No answer.
“A dare, was it? Were you the only one with the courage to enter, or do you always play here? I won’t tell anyone.”
Her query was answered by a shushing noise. There was fear in that sound, and it was no child’s voice. She gripped her umbrella and took a cautious step back.
“Best not to wake the dead,” a masculine voice whispered.
“Show yourself,” she demanded sharply.
“You’re trespassing.”
Isobel took a calculated guess. “And you’re not?”
The caution in the voice put her on edge. She glanced up at the windows. Threat hung in the air. She expected to see the wrong end of a revolver. But nothing moved in the windows. Isobel shook off the sensation, and took a step closer.
“Do you have claim on this house?” asked the voice.
“I have questions is all. Looking to purchase it.”
The man snorted. “Some places are best left alone—better burned than bought.”
“You’re living here,” she pointed out.
“Of like form, we are. Better burned most say.”
“Who are you?” Isobel asked, peering into darkness.
Shadows moved under the porch. A vague impression of rags formed in Isobel’s mind. When no name was given, she tried again, “Does anyone live here?”
“Live.” A raspy chuckle grated across her eardrums. “Live is a curious word. You can go your whole life without living. Breathing—yes. On and off.” The voice changed positions with every answer.
“How often do people come and go?”
More shuffling, but no reply. The man either did not know, or he did not want to say.
“Did you know the old woman who used to live here?”
“She was murdered. Done in.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know she was murdered, then?”
“Creaks and groans—the house talks.”
Isobel tried not to appear dubious. “Does the house say anything about the older woman’s caretaker—a young woman named Elizabeth?”
“Dead.”
A chill zipped up Isobel’s spine. She had a strange sensation of talking to the house itself. “Who are you?” she pressed.
“Trouble and misery.”
“Trouble and misery—are there two porch dwellers under there?”
The voice chortled. “There are many porch dwellers, as you say.”
“And have any of them seen someone coming and going?”
Again, silence. Isobel bit her tongue, resisting the urge to fire off another question. She remembered Riot’s use of silence, of waiting, seeming as if he could wait until the end of time.
A full minute passed before she was rewarded for her grudging patience. “A man and woman comes and goes. The house whispers.”
“Recently?”
“Time flies under the porch,” the voice murmured. “Players in a play, ghosts in the night, trouble and misery.”
The words were distant, fading. Whatever window of sanity the porch dweller possessed had closed.
“Best leave now. Quick, the house has ears,” the voice urged. The shadow scurried away.
Isobel considered chasing the vagrant out of his hole, but dragging a deranged porch-dweller into the light of day was likely to warrant screams instead of useful information. Aside from that minor sticking point, something in his voice had worked its way beneath her skin.
With a backward glance at the watching house, she squeezed through the fence slat, replaced the board, and shook the unease from her mind. Walking briskly, she made for the city offices to make inquires about the forlorn house.
✥
Sunlight streamed through leaves, touching the ground with a gentleness that caressed the earth. Isobel stopped on the pathway and inhaled, savoring the sharp pine and soothing eucalyptus. This ground was alive. So unlike the tangle of vegetation trying to bring down the abandoned house. Isobel could think of it in no other way. Her fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes would have scoffed and called her fanciful, but she could not shake the wrongness of the place.
The park helped. Thousands strolled through Golden Gate Park everyday. It was spacious and the pathways twisted through miles of cultivated wildness. Unhurried couples walked arm in arm, and mothers let their children run free. Laughter tickled her ears. She watched a group of children, garbed in white dresses and dapper knee breeches, playing Blind Man’s Bluff, and wondered if she had ever played so civilly. Unlikely.
Isobel’s feet took her to the music concourse. The crowds were denser here, and a forest had replaced the metal tower in the center of the oval. It was a far cry from the electric lights and dazzle of the International Exposition six years ago. One of the last times Isobel had ventured into San Francisco before being shipped off to Europe in disgrace. A quiet cover up for her uncivilized ways.
She stopped at each flower vendor along the paths, and finally, in front of the great stone amphitheater, a cloud of purple caught her eye, luring her closer like a fish on a hook. The flower seller smiled at her from beneath a broad straw hat. She wore spectacles that sat on a red nose. A sure sign of a horticulturist: sensitive to the flowers she loved.
“Sniff that one first, and you’ll smell no other,” the woman said, blowing her nose. “Violets are thieves. A flirty flower that come and go as they please, taking your nose with them.”
Isobel remembered her experience with the violets in the lodging house room. As a child, no matter how many times her mother had told her not to touch a hot stove, she tried again—just to be sure. She put her nose to the bouquet and inhaled anyway. For a moment, she was transported to some dreamy glade. But on the next, the smell was gone. She tried another flower, but the violets were swift thieves.
“Told you,” the woman smiled. “That’s the wrong flower for you, Miss. Violets are a delicate love.”
“What flower suits me best?”
The flower seller surveyed her domain, walking back and forth, inspecting her dainties like a general and her troops.
“These,” she pointed to an ivory flower with a center that progressed from blue, nearly purple, to black. Its petals were delicate, multi-layered, and complex. “Anemones.”
