The Kingdom of Bones

by Stephen Gallagher

  “I thought as much,” the justice said. “Thirty days.”

  It would be a while before they got to Sayers. So far, he’d had no access to counsel. The only lawyer he knew hereabouts was Calvin Quinn. He doubted that Quinn would be prepared to come forward.

  Sayers had good reason to fear investigation. In England, he remained a wanted man. The very information that might save him from these charges would condemn him on the old ones.

  Crutchfield’s courtroom was like a marketplace with continuous through traffic. The corridor outside of the swing doors was raucous; in here it was more restrained, but still a fast-moving zoo. Justice John seemed able to stay focused on the case before him without losing his awareness of everything else that was going on around him, in sight or just out of it.

  Tom Sayers heard his name being called, and the bailiff prodded him to move forward. The judge was reading some notes as Sayers took his place before him. “And what’s this about?” he said, looking not at Sayers but at his clerk.

  The court was told that the man found in the wall had been identified as Jules Patenotre, a native of Louisiana. He owned extensive property there, but he lived alone and kept a suite of rooms in Murphy’s Hotel. There was some confusion over when he might have disappeared; the housemaids said that he’d definitely been seen around, but the desk staff said that he hadn’t been picking up his key.

  Now Justice John looked at Sayers. “Well?” he said. “What have you got to say about it?”

  Before Sayers could speak, there was a movement at the other side of the courtroom, the scraping of a chair, a voice calling out, “I’m here to speak as counsel for the prisoner, Your Honor.”

  Sayers looked around in surprise. He was not alone; most heads in the courtroom were turning, too. Only the other prisoners were showing no interest at all.

  Those who looked toward the public gallery saw a big man, bearded, in rugged tweeds and with his hat in his hand.

  The judge said, “I saw you sneaking in there about half an hour back. And who the hell might you be?”

  “Abraham Stoker, sir. A longtime friend of the prisoner. As to my qualifications, I was called to the bar in London, England.”

  “I know where London is. This is Richmond, Virginia, and you’re in my courtroom. I hope you’re not going to spoil my morning with a heap of legal argument.”

  “Not unless you particularly want me to, Your Honor,” Stoker said. “As far as I’m aware, my client merely discovered a body and awaited the arrival of the police. I don’t see the crime in that.”

  Bram Stoker?

  Sayers was dazed, and finding all of this hard to take in. His sleepless night in the cells hadn’t helped his powers of concentration. On the other side of Stoker, he could see Sebastian Becker, seated, and himself looking as if he’d skipped a night of bed rest.

  The judge was sucking in his cheeks and considering Stoker. “I’ve met you before,” he said. “Have I not?”

  “You have, sir,” Stoker said. “The Men’s Club gave a dinner to honor Sir Henry Irving on his last American tour. I was with him then.”

  At that, the judge’s face lit up. “You’re Irving’s man!” he said, and then a hint of disappointment. “And a lawyer as well?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Well, nobody’s perfect. What can you tell me about this case?”

  “Nothing at all, Your Honor. I arrived in town less than an hour ago and I’ve had no opportunity to consult with my client. But I know the defendant, and I can say with personal certainty that this man is no criminal.”

  Justice John’s eyebrows went up. “That how they do things at the English bar?” he said. “Some lawyer stands up, says he doesn’t know a damn thing about it, but swears that his client is aboveboard?”

  “I’m a lawyer in that I passed the bar exam, sir, but I’ve never taken silk.”

  “Say what?”

  “I’ve never practiced.”

  “That’s more like it. We’ve got more than enough lawyers in this world, and I see far too many of them in this courtroom.”

  The judge studied his notes.

  “Sayers,” he said. “According to this, you had just shy of a thousand dollars on your person when they took you in.”

  “In a money belt,” Sayers said. He didn’t dare look at Sebastian Becker. “They took it from me at the jail.”

  “Care to tell me how you came by it?”

