Fatal as a Fallen Woman (10 page)

She fit right in with the other women in the parlor.

The blonde Jane had identified as Mattie Silks stepped forward. Slightly under average height, she had blue eyes, a creamy complexion untouched by rouge, and a full underlip. She gave Diana a smile that appeared friendly while she  introduced herself and the others.

"Belle would have been here too," she added, "but she had a slight accident yesterday while attending the horse races in Overland Park."

"What can I do for you ladies?" Diana asked, well aware of the irony in calling them that. The air was clogged with strong perfume. Eau de Cologne warred with French violet, heliotrope with Esprit de Rose, and all four scents clashed with the stench of Gouldie's long black cigar.

"Champagne for starters," Mattie said with a low throaty laugh. "I never drink anything else."

Jane clapped her hands and to Diana's amazement a small boy in a loose blue blouse and trousers came in to wait on them. The clothes, together with the color of his skin and the way he wore his long black hair in a pigtail, marked him as Chinese, but the shape of his eyes betrayed his mixed parentage.

"A nice match for the decor," Mattie said, peering down her nose at the boy.

"This is Ning," Jane said. "Elmira hired him to do odd jobs and run errands."

"How odd?" Eva's salacious chuckle sent a cold chill down Diana's spine.

"Is he for sale?" Mattie wanted to know. "I have an acquaintance who's looking for a matched pair, and I hear the Windsor has a Chinese boy in one of the bars."

"He's an
employee
." The acerbic note in Diana's voice made more than one eyebrow arch, but she did not apologize for the show of temper.  

"Go on, Mattie," Jennie taunted. "Hire him away."

Mattie's eyes darkened and one hand covered with a black kid glove, laced, tipped, and striped in silver, crept across the folds of her dark red moire skirt to slide into a hidden pocket. Remembering what Jane had said about the pistol Mattie kept on her person, Diana held her breath, but the tense moment passed when all Mattie did was jingle a few coins together.

"I've better things to do with my money," she said, accepting the champagne Ning offered her and sipping with apparent pleasure.

It was at that moment that the name Mattie Silks triggered Diana's memory. Mattie was one of the two women who'd participated in that duel she'd heard about as a girl. She didn't know whether to be impressed or afraid.

Just as disconcerting was her realization that, although they sipped champagne and other, stronger libations, on the surface these women resembled nothing so much as a group of society matrons gathered to plan some charitable endeavor and gossip about their neighbors. To a woman, they wore gowns of grosgrain and moire, cashmere and faille, expensive gloves and shoes and hats, and jewelry that put anything Diana owned to shame. Pearl Adams in particular was decked out in a splendid ensemble right out of the pages of the latest issue of
La Mode Illustrée
.

"I hear you're paying Minnie a hundred dollars a month to lease her place," Pearl said to Jennie.

Eva looked started. "Didn't offer
me
that much," she muttered.

"Don't intend to, either," Jennie snapped.

Diana hastily wiped the bemused expression from her face. Her momentary fancy had shattered the moment Pearl opened her mouth. These were businesswomen. Entrepreneurs. Admirable in their own way, but
never
ladies.

Directing her piercing gaze toward Diana, Jennie said, "Don't start to think this place will get you much."

"It won't get me anything. It's my mother's business, not mine."

"Has Ed Leeves come by to see you yet?" Pearl asked.

"Who is Ed Leeves?"

Jennie snickered. "A
friend
of your mother's. He's a piece of work, Ed is. Fingers in a lot of pies."

They all thought that comment uproariously funny.

"Miss Diana here's got a friend, too," Eva said, giving her a sly look from beneath the brim of an elaborate bonnet constructed of straw, lace, and velvet ribbons. "Matt Hastings gave her a ride in his trap this morning."

"Handy," Mattie said. "Him being a lawyer and all."

"Wrong kind for what Elmira needs," Jennie chimed in. "Not that any lawyer's going to do her any good."

"At least he'd be sympathetic," Pearl said. "He owns a dance hall up to Torrence."

This was news to Diana, but not a subject she chose to pursue at the moment. She was more interested in getting information on her mother's predicament. "Everyone seems to assume my mother will be convicted of murder. Why don't you tell me why?"

