Chapter 31 #2
would divorce Rosalie. Even though it would bankrupt him, Mason was willing to do this for his son. He found the front door
unlocked, the house empty. He followed the sound of weeping upstairs to the west wing, where he found Charles beside Rosalie’s
body.
“It was jealousy,” Mason said, “jealousy and hurt pride. They had no money at all, so she’d gone back to the nightclub to
sing again. He thought she was flirting with the customers, they had an argument, and he strangled her. He wasn’t in his right
mind, that’s what he said.”
It was Mason who decided they would bury Rosalie, then put about the story that she’d run away.
Given how Charles had been behaving, no one would doubt that his wife couldn’t take any more.
Mason then drove back to his Shanghai apartment.
He had an urgent meeting that evening with his banker, so he had Chin pack a suitcase and instructed him to bring it to Lennox Manor, along with some food for Charles.
Mason would move back, look after his son.
And the next day, he would begin spreading the news that Rosalie had abandoned Charles. He would find some way later to annul
the marriage.
Instead, when he returned to Lennox Manor, Chin was sitting on the front steps under the porte cochere. Mason opened the door
to the sight of his son hanging in the foyer. There was a note on the mezzanine floor saying that he couldn’t live without
Rosalie and couldn’t live with himself.
After Charles’s funeral, Mason moved into Lennox Manor to make sure no one would find Rosalie’s hastily dug grave. If only
he’d been more accepting of his son’s marriage—but all he’d ever wanted was for Charles to marry well, because the way things
were going with Mason’s business, soon he’d have nothing to leave Charles.
“Chin stayed on with me for three years,” Mason said, “the only servant with any common sense, any loyalty.” His head drooped
and he closed his eyes. The confession had exhausted him, physically and emotionally, but something else was wrong. His skin
looked loose and gray, his lips paler than before.
Lisan had to reconsider her assumptions. All this time, the dreams, the apparitions, the urgent sensation to remain in Lennox
Manor. It hadn’t been Charles’s spirit haunting her. It had been Rosalie. Come find me. Lisan understood now.
Lisan heard a rumbling sound and rushed to the window.
The Adler coupé rolled out of the garage, the reverberations of its engine clearly audible through the glass panes.
It drove under the porte cochere and stopped.
Then she heard the muffled slam of an automobile door closing.
But the engine was still running. Mrs. Stanton wasn’t leaving the automobile parked there for long.
Lisan rattled the latch of the window that she’d managed to open just an inch. She pulled up at the brass grips again, to
no avail. Get out, get out, get out. The sensation of danger was so strong that when she heard footsteps in the hallway outside, she wouldn’t have been surprised
if Mrs. Stanton had opened the door with a gun in her hand. Lisan put her ear to the door. She heard the footsteps slow down,
a deliberate pause between footfalls. An odor drifted through the gap in the door frame, a familiar smell, but she couldn’t
put her finger on it. Then a clanging sound, like metal landing on the floor, and the swift patter of shoes running down marble
steps. Lisan hurried back to the window in time to see the Adler drive away and out the gates.
So Mrs. Stanton had gone without speaking to them again, without any further threats. Was she really just leaving them in
the house? Obviously, she wasn’t anticipating anyone coming back to Lennox Manor anytime soon, or she wouldn’t have driven
off.
Lisan looked over at Mason, who was definitely not well. He slumped against the chair, his entire body limp. Chin would come
back soon, and hopefully Yao as well. They needed to get Mason to a doctor as quickly as possible. She had to make sure anyone
coming through the gates came up directly to this room. She could turn on the electric lights but she would also light an
oil lamp, use it to signal from the window as soon as she saw either of them come in. She had to draw their attention to this
window. Cold air came through the glass panes and she shivered. The fireplace was nothing but embers now; the fire set in
the morning had burned down and there were no more logs. Yet the odor of smoke seemed stronger than a few minutes ago.
The strange odor. It was lamp oil. A horrible realization crossed her mind, a memory of the day she’d helped Mrs. Stanton inventory kitchen supplies. All those metal tins of lamp oil. Gallons and gallons of it. She ran to the parlor door. Wisps of smoke curled in through the gaps.
“Mr. Burnett,” she cried, “can you stand? We must get out of here.”