  “No, sir.”

  Crutchfield looked up with his eyebrows raised and his pale blue eyes wide with an innocent wonder that Sayers knew he’d be a fool to take at face value.

  “No?” he said.

  But Sayers stuck to his word. “I prefer not to speak of it, sir. Don’t I have a right to that? I believe it’s in your constitution.”

  “In my courtroom,” Crutchfield said, “you’ve got whatever rights I choose. You don’t want to account for your situation here and now, fine. But account for it you will. I’m setting your bail at one thousand dollars. Bailiff, get him out of here.”

  Bram Stoker and Sebastian Becker walked out of the courtroom together. As they ascended from the basement into the ornate tan, cream, and gold four-story atrium of the city hall, Stoker said, “Our Justice John is a rum one. But at least Sayers has the means to cover his bail.”

  Sebastian said, “It’s not his money, Mister Stoker. It’s mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “Why do you think I’ve pursued him all the way from Philadelphia?”

  “I can’t believe he’d ever steal from you,” Stoker said. “Has he changed so much?”

  “He didn’t steal from me. He stole from the Pinkertons, and I had to make good the loss, or suffer in consequence. I don’t doubt that he intended my family no harm, but harm was the outcome. It’s this obsession of his. It blinds him to all else. The deeper Louise Porter sinks, the more she drags him after. Let’s see what a spell in jail will do to his edge.”

  “You don’t mean to leave him there?”

  “I do.”

  A jangling of chains announced the approach of the prison party, shuffling up the stairs on their way to the transport. Each had been dealt with, and none looked any happier than before.

  Sebastian looked the men over and then said to the guard alongside their column, “Where’s Tom Sayers?”

  “The Englishman?” the guard said. “He signed over his money and the judge signed the order. He’s long gone.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Calvin Quinn was not hard to find. His law offices in the Chamber of Commerce building were listed in the city directory, and a three-figure telephone number along with them. Sebastian used a coin-operated telephone in the back of a drugstore. Quinn took his call, but when he realized what it was about, he cut off the conversation. So Sebastian waited outside his office until the end of the day, and followed his carriage back to his Church Hill home.

  When Sebastian rang the bell by the door and stepped back, he saw movement at one of the windows, but no one came. So then he rang the bell again, and kept on ringing it until one of Quinn’s black servants opened the door.

  “Mister Quinn says that if you don’t leave, he’ll call in the police,” the man said.

  Sebastian said, “Tell Mister Quinn that if he won’t speak to me, I’ll fetch them myself.”

  A couple of minutes later, he was in Quinn’s study. The lawyer left the study door slightly ajar. Sebastian was aware of at least one of the servants hovering outside in the hallway, presumably to eject him if called upon.

  Quinn was already aware of Sayers’ arrest. It was the reason for his nervousness. He’d no wish for it to be known that he’d led them to the old vaudeville house, or to make any public explanation of his own familiarity with its use as a venue for le vice anglais.

  Sebastian told him of the scene in the courtroom, and the events that followed.

  “I hurried to his lodgings,” Sebastian said. “But I had missed him by minutes.”

  “A
nd what of your thousand dollars?”

  “I’ve lost it,” Sebastian said simply. “The man’s jumped bail and the money is forfeit. He’s robbed me twice over. My family’s savings, my son’s hope of a cure, and a young girl’s trousseau. All for his pursuit of that mad flogging whore.”

  “Steady on,” Quinn said, and he got up and closed the study door.

  Then he turned back to face Sebastian. “Why are you here?” he said. “Are you after replacing your money? I won’t be blackmailed.”

  “Don’t insult me,” Sebastian said. “I won’t take a penny. But you will help me.”

  He went on to explain his belief that the death of Jules Patenotre was related to at least two others of a similar character that had gone before: one in San Francisco, and another in Philadelphia. The woman now calling herself Mary D’Alroy was linked to each of them.