"She threatened your father," Pearl said. "Everybody knows that."

"When? Why? With what?" When no one answered, she turned to Jane. "Do you know anything about this alleged threat?"

Jane shook her head, her face twisted with emotion. "If only I'd seen her come in that night. Then we'd
know
." 

"Distracted, were you?" Jennie imbued the words with enough sarcasm to make Jane flush.

"The hotel was reserved all that night for a private party. A rich cattleman in town for the week took over the whole place to entertain friends. Since I wasn't needed at the door, Elmira said I might have a visitor of my own. You met him, Diana. Alan Kent." Hot color rushed into her cheeks when she said his name. "He's a nice young man," she added defensively. "We didn't do anything but talk."

As one, the madams laughed.

"Something wrong with him then!" Eva slapped her knee and hooted.

"Do any of you know anything about my mother that could help her case?" Diana asked. What Jane did with Alan Kent was none of her business.

"None of us like your ma much," Mattie admitted.

"She's got a snooty way about her," Jennie agreed.

"But she's a good businesswoman. Built up something mighty fine here." Gouldie looked at each of the others as if gathering support. "None of us want to see Ed Leeves take it over."

"What
do
you want?"

"Going out of business would be okay," Mattie said with another low chuckle.

"Or you could sell to one of us," Jennie countered.

"I've told you. I can't sell what isn't mine." She
could
close the place down. "Keeping a lewd house" was against the law, punishable by arrest and a hefty fine. But in spite of the nature of her mother's business, Diana was reluctant to cut off Elmira Torrence's only source of income arbitrarily. "Wouldn't it be better to prove she's innocent? That way things would go back to the way they were."

"Easier said than done." Gouldie puffed out a billow of smoke and narrowed her eyes at Diana. "What did you have in mind?"

"At the moment I'm just gathering information. You can help me there, if you will. You . . . hear things."

"That we do," said Pearl, sending Diana a conspiratorial wink. The poodle, resplendent in a jeweled collar attached to a lead made of gold links, gave a yap of agreement.

Diana started to ask if any of them had known her father, then rephrased the question. "What do you know about my father's enemies? Who would have wanted to kill him?"

"Your friend Matt Hastings, for one," Mattie said. "He and your father were partners in a mine in Torrence for awhile, until Torrence cheated him."

"Could be anyone Torrence ever did business with," Pearl said. "He was a nasty piece of work."

"Do you base that opinion on personal experience?" Eva taunted her.

"He never came to my place. Not once. But I used to visit with Elmira now and again. She sure had reason to know what he was like."

"Did my father ever visit her here?" Diana asked.

"Never set foot on Holladay Street as far as I know," Jenny said. "Too snooty by half."

"But he used to own the Elmira," Diana protested.

No one said anything.

"Why was he at the Windsor that night?"

 "Had a mistress there," Mattie told her. "That's what I heard from one of my regulars, anyway."

But no one knew who she was or where she'd gotten to, or if they did they weren't admitting it. The best anyone could do was give her the name of the assistant manager who'd called in the police when the body was found and make a few suggestions on the best way to get information out of him.

Pearl Adams was the last to leave. She turned back at the door to offer one last piece of advice. "Watch your back, honey," she warned. "I figure Elmira killed him, but if she didn't, then there's someone out there who wants everyone to keep on thinking she did. Man like that's not goin' to take kindly to you provin' otherwise."

* * * *

"Where is she?" Ben Northcote's hands itched to circle Horatio Foxe's scrawny neck and squeeze until his eyes bulged.

Foxe shot to his feet behind the bulk of an oversized oak desk. The cheroot he'd had clamped between his yellowed teeth dropped unnoticed into the clutter of papers covering most of the scarred wooden surface.

After a long, sleepless journey by rail, Ben had reached Diana's boarding house on Tenth Street only to be told that she'd left eight days earlier, bag and baggage. Her landlady, Mrs. Curran, had confirmed what she'd said in her reply to Ben's telegram. Diana had departed in company with Horatio Foxe. Mrs. Curran had no idea where they'd gone.

"She'd had bad news of some sort," Mrs. Curran had added.

