Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04)

by Ann Parker

  “What is all this about?” Agnes demanded.

  Inez recalled Lewis’ parting words from the previous evening: the marshal will need to speak to you on the morrow.

  A vision of Edward Pace’s face, contorted in death, eyes empty of soul and life, crowded out the exasperation and vexation building inside of her. All of a sudden, Aunt Agnes’ verbal maneuverings seemed very inconsequential.

  “Excuse me, Aunt, this shouldn’t take long.” Inez cast a last look at her coffee, which would no doubt be cold by the time she returned, and rose, folding her napkin and dropping it on her chair.

  Agnes heaved an irritated and theatrical sigh. “Your son will be back from his constitutional soon and be due for a nap, according to the schedule this Doctor Whosis has prescribed for him. Poor child, he tires in the morning so easily, despite all the cod liver oil foisted upon him. It is all the exercise, I expect.” The implicit threat—if you really care about your son, you’ll not tarry—was clear.

  “I will return as soon as possible,” Inez said shortly. Then, in passing by Harmony’s chair, she leaned over and murmured, “This is no doubt about last night.”

  Harmony nodded. As Inez passed by Susan, Susan stood and said, “I’ll walk with you.” They wove their way around the tables, mostly empty now, while Susan added in an undertone, “The local marshal and the doctor. They just want information about last night. They spoke to me before breakfast.”

  Inez sighed. “To be expected. But the timing is not the best. Although I’m glad to escape from Aunt Agnes for now.”

  At the doorway, Mr. Lewis bowed again, and said, “So sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Mrs. Stannert. I will be sure to have a tray fixed special for your return.”

  “As long as the coffee is fresh and hot,” said Inez.

  Susan returned to the table. Mr. Lewis led Inez through a maze of hallways, left, right, then left again, and out a double door to the back of the hotel.

  Inez paused on the veranda, which appeared to wrap around the hotel, and gazed at a garden bursting with green and abloom with late summer color. “We are well known for our gardens.” Mr. Lewis sounded almost apologetic. “We’re lucky to be close to a spring and a small creek. The water is diverted, allowing our visitors a small slice of Eden in this mountain paradise. I would be happy to see you are given a tour later, if you have any botanical interest.”

  He led Inez along a small gravel path toward a whitewashed, long single-story building at the end of the garden. “Where are we going?” Inez asked. “I assume this summons has to do with last night?”

  His expression darkened, as if a shadow had passed even though the sun shown brightly. They rounded a corner of the winding path, passing a particularly fragrant tall puff of sage, dotted with small, cream-colored flowers. They nearly ran into a cavernous man hunched over in a cane-backed three-wheeled chair. The gray Nurse Crowson, piloting the chair from behind, brought it to a halt before it plowed into Lewis’ shins.

  Lewis stopped and greeted the invalid. “Mr. Travers, taking your morning constitutional, I see?” He inclined his head. “Nurse Crowson, splendid morning.”

  The man in the wheelchair nodded, then erupted into a wet-sounding cough that sounded as if it were tearing his lungs to shreds. He bent over, nearly doubled with the effort, head almost to his knees. Nurse Crowson hastily pulled out a gray handkerchief from her apron pocket and bent over, holding it over her patient’s mouth. She looked up, pinning Inez with a disconcertingly opaque stare. Yet, when she spoke, it was not to Inez.

  “Mr. Lewis, good morning. Lovely weather in the garden today. One can smell the mint and sage.”

  Without waiting for a response, she returned her attention to her patient. “Calm yourself, and breathe deep, Mr. Travers. When we return to your room, I’ll bring you some of my tea.” The coughing began to ease. The nurse folded the handkerchief, which Inez noticed was now tinged with a bright spot of blood, and slipped it into her apron pocket.

  Lewis added, “Your nurse is right, Mr. Travers. The dry air cannot do anything but benefit, and the mint and sage will aid as well. Of course, Mrs. Crowson’s tea is a marvelous aid for the breathing.”

  He and the nurse exchanged a glance shot through with some hidden significance. He turned to Inez. “Come, Mrs. Stannert. We shouldn’t keep them waiting in the clinic.”

  Inez and Lewis circled the wheelchair, its patient and attendant, and continued to the building.

