A Golden Grave--A Rose Gallagher Mystery

by Erin Lindsey

  The inventor headed for his workbench. “If it was indeed an electric shock of sufficient voltage, that would explain it. The innards were carefully calibrated to receive wireless electricity at a specific frequency.” Selecting a tiny screwdriver, he removed the back of the watch. “Now let us … yes, I see…” He poked around for a minute or two before pronouncing it fixable. “If you have time, I can complete the work in half an hour or so, once I obtain the part I require.”

  “Mr. Wiltshire and I are engaged in a bit of surveillance just down the street, outside the Chinese laundry. Maybe we could come by later?”

  “That will be fine. Allow me to walk you, Miss Gallagher. It’s on my way to the Pearl Street electric station.”

  The inventor fetched a bowler hat and overcoat and we hurried along, although we did have to pause now and then to feed the birds. (Mr. Tesla, it seemed, had the curious habit of carrying seed in his pockets, a fact that was obviously well known to the pigeons of Five Points, who came whirring and flapping down from every telegraph pole and electric wire along the way.)

  We found Thomas a little down the block from the mother’s building, rubbing his hands together in the chill. “Nothing yet,” he reported.

  “Hopefully you will not have to stand out here for long,” said Mr. Tesla. “It’s too cold to be waiting around outside. Best of luck, my friends.” He shook hands and went on his way.

  “He’s right,” I said, shifting from foot to foot, “it’s miserable out here.”

  “I’m sure someone will be along directly.”

  Alas, directly turned out to be optimistic. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty. We were still there when Mr. Tesla reappeared on his way back, and the cold had started to seep into our bones.

  “Still nothing?” The inventor glanced at the building in surprise. “Why, it’s been over an hour! Shall I bring you some tea?”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but you needn’t go to the trouble. If we get too cold, I can always nip into Muldoon’s Grocery and grab a hot pie.” I gestured up the street. “Which, by the way, if you don’t know the place, it’s a neighborhood favorite.”

  Mr. Tesla smiled, as though the idea of his grabbing a hot pie in a Five Points grocery were gently amusing. “Thank you for this information,” he said politely. “It’s beside the pharmacy?”

  “Yes, you see where that fellow…” I trailed off, narrowing my eyes.

  Thomas turned. “What is it?”

  “That man. The one who just walked out of the pharmacy. I’m almost certain I’ve seen him before. At the hotel, maybe?”

  “He’s headed this way,” Thomas said.

  The man had a parcel tucked under his arm; I recognized the green twine of the pharmacy. “You said Foster was wounded, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. Byrnes shot him during his escape. Do you suppose—?”

  “Why not?” I said, growing excited. “If I’d been hurt and there were no Clara to take care of me, the first place I’d go is Mam’s.”

  Mr. Tesla observed the exchange with interest. “You believe this man is taking medical supplies to your killer?”

  We kept our faces averted as he passed, then watched as he went through the front door of the tenement where Jack Foster’s mother lived.

  Thomas and I exchanged a look.

  “Tesla,” Thomas said, “may I prevail upon you to keep watch out here? If our man tries to run, you can point us in the right direction.”

  “Certainly,” the inventor said with a boyish gleam in his eyes. “How exciting!”

  Lookout in place, Thomas and I hurried after our quarry, slipping through the front door into the familiar shadows of a Five Points tenement.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE DEVIL—A SHOCKING TURN OF EVENTS—THE IMPATIENT PATIENT

  I felt eerily at home climbing the stairs of the five-story brick building where Jack Foster’s mother lived. Like my own mother’s building, it had no lighting, leaving Thomas and me to fumble our way through the dark. And like Mam’s, its stairs were so steep and crooked that we had to keep one hand on the wall so we didn’t fall and break our necks. The air was thick with cooking smoke, and the clamor of everyday life filled the cramped hallways, spilling out of crowded flats through thin, ill-fitted doors. It was almost enough to drown out the footfalls on the steps above us, but we managed to track our quarry to the second floor. A crack of light flared at the end of the corridor, and he disappeared inside.

