Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04)

by Ann Parker

  “I will take the photographs to the marshal tomorrow,” said Susan.

  Mrs. Galbreaith lay a hand over hers. “My dear, do as you must, but I’ll warn you that he is not likely to give much consideration to a misplaced stone and missing marks on the canyon walls. Accidents such as these frequently happen, and, in this case, without clear evidence of foul play—his wallet was still in his pocket, no thievery, no evidence of a fight—why would anyone look any further? Too, this is the summer season. Visitors and tourists are the lifeblood here, the marshal will probably want to treat it as a simple accident, an unfortunate matter of timing, and make as little of it as possible.”

  “I owe it to Robert to try,” Susan said fiercely.

  Inez said, “I will go with you.”

  “It may not be easy to reach Marshal Robbins. He will probably be at Henry Colby’s saloon in Colorado City,” Mrs. Galbreaith commented.

  “A saloon?” Inez raised her eyebrows in interest, thinking of the thin line of buildings staggered along the road between Colorado Springs and Manitou that was the sum total of the “city.”

  “Indeed. One of the very few in the area,” said Mrs. Galbreaith with distaste, obviously misinterpreting Inez’s curiosity. “Since Colorado Springs is dry, and Manitou has no such establishments within its city limits, it is up to Colorado City to supply spirits to the dissolute. Pardon, I did not mean to disparage the town or our marshal, of course. In any case, it would be best if I send one of my boys to find him and bring him here. I shall invite the marshal to join us for lunch, and that should bring him round most promptly. Mrs. Stannert, would you join us as well?”

  With this plan in place, Inez said her farewells, and gave Susan a hug at the door.

  “Thank you, Inez,” Susan whispered in the embrace. “I only knew him a few days. But I felt that we were kindred spirits, even so.”

  “Never apologize for mourning those who have gone,” said Inez. “We will find out what happened. I promise.”

  On her way back to Manitou Springs House, Inez reflected bleakly that with all the promises she had been making—to Mrs. Pace, to Harmony, and now to Susan—she seemed no closer to finding the truth. She gave herself a little mental shake. That is not so. We now know that Dr. Prochazka appears to turn away the hopeless cases, perhaps to protect his reputation as a bringer of medical miracles. Lewis is hiding something to do with the War and has probably varnished the truth about the hotel’s financial future and current status. We know that Lewis and Epperley cannot abide anything that throws a shadow over the Mountain Springs House’s vaunted prospects, and that at least some of the hotel’s investors seem desperate for others to join them. Drowning men will grab at each other and their rescuers, pulling them under with them into Poseidon’s watery realm.

  ***

  She drove the horse and buggy around the hotel, directly to the livery. As she’d hoped, Mr. Morrow was there. After stepping out of the buggy, Inez followed Morrow through the double doors. She caught sight of a separate room to the side with a bunk, and a kerosene lantern next to an open book on a simple table.

  “I’m impressed that the hotel staffs the livery at all hours,” she said conversationally.

  “Well, with the hops, balls, dances, and entertainment at the various hotels, we have people arrivin’ all hours of the night and sometimest into the morning,” said Morrow.

  “So, you live here?”

  He shifted his hat back a bit, and selected a halter from the tack hanging on the wall. “During the summer season, there’s always someone here. Billy’s old enough, he takes the nights wherest we don’t expect much in the way of coming and going. I do the rest.”

  “Mr. Calder took a buggy out last night.”

  He released the horse from the harness before replying. “Yep. Heard about him. Real sad.”

  “Tragic.” Inez agreed. “Were you here when he brought the buggy back?”

  “That I was.” He looked at her, straight on. Not offering anything, but not holding back either.

  “How did he seem to you?”

  “Well, I knowst he’s been sparkin’ that young lady who came down from Leadville with you. Seen them a couple times out walkin’ and such. He seemed in high spirits.” He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Well, just thinkin’ of the crazy business in the Garden of the Gods yesterday. Good horses, both. They were bred from the same sire and dam.” He looked toward the stalls, in the back of the livery. “Guess that boy is without a rider now. I know he looked forward to getting out for a good run every day, just like the gentleman. They were two of a kind, full of high spirits and not afraid of next to nothing.”

