Chapter 27
Dr. Ellis telephoned that afternoon, humble and apologetic. He had followed through on what he’d promised in the note and
consulted another doctor.
“I simply don’t understand it,” he said. “Thomas should be getting better. He did rally at first, didn’t he? Mrs. Stanton,
I’m making arrangements for your husband to check into the hospital. I will come with the ambulance in about an hour, sooner
if possible.”
“Oh dear, the hospital?” Caroline said. “Are you sure?”
Hospitals were for those who couldn’t afford house calls and private physicians. Some doctors even performed minor surgeries
at patients’ homes. Even though Shanghai’s newer hospitals provided the most advanced care and owned the latest medical equipment,
many foreign residents still preferred home care and their own doctors.
“I know, I know, my dear Mrs. Stanton”—the doctor sounded even more apologetic—“I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t so serious
and puzzling. Only in such an extreme situation would I do this. They have more diagnostic equipment, you see, more ways to
test.”
“Of course, Doctor. I rely on your professional judgment. I have every faith in you.” She hung up the phone and walked up the stairs slowly to Thomas’s bedroom.
Chin was there with a houseboy. She nodded at Chin to let him know she was ready to sit with Thomas again.
The houseboy carried away a laundry hamper piled with soiled and sweaty bed linens. She shut the bedroom door.
“Mrs. Easton warned me about Dr. Ellis,” she said. She gave Thomas another injection and dabbed his face with a cool washcloth.
“I can blame everything on Dr. Ellis’s lack of attention. He’s careless as well as arrogant. Another doctor would’ve gone
for a second opinion sooner, or examined you for another diagnosis. And, of course, some will blame me for trusting Ellis
this long.”
She sat in the chair down by the window, turned on a table lamp, and picked up a magazine. But she had barely settled down
to read when Chin rapped on the door. He entered and held out a calling card.
Princess Masako Kyo. She sighed. The Manchurian princess had caused Lisan so much distress. “Tell her that Miss Liu is not available,” she said,
“that she is out.”
Chin shook his head. “It’s you she wants to see, Missy. I wasn’t able to keep her out. She is in the drawing room.” In the
short time they had lived at Lennox Manor, it never failed to amaze her how Chin, even with his limited English, seemed able
to anticipate her orders. The drawing room, more formal, nothing of their personal life on display there.
“Tell Miss Liu to stay in her room. Tell her Masako Kyo is here and to avoid going downstairs until I’ve made that woman go
away.” She stood up and walked over to Thomas’s bed. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, then paused for a moment to
stand in front of a mirror and tuck away a stray tendril of hair.
The double doors leading to the drawing room were decorated on one side with carved panels in the Chinese style, landscapes
of cliffs and waterfalls, pine forests so finely detailed she could almost see every needle on every tree. Chin had left the
doors wide open and Masako Kyo stood posed in the drawing room, perfectly framed by the archway of the door.
She wore a fox fur stole draped over the shoulders of a black three-quarter-length cashmere coat. The fox’s eyes were yellow glass and matched the topazes in her earrings. Caroline admired the sham princess’s elegant ensemble even as she remained wary of her reason for coming to Lennox Manor.
“Did our servant not take your coat?” Caroline asked, reaching out to help Kyo take off her fox fur.
“I’m keeping my coat on, Mrs. Stanton,” Kyo said, “because I’m not staying long. For one thing, you won’t want my company
after I’ve said what I’ve come here to say. For another, I must be at the train station soon after this, so there’s no need
to bother with the usual courtesies.”
“But are you not here to speak with Lisan?” Caroline said. The intensity of Kyo’s gaze, her slightly triumphant smile, made
her back away. Casually, she moved behind a chair so that it stood between her and Kyo. Caroline put one hand on the chairback.
Kyo’s brilliant smile sent a growing unease coursing through her body.
