Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04)

by Ann Parker

  She was working it through her hair when the door to the suite clicked open and Mark walked in.

  Inez clutched the collar of her wrapper tight around her neck and said, “What are you doing back so early? I didn’t expect you until after dinner.”

  “Glad to see you too, darlin’.” He offered her a crooked grin.

  She set down the brush. “What did you find out?”

  “I’ll tell you everything on our drive to Colorado Springs.”

  “Our drive to where?” She glanced out the window at the waning summer light. “It’s nearly time to meet the family downstairs for dinner.”

  “We’re dining elsewhere tonight. It’s an opportunity that, I guarantee, you will thank me for later.” Mark walked to the door of her bedroom and leaned against the frame. “And was your day profitable?”

  “Very. But I can explain that later, since you’re in such a hurry. If you’ll pardon me, I’ll get dressed. What kind of affair is this?”

  Mark strolled into her room and opened the door to the hotel’s closet to examine its contents. “Is this all you have?”

  She bristled. “I thought it sufficient for a holiday in the country. Please leave my room.”

  “When you indicated in your telegram to me I was to bring my fancy duds, I figured you’d done the same. But, as luck would have it, I decided to leave nothing to chance. Glad I didn’t.” He strolled out, adding without looking back, “Don’t lock the door on me.”

  Determined to keep him from entering her room again, Inez put the heavy silver-backed brush down on the washstand, and followed him out, across the sitting room, and paused at the entrance to his sleeping chamber. “Well, something out of the closet will have to do, because it’s all I have. Just how formal is this dinner?”

  “Very. Epperley arranged it for your benefit, I’ll add, but it will be lucrative for us both, I have no doubt.”

  “Lucrative.” She crossed her arms. “When you say that word in that particular tone of voice, I know it means gambling. What is it? Cards, dice, roulette? I hate roulette. No advantage to it, unless you run the wheel.”

  “Don’t talk to me as if I’m some greenhorn off the train, Inez. I know my own business. Cards. Maybe dice, but I’m thinkin’ not.” He opened one of his two trunks. “Hold out your arms, Inez. I brought these from Leadville, just in case.”

  Inez held out one hand, keeping the other clutched to the robe’s collar. “Who will be there? Any others of interest, besides Epperley? Lewis? Zuckerman? Not Prochazka…he doesn’t do anything besides work in that clinic of his.” A horrifying thought struck her. “Not Jonathan!”

  Mark shook his head. “Not your brother-in-law. Mercy in Heavens, I do believe he feels guilty when taking a glass of port. Can’t imagine him even picking up a game of whist without feeling great personal distress. Epperley asked me strictly on the quiet. Zuckerman is staying in ‘Little London’ tonight to see some patients and says he’s catching the train to Denver tomorrow. Lewis indicated he had business to catch up on here at the hotel. He’s been pushin’ hard for me to join the table and ante up on this business proposition of his, so I had to finally dig in my heels. Pointed out that glowing personal endorsements are well and good, but I’d not sign anything without seeing hard numbers on the Mountain Springs House and where it stands.”

  “Given what I learned today, Lewis will probably be burning the midnight oil manufacturing numbers tonight,” said Inez, watching as Mark carefully removed several starched shirts, a pair of trousers to a morning suit, two tissue-wrapped waistcoats—one simple black and obviously expensive, the other a particularly handsome silver-teal hue. She could imagine him dealing cards in that one. “So, who will be there, besides Epperley?”

  “We’ll be dinin’ with English nobility,” Mark said. “I won’t say more. It’s supposed to be a surprise for you, and I want you to be properly astonished and gracious when you see what’s been arranged.” He set his clothing on the bed, and returned to plumbing the trunk.

  A disquieting twist plucked deep inside her at the sight of Mark’s bed, covered, but with the dent still visible of where he had slept the previous night. She could smell the scent of him in the room—the castile soap he’d always favored, the faint citrus of his hair oil, and a whiff of cigar and brandy about him. The combination of sight and smell brought a visceral reaction as strong as if he had taken her in his arms.

