A Death, a Will, and a Way ~ "Spanish Moss"
“Poison” is one of the last words Nedda Courtland’s employer says to her.
Private secretary to a wealthy financier, Nedda has
maintained a very British poise as she traveled the world. The New Orleans of
1925 brings it own unique flavor to her experiences. Yet nothing prepares her
for Hyatt Ingram’s claim of murder in the hours before his death.
With no evidence as proof, she can only fulfill Mr. Ingram’s
last wishes. Holding his absent son’s voting proxy and a new will, Nedda
expects the murderer to emerge in the chaos she will create as executrix.
She never expects another murder.
“Spanish Moss” is the first of three novelettes in this
tie-in series to M.A. Lee’s Sailing Into Mystery stories and Into
Death novels featuring the artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. Nedda
Courtland enters 1925 America with these stories as she is Courting Trouble.
Opening ~ The Death
In all her years as Hyatt Ingram’s private secretary, Nedda
Courtland had disagreed with several of his decisions but never more so than
when he was dying.
She’d returned from delivering his grandson Colfax to the
Sacred Heart Academy and found him confined to his deathbed. He ignored his
doctor’s advice to stay calm and quiet. He commanded his third wife to leave
his bedchamber. He demanded that Louisiana Oil Company not delay the upcoming
vote on investments from his company Ingram & Son.
His son Sheridan, though, was half-a-continent away, in
California.
Had he contacted his son about his failing health? No. Had
he notified his grandson Colfax or his secretary Nedda? No. He expected
everything to follow the schedule.
Nedda did her job by restoring order to the swirling chaos.
The maid stopped flapping about and hied to the kitchens to have a medicinal tisane
prepared. The manservant came out of his corner and helped adjust the pillows
and straighten the bedcovers, trying to make Mr. Ingram comfortable. The doctor
drew Nedda into the suite’s central reception to convey his diagnosis. Then he
retreated with a murmured “Matter of hours, Miss Courtland, not days.”
In all his years, no matter how dire the situation, Mr. Ingram
had never fretted. Perching on the side of his expansive bed, Nedda covered his
writhing hands with her own. His skin felt dry, papery. His eyes were bleary
and reddened. His extreme pallor and shortened breaths worried her more than
the doctor’s diagnosis.
He looked up at her and swallowed, an effort.
“I will get you some water.”
“No.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Colfax?”
“Settled at the Academy.”
“Problems?”
“None, sir.”
“You’ll need to wire Sheridan.”
A wire rather than a telephone call. The old man knew his
son would be difficult to contact. “I will have them bring a telephone into the
suite. When he rings, you can speak with him.”
He huffed, lost his breath, then grabbed at it with rapid
inhalations. When his breathing was steady, he asked, “You have his proxy?”
Mr. Ingram knew that she did. They had talked about the
proxy numerous times on the train from San Francisco. He had discussed how she
would need to vote for Sheridan in the investment meeting with LOC. She also
had Sheridan’s power of attorney, for she had needed both documents to enroll
Colfax in the Sacred Heart Academy. Nedda peered into her employer’s eyes and
saw a vagrant confusion that she’d missed earlier.
And that’s when she knew the doctor’s diagnosis was correct.
“Mr. Ingram, what happened? You were not ailing when I left
with Colfax, five days ago.”
He licked his dry lips. His eyes slewed sideways, to the
manservant standing quietly.
“Bring Mr. Ingram a brandy,” she ordered with brisk
efficiency.
“Miss Courtland, you’re in America now,” the manservant
protested. Hired on their arrival in New Orleans, he thought he needed to
explain the laws of the United States to these British visitors. “We’re under
Prohibition here. Where in this town am I to find brandy?”
“I am certain you can locate a place. The concierge should
know a source.”
“The doctor said—.”
“Given the diagnosis, I hardly think that a brandy will
injure Mr. Ingram’s health.” She waited until the chamber door shut before
checking his pulse. His heart fluttered rapidly, faintly. “Tell me.”
“Poison.”
The word shocked her, but she didn’t doubt it. In their
travels for Ingram & Son Investments, they’d seen many odd and
unexplainable things, especially in Arabia and the Orient. Mr. Ingram believed
someone had poisoned him, and she didn’t question that belief. His body might
fail him, but his mind was still sharp, still penetrating, still seeing traps
and snares that other businessmen missed.
