When the Walls Fell

by Monique Martin

  The private section of the party, for only the chi-est of the chichi, was held in a special dining room overlooking the ocean. A few dozen four-top table were scattered through the long room with one larger table at one end and a player piano on steroids at the other. The brand new orchestrion was a band in a box. A big box. The size of a huge armoire it played scrolls of popular music. But it wasn’t just a piano or an organ it had wind, string and percussion instruments. Its rendition of “Yankee Doodle Boy” was loud, bizarre and wonderful.

  Max, Teddy and Elizabeth were seated in a place of honor near the main table. Graham was a genial host, working the room, while his wife sat solemnly at the table. She was young, probably in her mid-twenties and pretty, but she looked tired and drawn. She pushed her food around the plate making it look like she’d eaten more than she had. On Graham’s other side was an older gentlemen with a pinched face and a mustache you could hang towels on.

  “Who’s that?” Elizabeth asked. “The man next to Graham?”

  “That’s the Admiral,” Max said. “He owns the Cliff House.”

  “An admiral?”

  “Not a real admiral,” Max said. “He was in the Union Navy, but just as a cook on a sloop.”

  “Sloop of war,” Teddy corrected as he arranged and rearranged his silverware.

  “He’s a self-made man and not a fan of your mister Graham. Who married,” he said with a nod toward Mary Graham, “rather well.”

  Mary Graham looked a little like a hothouse flower with the heat up too high. So, Victor Graham had married her and inherited her family fortune. And apparently wasn’t afraid to spend it.

  “Adler, that’s the Admiral,” Max continued, “put in a bid for the Market Street Railway. He wanted to connect the ferries with his own section of the rail all the way here to Cliff House.”

  “But, Graham got the deal?”

  “Graham always gets the deal.”

  The Admiral stood, giving Mrs. Graham a curt bow before walking over to the large bank of windows that overlooked the Pacific. He stood with one hand on the sill like it was the quarterdeck of a great ship. He looked like he might sail the whole darn continent into the West if he could.

  The Admiral was obviously not a happy man. Losing the contract to Graham must have been bad enough, but for Graham to have his celebration party at the Cliff House was rubbing salt into the wound. Way to make an enemy, Victor. That made two that she knew of, the union workers and the Admiral. And, judging from the expression on Mrs. Graham’s face, it might be three. How many enemies can one man have?

  It was a good thing she knew roughly when the murder, scratch that, attempted murder was going to take place. Five days and counting—Easter Sunday. It would be impossible to stay with him every second of every day. As it was, she was going to have a hard enough time of it. Graham wasn’t exactly the stay home and knit type, but, whatever it took, Elizabeth was going to save his life, and Simon’s.

  “You’re looking very intense,” Max said.

  “Am I? I must need more champagne,” Elizabeth said and then emptied her glass.

  “For the Tomato Girl? Only the best,” Max said as he waved to the waiter.

  Elizabeth shook her head. What a mess she’d made of that. “That was so embarrassing.”

  “It was surprising,” Max admitted.

  Elizabeth dug into the dusty files in the very back of her brain for an excuse. “It was McKinley all over again. At least, I was afraid it was. I just…reacted.”

  “Were you there when it happened?”

  Think, think, think. President McKinley had been assassinated by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901 in Buffalo, New York. She remembered that much, which she was pretty proud of, but it was hardly enough to spin a convincing lie. Luckily, the waiter came and refilled their water glasses buying her just enough to time to come up with a plausible story.

  “No. I was at the exposition the day before, but it was still very difficult.” She took out her handkerchief and held it to her mouth and fluttered eyelashes in a positively valiant attempt to ward off impending fake tears.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Max said.

  “Tell me about you,” Elizabeth said, recovering too quickly, but desperate to veer the conversation away from her. “Where did you two go to school together?”

  “Harvard. But it’s not as impressive as it sounds. I was legacy, but our Mr. Fiske here is an actual genius,” Max said.

  Teddy giggled and waved his hand at Max. “No, no.”

