Chapter 15

 

Uncle Ludwig was, as usual, out back with Gustav and Helga, “putting the darlings through their paces,” as he liked to call it. To Emily, it looked more like Gustav and Helga were training Uncle Ludwig, an easier task, she was sure, than training them.

“Yah, yah, you darlings, you stay there where I put you. No, you don’t get a cookie until you stay put. Oh, well, maybe just one. Just one, and then you stay.”

Although she had stormed out of the house in a rage, Emily’s mouth tugged up at the ends when she saw the ridiculous lesson taking place in the kennel yard.

“Uncle Ludwig, you’ll never teach them anything that way,” she chided.

“Ach, Emily, good day to you.” Ludwig honored her with his twinkling smile. “Sure, I train them, Emily. I train them to cheat me out of my cookies.”

Emily’s brief smile was followed immediately by a distracted frown. This part was risky. Ludwig wasn’t much more grounded in reality than Gertrude; perhaps not as much. But it was his business that was in jeopardy. If there was one thing Ludwig cared about passionately, it was his dogs.

“Uncle Ludwig, I need to speak with you.”

Emily hoped the urgency she felt would transmit itself through her tone of voice into Ludwig’s consciousness. Of course, she was wrong. Ludwig didn’t even hear her.

“Good boy, Gustav. Good girl, Helga. What wonderful puppies you are.”

Ludwig knelt down in front of the dogs and patted his thighs. They promptly leapt onto his lap and began to bathe him with lavish doggie kisses.

Emily’s patience had been strained beyond endurance today.

“Uncle Ludwig!”

Her bellow startled the dogs. Gustav rolled onto his back in surrender, while Helga bared her teeth and snarled viciously at Emily from the safety of Ludwig’s arms. Ludwig finally looked up at her. “Why, Emily, darling, whatever is the matter?”

“We need to talk, Uncle Ludwig.”

Gently disengaging the animals, Ludwig stood and dusted off the seat of his trousers.

“Why, certainly we talk, Emily. We talk now. Yah?”

He looked at her as though she were a lunatic who needed to be humored. Emily didn’t care. She grabbed him by a lapel so he wouldn’t wander off.

“Something terrible has happened, Uncle Ludwig, and it concerns your dogs.”

For once Ludwig was alert. “The dogs?”

Emily knew she would have to be dramatic to keep his attention. “You’re in danger of losing Gustav and Helga and your entire business, Uncle Ludwig.”

“No!”

“Yes. And we need to plot a strategy to avert such a calamity.”

Emily was afraid she’d gone too far when her uncle’s face turned as white as Aunt Gretchen’s French poodle and he clamped a hand over his heart. Quickly, she steadied him.

“What are you saying, Emily?”

The absolute terror vibrating in Ludwig’s voice smote Emily’s conscience severely, but she didn’t dare offer him any comfort. She helped him up and steered him into the house, where she led him to the best parlor and made him sit down. Then she rang for tea.

“Uncle Ludwig, we have to talk. And as we talk, you must pay very close attention to me.” Emily felt as though she were dealing with a tiny child.

His eyes wide with horror, Ludwig whispered, “Of course. Of course. Oh, mein Gott, Emily. What can you mean, lose my beloved dogs? Such a thing cannot be.”

“Oh, yes it can.” With a soul-deep sigh, Emily sat on the chair opposite Uncle Ludwig. When old Mr. Blodgett tottered in with tea, she thanked him politely and waited until he left the room before she started speaking.

“Uncle Ludwig, Aunt Gertrude has given her part of your business to Clarence Pickering.”

“Yah?”

When he stared at her blankly Emily wanted to scream. How, oh how, could she make him understand?

The fact that Aunt Gertrude gave Mr. Pickering her share of your business is a catastrophe, Uncle Ludwig, and I’ll tell you why.” Without waiting for him to protest or ask a question, she hurried on.

“Mr. Pickering is the person behind the attempt to burn the kennel. When that didn’t work, he tried to kidnap the dogs.”

