Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) (41 page)

The task of searching out one item from what appeared to be hundreds was too overwhelming, and the time available was all too short. She turned to flee the room and blundered into an invalid chair to side of the door. Her hand fell on the seat as she momentarily lost her balance, the rattan almost giving way beneath the pressure. She stepped back hastily as the chair rolled away from her and into the light beyond with an alarmed squeak.

Now, Inez could see that the seat was bowed and broken and strands of rattan frayed, as if it had borne someone or something very heavy. She touched the seat again, tentatively, and brought her gloved fingers closer to her face:

Grit.

Red and dusty.

She recoiled, shoved the chair out of the way and escaped, pulling each door closed behind her until she stood in the parlor room once more.

Inez doubted she would ever be able to rid herself of the smell of mint, and hoped that she wouldn’t run into Mrs. Crowson until she’d had a chance to give herself a thorough scrub with soap back in her room and douse herself liberally with rosewater.

She yanked open the door to the hallway, not caring if someone on the other side might see her exiting the quarters. After locking the door behind her, she used the same passkey to enter Lewis’ rooms.

The setup here was different from across the hallway. Upon entering, she stood in a study, nearly the size of Nurse Crowson’s parlor and bedroom combined. Books lined one wall behind a large desk overflowing with papers. Three leather club chairs, much like the ones she’d glimpsed in her brief foray into the gentlemen’s parlor, clustered on the near side of the desk, while a simple ladder-backed wooden chair sat behind. A door at one end of the room, led, she surmised, into his living quarters. The curtains were looped back, allowing the room to be flooded with a diffuse light.

She decided to start at the back this time, and move forward.
I want to be in a position to hear Nurse Crowson open her door, should she return. That will be my signal to abandon this underworld of secrets and head up to the light.
Inez’s experience in the nurse’s apartment had been unnerving, to say the least. Her heart pounded as if it would shake itself loose from behind her ribs and burst through her stays. She placed one hand over her breast and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. It was as if the mint had attacked and killed her sense of smell. Lewis could have sprinkled the room with the most powerfully scented bay rum available and she doubted she’d be able to even tell.

The study had one other door toward the back, slightly ajar, providing a slice of blackness beyond. Trying not to shudder at moving into the dark, she pushed through the opening into a bedroom, as simply furnished as Nurse Crowson’s. Again, she left the door wide open, to admit the available light and to hear if anyone should come down the hall and turn a key in the lock. She couldn’t ignore the feeling of being in a trap with only one way out—back through the study and into the hallway.

She took a turn around the room. Again, a closet. Opening it up, she found a surprisingly large number of somber suits—winter and summer weight trousers, waistcoats, jackets—nothing too flashy, perfect for an obsequious hotelier. Several pairs of well-polished boots lined the floor. Up above, a shelf held a top hat, a straw boater and a variety of other men’s hats. Musing that Lewis had far more fashion variety than the nurse, who had nothing aside from her gray uniform-style frocks, Inez abandoned the closet. After looking around, she decided there was nothing more to see in what had to be a quick examination, and returned to Lewis’ study, specifically, his desk.

A quick audit revealed that the drift of papers seemed mostly dominated by accounts payable and bills of lading marked “due” or “overdue” mixed in with urgent requests for payment for goods previously sent and received. Only a few papers bore the notation “paid.”

Inez, sensitive to the vagaries of a business skating on the edge between profit and loss, having been there herself in the not too distant past, shuffled through the papers with a growing sense of horror.
No wonder Lewis is desperate for investors. If even half of what is here has yet to be paid for, the Mountain Springs House is in very deep trouble.
She paused over a receipt of several hundred dollars of fine wines and liquors from June, which held a scribbled pencil notation that read “Pay in September?” and shook her head.

She set the paper down, covering it with a letter from a local dairy, asking for payment for four months’ deliveries of milk and cheeses, and began searching the drawers, wondering if she might find a ledger or bankbook that would give a more coherent picture of the financial state of the hotel.

All she found were older bills of sale and receipts, most dating from winter, a half-empty bottle of port, and a glass. A drawer on the other side of the desk yielded a framed picture, face down. Curious, she picked it up and turned it over.

It was identical to the one in Nurse Crowson’s rooms—a young, somber-faced Lewis stared back at her from under his soldier’s cap. The unknown man beside him stared back, yielding not a clue to his identity. “Are you Doctor Franklin the younger, then?” she asked softly. The eyes, captured forever in a straight-forward gaze, gave not a hint if she was right or wrong.

Inez slid the drawer open further to replace the photograph. Only then did she realize that a wooden box lay inside, filling the floor of the drawer. She pulled it out and set it atop of the papers. Glancing nervously out the window, the view shadowed by the veranda above, she judged that about an hour had passed since she started her explorations. Returning to the box, she realized it was bottom side up. She flipped it over, and saw two brass plates affixed to the top. One read
U.S.A. Hosp. Dept.
Below it, on the second plate and engraved in a different font, was
V.L.F.
Her mind tumbling with questions, her hands automatically, as if directed by an unseen force, lifted the latch and opened the lid.

Knives, saws, forceps, scissors—instruments meant for snipping, cutting, sawing through flesh and bone and for plucking foreign objects from living tissue gleamed from their beds of maroon velvet. She could almost hear the screams of the injured and sounds of battle in the distance. It was as if the surgical kit were some Pandora’s Box from Lewis’ past, releasing tortured memories of pain, blood, and death.

She shut the surgical kit, latched it hastily and slipped it back into the drawer.
So, Mr. Lewis, or perhaps it is Dr. Franklin. You lied about the hotel. You lied about your past. And you appear to not be telling the entire truth about your name—as it was in the past or in the present, or perhaps even both. What else are you hiding? And why?

