Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) Read online

  She tried to come to grips with what he was saying. “But, what does this mean, if it isn’t a cure?”

  “What it means is that we can see it. We can identify it.” He held out his open hand toward her. Inez almost expected to see something tangible resting in his palm. “We have it, at last: the greatest killer of mankind, over the centuries.” His hand closed into a fist. “Now, we know what we are fighting.”

  “So, all of this?” She gestured behind him, to the tonic bottles and medicinals.

  “All of that,” He turned to look at the shelves and countertop. “The tonics and inhalants. The cod liver oils, mineral waters, vapors of creosote, carbolic acid, mercurial salts…They can provide relief. For some. But they do not cure.”

  It was the opening she’d been looking for. “What of Herb Paris?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “So many want to know, this past day. Yes, I have a store of Herb Paris. It is helpful, for some. Those who suffer from bronchitis, spasmodic coughs. Also for headaches and neuralgia. The seeds and the berries have something of the nature of opium.”

  “And it is a poison.” Inez added. “How could it have ended up in the livery, in a horse’s nosebag?”

  Prochazka shrugged. She could tell his attention was waning, drifting away from her and her questions. He was disappearing back into indifference. “It is shipped to me from overseas, specifically for my studies and for use in this clinic. I keep it here, in the laboratory.”

  “Who has access?”

  “I keep this room locked at all times.”

  A delicate cough interrupted them. Inez started and looked toward the entrance to the front of the clinic. Nurse Crowson stepped into the room and into the light. “Excuse me, doctor. I’m here to pick up the medicines.” She presented the basket.

  He leaped to his feet. “Of course, of course. Time for the evening doses.”

  Mrs. Crowson slipped in, and headed to the far side, setting her basket on the counter next to the tonic bottles.

  “Mrs. Stannert, I apologize for keeping you from your evening.” His stiff formality and indifference evaporated. “I hope to hear you play again. Perhaps tomorrow? You might indulge me with a little Beethoven, perhaps?”

  She smiled. “‘Moonlight Sonata’? I believe it can be arranged.”

  He took her gloved hand and bowed low over it. “Dekuji, madam. Thank you.” His voice was fervent.

  Inez surveyed the laboratory for the last time. On one side, impenetrable science with its bewildering confusion of glass vessels, curious instruments, and cryptic papers. On the other, orderly palliative treatments with their deceptively clear labels and falsely reassuring tonics. Prochazka stood in the middle, one hand resting on the phonograph. Mrs. Crowson stood a little behind, lifting one bottle at time, setting them in her basket. Prochazka added, “Forgive me for not escorting you back to the hotel, but I must help Mrs. Crowson. There are a couple new therapeutics we must talk about.”

  Inez smiled. “I can find my way, doctor. Thank you.” She left, pulling the clinic door closed behind her before hurrying across the gardens, into the hotel, and out to the front, where Mark and buggy awaited.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Inez quickly explained why she had kept Mark waiting and then plunged into her day’s happenings. Mark had lit the buggy’s lanterns for the night ride, so she was able to see his smile of approval as she detailed how she managed to procure a passkey. When she described her descent to the hotel’s underworld, he sobered. “You took a chance there, darlin’. What would you have done if you’d been caught?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I would have thought of something. If not, well, what would they do, after all? Shoot me?”

  “I’d hate to guess. Desperate folks do desperate things when in desperate situations. Although, you do seem to have more lives than a feline and able to talk yourself out of tight corners I’d not thought possible.”

  She warmed at the compliment. “You always did say that words were my best weapon and defense, with my pocket pistol running in second place. In any case, we now know more about Lewis, and the truth about the financial state of affairs at the hotel. Lewis was a physician during the War. He must have been. The photo. The box of, of…” In her mind, she saw the cutting edges again—the saw, the knives, all blades and teeth, hungry for blood and bone.

  “Surgeon’s kit.”

  She looked over at Mark, his profile against the night. “What?”

  He said, “The box you described. It’s a surgeon’s kit.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, darlin’, South or North, the army sawbones lugged the same tools.”

  “Oh, of course.” She faced forward again. “In any case, he is a doctor or was a doctor, but won’t own up to it. Something must have happened that he won’t even acknowledge as part of his past. Too, there is the matter of the initials, which seem to indicate his name back then was not the same as the one he currently uses, and the fact that he does not want the name ‘Victor’ associated with him here in Manitou. Something is awry. Maybe he was a doctor before and something went wrong, or he was incompetent and it all caught up with him. Either way, he’s definitely incompetent as a businessman and hotelier. The finances of the Mountain Springs House are a complete disaster, if what is on his desk is any indication.” She shot another look at him. “Don’t you dare sign any sort of agreement with them. And don’t let Jonathan either.”

  “I’m doing my level best, Inez. It’s a dicey situation. I want them to believe I’m serious in my interest, but at the same time not willing to put pen to paper yet. I can’t play gull to their game much longer. They know I own the Silver Queen, that I’m not adverse to a gamble, so obviously, I know something about businesses, cheats, and cons. They’re probably wondering if I’m on to them, as it is.”

  “Yes, yes. I understand. You’re walking a tightrope in all this.” Inez frowned. “It’s the photograph, I’ll admit, that has me most perplexed. Two men posed in front of a surgeon’s tent. One is clearly Lewis, or Franklin, or whatever his name really is. I’m assuming he is the VLF indicated on the back. The second man has the same last initial, looks younger, and there is a definite family resemblance. I suspect they are brothers, and perhaps Mrs. Crowson is their sister. She has the identical photograph in her room by her bed, so obviously, it is important to her.”

  “Well, I suspect you reckoned right on that. Makes sense they might be brothers who joined up and served in the War together. Two surgeons assigned to the same unit.”

  “Maybe.” She stared straight ahead, deep in thought. The lights of Colorado City straggled by. “Here’s another possibility: maybe Mrs. Crowson herself was in the War.”

  “As a nurse? It’s possible.”

  “I was thinking more that she might be the other person in the photograph. That she might have disguised herself as a man.”

  “Inez. Not all women have your propensity for wearin’ trousers.”

  “Well, just consider it for a moment. Her brother goes off to war. Maybe he is her only family. She decides to go as well, and the best way to stay by his side is to pretend to be his brother and medical assistant.” She glanced at Mark sideways. “It’s not so difficult to do, to pretend to be a man.”

  “For an evening’s lark, I can see your point. But you’re talkin’ about the War, Inez. That’s living a ruse under hard conditions, day and night, month after month…or however long afore someone realizes that the doctor with soft hands and gentle voice isn’t the comrade-in-arms everyone believes.”

  “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 hi
s 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.”