Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) (44 page)
“Have you heard Mrs. Crowson speak? Her voice is in the lower register for a woman. I believe you don’t give her enough credit. I believe she could have pulled it off.” Inez couldn’t believe that here she was, defending the nurse’s ability to be devious. She shook her head, irritated. “It’s just a possibility, that’s all.”
“Well, sounds like we’ve got our sights trained on Lewis in any case. It pretty much matches up with what I’ve been suspecting myself. Maybe Mrs. Crowson is in cahoots with him, supplies the ready poison or some such. I do believe I’ll send a telegram to Doc Cramer tomorrow and see if the initials VLF and SCF and the names Victor, Franklin, and Lewis in some combination ring any bells from his old War days. Doc’s got a mighty long memory. If Lewis was anywhere near the Union’s medical corps, I’m wagering he’ll at least know the name. Although Lewis and Franklin are powerful common names.”
“Asking Doc is an excellent idea.” She brightened. “Add the name Galloway, and ask if he recollects two brothers who served together at doctors, side by side, possibly with the last name Franklin. Now here is something that just occurred to me: What if the second brother isn’t dead? Maybe he’s alive, living in Colorado Springs under an alias, and he and Mrs. Crowson are ‘taking care’ of problem patients for the Mountain Springs House, at Lewis’ direction. Maybe this second brother is Dr. Galloway!”
Mark chuckled. “Don’t let your horses run too wild, Inez. That’s a pretty far reach. Although I do and always did admire how you can take hold on some notion everyone else takes for granted, turn it around and upside down, shake it some, and come up something totally different. You just keep thinking up those wild ideas. One is bound to be the jackpot. Now, before we get to Colorado Springs, let me tell you what I’ve uncovered for you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“You’ll like this. The private party tonight happens to be at the Colorado Springs Hotel.”
“Where Calder’s brother was!” she exclaimed.
“Just so. Epperley, Lewis, and a couple of local big bugs took us poor suckers—by that I mean Mr. DuChamps and me—there as part of their tour of the city. Had a cigar there and a sit-down. The El Paso Club they took us to afterwards was much superior, but that’s beside the point now. So guess who’s stayin’ at the Colorado Springs Hotel?”
Her mind was a blank. “Who?”
“Someone you told me about in passing, who recently left the Mountain Springs House. Someone in a poor state of health, who was not responding to Dr. Prochazka’s magical prescriptions.”
She blinked. “Mr. Travers?”
“The very man.”
“How on earth did you winkle that out?”
He flipped the reins. The horse obediently turned onto a wide dirt street. “Pike’s Peak Boulevard. We’re nearly there, darlin’. As for Travers,” he grinned. “Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then. Call it luck and a hunch. I went to the desk clerk, asked if Mr. Travers was staying there. Fellow’s memory improved considerably after I slipped him a buck. Travers is at the hotel, but in a bad way. He has an attendant day and night to help him. The clerk said Travers usually bestirs himself shortly after midnight, rings for the bellboy, and the bellboy and night attendant carry Travers down to the lobby. He sits up most of the night, then is carried back to his room before dawn. I gave the clerk another buck and my card. Wrote on the back I was referred by Dr. Galloway, and hoped to see him later. Clerk promised to deliver my card and keep him in the lobby until the party’s over.”
“So, we’re talking with Travers before dawn. It’s going to be
that
sort of a party?”
“I expect so.”
Even though Inez judged it to be only around ten at night, the boulevard was silent and empty of traffic. Spindly little trees—no more than saplings—stood tenuous guard before the frame and brick buildings lining the street. To the west and at a distance, Pike’s Peak, its highest reaches still snow-powdered in the August moonlight, rose above the darkling lower range.
Mark pulled up in front of a three-story frame building, lights blazing from dormer windows, and announced, “Colorado Springs Hotel.”
Once the horse and buggy had been accepted by the hotel’s liveryman, Mark walked Inez up the stairs of the broad front porch and escorted her in, one hand resting lightly on her back. He smiled at the clerk, who intoned, “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Stannert. Room two-aught-eight. You are expected.”