  “After the incident in the Garden, did Mr. Calder ask you about the nosebag?”

  Morrow glanced at her. “That he did. He knowst I had nothing to do with it. I was as sorrowed as he was. We had a considerable confabulation about it all.”

  Inez stepped to the side as Morrow began to brush down the horse and clean her coat. “Any idea how that happened? How the poison berries got mixed into the feed?”

  “Nope. It’s not even a plant fromst around here, he told me.”

  “Do you have your suspicions?”

  “You do ask a lot of questions, Mrs. Stannert.”

  She set a gentle hand on the horse’s withers. The equine flesh was warm and comforting to the touch. “There’s a lot here that needs to be brought out into the open, Mr. Morrow. I can understand you have loyalty to the people here, but look at what has happened. Calder’s brother, early this year. Mr. Pace, on that ride down from Leadville. That poor mare in the Garden of the Gods, an innocent victim if ever there was one. And now, Mr. Calder. Taken one by one, there seems to be a logical explanation for each. Calder’s brother? Simply his time, he was killed by consumption. Mr. Pace? Heart attack, brought on by age and his trip into the high mountains. Mr. Calder? Rockfall, which is nothing unusual, I’ve been told. But the horse, that is where explanations fail. If things had progressed differently, Calder and his horse would probably have been far away from everyone. Everyone knew he liked to venture out into wild and unreachable territory and he’d planned to ride into rocky, steep terrain that day. What would have happened if Calder’s horse had eaten Herb Paris under such circumstances? Going up or coming down a steep slope, a fatal misstep, a sudden spook, horse and rider would have been broken, most likely dead. It would have been chalked up as another ‘accident.’ But it didn’t happen that way.”

  She watched Morrow closely as she laid it out, stepped him through the story. It was like guiding a horse from the buggy seat with a barely perceptive wave of the whip. She saw how his face, so expressive in its weathered lines, closed up in sorrow, how an unseen burden bent his shoulders.

  Inez continued, “Not to cast aspersions upon the people who have died, but one could say, well, each of us has our sins to bear, perhaps these deaths reflect some hidden sins we have no knowledge of. But a horse? A horse, an innocent animal, has no sin. Someone decided to kill one of God’s own creatures and make it suffer. I have my own sweet mare, and the thought of someone wishing her harm is intolerable.” She paused, sensing she had touched him where his deepest beliefs were held. “Mr. Morrow, if you know anything that might help work this out, please tell me. For instance, who comes and goes regularly, late at night? Who would have access to the horses, such that Billy, or you, would not give it a second thought? Mr. Epperley, perhaps? Mr. Lewis? What about the medical personnel?”

  He turned his back, focused on finishing the currying. “Epperley goes circulatin’, sometimes. He came back late the night afore Calder went up to the Garden. Nurse Crowson, she tends to some of the invalids ’round here when she’s not workin’ with the physiker. She walks around town, but sometimest takes a buggy to outlyin’ areas. She came in late that night as well. Lewis, well, he owns the whole shebang and comes and goes whensoever he wants. He’ll wander in, make like he’s giving the place the eye to be sure all is
proper. My take is, I believe he sometimes prefers the simple company of horseflesh. Life’s uncomplicated out here in the stables, not like in the hotel. The horses don’t complain and jump all over you if the victuals are too warm or too cold.”

  Despite herself, Inez smiled. Then she asked, “What about the physicians, Zuckerman and Prochazka?”

  “They’ve naught interest in the animals.” He dismissed them with a shrug. “Only as they carry them from here to there. Dr. Prochazka’s up all hours—you can see light in the windows, almost all night—but he doesn’t leave his clinic.”

  At least, not when you’re awake.

  Still, that seemed to lift suspicion from the two physicians. Too, she couldn’t imagine a doctor purposely taking a life. It ran so counter to the philosophy of the healing arts. She sighed. My bet is on Lewis. That is where I’ll start tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “Remember to take your key with you. Don’t hand it in to the front desk,” Inez said. It was after breakfast the next morning, and Inez and Mark were in their suite, preparing to go their separate ways for the day.

