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There was still a great deal of rebuilding going on in this
section of the City, even two years after the Great Quake. One
presumed that was because the homes here were large and expensive,
and thus took more time to complete. I wondered who would live in
them. The great palatial homes of Stanford and Hopkins and their
ilk were, alas, no more. All around us, the noise of pounding and
sawing, and workmen calling back and forth, was so great it could
be heard even over the screeching of the cable car's brakes as it
ground to a halt at every corner.

In my preoccupied exhilaration I'd forgotten to count streets,
but we had gone past the crest of Nob Hill when I saw Michael rise
and turn. He intended to get off by the back, my end, of the cable
car.
Bad luck.
I tugged down the brim of my fedora while
Iwondered what to do. Getting off right behind him would be far too
obvious. I should just have to go on to the next stop, and hope I
could come back and pick up his trail.

Thankfully, I was able to do both. Michael was easily spotted,
about a block and a half ahead of me going downhill on Larkin. He
was walking more slowly than usual, and looking up at the house
numbers. These streets had also been destroyed during the
earthquake, and had been rebuilt in a combination of apartment
houses and office buildings, much as before. It was easier here to
follow him without fear of detection because of the stoops and
doorways, which made good hiding places. In the block between Bush
and Sutter, Michael stopped, looked up at the house in front of
him, down at something in his hand, put that something back into
his pocket, and began to climb the steps.

I judged the time, at this point, to be between four-thirty and
four forty-five. Quite likely this would be Michael's last stop
before heading back to Divisadero Street. When he had gone into the
house and did not reappear, I quickened my steps until I came to
the house he had entered. At least I thought this was the one, but
as it was almost identical to those on both sides . . .

Oh, botheration
¹
.
I thought.
I shall never
get the hang of this
¹
.
I should have looked for some
sort of identifying object in the vicinity of where Michael had
been standing before he went in. Well, I hadn't, and it was too
late now. All I could do was hope I'd gotten it right. It would be
too bad if I were to ruin my delicious surprise when I had come
this far.

These houses all had steps leading up to an entry beneath a
small portico-the exact number of steps for each being related to
the downslope. Thus each house also had a basement level, with
access through a lower door in a well beneath the steps. I could
wait, sheltered there, until Michael came out-that would be the
safest course, particularly if I'd judged wrong and he came instead
out of one of the houses next door. But that was not what I wanted
to do. I wanted desperately to surprise him, and hadplanned it all
out; for my surprise to work, I would have to arrive back at
Divisadero Street before him. I decided I would rather risk being
wrong than give up my cherished plan.

I climbed the steps-in this case, five-and paused beneath the
portico. The place had more the look of apartments than offices,
and I found myself reluctant to trespass. There was a glass in the
door, in a large diamond-shaped pattern, but it was pebbled and
when I looked through it the effect was much the same as opening
one's eyes underwater. Everything looked blurred and a bit murky.
The door itself was oak with a golden sheen, and the doorknob was
brass. No knocker-that seemed odd. I turned the doorknob, the door
was unlocked, and I entered.

I was standing in a small foyer, perhaps nine feet square.
Directly opposite the door by which I'd entered, a console table
had been placed against the wall. Behind the table, where
ordinarily one would have hung a mirror, there hung instead a dark
blue velvet curtain. That seemed in questionable taste, a tad
theatrical; of course I wanted immediately to look behind it, but I
did not. To my left and right there were doors, now closed. From
the right rear corner of the foyer a staircase curved upward and
disappeared through an opening in the high ceiling. In the other
direction, beneath my feet, the hardwood floor showed a high
polish. The whole place smelt faintly, pleasantly, of wax.

Uncertain how to proceed, I stood listening intently. I could
hear nothing-the doors were too thick. I walked carefully, so as
not to make noise on the bare floor, over to the console table.

Aha!
Here was something useful.