“But—”

“I know it’s true, Uncle Ludwig. No matter what you and Aunt Gertrude want to believe about Clarence Pickering, the man is a villain. A criminal villain!”

There was a long period of silence. Finally it was Ludwig who spoke.

“Do you really think so, Emily?”

“Yes, Uncle Ludwig. I know so. And so does Mr. Tate.”

Ludwig’s eyes got a far-away look with which Emily was quite familiar, although she didn’t know yet whether to applaud or to groan. At least he was thinking. When he spoke again, he sounded troubled.

“And what did you say Gertrude did with Mr. Pickering, Emily?”

“She gave him her share of your breeding kennel in exchange for some of the money she owed him. Oh, Uncle Ludwig, we have to do something! Aunt Gertrude owned fifty-one percent of the business! Mr. Tate was trying so hard to help you. Why with his help, your dogs were sure to succeed. But now that Gertrude gave Pickering most of the business, he’ll ruin it!”

Ludwig had been staring at the floor, but at Emily’s impassioned speech, he lifted his gaze and eyed her glumly.

“But what can we do, Emily? Maybe we should ask Mr. Tate?”

“No!”

The explosive syllable made Ludwig wince.

More softly, Emily went on, “No, Uncle Ludwig, we can’t tell Mr. Tate. Poor Mr. Tate has already done enough for us. I—I’d just feel terrible if I had to confess to him that my aunt gave away a part of his business to a person who has already tried to ruin it twice. I just can’t do it.”

When tears began to leak from her eyes, Ludwig sat us straight and looked scared.

“Don’t cry, Emily. Please don’t cry. We won’t tell Mr. Tate. Just don’t cry.” He patted her knee once or twice, then withdrew his hand and stared at her in trepidation.

With a big sniff, Emily dabbed at her eyes with the sofa cushion and stopped crying. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ludwig. It’s just that I’m so worried. Mr. Tate simply must not find out about this. We have to think of some way to get Mr. Pickering to relinquish his share of the kennel.”

“But how we do that, Emily? Maybe we ask him? If we give back the bills, he give us back the business?”

Emily uttered a most unladylike snort. “Well, I can try it, Uncle, but I doubt if I’ll have any success.”

“No? You don’t think if we just go to Pickering and explain it was a mistake, he’ll do the honorable thing?”

“Honorable? Clarence Pickering? I think not.”

Recollections of the many unsavory suggestions Pickering had offered her roiled about in Emily’s brain. The thought of going to his house and begging made her flesh crawl. Still, she thought gloomily, that was probably the first thing they should try.

“I suppose we should at least make the attempt,” Emily said with a sigh.

“I come with you, Emily.”

He sounded noble and Emily was touched. Then she recalled the disastrous other times when Ludwig had tried to be helpful.

Quickly, she said, “Oh, no. It’s all right, Uncle Ludwig. I think it would be better if I went by myself.” The thought of meeting with Pickering alone made her insides knot up, but it would be better than trying to deal with him and her uncle at the same time.

“Yah. Well, while you do that, I be thinking, Emily. I don’t know what to think about, but I be thinking.”

Ludwig nodded vigorously. He was, Emily knew, trying to look thoughtful, but he succeeded in looking as though he had a tic.

“Thank you, Uncle Ludwig.”

“Yah.” Ludwig appeared distracted. “Think. I don’t know what about.”

“I don’t know either, Uncle Ludwig, but we must. Think. Please think. And I’ll think, too, and between us I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

It suddenly occurred to Emily that the telephone was not being tended by either herself or her uncle.

“What about the telephone?”

Uncle Ludwig scrunched himself back in his chair, trying to get as far away from her as possible.

“The telephone, Emily dear?”

“Yes. Who’s tending to the telephone—taking messages—if you and I are in here, and Blodgett just brought us tea?”

“Tea?” Ludwig’s glance shot from Emily to the teapot and back again. “Mr. Tate sent a young man by this morning to take care of the telephone, Emily. He’s setting up an office for me in Gertrude’s old office. Gertrude said it’s fine with her.”

