The Assassin’s Club was located on Sixteenth Street, just off Fifth Avenue, east of Union Park and midway between the university on Washington Square and Madison Square Park. The building itself was a huge Italianate mansion in brick built by Alexander Jackson Davis more than thirty years previously for a stock trader who had bankrupted and then committed suicide after losing everything in the British Railway bubble of 1846. It was approached by a semicircular drive of crushed stone, bringing visitors to a long, multi-columned porch bracketed by a pair of soaring towers topped with copper-sheathed cupolas. At night gaslights lined the drive and brightly lit the dramatic entrance.
Fu Sheng drove the rented hansom up the drive, the iron-bound wheels crunching heavily on the gravel. He pulled up the pair of matched black horses in front of the looming building and dropped down from his position above and behind the carriage cab. He opened the door for his master and stood to one side as the Vampyr stepped down onto the ground.
Enoch Bale breathed deeply, taking in the heavy, sweet scent of the lilac tree planted in the center of the half-moon lawn in front of the mansion. He was dressed formally in a black tailcoat covered by a European-style cloak that fell to his ankles. Beneath the tailcoat he wore a white silk waistcoat with pearl buttons and a white silk shirt with onyx studs. At his throat he wore a cream-colored stock, and his military-style trousers had the appropriate lack of side-seam ribbons and creases. His boots were black and his gloves were white. On his head was a silk top hat. He’d left his stick behind; the brass-headed knobkerrie would have been out of place in such an environment.
“The lair of the wolf,” said the Vampyr, glancing up at the large house.
“Yes, master,” said Fu Sheng uneasily. “A dangerous place.”
“Perhaps,” the Vampyr answered with a faint smile. “But we’ve been to dangerous places before, haven’t we?”
“Yes, master, that is the truth.” Fu Sheng nodded. Instinctively his hand fell to his waist and touched the butt of the Pocket Police revolver jammed into his belt and hidden by the fall of his short jacket.
“Is there anything more about this Adam Worth?” the Vampyr asked.
“He is nearby, master; that is all I know.”
The Vampyr coughed harshly, dragging out a handkerchief from the pocket of his tailcoat. He patted his lips and the square of silk came away spotted with blood.
“The flux, master?” Fu Sheng asked, concern in his voice. “So soon.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Enoch Bale. It was the only disease common to the Vampyr breed: verruca necrogenica, or “corpse disease,” sometimes known as gravediggers sickness or anatomists consumption, an ancient form of tuberculosis that Enoch Bale knew would eventually put him into a deep, dreamless sleep that could last for decades before it ran its course. It was his only weakness.
“If the sickness worsens, I will take care of everything,” said the Vampyr’s Oriental companion. “You can depend on me, master. I’ve already found the medicines. I will not fail you.”
“You are a good friend, Fu Sheng.”
“Shall I wait?”
“No. See if you can find out anything more of Adam Worth. Anything at all. I’ll find my own way home. It’s not far.”
“Yes, master.” The Chinaman nodded. He swung himself back up into the driver’s seat of the hansom, flicked the reins and disappeared down the curving drive and out onto Fifth Avenue. The Vampyr stood quietly for a moment, enjoying the simple pleasure of the night, then climbed the front steps and went forward to the large oak and glass doors.
The doors swung wide even before he had a chance to knock. He was greeted by two black footmen dressed in satin uniforms and wearing old-fashioned wigs in the manner of the French court a hundred years past. One took his cape while the other took his hat and gloves. They bowed, then moved off.
The Vampyr examined his surroundings. The lobby was an immense circle with an upper gallery and a sweeping spiral staircase. A massive crystal chandelier hung from a white-domed ceiling high overhead. The huge cascading fall of leaded glass was lit from within by at least a dozen mantled jets of quietly hissing gas. The overall impression was of an ostentatious display of luxury for its own sake. Enoch Bale’s attention was taken by the floor beneath his feet. It was made up of marble tiles in a Greek motif, three horrific women’s heads, hair made up of writhing snakes, orbiting a male face set into an idealized sunburst. Everything was done in reds and blues and gold.
A man appeared from a doorway to Bale’s left, dressed almost identically to the Vampyr except that instead of a folded silk stock he wore a black cravat, loosely tied. It was Gould.
“You must be Lord Bale, Weed’s new acquaintance. Welcome. I’m Jason Gould. My friends call me Jay.” He noticed his visitor’s interest in the ornate flooring. “The previous owners had a classical bent,” said the gaunt, dark-haired man with the piercing eyes. “The three Furies circling their sworn enemy, Helios, the Sun.”
