Page 59 of If Looks Could Kill
Come to think of it, I hadn’t asked. “So I assume.”
“I’m going to wait for you,” Mike whispered. “I’ll watch a few minutes, just to make sure nothing happens. Then I’ll disappear for a bit, in case someone is looking for you. Warm myself up. But I’ll come back. Find a way to slip outside in an hour or so to tell me you’re safe, and then I’ll be on my way.”
Gratitude overwhelmed me. It meant the world to know that in all this dangerous city, someone knew where we were and was looking out for us.
“I’m not sure it’s safe for you to go home tonight either,” I told him. “Anyone may have seen you.”
“I’ll be here, for now,” he said. “After that, I’ll figure it out.”
I took Pearl’s hand, and together we entered the house through its tall, dark door.
We found ourselves in a narrow vestibule paved with mosaic tile and paneled with dark wood. Faint light came from a wall sconce in a corridor up ahead.
“Where are we?” Pearl asked dully.
The outer door swung shut behind me on some kind of spring mechanism with hinges groaning. I jumped at the sound of its clanging latch.
I gripped Pearl’s hand tightly. “At the home of someone I pray can help.”
“Someone you know?” asked Pearl.
“No,” I admitted.
The air felt dank and musty. Closed doors flanked us on either side of the corridor. Their woodwork was rough with chipped paint and fuzzy with dust. The corridor ended at a narrow staircase. We heard footsteps and voices above, so we proceeded up the stairs and through a door at the top.
We came out into a grand foyer. I felt, more than saw, its size from the way my footsteps echoed, since the only light came from a candelabrum on a side table. The pale glow cast a misty dimness over all that wasn’t close by. As my eyes adjusted, I noted soaring ceilings and an ornate, sweeping staircase leading up to a third story. An enormous chandelier hung over our heads. Heavy drapes along the front wall hid what seemed to be nearly floor-to-ceiling windows. To one side of us was a parlor and, beyond it, a dining room. The furniture would have been elegant a century prior. Now it was shrouded in cobwebs. The room was warm, almost unnaturally so, though I saw no fires burning.
At the center of it all stood the person I hoped could protect us and keep an armed criminal gang at bay. Scarcely ninety pounds, from the looks of her, frail but erect, she was clad in a high-waisted gown of dark velvet that was fashionable, perhaps, during the age of Napoleon. She herself may have been fashionable during the age of Napoleon, for she was as ancient as any person I’d ever seen living. Her features were craggy and aristocratic, with tissue-thin skin folded over high cheekbones, a prominent nose and chin, and a heavy brow. Despite the warmth, she wore a neck muffler of white fox or mink and a high turban of crushed silk, dotted with pearls. The large rings on her knobby fingers clinked against her ivory-handled walking stick.
Cora and Freyda huddled together before her. She turned to Pearl and me as we drew nearer.
“Ah,” she said. “Here she is.” She looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded.
Pearl clung tighter to my hand.
“Everyone,” I said, “this is Miss Stella.”
“Ladies,” replied she, with a little formal bow.
We all curtseyed and mumbled “ma’am” toward her.
“We’re much obliged to you,” I added, since no one else said anything.
She turned her hawklike face my way. “Tell me your names. Where you’re from. Who your people are.”
I did the honors, as best I could for myself and Pearl. My father was a newspaperman; the Davenports were Pennsylvania farmers. We were Salvation Army girls. Cora explained that she was Cora Kralik from Milford, Connecticut, and that her people were glaziers. Freyda gave her particulars and added that her family were in the garment trade.
What Miss Stella thought of our antecedents, I couldn’t guess, but she nodded gravely toward us. “How do you do?”
None of us spoke. We did not “do” well at all and hadn’t the heart to pretend otherwise.
“We’ve all had a terrible fright,” I said.
“So you explained.” Miss Stella frowned at us awhile. She seemed to be chewing on a thought. “You, Miss Pearl, and you, Miss Tabitha, met through your, er, religious work. How did you come to be acquainted with Miss Freyda and Miss Cora? And how did you all come to invade a brothel this evening?”
I did my best to abbreviate those stories to their essentials. Each of my friends there would be pained by these details.
“And you all saw her?” Miss Stella demanded, pointing her walking stick at Pearl. “The three of you saw her in this transformed state?”
