The House of Secrets

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The House of Secrets Page 12

by Terry Lynn Thomas


  ‘Find what?’

  Still she kept writing, Find it.

  ‘How am I supposed to know what to look for?’ I stood up and went to her, overcome with a need to make her understand. ‘Alysse.’

  I reached out to touch her shoulder. She turned with a soundless yell, unleashing a cloud of rage that knocked me off my feet. I fell to the ground and everything went black.

  Chapter Nine

  The white light woke me. The back of my head throbbed. Circular orbs hovered over me, but as I blinked, my blurred vision cleared, and the orbs morphed into the faces of Zeke, Eunice Martin, and two other nurses that I didn’t recognize. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Mr Collins standing on the periphery.

  ‘She’s awake,’ Eunice said.

  ‘Sarah?’ I heard Zeke’s gentle voice.

  ‘Take Mr Collins back to his room, please. Zeke, you need to step back. I know you’re worried, but you’re just in the way.’ Eunice took my pulse. ‘You gave us a bit of a scare.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You were sleepwalking,’ Eunice said. ‘Having quite a conversation.’

  ‘What did I say?’ I sat up.

  ‘Never mind that. Sit still for a minute to get your bearings.’ I turned my head to where Zeke had stood just a moment ago, but he had slipped away.

  ‘Are you ready to stand up?’ Eunice pulled me to my feet with surprising strength. ‘Let’s take you to your room. I’ll give you something to make you sleep. Do you have a history of sleepwalking?’

  ‘I have drops.’ I wobbled on my feet, so I leaned on her as we walked back to my room. I had learned my lesson: don’t take orders from ghosts. I should have taken the morphine and let Alysse figure out another way to reach me. I should have just trusted in providence and let things happen without the assistance of a meddling ghost.

  After thanking Eunice, I left her at the door of my bedroom. She wanted to come in and see me situated, but I didn’t want any company. Not now. I craved sleep. I shut the door behind her and locked it with the key that lay on my dresser. I poured fresh water from my carafe, filling the glass enough to dilute the bitter morphine tincture that would ensure I slept through the night.

  Alas, that was not to be. The glass bottle lay shattered on the floor, the elixir that guaranteed my dreamless sleep a puddle beneath the shards.

  I climbed into bed, overcome with pure physical exhaustion. Just as I drifted off, I heard Alysse’s gentle laughter, taunting me through the veil.

  * * *

  I woke up to sunshine streaming in my windows, its rays warm on my cheeks. Braving the frigid water, I washed then dressed for the day, motivated by the singular purpose of vanquishing Zeke from my thoughts.

  In the corridor outside my bedroom, one of the drivers from the linen delivery service hurried along the corridor with an overstuffed bag of soiled linens slung over his shoulder. He stared at his feet and almost collided into me.

  ‘Pardon me.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’ He didn’t look up when he spoke.

  I wondered how he had come to be in this part of the house, especially since the maids gathered the dirty towels and linens from the bedrooms to be sent out to the laundry service. As for the household’s personal laundry, I did my own in the small washing machine in the basement. I knew that Bethany and Dr Geisler had a maid do their laundry, but I had no idea what the arrangements were for the rest of the residents.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you lost?’ He had just reached the top of the stairs when I called out to him.

  ‘It’s my first day on the job. I got turned around. This is a big house.’ He hurried down the stairs, past Chloe’s empty desk, and out the front door.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Mrs McDougal handed me a steaming cup of coffee. ‘Dr Geisler and Bethany have gone out for the morning. You’re to have some time for yourself, doctor’s orders.’

  She must have seen the desperation on my face, for she gave me extra butter for my toast and a list of chores to keep me busy. Things came to a head as I kneaded the dough for our bread. After a time, I had graduated to slamming the lumpy mass against the surface of the worktable, with tears streaming down my face, oblivious to everything but my broken heart. When I exclaimed, ‘Take that!’ and slammed the dough down so hard that the crockery on the table rattled, I looked up to find Mrs McDougal staring at me, the poor lump of dough beaten beyond use.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not good for anything today.’ I scratched my forehead, smearing flour on it in the process.

