Chapter 31
It took Lisan less than ten minutes to throw all her belongings into the carpetbag. She debated taking her books and decided
against it. One final look around to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. She was sorry she’d burned the diary; she
wished she had given it to Chin. But what could Chin do with it anyway—he couldn’t read French.
He could read Chinese though. She would give him the translated pages. It wasn’t as good as having his daughter’s actual notebook
but it was something. But Chin might not return before she left, so she’d leave the translation on the kitchen table for him,
with an explanatory note.
She sat at the desk to write the note, but the bell from the small parlor sent Lisan hurrying up to Mrs. Stanton’s summons.
“Here you go, Lisan, your wages,” the American woman said, and handed her a sealed envelope. “I wish you all the best.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stanton,” she replied, thinking that the best thing was to get out of this room, this house.
“Could you do one more thing before you leave?” Mrs. Stanton said. “Could you ask Mason to come see me, here in my parlor?”
“Yes, of course,” she murmured, “right away.”
It was only the second time she had crossed the landing to enter the east wing. She had no idea where she might find Mason, so she knocked on the door closest to the landing. After waiting a moment, she tried the next one, which she recalled was his study.
“Chin, is that you?” Mason bellowed from inside. “Where’s the boy with my clean towels? Ah, it’s you, Miss Liu, visiting my
humble quarters.”
“Mrs. Stanton requests that you see her, Mr. Burnett,” Lisan said, backing farther out to the corridor. Even from the door,
Lisan could detect the smell of whiskey. “She is in her private parlor.”
A satisfied look came over his face. “A momentous occasion, an invitation to her private parlor.” He heaved himself out of
the leather armchair and looked around the floor, put his feet into a pair of ludicrously bright cloth slippers and headed
out to the hallway. He gave Lisan a quick pat on the rear, humming as he strode across the landing toward the small parlor.
Back in her room, she picked up her bags and gave in to relief. It was long past time to be gone. Away from this family of
murderers. Then she heard a cry, followed by a loud crash. Then silence. Then her name, called out in desperation. The urgency
of Mrs. Stanton’s voice made Lisan rush to the parlor.
“Help! Lisan, help!” Mrs. Stanton’s blond hair had come undone and her cheeks were flushed. She stood at the threshold of
the parlor door. “Mr. Burnett has collapsed. Get him some smelling salts, the ones inside the small cabinet. I will run downstairs
to telephone Dr. Ellis.” She held the door open for Lisan.
Mason lay crumpled in front of the fireplace, one arm flung out; the other lay across the side of his head, his bulky form
was absolutely motionless. She hurried to the cabinet and opened the drawer to find the smelling salts. As she knelt beside
Mason, the parlor door shut and a key turned in the latch.
Startled, she called out, “Mrs. Stanton?”
“Lisan?” came the reply from the other side of the door. “I’m sorry, my dear, I’m truly sorry. But you’ve disappointed me and I can’t trust you anymore.”
Lisan rushed to the door. “Mrs. Stanton? Mrs. Stanton!”
What was she going to do? Drive away with both Lisan and Mason still locked in the room? But Chin would come back at some
point. And hopefully also Yao. She should’ve listened to him, left long ago, before all the small delays led her to this.
Although the more she thought about it, the more she doubted that Mason had poisoned his nephew.
A groan brought her to Mason’s side, where she rolled him onto his back and waved the smelling salts under his nose. As he
jerked his face away from the glass vial, she saw blood on the side of his head. A heavy silver candlestick lay on the carpet,
one of a pair on the mantel. Blood smeared the polished base.
“Mr. Burnett?” she asked, dabbing the blood with her handkerchief. “Can you hear me?”
He waved her away and sat up, holding on to the armchair, then pulled himself up into the chair, breathing heavily. She held
out the bloodstained square of white cambric and he took it without a word, pressed it against the wound. She needed to find
something to tie around his head and stop the bleeding.
Lisan took scissors out of the sewing box and examined the velvet drapes. They were lined with plain cotton. She cut away
a panel of lining fabric and tore it into strips.
“You need to watch out for that one,” Mason said. She wrapped the cloth around his head and over the folded handkerchief,
keeping it tight against the wound. “She’s not really Caroline Stanton. Where is she?”
“Please keep your hand against the handkerchief, sir,” Lisan said, “and as for where she is, she was planning to check into the Astor Hotel for a few days before leaving Shanghai. I guess she doesn’t want us interfering with her departure and that’s one reason why she’s locked us in this room.”
