After dinner, Michael Clarkson grew increasingly maudlin with every glass of wine. He prowled around Reggie and Suling’s apartment, peering at all the art on their walls. Finally, he broke down in front of the folding screen that Reggie had painted with street scenes of Chinatown, one of which depicted the Palace of Endless Joy.
“Justice. Finally, justice for the only woman I’ve ever loved,” he sobbed. “Justice for my Nina, who I would’ve married, should’ve married. My poor Nina.”
“Oh no, don’t be like that,” Suling said. “Auntie would’ve hated those words, ‘my poor Nina.’ She never felt sorry for herself. And you couldn’t have married her anyway since mixed-race marriages are illegal in California.”
“Then I should’ve taken her to Washington State,” he said, “married her there. Made an honest woman of her.” He slumped down on the table littered with the remains of their meal, burying his face in his folded arms.
Suling sighed and patted his hand. Madam Ning had had exactly zero interest in being a wife. As for being an honest woman, she had run her brothel as ethically as the profession and profits allowed, and that was honest enough by her reckoning.
George grinned at Suling. “It’s time for him to get some sleep,” he said and gently pulled Clarkson out of the chair. “Let’s go, my friend.”
Michael Clarkson struggled upright, then turned to wave from the door, leaning heavily against George. “Good night, ladies,” he slurred. “George here, a good man, is taking me out to celebrate some more.”
“George here,” the pianist corrected, “is taking Michael back to the hotel. A walk in the cool evening air and then a nice, comfortable bed. Good night, ladies. Gemma, stay as long as you like.”
The door to Suling and Reggie’s apartment shut and the women finally allowed themselves to break into laughter.
There were countless cafés and bistros where they could’ve dined but none of them wanted to sit amid the clink of glassware and lively chatter. They had reached the end of a strange and disturbing journey together and right now they only wanted the company of others who understood. People who knew what had been damaged and lost. Reggie and Suling’s apartment was the one place that felt comfortable right now.
“Did anyone else feel the police station was rather an anticlimax?” Gemma said. She poured herself another glass of wine. They’d finished all the champagne an hour ago.
“Anything would be an anticlimax after you cornered Thornton with flaming torches,” Alice said. She pointed her chopsticks at a blue-and-white porcelain plate. “Does anyone else want those last two shrimp?” Alice had taken to chopsticks as though she had used them all her life. Easier than using tweezers to pick up delicate botanical samples, she said.
“Nothing wrong with anticlimactic,” Gemma said. “Now that it’s over, I’m going to sleep for a week.”
When it came to avenging their own, the Pinkerton Detective Agency had made sure their evidence was unassailable. Once Clarkson knew there was a link between Henry Thornton and William van Doren, the Agency’s research team had quickly connected the dots to prove van Doren’s wealth came from Thornton’s estate.
Clarkson had boarded the ship to Le Havre with the evidence, and that morning, in front of Louis Lépine, Paris’s prefect of police, and a magistrate, Clarkson had been crisp and concise when laying out that evidence. With George translating, Clarkson showed how Thornton’s will had left his entire fortune to a distant relative and business partner, a William van Doren allegedly living in Italy. Upon Henry Thornton’s apparent death in San Francisco, lawyers had transferred everything to William van Doren’s bank in New York.
“This was a plan van Doren put in place a long time ago,” Clarkson said, “that at some point Thornton would supposedly die and William van Doren would return to New York after a decade abroad, a man with investments in railways and mines, shipping lines and real estate. All clean and aboveboard.”
Then the four women had sworn in writing that Thornton and van Doren were the same man. One woman had seen him murder the Pinkerton detective, Daniel Langford. Three had seen him shoot a woman in cold blood. All four had nearly perished in flames when he locked them indoors and set fire to the house.
Van Doren was behind bars. And in a few days Clarkson and another Pinkerton detective would escort him back to San Francisco to stand trial.
“I kept wondering if he’d still manage to squirm out of it,” Reggie said now, standing up to clear the table. “Wondered whether our sworn statements of witnessing his murders would be enough.”
“I worried too, bao bei,” Suling said, taking more plates to the kitchen sink. “If Clarkson and the baron hadn’t been there, Thornton probably would’ve tried persuading the police we were just angry, jilted women.”
There was laughter from the dining table. “Alice, you’re incorrigible.” Gemma was giggling. There had been more wine, more conversation. “The baron’s daughter is in hysterics, his future son-in-law turns out to be a murderer, and you were angling for an invitation to his garden?”
“But the baron has a rare alpine orchid,” Alice said, “a Gymnadenia rhellicani that blooms a deep red brown. I might persuade him to give me a specimen.”
Suling threw all the windows open to let in the mild evening air, and the lights of Paris beckoned. Gemma drifted over to admire the view. Suling suddenly experienced such an overwhelming sense of déjà vu she had to lean against the wall to stand upright. Where had she seen this before? Gemma at the open window gazing out at the city. Alice at another window, Reggie by the sink. But there was something different, too, in the comfortable familiarity between the four of them.