  ‘Here, my dear, use this.’ Mrs McDougal handed me a clean dish towel. I took it from her and wiped my hands and face. ‘Why don’t you get out of here for an hour or two? Take a walk. The brisk air and sunshine will clear your head, give you some perspective.’

  As if on cue, someone knocked at the back door. We both turned to see Cynthia waving through the window.

  She stepped inside, took in the big room, the misshapen lump of dough on the workstation, and Mrs McDougal with one sweeping glance.

  ‘I’m sorry to come in this way, but I rang the front doorbell for ten minutes,’ Cynthia said.

  ‘Mrs McDougal, meet Cynthia Forrester.’

  ‘How do you do? What an organized kitchen you keep, Mrs McDougal.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mrs McDougal beamed. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ve come to take Sarah out.’ Cynthia turned to me. ‘Would you like to go for a walk? Don’t say no, Sarah. The fresh air will do you good. You can’t hide forever.’

  * * *

  The cold March wind and the physical exercise went a long way towards lifting my spirits. My gaze roved the street around me, searching for the blue Packard limousine. I didn’t see Hendrik Shrader’s car, the man himself, or his sadistic Viking. Most of the people on the street were soldiers, young men acting boisterous, laughing and back slapping, enjoying their last bit of freedom before they shipped out to the Pacific theatre.

  We wound up at a hole-in-the-wall corner diner. A counter ran the length of the narrow room. One waitress poured coffee and served, while behind her, two line cooks ran the deep fryer, chopped onions, and turned out plate after plate of food. I knew first-hand the French fries were sublime – heaping piles of golden brown potatoes that weren’t the least bit greasy.

  All but two of the fifteen stools were taken, filled with soldiers – some of them bandaged and missing limbs – and a couple of businessmen. They all eyed Cynthia as we walked towards the empty stools. We ordered coffees and a plate of fries to share.

  ‘So what’s going on? Why do you look like you’ve been run through the wringer?’

  ‘It’s Zeke. We’re finished. I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. It just hurts too much.’ I held in the tears that threatened to flow.

  ‘Does this have anything to do with the man who is following you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He isn’t even trying to be discreet. I spotted him right away. Who would stand around the Geisler Institute and read a paper? I think he is from Hoover’s organization. Those men have a certain look about them, dark suit, tie, and the hat pulled just a little too low over the eyes. There were three of them at the Geisler Institute. When we left, one of them tagged along behind us.’ Cynthia pointed to the front window. Sure enough, a man with a newspaper tucked under his arm stood outside, watching us through the plate glass. ‘And that man hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we sat down. Are you in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I did know, or rather I had a feeling that Zeke – true to his word – had arranged for me to be watched until he could deal with Hendrik Shrader. But I couldn’t tell Cynthia that. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t have the strength to fend off her relentless questions.

  ‘Nonsense. You know why you’re being watched, but you’re not telling me out of allegiance to Zeke. No, it’s okay. I understand.’ Cynthia took a puff of her cigarette before she ground it out in the tin ashtray
the waitress had set before her. ‘Well, I’ve done some digging on your friend, Minna. She all but disappeared after she ditched Gregory Geisler at the altar. She’s got oodles of cash and inherited lots of property in Marin County from her mother, including a dairy and several hundred acres of farmland in Sonoma County. Her father tried to prevent her from getting anything, if you can imagine that. He took her to court and it went all the way to trial. She prevailed. Two years ago, she checked into an exclusive psychiatric hospital in Maine. She told the doctors there that she saw her dead fiancé everywhere, that he had come back to get his revenge on her. From there, she came to San Francisco.’

  ‘I’m afraid to ask how you discovered this.’

  The waitress topped up our coffee and slipped away.

  ‘I called the hospital, pretending to be her psychiatrist here in San Francisco.’ Cynthia gave me a sly smile. ‘Anyway, her doctor thought she suffered from a guilty conscience and melancholia. He liked her and hoped she had figured out a way to get on with her life.

  ‘But listen to this: just before she came to San Francisco, she made Matthew Geisler her heir. When her financial advisers cautioned her against doing this, she fired them. If she dies, Dr Geisler gets everything. Actually, she doesn’t even have to die. Dr Geisler already has control of her money outright.’

