The Spook Lights Affair

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The main salon in the home atop San Francisco’s Sutro Heights was ablaze with electric light from several ornate crystal chandeliers. Beyond the sheer white curtains at the row of French doors leading to the terrace and the raised overlook beyond, thickening swirls of a quickly encroaching fog were visible. The salon was the largest room in the relatively small, turreted residence Adolph Sutro had built around the cottage he’d purchased on these twenty-two clifftop acres in 1881, its dour design probably influenced by the architecture of his native Prussia. The salon’s walls were pale yellow; the gowns of the “buds” — debutantes newly released into adult society — reflected all the hues of spring.

Sabina stood near the French doors, envying the buds’ attire. Her own gown — a green crepe loaned to her by her society cousin, Callie French — seemed staid in comparison to the peau de soies and taffetas and chiffons and satins of the younger women. But she was here at the Sutro home on business, not to display her sense of fashion.

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