  “Just what do you have in mind?” Mark gave his top hat a last pass with the hat brush.

  “I plan to gain a key to the kingdom of the Mountain Springs House,” she said, setting her own key on a side table in the sitting room. “Have you heard any more talk about Robert Calder’s passing?”

  “Just what little I gathered last night when I got in. Lewis said they have packed his belongings, and between him and the marshal, they are sending notification to his family. Guess since his brother stayed here last season for a while, and since Calder was here most of the summer, they know how to reach his kin.” He glanced at Inez as he settled the hat on his head. “How is Miss Carothers holdin’ up?”

  “Very saddened. She liked him a great deal. Makes me all the more determined to find out who is at the bottom of his death.” She picked up a lightweight summer shawl draped over a nearby chair. “I will be meeting her and the marshal today, although I hardly expect him to change his tune based on a couple of photographs. Still, we shall see what he says.” She glanced out the window, calculating the light. “We should head downstairs. I’m certain your companions are champing at the bit, eager to take you around and have you sample each of Manitou’s wondrous mineral springs while they expound on how many grains of carbonate of soda in a pint here, how many grains of lithia there. I cannot abide the stuff, and I’m nearly as weary hearing about the health benefits of the water as I am about Nurse Crowson’s mint tea. Epperley is going on this day-long jaunt as well?”

  “I’ll have all the bigwigs with me.”

  “Good. Then we shall see what we shall see. Just don’t let Jonathan DuChamps sign anything, if you can.”

  “I’ll play to the gallery so they leave him alone,” Mark held the door open for her.

  As he locked the door behind them, she said, “Be sure to pocket your key.”

  “You told me that once already, darlin’.” He slid it into his jacket, and with the silver-headed cane tucked under one arm, offered her the other.

  Downstairs, she watched him leave with Lewis, Epperley, Zuckerman, and Harmony’s husband. She took a casual turn around the veranda to give them time, watching the children at play, shadowed by nursemaids and nannies. The staying-in adults—mostly the frail, and the elderly—moved in a slow cadence on rockers. She smiled at Nurse Crowson, who approached her, wheeling her patient in a rattan-backed invalid chair.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Stannert,” she said.

  “It would be better if not for the sad business of yesterday.”

  “Ah, poor Mr. Calder. That was a sad business indeed. He did love his early-morning constitutionals. Going out alone, though, certainly has its dangers, if one doesn’t know the area.”

  “He was here for the entire summer,” Inez pointed out. She reversed direction to walk with the nurse and her charge.

  “Still,” said Nurse Crowson, pushing the chair smoothly over the boards, the little squeak, squeak, squeak of the wheels announcing its progression. “Visitors become so charmed by the natural wonders, they sometimes forget that this is still a wild place.”

  “Yet,” said Inez, thinking of what Morrow had said the previous evening, “you walk alone at night.”

  The wheels did a little stutter, and Nurse Crowson paused to tuck a blanket more closely around her patient. “Are you cold?” she asked. “We can go inside now, if you’d like. We’ve had the fifteen minutes the doctor recommends.”

  A claw-like hand ventured out and a voice made thready by coughing said, “A little longer, Mrs. Crowson. Such a pleasant morning.” The nurse commenced pushing again.

  “You were out the night before last,” Inez continued. “I saw you getting out of Calder’s buggy, out front of the hotel, from my window.”

  That brought Nurse Crowson’s eyes full upon her. For a moment, Inez felt as chilled as when she had plunged her hands into the stream up in Cheyenne Canyon.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” added Inez, somewhat belatedly, realizing that it sounded as if she was spying out the window, perhaps looking for her return. “I heard the buggy arrive when I was sitting by the window, getting some air.”

  Nurse Crowson looked away. “I was out walking. Mr. Calder was kind enough to offer me a ride back to the hotel. You are having trouble sleeping, Mrs. Stannert? You should have told me or the doctor earlier. I shall prepare you some of my tea for tonight. I promise, it will help you sleep.”

