“Those who dance are thought to be insane by those who can’t hear the melody.”
That didn’t make Helena feel any better at all.
Mystery House:
It was after dark before the last ferry from Cuttings Wharf arrived at the San Francisco docks. Since Bessie and the trio took up so much weight, Sigmund had to pay three times the going rate to bribe their way onto the craft.
Helena had never seen the approach to San Francisco at night. The fog had just begun rolling in, so visibility was still out a couple of miles, but it gave the gas lights and the few electric lights a halo that made the city look magical. The music from the Barbary Coast and the dance halls along the waterfront drifted over the water blending to create a strange rhythmic beat of the player piano’s pounding out different rag marches.
All the beauty and mystery of the city was lost once the crew had Bessie unloaded, and the three began winding their way through the streets of San Francisco to the estate. The thoroughfares were clogged even on a Sunday night. An odd peppering of cowboys, ranchers, farmers, sailors, men returning from the gold-fields in Alaska, with a smattering of local gentlemen looking for a good time, gave the cutpurses and the prostitutes plenty of targets to choose from. No wonder there was a murder every night in this section of town and some untold number of robberies. Thrown into this mix, Lane tried to navigate the streets laying on the steam whistle to clear a path and failing.
Helena in her Sunday dress stood out like a beacon for drunks of all shapes and sizes to approach. Barbary Coast was no place for a proper lady on any night of the week. Helena saw the underbelly of San Francisco.
At the intersection of Kearney and Pacific, the trio ran into a horde of sailors and prospectors fresh from Alaska. Each seemed to carry a bottle of cheap whiskey doing their best to disrupt the city with their reveling. Surrounded, it didn’t take long before one of the drunks approached the car and tried to climb in.
“Hey little Miss how about a kiss, I’ll give you a dollar for a kiss,” the first drunk drooling as he puckered up trying to steal a kiss from Helena. Lane had been busy trying to move the car forward, Sigmund was busy keeping a drunk from climbing into the backseat with them. Helena did what any respectable young lady would do she took her cane and thrashed the man on the top of the head. He dropped, like a tree, spread-eagle back into the crowd. This caused the crowd to cheer more. The trio faced a difficult time when Helena first noted a blur nipping at the edge of the throng.
Fighting to keep the drunks away she detected children darting in and about the crowd stealing, or she presumed thieving items from the men, only to be chased by the victims. It became a bizarre scene of hide and seek, or some other children’s game as the urchins circled the crowd like sharks looking for victims. Helena’s focus was pulled back to her dire-straits as a new man tried to climb into the backseat when she started hearing police whistles sounding up Pacific Street. The metal reinforced walking stick rapidly knocked the new threat unconscious as well.
A line of police officers began working their way towards the intersection nightsticks swinging as they did their best to physically thin the crowd. The swarm of children moved to the far side keeping the mob between themselves and the coppers.
She felt a man climbing up behind her, she turned prepared to crack him in the head as well when she saw Detective Longstreet.
“Not the best street to drive down at night,” Longstreet had to shout to be understood over the rowdy crowd.
“I can assure you it was not our intentions to be caught in a riot,” Sigmund replied punching another drunk in the face.
Doyle reached over and touched Lane’s shoulder, “Once you find a chance make the first right off Pacific. Broadway or Vallejo are much calmer streets. Remember this is my neighborhood.”
Helena wanted to bash Doyle’s skull in like she did the drunks. She was no damsel needing to be saved, she grew tired of men taking control of her life. The ten police officers had made it to the front of the car and cleared a partial path, Lane didn’t hesitate, he blew the steam whistle and started for the gap. Helena found an opportunity to wrap the end of her cane across the cheek of one last drunk trying to climb onto the back of Bessie. She was surprised when she turned to Doyle and saw him smiling at her assault on the man.
“Remind me not to make you upset,” Doyle said grinning at Helena.
“You would be wise to remember that,” Helena was still angry, but she couldn’t help smiling back at Doyle and his boyish grin.
Lane did as directed taking the first right off Pacific, then made a left onto Vallejo Street.
“I’ll be getting off here, I need to go try to help clean up that mess back there. I hate when ships come in from the goldfields. Gold miners are the worst drunks,” Doyle didn’t wait for the automobile to slow down he merely stepped off the running board as Lane slowed to take the corner.
“That man can be most infuriating,” Helena spoke to herself more than anyone.
“He does display an annoying habit of showing up when he is most needed. I can understand where you might find that bothersome,” Sigmund added.
The last few miles home passed uneventfully. The day’s adventure had primarily been by ferry, so they weren’t nearly as tired as the day they journeyed to Agnew’s Insane Asylum. Still, Helena went straight to bed, she knew the trip to Santa Clara the
