Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) (40 page)

“I’ll be glad to fetch it for you, ma’am.” The young man hurried from behind the counter. “Which chair?”

“To the right as you exit the door, at the end of the veranda.”

“Would you like to sit in the music room until I return?” His hand hovered near her elbow, as if uncertain whether he should offer aid or not.

“I think it’s better if I just remain here and catch my breath. I do appreciate your coming to my aid.”

“I’ll be back immediately.” He hurried out the front door.

Inez glanced around once more. No one was in sight. She reached over the desk and felt for the drawer she knew was there. Grasping the knob, Inez slid the drawer open. A smile bloomed on her face as not one, but three large rings came into view—each holding an identical skeleton key.

Inez hooked one of the rings with a finger, lifted it from the drawer, and slid the drawer shut. She dropped ring and key into her purse, and commenced fanning herself again, feeling quite pleased with herself.

The front door opened, and the clerk returned, triumphant, with Inez’s embroidered handkerchief held on high. She thanked him profusely, causing his cheeks to pink in the most endearing manner. She almost felt guilty for the ruse.

Almost.

She made as if to start up the stairs, and then turned around as if she’d just thought of something. “Excuse me, but is Nurse Crowson around this afternoon? Nothing urgent, I had a small question for her.”

“She’s taken a guest up to the Ute Iron spring,” the ever-so-helpful clerk explained.

“Ah, the Ute Iron. That is quite a ways up Ruxton Avenue, is it not?”

“Yes, a bit of a walk, but well worth it,” he added. “Some physicians feel it is one of the most medically beneficial springs in the area. Although all have their benefits. It depends on the ailment, of course, as to what treatments the doctors recommend.”

“Of course. Any thought on when the nurse might return?”

He twisted around to glance at the wall clock behind the desk. “They left perhaps half an hour ago. The springs can be crowded this time of day, and it is a bit of a stroll…I’d guess they won’t return for a good hour or two.”

She nodded, more and more pleased. “Thank you.”

“Shall I send Mrs. Crowson up to your room when she returns?”

“Oh, no need of that,” Inez said hastily. “I will find her at dinner time. That is quite soon enough. Thank you so much. I shall make a point of telling Mr. Lewis what an asset you are to the hotel.”

He brightened noticeably and stood a little straighter at his post behind the desk. “If there is anything else I can do for you, Mrs. Stannert, just ask.”

She beamed. “Thank you! You have been immensely helpful.”
More than you can possibly know.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Upstairs, in front of her suite, Inez pulled out the passkey. Into the lock, a twist of the wrist, and the door clicked open.

Good. So I know it fits the regular rooms. I hope they didn’t go so far as to put different locks on the bottom-floor rooms.

Inez entered her stifling bedroom, poured water into the basin, dampened a corner of the hand towel and patted her face to remove the dried sweat. She could imagine the sun, beating down on the rooftop, pushing the heat into the second-story rooms. She wondered how Harmony, Aunt Agnes, Lily, and William were faring.

She cracked the window sash to bring in a bit of outside air. Turning away from the window, she took a deep breath to prepare herself.
I must have a ready story, in case I am caught wandering about.

The first problem was quickly solved as she recalled the women’s staircase that led from her floor to the dining area. No one would be in the dining hall at this between-hour, so she was certain she’d be able to slip down without being seen and avoid the lobby altogether. As for the second problem, Inez took Harmony’s empty tonic bottle out of her reticule and smiled. “Thank you, dear sister, for your help,” she said aloud to the empty room and pocketed the bottle. Inez placed room and skeleton keys in her purse and exited her suite, taking care to lock the door behind her. From there, it was only a few steps to the end of the hall and a quick descent down the women’s stairs to the dining room. At the bottom of the stairs, Inez paused to get her bearings.

It was the dead time between the noon and dinner hour. Tables were prepared for the evening meal, napkins folded into arrow-like peaks and set over crystal goblets. Silverware reflected the mountain motif, with forks and knives balanced into small “teepees” at each place setting, and the menu set square for viewing. All was silent and waiting.

