Fatal as a Fallen Woman Read Online Free PDF

same hard gravel and clay Diana remembered.
    On Seventeenth Street, one of Denver's busiest thoroughfares, they were swallowed up by heavy traffic. Landaus, traps, and dogcarts vied for space with dray wagons and men on horseback, all competing with the horse-drawn cars of the Denver Tramway Company.
    Irish Harry spat in the general direction of the tracks and muttered, "electric street railway," in a tone of disgust.
    He glanced at Diana. "Be glad they're back to four-legged power," he told her. "Up till last year the tracks had underground power conduits. Trouble was, folks trying to cross the street got shocks if they stepped on the mid-track slotway and one of the rails at the same time. So did horses. Caused a lot of rearing and bolting before they abandoned the system. I hear they're putting in new underground cable traction now. Supposed to work this time. Hah!"
    Tired as she was, Diana could not fail to notice how much Denver had grown since her last visit. There had been a spate of new building along the fourteen blocks that separated Union Station from Broadway, still mostly of orange-red brick, but here and there a structure of gray limestone rose above the rest.
    The smell had not improved, she thought. The stench from the South Platte was faint but pervasive. People living here got used to it after awhile.
    Diana sincerely hoped she wouldn't be staying in Denver that long.
    When the gig turned onto Broadway, businesses quickly gave way to expensive private homes. Here there were more trees, mostly cottonwoods, planted in rows along sidewalks laid with large flagging stones. The trees were well irrigated. A steadily flowing stream bubbled along the gutters.
    Diana's tension increased as they neared her old home. Her shoulders felt stiff, her chest tight. What had happened to her mother? Had she been arrested? Was she even now sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial? Or had the real killer been caught?
    She prayed the crisis was past, that her trip here had been unnecessary, but by the time the big bay came to a halt, her hands were clenched tightly in her lap and she'd gnawed her lips until they were raw. She dabbed absently at her mouth with one hand, barely noticing the tiny bloodstain she left on her glove. Leaning forward, she fixed her eyes on the house that had once been her home. At first glance, it appeared unchanged.
    With the narrow frontage typical of Denver houses, the Torrence mansion stretched back on its lot. The gate opened on wide, high steps leading to a front porch, which her father had called a piazza and her mother the veranda.
    For an instant, Diana was catapulted back to the time she'd first seen the rugged rhyolite facade with its contrasting sections of smooth red sandstone. She'd been awed by the sheer size of the place, even before she discovered there were twenty rooms inside, each one decorated with fancy imported wallpaper. She recalled being particularly impressed by the steam heat and indoor plumbing. 
    She'd been nine. After years of poverty, her miner father had struck silver in the mountains west of Denver. The first thing he'd done was commission an architect and build himself a house. The second was to hire tutors for his daughter. She was going to be a lady, he'd told her, whether she wanted to be or not.
    "Will you be staying here, ma'am?" asked Irish Harry.
    "Yes," she said with more confidence than she felt. "Please bring my bags to the porch." Mother would not turn her away. Nor, if Elmira Torrence was in jail, would her servants.
    She tipped the hackman as generously as she could—she had not yet had an opportunity to cash Horatio Foxe's bank draft—and alighted from the gig, leaving her driver to transport her belongings. Chin thrust out and shoulders thrown back, she marched towards the ornate front door with its glittering glass knob.
    Out of the corner of one eye, Diana caught sight of a lawn decoration that had not been there six years earlier. Surprised, she