A Fatal Overture

Book 3: Ella Shane Mystery

by Kathleen Marple Kalb

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Private Investigators

Synopsis

During the first winter of the twentieth century, Gilded Age trouser diva Ella Shane refuses to dim the lights on her dazzling show business career for marriage—even to a dashing British duke. But the versatile mezzo-soprano may have to put it all on the line once murder takes centerstage . . .
 
New York City, 1900. Renowned opera singer and theatre company owner Ella may have both much to gain and much to lose by getting engaged to her courtly long-distance love, Gil Saint Auburn. But there’s little time for romance or resolutions with Gil’s aristocratic mother and aunts visiting Greenwich Village—especially when the ladies discover a dead man in the bathtub of their hotel suite.
 
The victim’s disturbing background and subsequent demise at the elegant Waverly Place Hotel leave the group puzzled beyond the obvious certainty of an unnatural death. Adding to the confusion and mounting fear, danger explodes through Ella’s close-knit circle after a friend makes a stunning confession and Gil becomes a fresh target for violence.
 
Now, with a London tour run fast approaching, prenuptial worries weighing heavily on her heart, and an intricate Joan of Arc aria to rehearse, can Ella decide what she’s willing to sacrifice before confronting a relentless criminal bent on watching her entire life go up in smoke?
 

Release date: March 29, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

One would think that a day that ends in a marriage proposal, never mind unexpected visitors and violent death, would begin with some hint of the drama to come. But one would be sadly wrong. That Wednesday in late January 1900 started simply enough. A charity board meeting in the morning, followed by a good vocalization session and a fencing lesson in the early afternoon, the normal stuff of my life between productions and tours. And, at times, between murders.

“I surrender,” the Comte du Bois said, ending our match with a grin that made him look even more than usual like an amiable gargoyle. “Well done, Mademoiselle Ella.”

We bowed. It was the first time I had ever defeated my fencing master.

“Surrender!” Montezuma, my Amazon parrot, crowed from the rafters, bursting into a raucous drinking song that our sports writer friends had seen fit to teach him.

I foolishly thought this was the extraordinary moment of the day. Little did I know that all manner of complications awaited me before my head would touch the pillow again.

Hoping to leave the studio before Montezuma could get to the rather off-color final verse, I smiled and shook hands with my instructor, who was neither French nor a count but did a quite adequate job of convincing most people that he was. As a leading opera singer, I had met enough genuine aristocrats to know the difference, but since the good Mr. Mark Woods of the Bronx kept me in top form for my heroic trouser roles, he could call himself Louis Quatorze if it pleased him.

“Miss!” Sophia, our young housemaid, called, barreling through the door, out of breath and nearly frantic. “You have visitors!”

That wasn’t especially unusual, though Sophia’s level of upset certainly was. I put my foil in the cabinet and gave her a soothing pat on the arm. “What sort of visitors?”

“Um, three older ladies.”

“Older ladies?” I sighed. Probably a committee from the latest benefit. While I usually sang whenever asked for such things, because neighborhood charities had often been the only thing standing between my late mother and me and the poorhouse, I would hopefully be in London this time. “Likely some charity or another. I hate to disappoint them.”

“I don’t think so, miss.” From the terror in her hazel eyes, the ladies might have been a delegation from the Devil himself, which I somewhat doubted.

Although, considering the unusual things that happen here in Washington Square, I could not entirely discount the possibility.

“Well, let’s find out.” I shepherded our little ensemble downstairs, thinking about London, which was where I should have been at that exact moment.

The original plan had been to take our new opera, The Princes in the Tower, for a winter engagement, but the two oldest children and husband of my leading lady, Marie de l’Artois, contracted scarlet fever. While everyone recovered, thank God, Marie did not want to pack up the family and cross the sea for the run until she, and they, had time to build themselves back up. So it was now a spring premiere.

The theater owner was annoyed at first, but with rapturous reviews pouring in from New York, and the clamor after the announcement of the delay, he realized the value of added anticipation and scheduled more dates. So he was now happily looking forward to a longer stand, which of course meant more money and acclaim for all.