  Thomas drew his derringer from an inner pocket. “Are we steady, Rose?”

  “Steady,” I said, fingering my own little one-shot pistol.

  Thomas knocked.

  Silence.

  I pressed my ear to the door. There was a scuffling sound and the creak of floorboards.

  With the faintest of sighs, Thomas waved me out of the way, adjusted his overcoat, and kicked the door in.

  He’d scarcely stepped over the threshold before someone blasted into him from the side, but somehow he kept his feet, twisting low and upending his attacker in a single smooth motion. I charged into the flat just in time to see a figure being helped out the window by a woman.

  “Stop!”

  The man looked up; I recognized the face I’d been sketching all morning. Foster recognized me, too, and with a grimace, he jumped. I lunged for the window, but the woman grabbed hold of me with a shriek, clutching at my hair like some kind of wild animal. I couldn’t get her off me, and Foster was escaping …

  “Thomas, he’s gone out the—”

  Thomas flew past me in a blur, launching himself out the window and hitting the ground in a roll. Breaking free of the woman at last, I made for the door, leaping over the inert form of the man who’d attacked us on the threshold.

  I nearly killed myself thundering down those crooked stairs with my skirts swirling around my ankles, and by the time I burst into the street, there was no sign of Thomas. But our lookout had done his job: Mr. Tesla stood in the middle of the road, hopping up and down excitedly as he pointed toward Chatham Square. “That way! The alley behind the church!”

  Hiking up my skirts (I really did need to consider trousers) I ran after them. The entrance to the alley was choked with peddlers; I cracked my hip on a fruit cart, and a mule laden with charcoal pinned his ears back when I shoved past. By the time I rounded the corner, Thomas was at the far end of the alley—

  —sinking to his knees, Jack Foster’s hand wrapped around the back of his neck. He tried to grab at his attacker, but his limbs jerked wildly. His gun lay in the dirt, out of reach.

  I cried out and raised my gun, but I was too far away to be sure of my little derringer. I fired over their heads, hoping to scare Foster off, but he barely flinched; he kept hold of Thomas, glowering with determination as he held on and on and on.

  “Help! Somebody!”

  I tore down the alley in a blind panic, screaming Thomas’s name, begging Foster to stop. It was like a nightmare, as if I were wading through molasses to get to Thomas, watching as his head snapped back in wave after wave of convulsions while the devil himself stood over him.

  Foster did let go eventually, and legged it up the alley, but I didn’t care about him anymore. All I saw was Thomas, limp as a rag doll, eyes rolled back beneath fluttering lids.

  I fell to my knees beside him, but I had no idea what to do. Dimly, I registered footfalls scrambling behind me, and then Mr. Tesla was at my side, the two of us on our knees in the muck. “His heart,” I whispered.

  The inventor paused, listening. His eyes widened in horror, and he put his ear to Thomas’s chest. “It stopped!”

  “Foster shocked him.” I spoke the words in a daze, tears spilling down my face. There was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do …

  “I can feel it. The ionization.” The inventor’s fingers flitted over Thomas’s chest. “The shock must have … then theoretically, a countershock … but the voltage…” He went on babbling, but I was barely listening, smo
thered in an ever-thickening cocoon of despair. Then his hand seized my shoulder, startling me back to reality. “Quickly! We need to get him to the street! The wires. I need the wires!”

  It made no sense to me, but at least it was doing something, so we grabbed Thomas under the arms and started dragging him up the alley. It was awkward and heavy, and I shudder to think how long it would have taken had another pair of hands not joined us, and another after that, the fruit peddler and another bystander rushing to help us lift him. We reached the main street in moments, and then Mr. Tesla was climbing up on the fruit cart, stretching the full length of his lanky frame to reach the snarl of electrical wires overhead.

  A crowd had started to gather, and a collective gasp went up as we realized what he meant to do.

  “Don’t! You’ll kill yourself!”

  “No,” Mr. Tesla said, grabbing a fistful of wires, “I won’t.”

  Sparks flew everywhere. The crowd skittered back in alarm. The inventor jumped down, the wire in his hand spitting and hissing like an angry snake. “Open his shirt.”