Mason shook his head, winced. “You already knew she’s an impostor?”
“Yes, but I found out only about half an hour ago,” Lisan said, “and she guessed—she could tell I’d figured it out. I had
been looking through her school yearbook. She offered to take me traveling with her as a paid companion, and I refused. I
told her not to worry, that I wouldn’t give away her secret. But obviously she doesn’t trust me.”
“She’s a clever one,” Mason said, “and this isn’t over, you can be sure. I fear we are in danger, Miss Liu.”
“When did you learn she was an impostor, sir?” This was the longest and most rational conversation she’d ever had with Mason.
He seemed to have aged; his complexion was gray, and his entire face sagged.
“I found out about her the day after Thomas died,” he said. “It was thanks to Andrew Grey, rest his soul.”
Andrew Grey, who had been killed. A slow knot began hardening in her stomach. He’d been killed for knowing Mrs. Stanton’s
secret.
“She asked me whether I was going to trade silence for money like the others,” Lisan said. “Blackmail? Were there others?”
“Grey wasn’t the only one,” Mason said. “I tried it too, once I got hold of Grey’s evidence. My dear, somehow I don’t think
false Caroline will be content to leave us alive.”
No, Lisan thought. Not when Mason could send the police after her. She tried opening a window but the wood frames were warped
and refused to budge. The second window was no better; no matter how hard she tried, the sash wouldn’t lift more than an inch.
She was overcome with that familiar sensation again, more urgent this time, warning her to get out, get out, get out.
“You’re right, Mr. Burnett,” Lisan said, “she won’t be content to leave us alive.
Not when we both know.” She ran to the parlor door and looked through the keyhole.
The key wasn’t in it. She put her ear to the floor and thought she could hear Mrs. Stanton’s footsteps, first along the wooden floor, then a sharper clatter of shoes on hard marble.
The main staircase. Mrs. Stanton was going downstairs.
Lisan rushed to the window and the blond head emerged from under the porte cochere.
“She’s headed for the garage to get her motorcar,” Lisan said. “She’s leaving.”
But Mason didn’t answer. His head was lolling to one side. “Dizzy,” he mumbled, “but I hardly drank anything today. Sun’s
not yet over the yardarm, is it?”
“Mr. Burnett?” Lisan said. “How are you feeling?” But she didn’t move away from the window.
“Like someone smashed a candlestick over my head, how do you think?” he said, sounding amused. He sat up straighter, pushing
himself upright using the armrests. “Head hurts like hell, arms and legs won’t move. Room too bright.” A fit of coughing,
which turned into retching. He wiped his mouth with a scrap of fabric.
“Damned inconvenient that all the servants have quit,” Mason murmured. “Scared of ghosts, Chin said. Why are you Chinese so
backward and superstitious? Present company excepted.” He was sweating.
“Normally, the servants would not worry too much,” she said, still looking out the window. “They’d make offerings to appease
ordinary ghosts. But the ghost of a suicide is the worst kind, one that can’t be appeased. His sole purpose is driving another
person to suicide.”
“Do you know,” he said, “that time I saw you in the middle of the night, I thought you were Rosalie’s ghost. Sometimes I think
I see her, you know.”
“Sometimes I think I see her too,” Lisan said, glancing back at him.
Was it possible that of all the people in this house, Mason was the only other person who felt a ghostly presence?
But Charles had been his son. It made sense.
“I’ve seen her in dreams and sometimes at night outside in the garden. Do you ever wonder where Rosalie went?”
“She didn’t go anywhere, she’s dead,” Mason said. His hand moved to his chest and he coughed. “Charles killed her.”
Lisan’s legs gave way; she had to sit on the windowsill. Rosalie dead. “How? When?” was all she could manage to say.
“Miss Liu, I fear the worst,” Mason said. His eyes were unfocused, struggling to stay open. “I don’t know what that woman
has in mind, but we will not leave here alive. Or at least I won’t. So I will tell you how and when. Call it my confession.”
Mason and Charles hadn’t spoken in months, Mason living in his Shanghai apartment, Charles with Rosalie in Lennox Manor. He
ignored Charles’s pleas for money, and heard through the grapevine that his son was drinking heavily and had lost most of
his friends, as much from ill temper as from the amounts he’d been borrowing. Then Chin, who had stayed at Lennox Manor, came
to see him one morning and told him how low Charles had fallen.
Mason went to Lennox Manor for a last attempt to reason with Charles, one final offer: he’d pay all Charles’s debts if he