Much less easily mollified was my . . . I’m not entirely certain what to call him. Beau is far too light a term, but there is not, to my knowledge, a formal designation for the man with whom one has an “understanding” but has not yet officially agreed to marry. Particularly in the wake of an amazing and unsettling farewell kiss followed by an utterly shocking, and mutual, declaration of love.

Simple enough to call him Gil. To give him his full dignity, Gilbert Saint Aubyn, Duke of Leith. Trained as a barrister (trial lawyer), modern enough to accept the idea of a wife who sings, but not enough to want her to vote. Good company, and awfully good to look at. Without a doubt the man I want to marry and father my children. The husband and children I did not think I wanted or needed a year ago.

But we had yet to resolve how we would manage a family life around an ocean, a singing career, a duchy, and heaven only knew what else. And I saw no reason for haste in upending my very happy and comfortable existence until we had a good answer for that. My guilty secret: I was not at all sorry to have been kept on this side of the Atlantic for a couple of extra months.

Gil had understood entirely about Marie’s children and had sent telegrams of concern. But the letters between us had first become more passionate and then, in the last exchange, noticeably more tense.

I loved him. I wanted him. But I did not think it was fair to expect me to give up everything I am to become his wife. I knew he did not really expect me to give up everything, but I did not yet know how much he did expect. The answer to that question would tell the story . . . and I was more than a little afraid of what it might be.

Not to mention afraid he hadn’t really meant what he said just before he left, since he’d never written it. If he had, how difficult, even for a British aristocrat, would it be to replace “Yours with much esteem” with “Love” at the end of a letter?

I had reached the foyer, the very scene of that disconcerting declaration. Resolutely, I brushed off the memory and shook hands with the comte, then bowed him out. After a chuckle at the glimpse of myself in fencing breeches in the hall mirror, I smoothed my reddish-blond hair and walked into the drawing room. My visitors would simply have to tolerate it.

Three older ladies had taken over the room. They seemed respectable and harmless enough, with no hint of evil intent or provenance.

No scent of brimstone, either, though perhaps a tiny trace of Hungary water.

The two sitting on the settee were tall and spare, the third, in the big wing chair normally occupied by my sizeable cousin Tommy, small and plump. All were dressed with elegance and care in traveling suits, the tall silver-haired ones in stark black, the smaller lady in dark gray that set off the pale copper color that remained in her hair, the outfits topped with sensible yet stylish hats. On first glance, I guessed Society matrons of some description, though more elegant and reserved than most.

As I drew closer, I realized something more was in play. From their features and coloring, I suspected they were sisters; all had similar high cheekbones, sharply straight noses and wide-set eyes, and the eyes were a distinctive ice blue.

A very distinctive ice blue. I had only seen that eye color once before. Which almost certainly meant I was in far bigger trouble than I’d thought. I might in fact have been safer with the Old Scratch.

“Good afternoon,” I said in my most carefully polite tone. “Shall I ring for some tea?”

“Well, aren’t you a pretty and nice one, even in your silly breeches?” the small lady replied in a crisp London accent faintly flavored with Scotland. “I understand why Gil is so taken with you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for niceties later,” she replied, those familiar eyes burning into mine. “So when are you going to put my son out of his misery and marry him?”

“Flora!” chided one of the taller ladies.

“You really should . . .” began the other.

She gave what I assumed were her siblings an irritated glance and let out a little sigh. “I suppose I should at least take care of introductions.”

“Yes, please,” I managed.

“As you’ve no doubt deduced, I am Flora Saint Aubyn, Dowager Countess of Blyth, mother of the incorrigible Gilbert.”

“Delighted.” I bowed, knowing that it would be bad form to shake hands.

“As are we. These are my sisters, Caledonia, Lady Mac-Quarrie and Charlotte, Dowager Lady Byewell.”

“And I’m sure you know I am Ella Shane.” I would actually have been quite surprised if they did not know I was born Ellen O’Shaughnessy to an Irish father and Jewish mother on the Lower East Side, but I saw no need for lengthy explanations at the moment. I bowed again. “A privilege to meet you all. Allow me to offer you tea.”

