Fortress of Ephemera: A Gothic Thriller Read Online Free PDF

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