Chapter Seven

 

Douglas King tipped his chair back and put his heels on the edge of Randolph Buxton’s desk. He took a cigarillo from his pocket, lit it then watched the first satisfying curl of smoke spiral upwards. Oh, but this was good.

Very good.

He’d learned a long time ago that patience was a virtue and now all his pigeons were coming home to roost. There was only one pigeon left to deal with and how fortunate that she came to him. Her being so far away from home made everything so much easier.

Yes, Lady Serena was lovely on the eye and would look even better on his arm, for to whom else could she turn?

Frank Harris had been an easy mark. Suggesting that security and integrity counted more for his bank than profit, and then questioning if Serena really was Randolph’s wife was a master stroke of subterfuge. Once the seed was planted in Harris’ ear it practically grew on its own, and he was perfectly sure that Harris would not remember how he had come to think of it. The banker’s due diligence was a fortuitous piece of luck.

A knock on the door preceded Deputy Stiles’ entrance.

“Isn’t it a little early to be trying that on for size?” he grunted, nodding at the desk.

“Just feeling it out,” King replied casually. “I won’t move in here until Buxton’s body is found. You have found somewhere suitable for it, I hope?”

“Yeah, down at the...”

“I don’t want to know.” King held up his hands. “Then I can be honestly surprised when Johnson tells me.”

“And what about his fancy piece?”

“She’ll soon come around,” King said with quiet confidence. “She has no one else to support her.”

“Don’t be too sure about that.” A certain amount of smugness filled Stiles’ voice. “I just saw her going into the Eldorado looking mighty cozy with Maggie O’Connor and word has it the Sutton woman took her off the street when a few of the boys got rowdy.”

King dropped his feet to the floor, pushed the chair back and stood up. “The hell you say,” he growled. “That wasn’t in my plan.”

He paced in front of the desk then stopped by the window to watch the black bulk of a locomotive pull slowly away from the station. The line ended in the roundhouse where it would be turned for the trip back to Yreka. Twirling the cigarillo in his fingers, he turned to Stiles.

“Just keep your ears open for now. If anything sounds interesting get word to me, but don’t come here again.” He put the cigarillo between his lips, drew on it and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “We wouldn’t want anyone to remember they’d seen you coming here the day Buxton disappeared, would we?”

Stiles stiffened and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Is that some kind of a warning?”

“Take it how you please,” King said, his manner casual. “But you need to remember that we still have to be careful if we’re both to get the most out of this.”

Stiles hesitated for a moment, then pulled his hat down over his eyes and left the office. King watched him go with just a little disquiet niggling at the back of his mind. Smart enough to know which side his bread was buttered but not keen on taking orders, Stiles remained something of a loose cannon. King wasn’t sure just how much to trust him. He had his uses but ultimately would be expendable.

King returned to his seat, turning his thoughts from Stiles to the much more appealing prospect of Lady Serena Buxton. He chuckled. That was a bird he’d take great delight in plucking.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Serena spent her morning sketching costume designs and now knew how many yards of silk, satin and different coloured fabrics would be required. Maggie had said much of it might be purchased at a dress emporium behind the Lucky Strike Saloon. Was this going to be possible? She hadn’t even begun to consider what it might cost or if the store would have the fabrics she required. It seemed a hopeless task, but she dressed in her burgundy suit and left the hotel to find Maggie.

When she walked out of the front door she heard her name called, and her heart sank. Douglas King was the last person she wanted to see. She turned and forced a smile to her face.

“Mr. King. How nice to see you.”

“Lady Serena.” King doffed his hat. “I hoped to catch you. I wondered if perhaps you would care to join me for dinner this evening in my club. We offer dining as fine as any Mrs. Vanderberg can put on her table, and a selection of good wine that I know she can’t match.”

“How kind,” Serena murmured, “but I think not. If your club is similar to those of which Randolph is a member, ladies are not admitted. And, if they are, then they are not ladies.”

“As it is my club I am permitted to take some liberties, but I take your point, Lady Serena. My apologies. Perhaps six-thirty at the Eldorado would suit you better?”

Serena desperately searched her mind for a good reason to refuse. None came to her, but she realized it was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss. Perhaps King might inadvertently let something slip about Randolph.

She inclined her head in agreement. “Until six-thirty.”

King smiled at her and she experienced a chill as if she were being hypnotized by a snake. He lifted his hat again, turned on his heel and walked away from her.

Serena made her way along Main Street. She kept well away from the Lucky Strike and crossed the street further along, much closer to the bakery and coffee shop. The shop smelled as delicious as yesterday, but Maggie wasn’t there.