  “We get many chasing the cure,” said Lewis. “We are lucky to have Dr. Prochazka here. Since he joined our staff, we’ve seen truly miraculous recoveries, with many staying through the winter to benefit from his remedies and advice. Unfortunately,” he shook his head, “there are still those who arrive too late, too far gone in their disease. Even the good doctor, trained as he is in some of the finest universities of Germany, cannot cure all cases of phthisis.”

  He glanced at Inez and caught her confusion. “Consumption,” he amended. “My apologies. I am so surrounded by talk of illnesses and diseases here at the hotel and Manitou in general, listening to the good doctor discuss medical issues with his colleagues, that I often sound like I truly know what I’m talking about.” His mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “But I would never presume to prescribe. Still, I was not overly surprised at Mr. Pace’s passing.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Inez asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I would not have interrupted your meal, but you are the last, and the marshal is anxious to conclude this business. As we all are.”

  They were just short of the building when the door flew open. A woman’s figure, in black from head to toe, burst through the opening and hurried in their direction.

  Lewis stopped, as if his feet had turned into iron weights. “Mrs. Pace!”

  Mrs. Pace, engulfed in a black veil, paused, then approached, full tilt. She took Inez’s arm and said with force, “My husband was as strong as a man of twenty. He regularly walked for miles. The mountains and elevations here did not tax him at all, at least, not until Leadville. But even then, it was not until we were nearly back that it all happened. If it was the elevation, why did he not collapse until we were nearly returned? Why not while we were in Leadville, or going over that mountain pass? I don’t know what brought him down, but it was not his heart. You were there, Mrs. Stannert. You saw him die. You saw as well as I!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mr. Lewis finally lurched into motion. “Mrs. Pace, please, you are overwrought. You shouldn’t be here. I was coming to escort you back to your room, to rest. I know this is a difficult time for you.”

  “Difficult? I have lost my husband. My children have lost their father. Our lives have changed forever. I wish I had never heard of this place.”

  Mr. Lewis attempted to take her arm. She evaded him and moved down a side path, heading toward what Inez intuited by the green verge was the aforementioned creek.

  “A tragedy. A tragedy.” Mr. Lewis gazed after her, visibly shaken. “The sooner this business is concluded, the better. Please, Mrs. Stannert, please come. I should see to Mrs. Pace.”

  Without further ceremony, he hurried her to the front of the building, saying, “This is Dr. Prochazka’s clinic. The marshal, the doctor, and I decided it was best that any inquiry into Mr. Pace’s demise be conducted away from the hotel, ears and walls and all. Talk of death is distressing to those who are fighting for recovery. Hope is what fuels the tonics, the cure.” Lewis’ distressed babbling made no sense to Inez, but she decided that it would do no good to pursue the conversation at that moment.

  Lewis threw open the door, calling in a telegraphic introduction, “Marshal Robbins, Doctor Prochazka, Mrs. Stannert.” He left Inez on the threshold and trotted back down the path after Mrs. Pace.

  Inez entered the long, low-slung building. The walls opened onto a clinic setting, with a waiting area being primary. A number of empty chairs occupied the space, accompanied by yet another statue of Hermes on a corner pedestal. A
n entryway leading further into the building yielded an examination area, where two men sat. One was behind a desk, drumming fingers on the surface, the other leaned an elbow on a nearby table, idly turning a white tabletop statuette this way and that. Behind them, another door, half ajar, revealed an unlit slice of a room shrouded in shadows.

  The man behind the desk saw her standing in the waiting area, rose, and moved around the desk to the table. He motioned her forward impatiently. She recognized the tall, almost emaciated form of the white-coated apparition from the night before. Today, he was dressed in a somber dark suit, watch chain and fob bridging one side of the plain black waistcoat to the other, a stand-up collar, higher than fashion might dictate, held closed with an untidy two-in-four knot. The wild mane of hair she recalled from the previous night had been fiercely tamed with a copious amount of grease, and combed straight back with nary a ripple or wave evident.

  His companion stopped playing with the figurine and stood as well, well-brushed bowler hat in hand. Compact, non-prepossessing, and with a tidy Van Dyke beard, he was in stark contrast to the slouching rail of a man beside him.