In the center of the table sat a decorative bowl, but it was
being used for more than decoration. I gathered this bowl served in
lieu of a guest book and that one was supposed to leave one's card:
it contained several, of both the personal and the business kind. I
did not add mine. I did not need to in any case, because Michael
had already left a J&K card right on top. Better yet, flat upon
the table right in front of the bowl-one could not see it at all
from a distance-lay a plaque with intaglio carving: William van
zant, doctor of phenomenology and hypnotism, suite 4, second
floor.

Quickly I set down the paper cone of flowers and tucked my
walking stick under my arm so as to free up my hands. Though I
trust my memory for most things, I wanted to be sure I got this
absolutely right. I copied the details about Dr. Van Zant in the
small notebook I carried for that purpose, then put it away, and in
a state of combined curiosity and jubilation, I left. Luck held-I
was able to hail an auto-taxi on Sutter Street, and very shortly I
was back at home, which is to say, at the office of the J&K
Agency.

The little bell on the front door jingled. I swiftly assumed my
planned position: feet up, leaning back in the chair. I wished I
had a cigar; even though they are nasty, smelly things they do
create a certain effect.

"I beg your pardon!" Michael said, in a tone that did not sound
as if he were doing any such thing.

I pushed up the brim of the fedora in back, so that it slid down
my forehead toward the bridge of my nose, and said in the deepest
voice I could muster: "Sez who?"

"I don't know who you are, and I don't care, but if you know
what's good for you, young man"-Michael advanced as he
spoke-"you'll take your feet off that desk and get out of here this
instant. Otherwise I'm calling the police. I suppose you're some
friend of Wish Stephenson's, is that it? Well, you can tell him-
no, I'll tell him-that we don't appreciate cheeky fellows putting
their feet up on our desks. Where's Miss Jones?"

I had to suck in my cheeks to keep from laughing out loud. With
my feet still on the desk, I took up the notepad and began to read
in my normal voice-quickly, because from the tone of Michael's
voice, another few seconds was all he would tolerate the cheeky
fellow who was really me. "At 3:55 p.m. the subject, Michael
Kossoff, came out of the Red Line offices on the Embarcadero. He
walked south, leaving the Embarcadero at Front Street ..." and so
on.

He came right up to my desk. I could feel his eyes moving back
and forth over me, examining this new creature he had never seen
before. I continued my reading without missing a beat, until
finally I concluded: "For follow-up-obtain more information about
Dr. Van Zant and subject's connection to the doctor."

Now I looked up and said, straight to Michael, "Submitted for
your consideration by this investigator, Fremont Jones."

His smile began as a twitch at the corners of his mouth and
spread from lips to cheeks, to a dawn breaking in his eyes. It was
worth waiting for, worth risking almost anything for: that
smile.

"I don't believe it," he whooped, "I simply cannot believe
it!"

I swung my feet down off the desk, pushed back in the chair, and
made a little bow from the waist while still seated.

"The fellow with the flowers, on the cable car, that was
my
Fremont?"

"I wouldn't put it quite like that," I said, stroking my false
mustache with my index finger like a dandy, "but quibbles aside
regarding your use of the word 'my,' then yes. The fellow with the
flowers was me. I mean I."

"Oh, well done! Stand up, please, turn around ..." Michael went
on like that for a while. Then we locked the door and went
upstairs, where nothing would do but that Michael himself should
remove my costume piece by piece. He wanted to be sure I was really
under there-or so he said.

I may have played the man, but I was not above using woman's
wiles when necessary to obtain information. We'd had our supper and
were back in bed again, supposedly to fall asleep, when I remarked
in an offhand manner: "I wonder what a doctor of phenomenology
does. The hypnotism part I understand, or at least I think I do.
Hypnotism is the same as mesmerism, isn't it?" I raised up on my
elbow. "I thought mesmerism went out of vogue long ago."

Michael, who had been lying on his side, rolled over onto his
back with a little snort and said to the shadows on the ceiling, "I
suppose you are following up now, is that it? Let's see, it's been
five or six hours since I agreed you have all the necessary skills
to do investigations on your own, and you've decided to start with
me. Am I right?"