  Inez suppressed a wince at the thought of more mint. “Most kind. But I wondered, are you not afraid being out alone so late at night? It seems it would be dangerous. I have heard there are catamounts that roam about the area.”

  Nurse Crowson laughed. An unexpected sound. There was a merry tinkle to her voice that hinted at the young girl she had once been. “I know this area well and know how to take care of myself. I tend to some of the invalids in the various boarding houses as I have time in the evenings and at night. There are so many suffering. I do what I can to bring relief to those who ask.”

  Inez’s gaze fell back upon the patient in the invalid chair. “Your dedication is admirable and appreciated by many, I can tell.”

  Mrs. Crowson seemed to warm to the praise, a faint smile growing on her face.

  “For instance, Mr. Travers,” Inez continued. “Is he still at the hotel? I’ve not seen him of late.”

  The smile vanished. “He no longer is here.”

  “Do any of your patients reside at the Colorado Springs Hotel?” Inez asked, thinking that, no matter what the nurse had told Lewis, she might know of the mysterious Dr. Galloway, given her connections to the invalid community.

  “No.” The response was abrupt. “There are plenty needing assistance here in Manitou and nearby without my venturing to Colorado Springs. Good day, Mrs. Stannert. We have been outside long enough, and I must prepare my patient here for the baths. You should try them, the mineral baths. Very healthful.”

  Inez looked out at the long ramshackle building sulking next to Fountain Creek, a walking distance away. “I shall keep it in mind.”

  Nurse Crowson spun the chair in a half circle and headed back to the main door.

  After dallying a minute or two longer, Inez returned to the reception desk. The morning clerk was smooth-cheeked and sported an ambitious line of peach fuzz, struggling to become a mustache.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she told the young earnest-faced clerk behind the desk. “But my husband locked my key in our rooms, and he’s out for the day. Quite silly of me, I know, to forget it.”

  “No problem at all,” he assured her.

  Inez watched as he opened a small drawer at belly level behind the desk and pulled out a skeleton key on a large ring. She suppressed a smile of satisfaction. They went upstairs, and he opened the door with a flourish. “Madam.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once he left, Inez retrieved her key, made sure she had wha
t she needed for the next step in her plans, went to DuChamps’ suite and knocked.

  A moment later, Harmony opened the door and invited her in. Lily and William were already there, rolling a ball back and forth across the floor of the central sitting room. Aunt Agnes sat close to the door, looking for all the world like Cerberus guarding the gate to the underworld.

  “Aren’t you going out for your morning constitutional?” Inez inquired.

  Harmony sighed, and glanced at Aunt Agnes. “Dear aunt has decided we are not to leave the hotel unless we are accompanied by either Jonathan or a guide. Honestly, Aunt Agnes, what danger could possibly befall us by walking up to the spring for a cup of mineral water and then back again? Dr. Prochazka instructed us to take the air, at least twice a day. You were so insistent that I follow his prescriptions to the letter.”

  “We can have someone deliver the water here,” said Agnes, snapping her fan open as if it were a weapon. “Stampeding horses. Falling rocks. Wild animals. No, we stay here. A little later, we shall stroll around the veranda. That will provide fresh air enough.”

  “Perhaps Inez could come with us to the springs,” said Harmony. “Why, the Manitou Soda spring is only a few steps over the bridge, and the Navajo is just a little farther.”

  “Certainly she is invited, but we will not go out until Jonathan returns or we can take one of the hotel staff with us. Preferably someone who is armed with a pistol and knows how to use it in case we are attacked by a bear. Or a snake.”

  Harmony rolled her eyes at Inez and said, “In that case, I suppose we shall have a quiet day inside today, because Jonathan is not due back until nearly dinnertime.”

  “Oh dear,” said Inez. She added, “Do you perchance have any empty bottles of tonic about?”

  Harmony’s eyebrows drew together. “One from yesterday. Why?”

  Inez held out her hand. “I shall be happy to return it for you.” She wiggled her fingers in a give-it-to-me gesture. In a low voice, she said, “Please. It’s important. I’ll explain later, if you wish.”