“The Eumenides.” Enoch Bale nodded. “The female personification of all the forms of vengeance”—he pointed them out one by one—“Alecto, the Unceasing, Megeara, the Grudging, and Tisphone, Avenging Murder, the most powerful of the three. Hair made up of serpents like the Gorgon, with the wings of a bat and the body of a dog.”
Gould let out a short, barking laugh. “You sound as though you know them personally,” he said.
The Vampyr shrugged. “I’ve run into them on occasion.”
“Well, forget about them for the moment. Come and join the party.” Gould gestured toward the doorway he had just come through. He stepped forward and took Bale by the elbow, leading him. For an instant the Vampyr tasted the faint waft of fading bergamot and wormwood once more. He hesitated briefly, and Gould turned and stared.
“A problem?” Gould said.
“Not really,” said the Vampyr. “It seems strange; you act as though you know me.”
“Don’t I?” said Gould. “I saw you at Kit Burns’s place last night. You seemed interested in poor old Maddersly, my late prizefighting friend.”
“Late?”
“Someone blew him down after the fight in a Kraut Town alley.” Gould stared at Bale. “Cut his throat with an ax—that’s what the Metropolitans say. Almost carved one of his mitts off at the wrist as well.” Gould’s eye glittered fiercely for an instant, then dimmed. “I’d like to meet the man who could do that. Yes, I would.”
“And if you did?” the Vampyr prompted.
Gould paused just at the door to the main salon. “We’d have to see, your grace, we’d have to see.” The pale young man smiled coldly at Bale, then threw open the door. “But for now, let me introduce you to my friends.”
The main salon of the house was as imposing as the lobby. The room was very large, with tall windows on two sides, each window covered by a pair of thick velvet curtains in deep blue fringed with gold. The oak floor was almost entirely covered with an enormous French Savonnerie carpet with an intricate design of lattices and cartouches interspersed with dozens of fantastic flower and plant motifs all done in pale blues and grays and greens, the silk wallpaper repeating the same designs in various shades of red. The walls were hung with large paintings, mostly hunting scenes or depictions of great battles, one or two of which, ironically, the Vampyr saw, he had fought in once upon a time. The ceiling was framed by gilded plaster moldings, and the ceiling itself was coffered in rich, exotic woods. Half a dozen gas chandeliers almost as large as the one in the lobby lit the scene brightly. More of the bewigged and uniformed black servants wandered about carrying trays of food and drink. In the far corner of the room, six black men in white tailcoats and trousers played light airs on stringed instruments. It sounded like Purcell.
“The design of the room is based on Crockford’s in London,” said Gould proudly. “You know it, I’m sure.”
“I’ve been there once or twice.” Enoch Bale nodded. He wondered whether Gould knew that William Crockford, the club’s owner, had once been a fishmonger and a small-time bookmaker and swindler.
In most other houses, a salon like this one would have been filled with rich furniture: comfortable chairs and couches, ornate tables and place settings. Here, however, the room was furnished as a gambling club of the first water. Standing in the doorway with Gould, the Vampyr could see virtually every possible game of chance being played. There were two faro tables in operation, several large tables offering ongoing games of poker, pontoon and piquet, a high-sided hazard table with at least a score of spectators cheering on the dice thrower, and even a table with a French roulette wheel.
“The Devil’s game,” commented Gould.
“I presume you refer to the fact that the numbers on the board combine to make the number of the Beast,” replied Bale.
“You’ve played before, then?” Gould asked.
“I rarely play games which I cannot win, Mr. Gould,” the Vampyr answered. There were at least a hundred people in the room, most of the men dressed as he was in formal evening attire, although some were dressed in military attire. The women were all beautiful, extremely well dressed in the latest fashions from the Continent, and all seemed quite young. The Vampyr quickly observed one other thing and commented on it. “I see no plaques or tokens for the games,” he said.
“We don’t use them,” said Gould. “Only specie. Twenty-dollar gold pieces, to be exact. Double eagles. The eagle has become the club’s symbol.”
“A gentleman’s tailor might not approve,” answered Bale. “A lot of coins to carry around.”
“We provide them,” said Gould. “No one plays here without a letter of credit from his bank or a reference from one of the members.”
