Oakley Hall - Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

“Captain Pusey had also told another person of Beau McNair’s arrest in London.”

Bierce paused to pace some more.

“And the identity of that person, Mr. Bierce?” Curtis asked, peering past Lady Caroline. Beau was studying his hands.

“In good time, Mr. Curtis. There was great hatred here. As we have seen, Senator Jennings had been wronged, but there is another who was much more terribly wronged, and whose hatred turned to murderous insanity.”

This time when Bierce paused, no one spoke. Lady Caroline had her chin raised regally.

“Nathaniel McNair was not the father of Beaumont McNair,” Bierce continued. “Two other men had been told they had fathered Caroline LaPlante’s son. In one of those men’s family there is an occurrence of twins.”

Suddenly Rudolph Buckle was on his feet, his lips working as though trying to form words that would not come. Lady Caroline made an imperious motion with her hand. She had removed one of her gloves.

“Mrs. Pleasant pointed out to me that I was only looking at half the picture,” Bierce said. “Twins,” he repeated. “One of the twins was given to Mammy Pleasant. The disposer of unwanted babies disposed of the unwanted twin.”

Heads turned to Mammy Pleasant. Her gold hoop earring caught the light in a shivering round as she drew herself up.

“You may address this matter, Mrs. Pleasant,” Lady Caroline said.

In her soft staccato, Mammy Pleasant said, “The child was given to a Mr. and Mrs. Payne to rear. He was a stonemason. They had lost a child of their own.”

“Was there money involved, Mrs. Pleasant?”

“They were given two thousand dollars,” Mammy Pleasant said.

Lady Caroline had removed both gloves and was smoothing a cream-colored liquid from a small silver bottle onto her hands.

It was as though Bierce was a schoolmaster calling on her. He did not look at her directly but raised a finger inclined toward her.

“McNair would allow me to keep one baby but not two,” she said. “It was a punishment.”

“You chose to keep the better-looking or the stronger of the twins?” Bierce said. “Or was there some defect?”

“I do not intend to discuss that, Mr. Bierce.”

“I will point out that the hatred would be intensified if there was a defect. Hatred against his perfect brother as well as his mother.”

Lady Caroline wrung the liquid into her hands.

“I believe there was some flaw, a deformation,” Bierce said. “I believe the deformation was genital.”

He paused to glance at Lady Caroline. Color had mounted in her cheeks, but she did not respond.

Bierce continued, speaking very carefully: “As Beaumont McNair’s scrape with London prostitutes seems to show a discomfort with his mother’s history, so does the other twin’s particular viciousness.

“The twin’s object was to see his brother punished for these murders, but it was primarily to punish his mother. The incrimination of Beau was to serve the purpose of bringing his mother to San Francisco. There he would punish her as he had punished the other prostitutes. Certainly it was a mad scheme. It was a madman’s scheme.”

Lady Caroline now sat motionless with her beautiful head erect, watching Bierce with the smile that was no longer a smile.

“What is this young man’s name, Senator?” Bierce asked suddenly.

His name must be Payne.

Heads turned toward Jennings, who glared back at Bierce with his lips pressed together like a scar.

Mammy Pleasant enunciated the name softly: “George Payne.”

Bierce pointed a finger at Senator Jennings. “You believed you were the father of Caroline LaPlante’s offspring, the father of George Payne. The pregnant mother told you that you were, as she had also told another. She had decided that she wanted to be married, and you were her second choice, but you were a four-flusher as well. Nat McNair was her third choice. Perhaps you were, in fact, the father. The mother claims to be uncertain.”

Jennings snarled at him.

I wondered suddenly who else had been informed of his paternity. Was this the connection with Sharon that everyone denied?

“I don’t pretend to know how you came to know George Payne or his identity,” Bierce went on. “But encounter him you did. He worked as a barkeep in your saloon on Battery Street. Adolphus Jackson’s saloon, actually. It was George Payne who carried away from the fire the painting of Caroline LaPlante as Lady Godiva‌—‌it once hung in a saloon in Virginia City, and then in your office in Sacramento. And later still in the Washoe Angel saloon. It was the twin who carried off the famous painting of his mother, wasn’t it, Tom?”

Heads turned toward me. “Yes,” I said.

“The young man’s hatred was fed,” Bierce said, turning toward Lady Caroline. “Captain Pusey had conveyed the information about Beaumont McNair’s London transgression and arrest to Senator Jennings. They were well acquainted. Pusey knew Jennings was a convicted arsonist named Adolphus Jackson and had been blackmailing him for years. Jennings passed along Pusey’s information to his employee. There had to be a starting time for these vicious murders. The starting time was Beaumont McNair’s return to San Francisco.

“George Payne’s hatred was fed by Senator Jennings,” Bierce said.

“One moment!” Jennings’s lawyer said, rising, hand and finger rising also.

“You have no proof of any of this!” Jennings shouted. He shoved his chair noisily back as he lurched to his feet. “You damned calumniator! I am getting out of this shithole, Ted!”

Shoulders hunched and head forward as though ducking beneath rifle fire, he plunged toward the double doors Marvins had closed behind Bierce and me. He flung them open and disappeared with a hurrying crack of footfalls on the parquet. Neither Pusey nor Sgt. Nix made any move after him. His lawyer, grimacing at Lady Caroline, followed more sedately, closing the doors behind him.

“May we call this murderer an extrapolation, or merely hypothetical?” Curtis said in a stifled voice.

“Bos,” Lady Caroline said.

“Are you saying that Senator Jennings was the intellectual author of these murders?” Buckle said.

“At least the impulse to them.”

“Can the police find this twin?”

“We will find him,” Pusey said calmly.

“You will find a man who has been mistaken for Beaumont McNair many times,” Bierce said. He paced before the window. Lady Caroline’s eyes never left him.

“The hatred these two shared was very powerful,” Bierce said. “They complemented each other. The twin might not have turned murderous without Jennings. Jennings might have forgotten his old grudge without George Payne, whom he considered his wronged son.”

He had broken through to the Railroad at last. He had connected the SP with the Slasher.

“So Lady Caroline is in danger,” Pusey said, still with his arms and legs entwined.

“George Payne has been gaining access to this mansion for years,” Bierce said. “He believed it should have been his house. The servants knew of him as the ghost. It may be that Mr. Buckle has actually encountered him.”

Heads turned to Buckle, who was still standing. His lips moved, but he did not speak. He was breathing heavily.

“Is this true, Rudy?” Beau demanded.

“I believe this meeting can be concluded,” Lady Caroline said, before Buckle could respond. She rose to her feet. “Thank you, Mr. Bierce. I am very impressed by your conclusions. We have certainly been forewarned.”

Curtis rose. Others shifted in their chairs, rising. Mammy Pleasant elbowed and switched herself around. Her posture, and her first steps as she turned toward the door, were those of an old woman.