“And what is their meaning?”
“Fragility.”
“I am certainly not fragile,” Isobel snapped, and then bit her tongue. Berating a potential witness hardly smoothed the way for an interrogation.
The woman’s smile never faltered. “It’s a windflower, Miss. Sometimes called the Daughter of the Winds.”
“Oh,” was all Isobel managed. She suddenly felt an overwhelming fondness for the flower.
“Some say they are easily crushed by the wind, but I’ve noticed that they only bloom where the wind is strongest. They have remarkable staying power, they do. A strong storm will crush them, but not destroy, and the next year, they’ll bloom with more beauty. Won’t find a rose or a violet blooming in the wind.”
Isobel touched the petal, and then the ribbon that bound the stems. She did not know what to say, so she focused on her investigation. “Do you always wrap your flowers with pink ribbon?”
“Lately,” the woman confirmed. “I’ve a bit of curtain that I found at a rummage sell, so I cut it up for spare fabric.”
Isobel started to weave a tale, but thought better of it, sensing that the flower seller was too keen to deceive. “I recognize this ribbon,” she said plainly. “From a woman who recently died. She was fond of violets. There were three bouquets in her room; all in various stages of decay, and all three were wrapped with this very same ribbon.”
“A young woman, older than yourself, with reddish hair?”
“Yes.” Isobel showed the vendor August’s card. “I’m with the coroner’s office. I’m trying to discover what she did before she died.”
“Violet was her name,” the woman said.
“Yes, Violet Clowes.”
“I think so—others don’t.”
A couple approached, and Isobel stepped aside as the flower seller accepted coins and a greeting, replying with flowers and well wishes.
“What do others say?” the woman asked when the couple was out of ear shot.
“Suicide.”
The woman frowned, and shook her head. “Violet was in love, that was for a certain, with a hundred-leaved rose.”
“Pardon me?”
“Sincere love,” the seller supplied. “But violets and roses aren’t suited for each other.”
“Does the rose have a name?”
“Mr. Hal. Always as polite as could be.”
Isobel produced the photograph from Violet’s trunk. The woman nodded at the smiling man. “There they both are.” Sadness colored her cheer. “He’ll be crushed, you know.”
“Do you know where I might find Mr. Hal?”
As the woman considered the question, she fussed over an arrangement of daisies. Satisfied, she dusted off her apron, and said, “You know, Mr. Hal said something once—about how my flowers were finer than any at the Palace Hotel. I told him that couldn’t be true, and he swore, saying his shop didn’t have any so fine. He told me he’d put a word in with the shopkeeper. I thanked him, but I said that my flowers love this park, and we get by just fine.” Gnarled, twisted fingers stroked a petal with fondness.
“That is a grand place to start,” Isobel nodded. “Did you happen to see Violet and Hal on Wednesday?”
The flower seller nodded. “I saw Violet, only she wasn’t with Mr. Hal as she usually was in the evening.”
“Who was she with?”
“I saw Violet waiting, like she sometimes does for Mr. Hal. Right over there, on the steps. But he never showed. As I was packing up my things for the evening, she walked off down that path, there. I should have talked to her.”
“You had no way of knowing. Do you remember the time?”
“It was getting dark. Maybe around six o’clock? I never check the time.” She tapped her spectacles. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but I’ve still got the greenest thumb in the park.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Isobel gave the woman a dollar.
“That’s far too much.”
“Worth the information you’ve given me.”
Color rose on the woman’s cheeks, and she thrust a bouquet of windflowers in Isobel’s hands. She started to refuse, but there was a proud tilt to the woman’s shoulders.
Isobel accepted the flowers, and buried her nose in the bouquet. Fragile and wild. She smiled, and started to leave, but stopped at a sudden thought. “Why isn’t a hundred-leaved rose a proper match for a violet?”
“The thorns,” the woman replied without hesitation. “They can tear a delicate flower apart.”
14
The Mysterious Savior
SUNLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH THE window, bathing a boy’s body in warmth. He lay on the floor, his head wedged between two posts, as he kicked his feet lazily in the air.
Atticus Riot closed his door softly and stepped over to the railing. Far below, prisms cast by the stained-glass window danced on the foyer floor.
“Are you stuck again, Tobias?”
The boy jerked in surprised, catching his ears on the rails. He twisted around and looked up. A wide grin split the young face.
“No, sir. This slat is a bit wider than the rest.” This time, Tobias moved with care, easing his head from between the rails.
“It appears so,” agreed Riot “Remember that you’re still growing.” Next month, Tobias would be stuck again. He rested a light hand on the head of tight curls before moving towards the stairs.
Footsteps hurried after the detective.
“It’s nearly noon, sir.”
“Indeed.”
“You gonna need me and Grimm today?”
“I do not know,” he said truthfully.
“Did you catch the murderer?”
Riot glanced down at the boy. “How do you know I was after a murderer and not a thief?”
“Because Ma says that you run yourself ragged when it’s important, and I figure,” the last word was punctuated by a hop from stair to stair, “that you don’t seem all that concerned with money, so it must be a scoundrel.”
