Enoch Bale walked slowly through the maze of rooms that made up the second floor of Phineas T. Barnum’s American Museum, the tip of his heavy walking stick lightly tapping at the varnished oak floor. It was midafternoon and rich sunlight came through the regularly spaced casements that looked out onto Broadway, illuminating broad wedges of dust motes hanging in the air, turning the light almost to a solid thing and making the bizarre exhibits on display look even more unreal in the strange, honey-colored light.
He’d seen places like this in London and in other European cities: cabinets of curiosities that called themselves museums but were really nothing more than naturalists’ collections and the occasional physical aberration preserved. None of them were a match for Mr. Barnum’s grotesquerie, five full stories of the strange, the out of place and the bizarre, all presented with the gaudy exuberance of a nightmarish traveling carnival.
Enoch Bale had come to the place less than an hour before, yet already he and the chattering horde of men, women and children swarming up the broad stairways and down the case-lined corridors and chambers had seen everything from waxworks of the famous Siamese Twins, whose numerous sons were now apparently fighting for the Confederacy, a one-hundred-and-twelve-pound rock crystal from Mexico, reproductions of the Czar’s crown jewels, the full-sized state carriage of the late dowager Queen of England complete with waxwork footmen and six stuffed horses, a badly manufactured “Feejee Mermaid” that was clearly the skeleton of a large fish fused to the torso of an orangutan and the skull of a monkey, a headless mummy from Thebes and any number of animals, from a massive stuffed boa constrictor artfully wrapped around the slightly understuffed body of a snarling tiger to an armadillo and a perfectly ordinary-looking sheep. There were things in bottles floating in murky liquid, things hanging from the ceiling, things in glass cases and things tacked onto the walls. They all had one thing in common: they were dead, although apparently there were live animals in the basement, including several porpoises and a caged Bengal tiger.
“O day and night, but this is wondrous strange,” said a pleasant voice beside him. The Vampyr turned. The man who’d spoken was somewhere in his early thirties, and well dressed. As he swept off his silk top hat he revealed hair thinning in front and a little too long at the neck. He had a long patrician nose, a wide mouth and a strong chin. The eyes were dark and intelligent, with small laugh wrinkles at the corners. He was carrying a copy of the museum’s guidebook in his left hand.
“All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity,” replied the Vampyr.
His companion smiled, his face brightening. “Ah! Good man! You know your Hamlet.” He took a step back, replaced his hat upon his head and pushed his hand between the buttons of his ornate brocade vest like some grand Napoleon. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t,” he intoned dramatically.
“Certainly there’s method for Mr. Barnum,” answered the Vampyr. “At a quarter of a dollar a time, I’d say he was doing rather well, all things considered.”
“Have you seen the child automaton?” the man asked, taking off his topper once again. “The veritable Lilliputian Monarch?” He waved the guidebook airily.
“Indeed so,” said Enoch Bale. “And the bust of Leo the Tenth and the flag purported to be the one George Washington carried across the Delaware River.” He smiled. “I’ve always wondered at the importance attached to that. As I recall, there were only twenty-four casualties at the Battle of Trenton, not including the two men who froze to death. Certainly not on the scale of a Waterloo.”
“A student of Shakespeare and of history, but not an American, I’d be bound,” said the dark-haired man. “The crossing of the Delaware was the worm turning, the new leaf, the dawn of another day. It gave the failing Continental army the boost it needed to defeat the British once and for all. It is the essence of patriotism.” The man paused, extending his right hand. It was gloved, as was the Vampyr’s. “Booth, sir. Edwin Booth.”
The Vampyr clicked his booted heels together and gave a short military bow. “Lord Enoch Bale,” he said, “Conte de Parma and Viscount of Orange Nassau.” The Vampyr had discovered that Americans seemed inordinately impressed by titles, even the most obscure ones.
“Italian?”
“Dutch,” murmured the Vampyr.
“Bale. The only Bale I knew was Irish.”
“Quite so,” said the Vampyr. “On my father’s side. He was one of the exiled Irish in Spain, which is where he met my mother, the dowager Contessa.”
“I see,” answered Booth, who obviously didn’t. He paused and the Vampyr saw a slight shift in the man’s eyes. “I thought I might have seen you before.”
“Perhaps. I enjoy walking, especially in the evenings.” The Vampyr knew precisely where the man had seen him before but said nothing. He hadn’t noticed anything peculiar earlier in the day, but it was now clear that he had been followed.
“Your work doesn’t interfere with outings like this?” Booth asked, waving the guidebook around again.
“I have no work, unless you count dabbling in stocks on the exchange an occupation.”
“Perhaps that’s where I’ve seen you,” said Booth.
“Perhaps,” said Enoch Bale. “I’m usually there in the mornings.”
“You have a seat on the exchange?”
Enoch Bale shook his head. “I trade through Murray and Brand,” said the Vampyr.
“A currency man, then.”
“Gold in particular,” the Vampyr answered. The other man’s eyes lit up.
“That settles it; you must meet my friend Jim.”
“Jim?” the Vampyr asked.
“‘Diamond Jim’ some call him. Jim Fisk. He works for Daniel Drew.”
“I thought Drew was railroads,” said the Vampyr.