  At the mention of Jules Patenotre’s name, Sebastian had seen something change in Quinn’s expression.

  “You knew him,” he said.

  “I knew of him,” Quinn said. “Patenotre was in the process of raising a loan against some property in Louisiana. He’s been breaking up the old family estate and living off the proceeds. He’s borrowed money before. Buyers don’t always come along at the exact time when you need them, so he was using the plantation house for security whenever his funds dipped low. He’d pay off the loans whenever he sold more land. He always said that the house was the last thing he’d part with.”

  “His deposit box at Murphy’s Hotel had been emptied,” Sebastian said. “I believe by our so-called Mary D’Alroy after his death. The police don’t know of her yet, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “You want to protect her? Why?”

  “Not protect her,” Sebastian said. “I need you to act for me. Contact each set of authorities and negotiate a reward. If I can’t take my money back from Sayers, I’ll get equal value from her. I can’t do that if the police reach her first.”

  “How will you know where to look?”

  “I reckon we can make a start by locating the Patenotre estate,” Sebastian said.

  FORTY-TWO

  Her appointment was for seven o’clock that evening. At six-thirty, she left the St. Charles Hotel with the Silent Man following a few paces behind.

  She was heading away from the French Quarter and into an even older part of town. Many of these houses had been the dwellings of original Creole families, and a few of their descendants continued to hang on. Their golden age was long past, the buildings run-down. The houses lined the streets in rows. Their owners stayed hidden away behind empty balconies and shuttered French windows.

  She found the address, an anonymous-looking door in a brick-and-plaster wall. When she raised the iron knocker and brought it down, she heard it echo oddly on the other side.

  While waiting for a response, she turned to the Silent Man.

  “It’s just a first meeting,” she said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

  He inclined his head and crossed to the other side of the street, where evening shadows were beginning to create niches of darkness in nailed-up doorways gray with cobwebs. The air was cool, but not unpleasant. Although this was December, it had the feel of a spring evening back in England.

  When the Silent Man reached the far banquette, he turned. He barely appeared to move, but seemed to fade from sight as he eased back into a piece of the gloom.

  Louise heard bolts being drawn, and faced the door. She composed herself. The door opened and before her stood a short, dark woman in immaculate linen and a folded headscarf.

  “Miss Mary D’Alroy to see Mrs. Blanchard,” Louise said. “I’m expected.”

  The servant woman stepped aside, and Louise went in. But instead of entering directly into the residence, she found herself in a wide passageway of about fifty or sixty feet in length. It was paved, like a passage under a castle; halfway along it, from its vaulted ceiling, there hung an iron lantern on a chain. At its far end, an archway led to an inner courtyard with palm trees and a fountain.

  After the anonymity of the street outside, the courtyard was a small paradise. A spot of total privacy, with flower beds and hanging baskets and benches for sitting out. There were ferns and oleander, as well as the palms, and a brightly colored parrot in a cage. The area wouldn’t get much sunlight, but in the Louisiana summers that would be an advantage. Shade and a through breeze would be much preferred.

  Balconies of filigreed ironwork overhung the courtyard at every level. Across it, another arch led to a stairway that ascended through each floor of the house.

  Louise was led up and into a spacious drawing room that ran the full depth of the building. One end was open to the courtyard. The windows at the street end were shuttered, and candles had been lit there.

  “I’ll tell madame you’re here,” the woman said, and continued up to the next floor.

  As she waited, Louise inspected the room. Alone in the middle of it stood a rosewood piano. The floor was polished timber, dark as pitch. The walls were of plain white plaster. A brass chandelier hung from an ornate plaster rose on the ceiling. Looking at the way that house had been put together, she was reminded of a shipwright’s work: construction that was solid to the point of crudity, yet shaped by its journeyman maker to follow lines of taste and elegance. Apart from the piano, there were two sofas and a few other pieces of mahogany furniture.

