained in an aside to Diana.

“You should do a sketch of Diana, Mercy,” said Sebastian, who apparently did not share his cousin’s hesitation to abandon the more appropriate form of address. “She’s far better looking than Belle Saugus, and far more pleasant, too.”

Oh, gracious,
Diana thought.
I hope I have not encouraged him to be even more forward.

Warily she settled herself in the chair Sebastian held out for her and accepted Mercy’s offer of tea. She had just selected a molasses cookie when she realized that Howard Grant was staring at her.

“You remind me of someone,” he said bluntly.

Diana’s mouth went dry. She did not bear a strong physical resemblance to her mother, but she might well share some small but telling trait with the younger version of Elmira that Uncle Howard remembered. What if he guessed who she was?  

After a moment he shook his head. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before. Can’t put my finger on where, but it’ll come to me. I’ve got a real good memory for details.”

* * * *

The more Myron talked about his big plans, the more convinced Ben became that the older man had set impossible goals.
He seemed to have no concept of the problems he’d face. Staff? Oh, they’d come from surrounding towns. But no Irish nor Jews need apply. He wasn’t sure about coloreds.

Noises indicative of demolition had been issuing from the far side of the hotel for some time when Grant decided he needed to check on the workmen. “I’ve been itching to get at the west wing ever since we started renovations,” he said as he headed off in that direction.

Ben debated whether to follow him or go check on Diana. In the end, he did neither. The clop and rattle of an approaching horse and buggy halted Myron Grant’s progress. He returned to Ben’s side, a forbidding scowl darkening his features.

“Didn’t figure he’d be back till dark,” Grant muttered under his breath.

A surrey pulled by a little Morgan made its way to the front of the hotel and came to a stop. The words CASTINE LIVERY STABLE, LENAPE SPRINGS, N.Y. identified it as a hired vehicle. The driver, a dapper fellow whose blue and brown checked serge Norfolk jacket, deerskin driving gloves, and beaver hat marked him as something of a dandy, took one look at Grant’s face and frowned.

Fine lines fanned out from eyes the color and hardness of sapphires. They narrowed as he canted his head to listen. Ben knew the exact moment when he realized that the sound he heard was a board being torn loose. He tossed the reins aside and sprang down from the seat.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded. “We’ve got more important things to do than mess with that burnt-out wing.”

Grant approached the surrey, tipping his broad-brimmed straw hat to the other occupant of the conveyance. “Afternoon, Mrs. Saugus. Hope you and your husband had a pleasant outing.”

She regarded him with a cold, hazel-eyed stare. She was fashionably dressed but, like her husband, had chosen excessively bold colors and patterns. Her hat was a bright confection of magenta velvet and purple taffeta ribbons.

Beneath the curved brim, her face seemed unremarkable, save for the fact that she wore makeup. This obvious attempt to hide her age also concealed any emotion she might feel. She did not respond to Grant’s greeting and, after one covert survey of Ben through lowered lashes, she shifted her gaze to the mitt-encased hands she held primly folded in her lap.

“Damn it, Grant!” Saugus raged. “We’re on a tight schedule here.”

In his agitation, he all but jumped up and down and the jerky movements sent his hat tumbling to the ground. Beneath, his hair was as black as Ben’s, but the color had a flatness to it that suggested the shade came out of a dye bottle. Saugus’s bushy mustache and side-whiskers contained a liberal sprinkling of gray.

Another glance at Mrs. Saugus told Ben that her hair, what little of it showed beneath that triumph of the milliner’s art, had probably once been bright red. Now it had faded to muted echo of its former glory.

“One afternoon’s work won’t make much difference,” Grant argued, “and I was sick to death of that eyesore.”

“What eyesore? It was all grown over. Even had a couple of bushes on top of it. Flowers on ‘em, too. No one would have looked twice at it. No one would have known there was ever another wing there if you’d just left it alone.”

“Well, it’s too late by now.” Grant’s belligerence rapidly turned into anger. With his bulk, he dwarfed the smaller-boned man. “And just so you know, I aim to rebuild that wing. We’re going to need the space once Lenape Springs water catches on with the posh set.”

The horse shifted nervously in its traces as voices got louder.

“You damned fool!” Saugus shouted, undaunted by fact that a giant loomed over him. “There are more important things than—”

“Good afternoon,” Ben interrupted, hoping to prevent fisticuffs. He stepped closer to the surrey, keeping a weather eye on the horse in case it decided to bolt. “I’m Dr. Northcote. Mr. Grant has just been showing me the spring with the idea that I might endorse its healing properties.”

Saugus’s change in attitude was instantaneous. He slapped Ben on the shoulder as if he were an old and dear friend. “Excellent fellow! I am Norman T. Saugus, Mr. Grant’s financial backer. I’m putting together a joint stock company to expand the hotel and turn it into a first class spa. That’s my wife,” he added, glancing briefly back toward the surrey.

