Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

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