“That would be lovely. The hotel staff apparently does not know how to make a proper cup.” Caledonia appeared truly anguished.

“And the less said about the luncheon the better,” added Charlotte.

I moved to sit in the other chair. “I apologize for my attire. I was taking a fencing lesson.”

Countess Flora laughed, transforming her face, just as Gil’s laugh did his. “My dear son told me you have to dress appropriately for your work. I’m not troubled by it.”

“Neither are we.”

It was unclear if Charlotte or Caledonia said it, but it clearly didn’t matter.

Mrs. Grazich, our cook, appeared just then with the tea tray, no doubt having been tipped off to be at the ready. I poured, and the ladies busied themselves investigating the various dainties on offer. Mrs. G was definitely in the mood to impress, having scrambled an exceedingly elegant display of little tea cakes decorated with icing flowers, cucumber sandwiches in various shapes and tiny apple tarts.

This had far less to do with our august visitors and far more to do with Mrs. G’s impending nuptials. She was spending her last weeks before marrying our dear friend and informal uncle, the noted sports editor and essayist Preston Dare, by expressing her happiness in elaborate cooking and confectionery. Tommy, I and our friends were more than pleased to share the joy, on all counts.

At any rate, once everyone was appropriately refreshed, I accepted praise for the well-brewed tea and delicious and decorative accompaniments, and allowed the ladies to get to their business. I returned to my chair with my simple cup, skipping sweets for the moment with the thought that I might enjoy them more later—and the faint hope that I’d somehow misunderstood the earlier discussion.

“Right, then,” Countess Flora said, exactly as her son does when he’s set to begin a serious conversation. “We have come to urge you to come to London with due speed and, hopefully, to welcome you to the family.”

I had not misunderstood, nor would I ever have expected this. If I’d given any thought at all to Gil’s mother, I would have expected at least mild disapproval, considering my profession and parentage. I took a sip of tea and offered a careful reply. “Thank you most kindly.”

“I am certain you will be a positive addition to the clan. But why have you not come to London?” As blunt as her son could be when provoked to it.

“You do understand that there was sickness in my singing partner’s family?”

“I do.” Her eyes held mine for a full measure. “You understand that you could easily have come to London on the original schedule and waited for her to join you for the run?”

“Does he think that?”

“I make it a practice never to guess what my son thinks.” She sipped her tea. “I only know that he’s quite unhappy over the delay and appears to think more is involved than the health of Madame de l’Artois’s wee ones.”

I looked into my own cup.

“Surely you do not have another suitor.”

“Of course not. I—” I broke off before the damning admission. I could not in any propriety tell her that I love her son. I wondered if he had told her that he said he loved me.

“Then what?” From the gentle note in her voice, and her searching gaze, she certainly knew enough, if not the exact details.

“I am not just a woman, Dowager Countess. I am a singer, the leading artist in my own company. However much I may want to marry a man, I cannot just leave the career and life I have built.”

“He hasn’t been fool enough to ask you to give up everything for him.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” She smiled. “You are worried that he’s going to turn into some old-fashioned Bluebeard and lock you away for himself the minute he gets his ring on your hand.”

When she put it like that, I had to laugh. So did the other ladies.

“Not exactly, but there’s a grain of truth there, Dowager Countess.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You have an excuse, having grown up a poor orphan girl.”

I bristled.

The dowager countess patted my hand. “I mean no insult, my dear. Our family needs an infusion of fine, hardworking, American stock, and good Jewish common sense besides. But you would not know that marriage contracts are quite common in some social circles, or what to demand.”

“Marriage . . . contract?” I was not sure what part of that incredible statement shocked me most.

“Of course.” She smiled. “My poor silly son should have thought of it. You’ll simply agree on terms. A tour every other year, or a New York run each winter, or whatever you two find appropriate. You make an agreement, sign it, and all done.”

“But women have no legal rights once married.”