“How am I supposed to play this?” Inez inquired as she lifted the hems of her cloak and skirts a modest inch to climb the stairs.
“This is just a friendly game,” he said. “We’re not out to skin anyone. I’m more interested in hearing what Epperley and his cronies say about local prospects once they’re ginned up and talkative.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Ginned up? I thought Colorado Springs was a dry town.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Apparently anything goes as long as it’s for medicinal purposes.” Mark halted in front of the door displaying the brass numbers two-zero-eight. Inez heard the rumble of male voices on the other side. Mark gave a little syncopated knock and stepped back, deferring the door to her. “It’s your Colorado Springs debut, darlin’. Play it for what it’s worth.”
The voices inside ceased. Quick steps sounded, and the door swung open. Epperley stood on the sill, face a little flushed, his impressive handlebar mustache not quite on the horizontal. In fact, one of the twisted ends of his facespanner definitely tilted upwards. From this neglect of his most prized physical attribute, Inez surmised that the hotel manager must have partaken heavily of whatever spirits were available in the ostensibly dry town.
Epperley placed a hand over his heart, and bowed deeply. “Mrs. Stannert. You and your gallant escort do us great honor with your presence. Welcome to this, our bastion of British civility and fine spirits in Colorado Springs, otherwise known as Little London.”
With a sudden scraping of chairs, the men in the room, all attired in proper evening clothes, bounded to their feet. The fumes inside poured out to greet her—a heady mix of brandy, port, sherry, and other high-quality liquors blended with a fog of cigar, cigarette and pipe smoke. She counted six men standing, all of whom she recognized. The lot of them—she thought of them collectively as the “Lost Lads of London”—appeared at the Silver Queen once a month, like clockwork, when their remittance checks came in. They would spend a night and a day and often another night carousing through Leadville with special attention paid to State Street’s red-light district. Most of their time was spent drinking, gambling, quarreling amongst themselves and occasionally with others before they slunk out of town again, wallets and spirits exhausted.
“I was not aware that you were part of this merry band, Mr. Epperley,” Inez said. “You are not part of their monthly forays to Leadville.”
“That is because, unlike all of these chaps,” he glanced toward the men standing at attention, “
I
work for a living.”
One of the lads, whom Inez recognized as “the Squire,” lifted his glass on high. The liquid, either red wine or an equally deep-colored port, sloshed dangerously as he waved it about. “God bless the Queen!” he bellowed.
“Lord Percy over there has come into an inheritance from his Uncle Charles in Suffolk,” said Epperley, nodding toward a chap, who was horizontal on an overstuffed divan. “Every time we toasted ‘To his lordship!’ this evening, Percy would hop to his feet and down a shot of imperial scotch. Now, look at him.”
They all looked.
Muffled snores escaped from the opera hat covering Percy’s face from the light.
Another of the lads, whom Inez knew by the sobriquet of Sir Daniel, said, “Never mind. A thousand pounds from home arrived today. That’ll keep us celebrating Percy’s deliverance from poverty ’til the Second Coming and beyond.”
Epperley squinted at him in amazement. The Squire exclaimed, “You don’t say! In fact, you didn’t say, until now. How’d you manage that?”
“Told the lord of the manor back home that I’d just purchased a gopher ranch, having had no luck with cattle, and that I needed the extra funds to fatten the gophers for market,” said Sir Daniel. “Old man doesn’t know a Hereford cow from a rodent gopher, and sent it on. As to why I didn’t mention it until now—” he glanced at Epperley. “Epperley here wouldn’t’ve let up until I’d promised to toss it into that blasted sinkhole of a hotel of his in Manitou.”
Epperley wasn’t so drunk as to not look guilty and alarmed. “Dash it all, Daniel! It’s no sinkhole. I put my own inheritance into it, as you bloody well know.” He turned back to the door, his gaze traveling over Inez’s shoulder to Mark, standing behind her. “Daniel’s deep in his cups. Don’t listen to him.”
