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.”