  “Oh, but he is. Truly,” Max said. “While I was off reciting Ovid and wearing dresses for the Pudding, Teddy was wasting his time studying physics. He’s quite the inventor too.”

  “Really?” Elizabeth didn’t know much about physics and didn’t think having seen all three Back to the Futures would be all that helpful. She wracked her brain for something physics-y or inventory to say. “I don’t suppose you know Thomas Edison?”

  “Bastard,” Teddy said and then gasped as he realized he’d said that aloud.

  Elizabeth laughed. “I’ve heard worse. Worse about Edison too.”

  Teddy glanced at her and held her eye for just a split second. He smiled and looked down again. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the man, but I worked with Nikolai Tesla and—”

  “Tesla?” She knew that name. “Love his coils!”

  Teddy laughed delightedly. “You… you’ve heard of them?”

  “Yes. I don’t know much about them, but maybe you can explain them to me sometime.”

  Teddy swallowed hard and nodded. “I’d…I’d like that.”

  “Oh dear,” Max said with a dramatic sigh. “You’ve no idea what you’ve unleashed.”

  “And what was it you said about wearing dresses?”

  Max barked out a loud laugh. “Yes, it’s true. And I was lovely.”

  Teddy giggled again and nodded. “He was.”

  “Hasty Pudding. Were you studying theater?” Elizabeth asked Max. He was straight out of Central Casting for a leading man.

  Max moved his champagne glass aimlessly around the table as he spoke. “Literature or something. I left school early and traveled. Aunt Lillian calls me a gadabout who never finishes what he starts, but I like to think of myself as an adventurer. Amundsen, but with fewer polar bears and more hot toddies. I went to Tahiti, Morocco, Peru. Anywhere and everywhere I could. Fell in love…with automobiles and even raced a little—Paris to Amsterdam. As they say, it’s not the destination, but the journey.”

  “He sent me a shrunken head from Peru,” Max said as he aligned his water glass with his wine glass. “I buried it in the yard.”

  Elizabeth stifled a laugh and asked Max if he won the race.

  “No,” he said, the bright light in his eyes dimming just a little. “I didn’t finish.”

  ***

  “Solitary pleasures are the leading cause of consumption today,” Judge Philpot intoned ominously. “Needless depletion of the body’s precious fluids causes frightening effects in men: Premature senility and dementia. And in a woman,” he added with hardened gaze, “nymphomania.”

  Simon gripped the crystal tumbler of Scotch in his hand more tightly. So far he’d endured banal conversations, tedious entertainments and venomous gossip disguised as concern. But this particular form of idiocy was nearly more than he could stand.

  “Rubbish,” Simon said.

  The Judge spluttered and harrumphed. “I beg your pardon.”

  Simon was more than ready to spar, but Gardiner laughed and clapped the Judge on the shoulder in a friendly gesture that was received as anything but. “I was talking about golf, old man. The solitary pleasures of golf.”

  Philpot grunted. “Fruitless labor. Also a vice.”

  Agnes Philpot, who would have been a pretty woman if her face hadn’t been weathered by the storms her husband created, gently touched his arm. “Perhaps this isn’t the place, Douglas. I—”

  Philpot silenced her wi
th a glare and she withdrew her hand. “I can think of no better place. For far too long we’ve remained silent about the deleterious effects of sexual corruption on our society. We must shine the light of purity and truth on them or they will never be abolished.”

  In a testimony to hypocrisy Gardiner chimed in, “So true. So true. Thank heaven for men like you keeping us on the straight and narrow.”

  The doctor swallowed Gardiner’s pabulum with austere humility. “It’s a burden we all must share.”

  Simon knew that if he continued with this conversation he’d undoubtedly say something he shouldn’t. As loath as he was to stay, he had to endure it. Gardiner’s female acquaintance still hadn’t arrived.

  Looking for any escape, Simon saw Mrs. Gardiner as she flitted about from servant to servant, nervously overseeing the party. He’d met her only briefly, but she reminded him so much of one of his aunts—desperate to impress and eager to please and married to a man for whom she could never do either. Simon excused himself and approached her.

  “Mrs. Gardiner?”

