Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2) by N. S. Wikarski Page B

last approving glance at herself in the foyer mirror.
    Looking suspiciously around him, Freddie ignored her question and asked one of his own. “Where’s Delphine this evening?”
    “When she found out who my escort was to be, she developed a fit of the sulks and retired to her room for the nonce.” Evangeline held out her hand as a prompt for Freddie to offer his arm. “Shall we?”
    Belatedly recovering his manners, he complied. One of the maids let them out.
    Evangeline paused on the front steps, momentarily diverted by the contentious chirping of birds on a long summer evening. The sun was just beginning to dip to the horizon, and a pleasant breeze was blowing in from the south, bearing the scent of roses.
    “No carriage?” Freddie sounded surprised.
    “I believe we’ll walk.” Evangeline had chosen to ignore the rules of decorum regarding their mode of conveyance since they were now in the country, and none of the etiquette books with which she was acquainted addressed the topic of appropriate transportation to and from a séance. The evening being a delightfully cool one, the Allworthy villa a mere four blocks away, and the lady in need of exercise, they walked.
    As the couple turned down Center Street , Evangeline persisted in her line of inquiry. “I repeat the question. How goes your investigation?”
    Freddie hung his head in discouragement. “Deuced badly, I’m afraid. You heard about the strike this past Monday, of course?”
    “Yes. A deplorable business that confirms my already dismal opinion of Martin Allworthy’s judgment. What can the man have been thinking! With Pullman refusing to arbitrate, the mood of Chicago ’s working class toward factory owners in general is becoming increasingly angry. He’s just given them one more reason to resort to desperate measures.”
    “Once they got out of jail, all the Hyperion men lost their jobs. Replaced by strikebreakers.”
    “At a steep wage reduction, no doubt?”
    Freddie nodded sadly. “I tried to ask around to find places for a few of the fellows, but everyone I know is afraid to hire anarchists.”
    “It’s a sorry state of affairs when a man who will not quietly consent to starve to death is labeled an anarchist.” Evangeline sighed despondently. “And what about the malevolent Mr. Bayne? Any new facts to feed your fancies regarding him?”
    Freddie’s expression changed from gloom to exasperation. “The scoundrel must be Old Nick himself. He appears in a puff of black smoke with no past and no acquaintances in the city to speak of. I’ve managed to discover where he lives, and it’s a pretty high-toned neighborhood, but he’s never there. I’ve even stayed up nights, propping myself against a lamp post across the street from his flat, in hopes of seeing him engage in something nefarious, but to no avail.”
    “You’d better have a care, my friend. The police are likely to take you for a suspicious character, not him, and run you in for questioning.”
    Freddie laughed ruefully. “That would be just the perfect irony, wouldn’t it? Is he supposed to be attending this hocus-pocus tonight?”
    “The correct term is séance, not hocus-pocus, and I don’t believe so.”
    The couple had by this time ambled along Center Street all the way to the lake and turned down Aurora Avenue . Spread out to their left in all its restless blue expanse was Lake Michigan . To their right stood an edifice which might suitably have been named Versailles on the Lake .
    “Well, here we are,” Evangeline announced. “Un peut de trop, n’est-ce pas? »
    “What?”
    “Excessive, isn’t it.”
    “In ways too numerous to mention.” Freddie stood gaping at the front of the building. “Now I know why you were surprised that I could have overlooked it.”
    The house possessed no coherent architectural style but rather seemed content to borrow from a variety of sources. The façade consisted of a hodge podge of multi-colored stone surmounted by a