The Kingdom of Bones

“You took out the number one touring company in ’eighty-three.”

“I serve as acting manager for Edmund Whitlock now.”

“As penance for what?” Stoker said wryly.

“I beg a favor, Bram,” Sayers said, without rising to the implied slight on his employer. “My company’s three short, and I don’t know where they are. Have you any influence with the railway’s theater man?”

“To hold back your train?”

“By any amount of time at all.”

Stoker checked his watch against the station clock and promised to see what could be done. As they crossed the iron bridge, he told Sayers that he was on his way to Scotland to join the rest of the Lyceum people in researching settings for a new production of Macbeth. He had broken his journey here to discuss arrangements for the provincial tour of Faust that was to precede it.

Researching settings! Sayers marveled at the very thought. Sets for The Purple Diamond had been picked up cheaply from the Theatre Royal at Bilston, whose scene dock was filled with the props and scenery of companies that had gone bust there.

Whitlock might not be the easiest of managers. He might not play the best houses, or be received by royalty, or be honored by any major institution. But he led a working company in an uncertain field of endeavor. He kept his dates and gave a living to others. Stoker might have the good fortune to be working for an actor at the very top of his profession. But it was thanks to Edmund Whitlock, and the hundreds like him, that the profession existed at all; and had he not been in such pressing need, Sayers would probably have stopped to argue the case.

While Stoker sought out Cooper, Sayers boarded the waiting train. He had to stride over bags and a birdcage in the corridor. As he was making his way down toward Whitlock’s compartment, Louise stepped out to intercept him.

“Tom,” she said. “Where is Mister Caspar?”

“Nobody knows,” Sayers said, perhaps a little tersely.

“Could he have come to any harm?”

“Him? I don’t imagine so.”

“Something like this has happened before, has it not?”

It had, in Sunderland, and in Sayers’ opinion Caspar should have been dismissed for his offense there and then.

But he said, “I really don’t think it’s right for us to be discussing this. Will you please excuse me, Miss Porter?”

She withdrew into her compartment—the one that should have been his own, and that he had given up for her—and he tapped on Whitlock’s door.

“Who is it?”

“Tom Sayers, sir.”

There was a pause and then, after a moment, he heard the door being unlocked. When Whitlock let him in, he saw that all the blinds had been drawn and the cashbox was open. Sayers was the company’s bookkeeper, but Whitlock always liked to count the take for himself.

He closed the compartment door behind Sayers and secured it again, and then said, “Well?”

“Bram Stoker’s on the station,” Sayers told him. “He’ll speak to the railway company for us. I think they’ll hold the train awhile longer.”

“So you’re telling me that Henry Irving’s man carries more influence than Edmund Whitlock’s?”

Sayers had no ready or diplomatic reply, but then realized that Whitlock was only making sport with him. Vain Whitlock might be. Stupid he was not.

“Sir,” Sayers said. “May I speak openly?”

Whitlock sat. Without the hair black that he wore onstage, his own hair was a fine shade of silver. His eyes were dark and his features were strong. His back was always straight…but that could have been due to the corset, which he seemed to imagine that no one was aware of.

He said, “Is it about Caspar?”

“I’ve held my peace for long enough,” Sayers said. “James Caspar is a growing problem for all of us. I think it neither wise nor desirable that we continue to put the company’s existence at risk for the appetites of one performer. We are men of the world, Edmund. If he wants to go whoring, that’s his concern. But now the women are starting to notice.”

Whitlock considered. He seemed unusually drained and weary-looking tonight. Looking down on him, Sayers began to wonder for the first time whether there could be substance to some of the backstage whispers. That there might be more to the actor-manager’s lapses than an overfamiliarity with the play.

“By the women, do you mean sweet little Louise?” Whitlock said. “An undisclosed affection there, wouldn’t you say?”

“What do you mean?”

“For Caspar.”

For Caspar? Sayers could not envision a less suitable attachment. Yet he could imagine how a man like Caspar might appear to one so young and impressionable. He felt a dismay that he took care not to show.

He said, “All the more reason to bring it to an end.”

“We need him.”

“Not so. I can send a wire in the morning and have a replacement letter-perfect by Friday night.”

“No, Tom.”

“Why not?”

“Please do not ask me to explain.”

Sayers was about to reply, but at that moment there was some commotion outside in the corridor. Whitlock turned to stow the cashbox, and Sayers let himself out.

The members of the company had emerged from their compartments and were standing at the open windows on the platform side. Ricks and the Low Comedian and most of the stage crew were whistling and cheering. A couple of people moved to make space for Sayers so that he could look out with the rest of them.

Emerging from a cloud of steam at the far end of the platform were three strange shapes in lurching silhouette: a great winged figure like a flying Mephistopheles, buttressed on either side by supporting gargoyles, all three staggering this way and that as if the earth shook beneath them. Then the steam cleared and detail emerged; it was Caspar, arms outstretched for support, coat flapping wide, with the Silent Man and the Mute Woman attempting to steer him toward the train while his legs pursued some erratic agenda of their own. The company cheered them on, and the Low Comedian opened a door to receive them.

“Stop the noise!” Sayers shouted. “Please! Consider our reputation!”

The Silent Man and his wife got Caspar to the train. Ricks and the Low Comedian reached out and hauled him in by his clothing. Sayers’ warning had come too late; they’d drawn the attention of strangers from other carriages. Railwaymen had stopped to watch from the bridge and one or two later travelers had emerged from the station’s waiting rooms, drawn by the disturbance.

Landing in the train, Caspar bounced off the paneling and almost fell back out again. But the Silent Man and his wife were now blocking the way. A guard’s whistle sounded outside on the platform and the door was slammed from without.

As the train began to move. Sayers spied Bram Stoker standing with the railway’s theater man. It was ten minutes after the hour. Sayers raised his hand in a wave of thanks as they went by, and saw it returned.

Then he closed the window and turned to deal with James Caspar.

Most of the others had returned to their berths. Caspar was clinging to a handrail while his silent companions were trying to detach him and get him into his own compartment. Sayers moved down the corridor toward them with mounting anger.

But before he could reach the dissipated Juvenile, Louise stepped out ahead of him. Her back was turned and she did not see Sayers at all. Her attention was directed toward the young man who was now somehow managing to find his feet despite the motion of the train.

“Mister Caspar!” she said. “Are you unwell?”

She spoke without irony and with genuine concern. Caspar drew himself up to his full height, and then threw