Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

14

WORMS’–MEAT, n. – The finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Grantarium.

–THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

The water closets at Mrs. Overton’s parlorhouse on Stockton Street had been unusable because of a sewer stoppage, and the girls and their clients were forced to use the outhouse behind the building. The area was lighted by a kerosene lamp on a bracket. A girl inside the outhouse had heard Rachel LeVigne’s screams but had been afraid to come out. Two of the clients had rushed outside to find the body and had seen a man in a cloaklike garment and a slouch hat disappear through the gate leading to the adjoining property.

Earlier, Mr. Beaumont McNair had taken Miss LeVigne to supper at the Fly Trap, and to a piano recital by the Hungarian pianist Pavel Magyar but had returned her to Mrs. Overton’s by ten-thirty. He was observed bidding her good night some time before she was assaulted in front of the outhouse.

Sgt. Nix had called upon Beau McNair at the McNair mansion. He told Bierce that Beau’s face was unmarked by Rachel LeVigne’s fingernails, and that Rudolph Buckle vouched for his return by ten-thirty the previous evening.

Now there was terror among the prostitutes of the Upper Tenderloin as well as Morton Street, and scare headlines in the newspapers. I made my third call at 913 Taylor Street.

The porch that stretched across the front of the house rose high off the ground at the west end because of the steepness of Taylor Street. A file of spindly balusters supported the railing. The facade of the house was decorated with plaster rosettes and jigsaw fretwork in a geometric tangle of light and shadow from the morning sun over Nob Hill. A constable sat in a wicker chair at a table at the end of the porch, raising a hand in greeting to me.

The butler again took my card and retired within, and this time opened the door for me to enter.

Amelia and her mother were seated in the parlor, Amelia bright-faced with her halo of curls, rising to greet me. Her mother, formidably bosomed, with a sour expression of disapproval and anxiety, remained seated as I was led to her.

“How do you do, Mr. Redmond. Do we have you to thank for this police gentleman on our porch?”

I said they did.

“Is it because my daughter has been followed?”

“That is part of it.”

Mrs. Brittain left the room to call for tea, and I was alone with Amelia.

“The poor creature!” she said.

“She was the one Mr. McNair was attached to.”

“Yes!”

“He was attached to you also, you see.”

Her mouth opened, but she did not speak. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead.

“Was the murdered woman the reason you broke off the engagement?”

She wet her lips. “My father insisted that the engagement be ended.” She was gripping her arms against her waist as though she was cold, elbows jutting.

I did not know how to pursue that. I had been assured that Beau McNair was eminently eligible. Lady Caroline’s millions!

“Miss Brittain, what did you mean in your note, your shadow? Your mother said you had been followed.”

“A man has followed me on several occasions.”

“What does he look like?”

“I was not able to see his features. He wore a hat that concealed his face.”

“A big man, older?”

“I think he is young. I would not call him big.”

“I don’t want to alarm you,” I said. “But you must be very careful not to be alone! Maybe it is best that you are alarmed,” I added.

“Be assured that I am!”

“You are aware that Mr. McNair has not been arrested?”

She nodded, her eyes fixed on my face.

Mrs. Brittain marched back in, preceding a maid with a tea tray.

“Cream and sugar, Mr. Redmond?”

Mr. Brittain joined us for tea, a lanky, limping fellow of about sixty, tailored in black broadcloth, arranging his coattails with a flair as he seated himself. Amelia favored her greyhound father more than her bulldog mother. We sipped tea and discussed the policeman on the porch. Amelia and Mrs. Brittain were nervous, but Mr. Brittain seemed not much concerned. He invited me to his study to view his collection of gold nuggets.

His limp, like the limps I had observed in Virginia City, reminded me that Mr. Brittain had been a mining engineer on the Washoe, and of the connection of Brittain to English.

The nuggets were in a glass case, gleaming twisted shapes, a couple of them quite large. I told him I had been in Virginia City last week, and he directed me to a leather chair and offered me a cigar from a humidor.

“Josey Devers!” he said, puffing smoke. “How was the rascal?”

I said Devers looked as though a lot of whiskey had been absorbed.

“It is a dying camp, certainly. It was very lively once!”

“Devers spouted figures of silver production and stock manipulations.”