“Are you staying here also?” Ben asked. He’d assumed from Mercy’s remarks, that there were no other guests at the hotel.

“Yes, indeed. Beautiful place, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

Since Saugus made no move to assist his wife, Ben circled the surrey and offered her his arm. As soon as he did so, Saugus turned his attention back to Myron Grant. “Those men can put in another hour painting before they leave for the day,” he declared.

With Mrs. Saugus safely on the ground, Ben glanced at the sky. It had been nearing mid-afternoon before he and Diana arrived at the hotel, and he’d been talking to Grant for some time. Dusk could not be far off.

Grant started to sputter an objection, then abruptly fell silent. A puzzled expression crossed his face as he turned to look toward the construction site. The sounds of demolition had ceased.

Before any of them had time to do more than wonder why, one of the workmen rounded the veranda at a fast clip. When he caught sight of Grant and Saugus, he changed course, veering away from the front entrance and heading toward the little group beside the surrey.

The man stumbled to a halt, his face sheet white. “Found a body,” he stammered. “Dead.” He swallowed hard. “Murdered.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

“Show me,” Ben said. “I’m one of the city coroners back home,” he added when Saugus started to protest.

“This has to be a case of injury, not death,” Grant said. “
Murdered?
Nonsense. There must have been an accident. Someone fell.”

“What happened?” Ben asked the workman as they hurried toward the partially demolished west wing.

“Don’t know. Looks like someone landed a hit on the head, then just left the body where it fell. Covered it over with dirt.”

Buried in a shallow grave?
  That didn’t sound good.

On Myron Grant’s orders, the workmen had ripped out underbrush and large sections of the fire-scarred flooring they’d found beneath. Debris was scattered everywhere.

“We pulled up a piece of warped flooring and there it was,” the workman said, pointing.

Under
the floor? Ben barely had time to process this new information before he knelt by the irregular opening into the earth. The smells of dampness and sweat and another, slightly musty odor reached him, but there was none of the stench of recent death. He understood why as soon as he saw the body.

The remains were skeletal.

“Someone fetch a lantern,” he instructed.

“Not built atop a sacred Indian burial ground, are ya, Grant?” Saugus, coming up beside Ben, with Grant right behind him, tried to sound convivial but failed miserably. He glanced into the hole once, then avoided looking that way again.

Without waiting for more light, Ben dropped through the opening, angling himself so that he did not block the sun. Low in the sky, its beams slanted into the depths, giving him just enough illumination to verify the workman’s claim. The skull had a crack in it. The body appeared to have been shoved into this space after death. It lay at an awkward angle, the head twisted sideways, giving him a clear view of the damage.

A few remnants of clothing clung to the bones, but most had rotted away.  Here and there dirt covered the remains, although it did not look as if there had been any attempt at burial. With scientific detachment, Ben examined the size and shape of the pelvis and concluded that the cadaver was that of a woman. More than that he could not judge, not even how long she had lain here.

By the time Ben hauled himself back out of the hole, the number of spectators had increased. Mrs. Saugus stood off on her own, abandoned, the blank expression on her face even more obvious than before. At the opposite side of the work area, probably closer to a back door, stood a little group consisting of two men he did not recognize and two women—Diana and Miss Grant. Even at this distance, Ben could see the concern etched on Diana’s countenance.

His attention shifted to her male companions. He’d never seen either man before, but the older of the two had to be Myron Grant’s younger brother, Howard. If not for the greater number of lines inscribed in Myron’s face by age, they might have been mistaken for twins.

Hesitantly, Howd Grant left the others where they were and approached the work site. He knelt as Ben had done and stared through the opening. At first, he showed no reaction. Then, as his gaze roamed over the skeletal remains, his face suddenly lost all trace of color. He gripped the edge of the fire-blackened flooring so tightly that his knuckles showed white and he had to clear his throat before he could speak. Even then it came out as a harsh croak.

“I know who she is.”

“Impossible.” Like Norman Saugus, Myron Grant avoided looking into the hole after the first glimpse of what it contained. “You can’t tell anything from bones.”

“I can. It’s Elly. Elly Lyseth.” Howd Grant heaved himself awkwardly to his feet.

“This can’t be Elly,” his brother insisted. “She packed up all her belongings and left town. Everybody in Lenape Springs knows that.”

“Apparently everyone’s been wrong.” The younger Grant brother sounded angry now and his hands had curled into fists at his sides.

“Sometime before the fire that destroyed this wing of the hotel, someone stowed this body in the crawlspace under the floor,” Ben said. “It might never have been found if Mr. Grant hadn’t insisted on clearing away the debris.” He kept his eyes on Diana’s Uncle Howard. “How can you be so sure of your identification?”

With a hand that trembled, Howd Grant pointed into the hole. Ben’s exit from that cramped space had dislodged some of the dirt covering the remains. The setting sun now picked out the glint of gold. A heart-shaped pendant lay tangled in the neck bones. “That was Elly’s.”