  The twist turned into an involuntary shiver, and she snugged the collar of the robe still tighter.

  Mark glanced up from his trunk. “A mite chilled? Don’t be gettin’ the ague, Inez. Tonight, of all nights, you need to be on your game.” He laid a neatly folded evening jacket to one side, and then with an exclamation of satisfaction pulled out a slithering evening dress, appropriate for the ballroom, in scarlet and slate.

  Inez stared. “That’s mine!”

  “And has always been a favorite of mine,” He held it up, and let the long, perfect length of it spill to the rug. The satin gleamed under lamplight. “Perfect for tonight, under the gaslights. I was mighty glad to see you kept this outfit at the Silver Queen, that it wasn’t destroyed in the house fire.”

  “You went into my rooms at the saloon. After I expressly told you to stay out.” Black rage at the invasion curled inside her. “How did you get in? I changed the locks. I took the key. Did you pick the lock?”

  “Darlin’, you know I don’t have that kind of talent.” Mark draped the dress on the bed, and added a scarlet silk corset. “Abe loosened the lock and Bridgette gathered your things, after I told her what to look for. So, you see, I did not invade your sanctuary.”

  From the trunk, he extracted a pair of slate and scarlet patterned silk stockings, matching garters, and her most elegant evening slippers and laid them next to the pile. He stood back, viewing the dress and its appurtenances. “Did I forget anything?”

  When she didn’t respond, he looked at her. “Shall I bring these to your room?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” She swept everything up in one arm, and hooked the shoes with two fingers. “I don’t suppose you brought gloves. Or a hat.”

  “Of course I did, darlin’. They’re in a hat box, in the other trunk. Bridgette said you brought your black cloak, so I’m figuring that’ll work for the drive.”

  “And you will explain all this to me. So, we are to play cards with a collection of Epperley’s expatriate friends. Does this evening have anything to do with the hotel? Will it help Harmony and her husband? What about Calder? This isn’t just some little fun-and-games for your own pleasure, is it? I warn you, I won’t play along, if it is.”

  “All in good time. You need to dress, and I need to prepare as well.” With a sweep of his hand, he shepherded her out of his room and shut the door firmly after her.

  Not entirely mollified, Inez returned to her room. Well, what have I got to lose? I can tell him what I uncovered today. He promises this isn’t some wild goose chase. He knows I will be furious if it is. I don’t believe he would chance that.

  She set the clothes down on her own bed, tossed the wrapper on a chair, and dressed, stopping only to turn up the gas light as the summer dusk faded further into evening. When she was done, she looked through the jewelry she’d brought—most of it somber stuff, not really suited to the impression she was certain that Mark wanted her to make. Finally, she chose the seed-pearl and garnet necklace, a gift from her mother on her eighteenth birthday. It was one of the few items from her life in New York that Inez still possessed. She clasped it around her neck, feeling the cool pearls begin to warm against her flesh.

  She stood in front of the mirror over the washstand, stepping back to see as much as she could. Smooth dark hair done up in a French knot. Hazel eyes that glowed pale in the gaslight, and olive skin that smoothed down over her collarbones to swell slightly at the top of her low-cut dress. It was the perfect ensemble for entertaining the gentlemen at the Silver Queen’s exclusive gaming room or for one of Leadville
’s more elegant society balls. Not so appropriate for swanning around a family resort in the wide-open spaces of Manitou. I’m glad I have the cloak.

  She went into the sitting room and found the hat box that Mark had placed out for her. She had just finished pinning the small slate-colored hat in place and was working on her long gloves when Mark walked out in his evening clothes, swinging the silver-topped cane. He stopped, gave her the once-over, smoothed his mustache with a smile, and said, “Yes, darlin’, that will do,” in a tone that said much, much more.

  She offered up her gloves for him to button. “Are we ready to go?”

  Having him help with her gloves was a habit from old. She nearly pulled her arms back when she realized what she’d done, but he stepped up before she could change her mind.

