Ernest had parked in the alley and carried her in through the Tenderloin’s servants’ entrance—much to the shock and bewilderment of Mrs. Blackwell, who’d frantically found Professor True. Together they’d managed to get Fahn, barely conscious, to her old bedroom. Meanwhile, the Tenderloin’s customers were streaming out of the building. The upstairs girls leaned out the windows, watching the commotion up the street, wary of the blaze spreading in their direction. Fortunately the rain and the new pump engine were able to contain the fire.
Iris, Violet, and Rose helped get Fahn into a hot bath, washing the smoke and soot from her hair. They dressed her for bed, bandaged her feet. Ernest had made elderberry tea, and Mrs. Blackwell heated a bowl of beef bone soup with onion syrup.
Fahn had begun running a fever and said very little as they tried to feed her.
“I just…wanted…to say goodbye to Maisie,” she had murmured. She had said even less after Mrs. Blackwell gave her a generous mug of warm brandy.
“The girls found marks on her arm,” Mrs. Blackwell had whispered as Fahn drifted off to sleep. The stout cook pointed to a spot on her own sleeve near the pit of her elbow. “Some kind of poison, I tell you. Probably a morphine gun. Some cribs do that. I hope she burned every last one of them along with that wretched place.”
Ernest heard the telephone ringing again. He squinted at the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. He regarded his chauffeur’s uniform, now terribly wrinkled, then trundled down the hall in the direction of the sound, knowing that most of the upstairs girls would still be in bed.
Ernest thought about what Mrs. Blackwell had said. He understood what she meant as she’d made an injecting motion—more of a recollection, really. While at the U.S. Immigration Bureau, Ernest had been given shots, but he’d also seen tins of opium confiscated from men and women alike. He vaguely recalled the toothless beggars that his mother always steered him away from and the sugary smell that came from the long pipes the delirious men and women had smoked.
“I’ll report them. Madam Flora always had those vile places broken up by the police. Though without her around…” Mrs. Blackwell’s conviction had trailed off along with her voice. “In the meantime we will all take turns watching our prodigal daughter. If her fever gets much higher we’ll have to take her down to the Wayside.”
Ernest remembered the abandoned paddle-wheel steamer Idaho, which had been converted into an emergency hospital for the poor.
Fahn had come by boat, he thought, and she might be leaving the same way.
As Ernest passed Maisie’s empty bedroom, he noticed someone had turned down the covers and left a tiny box of chocolates with a pink bow from Stokes Confectioner atop her pillow. There was a large, hand-decorated card as well, signed by all the Gibson girls, welcoming her to the sisterhood.
As Ernest continued to hear the phone ringing, he finally realized who must be calling. He slipped into Miss Amber’s vacant room and answered.
“Good morning, sir,” a deep, raspy voice said on the other end. “This is Mr. Waterbury, I’m the butler of Speedwell. Mr. Turnbull asked that I call to let you know that you can retrieve Miss Nettleton at your earliest convenience.”
“Of course,” Ernest stammered. “I’ll be right…”
“He also asked that you might stop at his favorite bakery on the way. He says he’s tired of breakfasting here and would like a special meal after a special night.”
Mr. Waterbury waited patiently for Ernest to retrieve a pad and pencil before he dictated a long, detailed list of things to pick up en route. Then the butler thanked him and hung up before Ernest could respond.
Ernest tamped down his rage, listened, then hung up and went back to his room. He tied his shoes, finger-combed his hair, and went downstairs, where he found his dark coat hanging up in Fahn’s room. He’d gone upstairs to rest after her fever had finally broken and had fallen fast asleep. Now Jewel was there, curled up in an armchair, wrapped in a quilt, both girls sleeping. Ernest smiled when he saw that the color had returned to Fahn’s cheeks. Her face was as peaceful as the surface of a lake on a windless day, but he wondered what creatures were slumbering at the bottom, buried in the muck. He didn’t want to imagine whom or what Fahn must have endured these past few weeks.
I’ll be right back, Ernest thought as he gently closed the door.
—
AFTER TAKING A number at Blitzner’s Bakery and waiting in line for ten minutes that seemed like ten hours, Ernest arrived back in Windermere, motoring in behind elegant horse-drawn carriages, delivery trucks, and dozens of colored servants who walked to work in their freshly pressed uniforms. As he finally returned to the Turnbull estate, there was a coachman waiting to wash the roadster while Ernest was escorted inside, his arms laden with a gaudy assortment of walnut tarts, orange meringue cookies, a dozen bolivars, a white raisin cake, plus a Vienna stritzel with a side of fresh Devonshire cream.
Ernest hastened as he was led down a long gallery, strangely devoid of paintings or photographs. The hall connected to an area that looked more like the atrium of a grand hotel than a home. He was dumbfounded by a three-story pipe organ that reached toward the vaulted ceiling, which had been painted like the sky.
“This is a special place, isn’t it?” Mr. Waterbury said. “Though sadly, the pipe organ hasn’t played a note since the lady of the house passed away all those years ago. Mr. Turnbull also had all of the art in the galleries removed at that time. He is of the opinion now that artwork competes with the view of the lake. He did keep the Tiffany chandeliers in the library, which was certainly commendable.”
Ernest listened as Chinese women in kitchen aprons transferred the baked goods from their paper boxes to a silver cart and arranged them on covered serving trays. The women then added a service of hot tea, coffee, and apple juice. Mr. Waterbury himself topped the whole thing off with a crisp copy of the Sunday Seattle Times.
“Mr. Turnbull asked that you deliver breakfast in person,” the butler said. “I gather that he would like to meet you, for reasons that I do not quite comprehend. Nevertheless…” He waved Ernest toward a waiting elevator.
Ernest had never seen an elevator. The only one he knew of was the lift at the Butterworth & Sons Mortuary on First Avenue. And that particular device was used only to move bodies in heavy oaken caskets.
Ernest thanked the tuxedoed man, bewildered that the servants could pretend there was nothing unusual about a young girl being delivered and later retrieved from the bedroom of a rich old man. He held his tongue as he wheeled the serving dolly inside the elevator, nodded to the black operator. The chandelier inside the lift swayed and jingled like glass chimes as the operator closed a brass gate. Ernest held on as the small, elegant room began to rise.
When he regained his bearings and stepped off on the top floor with the serving cart, he felt as though they’d been transported to an even richer, more gilded world, half again as decadent as the foyer below. The operator tipped his velvet cap and directed Ernest to a set of double doors at the end of a long, lushly carpeted hallway.