The Kingdom of Bones

THIRTY-SEVEN

It was one hell of a gentlemen’s club, that was for sure. Housed in a mansion built in the Victorian Italianate style, it stood behind fancy iron railings in the middle of the downtown area on East Franklin. The entire building was at the disposal of its members, who included a large number of Richmond’s prominent and powerful. The rules governing membership were complex, subtle, and mostly unwritten.

Membership was for men only. Decent women of the town were known to turn their faces from the building as they passed it on their way home from church; to do otherwise was considered unladylike. The club was not spoken of, and it was generally understood that whatever happened within its walls, stayed within its walls. This was a place for the boys to be boys. The boys included bankers, factory owners, military men, and a significant number of the city’s idler rich.

In a set of tails borrowed from the Bijou’s costume store by arrangement with a fellow boarder, Tom Sayers pushed his way through the iron gates. He’d been advised to play up his English accent, so they’d think he was a gentleman, and to remember to take his hat off, lest they should spot that he wasn’t.

Flaming torches lit the portico from brackets on either side of the entranceway. A black footman stood ready to open the door but hesitated, not recognizing Sayers as a regular member. But Sayers had taken advice for this moment, also.

“I’m a guest of the judge,” he said.

It seemed that he’d been provided with a good choice of patron. “Justice Crutchfield?” the doorman said with an undercurrent of apprehension that bordered on alarm, and he all but jumped to admit him. Sayers could only hope that the footman would say nothing should the justice actually appear that evening.

He stepped into a marble-floored hallway with a staircase that swept around and up to a second-floor gallery and a dome of painted glass above. Another footman took his hat.

And where now? He couldn’t appear to hesitate. Sayers chose the nearest set of doors, and found himself in a large, airy, and empty room the size of a gymnasium. It would have served equally well for dancing or banqueting.

A further set of doors took him into the dining rooms; these were spare and masculine, with hard wooden chairs and plain white linen tablecloths. The billiard room had five tables and electric lighting, and was entered through a curtained archway. Four of the tables were in use. He stood and watched one of the games for a while. Nobody addressed him or acknowledged him.

Finally, he reached the barroom, which proved to be the liveliest part of the club.

It was a dark room with a big fireplace, full of cigar smoke and well-dressed males. Some lounged on sofas but most stood in groups, each group back-to-back with two or three others, all having the loud conversations of men who are agreed that they’re absolutely right about everything. Above the fireplace was the club’s coat of arms, a wooden crest of shields, spears, and helmets with an incongruous clock face in the middle of it.

The air was thick and the room unpleasantly warm. Rather than stay in the doorway attracting attention, Sayers threaded a way through the crowd. Without meaning to, he jogged the arm of a big man addressing a small crowd of listeners. The man’s fist had a drink in it, and some of the drink spilled. He looked around.

“Watch where you’re going, sir,” he snapped.

“Forgive me,” Sayers said, but the stranger was not prepared to let it go so easily.

“I should think so!” he said. “Conduct yourself better, or get out of my sight. I don’t care whose guest you are.”

He was bullet-headed and barrel-chested, in off-white planter’s clothes and with a waxed mustache. Before Sayers could speak again, a stranger had interposed himself between them.

“I witnessed the incident, such as it was, Mister Burwell,” the stranger said. “I can tell you that no offense was intended or offered.”

He drew Sayers away.

“Thank you, but you don’t have to frog-march me,” Sayers said as soon as they’d moved out of earshot. “I can see it when a man’s spoiling for an argument.”

“And I can spot when a man’s ready to rise to one,” the stranger said. “Calvin Quinn, at your service. I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before?” Quinn was a spare-looking man of about his own age, and in a rather better suit.

Sayers gave his own name and added, “Just got into town a couple of days ago.”

“Well,” Quinn said, “if there’s anyone you want an introduction to, just let me know. I’ve had dealings with most people here. I’m a lawyer. What line of business are you in?”

Sayers thought it best to mention no profession. He’d held down a range of jobs since the age of eleven. Bricklayer’s boy, boxer, actor, theatrical business manager, warehouseman, fruit picker, road digger, carnival hand…none of them likely to win him much respect in a place like this.

So he just said, “I had a windfall. That’s what I’m living on right now.”

“Ah,” Calvin Quinn said, and his interest seemed to increase. “So, what do you make of us?”