“Except those granted in their marriage settlements, of course.”

I stared at her. It could not really be that simple.

“Of course it’s that simple.” All that and she read my mind, too? “When two people from families with great holdings marry, they have a contract setting out who has control of what, and often where they live and all. You two will be no different.”

The other sisters were smiling.

“Quite so.” Countess Flora beamed at me. “Now, may I telegraph my son that you will be coming to London ahead of schedule?”

“I’m not sure, I have engagements, I . . .” I realized I was blushing and stammering like a silly maiden half my age. Silly maiden was right at the moment, for certain.

“You’ve put a great deal on the poor dear girl, Flora.”

“Only right.” Charlotte shushed Caledonia. “She’s strung poor Gil along quite long enough.”

“Well, I think we can all agree on that.” Countess Flora gave a decided nod. “We’ve taken quite enough of your time for now. Why don’t you meet us for luncheon tomorrow?”

“Please,” I said, clinging to graceful manners in hopes that it might restore my control of the situation, “it would be my pleasure to host you.”

“We’d be guaranteed a good meal at least,” muttered Caledonia.

“Anything but turtle soup,” sighed Charlotte. “Or what they claimed was turtle soup.”

“Very well,” the dowager countess pronounced, shooting her sisters a sidelong glance. “We’ll look forward to it.”

They rose and swept to the foyer like a procession of full-rigged ships.

I bowed to each and when I reached Countess Flora, she pulled me down and planted a very deliberate kiss on my cheek.

“Welcome to the family, my dear.”

“Thank you, Dowager Countess.” I decided it would be very undiplomatic to point out that we were still a rather long way from that. Or that one other person might have an important say in the matter.

She sniffed. “I’d far prefer you to call me Mother, but I suppose I shall have to tolerate that until the banns are posted. Be quick about it, will you?”

And there the matter might have rested for the night, if Charlotte (or possibly Caledonia) had not found a dead man in her bathtub when they returned to the hotel.

Tommy was home, and I had neatened myself up into a very sweet lavender sprig-print merino afternoon dress by the time the messenger from the dowager countess’s hotel arrived, the calm words of the note’s few sentences entirely undermined by the hurry and flamboyance of her hand:


We grabbed our coats and hats and set out to walk the short distance to the Waverly Place Hotel, the same place Gil stayed when in the City.

“His mother and aunts are here?” Tommy asked as bits of leftover snow from the storm earlier in the week crunched under our boots.

“Yes, heaven help us.”

His bluish-green eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. I recognized the protective scowl, the same expression that was the last thing more than one man who’d insulted me saw before stars from a justly famous right cross. Plenty of people still know the name Tommy Hurley for his boxing championships, not for managing the Ella Shane Opera Company.

We’ve been looking out for each other since I was an eight-year-old orphan and he was a twelve-year-old boy who didn’t quite fit in with the other brutes in our Lower East Side neighborhood. He was kind to me when his mother, my aunt Ellen, took me in, and I returned the favor by jumping in on his side anytime he felt the need to respond to bullies yelling things like “sissy.”

While we in the family know Tommy isn’t the marrying kind, no one’s got the right to insult him, and I was happy to do my worst to anyone who tried. And after Tommy grew half a foot and became the star of his boxing gym, people amazingly enough stopped assuming that there was something wrong with a fellow who loves music, books and his family, and didn’t join in the other boys’ rough talk.

There is, of course, not one thing in the world wrong with Tommy, or the brother who doesn’t marry in general. Plenty of Irish, and other, families have a brother or sister who isn’t the marrying kind, and many, like us, see it as a blessing to have a relative who can care for an elderly parent or give special attention to a godchild who might otherwise be lost in the family shuffle. Or, like Tommy’s mother and me, just rather selfishly rejoice that we will never have to share our beloved boy with another woman.

These days, we don’t have to worry about scrapping in the street, but we do run into any number of complications with the company and friends. Some friends are better than others.

“Are they here to break up the match?” he asked.

“No, no. To encourage it.”

Tommy burst out laughing. “His mother sailed across the ocean to urge you to marry him?”