“Try over at the boarding house,” the young woman behind the counter said. “Mrs. O’Connor sometimes doesn’t come in until later in the day. You should catch her there.”

Serena thanked her and trudged back across the street, pleased that she had thought to pack her rubber Wellington boots. The warmer weather had continued, making the street a quagmire.

Intent on reaching her destination, she barely noticed the old drunk until she was almost on top of him. He squatted down against the side of the building, covered in what once had been a colorful blanket but was now a threadbare and torn rag. He looked up and a salacious smile spread across his face. Serena shuddered and stepped around him. He reached out and caught the hem of her skirt. She quickly tugged it out of his hand. His laugh was more of a wheezy cackle as he let go.

“Feed the dragon,” he croaked as he peered blearily up at her.

Serena hurried on, her heart pounding. Whatever did the old fool mean? Feed the dragon, indeed. What dragon? She looked back once when she reached Maggie’s door, but Trader had gone. An uneasy stab of intuition told her he’d been waiting for her, but that couldn’t be. It must be a coincidence.

She straightened her shoulders and opened the boarding house door on which a ‘Room to Let’ sign hung. She found herself in a small foyer, far less opulent than the Eldorado, but clean and smelling of lavender polish. Maggie came bustling out from a back room and smiled when she saw Serena.

“Ah, I wondered if I’d see you today. Come on back to my parlor.”

Serena followed her along the hallway to a cozy room at the back. Comfortable looking chairs upholstered in green velvet sat on either side of a hearth in which a hearty fire blazed. Steam rose from the spout of a flame blackened kettle set on a trivet and a waiting teapot warmed beside it.

“Would you like a spot of something the doctor ordered in your tea?” Maggie asked with grin.

“At this time of the day?”

“Now’s as good a time as any, me darlin’.” She reached over to a side cupboard and took out a bottle of gin, holding it up in a silent question for Serena’s preference.

“No, I don’t think I will, but thank you all the same,” Serena said. “I have an invitation to dinner this evening and I’m going to need a clear head.”

Intrigued, Maggie leaned forward expectantly. “Who’s been so bold as to invite you out?”

“No one to get excited about.” Serena took her un-doctored tea and sat back in the chair. “Unfortunately, Douglas King caught me just as I was leaving the hotel.”

“Hmm.” Maggie nodded thoughtfully as she sipped her tea into which, Serena noticed, she poured a healthy measure of gin. “He’s not a good one to cross, that man. You watch yourself around him. And he’s taking you to his club, I don’t doubt.”

Serena shook her head. “That was his first choice, but I refused. We’re to dine at the Eldorado.”

“That didn’t sit well with him, I’ll bet.”

“No, it didn’t. But I am curious as to where he got the money to buy a place like the Men’s Club,” Serena mused.

Maggie shrugged. “Like us all, he has his secrets. Now, what did you want to see me for?”

Serena opened her mini-valise and pulled out her sketches. Maggie’s eyes opened wide when she looked at the first one.

“That’s hardly what an audience at the club would expect.”

“I know.” Serena grinned. “I thought I’d start by looking and sounding as demure and proper as possible. If I’m covered from neck to ankle, then I can remove bits of my costume throughout the performance. That’s why I want this dress constructed in parts.”

For the next hour they discussed the cut and line and types of fabrics that would be needed to create the multi-purpose costume Serena envisaged.

“We can’t do anymore until we go over to Hetty’s,” Maggie decided. “Biggest problem I see is getting all these pieces actually made.”

Serena put her sketches away and wandered to the front of the house while Maggie fetched her coat.

“Hetty is going to be just tickled with this.” Maggie linked her arm into Serena’s as they walked out into the street. “She makes just about everything from lingerie for the girls in the cat houses to evening gowns for the high and mighty church ladies.”

“Cat houses?” Serena queried. “Does Lorelei own more than one?”

“Heavens, no.” Maggie held Serena back at the corner of the block while a wagon drawn by two big Belgian horses trundled by. “Just along the road from Lorelei’s is Dollie Cook’s house, but that’s pretty much the end of the road for both the girls who work there and the fellows who use them.”

“I see,” Serena said quietly.

“Do you?” Maggie quirked an eyebrow. “In most towns there’s a pecking order between the bordellos. You get the likes of the Men’s Club used by the toffs, some of the miners too, but not many. Next there are places like Lorelei’s and at the bottom of the barrel are places like Dollie’s.”