  For a split second all I could do was stare. Two kinds of luck, Thomas had said. Here, apparently, was the second.

  “Hurry!”

  I scrabbled at Thomas’s clothing, unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt.

  “Now stand back.” Mr. Tesla closed his eyes, whispered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer, and put his free hand on Thomas’s chest. I cringed, but nothing much happened. Thomas’s body twitched; Mr. Tesla snatched his hand away and paused, listening. “Nothing.” He hesitated, swearing softly in his own language. Then he reached out again.

  This time, the effect was truly terrible. Thomas’s whole body bucked, arching off the ground for an awful instant before going limp. The crowd cried out.

  He’s killed him, I thought numbly. It’s over …

  “There!” The inventor threw the wire aside and put his ear to Thomas’s chest. “I can hear it! His heart is beating, but…” He shook his head. “The rhythm is still wrong. It … quivers. I don’t think he is out of danger.”

  “Wang’s,” I said, lurching to my feet. “We need to get him to Wang’s.”

  “On Mott Street?” Mr. Tesla shot a despairing look over his shoulder. It was only a block, but it might as well have been a mile.

  “Take my cart,” said the fruit peddler, gesturing at his little wagon of apples and pears.

  “Oh, thank you!” I threw my arms around the man. “I’ll buy every last piece of fruit, I promise!”

  And so it was that Thomas, with the help of a crowd of Five Pointers, was loaded onto a pushcart and rushed up Mulberry Street to the alley behind Wang’s General Store. I banged two-fisted on the back door until a bewildered Mei answered; she took one look at Thomas and yelled for her father, and suddenly I wasn’t needed anymore.

  Whereupon my knees gave way beneath me, and I sagged, sobbing, to the dirt.

  * * *

  Over the course of the next two hours, I had a glimpse of what it must have been like for Thomas last January, when he’d burst through Mr. Wang’s front door cradling my limp form in his arms.

  All around me was commotion, but I couldn’t do a thing to help. I just stood there, powerless, watching as Mei snatched herbs and tree bark and God knew what else down from the shelves, grinding or pinching or chopping them before handing them to her father. When the brew was finished, they got Thomas into a sitting position and helped him to choke some down. No sooner was that done than Mr. Wang started in on another concoction.

  All the while, Thomas drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point he murmured my name, but he’d slipped under again before my fingers closed around his. I kept hold of his hand anyway, afraid to let go. In that moment, he was comforting me, the warmth of his skin and the flutter of his pulse reassuring me that he still lived. His heartbeat was still weak and erratic, but his chest rose and fell steadily, and the color had returned to his lips. Eventually, they moved him to one of the little rooms in the back.

  A little while later, Mei brought me some tea (actual tea, the green kind). It soothed the ache in my throat enough that I could finally push words through. “What’s happening to him?”

  “His qi is blocked. There is not enough yin in his blood, which is causing it to stagnate. This is very dangerous if it continues. My father gave him special tea to help thin the blood. The other tea, the one made with cinchona bark, will calm the quivering of the heart and help the qi to flow.”

  “I … don’t know what that means.”

  She put a comforting hand on my arm. “What matters is that my father has treated this before, with the man from the saloon, and he learned much. It will take time, but Mr. Wiltshire should recover.” She gave me a reassuring smile and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

  I couldn’t tell you how long I sat there, clutching Thomas’s hand and stroking the hair back from his temples. Eventually, his eyelids stirred, and a moment later they fluttered open.

  “Thomas, it’s Rose. You’re safe.” I squeezed his hand. “Can you hear me?”

  He tried to speak, but the sound mustn’t have come, because he nodded wearily.

  “Foster used his luck on you. Your heart”—my throat closed momentarily around the words—“your heart stopped. Mr. Tesla saved your life. You’re at Wang’s now, being treated for … er, blocked qi.”

  Thomas brought a hand to his neck, feeling for his pulse. “Fast,” he whispered, “but most definitely there.”

  Tears pricked behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. “Most definitely there, and steadier by the hour. How do you feel?”