  Cynthia watched me as the significance of what she said sunk in.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that Dr Geisler would do anything to hurt Minna. He wouldn’t. I’ve seen them together. He cares about her.’

  ‘I know. I did some digging on him, too. His reputation used to be sterling among his peers, but he’s written a couple of papers regarding the occult, at which the scientific community scoffs, as you can imagine. There are those who believe he is risking what could be a brilliant career in order to prove some outdated Victorian ideals about the spirit world that have long been debunked. He is obsessed. One man I spoke to – a renowned doctor who shall remain nameless – spoke up in Dr Geisler’s defence. It seems your boss has had more than his share of death. His entire family is gone, after all, so it’s no wonder. Still, he’s burning through his inheritance and has even turned away paying patients. But his wife has the reputation of being quite a businesswoman, so I am sure all will be well.’

  ‘Is Dr Geisler having financial difficulties?’ I imagined it cost a mint to run a hospital like the Geisler Institute.

  ‘I don’t believe so. At least I didn’t uncover any.’ Cynthia finished her coffee. The waitress approached to refill her cup, but she declined with a shake of her head. ‘So tell me, how is Minna doing in your eyes? You’re the one who’s trying to save her.’

  Cynthia lit another cigarette and took a long pull. She tipped her head back and blew a plume of smoke into the air.

  ‘We’re short-staffed, so Mrs McDougal sent me off to wind all the clocks in the house. When I entered Minna’s room, it was in a state of utter chaos. Clothes were strewn everywhere.’

  Cynthia tapped the ashes off the end of her cigarette. ‘Women like her often have maids.’

  ‘I tripped on something and fell flat on the floor, knocking over a basket of magazines in the process. At the bottom of the basket were three issues of Life Magazine with blocks of words cut out of the pages.’

  ‘So she sent herself that note and those flowers? Did you confront her about this?’ Cynthia narrowed her eyes. ‘You did. Let me guess. You told Minna what you found and asked her about it. She denied the magazines and the cuttings were hers, told you someone is trying to frame her. Sarah, you are not that naive.’

  ‘I believe her. There’s no evidence she sent those things to herself. You should have seen the way she reacted when the flowers and the invitation with the note were delivered. She thinks Gregory Geisler has come to get his revenge. She’s scared to death. No one is that good an actress, and I don’t think she’s stupid enough to leave such damning evidence in her room.’

  ‘You can’t know that. You need to tell Dr Geisler what you found. He’s her doctor. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘I don’t know that I can betray her like that,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not a betrayal. Tell him you believe her, if you must. If someone is trying to frame her, don’t you think he should know that too? If something happens to Minna— – if Gregory is, by some act of fate, still alive and is coming back to get his revenge – don’t you think Dr Geisler should know? Someone got to her, and they did it in his home.’

  ‘I hate the way you’re always right.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m the woman with the extra silk stockings, so you’d better be nice.’

  * * *

  One of the day maids had been recruited for kitchen duty, and although I missed the chats with Mrs McDougal, the cooking instruction, and the distracting physical labour, I had plenty of my own work to do. It didn’t take me long to type the pages Dr Geisler had left for me. I proofed them twice, wrote the summary, and placed them under the paperweight on his desk. That finished, I went back into my office and stood for a long time, perusing the bookshelves. They were jammed with files, boxes, the Geisler family’s memento mori, scrapbooks, medical journals, and decades of Dr Geisler’s paperwork.

  ‘Find it,’ Alysse had instructed me. Find what?

  I pulled my chair over to the wall and stood on it for a closer look at the things placed on the top shelves. A gorgeous leather edition of Through the Looking Glass lay atop a pile of magazines with dress patterns, sketchbooks, and a box of pastel crayons. Next to them were my two all-time favourites: Jane Eyre and Rebecca.

  I opened the sketchbook and fanned through it. Sketches of evening gowns, hats, and shoes filled the pages, each one with the initials ‘AG’ in the lower right-hand corner. One page showed a burgundy overcoat, mid-calf in length, with a fitted waist and an elaborate collar. Alysse had used an oil pastel for the colour, still rich after all this time. Next to the coat, she had drawn a hat rack that held the matching burgundy hat. She had talent and an eye for style. I wondered if she had dreamed of having a dress shop before her untimely death. I wondered if her brothers would have condoned her working for her living. Women of Alysse’s station were expected to marry, have children, and slip into obscurity.