Kyo shook her head. “No, not dear Lisan,” she said, “dear little Liu Lisan, who doesn’t understand how important she is, who
is wasting her life as your secretary, Mrs. Stanton. One day you’ll understand why I say that. No, Lisan can wait until another
day. Today, my business is with you.”
“You perplex me, madam,” Caroline said. “Business? We’ve only met once before, and that was at our party. A social event.”
“You had business with Andrew Grey,” she said, “and now that he’s gone, it falls to me to complete the transaction. You seem
astonished, Mrs. Stanton. He was more than my lover. We were also business partners.”
“My condolences,” Caroline said. “I heard he had died. But what business do you mean? His only business was with Mason, as architect for an office renovation.” A growing unease now chilled her to the bone, and her heart beat faster, a familiar thrumming of fear.
“If only poor Andrew hadn’t owed money to the wrong sort of people,” Kyo said. “The police seem certain gambling debts are
behind his murder. But he left me some very valuable information about you. You promised Andrew fifteen thousand dollars,
Mrs. Stanton, in exchange for him keeping your secret.”
“Why would I promise him fifteen thousand dollars?” Caroline said. Her nails dug into the upholstery, but she kept her voice
even. How much did Kyo actually know? Was she bluffing?
“I have some information he shared with me,” Kyo said, “information that allows me to extort money from you. I won’t be coy
and call it anything else but blackmail, since I’m dealing with a woman who isn’t exactly honest herself.”
Caroline tensed. But what could Kyo prove anyway? Unlike Grey, she had never met the Dominics or any of their circle.
“I can’t prove anything right now,” Kyo said, as if reading her mind, “since it was Andrew who met you back in New York. But
he knew he needed evidence to support his claims, especially when facing your husband. And that evidence is on its way from
America.”
She paused to see the effect of her words on Caroline, who said nothing, just tilted her head inquiringly as if waiting for
Kyo to continue. “I will be picking up mail from his hotel as soon as I’m back from Peking, Mrs. Stanton. They know to hold
it for me.”
All Caroline said was “What sort of evidence?”
“Photographs, documents, who knows?” Kyo shrugged. “And until such evidence arrives, which should be next week, I have nothing.
Admittedly nothing. But I’m telling you now so you can finish getting the money together. Which you may already have done.
Well, I should leave now and let you think it through. You don’t need to show me out.”
But Caroline followed her out to the foyer anyway. She had to see for herself that the woman really was out of her house. The sedan chair porters jumped up from the steps to carry the chair closer to the door. Kyo stood at the threshold, then turned to face Caroline.
“Mrs. Stanton, I want you to know the money isn’t for myself,” she said. “I’m working with Japanese interests that are trying
to reshape the Manchu Empire into a monarchy guided by Japan. And since I’ve discovered someone who could make a real difference
to our efforts, it’s urgent that I have the money to do something about it.”
“So you’re conniving against your own emperor,” Caroline said.
Kyo smiled. “And you’re impersonating Caroline Vessey.”
The sedan chair moved ponderously down the driveway. Caroline stood on the steps until the iron gate closed. She shut the
front door, leaned against it, and closed her eyes, heaving a quiet sigh.
“What did Masako Kyo want, Mrs. Stanton?” Lisan faced her from the bottom of the marble staircase.
Caroline recalled Kyo’s last words. And you’re impersonating Caroline Vessey. Had Lisan heard the accusation?
“She didn’t mention you, Lisan,” she said, “so don’t worry. I’ve never met anyone so full of nonsense. She was making up all
sorts of unfounded accusations trying to extort money. Something about needing it to rebuild China now that she’s found someone
who can undermine the current government. What rubbish.”
The young woman’s face remained troubled. Caroline brushed past her and climbed the stairs back to Thomas’s room. Inwardly
she cursed Andrew Grey. And Mason, who had hired him.
Thomas had deteriorated shockingly. His original nausea, stomach pains, and diarrhea had compounded with severe headache and delirium, more vomiting and weakness.