  She jumped at her name and then patted her chest with her kerchief. “Is anything wrong, Sir Simon? Canapé?” she asked, stopping a passing waiter.

  “No, thank you. And please, no ‘sir’. I’d rather not draw attention to it.”

  “Oh! Of course,” she said as she dismissed the waiter with a wave and anxiously pulled her kerchief through her hand. “I do so hope you’re enjoying yourself. I’m afraid the quartet isn’t up to its usual standards. I think the violinist has the croup. Poor fellow.”

  Simon waited a moment to be sure she’d finished. He’d noticed with her, you could never be quite sure. “I wanted to thank you for allowing me to join you this evening on such short notice. It was very generous of you.”

  She put a hand to neck to cover a blush, clearly overwhelmed at the small compliment. “Thank you, Sir Si—Mr. Cross. Mr. Gardiner has many acquaintances,” she said, her veil of frippery slipping for a moment as her eyes sought out her husband across the room. “But very few I’m so pleased to meet.”

  Simon didn’t need to look. He knew exactly what she was talking about. Clearly, Gardiner didn’t even attempt to hide his liaisons from his wife. There were a great many things Simon had no tolerance for and slowly but surely Gardiner was making his way to the top of that list.

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Gardiner, the pleasure is mine. You are a consummate hostess.”

  She tittered nervously and waved the compliment away with swish of her kerchief. “I understand you’ve traveled from New York. Did you stay there long?”

  “Don’t bore the man to death with your questions on his first night, Caroline,” Gardiner said, appearing at their side. “Usually she doesn’t do that until the third party.”

  Simon kept a tight rein on his impulse to put the man in his place and merely said, “I wasn’t bored in the least.”

  “Ah, Cross, no wonder the ladies here can’t keep their tongues from wagging about you. And speaking of the ladies, I think we know one who’d like to make your acquaintance. And vice versa, if you catch my drift.”

  Hope flared in Simon’s chest. While he waited for Gardiner’s mystery woman, he’d been besieged by the attentions of single women of marrying age and then some since the night had begun.

  “You’ll excuse me, Mr. Cross,” Mrs. Gardiner said as she quickly primped, patting her hair and tucking her kerchief into her sleeve. “I see new guests I should attend to.”

  Simon bowed slightly. “Of course.” He turned back to Gardiner impatiently. “Where is she? This new girl?”

  “You are chomping at the bit, aren’t you,” Gardiner said as he draped an arm over Simon’s shoulder. “Oh, she’ll be here soon.”

  Simon shrugged out from under Gardiner’s arm. “You said that she—”

  “Oh, the entertainment’s here,” Gardiner said with mock enthusiasm. “Bully.”

  With a grand sigh he joined his wife at the door to greet their new guest.

  “Madame Petrovka,” Mrs. Gardiner gushed, “it’s so wonderful to have you here. Please, come in.”

  Madame Petrovka was not what Simon had expected. He’d envisioned a little old lady wearing a babushka. But Madame Petrovka was no Madame Blavatsky. She was as elegantly dressed as any of the ladies at the party. She looked to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was black, almost aubergine, and was set off by startlingly pale violet eyes. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, her features were too sharp, but she was striking.

  Like most spiritualists and mediums Simon had met in his research, she carried herself with easy confidence seasoned with just enough humility to make her marks feel comfortable. And like most, she came with an accomplice, or as they liked to call them, an assistant. Hers was a small man named Stryker with a scarred chin and dull deep-set eyes.

  At one time, Simon had actually considered following in Houdini’s footsteps and exposing fraudulent spiritualists. During his early days in occult studies, he’d seen firsthand what their lies could do to a person. It struck a chord in him. Perhaps it was because his family was so adept at manipulation, but he felt a responsibility to try to protect the unsuspecting victims. It had been deeply shocking when Simon realized that they weren’t just the impressionable, the fragile and the desperate; they were men and women, educated people, much like himself, who had a hole inside them that needed filling. Much like himself.