  The compact man stepped forward, “Mrs. Stannert? I’m Marshal Robbins, and this,” he nodded at the scarecrow, “is Dr. Prochazka. This here is his clinic, which he’s kindly offered so as to allow us to talk about yesterday’s unfortunate events. Please.” He gestured to a chair on the opposite side of the table.

  Dr. Prochazka, Inez thought, did not look as if the takeover of his clinic was his idea, let alone his offer. He slouched back down into his chair, face drawn. The spectacles that he had pulled off upon standing, he now tapped idly on a black and red bound journal set askew on the table. Inez could just make out the upside-down gold gilt letters that spelled out Physician’s Day-Book & Journal.

  The marble statue standing guard over their meeting drew her eye. No fig leaf on this one, instead the statue sported a well-draped arm and lower torso, with the marble folds falling to sandals. He had a stone head of hair as tightly curled as Dr. Prochazka’s the previous evening, only the statue’s coiffure was considerably neater and shorter. Under his shoulder rested a long staff, with a snake coiled around it. Curious, she leaned over and touched the snake. The marble was cold, dense to the touch. “This is no Hermes or Mercury,” she remarked.

  Dr. Prochazka jerked as if smacked with a whip. “Hermes is an impostor! They insist on putting him up everywhere at the hotel, even in my waiting room. Everyone suffers the delusion that Hermes is the god of medicine. As you would say, poppycock!”

  It would not be what Inez would choose to say, but she let it go.

  “This is Asclepius.” He picked up the statue, long fingers curling completely around the muscular stone midriff. “The proper god of healing and medicine. Few outside the medical profession seem to know or care. Do you know what Hermes is god of?”

  Inez felt that she was being subjected to an impromptu oral exam on Greek and Roman mythology.

  “Ah, well,” she stuttered. “Hermes is the messenger of the gods, of course. He is also god of omens, and animal husbandry. And travel.” She searched her memory, trying to dredge up some of her classical training.

  “God of trade. Commerce.” Prochazka put special emphasis on the word, as if it were something unclean. “What has that to do with healing, hmmm? Or medicine? Although some think if you do not make money from an endeavor, well, why bother. He is also patron of cattle-rustlers, so appropriate to your West, as well as thieves and trickery.” The physician set Asclepius back down with a heavy thud. “You might say he is god of the charlatans that practice their medical quackery upon the simple and desperate. I find it infuriating that a resort dedicated to the healing arts would place statues of Hermes in every corner of every room.”

  Marshal Robbins cleared his throat. “Well, now, I think we’d best get down to business, so’s the doctor can reclaim his clinic here. Thank you, Mrs. Stannert, for coming and speaking with us.” He sounded as if she had not been summoned and it had been her idea to pop around and converse with them. “Mrs. Pace just left us, as you know, and was a bit wrathy.”

  “Hysterical,” interrupted Prochazka. “With a touch of mania. Her mental capacity has been overextended. The woman needs bed rest, a proper diet to rebalance her, and a proper dose of restorative tuned to her needs. But I am not an expert in mental disorders.”

  The marshal shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well, doctor, that may be. But her husband just died, so I expect she’s pretty much a grieving widow. Mrs. Stannert, can you run through how you met the Paces and what transpired on the stagecoach during your trip?”

  Inez scrunched her nose. “The trip is two days in length. Surely you do not want every detail of our journey.”

  “No, no,” he assured her. “Talk about Mr. Pace, if you would. I gather he was ill when he boarded the stage out of Leadville?”

  Inez tried to summarize her impressions of Mr. Pace and his health at the start and as the journey progressed. She noted his initial paleness and sweating and how his condition seemed to worsen the second day, even though they had descended a considerable amount by that time.

  The marshal hunched over the wooden table, looking intently at her when not scratching notes in a small notebook. At this point, Inez, who had been focused on relating her story and her observations, became aware of Dr. Prochazka. He still slouched in his chair, an air of boredom surrounding him like a cloud. However, his foot was now jiggling under the table and he’d begun tapping his glasses again upon the bound journal.

  Faced with these signals of impatience, Inez picked up the velocity of her narration. She described Mr. Pace’s increased difficulty breathing, his near collapse at the stage stop in Florissant, and then, his insistence on taking his wife’s tonic.