“With her sisters in tow.”

“Good heavens, Heller, now you’re really done for.”

“Probably. She tells me we could make a marriage contract that grants me the right to continue my career.”

He nodded, considering. “That would solve the issue, if true.”

“We’ll have to work out the details.”

“In which no doubt lurks the Devil,” he agreed. “But that would surely settle matters.”

“Quite possibly.”

His serious expression gave way to a grin. “Then congratulations.”

“What?”

“On your impending engagement, of course. If it’s that simple, you’ll be married by summer.”

I shook my head. “Has anything in our lives ever been so simple?”

“We can hope, can’t we?”

We were at the hotel. Tommy held the door for me, and we were immediately welcomed by a very young Black-Irish copper who recognized him.

“Champ. Dan McNeely. My brother Joe boxed at the same gym as you.”

Tommy gave him a warm handshake. “Glad to meet you, officer. This is my cousin, Miss Ella Shane.”

The officer smiled. “I’ve heard of her. A pleasure, miss.”

We exchanged a friendly shake as well, and he nodded to the stairs. “You’ll be wanting to see the ladies upstairs. Detective Riley is already there. Suite on the top floor, all three of them sharing. Guess English ladies don’t like to be alone.”

“They’re Scots, officer,” I corrected.

“More like us Irish?”

“A bit,” I agreed.

“Then they definitely like to travel in packs.”

We all laughed, but then the officer remembered his demeanor.

“Sorry. It is a very serious matter.”

“Has the coroner come?”

“Not yet, but he will. Of course, Miss Shane will wish to gather up the ladies before that happens.”

I nodded and didn’t bother to correct his old-fashioned assumption that ladies should be kept from serious or gory matters. In this particular case, it was probably a good idea.

As we crossed the first landing, I saw a maid slinking through a hall. The red hair straggling out from her cap looked familiar, but surely not. Her amber eyes met mine. Surely yes. Miss Hetty MacNaughten, crack investigative reporter of the Beacon, and my good friend, was going to owe me some answers.

I urged Tommy along so he didn’t notice her, and we kept going.

Up in the suite, Countess Flora was standing in the center of the sitting room with Cousin Andrew the Detective, a relative of Tommy’s best friend, Father Michael, and a family friend in his own right. The detective appeared to be attempting to interrogate the dowager countess, who was upbraiding him.

Ladies Charlotte and Caledonia were on the settee, one in a blanket over a wrapper, holding what appeared to be a generous whisky, the other still in a traveling ensemble, tending to her sister, patting her arm and murmuring reassurances that the afflicted did not seem to find soothing or necessary. Both seemed more annoyed than upset, actually.

“Ella, darling!” Countess Flora spotted me first and walked over, holding out her hands. “This nice young man is attempting to convince us that we must find other accommodations.”

Cousin Andrew met my eyes over her head as she took my hands and kissed my cheek. I’d seen that expression of utter exasperation on our copper more than once; he was certainly wishing that someone, anyone, else at his precinct had caught this case. “Perhaps you would acquaint Her—Grace?—with American police procedure?”

“I am only a countess, dear boy. Ma’am is quite sufficient.”

“All right.”

“Now, when dear Ella here marries my son, you will have to call her Your Grace. Do you know each other?”

“Yes, Dowager Countess,” I said quickly. “Detective Riley is a friend of our family. Have you met my cousin, Thomas Hurley?”

Tommy stepped up with a bow, holding back both a handshake and a laugh. “Honored to meet you.”

She gave him an approving look-over. “Ah, you’re the manager and protector.”

“Essentially.” He smiled. “Ella doesn’t require a great deal of managing or protection, but we do well together.”

The countess returned the smile. “I imagine you do.”

For a moment, they just stood there, amiably taking each other’s measure and pleased with what they saw. Only a fool would not like and respect Tommy, but I was happy to see that she passed muster with him.

“Well,” she said finally, “I am glad you two are here. Perhaps we can sort all of this now.”

Cousin Andrew made a sound that was clearl. . .