  “Light-headed, a little short of breath.” He started to sit up, but thankfully thought better of it. “And weak as a kitten,” he finished ruefully.

  “But no pain? Headache?”

  He shook his head. “Wang. I need to thank him.”

  “It can wait.”

  He stitched his brow, as though processing something belatedly. “And … Tesla?”

  “Yes, he … Well, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly what he did. He grabbed some electrical wires and shocked you.”

  “Shocked me?” Thomas stared up at me, looking very shocked indeed. “With high-voltage wires?”

  “With his bare hands, actually.” I couldn’t help shaking my head at the memory. “He just grabbed them. Tore one right down from the pole without so much as flinching. He’s repairing them right now, so nobody gets hurt.”

  “Tesla can manipulate electricity at will. That’s down to his luck, but an ordinary person like me … How did he know it wouldn’t kill me?”

  “I’m not sure he did. It took him a couple of attempts to get it right.” At this point, Thomas was looking very pale again, so I decided to change the subject. “Foster escaped. I telephoned Sergeant Chapman, but I’m sure everyone was long gone from that apartment before the police got there. I’m sorry, Thomas.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I should have anticipated he would be lying in wait like that. Instead I rushed ahead like a fool.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “And now he’s in the wind.”

  “Not for long. I’ll be heading for One-Eyed Johnny’s as soon as possible.”

  “The Bloodhound?” Thomas grunted. “She could be of help, if we’re able to find her.”

  “There’s no we about it. You’re not going anywhere until Mr. Wang says it’s all right.”

  “Rose—”

  “Shall we ask him?” I stuck my head out the door. “Excuse me, Mr. Wang…”

  He appeared a moment later, Mei in tow, whereupon I proceeded to tattle shamelessly. “Mr. Wiltshire is under the impression that he’s fit for duty.”

  Mr. Wang gave his patient a flat look.

  “I said no such thing. I merely suggested that in a few hours I might—”

  Mr. Wang was already shaking his head. He said something in Chinese, accompanied by a finger-wag that needed no translation.

  Thomas listened with growing d
ismay. “A week? Nonsense, Wang, I can’t possibly—”

  “You’re no good to anyone in the state you’re in,” I interjected, “and if you push yourself too hard, it will only take longer for you to get well. Besides, I’m perfectly capable of hiring the Bloodhound on my own.”

  “I’ve no doubt, but One-Eyed Johnny’s is a rough place. It’s best to have someone watching your back, and besides—”

  “Thomas,” I said gently, “I don’t need you.”

  That was a lie in just about every way that mattered, but I couldn’t have him worrying about me while he was trying to rest.

  I knew we’d won by the way Thomas faded, as though he’d suddenly used up his shallow reserves. “Very well,” he said, sinking back onto the cot. “I’ll rest, but it cannot be for a week, or anything near it.” Mr. Wang said something in a tone of finality, and Thomas nodded. “One night. Then I’m back in my own home, even if I’m confined to bed. Agreed?”

  Mr. Wang grunted.

  “Glad that’s settled,” I said. “Now then, I’d fancy a cup of tea, wouldn’t you, Mr. Wiltshire?” Mei and her father followed me out of the room, and as soon as we were out of earshot, I added, “Perhaps with a drop of something to help him sleep?”

  Mr. Wang answered in Chinese, which Mei translated with a smile. “His thoughts exactly.”

  It was nearing eight o’clock by the time I left the grocery, too late for a trip to One-Eyed Johnny’s. The Tenderloin was no place for a woman on her own after dark, especially if she was too exhausted to be properly alert. I didn’t fancy spending the night on Mam’s floor either, so I headed for the Franklin Street station, already fantasizing about the hot bath I’d take when I got home. My route took me past Augusto’s, and I wasn’t surprised to find Pietro loitering outside, along with his new friends from Bandit’s Roost. I had every intention of walking right past, but to my surprise, he called out to me.

  “Fiora, thanks God.” He sprang out from under the awning and grasped me by the shoulders. In the glow of the gas lamp, I saw worry in his eyes.