Free The Juliet by Laura Ellen Scott

months it took to renovate the old building, the brothers had become gentlemen.
    “What does Dellaire say?”
    “He says your current confinement is voluntary. He also says you are ‘part of the show.’ He really is vulgar.”
    Toby traded one niece for the other. “Dellaire is not interested in my health. Neither are you.” He let his niece chew on the fat tip of his thumb. “And neither am I, frankly.”
    “Excellent.” By which Sailor meant the tickets were sold out, and the press was clamoring, even more so after Toby’s breakdown. One of Sailor’s daughters managed to make her way back to him and was now tugging at her father’s trousers. Sailor looked down at her, clearly amazed.
    Toby asked, “Is that one your favorite?”
    “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know.”
    “You don’t have a favorite or you don’t know which one she is?”
    At that moment, a howling patient disrupted the garden peace. The sound set the girls off, and both started crying as if they’d suffered simultaneous, insulting injuries. As happens, other patients picked up the call, jarred loose from their drug-induced reveries, and slowly a chorus of weeping began to build. There was movement on the grounds, nurses and orderlies mobilizing to quell the rebellion, but anyone could tell that it was going to get worse before it got better.
    Toby rose from his lounger and picked up one of his sobbing nieces. Sailor retrieved the other girl. Together the brothers and the sisters moved slowly across the sweet- smelling grass towards the men’s dormitory where they would collect Toby’s things.
    Each patient they passed was immediately infected with grief and burst forth in a rush of moans and tears. A shriveled old man had stripped to his waist and was hopping barefoot to intercept Toby. There were marks on his chest like burns, and tears were moving down the planes of his sun-pink face. He touched Toby’s sleeve and asked, “Where is it? Where is The Juliet?”
    This was why, while everyone else was sobbing, the Stieg brothers shared a hearty, healthy laugh together. So unexpected was the sound that the baby twins went silent.
    Sailor patted the old man’s lean shoulder and said, “Indeed brother, indeed. That’s what, then?”
    “The Great Question,” answered Toby.
     
    * * *
     
    The Hunt for The Juliet
     
    Tonight marks the most riveting event of the social season as Philadelphia’s elite set gathers to search for the elusive Juliet Emerald, a prize thought to be forever lost in the aftermath of the grisly murder of the venerable Louis Montgomery Stieg. It is rumored that some tickets have sold for up to $10,000, and the prize for finding The Juliet is the stone itself. Why give away one’s birthright, we ask? “We don’t want The Juliet,” explains Sailor Stieg. “It has brought too much sorrow.” Toby Stieg is reported to be in confinement for distress and may not be available for the hotel’s debut. We wish the best of luck to those who seek The Juliet, and even more luck to the soul who finds her. For we have to wonder: Does The Juliet carry a Cherokee Curse?
    —From The Inquisitor , May 1895       
     
    The street in front of the Bottler’s House had been scrubbed of ash and rubbish to make way for a dignified processional of wealthy guests as they arrived for the most intriguing social event of the season. However, on the day of The Hunt, the public filled the street by the thousands, packed in shoulder to shoulder, hat brim to hat brim, leaving only a tiny passage lined with sturdy Philadelphia policemen. Denied their stately promenade, great men and their mistresses found themselves hustled through the heavy doors of what was once a home to raving lunatics.
    Sailor and Toby agreed that things were going better than expected. The throng outside had stripped their guests of confidence, and within the lurid main hall with its gold and red and green appointments, the invited captains of commerce were already