Mr. Brittain snorted. “I don’t think there was a miner in the place who wasn’t speculating. I can tell you who the winners were, Will O’Brien, Jamey Flood, John Mackay, Fair, Sharon, Nat McNair.”

I asked if he recalled a group of investors called the Society of Spades.

He had a ritual of movements with his cigar, flourishing it, moistening it, drawing it beneath his nose, holding it up like a signal. This completed, he shook his head.

“They bought the Jack of Spades Mine.”

“Oh, the Consolidated-Ohio, yes.”

“I was told that Lady Caroline Stearns had disposed of her interest in the Consolidated-Ohio.”

“I know that is true.”

I hurried on: “It seemed there was some finagling over the discovery of a new orebody, so that she received a better price than may have been warranted. Devers called it an ‘English shuffle.’ ”

He went through his tobacco ritual again, sniffing his cigar before replacing it between his teeth. He regarded me brightly. “Carrie has always landed on her feet,” he said.

I couldn’t press him about the English shuffle because I was in love with his daughter.

“Highgrade Carrie seems to have been highly regarded in Virginia City,” I said.

Mr. Brittain frowned with reminiscence. “She was an angel in her time.”

“Devers referred to her as the Miners’ Angel.”

“She was that, she was indeed that.” Mr. Brittain nodded, his eyes hooded. “I cannot explain, I don’t think, just what a place like Virginia City is like when a camp is at full flood. The frustration, the terrible, dangerous labor in the mines. The fires, the heat, the cave-ins. The hopes; the dashed hopes! The lack of any kind of loyalty or disinterested affection. Dog-eat-dog. With no respite! Carrie was able to furnish respite. Certainly she was a madam, a woman of ill-repute. Well, you had better not call her a woman of ill-repute to anyone who was in Virginia City in her time there! She was the only touch of grace, of human feeling, of beauty‌—‌a reminder that there were, elsewhere, civilized ways of living, civilized occupations, people who intermingled with a civilized code of conduct. She was the reminder of all that. She was the sweet-smelling bouquet flourishing in a sewer! I tell you, when Carrie walked down the boardwalks of C Street, there was not a hat that did not come off a miner’s head!

“I believe she came to Virginia City to make a living selling her body and discovered that she had a higher calling. The Miners’ Fund for disabled miners; it was Carrie who started it, contributed to it, shamed others into contributing. The Miners’ Angel! Not just the Miners’ Fund. There were a hundred other ways she helped those poor men to remember they were human beings with human emotions, fears, loves, affections, decent aspirations.”

I had opened a faucet when I had brought up the subject of Lady Caroline. I asked about the woman named Julia Bulette.

“A lesser Carrie LaPlante,” he said. “A prostitute, but a decent woman.” But he was still full of Highgrade Carrie.

“In the end she married Nat McNair and became a millionairess,” he said. “There are some to begrudge it. I am not one.”

He tapped his ash into a glass tray. “I cannot be so complimentary of her son, however. Not to say that he is in any way involved in these gruesome murders. He and Amelia were great friends when they were children, but I understand she has returned his engagement ring.”

At her father’s insistence, according to Amelia. Maybe Mr. Brittain was aware of Beau’s frequenting of women of ill-repute and of the circumstances that kept reinvolving him with the murders of prostitutes.

“I have heard a rumor that he was not McNair’s son,” I said. “That he was adopted after McNair married Mrs. McNair.”

He scowled more deeply, as though I had insulted the Miners’ Angel.

“Two who might have begrudged her good fortune would be Spades who were cheated out of their shares in the Jack of Spades by the McNairs,” I said.

“Ah, well,” Mr. Brittain said. “I’m afraid that was the order of business on the Washoe.”

“There was a gunman‌—‌Devers called him an enforcer‌—‌who worked for McNair. Elza Klosters.”

“The threat of violence was of course a valid option in a mining camp, you know. Miners’ Law!”

I mentioned the murder of the man Gorton, but Mr. Brittain did not seem interested. His memories of Highgrade Carrie had been kindled.

“Someone‌—‌I can’t remember who. Sharon? Yes, Sharon. A considerable sum of money was offered to the Miners’ Fund if Carrie would do a Lady Godiva. Ride a white horse naked down C Street, on a Sunday. By God, she did it! She was a vision. Her pretty hair, beautiful hair! Her beautiful flesh! By God, she did it just right, not forward but shy, but proud too‌—‌of what she was doing! And the men cheering and waving their caps. Not in any way that was disrespectful, and not turning away like the townspeople in the Lady Godiva story either. By God, they watched Carrie ride that white horse down the middle of C Street and I will swear to you that not a man there ever forgot what he saw that day. And not a woman any of them ever saw thereafter in the altogether who didn’t suffer by the comparison!”