The two men moved through the room, pausing here and there to watch the play for a few moments before moving on. Gould introduced the Vampyr to a number of men, mostly traders on the exchange or important bankers. There were a few businessmen, including A. T. Stewart, who owned the huge “Marble Palace” Department store on Broadway, Moses Taylor, the sugar importer and Abiel Low, a leading figure in the China trade.
“We call them the Pine Street Boys,” said Gould quietly. “They made all their money from King Cotton, and they want to keep it. They had their way, the capital of the United States would be in Mobile or New Orleans, not Washington.”
“They support slavery, then?”
“They support money, my friend. Slavery is incidental. Black, white, Chinee, Jew or Mohammedan, we’re all slave to it, for money is wealth, wealth is power and power is all. Only life and death are free, which is why they both come so cheap.”
“An odd philosophy,” said Bale.
“It’s stood me in good stead,” said Gould. “The war, for instance—everyone said it would be the death of this city. Without cotton to sell, what have we got?” He laughed. “Guns, bombs, bullets, boats, iron, coal, that’s what, and plenty of cotton besides, smuggled to us so we can make uniforms for Lincoln’s army to get all covered with blood so they’ll buy some more. Believe me, your lordship, war’s good for business no matter who wins it.”
“Wars end,” said the Vampyr.
“Then we’ll just start another one,” said Gould, the glitter in his eye again. “Wars are dependable, and one way or another the world wouldn’t be what it is without them.”
The Vampyr shrugged; he hadn’t come here to get into political or philosophical discussions about either war or slavery; he’d seen enough of both in his time. Two things that the thin, dark man had said were true, however: wars never really ended and slavery came in every color of the rainbow.
“The women are very young,” the Vampyr commented. So far he’d been introduced to none of them.
“That’s because none of them are wives,” laughed Gould. “This is a gentleman’s club, my lord; married women are not allowed through the doors. The women here are as much for decoration as the drapery.” He paused for a moment. “Just like the little Sambos in their wigs, if your tastes lean in that direction,” he added. “Do your tastes lean in that direction, my lord?”
“My tastes are otherwise,” answered Bale, “and are entirely my own business.”
“No offense, my lord, I hope,” said Gould stiffly. “I don’t mean to pry.”
“No offense, Mr. Gould, I assure you.” The Vampyr smiled.
Gould plucked a thin flute of champagne off the tray of a passing servant and offered it to Bale.
The Vampyr declined. “Too early for me,” he said. “I don’t drink until much later.” He smiled pleasantly at his host. “It helps me to sleep.”
“You have trouble sleeping, my lord?” Gould asked.
“I am something of a night person, I must admit,” the Vampyr answered. “Not greatly sociable, I’m afraid.” Bale was becoming tired of the man’s attentions and his intrusive prattle.
“Then I should feel honored that you came at all,” said Gould. They’d reached the hazard table and paused again.
“This isn’t really hazard,” said Bale as he saw how the game was being played. “The main is always seven.” The shooter at the table was an immensely fat man who huffed and puffed as he played, flinging the ivory cubes down the table to the back of the pit as though he was angry at them. There were three or four stacks of bright gold coins on the felt of the table in front of him and more scattered on the betting lines around the table. At least a dozen men were wagering along with the fat man and calling out their encouragement.
A woman stood beside him wearing a pinch-waisted low-cut gown in dark red that matched her auburn hair. Her skin was as white as milk, and when she bent to blow on the dice in the man’s pudgy hand, the Vampyr could plainly see the delicate structure of the vertebrae in her neck.
“It’s called crapaud, or craps,” said Gould. “French. A nigger’s game from New Orleans. Would you like to play?”
“No, thank you,” said the Vampyr. He suddenly felt faint, and the taste of ashes rose in the back of his throat. He’d come to this place hoping to find a nest of Damphyr and instead he’d just felt the dark presence of something much more powerful. Regaining his equilibrium, he looked around, but the taste in his throat and the deep, shaded presence he’d felt for a brief instant were gone. One of the Nine here, in this garish place? It didn’t seem possible, but the tugging nausea that wrenched at him was unmistakable. There was another of his kind nearby, not in this room, perhaps, but very close.
“Perhaps I’ll have that drink now,” he said. Gould nodded and turned away to find a servant. The Vampyr lowered himself carefully into a plush chair set by the wall, tasting blood in his mouth. He took out his handkerchief and held it to his lips. There was a sudden roar from the hazard table.
“Snake eyes!” The fat man groaned.