Sir Daniel weaved his way to the entry. “Oh, button it, Epperley. Felicitations, Mrs. Stannert. Is that Mr. Stannert back there? Don’t believe we’ve met. Pleasure. Is this reprobate Epperley stuffing your head with twaddle about his precious resort along with the odious Lewis and Zuckerman? If so, don’t believe him.”
“Daniel,” said Epperley, dangerously calm. “You talk too much.”
Sir Daniel clapped Epperley on the shoulder. “If you were in charge of the place, we’d all jump in with both feet and back you to the hilt. You know that. But not with that insufferable not to mention incompetent Lewis in charge.” He addressed Mark. “If you’re going to take the plunge and fund the hotel’s future, I’d say your best move would be to stage a revolution—you Yanks are good at that—depose the reigning monarch at the Mountain Springs House, and crown Epperley here as king. With Epperley at the helm, she would sail true.”
The Squire, who had lowered himself into a chair at the table, chimed in. “But Daniel, Epperley’s not in charge, and not likely to ever be, short of an epidemic that affects only the upper management. Say, a form of specialized plague that only attacks unfashionable sideburns. And Epperley, to be frank, we get bloody well tired of hearing you bang on about the wonders of the place and trying to get your sticky fingers into our pockets so we must join you on that particular sinking ship. I’d rather invest in Daniel’s gopher farm.”
“The gopher farm is a fantasy,” snapped Epperley.
“Just so.” The Squire tapped his now-empty glass on the table surface, impatient. “Now, for God’s sake, are we gentlemen to keep our guests standing at the door? Let the Stannerts in and give the lady a chair. She came all this way, to
us
, so we wouldn’t have to go to
her
to do our monthly tithing at the bar.”
Epperley stepped to the side and invited the Stannerts in with a grand sweep of his arm. Mark, standing behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned in, saying in a low voice, “I got what I came for, darlin’. Now, it’s your turn.”
Inez turned her head and smiled at him. From inches away, he returned her smile with one of his own, raised her hand to his lips, and kissed the inside of her wrist. Even through the glove, she felt a sudden, unexpected thrill of response curl through her body. His blue eyes—warm, eager, filled with anticipation of the coming game—generated a corresponding heat within her.
Wordlessly, she undid the clasp of her cloak. Mark lifted it from her shoulders, and she stepped into the room.
All the lads—the conscious ones, in any case—were riveted, eyes upon her.
She lifted a hand and began to unbutton one glove. “I am so honored to be here, that you would think to invite me to your gathering,” she said in a low, musical voice. “It’s been a long ride from Manitou, and I find I am much in need of a glass of the best brandy you might have—for medicinal purposes, of course, for I’m feeling a little faint. And, I am positively
dying
for a leisurely evening of cards and clever conversation. What do you say to a game of poker?”
Drawing off the glove, finger by finger, she moved toward the table, Mark following at her back.
“Just like old times, darlin’. You were magnificent.” Mark settled Inez’s cloak back about her shoulders.
The Stannerts were outside the infamous room of two-aught-eight, preparing to leave. They had said their goodbyes to the Brits who were still standing. Of the original six, three had dropped away as the darkest hours of the night ticked by, victims of waning funds and indiscriminate drinking. The various bottles had emptied, only to be replaced by full ones, which emptied again, and were again replaced. It was like the cycle of an hour-glass, in which the level of sand drops, the glass is turned, and the level drops again.
The card playing was, as Mark had presupposed, more a friendly pastime than a money-making proposition. Even so, they were walking away with far more than they had brought to the table, despite their concerted efforts to go easy on the lads. The players had imbibed enough to be sloppy in their calculations. Sir Daniel, who appeared to have the most to spend, seemed intent on hanging onto his “gopher endowment” and was the only one of the group, besides the Stannerts, to finish with a full purse.
The night had been profitable in other ways. Through various remarks and asides, Inez was now certain that Epperley was itching to take over the Mountain Springs House and that he had no respect for how Lewis was handling business but was doing his level best to keep things afloat, even so.
As for delicate inquiries regarding Lewis and Crowson’s relationship, he added bits to the backstory. “Siblings, or maybe cousins. Whenever someone even dares to say something against the nurse, he springs to her defense in a way that is positively brotherly.”