"Something like that." It was a clear night. Moonlight drifted
through the window, illuminating parts of Michael's bedroom and
throwing others into shadow. I traced the line of his profile with
my fingertip. Such a noble brow; such a fine, straight nose; such a
shapely mouth, which remained so stubbornly closed. "Please,
Michael," I pleaded, withdrawing my hand, "I'm dying of
curiosity.

Still he said nothing, so I went on, "Besides, I can't help
thinking you might have gone to see someone like that because of
me. And Frances, and all. Maybe this morning at her house, when you
came whistling so considerately toward the morning room, it wasn't
the first time you'd been down that hall. Maybe you were listening
outside the door all along."

"Why, Fremont, I'm offended to think you believe me capable of
such a thing!''

"Hah! Not likely."

"Actually ..." His voice trailed off, and softened, and he
opened one arm for me to snuggle beneath. I put my cheek in the
soft hollow of his shoulder, where I could feel the faintest of
vibrations as he spoke. "I had hoped not to have to tell you this
until later, if at all. You're perverse, do you know that, Fremont
Jones?" He gave me a little squeeze. "That you should pick this
afternoon, of all times, to follow me ..."

Michael sighed, a heavy sigh, and I said, "You don't have to
tell me if you'd rather not. We agreed we would not necessarily
tell each other everything. If this is a private matter, I won't
pry."

"No, it's all right. This does concern you, but not in the way
you think. I went to see Dr. Van Zant for reasons that have nothing
to do with anything you and Frances may be involved in. I've
avoided it for as long as I can. A certain group of Russian nobles
who are very influential with the Tsar have proposed that I perform
a, um, disagreeable task. If I do undertake it with success, I've
been promised they will persuade Nicholas to let me go for
good."

"And this task is?"

"To force Rasputin from the court, by whatever means necessary,
before he has gained further control over the Empress."

I rose up. This was not something one could lie still for.
"B-but-you're here and they're there! It's so far away. It's
another world. How could you possibly-"

"Ssh, my love." He pulled me back down. "That's precisely the
point. I can study and organize from a great distance. When the
time comes to strike, I will dart in and out like a snake, no one
will even know I was there. However ..."

After a minute, when he did not continue, I said, "However
what?"

"However, I have to be certain Efimovich-that is, Rasputin- is
the fake I believe him to be. The people who contacted me could be
using him for a scapegoat. So, right now I'm studying the
situation, gathering information, learning about mesmerism and
psychic healing. That's why I went to meet Dr. Van Zant."

"Oh," I said, somewhat mollified. I snuggled again, feeling a
welcome heaviness steal across my eyelids. Sleepily, as if asking
for a bedtime story, I said, "Tell me more about Rasputin."

"He claims to be a healer. It is said that his body carries a
sort of magnetic aura that has healing properties. Simply being in
close proximity to him is supposed to impart a salutary effect.
Something that is not widely known about the imperial family is
that the Tsarevich Alexei is not a healthy child. The Empress is
said tofeel comforted by having Rasputin near the boy; indeed she
believes the man is holy, and a healer."

I stifled a yawn. "Where's the harm in that? It's not as if
there aren't lots of other people around all the time. I mean an
imperial court sounds busy, crowded. So what's one more
person?"

"Rasputin does not stop with simply imparting the beneficence of
his presence, or whatever he calls it. He dabbles in mysticism, in
reading minds and predicting the future. It is feared that he will
begin to give advice, and to insist that his advice be followed, on
threat of his withdrawal from Alexei. I'm no authority, Fremont,
but I suspect Rasputin achieves his effects through the use of
hypnotism. And that's why I went to see Dr. Van Zant. He has an
interesting philosophy."

"Ummmm," I murmured.

Michael finished as if talking to himself. But I do think I
heard everything he said before I fell asleep: "Van Zant believes
that hypnotism is a legitimate tool in the hands, and eyes, of a
trained practitioner. He calls this science, not magic. He is a
debunker of the Spiritual, the mystic, and the clairvoyant. A very
interesting man."