  Next to the sketchbooks lay several boxes stacked on top of each other. Someone had taken the time to cover each box in cloth, folding down the corners and gluing it in place. Many of them had the year written on the outside, the handwriting more ladylike as the years went by. The back of my neck tingled as my hand reached for a box covered in a brocade fabric that had faded to a dingy grey. Alysse had taken the time to glue a brass cardholder on the front of this box. A thick piece of cardstock with ‘1916’ written in bold handwriting graced the front. I pulled the box out of its place.

  A patina of dust covered the fabric lid. It clung to the brocade like a burr clings to a dog’s ruff. I stifled a sneeze, as I set the box on my desk and opened the lid. Photographs, newspaper clippings, programmes from plays had been stuffed into the box without method. A string of glass beads snaked through the pictures and clippings. I picked it up, but the thread had rotted long ago and the beads fell away, retreating into the crevices and corners.

  The room grew cold. I waited for Alysse to make her presence known, all the while thinking of that place in my mind where I could seek sanctuary, should I need to do so. I did not fear Alysse, but I could no longer ignore the truth. I could see Dr Geisler’s dead sister, just as I saw Mrs Wills’s grandfather. No potion, no matter how strong, could change that strange thing about me. Alysse’s invisible hands tipped the green box over, spilling the contents onto my desk. A thick packet of photographs tied together with a red ribbon remained wedged into the bottom of the box.

  I wrested the packet from the box, and cut the ribbon with scissors. The pictures, now brittle with age, revealed a historic timeline of the Geisler family and Alysse’s youth. She beamed in every picture, her zest for life written all over her face and the faces of th
ose around her.

  ‘I’m sorry you died,’ I whispered.

  There were no pictures of Alysse with friends her own age, and I imagined for a moment that her young life had been a solitary one, like mine had been.

  I thumbed through the family photos. Matthew, sombre in the dramatic way of a poet, always had a protective arm around Alysse. In every picture, he gazed at Alysse with affection. One picture caught my eye. In it a very young Alysse stood between her two brothers. She had her arm around Matthew and leaned close to him. Gregory had his hands crossed over his chest. He stood at a distance from his siblings.

  Another showed Matthew and Gregory standing in front of the house, dressed in dinner suits. Matthew wore a cravat emblazoned with giant flowers. I could only imagine the colour scheme. Gregory stood next to him, staid and conservative in his dress. Both brothers were tall and thin, and each had a widow’s peak, a chiselled jaw, and an almost feminine softness to his bone structure. But where Matthew’s expression radiated kindness, Gregory’s expression had an unmistakable intensity about it.

  I remembered Mrs McDougal’s words and agreed with her. Gregory Geisler had a cruel streak. He held a grudge and exacted revenge when the opportunity arose. He would enjoy watching his enemy eat crow. I set this picture aside, along with two or three other pictures of Gregory and Matthew through the years.

  I went through almost all the photos from the box, separating them into piles. One pile held snapshots of Alysse and her school chums, the other held the photos of Matthew and Gregory. One photo of Matthew, Gregory, and a very young Minna caught my eye. I turned the picture over. The inscription on the back read, ‘Ocean Beach, 1915’. A picnic basket sat in the background with plates, utensils, and wineglasses scattered around it. Minna, whose hair had been bobbed below her ears and waved around her face, in keeping with the fashion of the time, sat between Matthew and Gregory. Minna and Matthew smiled for the camera, but Gregory faced Minna, almost as if he wanted to devour her. Like a wolf.

  I had culled five photographs from those that I had found. I laid them down side by side on my desk and stared at them, trying to figure what niggled at the back of my mind, some thought bubbling away in my subconscious. Outside, an ambulance drove by, its siren blaring. The telephone in the hallway rang. I looked away from the photos for just a moment, and when I focused back on them, I saw it. Gregory. The linen deliveryman who I had seen in the corridor outside Minna’s room, something about the cant of his head.

 

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