“You must get your eyes from your mother.”
“Don’t remember my father. Can’t say,” said the boy. “How do you know?”
“You’re as perceptive as she.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said a woman who stepped from kitchen to hallway, “that you are too nosey for your own good, Tobias White. Leave that poor man alone and get to your chores.” She gave her son a swat to urge him on his way.
“Morning, Miss Lily.”
“You look well rested, sir,” she returned. “I’ve kept your breakfast warm. Would you like to dine on the patio or in the servant’s dining room?”
Riot shared an amused glance with the woman. Miss Lily was more landlady than servant; yet, she insisted on calling the cheery round table by its proper name.
It had been over a month since Riot returned to San Francisco, and he still couldn’t bring himself to enter the formal dining room where the other lodgers generally ate. Miss Lily, to her credit, had never asked why he avoided the room, but always welcomed him at her family’s table. The arrangement suited Riot. He might legally own the house, but Miss Lily ran it, and ran it well.
Today, he indicated his preference for the terrace. Sun baked the bricks, and he took a seat in a cool breeze, appreciating the garden, the blue sky, and the song of birds. The chair across, however, was empty, and his thoughts drifted in the direction of his heart.
The clink of silver brought him back. Miss Lily set down the tray and poured his customary tea. There was enough food on that tray for four large men. “There is no need to go to all that trouble for me, Miss Lily.”
“So you’ve said.” She added his customary drop of milk, and laid out three newspapers: the Bulletin, Call and Chronicle. “News travels quickly in my community,” Miss Lily explained.
“You’ve heard already?” he asked, surprised.
“For something like that, how couldn’t I?” She said it with pride. “I’ve watched you these past two weeks: barely eating, out all night, coming back worn as could be. Not many would go to such lengths for a Negro.”
Riot looked at his landlady. Her skin was as rich as coffee and her eyes were all kindness. “I’ve seen a lot of blood in my day, enough to know it’s all red.”
Kindness turned to sympathy. “Maybe you’ve seen too much.”
“Probably so,” he murmured.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“A word, if you please.”
Miss Lily waited, expectedly. Riot turned his cup on the saucer, gathering his thoughts. “I once heard a rumor—more of a whisper—that there was a network of servants in the Negro community who reported to a collector of sorts. I never was able to pin the rumor down, but I saw the consequences of misplaced information first hand.”
“Some rumors are true; others aren’t,” Miss Lily replied, cryptically. “If any whispers are passed on from this house, they’ll say it’s a fine, upstanding lodging house with quiet folk.”
Riot inclined his head. “You have my gratitude.”
Miss Lily shook her head. “None needed. My family lives here.”
“And a better home it is for it, but—” Riot hesitated. “I think you should know that my profession is a dangerous one. Trouble has come to this house before.”
“Mr. Tim told me the history of this house when I first cleaned the dining room.” The woman was not one to beat around a bush.
The words—dragged into the open—stung. It roused another voice, one of memory and pain.
‘You’re a sentimental fool,’ rasped Ravenwood. ‘I have always said as much.’
A flash of me
mory seared the back of his eyeballs, of blood and death and staring eyes. The sun turned cold and his throat went dry, making it difficult to swallow. Riot could not reply. His fingers twitched, wanting to reach for a gun.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Riot. I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said hastily. “I know your business. And I know trouble. You’re not the only one with it. My own may find this house one day.”
“In what form?” he managed.
“You’ll know him when he comes.” Miss Lily left Riot to his breakfast and his thoughts.
Riot did not know where Tim had found Miss Lily, but the old goat was as color-blind and money-blind as they came, and he had a soft spot for people who were down on their luck. Riot had experienced the man’s generosity on more than one occasion. Although, at times, Tim’s wing was a dubious one.
He edged away from the dark past, and focused on the day’s tragedies. The words Mysterious Savior Foils Attack caught his eye.
‘As scores of busy travelers walked obliviously past, a harried, panicked scream was thrown from a narrow lane. Fate found the ears of an attentive listener. Without hesitation, a gallant, unknown gentleman dashed down the alleyway. At the end of the lane, a woman, having lost her way, was cornered by three villainous scoundrels. Dark-haired and well-dressed as he was, the hoodlums thought the gentleman easy prey. The three men met the would-be-rescuer with cudgels and sharp blades. With nary a concern for his own skin, the stranger rushed into the fray, distracting the men long enough for the woman to flee. Near to fainting, she ran, breathless and dizzy with the sounds of a scuffle thundering in her ears.
What happened in that alley, she could not say. But soon, she related, footsteps became apparent, and when, in a fright, she glanced behind, the dashing stranger was there. ‘He was,’ the woman said with a blush, ‘possessed of raven hair, strong jaw, and a straight nose that would inspire artists.’
Eye-witnesses claim that the young woman swooned on the sidewalk of Market. The gentleman easily scooped her up in strong arms and carried her into Brown’s Steamship Company where he laid her gently upon the lobby couch, proclaiming himself a physician. With fair and deft hands, her rescuer unbuttoned her high collar. The young woman’s bosom heaved with shaky fear…’
A Bitter Draught Page 11