She set the photograph, face down, on top of the kit, and closed the drawer. Just as the drawer slid shut, she heard a sound out in the hallway. She froze, staring at the door. Sure enough, she heard someone sigh on the other side, a rustling, and a muffled thump as something was set down on the wood floor in the hallway. Inez darted out from behind the desk, and dashed to the bedroom door. She pushed it open and slipped inside, cursing silently as she did.

If the room had felt like a trap before, it felt doubly so now. She pushed the door almost closed, leaving it slightly ajar so she could see out, but hopefully not be seen. Inez stepped to the side, reminding herself that the closet door was within reach. That she could, if necessary, duck inside and bury herself behind the suits or off in a corner. Such a move would, of course, only drag her deeper and deeper into a situation where there would be no room to maneuver.
If I’m discovered, there is no plausible explanation I could give for being here.

A cold sweat slicked her neck that had nothing to do with the still air of the cellar.

The hall door swung inward. Inez tensed, recalling that she had not locked it behind her when she stole into Lewis’ quarters.

Nurse Crowson walked in, a slight frown on her face, key forward. Inez guessed the door had released of its own accord as she put key to lock. The nurse was carrying the inevitable basket; Inez heard the clink of bottles as she set it on the floor.

Crowson straightened up. “Franklin?” she called out. “Are you here?” She paused, head cocked, listening.

Inez held her breath as if the sound of a simple exhale would somehow reach Nurse Crowson’s ears.

The nurse looked around the room, hands folded before her. Finally, she moved to the window and tugged the curtains together, leaving only a narrow band for light to leak through. She returned to the center of the room and stood still, except for her head, which swiveled from side to side. Finally, her eyes rested on the door to the bedroom. Although Inez was certain she was invisible in the shadows, it felt as though the nurse could sense her presence, right through the darkness.

Inez stepped to the side, further into the gloom, away from the opening between the two rooms. Her hand searched out and closed around the knob of the closet door. She turned it slowly, silently.

Although she could no longer see the nurse, she heard the no-nonsense tread as the nurse approached the bedroom.

An unfamiliar feminine voice came from without. “Mrs. Crowson? Ma’am?” Inez pulled the closet door open and slipped inside, grateful that the hinges were well-oiled and nothing squeaked. She held the door slightly ajar so she could hear, palm flat against the wood panel.

The footsteps had stopped. Inez could imagine the nurse turning slowly toward the open door to the subterranean hallway. “Yes? What is it?”

“Mr. Weatherby from room two-ought-five is having great difficulty breathing. I think it’s serious. He looks blue around the mouth.”

The tread reversed, moving away from the bedroom door. Inez sagged against the jamb, limp with relief.

Bottles clinked as the nurse picked up the basket. “Where is he?”

“In the music room.”

“Was he outside when the attack happened?”

The door swung shut with a decisive click, cutting off the response.

Inez inhaled, picking up the scent of cedar, and coughed once, covering her mouth too late to hold it in. She stood for a moment in Franklin Lewis’ closet, surrounded by his hollow suits. Artifices of fashion and display, they pressed against her, and she had the sudden notion that they were moving slightly, that it was only a matter of seconds, and a sleeve from a jacket would slide around her throat of its own accord.

Inez lunged out of the closet and hastened to the bedroom door. She eased open the apartment door a crack, listened, heard nothing, slid out, and locked it behind her with the skeleton key. She hastened to the staircase, feeling the darkness inside her lighten with each step, as if a long winter were changing into spring. Up the flight of stairs—still no one stopped her. As she rose, her heart rose as well.
Should someone appear at the top of the stairs, I can simply say I was looking for the nurse, to return an empty bottle, that I was told I could find her down here.

Her presence was reasonable. She could explain without arousing suspicion. At the top of the stairs, she paused, extracted Harmony’s empty bottle from her pocket, and holding it before her like an amulet, she emerged into the hall of the main floor. She was almost sorry that no one was there that she could offer her explanation to. She leaned against the florid wallpaper, never so glad to be standing in a carpeted, public corridor.
It’s probably best if I don’t go back the way I came. Wandering around the dining room doesn’t make sense, should someone find me there
. Before heading to the lobby, she walked first to the window at the end of the passageway, to look out at the veranda and steady her nerves.

“Why, Mrs. Stannert. Are you looking for something?”

Nurse Crowson’s voice behind her made her skin crawl, but Inez turned smoothly, keeping a neutral smile on her face.

The nurse stood by the staircase, one hand on the corner, apparently preparing to descend.

“Why, Mrs. Crowson,” Inez responded, “I was actually looking for you, to return this.” She held out the bottle. “My sister, Mrs. DuChamps, gave this to me yesterday, and I just remembered now I needed to get it back to you. One of the staff said she thought I could find you down this way, but I must have not heard her correctly.”

“Well, here I am.” Nurse Crowson moved forward, black-gloved hand extended.

Inez dropped the bottle into her palm.

The bottle disappeared into the basket. Nurse Crowson continued, “Next time, you should leave the empty bottle with the front desk. Or you can give it to anyone working at the hotel, and they will give it to me. It will save you from wandering all over the hotel.”

“I shall remember that,” said Inez.

Mrs. Crowson remained where she was, head cocked, gray eyes lingering on Inez. Her expression gave no hint as to what thoughts lay behind. Her stance reminded Inez uncomfortably of what had transpired in Lewis’ rooms.

The nurse continued, “There are areas at this end of the hotel that are off-limits to guests. These stairs, for example, lead down to storerooms, laundry, and staff quarters and so on. I shouldn’t want you to inadvertently end up someplace that is unsuitable to a guest.”

“I understand,” said Inez, and smiled.