Hyatt Ingram had used those wits to amass a substantial
fortune long before Nedda encountered him, and he had tripled it since the
Great War ended, investing in the worldwide petroleum industry.
She did have one question. “Has the doctor—?”
“Didn’t believe me. Says my heart was weak. He listens to
Giselle.” He had to pause between each statement and gather strength.
Giselle, his third wife—the new bride. A mistake in Arizona
that Mr. Ingram had enjoyed making. He’d shared with Nedda that the marriage
wouldn’t last more than three years. She hadn’t thought it would last a year.
Giselle hooked him in San Francisco and spent her last dime to follow them to
Phoenix where they married. He wanted to be her savior, yet he knew she loved
his wallet, not him.
Nedda shook herself mentally. “Do you think she—?”
“Think it was that cicisbeo Clement LaFoy or the accountant
or that lawyer LaFoy brought in or that wildcatter.”
His eyes drifted closed, giving her a chance to mull over
his claim.
That tight little circle had formed since their arrival in
New Orleans. The suave LaFoy represented Louisiana Oil, where Jamison Parker
was chief accountant, financial advisor, and a guarantor with the local banks.
Hank McElroy represented the other petroleum company, the wildcatter firm Texas
Petroleum and Refining. The lawyer Henderson Beaumont III was intended to be a
neutral party, overseeing the negotiations that would be presented at the LOC
meeting where the owners and chief officers would vote on investments from
Ingram & Son and from the Texas firm. Ingram had squeaked into LOC two
years ago with a financial investment that stabilized the company after a
boom-and-bust cycle, and now he had privileges to vote for his increased
ownership of the company.
Sly man.
Not sly enough to anticipate a threat. Not savvy enough to
avoid poison.
She looked through the open balcony doors. The suite on the
top floor gave a view beyond the surrounding buildings. On a far street, the
canopy of an old live oak peered above the roofs. Even at this distance, she
could see the clusters of Spanish moss draping the boughs. A breeze drifted in,
warm in these days of Spring although the natives claimed it was cold.
Nedda envisioned that aged live oak, its massive trunks
braced on the ground, bent at crooked angles. The crimped moss looked like the
hoary beards of old men.
And the ground underneath would be littered with blackened
acorns.
LaFoy and Beaumont. Parker and McElroy. Were they the limbs
of a conspiracy to drive Ingram & Son Investments out of LOC?
Or did one of the four men act alone?
Or was it Giselle and LaFoy?
Or someone she didn’t know to suspect?
They all received a black mark on the mental tally Nedda was
keeping.
“Had a solicitor brought in.”
She quickly turned back to Mr. Ingram. His eyes still looked
bleary, but his gaze was sharp, watching her, telling her what she needed to
know. “A solicitor? Mr. Beaumont?”
“No, not that fool. Alexander Chatto.”
“A new will?” she guessed.
His clutch felt slippery, as if his muscles were sliding out
of his control. “You have Sheridan’s proxy for dealing with Colfax?” he asked
again. “You’ll have to act for me as well.”
“Where is this new will?”
“Chatto has it. He’s only to give a copy to you or my son.”
“And Giselle?”
The corner of his lip lifted, a simple indication that meant
he’d set an unexpected trap. “She’ll have her portion, but she won’t be getting
her fingers into my company.”
Voices in the outer reception reached them, a woman and a
man then another man.
A knock on the chamber door. Mr. Ingram released her hand
and touched a finger to his lip.
She nodded then stood and smoothed down her skirt.
The manservant came in with the brandy.
Mr. Ingram shot a hard glance at Nedda. “I’ll rest now. I’m
tired.”
That dismissed her, but she didn’t intend to return to her
own room on a lower floor. Five days away meant a backlog of work for her,
correspondence and wires and more. Much would become unnecessary were Mr.
Ingram to die.
She wanted to think more about this poison. If they knew
what kind of poison, the doctor might save Mr. Ingram.
Or not.
She composed her face and went out to Giselle and Clement
LaFoy, a convenient paramour since he had tight connections to Louisiana Oil.
One glance revealed the reason Hyatt Ingram had married
Giselle Hampton. The platinum blonde was stunning even when her makeup was not
immaculate. She wore a shimmering silk day dress in the current flapper style.
With her hair coifed in a fluffy bob, her mouth shaped into a Cupid’s bow,
mascara making her wide blue eyes dramatic, she was a porcelain doll that
deserved her place on the shelf where her husband’s money would have kept her.