  “Nearly.” His quick fingers completed the task of in short order and lingered a moment longer than necessary on her wrist. “I’ll need to bring the buggy around. I need to talk with Lewis about something quickly. Why don’t I take you to the music room. I’ll have a porter fetch you, when I’m around front.”

  He escorted her down to the deserted music room. The murmur of conversation and clink of silverware on china floated to her from the dining room across the hall. Fluttering gaslight played against the frosted glass of the closed dining hall doors.

  Inez looked around the quiet room, lights turned low, furniture shadowed. Her gaze settled on the square grand piano at the far end. The promise of music whispered to her, as seductive as a lover’s lingering caress.

  She surrendered, walked over to the instrument and sat down, flexing her fingers in their tight gloves. She allowed herself to place fingers lightly on the keys, and flow into the opening chord of Shubert’s “Serenade,” and beyond, into its magical river of sound and feeling. As the echoes of the final notes died, she released a contented sigh.

  “And that is how it should be played!”

  Dr. Prochazka’s voice from behind shattered her illusion of solitude.

  She twisted around on the stool to find the physician standing a few feet away. He was dressed in dinner clothes, neat, pressed, formal, although she noticed that his cravat was slightly askew, as if done in haste. His wild dark curls were beaten, but not entirely bowed, by some hair grease application or other. The normally aloof expression was missing, replaced by, if not a smile, at least by obvious admiration. A peculiar intensity shone from eyes trapped behind the small spectacles.

  He said, “Come.” And actually snapped his fingers.

  She rose, affronted. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “No, no, this will only take a moment. Come.” He abruptly grabbed her arm and pulled her out the door, adding, “I apologize. I am not saying this correctly. But there is something you must see. I know you will appreciate it. No one else here cares about the music. They do not hear how a clumsy performance can slaughter the essence of a piece, as surely as a sloppy surgeon can butcher a patient and harm instead of heal.”

  Carried away on the unexpected torrent of words and the force of his enthusiasm, Inez allowed him to hurry her out the back of the hotel, through the gardens, and to his clinic. During the walk he peppered her with questions. How long had she been playing? Who was her instructor? What did she think of the piano in the music room? “Needs tuning, neh?” He didn’t wait for answers, but launched into a soliloquy on the differences between uprights and grands and baby grands and square grands. “The horizontal strings have a lesser degree of inharmonicity, purer sound…when played well and properly tuned, of course.”

  The spigot of commentary, question, and observation ceased abruptly after he unlocked the clinic door, and ushered her in. “Wait,” he said.

  He strode further into the long building, turning up lights as he went, until he reached the door that lead to the back room. Another key came out of the pocket, he opened the door, disappeared. A light flickered on in the interior, and he reappeared, waving her forward. “This way.”

  He disappeared inside.

  Wary, but curious to get a glimpse of the inner sanctum, Inez moved toward the room.

  As she approached, she heard something. Something strange and ghostly, scratchy and not quite clear. Finally, it resolved itself into the sound of musical notes. A piano, ghostly and insubstantial. She slowly pushed open the door to the back room. There was Dr. Prochazka, seated by the oddest contraption she had ever seen. She had a confused impression of brass, polished wood, springs, levers, tubes, a cylinder rotating slowly in the middle, all surmounted by a large horn, facing her way, from which the annoying scratching and an indistinct rendition of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” emerged. It was as if a pianist playing well, but distantly, had to contend with an army of crickets intent on overlaying his music with their own skritching and crikking. Prochazka slowly, methodically cranked a small handwheel mounted on one end. Then he stopped cranking. The flywheel slowed, the cylinder’s rotation decreased, the music drifted down in pitch, speed, and volume…and died.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Prochazka bounced to his feet, flexing his hands and gazing at the instrument as ardently as a child at a treasured toy. “A phonograph. Invented by your Thomas Edison. And improved by me to be vastly superior.”

