Victorian San Francisco Stories Read Online Free Page A

client’s arrival. The door to the parlor swung open, and Kathleen entered the room, sketched a curtsy, and announced loudly, “Mr. Matthew Voss, for Madam Sibyl.”
    *****
    “I want to assure you that I am not someone you can bamboozle with a lot of hocus-pocus. As far as I’m concerned, Madam, the whole lot of you are just bunch of charlatans, and the men who spend good money on such are fools. And I can promise you, I am not a fool!”
    Mathew Voss, a tall stooped man in his sixties, glared at her from across the room, and Annie felt the heat of anger flush her cheeks. Why ever did Mr. Stein think that this man was going to be willing to take advice from Madam Sibyl? Kathleen even had trouble getting him to hand over his top hat, scarf, and gloves, and when Annie had asked him to come and sit at the table in front of her, he’d refused, saying he would prefer to stand. Arrogant old goat. He reminded her u npleasantly of her father-in-law.
    “Well it’s a good thing you aren’t a fool, since I have no desire to waste my time or knowledge on a fool,” Annie said, glaring back at him. “Now come sit down, deposit your fee in the bowl, and let me get to work. Or you can ring for the maid to escort you out.”
    In the silence that followed, Annie heard the tick, tick of the mantel clock at counterpoint with the blood thumping at her temple.
    “Ha!” Voss suddenly barked out. “Good for you.” He moved across the room in a sort of stiff lope and pulled out the chair. As he sat down, he peered at her short-sightedly and said, “Wea ring some sort of get-up are you? Well I don’t expect that Madam Sibyl is your real name, either.” Taking a well-worn leather wallet out of his suit coat and holding it cautiously below the table edge, he removed two bills and tossed them into the wooden bowl on the right side of the table, saying, “Well what do we do now, eh?”
    “If you please, could you put both of your hands on the table in front of you, palms down to begin with?” Annie said quietly. Lottie and her friends had all been experts at what to expect at a seance, so they required a minimum of explanation. She’d decided to start with reading this first client’s palms because she didn’t know his birth date, a requisite for coming up with a horoscope reading. Given his overt skepticism, even palm reading might not work. Maybe, if she could get him talking, she would think of something that would ease his suspicions.
    She leaned forward and asked him why he had come and what he expected from her. He said simply that he’d heard she was the source of Mr. Porter’s recent string of good luck in picking mining stocks, and he wanted in on the secret. While he spoke, she visually examined the tops of his hands. She knew he owned a furniture company, Voss and Samuels, and that the recent depression had hurt his business; Mr. Stein had told her that much. Building construction and factory production was picking up, though. She wondered, did he now have a little extra money he wanted to invest for the long term or did he need something that would give him a quick return, maybe to pay off some outstanding debts? Was he the kind of man who craved the excitement that went along with a gamble on stocks, the riskier the better, or was he more comfortable with a conservative strategy? Her husband John had been one of the former. For some reason he felt putting money into some hair-brained scheme had made him powerful and masculine. At first glance, Mr. Voss did not seem like this sort of man.
    The strong beam of light from the lamp behind her showed her some clues to his character. The light tracery of white scars running over the prominent veins and swollen knuckles of his hands suggested that Voss had spent a good deal of his life as a practicing woodworker. And, while his nails were clipped short and were clean as befitted a gentleman, she saw faint brown lines along the cuticles, which she suspected came from wood