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?”
“I run a library. Of course I do.”
Back in her office in the library building, Miss Helen rummaged through the drawers of a small desk that sat in the corner. “Had to fire my current secretary last week, as she didn’t understand my filing system, no matter how many times I explained it. Here.”
She pulled out a map of New York State and handed it to Veronica, who laid it out on the coffee table in front of the sofa. She ran her finger down the index of town names. “Pine Knolls. Could that be it?”
Miss Helen smiled, impressed with herself. “Yes, of course. Pine Knolls. I’ve always had a keen eye for detail and a good memory. That’s what my father always told me.”
The man had been gone for almost fifty years, yet Miss Helen mentioned him repeatedly, as if he were still busy collecting art in the mansion next door. Veronica remembered how proudly Miss Helen had announced that all of the fixtures and doorknobs in her office came straight from his bedroom. Mr. Henry Clay Frick had a powerful hold on his daughter.
“Do you mind if I use your phone?” Joshua asked. “If it’s working, I can call the operator for her information.”
Miss Helen nodded.
Joshua avoided Veronica’s eye as he walked to the desk. He had to be horrified at the fact that she’d had the diamond in her possession these past many hours. Hopefully he wasn’t calling the police, turning her in for her blatant deception. It struck Veronica that she was utterly alone here in America, with no one to come to her rescue, and in a rush of panic she wanted desperately to hear her mother’s voice. She’d promised to call her collect after the photo shoot, and Trish was probably worrying that she’d been swallowed up by the Big Apple by now. “I need to make a call as well, do you mind if I step out?”
Neither Joshua nor Miss Helen responded, so she ducked out and took the elevator down to the bank of telephone booths she’d spied earlier in the library’s lobby. Inside one, she waited for the operator to connect her.
“Veronica, how are you?” her mother said, the words tinny and hollow.
“I’m fine, Mum. Sorry I didn’t get back to you before. There was a snowstorm and everything shut down.”
“How unfortunate. Are you off to Newport today, then?”
All that—Barnaby, the photo shoot—seemed like a distant life. A less-than-desirable life. Even if on the off chance Sabrina asked her to continue, Veronica wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to have to put up with inflated male egos and skinny mean girls. The past couple of days in the Frick house had opened her eyes to the possibilities. If Joshua could infiltrate the art scene, follow his passion, then she could, too. Not that she knew what exactly that passion was.
She swallowed hard, thinking of Polly. There was no easy answer.
“No, I won’t be going to Newport. In fact, I think I’ll be coming home soon. How’s Polly?”