Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

26

MUSTANG, n. – An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

–THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Bierce returned from St. Helena on Monday. Tuesday morning he was summoned to the offices of Bosworth Curtis in the Monkey Block. He took me along. Curtis, Bakewell & Stewart was on the second floor above Malvolio’s Restaurant, with fine leather furniture in a sitting room with windows looking out over Montgomery Street, and a typewriter at a little table with her black Remington machine before her. When she swiveled ninety degrees she presided over a reception desk from which she asked Bierce and me to have a seat. A neat little person in a tan skirt and shirtwaist, she rose and left the room to tell Lawyer Curtis we were on hand.

She showed us into another big room with windows that looked out on the Customs House. Curtis was seated behind a desk the size of a Faro layout, with two people before him. One was Beau McNair, back in fancy tailoring today. The other was a lady in a shiny black hat with a veil covering her face, and gray and black layers of cloaks and jackets and skirts of materials expensive-looking just in their texture, black gloves and polished black boots, one of which twitched with a rhythm of impatience. It was Lady Caroline Stearns, though I couldn’t make out her face inside the black veil. I had a sense of Bierce stiffening to military attention beside me.

Beau McNair rose. Curtis was already on his feet, an ugly little terrier of a man with his pink, shiny-skinned face and white hair brushed straight back. He didn’t come around his desk to shake hands with Bierce or me.

“Mr. Bierce, I believe,” he said in his bark of a voice. “Lady Caroline, this is the journalist of whom we have spoken. Lady Caroline Stearns. Mister Beaumont McNair. And this young gentleman?”

“My assistant,” Bierce said. “Mister Thomas Redmond.”

“We have met,” I said to Beau, whom I had seen at the City Jail with Curtis and Rudolph Buckle, in the park with Amelia Brittain and at the Bella Union last night.

Beau glanced toward me solemnly, nodding. I thought it just as well not to give him the wink. He was a handsome young fellow, no doubt about it. Amelia’s half brother. I could see no resemblance. I wondered if I would ever be in a situation to afford a jacket like that. It looked like he spread it on instead of arming into it like lesser beings.

“How do you do, Mr. Bierce,” Lady Caroline said. Her boot had stopped twitching. Her voice was low, pleasant, with a trace of British accent. The former Highgrade Carrie of Virginia City.

“How do you do, Lady Caroline.”

There was a motion of her head, possibly a nod to me.

“We have a mutual acquaintance in Miss Brittain, Redmond,” Beau said to me.

“That is so,” I said.

“Please sit down, Mr. Bierce, Mr. Redmond,” Curtis said, seating himself. Bierce settled in a leather armchair, I on the far edge of a sofa.

“I have requested this meeting, Mr. Bierce,” Lady Caroline said in her pleasant voice. “It is good of you to come. My son is in difficulty with the police, and I have been led to believe you may assist us. I am informed that you have been following these terrible murders closely and may have come to some conclusions.”

“I may be able to assist you, madam,” Bierce said.

There was a clench of tension that froze the assembled in their various postures.

Curtis tented his hands together on his desk top. “May I ask what you mean, Mr. Bierce?”

“I believe that these murders and Mr. McNair’s apparent involvement in them have been contrived to bring Lady Caroline to San Francisco, where she is in danger from someone whose hatred has turned to lunacy.”

The silence had texture and weight, like a block of cement.

“Who would that be, Mr. Bierce?” Lady Caroline whispered. I had a sense of slimness inside her layers of clothing, of blondness under the hat within the veil. Her black gloves worked together, one sliding over the other. I was aware of a sexual emanation so subtle it seemed to be part of her scent of flowers.

“I do not know that yet, madam,” Bierce said, folding his arms on his chest.

Lady Caroline glanced at Curtis, who said grimly, “Have you evidence of this, Mr. Bierce?”

“Each of the murdered women has been marked with a playing card, a spade. Lady Caroline will remember the Society of Spades in Virginia City. Each of the murders except one has been accomplished in such a way as to implicate her son.”

“I don’t understand,” Beau started.

Bierce interrupted. “I have seen you referred to as the Queen of Spades, Lady Caroline. Each of the numerical cards has been a progression toward the face cards.”

Beneath the veil I could see Lady Caroline’s lips round into an O.

“There has been a conspiracy to bring you back here, madam.”