He made a breathless chuckling sound, as though the vision had overwhelmed him also.

“By God that was a woman!” he said. “There’s a painting of it. A German artist-fellow painted it, for a saloon there. Franz Landesknicht, something like that. Carrie posed for it.” He made the snuffling chuckle again.

I had seen that painting, carried out of a saloon called the Washoe Angel! I didn’t think it was information I would divulge. I said, “I wonder where the painting is now.”

He reflected. He shrugged. He said, “Ah. Well, I’m afraid Mrs. Brittain would not let me hang it.” He laughed long. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that!”

When I made an appointment with Amelia for a Sunday drive, I saw that Mrs. Brittain did not approve of that any more than she would have approved of the portrait of Caroline LaPlante as Lady Godiva hanging in the parlor at 913 Taylor Street.

I spent the rest of the morning on Battery Street, where the warehouse had burned to a smoke-stinking mess. The Washoe Angel was heavily damaged, including the sign, whose supports had collapsed so that it had fallen into the general mess. The neighborhood consisted of small businesses and shops, mainly one-story buildings, and no one seemed to know who was the owner of the saloon, or where the famous painting might have been taken. Many of them knew the Lady Godiva painting well, however, and faces lit up with pleasure to speak of its charms. When I went to the Spring Valley Water Company I found that bills for 308 Battery Street were sent to a company called Mangan Bros, on 8th Street in Sacramento.

I would see if Sgt. Nix could carry on from there, through connections with the Sacramento police.

Bierce and I took a cab to Nob Hill, slow-mo, hoof-slipping up steep California Street.

“These questions are important,” he said. “Why are these murders happening at all? And: why are they happening now?”

“Something is new,” I said.

“For instance?”

“Beau McNair returning to San Francisco.”

He grunted, nodding. We discussed the meaning of the four of spades found on Rachel LeVigne’s body. Did the four mean that the Morton Street Slasher had decided to accept the murder of Mrs. Hamon as one of his own? Then was it his purpose to run up a score in spades culminating in the queen?

The towers and domes of the Hopkins mansion came in sight. On the right was the Crocker castle, a shaggy mass of jigsawed wood with its great tower. On its far corner was the “spite-fence” surrounding the piece of property the owner would not sell to Charles Crocker. The spite-fence was such an arrogant affront you could not look at it without wishing ill to Charles Crocker of the Big Four.

“Bad cess to him,” I said.

“Do a piece on it,” Bierce said. “You don’t have to strike an attitude. The facts will speak for themselves.”

Now the McNair mansion hulked up, mansarded roofs with towers thrust through like spears, the gray of the walls relieved by splashes of green of pollarded trees and, lower, the smears of hedges and flowers; the whole surrounded by a country mile of wrought iron fence with gleaming brass knobs at ten-foot intervals.

A portly butler with slick, black center-parted hair opened the door.

“We would like to see Mr. Buckle,” Bierce said. The butler retired with his card and returned to bow us inside.

The hall rose three stories past balustraded balconies to a glass ceiling. A high wall could have mounted two of the paintings of High-grade Carrie as Lady Godiva but displayed instead a pastoral scene of deer drinking at a russet pool and, in an elaborate gold frame, an old gentleman, mutton-chopped, bald and scowling, with his mouth concealed behind an aggressive mustache, who must be the late Nathaniel McNair.

Buckle strode toward us with a clatter of heels on parquet. He was the tall, graying man I had encountered at the jail, now wearing a black morning coat and striped trousers.

“Greetings, Mr. Bierce, greetings,” he said, shaking hands with Bierce and giving me a puzzled smile. “And this is?”

“My associate, Mr. Redmond.”

“Please come in, gentlemen.” Buckle ushered us past an octagon-shaped room in which there was a gleaming grand piano, with sheet music on its rack and a tall brass lamp beside it.

I noticed a hitch in Bierce’s step as he glanced at the piano. We were shown into a sitting-room with high windows dangling shade cords and crocheted rings; Bierce sat in an overstuffed chair, I on a plum-colored plush divan. Buckle seated himself facing us, long legs crossed and highly polished pumps displayed.