“He is that,” said Booth, his smile widening. “But then Daniel Drew is anything he wants to be.”
“Like the young Mr. Gould,” said Enoch Bale, watching Booth’s expression closely. The other man’s eyes hooded for an instant, but an instant later the friendly expression was back on his face.
“The wily Jew.” Booth chuckled.
“Gould is Jewish?”
“No, he just acts like one.” Booth laughed outright. “He loves money like a shylock—that’s sure enough.” The long-nosed man struck his pose again, pressed the top hat to his chest and cleared his throat. “Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
It was a long speech, perfectly and professionally recalled. A number of people in the crowd had paused to listen and applauded as he completed the quotation. He gave a deep, dramatic bow, then straightened. “Gould,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Now I know where I’ve seen you. You were at Kit Burns’s place last night. The prizefight between Sheehan and Maddersly.”
“You have a good memory,” said the Vampyr. “For faces and for Shakespeare.”
“I had better,” said Booth. “Memory’s my profession.”
“An actor?” Enoch Bale asked.
“Indeed,” said Booth. “Actor, theater manager and occasionally a gambler.”
“Did you bet on Maddersly last night?”
“Of course! Win or lose, you never bet against Jay Gould; it’s liable to get you into trouble.” There was a long pause, Booth staring thoughtfully at Enoch Bale, the Vampyr staring back, waiting. The laughter and clattering of feet was all around the two men, but the silence that stood between them was like the last sustained note on a piano, fading, but still heard long after the melody had gone. Locked in a vacuum, sealed in a bell jar like one of Barnum’s oddities.
“I have an idea,” said Booth at last. “If you’ve seen enough of this place, we can go across to the Astor House and have a drink. Meet a few of my friends from room eleven.”
“Room eleven?”
Booth put a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret.”
The two men left the hotel, crossed Broadway catercorner and walked up to the pillared entrance of the Astor House. Nodding to the uniformed doorman and removing his hat once more, Booth led the Vampyr up the short set of steps and across the immense marble lobby to the sweeping twin staircases that led up to the mezzanine. Bypassing the staircases, Booth went down the carpeted, gaslit left-hand corridor to the end, rapped out a signal knock on the polished oak door and then stepped through it without waiting for an answer.
The Vampyr found himself in the large sitting room of a parlor suite. It was set out with two overstuffed leather sofas, comfortable chairs and walls half paneled in some rich burled wood with deep green moiré silk above. At one of a pair of tables sat two men playing cards, the second filled with bottles of all kinds and a silver tray of heavy-looking crystal glasses. There was a fireplace in the corner, the hearth cold, and a mantel above on which rested an ornately enameled ormolu clock that was ticking very loudly. The carpet on the floor appeared to be a genuine Aubusson, and a gas chandelier twinkled expensively from the ceiling. There were two doors leading to other rooms, one opened, revealing an office beyond with a white-haired man seated behind a heavy partner’s desk.
The man looked up as Booth and the Vampyr entered. He was wearing a gold framed pince-nez he kept on a chain attached to the waistcoat of his suit, which he removed briefly to examine the two men. His face was narrow, the jaw heavy and the lips thin. Below his left eye there was a thin curving scar that went from his temple to the side of his nose as though he’d been slashed with a knife, giving his face a slightly lopsided, sinister appearance. He stared at the Vampyr for a moment, then replaced the pince-nez and returned to reading the sheaf of papers on his desk.
Booth introduced the card players. “The burly fellow with the bags under his eyes and the expensive duds is Mr. James Fisk, and the little fellow with the smooth cheeks and the caterpillar on his upper lip is my younger brother John, also a thespian, recently returned from a tour of Richard the Third that took him to Indiana and back.” Fisk glanced up, eyes bleary and uninterested. Booth’s brother nodded, then looked back at his cards. “The hardworking man in the office there is the inimitable Thurlow Weed, maker of kings and presidents, whisperer of secrets, father of any number of plots and mischiefs.” Weed looked up again, the tiny spectacles dropping from his thin nose of their own accord. He stared at the Vampyr again but spoke to Booth. “Edwin, you are a buffoon, albeit a talented one, but a buffoon nevertheless.”
“Perhaps,” said Booth, bowing lightly. “But whatever the case, may I introduce Lord Enoch Bale, the Conte de Parma and Viscount of Orange Nassau.”
“My, my,” said the younger Booth disdainfully, eyes still on his cards. “Another just off the boat in search of adventure.” He looked up, casting a long glance at the Vampyr. “You have the look of a soldier about you, sir. Who will you be fighting for, Mr. Lincoln’s niggers or old Dixie?”
The Vampyr stared back at the young man without expression, only noticing the smooth, slightly flushed skin of his neck and the blazing, angry eyes. There was passion there, and more than a hint of madness.
“Lord Bale,” said the older actor, “has an interest in gold.”
There was a curious silence. Fisk laid his cards on the table facedown.
“Indeed,” said Thurlow Weed, pushing back his chair and standing up behind his desk. “A different kettle of fish, Edwin, a different kettle of fish altogether.” The tall man with the scar beneath his eye came out from behind the desk and approached the Vampyr, hand extended in greeting.