“It is young Mr. McNair we wish to consult with you about,” Curds said. “We have information that the police have evidence against him that has not yet been produced.”

“Probably that is so,” Bierce said.

“Captain Pusey,” I said.

Curtis’s eyes slid toward me, hard as agates. “Yes, Captain Pusey.”

Bierce flicked a finger that I was to continue.

“It is mysterious that Captain Pusey possessed a photograph of young Mr. McNair, which he showed to a woman who might have seen the murderer in the second instance.”

“That identification could be successfully challenged in a court of law,” Curtis said.

“That is not the point, Bos,” Lady Caroline said.

“The point is that Pusey knew of an escapade Mr. McNair was involved in in London,” Bierce said. “The particularities of that escapade have been copied and made lethal, to convince the police of Mr. McNair’s guilt. The murderer learned of the arrest in London by channels that lead back to Pusey. Pusey had the photograph in his archive of photographs, and he did not show it to the witness by chance. You have evidently been given notice that he has more evidence, which he is withholding.”

“It is simply blackmail then,” Lady Caroline said. “Captain Pusey’s reputation is known to me.” She did not sound much concerned.

“Captain Pusey is not as clever as he thinks himself,” Curtis said.

“It seems I am the target, not my mother,” Beau said. He was sitting very erect. His cropped beard looked like a sheen of gold on his cheeks and chin. I thought his eyes too close together.

“Your mother through you,” Bierce said.

“Mr. Bierce, may I ask what is your interest in these horrible murders?” Curtis said.

“I am a journalist, sir,” Bierce said.

“May we inquire what more you know of them?”

“A murderer, who must be considered a madman, slaughtered two women in Morton Street,” Bierce said. “The third murder was not committed by the same person, but by Senator Aaron Jennings. The victim was the wife of a judge who had served with Jennings on the Circuit Court and who had evidence of Jennings’s corruption. This evidence was to be made public, and to that end Mrs. Hamon had an appointment with me the next day. Jennings tried to hire a murderer to accomplish the murder, but the man had meanwhile become religious, so Jennings did the work himself. The crime was made to look similar to the other two murders.”

“This is a base canard!” Curtis exploded. “Senator Jennings—”

“Is the murderer of Mrs. Hamon and I intend to prove it,” Bierce interrupted. Lady Caroline’s gloved hand made a motion at her lawyer, who subsided.

“The fourth murder was the original Slasher at work again,” Bierce continued. “Again it was an effort to incriminate Mr. McNair, for the victim was an attachment of his. An attempt was made on the life of Mr. McNair’s then-fiancée, Miss Brittain, which Mr. Redmond here was in a position to foil.”

“The engagement had been broken off,” McNair said in what seemed to me an insufferable tone, as though he had done the breaking off.

“Nevertheless, she could have been considered to be an attachment at the time of the attack.”

I could feel Lady Caroline’s gaze. There was a silence of information being digested.

“Mr. Bierce,” Lady Caroline said. “I have the sense that you want something. Will you tell me what that is?”

“I will be able to clear this matter up if I am given some assistance,” Bierce said. “I believe that I will soon be able to identify the person who wishes you and your son ill, madam.”

“If you are given some assistance,” she said gently.

“I believe you know a man named Elza Klosters.”

There was another of the stiff silences.

“Who was employed by your late husband,” Bierce added.

“I remember Elza Klosters,” Lady Caroline said. She was slowly stripping the glove from her left hand, her head bowed to the process.

“And Adolphus Jackson?”

“What is the pertinence of these questions, may I ask?” Curtis demanded.

“Senator Jennings was known to Lady Caroline as Adolphus Jackson. He was one of the Society of Spades and has cause to feel abused by Lady Caroline and her then husband.”

“Abused?” Beau said harshly.

“Swindled then.”

Curtis said, “Are you implying that Senator Jennings is our madman? I will not believe—”

“Senator Jennings is no madman,” Bierce said. “He is, however, a murderer.”

“Is he a part of the conspiracy you have mentioned?” Lady Caroline asked. For the first time she sounded breathless. I could see her hand, spread-fingered before her bosom; it was not a young hand.

“I do not know that yet, madam. You have perceived that I want something. I am bound to see Senator Jennings prosecuted for the murder of Mrs. Hamon. You can help me accomplish that.”

