“All right, then, Violet Grant. My stubborn little Houdini,” I said. “You’ve left me no choice.”
I rose to my feet and made for the under-sink cabinet in the kitchen.
Under a tactical bombardment of WD-40, the tumblers surrendered and the edges of the valise released with a musty sigh of defeat. I opened them wide.
The contents had been packed with an eerie tidiness. Violet herself, or some modern official who had found the valise in a forgotten corner and searched for some clue to its provenance? Given the state of the lock, I guessed the former.
Clothes first, and not many. Maybe you didn’t need them, when you ran away with your lover. I lifted them out, one by one. I’d thought they went in for lace and frills in those days, but these threads were simple, sturdy cottons and linens in summer colors, except for one in blue gossamer that looked as if it were made of clouds. I shook it out. Creases, marks. And was that a grass stain on the back?
Why, Aunt Violet. You naughty, naughty girl.
A cardigan followed, a practical knit, belted at the waist. I lifted it to my nose. Just wool and dust, no sign of human habitation. What had Violet smelled like? Lysol and laboratories, probably. That acrid scent of acids in beakers. All of it gone now, lost to time and Zurich cupboards.
Underthings! Long and tipped with a bit of lace, at least. This was more like it. I could perceive the allure of these drawers, mysterious in their lengthy modesty, especially when topped by the corset that unfolded in my hands. I rounded my lips into a soundless whistle of appreciation. She’d had a tiny waist, Aunt Violet, as she gallivanted about with her atoms and molecules. No wonder she’d snagged the eyeballs of this eminent Dr. Grant. He could have spanned her with his hands if he wanted.
Which, obviously, he had.
I reached inside. There were no more clothes: just books and papers and a soft felt bag filled with tantalizing bumps. I loosened the drawstring and spilled out the contents onto the bedspread.
Jewelry. A pair of gold bracelets, wide as handcuffs, monogrammed W on one and G on the other. An amethyst brooch. A necklace made of aquamarine flowers: pretty, really, if dainty jewelry was your narcotic of choice.
Then. A watch. A plain gold watch, unadorned except for the engraving at the back:
To Violet
from her sister Christina
1911
“Why, then the world’s mine oyster
which I with sword will open.”
A little chill stirred at the base of my neck, as if someone had blown on it. I turned the watch back over and opened the case. At seven-oh-three in the morning or evening, some day in late July or perhaps early August of 1914, this watch had ticked its last tock. If I rubbed my fingers against it, I might still feel Violet’s touch, her slender scientific hands winding it up. Checking the time. Sliding it into her pocket. She must have dropped her valise in a hurry, if she’d left this watch inside. She must have meant to come back for it.
Why hadn’t she?
I laid the watch atop the blue gossamer dress with the grass stains and pulled out the remaining contents of the valise.
Great guns.
Travel papers. For the love of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Travel papers.
I snatched them up. The one on top was Violet’s, a photograph pasted to a thick sheet written in gothic German script, and there she was. Just like that.
Violet Grant.
Her exquisite black-and-white photograph stared sightlessly at me through melting huge eyes. Scientist? More like a Gibson girl who’d lost her tint, a girl to adorn chocolate boxes and Coca-Cola advertisements, not at all the kind of girl who bent over microscopes and singed her hair on Bunsen burners. How could this darling creature be Violet? Scientific Violet, married Violet. Adulterous Violet.
I smudged my thumbs around the edge of her image and examined her pointed chin, her wide cheekbones. Her eyes. Now, that was better. I knew those eyes. I wielded them myself to great effect.
She existed. She had stood before that camera with her alluring eyes and her adorable heart-shaped face. She was a person. Name: Violet Schuyler Grant. Verheiratet. Geburtsdatum, 10 November 1891. Geburtsort, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Every fact in order. Nothing I didn’t already know, really.
But the others. I hadn’t known there were others, plural.
Americans. Jane Johnson Mortimer de Saint-Honoré, divorced, born 15 July 1878 in Rapid City, Iowa: Now, who the sweet social ladder was she?
And Henry Johnson Mortimer, born 9 August 1894. I turned that one over. Jane’s son? He regarded the camera with profound gravity and too much dark hair atop his narrow face. I held him next to Jane and gasped.