His breathing was increasingly labored, his skin clammy and cold.
Without morphine, he cried out from horrible stomach pains, and his eyelids opened and fluttered shut, more in response to her touch on his wrist than anything Caroline said.
A rapid, irregular heartbeat. His only relief was morphine.
He would never make it to the hospital, she was sure of that now. It was very likely that it had been too late even a day
ago. She propped a cushion behind her back and pulled a blanket over her legs. Thomas was dying and Ellis hadn’t recognized
how serious it was. No doubt people would blame her—and Mason as well—for not seeking a second opinion sooner, for not taking
him to a hospital sooner. But Thomas had deteriorated so quickly. And although she wanted to be awake, to know the exact moment
her husband drew his last breath, she felt herself dozing off. Just for a few minutes, she thought. Just a few minutes.
When she woke up, Mason was beside her. When she met his eyes, she knew. Her husband was dead. She leaned over and took his
hand. Still warm, but no pulse. His eyes were closed, a relief.
“Dr. Ellis wanted to take Thomas to the hospital,” she said. “It’s what he should’ve done before. It’s what he should’ve done
sooner. Why did we trust him?”
Mason sat heavily on the bed, put his head in his hands. “Is Ellis coming?”
“He telephoned to say he would be coming with the ambulance,” she said, wearily rubbing her eyes. “Please, Mason, perhaps
you could go downstairs to wait for Dr. Ellis.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” and Mason hurried out. She heard his loud footfalls along the corridor, down the staircase. She
closed her eyes and leaned against the chair. It was over. This part of her life anyway.
Only when Dr. Ellis hurried into the room did she look up. Outside, daylight was fading. It was late afternoon, nearly evening. An hour later, she was officially widowed, a copy of Thomas’s death certificate on the side table, signed by the doctor.
Caroline wanted the funeral to be held as soon as possible. Dr. Ellis agreed, as she knew he would. He didn’t want any delays,
any opportunities for questions that might accuse him of incompetence.
“Your husband was very dehydrated,” he said, speaking hurriedly, “which made it harder for him to fight infections. It looks
as though he caught some form of amoebic dysentery, which the lab tests didn’t catch, I must point out.”
Mason was furious. “I’ll make sure this ruins him,” he said, after the doctor left. “Why couldn’t he see something was seriously
wrong? Something worse than a case of parasites? We should’ve called in a second opinion sooner.”
“You’re right about the second opinion,” she said, “but we all thought that Thomas was rallying, improving after taking his
medications. We trusted Dr. Ellis. And then Thomas went downhill so suddenly. What could anybody have done?”
“He’s an incompetent idiot, that Ellis,” Mason said, still fuming. “I’ll make him sorry he didn’t do a more careful diagnosis.
I’ll ask for an inquest.”
“Uncle Mason, please,” Caroline said, “it won’t bring Thomas back. Who’s to say another doctor could’ve done better? It’s
over now. I just want a little peace.” Also, an inquest wasn’t up to Mason. She was Thomas’s wife and she didn’t care to launch
an inquest.
“My dear, I’m sorry for showing such temper,” Mason said.
“No one could’ve nursed him with more devotion.
You’re exhausted.” He reached over and patted her on the hand.
“We’ll speak no more of it, my dear. I didn’t mean to rage, but he was my heir and business partner.
Now there’s no one to carry on my legacy.
Only you, Caroline. You’re all I’ve got left. ”
She sat by Thomas’s bedside while Mason made calls to the funeral parlor. Despite the weariness that dragged at her shoulders
and neck she sat stiffly upright. If she allowed herself to slump, she would simply collapse. The waiting, the wondering,
it was all over. Mason came upstairs, loud footsteps signaling his return. She looked up and caught the expression on Mason’s
face, just a glance in her direction before Chin came up behind him and said something; then Mason and Chin went back down
the stairs.
It had been an appraising look. That was the word that came to mind when she recalled Mason’s face.