Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [146]
“It scarcely seems the décor a young lady would have chosen,” I said.
“No, I suppose not. But then Christine could not be considered young. She was thirty-four when she died. And though she was gentle and kindly to a fault, I doubt that she would have been thought of as a lady by other than the most generous of souls. The house, you see, was a brothel that catered to the upper classes and my sister, by every account, both owned and served in it.”
Attempting to address this revelation with delicacy, I said, “I realize that among the wealthy there are those who derive titillation from visiting squalid locales. Yet I should think even they might find regular visits to Saint Nichol to be something of a risk.”
Bitterness invaded his tone. “Who can fathom these people, unless one is to the manor born?” He left a pause. “I suspect it was such a man who financed Christine. She had a modest income from my mother’s estate, but not enough to fund an enterprise of this magnitude.”
“I meant to ask how your sister became involved in this business,” I said. “Am I to take it that you are not privy to that information?”
“I haven’t a clue. It came as a shock to me that she was in London. Her letters bore an address on the Continent—in Toulouse, to be precise—and in them she spoke with enthusiasm about her life there. She must have had someone post them for her. When I visited her, and I did so twice a year, we met at the seaside, and whenever she had occasion to visit me, she would arrive by train. She concealed this portion of her life from everyone excepting her clientele. I cannot imagine how she sank to this abysmal state, nor have I encountered anyone who can enlighten me.”
A second young woman entered the room and whispered in Richmond’s ear. Though taller and more statuesque, more refined of feature, she might have been sister to the first and was clad in the same fashion.
“Very well, Jane,” Richmond said. “We will be along directly.”
Once she had exited I remarked on the women’s resemblance to each other. His response skirted the issue.
“I offered money to the girls who worked here in order that they could start life anew,” Richmond said. “Most accepted my offer, but Jane and Dorothea elected to stay with me. They have become my family, assisting me in my work and ministering to my every need.”
A touch of defiance in his speech told me all I might wish to know about the extent of their ministrations.
“I will return to the subject of my sister,” he went on, “but I must now, for the sake of brevity, tell you something about my work. Six months prior to Christine’s death I began construction of a machine that would cleanse the air of London. It was my hope to reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases. After the shock of Christine’s death had passed, after I had accepted the fact that she had debased herself, I once again took up my work.”
He stood and, beckoning me to join him, crossed to a table whereon lay a leather folio that proved to contain architectural drawings and blueprints. I did not gain much from the majority of them, save that they were precisely executed and described complex machinery. However, the last drawing made a certain fantastic sense—it was an overview of central London to which had been added eight mountainous conical structures (the cones formed by concentric silver rings, separated by gaps through which one could make out intricate labyrinths of glass and metal) that dwarfed the buildings beneath, standing, I would estimate, five or six times the height of Big Ben.
“Atop the house I have installed four machines like these, only much smaller,” said Richmond. “They are each of a variant design—I sought to learn which of