Mr. Tate. To the rescue yet again. Oh, how she loved him. She would die before she told him her aunt had just jeopardized everything he was trying to do for them. For her. Emily knew good and well Will was helping them because of her. Because he cared about her, and because he was such a wonderful man.

Disconsolately, she shook her head. She would love to marry him, but she could never do such a despicable thing. Why, just look at this latest catastrophe. How could she subject him to such a nest of lunatics and wretches? Well, one wretch, Emily though miserably. Her relatives might be crazy, but she was the only dishonorable one. She swallowed an aching lump in her throat.

“Oh, Uncle Ludwig,” she cried, “we must think of something!”

“Yah, Emily. I will think.”

When Emily stood and began pacing, wringing her sofa cushion for all it was worth, Ludwig got up and sidled toward the door.

“I go now and check on the telephone messages, Emily. But I be thinking. You know I be thinking.”

With those words, he left. And Emily knew beyond a doubt she was alone with this problem. Poor Ludwig was no more capable of helping her wrest those papers from Clarence Pickering than her Aunt Gertrude was.

“Oh, Lord,” she whispered to the stuffy, musty atmosphere of the parlor. “Oh, Lord.”

But she wouldn’t allow herself to sink into despair. No. She needed to pay a call on Clarence Pickering. After that, when—Emily knew better than to think “if”—she failed to wrest the business papers from him by those means, she would just have to think of another way.

With a heavy tread she marched once more up the wide staircase to her room. She sat down at her desk and stared out into afternoon on Hayes Street, wishing traitorously that she could somehow start over again and, this time, belong to a different family.

“Enough, Emily von Plotz,” she scolded after she had moped for only a few seconds. “You must not even think of despairing. If you despair, all will be lost.”

# # #

As soon as Will got home from Emily’s house, he sent Thomas Crandall’s junior secretary over to the Schindler residence to tend to the telephone and start organizing an office. Money was no object. By God, he was going to win Emily by fair means or foul—and, as fair means seemed the most expedient at the moment, he planned to use them.

He was going to make that damned dog business so successful, Emily wouldn’t have an argument left in her repertoire. Damn it, she would marry him!

“Will, I heard something today I think you’ll be interested in,” Thomas began as he pushed the door of his upstairs parlor open. When he found Will scowling malevolently at two pieces of jewelry, he stared at him in surprise.

“What are you doing, Will?”

Will turned around and transferred his glare to Thomas. “I’m trying to decide whether Emily would rather have a diamond bracelet or a pearl-and-sapphire broach,” he growled.

Thomas was taken aback. Carefully, he hung up his hat and coat, watching Will the entire time. At last he ventured, “Er, and have you a formed preference yet?”

“No. I’m going to give her both of them.” He slammed the two jewelry boxes down on Thomas’ sitting room table. “Shreve brought ‘em over,” he added angrily. “I called him on the telephone.”

Thomas cleared his throat. “Shreve came himself?”

“Yeah.” Will glowered at Thomas again. “It’s ‘cause I’m rich, Thomas. If I’d been nobody, he’d have sent someone else.”

“Er—well—you don’t seem very happy about it.”

In the space of heartbeat, Will’s expression changed from fury to despondency. “She won’t marry me. I couldn’t persuade her.”

Will flopped down on the easy chair and dropped his chin into his hands. He looked more melancholy than Thomas had ever seen him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said miserably. “But I’m going to make the damned business successful. I figure once she’s out of debt she won’t feel so guilty about tricking me.”

Will looked up at Thomas for approval.

“Oh, dear,” was all Thomas said.

Will frowned again, wavering between broken-heartedness and fury. “What the hell does that mean, Thomas? What the hell does ‘oh, dear’ mean? Hell, you sound like a damned pantywaist parson or something. Do you think it will work? If I make her uncle’s stupid dogs a success, she’ll marry me, won’t she? And don’t give me any more damned ‘Oh dears’, damn it!”

In all the years they’d known each other, Thomas had never seen Will Tate in such a state. He sat on the foot stool in front of Will and said, “Will, listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” Will growled.

