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That she should hire me did make a certain amount of sense, I
suppose. The Emperor's instructions were so bizarre, she would
never have been able to follow them herself; even in the unlikely
event that her husband would trust her out of his house long enough
to accomplish anything.

Having come downtown on the Powell Street cable car, I got off
at Union Square, entered right into the square itself, and walked
up to the Dewey Monument, which featured a woman poised on one foot
on top of a column. I looked up at her, knowing that the model for
that statue had been none other than society matron Alma Spreckels
[known as Big Alma to distinguish her from her daughter, Little
Alma) in her extremely handsome youth. This statue had not been
here when Emperor Norton died in 1880. Nevertheless, his
instructions said: "Start at the statue in Union Square ..."

"This is mad," I muttered, "utterly and insanely mad." Well, of
course it was; the Emperor himself had died insane, so why should
his instructions from the grave be any different?

I looked at the instructions again, scribed in the loopy hand
that constituted Frances's automatic writing. "Walk northwest two
blocks."

That was more easily said, or read, than done. There were no
streets moving in a northwesterly direction, only due west or due
north. I was getting a headache. I decided to take a midafternoon
break in that delightful little restaurant in the City of Paris,
which just happened to be diagonally across from Union Square.

I folded Frances's papers and stuck them deep down inside the
unfashionably large leather bag I carry in lieu of purse or
reticule, and after looking both ways (what with the proliferation
of automobiles, one cannot be too careful) I crossed the street to
that august, not to mention extremely large, department store.

It was a pleasant place to be, buzzing with conversation, brisk
with myriad transactions, full of color to delight the eye and
fragrance to tease the nose. I will have to bring Father here, I
thought, as I took an elevator made of brass mesh down to the
basement floor where the restaurant was located.

Each section of the store had its own distinct wares and the
odor that went with them, like a series of miniature bazaars all
under one roof. After leaving the elevator I passed by a
tobacconist (pipe tobacco, a kind Father used-or so I thought, but
then he was much on my mind-with a faint whiff of cherry to it); a
candy shop (chocolate-it made my mouth water); cut flowers, much
fancier, longer-stemmed than those carried by the flower vendors in
their carts out on the street; and so on. Finally I reached the
restaurant. Having arrived at an odd hour (which I could identify
no further than that it must be midafternoon-it had been a
confusing day so far), I had not long to wait before being
seated.

I ordered a pot of tea and a plate of cookies and settled back
to appraise my situation. I had struck a bargain with Frances: I
would do the Emperor's task on her behalf, provided I could
sandwich in the work between the other things I was doing for the
far more important murder investigation, and I would daily report
to her my progress, which she would then relay to Emperor Norton. I
forbore to ask how, if she was communicating with him through
automatic writing, she got her messages to him. Presumably his to
her came out of the pen onto the paper in the Emperor's own
handwriting, thought it was Frances's small hand that held the real
pen; but who was taking care of the process the other way round? It
was true that the loopy script she produced when in the trance
state was not at all the way Frances usually wrote; it was also
true that the loopy script she produced resembled more a style of
penmanship that had been popular in the previous century.

Hmm, I thought; if he was as popular as I've heard, some public
institution around here will have a copy of something he wrote, one
of his edicts perhaps, and then I could compare that to what
Frances has done ... It would be interesting. Trivial as it seemed,
my curiosity was definitely engaged.

Even though the task itself was ill-defined.

A PENNY for your thoughts." The familiar words, uttered in a
warm, masculine voice, startled me near out of my wits. It was what
Michael might have said if he had come across me here at the City
of Paris, musing and staring idly into space, with my tea growing
cold and my plate of cookies untouched.

But of course it was not Michael who had spoken. It was my
coworker, Wish Stephenson. And actually his voice was nothing like
Michael's-aside from his being also a man. Michael has a deep, rich
voice, whereas Wish's is lighter, shades more gentle.

"I wasn't really thinking," I said, looking up-way, way up.
Always tall, he seemed even taller to me from my vantage point
behind a decidedly small tea table. "What brings you, Wish, into a
place like this?"

He grinned, shrugged, and stuck his hands in his pockets. Every
now and then it struck me anew how much better he looked out of his
police uniform; and in fact it struck me now. He was wearing a
style of clothing considerably less buttoned-up, more casual than
those dark suits men usually wear from one day to the next; indeed
his outfit reminded me of the way the men had dressed in
Carmel-those men who were considered, and considered themselves,
Bohemians (whether or not they were actual members of the Bohemian
Club-though in fact most of them were).

"Surveillance," Wish said, still grinning, "undercover. May I
join you, Fremont?"

"Of course. So that's the reason for the, er, more casual style
of dress than you were wearing this morning." He did look quite
nice, in trousers that shade of beige the English call fawn (which
I have never quite understood because fawns in my experience have
spots, but who can argue with fashion?) and a tweed jacket in some
appropriately tweedy brown, beige, and black mix, plus a
chocolate-brown sweater vest.

"In a word," Wish said, "yes." He then addressed himself to the
plate of cookies, and I bade it a silent, fond farewell. In fact I
would not have been much surprised if, when he had worked his way
to the bottom of the cookies, he started crunching on the plate as
well.

In the meantime the waitress came and brought another pot of
tea, and Wish explained as he ate and drank that he was tracking a
woman's husband's movements, and had happened to see me crossing
the street from Union Square. His new client, the woman, was
looking to catch the husband in an illicit affair, perhaps of
business, but most probably of the heart.