  She tried to ignore his audacious assertion that he had bettered a device created by the greatest inventor of the modern-day world. “It makes music?”

  “Not makes. Records. Then plays it back.” He looked at her. “Do you see what this means. What is now possible?” The sheer intensity of his gaze, his obvious desire that she understand and anticipate the answer, made her consider carefully before responding.

  “So, with this phonograph, one can perform a piece of music and listen to it later?”

  “Yes! But not music by just anyone. Not the horrible display of the previous evening. But the best the world has to offer. Liszt, in his prime. Clara Schumann. Chopin, Tausig—if they were only still alive! Think of it!”

  She did. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the idea, Inez glanced at the contraption on the table. “But the sound is not…optimal.”

  “Work is needed—by Edison, by myself, perhaps by your Alexander Graham Bell; he is also interested in this phonograph invention. Once perfected, what a gift to the world of music!” He seized her hands. “Then talented performers, such as yourself, your performances will reach the far corners of the world with this marvelous machine. And your music, your interpretation of it, will never die.”

  Inez withdrew her hands from his grasp. His vision dazzled her. It was like looking into the sun—hard to do, possible only for the briefest of moments. Now that he was open to talking to her, she searched for a way to guide the conversation to the subjects closest to her heart. “You are too kind to include me in such a list of luminaries,” she said. “I thank you.” She looked around the room, long and narrow. “I am impressed that you find time to do this among all your other endeavors.”

  Counters extended the length of both long walls. At the far end of the room sat a stove. The phonograph occupied a table by itself in the center of the room—a line of demarcation between two countries. One counter was full of strange objects: rows of flat covered glass plates, stacked up in towering pillars. Several microscopes, much like the one in his front office. Only these were clearly working microscopes, and not for show. They had more glass plates stacked around them, some of the plates in groupings covered with bell jars. Clear flasks empty and partially filled, bottles, and, just at the limit of the light, something that looked to be a camera. A magnifying glass at the close end of the table. Scribbled papers were tacked to the wall above the jumble.

  On the other side of the room, the counter held a soldier’s column of tonic bottles. Above the bottles, orderly shelves were filled with bottles, tins, small containers, all with white paper labels. It reminded Inez of Nurse Crowson’s back room, without the overpowering smell of mint.

  “Yes, my endeavors.” Dr. Prochazka threw himself
back down on the chair by the phonograph, gestured for Inez to take the chair opposite. “My work is nearly done. Another reason to celebrate tonight.”

  “Done?” Inez was perplexed. “Do you mean…” She looked around at the equipment. The bottles. “…you have worked out some elixir to restore health to those with the wasting disease?”

  He stared at her as if she was crazy. “A cure? For phthisis? There is no cure.” He leaned forward, hands clasped as if in prayer. “But I have found the cause.”

  “The cause? But, I thought is was a constitutional ailment.”

  He waved a hand impatiently. “All myths and theories, put forth by desperate people. Yes, even we physicians, we are desperate to offer hope, reasons, explanations, cures. No matter what we say, what we advise, some improve under our direction and indeed seem cured, while others follow the same regimens and are consumed by the disease. And we don’t know why.” He gazed at the phonograph. “We are blind men, stumbling about in the dark, hearing a phantom music, but unable to detect its source.”

  He looked at Inez, and said, “I ramble. You do not care to hear the history of discovery. Suffice to say, the evidence has shown that tuberculosis is a specific, inoculable disease. I have worked here and seen it. Dr. Koch, a colleague of mine in Germany, is working on the same questions. We have been corresponding. I shall write to him, tell him what I have learned. I have done all I can here in the States. I shall return to Germany to work with him, and we will transform the future, now that I have discovered the truth.”

  “Which is what?”

  “I have found the bacteria that cause the disease. I have cultivated them in the test tube, photographed them, followed their evolution through their life cycles. I did not invent the procedure,” he added matter-of-factly. “Dr. Koch did this for the anthrax disease, ten years ago. I simply followed his procedures.”