Two porters bowed as they collected tips from her for the
dozen packages they had carried into the room. The name of a fashionable
boutique was scrolled across several. Nedda said nothing, but Giselle sprang to
her own defense. “Just fancy! They have styles direct from Paris.”
Clement LaFoy finished lighting a cigarette for Giselle. He
placed it in a silvered holder and passed it to the woman. “I doubt Miss
Courtland would recognize avant garde style, my dear.”
Nedda managed to hide a wince, for she loved fashion. Her
job enabled occasional indulgences, Chanel or Lanvin or Molyneux, as long as
the clothes fit her taste and Mr. Ingram’s strict requirements for an
unobtrusive secretary.
LaFoy dropped into a club chair and swung one leg over the
other. He looked elegant in a silvery suit and mauve tie. He pomaded his black
hair and affected a hairline mustache. From the beginning she found him slick
as a cat and unconcerned as long as the world didn’t touch him. She had never
liked cats.
He blew a smoke ring then asked, “How is Colfax? How much
did he protest that school?”
Colfax was an English youth stuffed into a Catholic boarding
school in an extremely rural parish of Louisiana. He should have been with his
peers at Harrow or Eton, but his father had wanted time with the boy after
returning from the war. Six years had now passed, and still Colfax traveled
with the Ingram men. Yet his father was currently still in San Francisco and
his grandfather, hale a week ago, was now failing.
A prominent bishop of San Francisco wrote a letter of
introduction for the Anglican youth, but it was the substantial donation that
won him admission into the Sacred Heart Academy, for even the half-year mark
was well past. Colfax had been on his best behavior when introduced to the
headmaster and a couple of the deans. He politely thanked her for her role in
winning him entry.
She had misliked his bland expression.
When deeply bored, Colfax was known for pranks. She wasn’t
certain the academy was prepared for him.
Yet neither Giselle nor LaFoy had ever considered Colfax.
The question was meant to fill the air. Nedda gave it the response it deserved
rather than the truth. “I think he will find it an interesting interlude.”
LaFoy tapped ash from his cigarette onto a crystal tray on a
polished ebony side table. “He’ll enjoy himself, off his grandfather’s leash.”
Giselle was opening boxes, flinging the lids to the floor
followed by the tissues that had protected the gowns. She lifted out a black
silk shimmering with beads then dropped it to pick up a pale pink confection
with a dropped waist fitted at the hip and lace overlaying the underskirt.
“This one is for dancing tonight in the Blue Room. Have you danced there yet,
Miss Courtland? Oh, you wouldn’t have, without an escort, would you? It is
glorious.”
Nedda sidestepped a wafting tissue. “When did Mr. Ingram
take a turn for the worse?”
Giselle peered into a rainbow beaded bag and didn’t bother
to answer. LaFoy blew smoke toward Nedda. “He woke ill the morning after you
left with the boy.”
If she closed her eyes, she could see the country roads
she’d traveled to and from the Academy, with the hard-packed dirt, the oaks
leaning over, branches intertwined into an eternal canopy, and ashy green moss
swaying in the breeze. “Did you wire Mr. Sheridan Ingram about his father’s
condition?”
“I knew you would do it upon your return,” and Giselle
dismissed the question.
Five days. Two days to travel on narrow roads in a rattling
touring car that she could walk faster than it drove, a day for all the
paperwork to enroll Colfax and see him settled, another two days to return.
“Mr. Ingram is gravely ill. The doctor said his condition will only worsen. And
you did not think it vital to contact his only son? Mr. Sheridan could have
been here by now.”
“I didn’t have his address” was her excuse.
Nedda narrowed her eyes. The wife obviously didn’t want the
son here.
Did Giselle know about the lawyer Mr. Ingram had called in?
She could do nothing about the damage to his health that had
already occurred. She could only prevent more damage.
Sheridan would need a wire this evening. Only God knew how
long it would take to reach him.
Colfax, a youth alone among strangers, would need a warning
wire. The wording would have to be delicate. And it might not reach him until
morning. The academy had a strict curfew.
Nedda would send the wires before seeking her dinner. Then,
although tired from travel, she would return to the suite and tuck into the
backlog of work.
And hopefully have more conversation with Mr. Ingram, out of
the hearing of his wife and the manservant.
The only problem with Nedda’s vow to safeguard Mr. Ingram
was that he died in the overnight.
LINKS ~ Ebook Only
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF2PTG9W
Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/bPM11l