“She loves you. I saw it in her eyes that night at the Palace.”

Will still looked grumpy, but his left eyebrow lifted. “You could see it? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so what? She even admits she loves me. But she still won’t marry me.”

“I’m sure you’ll bring her around, Will.” Thomas actually patted Will’s knee and then wondered what had possessed him to do such a sissy thing.

Will didn’t seem to mind. “Thanks, Thomas. I hope you’re right. Your trust means a lot to me.”

“Thanks. But Will, you have to listen to me. Something’s come up that might make it harder.”

“Criminy! What on earth could possibly be harder than this?”

“Abe Warner told me he saw Clarence Pickering and Bill Skates in the Cobweb Palace this afternoon. Skates’ arm was in a sling.”

Abe Warner had owned the Cobweb Palace for as long as Will could remember. The place got its name because of old Abe’s fervent belief that all God’s creatures deserved respect. He demonstrated his personal respect for spiders by not allowing anybody to disturb their webs. Abe didn’t like Clarence Pickering any more than Thomas or Will did; he claimed Pickering ruined the ambiance in his establishment.

“I knew I’d shot the guy,” Will said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“Abe said he was bruised all to hell, too.”

A grim smile quirked the corners of Will’s mouth. “Emily beat him with a stick.” He sounded very proud of her.

Thomas allowed himself a moment of surprise. “Really? My goodness. But that’s not the bad part, Will. Abe said Pickering was flashing an official paper around the saloon and telling everybody he’s got control of the dogs at last. Now, I can’t imagine what dogs he was talking about, except Emily’s uncle’s. I figured you should know about it.”

Will shot out of his chair. “What?”

“That’s what Abe told me, Will.” Thomas trusted friendship would prevent Will from murdering the bearer of the bad tidings.

“How the hell can that be?” Will hollered. He stormed to the fireplace and kicked the stone hearth.

“I swear, I just got von Plotz’s dog business squared away. Pickering didn’t have anything to do with it as late as the day before yesterday. It took forever to figure everything out, too. God, what a mess.”

Will ran his fingers through his hair and then shook his head. “The mere thought of dealing with that godawful mess gives me a stomachache, Thomas. I’m sure I didn’t overlook anything. I made sure of it because I didn’t want to have to do it again!”

“I’m sure you didn’t, Will. You’re too smart to overlook anything. But somehow or other, Abe says Pickering claims he’s got a crazy old lady’s signature on a paper signing her share of ‘the dogs’ over to him. It must be Gertrude Schindler, because he’s been bragging about how he’s going to own everything that belongs to them, including your Miss Emily, pretty soon.”

“Damn.”

Will took another agitated turn around the sitting room. Thomas eyed him with concern.

“Will, don’t kill me, but—well—are you absolutely certain you want to marry into that family? I mean, those two relatives of Aunt Emily’s don’t seem too, uh, right in their heads to me.”

As far as Will knew, nobody had ever uttered such an understatement before. “They’re both crazy as loons, Thomas,” he growled

“Well, but—” Thomas paused, uncertain how to phrase the next part of his concern. He finally just blurted it out. “But, Will, do you have any—uh—worries that it might be an inherited condition?”

Will jaw dropped. Then, for the first time since Thomas entered the room, he smiled.

“Lord above, Thomas, you don’t know my Emily yet. She’s the most level-headed woman I’ve ever met in my life. I know her relatives are crazy, but honest to God, she’s all that’s saved them from ruin these many years. They’re crazy as loons, Thomas, but Emily loves them.”

As soon as he spoke the words, Will experienced a moment of swift, unexpected, almost earth-shaking comprehension. He stopped pacing.

“Yeah,” he murmured, more to himself than to Thomas. “She loves them. She loves them because they’re her family.”

“Right,” Thomas said uncertainly.

“Don’t you see, Thomas? She loves them because they’re her family.” Will turned away, shaken to the core by his new understanding. He walked to the window and stared outside, unseeing. “I never had any family, Thomas. Not family to love, come hell or high water, feast or famine, sanity or lunacy. Until right this second, it never even struck me such feelings could exist in this world. But they do. In good people, with good hearts, they do.”

