The Kingdom of Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

together, beaming out at the audience with humility and delight. Their whistling and cheering seemed set to go on forever.
    And not without reason. Backstage, Tom Sayers leaned out to get a view from the wings. One hand was raised and ready to give a signal to an assembled choir that included the company’s carpenter, both stagehands, the teenage Call Boy, and the sewing woman. With slapsticks, rattles, and whistles, they were lined up behind the curtain to give the boss’ reception the extra lift that he sometimes felt it needed.
    Whitlock raised a hand for calm; Sayers dropped his, and the stage crew immediately stopped making noise and started taking down the set.
    As the house quieted, the actor-manager gave every corner of it the benefit of his most penetrating and affectionate gaze. This was a mining town and he gazed out upon starched linen, bad teeth, and brilliantine. The women’s faces were mostly indistinguishable from the men’s. To a visitor’s eye all the children appeared simple, or vaguely criminal.
    “My friends,” Whitlock boomed. “My friends. My dear, dear friends. The warmth and the love that you have shown to us tonight will ensure that the name of…”
    Here he seemed to choke with emotion. Sayers knew why. Yet again, the boss had failed to take note of where they were playing. Once, long ago, Sayers had given him a prompt at this point. It had brought the house down, and he would never repeat the mistake. He held his breath.
    “…of
your town
will be engraved forever on our hearts.”
    Whitlock smacked a fist against his chest, where he kept his heart.
    “Ours has been a glorious time together. Tonight we must leave you…yes!” he cried quickly, forestalling any cries of protest. “But as our parting gift, let us leave you with a song in the Italian style from the newest addition to our company, Miss Louise Porter.”
    The waiting cast led the applause as Louise, twenty-two years old and the company’s soubrette, stepped forward to join Whitlock. He pressed his lips to her gloved hand and then showed her to the crowd as the other company members melted silently into the wings.
    Miss Porter might have been significantly easier on the eye than her employer, but he left no doubt as to which of them was the major figure. Having conferred his patronage, he made an exit through the curtain and left her alone on the stage.
    The company had a musical director who played piano in the pit, and conducted the resident band at the bigger dates. This playhouse was on the small side, but it had a good piano and the piano was in tune.
    Miss Porter began to sing.
             
    As soon as Whitlock came back through the curtain, he was met with a silver tray bearing a clean towel and a glass of port. The tray was brought by a stagehand who doubled as Whitlock’s personal valet, and who was known to all as the Silent Man. He’d been with Whitlock for longer than anyone could remember. He wasn’t entirely without speech, but came from some distant part of Europe and spoke no more than he needed to. His wife, inevitably known as the Mute Woman, appeared to have no English at all.
    Glass in hand, Whitlock passed within a couple of feet of Tom Sayers. Sayers was supervising the removal of their stage properties and ticking off each item from a list in his leather-bound notebook. The stagehands moved in silence. By the time the audience rose to leave, the stage behind the curtain would be all but bare.
    Whitlock lowered his voice and said to Sayers, “I’ve seen more enthusiastic welcomes for the mortuary trolley in a sanatorium. When do we get out of this godforsaken pit?”
    “We’ve a special that pulls out at midnight,” Sayers told him.
    “Amen to that,” said Whitlock. He raised his glass as if in a toast, and walked off to seek out the house manager.
    Sayers, left behind, felt able to relax his vigilance over the striking of the set and to move back to the spot in the wings from where he