"How did she hear about us? I mean J&K? Or about you?" I
asked, always curious now to know how to increase business.

"She knows someone who knows Michael."

"Ah. I see," I said, inevitably wondering if she might know
Michael herself . . . but I put that thought right out of my
mind.

"He knows a lot of people," Wish said.

"Um-hm. But now I think on it, I can't see what good it will do
her for you to catch her husband out," I said, lifting my teacup
and then putting it back down. I had poured from the new pot, and
the cup was too hot to put to my lips. "I mean, it isn't as if an
affair is against the law or anything. It's just . . .
immoral."

Wish shrugged, simultaneously licking his fingers. Poor manners
or not, I did not find the gesture offensive at all. It was more
something a boy would do, and there was so much of the boy still in
Wish that his finger-licking was rather endearing.

"Perhaps she will use it to blackmail him," I mused, still
wondering.

"Perhaps," said Wish, now applying napkin to fingers, "but even
so, that's not the reason I took the case. It's a boring sort of
case in itself. However, this fellow belongs to all the top clubs,
Fremont, all of them. And the wife-she's from one of those society
families-has arranged-don't ask me how she did it, I don't want to
know-guest status for me at the clubs. I'm supposed to be a cousin
or something, visiting for two weeks from out of town. Don't you
see?"

I frowned. "No. I'm afraid I do not see."

"I can contribute something to your case. See what I can hear
about Jeremy McFadden. See if there's anything to that rumor about
Ngaio Swann. Get myself placed on the inside, that's what we've
been wanting to do, isn't it? And all while I'm still working my
own case."

Oh yes. That was what we'd been wanting to do, and it was the
one thing that I as a woman could never, ever do, because the clubs
were for men only. I tried to keep my pea-green envy out of my
voice: "That's . . . good, Wish. I'd appreciate it, especially as
I've taken on something extra for Frances. I can use the help. But
tell me, what rumor about Ngaio Swann?"

"Oh, hey, that's right, you haven't heard it yet. Something my
mom picked up today. On the telephone of course. She'll have
written you a note about it."

"So what's the rumor?"

"It's pretty wicked, really."

"Wish!"

"Okay, okay," Wish chuckled, "okay. The rumor is, Ngaio Swann is
really a woman."

"No!" I had spoken too loudly; several startled patrons looked
my way and I smiled sheepishly to let them know that I, a proper
lady, was aware of my gaffe.

"It may not be true," Wish conceded.

I leaned forward eagerly, tea forgotten. "I'll bet it is. It
just feels right. It would make such a lot of sense. After that
brute of a husband terrorized her, she couldn't bear to be
voluntarily in the company of men. She and this woman masquerading
as a brother don't necessarily have to have had a sexual
relationship."

Wish's face darkened. If the lights had been on at a greater
intensity, I knew his face would show bright red. "Fremont!" he
said in a scandalized whisper.

"Well, for heaven's sake, it's only a word," I whispered
back.

"If you can say it, you'll do it, that's what my mother always
told me."

"I'll just bet she did." I was dying to ask him if he was a
twenty-five-year-old virgin male, but that would have been just too
wicked of me, and I already had another idea that was equally
wicked. In fact, it was so completely delicious that I could hardly
bear not to act on it right away.

Instead, I played the good investigatory partner. I suggested
that Wish and I finish our tea as quickly as possible and then go
back across to Union Square where he might help me with
something.

"That is," I said, "If you have the time."

"All the time in the world, Fremont. All the time in the world.
Mom can lock up on her own. And speaking of Mom: she's doing pretty
well, don't you think?"

"Indeed I do. I'm hard put to remember what we did without
her."

Thus with various tits and tats of small talk, Wish and I paid
our check and wandered a bit among all the bounteous offerings on
display as we made our way out of the City of Paris and back to
Union Square. As we wandered, I explained about Frances and Emperor
Norton and the automatic writing.

Standing once more at the base of the Dewey monument, I showed
Wish the Emperor's first set of instructions:
Walk northwest two
blocks.
With hand gestures for punctuation (maybe even
substituting for the occasional word) I declared: "But this is as
insane as the Emperor himself was. There are no streets running
northwest.

"Not exactly, but let us start out anyway. I have an idea or
two," Wish said, starting off. By the time we had crossed Post
Street he'd realized that with his long legs he was bound to
outwalk me and had courteously moderated his pace so that I could
keep up.

"There's just one thing you haven't quite gotten to, Fremont,"
Wish said, "and I have to wonder why."

"Oh, my goodness!" I exclaimed suddenly, ignoring his remark. "I
didn't know this was here."

It was a narrow little street not on the map, more an alleyway
than a street. San Francisco is full of such little passages,
especially in the downtown area, and I saw that if we took this one
we would be making a kind of jog in a northwesterly direction.

"How clever you are, Wish," I said as we set off. Then I took up
what he'd previously said, taking for granted Wish's ability to
follow my sometimes convoluted mental processes: "I know what you
mean, I'm not deliberately being obtuse, it's just that I'm not in
the least sure what I'm looking for myself. The Emperor hasn't
exactly said. He said that since he passed over to the other side
hismind has gradually been growing clear, and he can remember now
where he hid some valuables of his before he went away on the
two-year journey from which he returned insane."

"Fascinating," said Wish. "You know, there have been rumors ever
since he died that he had assets stashed away somewhere, and in
his, er, incapacity he just forgot where he'd put them. So it makes
sense, in a kind of weird way."