Will turned around and eyed Thomas intensely. “Emily and I are going to be a family like that. Somehow, some way, we will be. We’re going to make a family like that. And Emily knows how to do it, too, because she’s already done it. And I’m not going to let Clarence Pickering play fast and loose with Emily’s family. I’ll be damned if I will.”

“Right,” Thomas said again.

Will straightened up. No lingering worries about Emily’s unwillingness to marry him marred his determination. He knew what he had to do. Nothing else mattered.

“Somehow or other, Pickering has tricked Emily’s aunt into giving him those papers, Thomas,” he said briskly. “I’m going to get them back.”

Happy to have the old, trusty, businesslike Will back again, Thomas asked, “How? Are you going to try to buy them from him?”

“Buy them? I’ll eat hog swill before I’ll give that bastard a single red cent of my money.”

“Then what do you plan to do? Steal them? I’ve known you for years, Will, and I’ve known you to do some of the damnedest things, but I’ve never known you to thieve before.”

“Steal? Hell, Thomas, I haven’t had to outright steal anything from a person since I was knee-high to a toadstool and had to borrow a blanket in order not to freeze to death.”

Thomas would have laughed, but Will’s words pierced a deeper place than his usual jolly bantering did. “You had a pretty hard time of it, didn’t you, Will, with your Uncle Mel.” There was an edge to his voice.

Will looked uncomfortable. “Hell, Thomas, all I know is, Emily’s not going to suffer for her family, that’s all.”

The memory of all those times in gold camps, sitting by innumerable fires, surrounded by strangers, all of them roaring with laughter at Will Tate’s stories about growing up with Uncle Mel struck Thomas. Will had padded and protected himself with such a thick layer of humor over the years, even Thomas had never thought about how deep his hurt must go.

He thought about it now, though. Thomas knew he was the only friend Will had ever allowed himself. He’d never thought about that before, either. Suddenly, Thomas felt greatly honored.

“Well, Will, whatever you do, I’m going with you.”

“What for, Thomas? I know what I’m doing.”

“Maybe. But you’ve got to deal with Pickering. While you’re doing that, I’m going to be watching your back.”

For a split second, Will had it in his mind to protest. Then he noted the look of determination on Thomas’s face. For Emily, he thought, and decided for once in his life he’d let another human being help him.

“Thanks, Thomas,” he said.

“Hell, Will, what are friends for?”

“Don’t reckon I ever thought about it until right this minute, Thomas.”

“Well, you don’t have to think about it now, either, Will, because I’m coming whether you want me or not.”

Will had to talk around the lump in his throat “I want you to come with me, Thomas. Thank you.”

They grinned at each other for several seconds before shaking hands and getting down to business. They spent the next three hours hatching a brilliant plot.

“Ready, Thomas?” Will asked, cocking his Texas hat at an appropriate angle.

“Ready, Will.” Thomas tweaked his cravat and stood back to survey his elegant form in the mirror.

“Well, then, let’s go.”

As night fell and the fog rolled in, Will Tate and Thomas Crandall, partners in business and in life, left the Nob Hill estate arm in arm. They were ready.

# # #

Innocent of the plans being spun on her behalf, Emily von Plotz marched up to Clarence Pickering’s rented lodgings on Powell Street, determination fueling every step. She considered the dirty surroundings with distaste. Not that Emily was a snob; far from it. But her aunt’s home, situated as it was in an area characterized by a somewhat fallen grandeur, was a far cry from Pickering’s squalid neighborhood.

Taking great care, she picked her way over bottles and trash littering the sidewalk. Then she had to lift her skirts to step over a drunk sleeping it off on the stairs. Her heart palpitated wildly. She was glad she had thought to arm herself with a stout walking stick.

With a brisk yank, she tugged the bell pull next to the tacked-up card designating one suite of rooms as those of Clarence Pickering. Since the moment she had formed the resolve to do this until right this minute, she had not considered what on earth she would do if Pickering were not at home. She did so now and frowned.