Suling put a thin slice of lemon tart on a plate and brought it back to the opera singer, who smiled and shook her head.
“I’ve had more than enough tonight, Suling,” she said, “everything was delicious. The braised pork belly, the sauteed pea shoots, and that shrimp. This tart. I can’t believe you and Reggie managed it all in one afternoon.”
“We didn’t,” Suling said, digging a fork into the tart, “this tarte au citron is from the patisserie next door. Are you sure you won’t have some?”
“If I eat any more, I’ll burst out of these trousers.” Gemma had donned her Poiret harem pants for dinner, gleaming and opulent. “And I want to keep them, in case I ever sing Mozart’s Konstanze in Abduction from the Seraglio.”
They stood silhouetted against the window. Below them, streetlamps glimmered, lighting up storefronts and pedestrians. In the distance, church bells rang. A warm breeze wafted through the apartment.
“Gemma, you’re so important to Reggie,” Suling said. “Let’s work harder to stay in touch.”
“Yes, we will. And you’re good for Reggie,” Gemma said. “It’s so obvious. She’s lost that restlessness, the look of wanting to find something or someone new.”
“George told me about your migraines,” Suling said. “Would you be open to a different type of treatment? A Chinese treatment thousands of years old called acupuncture. There’s a Chinese doctor in Paris who is very skilled. He treats me for headaches from eyestrain, neck pains from leaning over an embroidery frame all the time.”
“I’ll try anything,” Gemma said with feeling. “You think it might work?”
“Even if it doesn’t, would those migraines ever stop you performing?”
“Never. You learn to live with the pain. Manage it as best you can.”
Suling smiled. “I’ll wager the acupuncture could take away at least some of that pain. It helps Reggie sleep.”
They turned around to look at Alice and Reggie, both laughing softly.
“Reggie told me about her nightmares,” Gemma said. “Perhaps now that it’s all over, now that Thornton has been arrested, they’ll go away.”
“I hope so,” Suling said softly. “I hope so. Sometimes I think she needs to see him convicted and hanged before she can sleep peacefully and paint again. Will you attend the trial?”
“Not unless we have to.” Gemma shook her head. “I’ve already dragged George through too much of this saga. Will you go back to San Francisco?”
San Francisco. The thought of her hometown tugged at Suling. They’d built a new Chinatown. But if she went back, would Paris beckon to her, the way San Francisco beckoned now?
“Alice,” Gemma said, moving to stand beside the botanist as Suling pondered her answer, “will you go back to the California Academy of Sciences? I know it’s just an informal discussion right now, but you know they’ll offer you the curator job again.”
“You know,” Alice said, after a brief pause, “I think I will.”
“Maybe we should all go back,” Gemma said, suddenly. “Not for Thornton’s trial—for us. For each other.”
Suling blinked. “Go back?”
“Why not? Since the earthquake we’ve all been orphaned in a way, cut adrift—you, me, Reggie, even Alice. It’s not an easy thing to carry, but it does mean we can make our home wherever we want. Choose the people we want to be our family.” Gemma smiled at Suling. “You could start an atelier of your own in the heart of Chinatown—you have Parisian credentials now. San Francisco’s elite will flock to you for the latest fashions.”
Suling’s mind raced. An atelier in Chinatown where she could hire women she knew, teach them what she’d learned at Callot Soeurs. An artist’s studio for Reggie above the workshop. She would embroider a Japanese kimono for Gemma if she ever sang Madama Butterfly and it would be a work of art more stunning than diamonds wrapped around a San Francisco society matron’s neck.
“But what does San Francisco hold for you? Have any of the opera houses been rebuilt yet?” Suling said. “You’ll need somewhere to sing. And George . . .”
“I can sing anywhere,” Gemma said. “Opera companies go on tour all the time. I think I need to be a little bolder about accepting roles away from Buenos Aires. Between tours, San Francisco could be home. And I can give voice lessons when I’m too old to perform. As for George, he loved San Francisco, gets all wistful when he talks about his time there.”
“Reggie?” Alice said, “what do you think?”
“I can paint anywhere” was the prompt reply. “I love our life in Paris, and it’s easier for Suling here in so many ways, but if she’s willing to go back, so am I. Home is where she is.”
Suling felt a smile break over her face, bright enough to light the entire city. She held out her hand and Reggie joined her by the window.
The contented silence in the room was broken by a small, excited cry from Alice, who ran to the side table. “Look, your Queen of the Night is going to bloom!”
They gathered around the table, and for just an instant, memory flooded Suling’s senses. She saw them all again in a San Francisco boardinghouse, four women who had come through earthquake and fire, pausing for a moment of peace as a white flower opened and softened the smoky air with its honeyed scent, a fragrance richer, deeper, more intoxicating than any rose or jasmine.