Mason struggled to sit up, blinked at the urgency of her voice, then cursed when he saw the smoke. “If there’s a fire behind
the door, that’s not the way to go.” He fell back against the chair. “My dear, you need to get a window open. By any means.
And you must somehow climb out.”
By now they could hear a roar from the fire in the hallway outside, growing louder by the minute.
“You don’t have much time,” Mason said, leaning on one elbow. “Try using the fireplace poker. Wedge the end under the window
sash and lever it up.”
She managed to raise the window another six inches, enough for her to get both hands firmly under the frame to lift it. She
pushed, stretching her arms over her head until the window was completely open. She leaned over the sill to look. There was
nothing below or around the window, no trellis, no columns or ledges to cling to and climb down, just a sheer drop.
The roar of the blaze outside in the corridor wasn’t the only sound anymore—now there was the occasional exploding tinkle
of glass as wall sconces fell victim to the heat. Perhaps she could cut the curtains into strips and tie them into a rope.
But how long would that take? She stared despairingly down at the ground, so far down.
Get out, get out, get out.
She craned her neck to look at the windows below.
They’d been left open and smoke was drifting out.
There was smoke wafting from under the porte cochere too.
The front door was open. Mrs. Stanton had left the downstairs doors and windows open so that the breeze could fan the flames and spread their destruction faster.
A rickshaw was hurtling up the driveway, the passenger poking the rickshaw puller with his umbrella to make him run faster.
“It’s Chin, Mr. Burnett,” she cried. “It’s Chin!” She waved frantically, then snatched up a cushion and waved it, hoping the
bright colors would catch his eye. The rickshaw came to a halt by the flower beds and Chin leaped out, trampling over shrubs
to stand in the gravel below her window, horrified eyes scanning the front of the house.
“Can you get to the other side, to the east wing?” he called up.
“We can’t get out of this room,” Lisan shouted. “We’re locked in and the hallway is on fire.”
“How? How did this happen?” He seemed utterly overwhelmed.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it quick,” Mason wheezed from behind. “The door is on fire. Is it just Chin? Can he get a
ladder?”
“Never mind how it happened,” Lisan called down. “Can you get a ladder? Mr. Mason is locked in with me and he’s very ill.”
“I don’t know, ladders are for outside and I only know where everything is for inside,” Chin said helplessly. “I can look
in the gardening shed.” He vanished around the side of the house. The rickshaw puller rested against his vehicle, catching
his breath and staring up at the burning house.
“What’s happening?” Mason said, coughing. Smoke from the burning door was now pushing into the parlor.
“He’s gone to find a ladder,” Lisan said. “Mr. Burnett, come closer to the window and get away from the smoke.”
“Afraid not, my dear.” He grimaced. “I’ve lost all feeling in my arms and legs. Think I’ve had a heart something or other.”
“Let’s try, all the same,” she said, “we must get you away from the smoke. Perhaps I could push you, chair and all.” She’d
only managed to move the chair a couple of feet when a loud blast from an automobile horn drew her to the window. She waved
and shouted at the top of her voice. Yao leaped out of the car, not bothering to shut the door or turn off the engine.
“I saw the smoke from a mile away,” he called. “The fire department should be on its way. They’ll get you down.”
But both of them could see that unless the fire trucks came in the next few minutes, they would be too late. Cinders from
the fire were blowing across the garden, tiny glowing sparks that would’ve set shrubs and branches on fire if the grounds
weren’t dripping wet from the morning’s rain.
“Chin’s gone to get a ladder from the garden shed,” she said, “but that’s no help for Mr. Burnett. He’s suffered some sort
of stroke and can’t even stand.”
“We don’t have a ladder tall enough to reach you,” Yao said.
From behind her, Mason grunted, “How many men are out there now?”
“Yao the gardener, the rickshaw driver, and Chin.” Chin had come back without a ladder, shaking his head.
“Tell them not to let the rickshaw driver leave,” Mason said, “then pull the drapes off the curtain rod. Do it, just do it,
girlie.” He was gasping more than speaking now.
Lisan tugged at the heavy fabric, yanking it down and away from the wall. It all came down, drapes, rod, and even the bracket.
“Throw it all down to them. Tell them to use it like a net, three of them can stretch it out below the window. Tell them to
hold it out, wide as they can.”