Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller (4 page)

Damn you, Sir! Damn you for all the ghoulish revisiting to come!

December 12
^th
, 1919

Law Offices of Gaines, Trenowyth, and Fenno

For the time being, I denied Miss Buxton's request for an introduction to the Langley family, sharing that, in my opinion, her intentions—indeed her entire political ideology—ran contrary to some of the most basic tenets of the American creed: personal liberty, individualism, and self-reliance. She disagreed, of course, offering some queer logic characteristic of the female persuasion, and departed. But four days later she paid another unannounced visit to my office and persisted. It was by now the ominous 12
^th
late in the afternoon.

“Are we not 'our brother's keeper,' Mister Trenowyth?”

“That we are, Miss Buxton. However, the government—whom you work for, whom you represent—is no brother to man.”

“What is government then? A father? A mother?”

“A tyrant—when left unrestrained to meddle in the lives of citizens. How would you like it if I insisted on meddling in your private affairs?”

“Go ahead, if you'd like. I could stand a good meddling right about now.” Her smile outshone her words in wickedness.

“I take it you've been meddled with before?”

“If I admitted you would not be my first, would that shock you, Sir?”

“Everything about you shocks me, Miss.”

She seemed more exotic than ever with her blunt talk and blunt cut hair, eyes rimmed black with Kohl. My Annabel had been reserved in the presence of men and a virgin on our wedding night. She'd worn light makeup, and her red tresses when unfurled would reach to the deepest curve in her spine. By day she would wear it up in a pompadour, the back hair pulled together into a plait or flat coil and drawn onto the crown. The two women shared not a thing in common I had yet noted, but their natural female compassion for the suffering of others.

Miss Pimm appeared in the doorway to relate that I had more unexpected visitors waiting to introduce themselves: two workmen from New York Edison.

“What in blazes do they want with me, Miss Pimm? Don't tell me I forgot to pay last month's bill?”

“They say it has to do with the Langleys.”

“The Langleys? But they use no gas or electricity. Of that I'm sure.”

Miss Pimm shrugged her shoulders. I instructed her to show them back in another three minutes and I returned my attention to Miss Buxton.

“Just when our conversation had turned titillating.”

“You wish to continue it another time?”

“Most definitely.” I tried out my own wicked smile.

She leaned closer in her seat. “What do you think those men want?”

“I'm as ignorant as you are.”

“You'll tell me the next time we meet?”

“Perhaps. I may feel restrained to protect the privacy of my clients.”

I ushered her to the doorway, where I tarried as she retreated down the hall. Once again she'd worn a skirt that did not cinch up at the waistline; it gave her a boyish, tubular silhouette much in contrast to the corset-assisted hourglass silhouette favored by my voluptuous Annabel, favored by most women of good breeding before the war. A meal sack would've flattered Miss Buxton more.

She was a tomboy, I decided, though not in a state of arrested development. It was that damn Suffragist movement at fault, combined with the recent war, which had strained too many of our women by pushing them out of necessity into sex-inappropriate occupations—as workers in factories, as messengers and porters and train conductors, as bookkeepers and bank clerks, as administrators, as household heads. I would pass young females dressed just like Miss Buxton everyday now on the streets, share the soon-to-be-outlawed bars I frequented with more of the same: all these women who'd forgotten their places, aided by the men who'd forgotten theirs, or simply forsaken the natural order of things in these turbulent times. It was hard to fathom that we American men were on the verge of voting our women the right to vote.

The world I'd gone off to war to defend was slipping away, despite total victory against Europe's Central Powers. Meanwhile, the coming world's new perversions, if Miss Buxton were any indication, were proving hard to resist.

The workmen jangled into my office in denim overalls, leather tool belts bisecting their bodies. One possessed the height and girth of motion picture comedian Fatty Arbuckle. The other had a slight, Buster Keaton build, his obsidian hair slicked back with petroleum jelly and parted down the middle. Their faces were obscured—from the bridge of the nose downwards—by white surgical masks, a common sight, of course, as recently as early summer, though considerably less common now in December with the pandemic at last in retreat.

Annabel!
I thought the instant I saw the masks.
Oh,
Annabel!

The Keaton-size workman, flat cap in hand, gave me a servile little bow. “Howard Kemble, New York Edison.” His words arrived muffled by the gauze. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Trenowyth, Sir. This here's my partner, Willie—Urgh, Wilbur—Jones. It's probably best we don't shake hands, I'm sure you understand. We've had a little outbreak down at the company.”

Another muffled voice, from inside my desk drawer, called to me.
Laudanum
!

“What is it I can do for you men? I have, ugh, pressing business to attend to.”

“We understand you represent, in a legal nature, the party currently residing at 2078 Fifth Avenue? The Langleys?”

“That's correct.”

“We're to take out their gas and electricity meters.”

“Why?”

“Well, Sir, the Langleys haven't purchased any gas or electricity in twelve years.”

“I meant why now?”

Howard shrugged. “Our manager's idea. Mack Gribbon's his name. He figures it won't be long—now that the sorry state of that old mansion is common knowledge—before the health department condemns the building and commences to give it a good bulldozing. So before it gets razed to the ground, we want down in the basement, to get our meters back. It's not the customer who owns them, we do.”

“But you've had twelve years—”

“Let's just say Willie and me forgot all about the Langleys until this recent series of newspaper stories. That's what we told our boss, Mack Gribbon, at any rate, when he found out the meters hadn't been retrieved. The truth is, our forgetting was deliberate. The Langleys's old meter reader, Seamus Foy, shared some awful stories about that old ruin before he retired, and suffice it to say, we'd both rather slide down a barbed wire banister than make this house call.”