“You are Lady Caroline Stearns’s San Francisco manager, Mr. Buckle,” Bierce said.

Buckle inclined his head. He had a cropped beard, and blue eyes under black brows. “Mr. Bosworth Curtis, Mr. Childress of the Bank of California and I handle her Western interests.”

“And you and young Mr. McNair are the tenants of this remarkable edifice?” Bierce said.

Buckle laughed comfortably. “Oh, there is a staff of servants. Uncounted rooms, attics filled with unused furniture and of course a ghost! All kept in readiness for Lady Caroline, should she choose to return to the City.”

“And she is en route, having so chosen?” Bierce said.

Buckle raised an eyebrow. “I wonder how you know that.”

“It is common knowledge,” Bierce said.

“She is just now in New York.”

“Is young Mr. McNair here?”

“He has gone out for the evening. He has had a terrible shock, you understand.”

“I understand that he escorted this unfortunate young woman to a piano recital,” Bierce said. “Then he brought her back to her boardinghouse and came directly here. It has been established that the recital was over about twenty minutes after ten. He delivered her to Stockton Street at ten-thirty and appeared here moments after that.”

“I will attest to that,” Buckle said gravely.

“And also to his presence the nights of the three murders in Morton Street?”

“That is correct,” Buckle said. “What is your interest in these matters, may I ask, Mr. Bierce?”

“The interest of a journalist, Mr. Buckle.”

“That is a beautiful piano, Mr. Buckle,” I said.

He nodded, smiling as though I had flattered him personally. “It is a Bechstein. Yes, it is a beautiful instrument.”

“And you play?” Bierce said.

Nods and smiles.

“Tell me,” Bierce said. “Did you not play the piano in a little band of music at the Miners’ Rest in Virginia City?”

Buckle’s face did not change expression, but his fingers, resting on the knee of his striped trousers, contracted. The hand relaxed as he saw my eyes fixed on it.

“Why do you ask, Mr. Bierce?” he said.

“We have been told that Beaumont McNair was accepted as his son by Nathaniel McNair, although he was not actually the father,” Bierce said. “We are trying to establish who is the true father. We were told that one of Lady Caroline’s favorites was the piano player at the Miners’ Rest.”

“I am not Beau McNair’s father,” Buckle said. He licked his lips with a swipe of gray tongue. “Nor can I see the pertinence of this.”

“Who was the father?”

“Mr. Bierce, it was twenty-odd years ago. It was another time, and it is, in fact, none of anyone’s affair. I’m sorry I cannot be helpful.”

“In fact, it is everyone’s affair,” Bierce said. “Four women have been hideously murdered by someone connected with the Society of Spades in Virginia City, which was convened in order to purchase the Jack of Spades Mine. Of the five Spades, Caroline LaPlante and Nat McNair, with the assistance of one Albert Gorton, conspired to cheat the other two out of their shares. These others were E. O. Macomber and Adolphus Jackson. Gorton was later murdered, perhaps by a hired assassin named Klosters. I am sure that you are acquainted with all these men, Mr. Buckle. Macomber, or Jackson or someone else connected with the Society of Spades is responsible for these murders or is very closely involved in them. If you will not assist us, I will have to bring what persuasions I have at my disposal to bear on you, and on Beaumont McNair.”

Buckle folded his hands together. “I can give you no information without consulting with Mr. Curtis and Lady Caroline.”

“Then we will continue our voyage of discovery without your counsel. I must tell you that anyone who was associated with Lady Caroline in her Virginia City past will be investigated.”

Buckle looked as though he would faint.

“Where can we find E. O. Macomber, Mr. Buckle?” Bierce said, leaning toward him.

“I have no idea what has become of him.”

“What has become of Adolphus Jackson?”

Buckle moistened his lips again. “Adolphus Jackson is Senator Aaron Jennings,” he said.

“The initials should have so informed me,” Bierce said, leaning back.

There it was, the connection he had been searching for.

Bierce rose. “Good day to you, Mr. Buckle,” he said. Buckle rose also, looking exhausted. He did not accompany us to the door but summoned the butler to see us out.

On the way back down California Street, Bierce said, “We should have inquired into the flower-loving ghost of the McNair mansion.”

More ghosts than one, I thought.