Inez skirted the edge of the room, slipped out the doors and into the corridor between the dining area and the music room. She moved quickly down the corridor, away from the lobby, grateful for the window at the end of the long hall for the afternoon light it shed into the long doorless tunnel. Mrs. Pace’s directions had been clear: The stairs were nearly at the end of the corridor. There were no doors along the way, no reason for guests to be in that particular hallway.

Sure enough, a stroll along the empty hall yielded a set of stairs, leading down. Inez paused, gripping her purse in hands which were suddenly sweaty inside her kid gloves. In the hallway, deserted though it was, explanations for her presence came easily.
Just taking a turn around the hotel, looking for a little solitude. Strolling to the window, to look outside.
All believable, understandable, quickly accepted and forgotten.

But the minute she set foot on the stairs and, even more so, once she had entered the dark and shadowed underworld—a world where she did not, by any stretch of imagination, belong—it would be much harder to explain her presence. Her hand snaked into her pocket, touched her sister’s empty tonic bottle.
This is my talisman. My passage back to the upper world, should I need it.

With a deep breath, she headed down the stairs.

At the bottom, feet on unfinished wood planks she paused again, looking to left and right. To the left was the storage area—shadowy shapes of crates, cans, and bags lined up along the floor and in ranks of shelves. She could understand why a small child would instantly take to a game of hide-and-seek in this world beneath. To the right, shelf-lined walls guarded an entry to a passageway that ended in a door. A door, she felt certain, tucked under the veranda.

She held her breath, listening.

Nothing.

Not even the squeak of footsteps on the boards above.

She moved into the hallway until she reached two doors, set with lockplates that looked encouragingly like the plates on the doors to all the hotel rooms upstairs. To left or to right?

According to Mrs. Pace, Lewis’ rooms were to the left.
He is safely out all day, no doubt busy pouring tales of Manitou’s marvelous future into Mark’s ear.
The unknown rooms, perhaps belonging to Nurse Crowson, were to the right. The smell of mint was strong in that direction, almost mesmerizing in its promise. Open me, the door seemed to whisper. Open me.

With that, she turned and inserted the key into the door on the right. She released her breath with a sigh when the key turned, the lock clicked, and the door swung ajar. Without thinking any further, Inez stepped in and pushed the door closed. She stood in a small sitting room. A small window with heavy dark green curtains pulled back an arm’s width to reveal sheer voile panels underneath, looked out on a shadowed world under the veranda. A couple of mahogany chairs covered in worn green velvet shared a set of nesting tables. One of the tables was missing, judging by the gap. Inez identified the chairs as cast-offs from the women’s parlor upstairs. Two empty teacups sat on the topmost table.

The smell of mint was even stronger inside. Aware that she shouldn’t tarry, she scanned the room, which was almost Quaker in its simplicity, then focused on a door opposite from the window, leading further back into the building’s lower floor. It turned out to be the entrance to the nurse’s sleeping quarters. Inez left the door open to shed some light into the interior. Even so, it was quite dim. Inez wished she could light the candle that sat in its brass holder on the bedstand, but was concerned that, should Nurse Crowson return from her walk and come directly to her apartments, she would detect the smoke, even through the mint.

The bedstand held a tintype, framed in paper. Curious, she carried it to the door for more light. The image showed two men in front of a tent, one sitting on a camp chair, the other on a box. Both stared straight ahead into the camera. A board hanging on the front of the tent said “Surgery.” Given that the men were in uniform and kepis, Inez guessed it was the Civil War, most likely the Union side.

Inez readily identified one of the men as a younger Franklin Lewis, right down to the sideburns. The other man, a stranger, sported a chin beard and the smooth unlined face of untested youth. A table between the two men held a dark bag. Inez squinted, sighed, and fished around in her purse, finally pulling out her reading glasses, so she could bring the image into focus. It looked like a physician’s instrument bag. She flipped the photograph over. The backing was blank, but the glue that had sealed it to the front had long since lost its adhesiveness. She cautiously lifted the backing to expose the reverse side of the tintype. Scratched into the metal in tiny letters were two sets of initials:
VLF
and
SCF
.