Willie mumbled to Howard: “Ask 'im if it's true 'bout the cats.”

“Catch that, Sir?” Howard said to me. “Are there indeed wild, rabid cats about?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “and the Langleys are wild and rabid themselves. This enterprise isn't half-worth the trouble involved.”

“I believe you, Sir, but tell that to Mack Gribbon.”

“I think I'll do just that. Do you have his telephone number handy?”

“Save your breath, Sir. Ole Mack's a stickler about rules and procedures and the law and such and protecting the company's interests, see for yourself.” From a pocket of his overalls he extracted a two-page document folded in quarters, opened it up, and handed it to me: a court order granting New York Edison access to the Langley mansion to retrieve its property.

I huffed my displeasure and handed back the order. “I can't guarantee Noah Langley's cooperation. He's a compulsive hoarder, after all. I can only guarantee his coveting your meters like kinfolk.”

“Those hoarders covet the snot in their hankies like kinfolk, don't they, Sir?” Howard said, earning a guffaw from Willie. “We've met plenty in our line of work. So we know this won't be easy or pleasant, but surely with your assistance, Mister Trenowyth, we wouldn't have to telephone the police and the fire department and—”

“And beget another ruckus like the first one.”

“Precisely, Sir.”

I sighed. It wouldn't do for the Langleys to endure another spectacle such as the first one, another siege. I couldn't allow such cruel treatment towards a pair of aged recluses. “When?”

“Why, now, Sir.”

Of the Night in Question

Outside the Langley Mansion

Approximately 5:00 PM

We bundled up in our overcoats, retrieved from the cloakroom, and rode a taxicab to Harlem. The sky's crepuscular light faded along the way so that we arrived at our destination with the nightfall. The great brownstone loomed before us unlit, a dark age having overcome its inhabitants. The streetlights and the illumination from adjoining buildings exposed the vapors of our breath and threw a feast of shadows against the walls of the Langley mansion. Shortly after our taxicab pulled away another pulled up to the spot vacated and out popped Miss Cora Buxton.

“Surprised to see me, no doubt, Mister Trenowyth.” She stepped up onto the curb. Her taxicab roared off. “I was sitting in that little café across the street from your office, warming myself with a cup of sassafras tea by the window, when I happened to spot you emerging, along with your present company. It wasn't hard to guess where the party was headed.”

“Spying on me, Miss Buxton? You really shouldn't have. Nor should you have come.”

“Explain yourself, Sir. Twice in the last week I have beseeched you for an introduction to the Langleys, only to be denied, and yet now you grant New York Edison an introduction post-haste.” I mentioned the court order. “Oh, I see,” she said, ire deflating, and turned her face to the workmen. They doffed their navy flat caps and bowed as I made the introductions. She turned back to me. “I'm going inside with you.”

“You most certainly are not.”

“If you should refuse to introduce me, then I will take this opportunity to address Noah Langley personally when he opens the front door.”

“Not very couth, Miss Buxton. Ladies oughtn't—”

“I don't care what ladies oughtn't.”

“Besides, there's no guarantee of being greeted at all.”

“Then I will take my chances, just as you are doing.”

“You really don't want an invitation inside that place, believe me.”

“I do not believe you.”

At that comment I grew miffed and pointed to the edifice. “That dwelling is a vile affront to the senses, to the mind, and to decent society, if we still possess such a thing. At any rate, it's no place for a woman.”

“There is a woman in there now. Living there.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Howard Kemble stepped closer, shoulders hunched against the wind and cold. “No one in this neighborhood's laid eyes on her in ten years or more, according to the newspapers. Rumor has it old Noah's living with the corpse of his dead sister.”

“Spare us the gossip, Howard,” I said. “Elizabeth Langley hasn't been seen because she's a cripple and a recluse.”

“I bow to your opinion, Sir.” And he did. “You're probably right. Still, anything is possible amongst the godforsaken.” He lowered his mask briefly to blow into a gloveless fist for warmth.

“I can assure you,” I said, “the woman's very much alive.”

“You've met her then?”

“No, but the last time I was inside the residence, I heard her ring a bell calling for her brother as he stood beside me.” I swung my attention back to Miss Buxton. “Once the Langleys have been evicted by the health department—which is inevitable, and will happen soon, despite my own, extraordinary legal talents—I promise to introduce you to them. I'm sure you'll be of assistance and comfort in that difficult hour. But not here, not now. Neither your psyche, nor your clothing would emerge from that building unscathed.”

She wore a blue fox fur coat with an ivory collar and an ivory felt hat of the kind I'd first seen in France the year before, a
cloche
. They are bell-shaped, and this one framed Miss Buxton's face much as a baby's bonnet. I confess it flattered her—even in dim lighting, even with her mood in a fine pique—to the point where I had to turn away, lest my resolve weaken.

“Let's get this thing over with, Mister Trenowyth,” Willie Jones said, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet and hugging himself. “My toes are pinching me they're so cold.”

“One moment,” I said just as Miss Buxton addressed me again.

“Over the past three years, Sir, in my official capacity as a Family Visitor for the Department of Public Charities, I have witnessed so many atrocities firsthand I could not count them all. I know what degradation looks, smells, tastes, and feels like, and I've learned not to shudder in its presence. Do as you please, Mister Trenowyth, but if you will not now introduce me to this lost, distressed family then I promise you I shall do as I please and stand vigil alone on this sidewalk starting tonight, and every night, until Noah Langley emerges from his residence in the wee hours to begin one of his infamous, nocturnal rounds, whereupon I will intercept him.”