Fortunately or unfortunately, she did not have to think of an alternate plan. She had just begun to consider her oversight when Bill Skates, complete with one black eye and one arm in a sling, opened the door.

Although Emily recognized Bill Skates as the brash, uncouth employee of her nemesis, she could not identify him as the person who had tried to kidnap her uncle’s dogs. She noticed his bruised face but didn’t associate it with the assault the other night. She figured he’d been in a barroom brawl. “Is Mr. Pickering at home, please, Mr. Skates?” she asked primly.

Once Skates realized Emily didn’t mark him as the perpetrator of the kennel break-in, he relaxed. “Yeah, he’s here,” he said insolently. “What do you want?”

It was not for nothing Emily von Plotz had been drilled mercilessly by her aunt in the proper way for a lady to behave. There were rules for everything, Aunt Gertrude had taught her. Included among them were rules intended to suppress the pretensions of sullen household servants.

At Skates’ surly question, Emily drew herself up to her full height, all five feet two inches of it. She said in a cold voice, “Please take me to him. I wish to speak to him. At once.”

Skates had never encountered a bearing like Emily’s before, having only ogled her from a distance until this minute. Her presence actually cowed him.

“Yes’m,” he muttered, and turned to lead Emily into Pickering’s rooms.

They were a mess, Emily saw immediately. Newspapers were scattered everywhere, interspersed with old woolen socks, dirty shirts, bread crumbs, and empty bottles.

As soon as Pickering realized who had come to call on him, he made an attempt to sweep the filth behind his tatty sofa. Emily caught him in the act and was not surprised. Her insides recognized this as just the sort of thing one might expect from Clarence Pickering. This was the man behind the sincere, polished facade. She felt a quick surge of triumph at having discovered herself to be right as to his true colors. She wished Aunt Gertrude could see him now.

Before he turned to greet her, tugged his coat tails straight. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my dear Miss Emily,” he murmured. “And what brings you here, my dear. Have you reconsidered my offer?”

“I will drink poison before I reconsider your disgusting offers, Mr. Pickering,” Emily announced, not mincing her words.

Pickering’s smile tilted slightly askew, and he looked a little less sincere. “Now, Miss Emily, you shouldn’t talk to your old friend Clarence that way. I can help you, you know.”

“You are not my friend, old or otherwise, and the only way in which you can help me, Mr. Pickering, is by returning my aunt’s share of my uncle’s business in exchange for these notes. It’s the same deal you gave Aunt Gertrude; obviously, you consider it a fair one, or you would never have offered it to her.”

Emily held up the envelope containing her aunt’s notes. She’d just managed to rescue them before Gertrude could burn them. She clutched it tightly now, not about to wave it in front of Pickering, for fear he’d snatch it from her. Nothing of an underhanded nature was beyond him, Emily knew. She’d never before encountered anybody with such a well-honed sense of dishonor.

Opening his eyes wide, Pickering said innocently, “Why Emily, my dear, why would I do a thing like that?”

“Why wouldn’t you, Mr. Pickering? You’ll not be losing a thing. It’s a square deal; the same one you offered my aunt. We’ll just reverse it now.”

Pickering put an elegant finger to his cheek and tapped, as though he were actually considering her offer.

“Well, now, Miss Emily, what if I’ve suddenly developed a yen to invest in those dogs of your uncle’s? Have you considered that possibility, my dear.”

His smile was slick enough to grease an axle, and it made Emily’s stomach knot up. “Not for a minute, Mr. Pickering,” she declared. “You have no interest at all in my uncle’s dogs, and you know it as well as I do. They hate you and you hate them; it’s a known fact.”

Emily noticed he was wearing the same patent-leather shoes he had worn to her aunt’s home for dinner the night Helga bit him. She stared pointedly at the jagged tooth mark on the leather.