“I can’t say I’ve been here long enough to form an opinion,” Sayers said, glancing back as the noise level behind him continued to rise. The man who’d tried to provoke him was now trying to get a rise out of a young, good-looking man with a broad forehead and sideburns.

“Well,” Quinn said, “don’t form one based on the likes of him. That’s Henry Burwell. He’s angry, he’s rich, and he was born unpleasant. It’s not a healthy brew.”

At the sight of that ruddy, aggressive countenance thrusting itself into the face of the younger man, Sayers was reminded of a belligerent Turkish wrestler he’d once had to share a trailer with. On a winter’s morning, the strongman would strip to the waist and break the ice on one of the water butts, roaring loudly enough to wake up the whole camp as he splashed his bared skin with gallons of frozen slush. He would drink heavily, and when he got drunk he always wanted to arm-wrestle somebody. There seemed to be something about men of such build and temperament: the older they grew, the more hardened they became, and the more determined to seek out any opportunity to prove it in pointless competition.

Sayers said, “What’s he angry at?”

Quinn could only shrug. “Who knows? We don’t choose our natures. Any stranger is game to him. He spots an unfamiliar face and off he goes.”

“Someone ought to stop him.”

“Stop him? People contrive to get their worst enemies in here and then wait for the fireworks. You did well not to fall for it. So, what brings you to Richmond? Are you looking to invest some of that windfall money? I’ve got all the connections you could ask for, if you do.”

So that was it. Quinn probably moved in on every stranger as a possible business prospect. Such contact was, after all, a main purpose of circles such as these.

“I’m looking for someone,” Sayers said, and reached inside his borrowed coat. He brought out Louise’s picture. “She came down from Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Might you have seen her?”

Quinn took the photograph and studied it politely. He seemed to grow quiet.

“It’s an old picture,” Sayers said. “She may have changed.”

The lawyer handed it back. “I fear not,” he said. “An actress?”

“On the British stage. In another life.”

“I don’t recognize the name.”

“The name could be different now.”

“How very mysterious.”

It was then that the altercation behind Sayers grew so loud that the entire room began to fall silent and was turning to listen. “You seem to think you can insult your betters with impunity,” the bellicose Henry Burwell was all but shouting.

“I insulted no one,” the young man protested, raising his voice in response. “I never met a man so set on being offended.”

“We shall settle this,” Henry Burwell said, and gave the younger man a shove that sent him staggering back into his companions. It was a move that determined the only course that this confrontation could take.

“You seek a lesson?” the young man said, regaining his balance with the help of his friends. “You will have one.”

It was as if someone had fired off a signal. The doors to the adjoining ballroom were flung open, and the entire club began to decamp from the bar. Sayers was carried by a human tide. He’d lost sight of his conversation partner by the time he’d reached the door.

There was something unsettling about the speed with which preparations fell into place. A rope was produced and run around a series of hooks, one on the inside corner of each of the ballroom’s four wooden pillars. The crowd fell into shape around the ring that this formed. Burwell’s seconds took his coat from him and had his sleeves rolled up before the young man and his friends had even taken in what was going on. Eager helpers propelled them toward one of the newly created corners, with everyone shouting advice.

One of the young man’s friends called out, “Who’s got the gloves?”

“Gloves?” Henry Burwell shouted back. “Only women fight with gloves!”

And a man somewhere close to Sayers’ ear could be heard to say, “This has got to be the absolute best thing since the opera house did the naked nigger wrestling.”

Sayers glanced around. Some of the clubmen were grinning while others were expressing disapproval, even though they were doing nothing that might interfere with the object of their annoyance. He’d seen this phenomenon before: those who decried a thing, while ensuring they missed none of it. Indeed, they’d seek it out in all its forms so that they might disapprove of it more thoroughly.

He eyed the young man in the makeshift ring, who was now down to his vest and shirtsleeves and was handing his watch and chain to a friend for safekeeping. He was narrow-hipped and wide-shouldered, with a nice taper to his form; he might well give the local brute a few surprises and make him think twice about issuing such challenges in the future.

And if he did not…well, who was Sayers to pass judgment? This hardly differed from the way he had made his living for at least five of the past dozen years. The goaded challenger, the unequal contest, the knockout blow. The only real dissimilarity was that Sayers had taken no pleasure from his victories.

He’d just taken the money, at the end of every day.

“I’d say you had a narrow escape,” Sebastian Becker said from right beside him.