  He’d studied their techniques and become quite skilled at seeing past the smoke and the mirrors. The tricks and the slight of hand weren’t the crux of it though. A good psychic was a student of human nature, schooled in behavioral science as well as spiritualism. The key to any successful fraud is a willingness on the part of the victim. An astute spiritualist knows just what carrots to dangle and what buttons to push to achieve their end.

  As Simon watched Madame Petrovka greet the party guests he recognized the signs. What others saw as casual introductions, he knew were quick assessments. She might be appearing to admire a broach, but she was fishing. Fishing for information and for players in her little mummer’s farce. He knew that she was measuring each person, calculating their viability, observing them with the cool precision of Sherlock Holmes.

  Holmes. That was a sad irony that Simon could never quite accept. How had the man who created the world’s greatest detective been fooled by so many spiritualists? Doyle had famously been a great devotee of spiritualism, even to the point of obsession. How could such a critically thinking man be fooled? And with the very skills he’d imbued his great detective with—observation, knowledge and deduction. Holmes solved crimes in the same way a fraudulent psychic fooled their victim. Doyle’s fascination was a testament to the power of spiritualism and the complex susceptibility of the victims.

  Not that all mediums were frauds. After all, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. He believed it was potentially possible for someone to have the gift of sight. He’d just never met anyone who did. But considering the things he had seen, the things he himself had done, he’d be a fool to think it wasn’t at least possible.

  When it was his turn to greet Madame Petrovka he could see the wheels turning beneath her raven hair as they shook hands. She took full measure of him in mere seconds and dismissed him just as quickly. The last thing a medium wants is an unbeliever. Nothing can put the brakes on a reading faster than the negative energy of a naysayer. Sadly, no matter how deeply he wanted to stop what was about to happen, he knew he’d be an instant outcast if he did. He needed to be a good little guest and politely watch the show.

  Madame Petrovka held court in one of the salons of the Gardiner’s large home. There would be no séance this evening just readings and if, according to Madame Petrovka, someone deeply sensitive were to be found, a demonstration of somnambulism.

  She began with disarming small talk, all subtly probing for the most suggestible guest. Sadly, she had her choice. Spiritualism had become quite popular
in the latter half of the last century. It had even made its way into the royal families of Europe and the wealthiest homes in America. Finding someone willing to suspend all common sense was far too easy a task.

  “You are such a sensitive group,” Madame Petrovka said with the merest hint of a Russian accent—another staple of so many frauds. “I am sure the spirits are feeling welcome as we speak. But I sense there is one here who has contacted the Other World before. Is there such a person here?”

  Mrs. Gardiner shyly raised her hand. “I spoke to my dearly departed Uncle just a few months ago. In this very room as a matter of fact.”

  “Yes!” Madame Petrovka said loudly, eliciting delighted gasps from the crowd. “I can sense a presence.”

  Reginald Gardiner snorted. For once, Simon was inclined to agree with Gardiner, but he kept his expression neutral.

  “Yes, he is here.” She put a well-manicured hand to her temple and concentrated. “But, he doesn’t feel welcome, I’m afraid. He did ask me to say goodbye to a Kitty.”

  Mrs. Gardiner gasped. “That’s what he used to call me!” This was followed by a cooing chorus of delight. Simon was far less impressed. It would have been easy enough for Madame Petrovka to have paid the last psychic for a little inside information. Considering the vagueness of the remarks so far, it could have even been clever guesses.

  As the evening wore on and Simon’s patience wore thin, he noticed that Madame Petrovka wasn’t a garden variety medium. She used a mixture of techniques ranging from Mesmerism to automatic writing to enthrall her audience. She tried to channel the spirit of a Revolutionary War hero distantly related to one of the guests, but, apparently, his wounds pained him too greatly.

  Madame Petrovka was very good at what she did. She handled her audience masterfully, seeming to always know when to press on and when to retreat. Simon was impressed and worried. He tried to brush his concern aside as merely his distaste for her profession, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it than that.

  She unnerved him. He wasn’t easily frightened and certainly not prone to flights of fancy, but there was something about this woman that set his teeth on edge. He watched her through the night with equal parts curiosity and dread.