Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

by Oakley Hall

  “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 rout
e, 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.

  15

  INK, n. – A villainous compound of tanno-gallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

  –THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

  I was not yet allowed to think of myself as a full-fledged journalist, for I was summoned to assist Dutch John and Frank Grief printing the week’s Hornet in the basement with the dependable-in-its-undependability Chandler & Price press, whose revolving leather belt periodically snapped off its spindles in a flailing flight around the basement, and that acid stink of ink that required much soap and hot water at the Pine Street Baths to wash away.

  After supper the Barnacle children often put on a show for the assembled boarders: Fuzzy Bear, The Hooter, Jimmy McGurn and Tom Redmond. We sat with our empty cake plates and coffee cups before us and watched the young Barnacles in performance. Tonight it was charades, in which Belinda was always the principal. She appeared swathed in white, wearing a white cap, dark lines denoting age drawn on her cheeks. Colbert, in his knickers, white shirt and a necktie, stood before her. Between them was a mysterious construction of crumpled newspapers painted white, with unlighted birthday candles stuck in it. Belinda carried a kind of wand, so that at first I thought she was a fairy princess.

  But she tapped Colbert on the shoulder and in a quavery voice commanded, “Play, boy!”

  “Great Expectations!” I said. There was applause. Belinda curtseyed. The paper construction was of course the decayed wedding cake.

  Later she appeared in her Sunday dress, revealing the beginnings of a bosom, hair in neat pigtails, to stand before us and declaim:

  “Blow, winds, come wrack! Knit up the ravell’d sleeve of care! There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. And all the clouds that lowered around our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. There is a willow grows aslant a brook!”

  She gestured dramatically.

  “Out, damned spot! Wherefore art thou Romeo? At least we’ll die with harness on our back!

  “The rest is silence!”

  She curtseyed to thunderous applause, her parents joining in. I slapped my hands together with enthusiasm. Belinda’s cheeks were pink with pleasure as she curtseyed again.

  My bride-to-be enjoyed applause very much.

  When at last a brown envelope arrived from Virginia City, Bierce and I examined the faces of the Spades on the tin plate. They were grouped in front of a building that might have been the Miners’ Rest, with an overhanging balcony that shaded some of the faces. They were young! All smiling. Caroline LaPlante was at the center, very respectable and rather ordinary-looking in her black skirt and white shirtwaist, with a large dark saucer of a hat shading her face. On one side of her was a man not as young as the others whom I recognized as Nat McNair, on the other a large young man, clean-shaven and grinning, derby-hatted. Beside McNair was a monkey-faced little fellow and, beside him, another derby-hatted chap whose face was partially concealed by the shade of the balcony. The three young men must be Al Gorton, E. O. Macomber and Adolphus Jackson, who was Senator Jennings. Bierce had met Jennings but could not identify him as a young man.

  “Take this to Pusey,” he said. “We will test his memory for faces and the vaunted Criminal Photographic Archive.”

  Brushing at his mustache, he said, “It will be interesting to see if Pusey identifies Jackson as Jennings. Jennings may be paying generously for not being identified.”

  He had obtained a magnifying glass to see if he could recognize Jennings. When he passed it to me I bent over the tintype.

  The man whose face was partially in shadow was surely my father.

  I was in a state when I got to Captain Pusey’s office at Old City Hall with the tintype like a block of lead in my pocket, and, when I entered, it seemed that Pusey had
shrunk to only three feet tall in his blue uniform tunic, standing across the room scowling at me. I thought the shock of recognizing my father’s face had been too much for me, until Pusey moved sideways to put a hand on the back of a chair and I saw he was a boy dressed up in a child’s-size policeman’s uniform.

  Pusey himself came in through a side door.

  “This’s my boy, John Daniel,” he said. “John Daniel, come and shake Mr. Redmond’s hand.”

  The boy approached to give my hand an energetic tug and retreated again. Pusey did not proffer his own hand. “Got something for me?” he said.

  I handed him the tintype, which he laid on his desk. He bent over it, resembling a heavy-bellied candle, with his shock of hair like a white flame. He poked at the images on the tintype with a blunt forefinger. “These are Bierce’s Spades then. There is Nat McNair and the grand lady herself!”

  John Daniel stood silently watching. The office window looked out on an area paved with stones, where a group of bummers were in conversation, passing a bottle among them. A beer wagon rolled past with a rattle of wheels.

  “That’s Albert Gorton,” Pusey said. “Got battered on the head in February ‘76. Died without coming out of it.”

  “Who bashed him?”

  “Never solved.” He grinned at me with his too-perfect teeth. “Somebody that didn’t like him, probably. Unless they bashed the wrong fellow.”