return.” She patted her mouth with a large linen napkin and added, “The carriage is waiting downstairs. Go now and find out all you can from this Mister Corey.”
“Good morning, Aunt Alexandra,” Ellen said flatly.
“Yes, yes, good morning,” Alexandra muttered distractedly. “You tell Mister Corey he is to come to the hotel and meet privately with me at eight sharp this evening. Don’t take no for an answer. I must speak with him.”
Ellen gave no reply. Alexandra was still firing off commands when Ellen left the suite.
The journey across London wasn’t as nerve-racking in the daytime, but when she reached her destination, Ellen found the building and its unkempt surroundings even more depressing than she’d remembered. It was glaringly obvious that anyone who lived in this run-down tenement was impoverished.
One would assume that the person who held the secret to eternal youth would be incredibly wealthy. Ellen rolled her eyes heavenward, silently damning Alexandra and her latest exercise in idiocy.
When Ellen stood before the door to #203, she took a deep breath and knocked. This time her knock was promptly answered. Answered by a tall, spare man with lustrous coal-black hair and eyes to match.
The carnival barker from last night’s street fair!
Ellen’s eyes widened in surprise and alarm. Again she felt the racing of her heart, a weakness in her knees. Struck speechless, she started to turn away without stating the purpose of her call.
But the man who’d opened the door took her arm and drew her inside.
“I’m Mister Corey,” he said in a low, flat voice with a hint of a drawling Southern accent. “And you are?”
“I…ah…Ellen Cornelius,” she managed, her voice slightly shrill.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” asked the unsmiling Mister Corey, releasing Ellen’s arm.
Nervous, rushing her words, she explained, “My aunt, Miss Alexandra Landseer, saw your advertisement in the newspaper and she…ah…she asked that I come here to learn more about this…this…water you claim is magic.”
Mister Corey nodded. “Come with me,” he said and directed her into a sparsely furnished sitting room where a small, bald, coppery-skinned man awaited.
Mister Corey made the introductions and offered Ellen a chair. He remained standing. Ellen sat down and listened politely as Padjan told her that he was an Anasazi Indian whose home was far away in America’s great Southwest. He spoke eloquently and excitedly of Magic Waters in the Lost City of the Anasazi, a city hidden high in the rugged canyonlands of Utah.
“The location of the Lost City,” he said with great authority, tapping his chest with a forefinger, “is known to me alone.” Ellen could hardly hide her skepticism, but she said nothing. Padjan continued, his dark eyes aglow, “In that secret place are Magic Waters from which a person can drink and stay forever young.” He paused, as if waiting for her to speak.
Not knowing how to respond, she said, the cynicism evident in her tone, “That I would like to see.”
“And you can,” said Padjan. “I will take you there if you so desire.” He smiled at Ellen then, his teeth very white in an incredibly smooth, youthful-looking face. “Drink of the waters,” he told her, “and the passing of time stops.”
At that, Ellen said resolutely, “I’ve no desire to make time stand still.” She glanced nervously at Mister Corey who was quietly watching her, arms folded, lifeless dark eyes fixed on her. “Nor is there any part of my youth I would wish to reclaim,” she continued, returning her attention to Padjan. “As I told you, my aunt sent me here. She’s the one who wants to live forever, not me.” Ellen abruptly rose to her feet. She looked from Padjan to Mister Corey and said, “My aunt has instructed me to bid you to visit her this evening. Can you do that? Both of you?”
“We can and we will,” said the smiling Padjan, rising to face her.
“Very good,” she said, turning away, then pausing and turning back. “Be at the Connaught Hotel at eight this evening.” She looked at Mister Corey. “The Connaught is in Mayfair by the—”
“I know where the Connaught is,” he said, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“Oh. Well, good. I just supposed that…”
“…someone like me had never been in the better part of London?” he finished for her.
“No, I…That isn’t what I meant.”
“That’s exactly what you meant,” he coolly accused and she flushed hotly because it was true.
Eager to get away from him, Ellen tensed when Mister Corey followed her to the door. He reached around her to open it. For a split second she stood directly before him, trapped between his tall, lean frame and the closed door. Instantly plagued with a bad case of the jitters, Ellen was terrified she would start trembling and that he would notice her nervousness.
Her anxious eyes fixed on the hand gripping the brass doorknob, she felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of her lungs.
Mister Corey languidly opened the door.
Ellen bolted into the dimly lit hallway and, without looking back, rushed down the stairs as if fleeing the devil himself.
Mister Corey stood in the open doorway looking after her, mildly amused by her obvious aversion to him. A slight smile briefly touched his lips.
But it never reached his eyes.
Alexandra Landseer, wearing her finest, was ready and eager to receive her invited guests. Her steel-gray hair had been dressed elaborately atop her head and she wore an expensive creation of silver-gray silk that would have been stunning on a younger, slimmer woman. Her wrinkled face had been liberally dusted with powder and her cheeks sported twin spots of rouge. Sparkling jewels graced the crepey folds of her neck and dangled from her fleshy earlobes.
On joining her aunt in the suite’s drawing room, Ellen had commented that it might not be wise to wear so many valuables for this particular occasion.
“After all, Aunt Alexandra,” Ellen reminded her, “I told you when I returned this morning that this Mister Corey is nothing more than a common carnival barker. I saw the man last night hawking his magic potion at a street fair.”
The gussied-up old woman made a sour face. “You had no intention of telling me about stopping at the fair, did you?”
“But I did tell you,” Ellen defended herself.
Alexandra replied, “Not last night you didn’t.”
“Last night. This morning. What difference does it make?”
Alexandra toyed with a priceless rope of pearls-and-diamonds dangling from her throat and pursed her lips. “Tell the truth, if you hadn’t recognized Mister Corey this morning, you would never have told me about going to the fair last night.”
Ellen crossed her arms over her chest. “And shame on me. I hadn’t realized that doing something as daring as going to