Bierce would give the prosecution of Jennings precedence over the Slashings because he was set like a locomotive on rails after the SP, and he considered Jennings his particular target.

“How is that, Mr. Bierce?” Lady Caroline said.

“Lady Caroline, it is a strength of your personality to have a power of persuasion over men. That is not an empty compliment. I ask you to persuade Elza Klosters to reveal the fact that Senator Jennings tried to hire him to murder Mrs. Hamon. Then I can promise you that the identity of the Slasher will be revealed.”

Beau started to speak, but Lady Caroline halted him with a motion of her bare hand. She whispered, “You overestimate my powers, Mr. Bierce.”

“I believe I do not.”

“I would not be able to persuade Elza Klosters to such an action,” she said firmly.

Bierce rose. “Very well, madam,” he said. “Good day, madam. Sirs. I believe we have nothing more to communicate here.”

We left. I thought he would have his way, when they had had time to confer.

“That is a remarkable woman,” Bierce said, in the tone in which he had spoken of Lillie Coit, Ada Claire and Adah Isaacs Mencken.

We turned onto California Street, which slanted upward to Nob Hill, some traffic of wagons and carriages, two cable cars passing halfway up the slope. There was a shout, a cracking of hoofs, a screeching of scraped metal. Bierce grasped my arm and flung me against the brick wall behind us.

A carriage careened toward us, a pair of horses with white-rimmed eyes, forelegs flashing, the muffled figure of the driver poised whip-swinging above them. I snatched Bierce’s revolver from my pocket, raised the muzzle and pressed the trigger. The shot exploded in my ear as the carriage spun away past us with its rear wheels grating and sparking on the pavement. Shouts of alarm and anger erupted further along. I held the revolver shakily aimed but did not fire again. The carriage raced away up California Street and turned at the second corner and was gone, leaving plug-hatted pedestrians staring in its wake, one shaking a cane after it. A man had leaped out of his buggy to calm his frightened horse. Smoke curled from the muzzle of the revolver.

“Missed,” I said.

Bierce said in a flat voice, “I read in one of the Penny Dreadfuls that Billy the Kid holds his forefinger along the barrel of his weapon and simply points the finger at his target.”

I seemed to have become his bodyguard. I pocketed the revolver. The barrel was hot. “That was a response, not a threat,” I said. “Senator Jennings still has not heard from Klosters.”

“No, that was for me,” Bierce said. “That was not intimidation, that was an attempt to shorten my life.” He sounded pleased.

Mammy Pleasant came again to him in the office of the editor of The Hornet.

She wore black bombazine that rustled like a forest when she seated herself. She had a black straw hat tied on her head with a black scarf and carried a black bag that would have contained a fair-sized infant. The gold hoop earrings glinted at her ears. She pointed her fierce, dark face at Bierce.

“I’m glad to see you, Mrs. Pleasant,” Bierce said. “Why does it occur to me that your visit has to do with the return to San Francisco of Lady Caroline Stearns?”

Mammy Pleasant looked down at her hands folded in her lap and said, in her manner that was both assertive and hesitating, “It is because that is your nature, Mr. Bierce.”

Bierce stroked the fair sparrow-wings of his mustache.

“And what do you have to say to me, Mrs. Pleasant?”

She turned her white-rimmed eyes toward me. “I understand that information is being collected for a news article on aspects of my life in San Francisco,” she said.

“That is correct,” Bierce said.

“I have some information that may be of assistance to you, if you will guarantee that my history will not be made public at this time. It would be most inopportune for me, Mr. Bierce.”

Bierce sat silently for a moment, studying her. “I believe you can tell me the identity of the Slasher.”

A dark hand pulled her shawl more closely around her. She leaned forward with a show of teeth in her lean face, shaking her head.

“Mr. Bierce, I believe I understand your way of thinking. You will be thinking because Mr. James Brittain forbade his daughter to marry Beau McNair that you have uncovered the truth. You have not uncovered the truth. You have only looked at half a picture.”

She gathered up her bag and rose and, a hunched figure, hurried out.

Bierce and I stared at each other. “What does that sibylline utterance mean, please?”

I shook my head helplessly.

“Is our solution to Beau’s parentage brought to question? Brittain did admit to it.”

I said I didn’t know what to think.