I frowned. “The Marconigram?”
Leach nodded. “It’s the second he’s received today, sir-the other came this morning, and I delivered that one, too. This new ’gram was confirmation of the earlier one.”
“Well?” Miss Vance asked, with an edge in her voice.
“I believe a friend of Mr. Vanderbilt’s has died. . a close friend. . If you’ll excuse me.”
And Leach hurried off, apparently having had enough of this awkward encounter.
I glanced at Miss Vance, as we stood in front of the white door, and my eyes asked her what we should do.
“We have an appointment,” she said. “We received no word of it having been cancelled or postponed. . It would be rude not to keep it.”
She was right, of course-she so often was-and I knocked.
A valet in full butler’s livery answered, a tall, distinguished-looking character whose expression conveyed instantly how troubling it was to him, having to share the planet with the likes of me.
I announced myself and Miss Vance and told the imperious valet that we were expected-we had an appointment. We waited in the hallway while he checked; then, less than a minute later, we were shown in.
This was the drawing room of the suite, panelled in sycamore, decorated in the Colonial Adam style with inlaid satinwood furniture, the walls draped with tapestries, the windows shaped and curtained as in a private residence, or perhaps in the private apartment atop the Vanderbilt Hotel on Park Avenue. We were shown to a brocaded settee where we sat, and waited.
I knew something about Vanderbilt, though unlike Hubbard, he had not served as the subject of my writing; but my employer Rumely had provided a file on several of the prominent potential interviewees, and Vanderbilt had been among them. Like anyone in America who occasionally read a newspaper, however, to me Vanderbilt’s story was well-known.
Alfred Vanderbilt was heir to the world’s greatest fortune-estimated at one hundred million dollars-and head of that fabulous empire of shipping interests and railroads forged by the notorious tycoon Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Alfred’s great-great-grandfather. Though he’d long been a familiar figure at resorts and spas frequented by the wealthy of the world-and especially a habitue of sporting events-Vanderbilt had in recent years developed the reputation of a near recluse.
As a younger man, he had been the typical playboy, whose love of fast cars and faster women was legendary-a dashing young man with assorted polo ponies and countless memberships in exclusive clubs, but no interest at all in the fantastic enterprise his forefathers had built and his father had passed along to him. He preferred instead to race his thirty-thousand-dollar sports car over Florida beaches like a man demented; or to join with cronies to flee the family’s country home at Oakland Farm in taking wild trips in mixed company.
Yet Vanderbilt had not grown up into the standard-issue extroverted, partygoing, cigar-in-one-hand-drink-in- the-other lout of his privileged class. He was said to be shy, painfully so, avoiding crowds and reporters, hating being pointed out. He was by all accounts happily married to his second wife, Margaret Smith Hollins McKim-the Bromo-Seltzer heiress-and devoted to their two sons. Many said the breezy young millionaire had matured into a responsible adult.
Others said that he was suffering from the pall cast over his life by the tragedy that followed the dissolution of his first marriage. In 1901, when he married tall, titian-haired society beauty Elsie French, the wedding cake had been baked in the shape of a trolley, each slice of which contained a precious item of jewelry, so guests would have keepsakes. But within seven years, the trolley of wedded bliss was off its tracks-Elsie had divorced him on grounds of misconduct with one Mary Agnes O’Brien Ruiz, wife of the Cuban attache in Washington, D.C.
Vanderbilt had gone on with his life, and he and the Bromo-Seltzer heiress began a courtship which led to marriage only a few years after the expensive divorce. But Mary Ruiz made a nuisance of herself, in the press, in the courts, a spurned mistress who was embarrassingly persistent in her refusal to just go away.
Then, one day, finally she did-by committing suicide in London. The details of the inquest into Mary Ruiz’s death “by her own hands, while of unsound mind” (off her trolley?) were never revealed to the public; attempts by the press to secure the records of the proceedings were blocked, and hush money had reportedly been lavished on both friends of Mrs. Ruiz and certain officials.
This was why Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt shunned the press, and the spotlight; the Ruiz suicide was a matter he had never publicly discussed.
A man entered from the bedroom, but it was not Vanderbilt, or the valet, either (who had politely disappeared): This was Charles Williamson, slender as a knife in his dark suit with a dark red bow tie, a dark-haired fellow whose keenly intelligent blue eyes were the most distinct of his otherwise blandly regular features.
I knew little of Williamson, though Miss Vance said he was an art dealer who advised Vanderbilt and other prominent moneybags in the purchase of paintings, sculptures and assorted objets d’art.
He introduced himself, making clear that he knew who we were, and we stood, and I shook his hand. We sat again, but he remained standing before us, his hands behind him, and he frowned, rather like a displeased schoolmaster.
“You had no way of knowing,” he said, and his voice was a hoarse tenor, “but Alfred has received tragic news. A Marconigram this morning from Mrs. Vanderbilt arrived, saying Alfred’s closest friend, Frederick Davies, has died, suddenly.”
We made the proper murmurs of sympathy and shock, though I knew only vaguely of the man-he’d been a prominent New York builder.
Rocking on his heels, Williamson said, “A second ’gram just arrived, from a business associate, confirming the sad fact of Freddy’s passing.”
I rose. “Well, we certainly won’t impose on-”
A hand raised in stop fashion. “No. Alfred seems intent on fulfilling this obligation. He promised Staff Captain Anderson he would help you out, on this article of yours.”
“We could reschedule for another time, another day. .”
“No, he would like to receive you. I think he feels the activity might take his mind off the tragedy. But I would ask you to make your stay a brief one, and to avoid any subjects that might be. . bothersome.”
“Anything in particular,” I asked, “that should be avoided?”
Williamson twitched a humorless smile. “You certainly know, even in more unclouded circumstances, that the Ruiz affair is off-limits. . strictly.”
I shrugged. “I had no plans to make any such inquiries.”
Williamson smiled again-this one of a patronizing variety. “Good. . I’ll see if Alfred is ready.”
“Mr. Williamson,” Miss Vance said, good-naturedly, “are you normally Mr. Vanderbilt’s social secretary?”
His frown seemed an overreaction. “No. I’m his friend, his close friend.”
“And a business associate?”
The frown deepened. “Out of our friendship, a certain amount of business has arisen.”
“You’re an art dealer?”
“Miss. . Vance, is it? Do you make a habit of asking questions to which you already know the answer?”
She smiled beautifully. “No-sometimes I seek confirmation of what I have heard. . I seldom accept hearsay as fact. To do so can often be destructive, even in seemingly innocent instances.”
His expression was blank, as he processed this; then he half-bowed, and said, “Yours is a most wise and gracious approach, Miss Vance. . I am an art dealer, adviser, commissionaire and connoisseur.”
“Most impressive,” she said.
“I merely share my views, my tastes, with my wealthy friends who wish to invest in art. And then I share my connections, so that these properties can be purchased.”
I said, “I always considered art something more emotional and instinctive than ‘properties’ in which to invest.”
He seemed both interested and amused. “You know something of art, Mr. Van Dine?”
“Yes. . I’m somewhat of a. . connoissuer, myself.”
Williamson cocked his head, folded his arms. “Have you written anything on the subject I might have read?”
I retreated behind my pseudonym: My extensive body of criticism had been published under my real name, of course. “No-my interest in art is strictly as one who loves it. My writing for the