  “That is immaterial,” interrupted Dr. Prochazka. “The formulation was for Kirsten Pace, for her spasmodic asthma. It has nothing to do with Edward Pace. I examined him for cause of death. He died of angina pectoris.” The physician stopped. His eyes moved back and forth, as if scanning a dictionary seen only by him. “Heart attack,” he amended. “Possibly complicated by hydrocephalus. Or dropsy. Most certainly brought on by the altitude.”

  The marshal nodded in time to his words.

  Perhaps it was the physician’s abrupt dismissal of her observations. Perhaps it was simply that the two men seemed to be in such complete agreement. Or perhaps it was because Inez was acutely aware of Mrs. Pace’s evident distress, as well as the fact that, as the minutes ticked by, her chance to see her son was slipping further away into afternoon. Whether it was one, more or all of the above, she felt her ire rise toward the two men facing her across the table.

  “Still, the situation didn’t turn deadly until he took the medication,” she argued. “He nearly drained the bottle. His reaction was immediate.”

  Prochazka leaned forward, intent. “The bottle was sealed?”

  Inez paused, searching her memory of that frantic space of time. The faint, audible crack of a wax seal being broken echoed in her mind. “Yes, yes it was. But even their child Mathilda said something about the medicine making her father ill.”

  Prochazka snorted with non-doctorly vehemence. “A child! What would she know? I would hope an education at University of Göttingen, study under Virchow in Berlin, being a physician in the Krieg would carry more weight that the babbling of a child!”

  The marshal closed his notebook with a snap. “No one’s denyin’ your expertness in the matter of medicament, Dr. Prochazka.”

  Prochazka stood up abruptly and his chair almost fell backwards. The marshal caught it with one hand.

  “If Mrs. Pace would allow an autopsy to be performed on her husband, we could lay this nonsense to rest,” the doctor said. “I have no time for pandering to this woman, who makes accusations of me. I have patients, I am delayed in attending. Patients requiring attention, who have been…” he seemed to search for the word, “denied my treatment this morning and last ni
ght because of the fits of a hysterical female.”

  Inez frowned, thinking that Mrs. Pace had not acted hysterical during the previous night’s moments of deep crisis. Rather, she had only appeared hysterical after her interview with the doctor and marshal.

  “I know Mrs. Pace well,” continued Prochazka. “Have treated her since the beginning of summer. She came here a frail woman, but is now much improved in the matter of her lungs. This mental stress, this maniacal behavior, it is merely a manifestation of her underlying weakness. I must see Mr. Travers now. Nurse Crowson said he is coughing blood again. She has been wheeling him about the garden for the past hour. Do you want a man’s life on your hands for the sake of another who has already met his Maker, thanks to the vagaries of age and the unfortunate twists of circumstances?”

  “Whoa, hold your horses, Doc,” said the marshal. “Mrs. Stannert was the last person in the coach. We’re done here. You can return to your patients, and sorry for the trouble.”

  While talking, the marshal had advanced around the table and was now motioning Inez to the door. She stood her ground, long enough to let Prochazka know she was not about to be run off, quaking in her boots, fearful of a display of temper.

  “Perhaps,” she said coldly. “Mrs. Pace’s display of mental mania is no more due to her medical infirmities than this exhibit of rabid spleen is due to your poor manners, Doctor.”

  With that, she retreated in dignified haste, even as she heard him lapse back into the foreign tongue from the previous night. Strange mutterings followed her. “Verrückte! Ztráta času! Idioti!”

  That last word, at least, was clear to her.

  Marshal Robbins closed the door behind them, mopped his brow with a bright red kerchief, and set his bowler atop his head. “Well, Mrs. Stannert. I’d say you woke up the wrong passenger.”

  She was shaking with anger. “He’s quite insufferable. What an absolute boor!”

  Marshal Robbins squinted up at the back of the hotel, while he tucked his notepad inside his vest. “He’s an odd stick, there’s no doubt. But a powerful healer in these parts, so folks take his stand-offishness with a grain of salt. Too, the nurse, Mrs. Crowson, she’s sound on the goose, real reliable with the sick and ailing. Keeps things on an even keel when the doctor gets wound up and is on the shoot.”