“Huh,” Inez said aloud, puzzled. She smoothed down the backing and returned to the image. If the man on the left was Lewis, as she felt certain it was, the initials didn’t quite match up. V mostly likely stood for Victor, the name the nurse had let slip and which Lewis had chastised her for uttering. But LF? Victor Lewis Franklin, perhaps? A slightly skewed version of his current name? And who was the second man?
Since the final initial is common to them both, perhaps he is a brother.
Examining the faces of the two, she detected a definite resemblance. Inez shook her head, and focused again on the physician’s bag and the sign above the tent.

Lewis swears he knows nothing of the medical profession. This photograph suggests otherwise.

She frowned. Why would Nurse Crowson have this by her bedside? She thought back to what Epperley had said and the interactions she’d observed.
They are related, brother and sister. Perhaps working in the medical field runs in the family: her brothers were doctors and she became a nurse and married at some point along the way.

Mindful of time passing, Inez retreated to the bedroom and returned the photograph to the stand. She glanced around to see if anything else might catch her eye. Her gaze snagged on a simple pine box sitting by the washbasin and jug. Curiosity overcame her nervousness, and she opened it for a brief peek. The box revealed a soft mass of graying hair, twisted into a neat spiral. Inez immediately thought of
momento mori
or mourning jewelry: locks of hair of those dearly departed, twisted and braided into earrings, bracelets, brooches, and pendants.
Perhaps the second brother or Mr. Crowson is no more? Or perhaps the hair isn’t destined for mourning jewelry, but for something else, such as a love token?

She glanced around the room, anxious to finish her search and move on to Lewis’ quarters across the hall. Two doors were left. She twisted the ivory knob on the door next to the nightstand. As expected, it was a closet. Two or three gray, serviceable dresses, a pair of heavy men’s boots, coated with red Manitou dust, and a large, almost mannish overcoat. A lumpish shape drew her attention and she bent down for a closer look in the gloom. Inez guessed it was dark woolen clothes, bundled for laundry. She nudged them aside and, to her astonishment, uncovered a doctor’s bag. Inez retreated a step and her assumptions about Mrs. Crowson and her life backtracked as well. The lock of hair, the doctor’s bag, the photograph by the bed, Inez felt certain now that the second brother must have died, perhaps the husband as well, and that these items were all mementos of a happier time.

A surge of sympathy—and a twinge of shame—made her close the closet door firmly on the nurse’s private past.
Perhaps I’ve been hasty in judging her.

She vowed the next door would be the last. Even if there was another room beyond, she did not want to tarry any longer nor delve any deeper into Nurse Crowson’s private affairs. As she approached the last door, the smell of mint intensified. Inez wondered how the nurse could sleep under such olfactory conditions.

Her hand closed around the round knob and turned. The door creaked open, and Inez was hit with a mentholated wave so intense, she gasped. The sharp odor tore through her sinuses and her lungs like an aromatic knife.

Clapping a hand over nose and mouth, she pulled the door open all the way, trying to see inside the gloomy room. She spotted plants, she assumed they were mint, hanging from ceiling joists and beams. Inez took three steps into the dim room and couldn’t talk herself into advancing any farther.

A table extended along the far wall. In addition to three lamps placed at strategic points along its length, the surface was filled with small boxes, bags, dishes of what looked like dried herbs, and several different sets of chemist scales. From table top to ceiling, the back wall supported row upon row of shelves, with glass jars and bottles of varying sizes, shapes, and colors marching along their lengths. It reminded her of a smaller version of what she’d glimpsed in Dr. Prochazka’s clinic. Small white labels were affixed to each container.
I should see what’s written on those labels. Could Herb Paris be among them?