“What happens if any of the girls want to leave?” Serena asked, curious about a way of life so different from her own. She couldn’t imagine living that life but, if Randolph didn’t return and her singing didn’t support her, was it something she would have to consider? She shuddered. The thought of anyone other than Randolph touching her made her skin crawl.

“All Lorelei’s girls have contracts,” Maggie told her. “She puts quite a bit into looking after them, so she does. She wouldn’t want any of them running away or going off to get married, especially if they owe her money. Here we are.”

A bell tinkled above her head as Serena followed Maggie into the dress shop. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered each wall, and bolts of different types of fabric loaded each shelf. Several dressmaking dummies stood to one side, some of them with half-made garments on them.

“Hetty!” Maggie thumped the counter top. “You have customers.”

She went behind the long counter, where a length of lavender wool with pattern pieces pinned to it was spread out on its surface, and opened a door.

“Hetty?” she called again.

“I’se coming, ya’all, nothing to get excited ‘bout.” A fine-boned black woman came through from the back room. Her gold hoop earrings gleamed against her dark skin but the frown on her face was hardly welcoming. “So what c’n I do for ya’, Maggie O’Connor?”

“We’d like you to take a look at these,” Maggie said as Serena took out her sketches again and handed them to Hetty who studied them carefully.

“Need lots of fabric he’ah.” She looked up at Serena. “This all for you? You a danc’ah?”

“No, I sing,” Serena saw a frown crease Hetty’s face. “Will it be difficult? I really tried to make my drawings as basic as possible.”

“Well,” Hetty turned and looked at the bolts of cloth on the shelves. “Could use some o’ these fabrics, but I figure most of it will have ta come from Yreka. How soon ya’ll going to need these?”

“How soon can you make them?” Maggie asked in return.

“If’n I can borrow coupla’ Dollie’s girls, who are quite fine seamstresses, a week. But if I stop all other work it’ll cost ya.”

“Don’t worry about the money,” Maggie said. “Lorelei and I will take care of that.”

“Not the lady?” Hetty raked Serena with a suspicious glance.

Serena flushed under Hetty’s beady gaze. “I’m in rather a difficult situation,” she admitted quietly. “You may have heard that my husband is missing. I have to do something to support myself while I am here and the only thing I can do is sing.”

Hetty nodded her head. “I heard ‘bout Mr. Randolph. Well, yes. I c’n work on this. Leave it to me, honey. I’s sure I can work with yo’ drawin’s and if not, I knows where to find yo’.”

Tears stung Serena’s eyes. She had not for one moment ever imagined herself in such a predicament, nor that the most unlikely ladies would come to her aid. How many of her friends at home in England would have rallied to her side so readily?

Choked with sudden emotion, Serena held back tears. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispered.

“Oh, no need to thank us,” Maggie said stoutly. “We all enjoy a good sing song, don’t we Hetty?”

Hetty nodded her agreement but was looking Serena up and down. “If’n you’ll step back here and git that outfit off, I c’n take some measurements.”

Serena followed Hetty into the back room and removed her jacket. She hung it across the back of a chair, then removed her skirt and folded that, too, while Hetty rummaged on a work table for paper and pencil. When she turned around, she stared hard at Serena.

“Lordy, lordy. Whut’s that yo’ wearin’?”

Serena looked down at her underwear. “Oh, this you mean?” She indicated the garment that looked like a basic dress bodice with no sleeves or skirt and fitted over her breasts like a glove. “It’s called a corselet gorge. It’s an invention of Herminie Cadolle. They’re all the rage in Paris. It’s far more comfortable than wearing a full corset, which I haven’t done for years, but it still gives the bust a little support.”

“That’s no more’n a handkerchief,” Hetty mumbled, looking closely at the cut and fit of the garment. “But then, yo’se so trim ‘n perky ‘n all, you prob’ly don’t need nothin’. Now, hold yo’ arms away from yo’ body so’s I kin get t’ work.”

It didn’t take long for Hetty to collect the measurements she needed. While Serena dressed herself again, Hetty wrote the information down in her notebook then closed it with a resounding snap before returning to the store. Serena followed her.

“Go on now, both of ya.” Hetty was already pulling fabric off the shelves. “I’ll send word when I’ve got someth’n ready.”

Serena was deep in thought as they left. Maggie’s talk of the brothels bothered her. She couldn’t imagine Randolph visiting one but, being far away from home, might he have gone looking for an affectionate interlude, however brief? Had he visited any of them? If he had, would any of the women have done him harm? Would any of their regular customers have accosted him? She had heard of such jealousies.

The possibilities seemed endless, but maybe King would be careless with his conversation this evening.

The thought gave her some hope.