Hearing that, Ben had lost no time hailing a Hansom to take him to Park Row, where most of the city's major newspapers, as well as the
Independent Intelligencer
, based their operations.

"Where is she?" Ben slammed the door closed behind him, making the glass rattle ominously, and strode across the room. He gave Foxe no opportunity to escape before he slammed both hands flat amid the litter on the desk. A thin plume of smoke was already rising from the haphazard pile of papers.

Ignoring it, Foxe puffed out his chest. His shoulders went back and his head shot forward. "Confound it, Northcote! You've go no call to come busting in here and raising a ruckus. I've done nothing to Diana Spaulding but try to help her out."

"Where is she, then? Why hasn't she written?" Ben backed off, but his clenched fists underscored the threat in his voice. "I'm prepared to beat the truth out of you. In fact, I'd enjoy it."

The smaller man winced. "That won't be necessary."

"Talk fast, then, before I give in to the impulse to toss you out that convenient bank of windows behind your desk."

"She's in Denver."

He snatched up his smoldering cheroot, slapping at the corner of a telegram and a sheet of foolscap until he'd extinguished all the stray embers. When he was certain nothing else would catch fire, he dropped back into his chair and regarded Ben warily over the glowing tip of the cigar.

"Be sure you tell her that when you see her. That you had to threaten me before I told you anything. Although, technically, all I promised was that I wouldn't
write
a word about her business to you when you contacted me."

"Denver?" Ben prompted him.
Why Denver?
he wanted to shout. It was like a knife in the heart to learn she was so very far away. The distance made her lack of communication even more inexplicable.

"That's where she was bound when she left here. Denver, Colorado."

"Why?" Deprived of the physical release of pommeling Foxe, Ben was reduced to cowing him with a fulminating glare. It was a poor substitute for action.

"I take it you don't know anything about her parents."

Ben felt a stab of dread. "Family matters," her telegram had said. But for some reason he'd expected that to mean the late, unlamented Evan Spaulding. "Her parents? They cut her off. She doesn't like to speak of them."

  "No, she wouldn't. Oh, sit down, man! You'll give me a crick in my blasted neck staring up at you."

Grudgingly, Ben complied. That this was about Diana's parents threw him into even greater confusion. It made no sense to him that she hadn't asked for his help or advice when she'd all but agreed to marry him. Surely whatever skeletons resided in her family's closet were no worse than the many secrets the Northcotes kept.

Foxe tipped his chair back and took a moment to collect his thoughts before he asked, "Ever hear the name William 'Timberline' Torrence?"

"No."

"Diana's father. Mean cuss, from what I hear. M'sister met him once." Foxe blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.

So she'd been born Diana Torrence. It seemed strange to think of her as anyone but Diana Spaulding, though he did think Diana Northcote would suit her even better. "Did Torrence send for her?"

Ben supposed she'd have rushed off to Denver if her father had dangled the hope of a reconciliation under her nose, although that didn't explain why she had been so terse in her telegram. Or why she'd apparently instructed Horatio Foxe not to reply to any of Ben's predictable demands for information.

Foxe's chair landed on all four legs with a thump. He took the cigar out of his mouth and ran ink-stained fingers through a shock of sand-colored hair. The ironic gleam in his eyes had been replaced by a somber expression. "Torrence was murdered."

"Good God!" Ben came to his feet in a rush, then stood still, arms akimbo, at a loss what to do or say next.

"It gets worse."

By the time Foxe finished providing details, Ben stared unseeing at the tall buildings visible through the office window. Why hadn't Diana told him what had happened? Surely she didn't believe he'd think less of her for anything her parents had done? That was insulting to him.

"I haven't heard from Diana since she left New York," Foxe said after a short silence, "but I have learned a bit more about her mother's situation. Seems she's been running a bordello ever since the divorce. I don't mind telling you I'm a little worried about Diana. Must have been a shock when she got there and found out about
that
."

It certainly took Ben aback. He lowered himself into the chair once more and met Foxe's penetrating stare. "Diana is a remarkably open-minded female, and I have reason to know she can look at a 'soiled dove' and see an individual woman."