Pickering stopped even pretending to smile. He frowned at her. “Is that so? Well, then, maybe you’re right, Miss Emily, Miss holier-than-thou von Plotz. Maybe you’re just right at that. Maybe I do hate those dogs. And maybe I hate the way you sneer at me all the time, too. But you won’t be sneering very much longer, my sweet dear, because I’ve got your idiot aunt right where I want her now. Your precious Texas country boy won’t be able to help you now, Emily, my darling girl, because it’s too damned late. He’s going to have to deal with me now. I own more than half of his damned business, and I’m no damned pussy-footer like your crazy uncle Ludwig von Plotz.”

He looked quite petulant when he added: “And I hate Texans.”

Emily was profoundly shocked. Never in her entire life had a gentleman actually used profanity at her in this way. Then she scolded herself for her reaction. Clarence Pickering, she reminded herself, was not a gentleman.

“How dare you speak to me that way?” she demanded. “Why, you’re nothing but a miserable blackguard, Mr. Pickering. If you won’t trade back those papers for my aunt’s debts to you, I’ll—I’ll—”

She had no idea what she’d do, in fact, a circumstance Clarence Pickering realized in an instant. At once, he found his lost smile and it slithered back onto his face.

“You’ll what, my darling little Emily? You’ll just what? You’ll bargain something else for the papers? Well, now, perhaps the possibilities for a trade are improving, my dear.” His leer was almost grotesque.

Until this moment, Emily had not been truly frightened. But now, as Pickering began to inch across the room toward her, her steady nerves began to quiver. She stepped back a pace.

“Keep away from me, Mr. Pickering,” she said. “You just keep away from me, or you’ll be sorry.”

“I don’t think so, Emily, my darling. Just think of your loving aunt and uncle, my dear. Just think of them, and I’m sure you’ll find my offer appealing. I find you appealing, my darling. And, oh, Emily, my sweet, I have a feeling you’d like it quite well, if you tried it.”

Pickering’s words slithered their way through the atmosphere to settle like slime in Emily’s ears. She shuddered, appalled. In the next instant, though, she dragged her courage up and stood her ground.

“Stay where you are, Mr. Pickering, or you’ll be sorry,” she declared once more in a resolute voice.

But Pickering only chuckled. His chuckle was as sincere and disgusting as the rest of him.

“Now, now, now, you darling little thing. Why don’t you just give me one little peck on the cheek now? We can call it a promise. Just to see what you’re going to be getting lots more of if you want to keep your auntie and uncle from losing everything they own to me. Because if you’re not nice to me, my sweet little Emily, it’s going to happen. You can bet your pretty little bottom on that.”

Emily gasped in outrage. She had taken quite enough of this horrible man’s disgusting advances. She followed her gasp with a vicious swipe of her uncle’s walking stick, the twin to the one she had wielded with such stunning effect against Bill Skates. As Pickering reached out to grab her she caught him with a bruising blow to the arm.

At his roar of pain, Emily decided her visit was at an end. She fled from his lodgings at a dead run, using her walking stick as knights of old used their lances. Bill Skates just missed being skewered by executing a deft leap aside, thereby bumping his wounded arm against a wall. His bellow blended with that of Clarence Pickering to create a regular cacophony of pain. The noise accompanied Emily down the stairs and outside to Powell Street.

“Hell!” The imprecation was the worst Emily had ever uttered in her entire life.

Her irate exclamation seemed to amuse a sailor walking along Powell. He snickered and winked at her.

His mistake earned him an outraged, “How dare you?” and a sharp poke from Emily’s stick. As she made her way down Powell and turned up Geary, everyone else she encountered very intelligently avoided her.

“Well, it’s as I suspected, at any rate,” Emily muttered as she stormed along. “And at least I found out what I needed to know.”

She stopped at a second-hand shop operated by the Sisters of Benevolence in Chinatown. There, she spent forty-five minutes choosing a rather startling costume. The outfit consisted of a pair of boy’s knickerbockers, a large, plaid flannel shirt, a pair of sturdy brown boy’s shoes, and a floppy cloth cap.

Thus armed, she made her determined way back home.