  Louise went over to the piano. It was a London-made Broadwood, probably the Drawing Room Grand. She could imagine its journey, packed in boxwood and bound up with ropes to cross the ocean, then up the river by steamboat for unloading onto the levee, and then a final, rattling half mile on a wheeled cart to bring it here.

  How did they get it up to the second floor? Probably over the balcony from the street, with block and tackle. Now here they were, Louise and the piano. Two exiled Europeans, a long way from home.

  She did not sit and play. She could accompany herself, but not well. It was for this reason that she’d mostly made her living from recitation—it was a fairly simple matter to hire a meeting hall or a YMCA to give passages from Les Misérables and The Mill on the Floss. Hiring a piano and rehearsing someone local to play it involved complications, and complications meant added risk.

  However, she’d been finding that they did not understand her so well in the South. In Philadelphia, her accent had been a professional asset. Here they asked her to repeat her words, and not just for the pleasure of hearing her speak.

  For her part, she couldn’t quite adapt to the local mixing up of language with French words rendered unrecognizable by American pronunciation. So out came the sheet music, and back came the vocal exercises.

  She’d been exercising every morning. Whenever she could find a place to boil a kettle, she’d breathe in some steam. Louise had always assumed that her singing voice was something that she’d be able to call upon at will. But over the past few weeks, she’d discovered that it was just like any other neglected gift. She’d intended to keep it in use, but somehow over the years she’d never quite turned intention into action.

  She sang well enough. Had she kept it up, she might now be sounding better than ever. But now she was coming to realize that she’d never again sing quite as well as she once had.

  Well, as long as she could fill a room and please an audience. The smaller the room, the easier it was on both counts. Private events were the best of all—not only did she get to meet and charm her listeners beforehand, but the occasions made less of a mark in the public record. They might not be hugely rewarding, but for once money was not an immediate problem due to the contents of Jules Patenotre’s strongbox. Right now, it was more important for her to seek out and meet people of use and influence.

  Someone was coming down the stairs. It was Mrs. Blanchard. She moved slowly, one hand on the mahogany banister and the other being supported by the servant woman. Louise had only met her once before today, and then only briefly; one of her sons had conveyed this invi
tation and handled the initial arrangements. She was elderly and frail, and movement took so much of her concentration that it was impossible to guess at her character from her expression. She might be kind, forbidding, impatient—anything at all from sweet old lady to terrifying matriarch. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore a full cotton dress in a pleasing lavender shade.

  Louise hovered awkwardly as the two of them moved to one of the sofas, where Mrs. Blanchard lowered herself with care. On the way down, she looked up at the servant woman and said, “Sophie, will you ask Euday to come?”

  “He downstairs,” Sophie said.

  Mrs. Blanchard settled the last few inches and then, finally, was able to turn her full attention to Louise. “So, Miss D’Alroy,” she said. “What will you take?”

  Louise said, “A glass of water?”

  “Take a cordial,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “The water’s not so sweet today.”

  Sophie left them, and there were a few moments of silence. Louise looked around and said, “Can I assume this is the room where I’ll be performing?”

  “Assume away,” Mrs. Blanchard said. Her expression was stony, but her manner seemed warm. It was as if great age had robbed her face of animation and taken the strength from her limbs, leaving the person inside able to show herself in only small ways.

  She said, “What do you think of my house?”

  “I think it’s fine,” Louise said. “I think the whole town’s very fine.”

  “Well, you can say that,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “But you never saw the old New Orleans.”

  “I take it times have changed.”

  “Oh, have they. This was the richest city in America, and you knew it. We had the cotton and we had the river. Then came Mister Lincoln’s war, and after that the railroads. Now it’s one of the poorest. We can still put on a show, but it’s not the place it was. There are some terrible people out there. I have Sophie lock the gates at night.”

  “Even so,” Louise said. “There’s something welcoming about this part of the world. I’m finding I feel at home here.”

  “And you’ve missed feeling that.”