The Manhattan Island Clubs

Brent Monahan

Description

In the summer of 1906, a distinguished member of one of New York's most prestigious and powerful men's clubs - the Metropolitan Club - is found with his throat slashed, murdered within the club's walls. By all eyewitness accounts, the murder is another member - a man who, in actuality, wasn't there that night and, in fact, was across town in plain view of a hundred witnesses who can attest to his innocence.
To J. P. Morgan, founding member of the Metropolitan Club, there is only one man to which he can trust with the swift and proper resolution of this impossible crime - his one-time nemesis, Sheriff John Le Brun of Jekyl Island, Georgia. Le Brun, a rough-hewn but brilliant man, is lured to turn of the century New York City by both his own curiosity about the city itself as well as the puzzle of the crime.
Thrust in the midst of the cream of Manhattan society and intelligentsia, the elite and the powerful - including actor William Gillette, newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer, architect Stanford White, and financial colossal J. P. Morgan himself - Le Brun finds himself in a deadly struggle and race against time with an unseen foe, a mind perhaps as nimble as his own.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Historical
• JP Morgan
• Nueva York
• New York City
• J. P. Morgan
• Detective
• Mystery
• Stanford White
• JPMorgan Chase
• Joseph Pulitzer
• Fiction
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781681620367
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE MANHATTAN ISLAND CLUBS
John Le Brun novels by Brent Monahan
The Jekyl Island Club (Book 1)
The Sceptred Isle Club (Book 2)
The St. Simons Island Club (Book 4)
available now
The St. Lucia Island Club (Book 5)
new release for Fall 2016
THE MANHATTAN ISLAND CLUBS
A JOHN LE BRUN NOVEL
by
Brent Monahan
Turner Publishing Company
424 Church Street Suite 2240 Nashville, Tennessee 37219
445 Park Avenue 9th Floor New York, New York 10022
www.turnerpublishing.com
The Manhattan Island Clubs, A Novel
Copyright 2003, 2016 Brent Monahan.
All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design: Maddie Cothren
Book design: Glen Edelstein
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Monahan, Brent, 1948-
Title: The Manhattan Island clubs / by Brent Monahan.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Turner Publishing Company, [2016] | 2003
| Series: A John Le Brun novel; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2015035662| ISBN 9781681621142 (softcover) | ISBN 9781681620350 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Le Brun, John (Fictitious character)--Fiction. |
Sheriffs--New York (State)--New York--Fiction. | Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913--Fiction. | Men--Societies and clubs--Fiction. | Murder--Investigation--Fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3563.O5158 M36 2016 | DDC 813/.54--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035662
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
WEDNESDAY June 20, 1906
THURSDAY June 21, 1906
FRIDAY June 22, 1906
SATURDAY June 23, 1906
SUNDAY June 24, 1906
MONDAY June 25, 1906
TUESDAY June 26, 1906
WEDNESDAY June 27, 1906
FRIDAY June 29, 1906
MONDAY July 2, 1906
THURSDAY July 5, 1906
Notes
About the Author
For
Gloria and Bill

Dolores and Jack
WEDNESDAY
June 20, 1906
John Le Brun walked slowly across the lawn path between the Brunswick train station and the Oglethorpe Hotel. From years of habit, the ex-sheriff cast a practiced eye around the area, making sure all was as it should be. He regulated his pace so that he would neither lead nor follow Nicodemus, one of the hotel porters.
Saints alive! Nicodemus protested, laboring under the weight of twin carpetbags. I got to be totin books.
You are. I ve been up to Atlanta on a shoppin expedition.
Books and books and mo books. Someday they bring yo house to da ground, the porter warned.
I believe I shall collapse before my floor does.
At sixty, the black porter was a year older than Le Brun. Like the white man whose luggage he carried, he had lived in Glynn County all his life. He had known Le Brun for more than forty years.
Bad trip back? Nicodemus asked, reading the grim set of Le Brun s face.
No. It was tolerable.
The porter refrained from pursuing further inquiry. He knew from rich experience that John Le Brun could not be coaxed into revealing private thoughts.
Harry N. Pillsbury died, John volunteered.
Several years earlier, John had recruited Nicodemus to chess, but the porter showed only an average aptitude. They had mutually agreed to suspend the unbalanced competition, but so few citizens of Brunswick showed any interest in the game that John continued to bend the porter s ear about his passion practically every time they met. One of Le Brun s heroes was the American chess champion, Harry Pillsbury.
Well, I m sorry to hear that, the porter commiserated. He was young.
Yes, he was. Apoplexy. A tragedy as great as the insanities of Morphy and Steinitz. Genius exacts a great price.
Nothin I got to worry about, remarked the porter, stopping to lower the carpetbags to the ground for several moments.
John paused and transferred from his left to his right hand the suitcase he carried. Any news since I left?
They caught the man who was robbin them houses. He was workin with a new postal carrier.
At last Le Brun smiled. Just as he was leaving Brunswick, a week earlier, he had been approached by Warfield Tidewell. Tidewell was the city s current sheriff and John s personal prot g . He was also the son of the man who had been one of Brunswick s most powerful judges. He had expected a bright legal future following degrees from Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. However, because he was Southern, the junior lawyer had been selected as the scapegoat when his Philadelphia law firm s dirty practices had been exposed. He had retreated to Brunswick late in 1898 and had been foisted upon Sheriff Le Brun by his father. John had admired Warfield s intelligence, his education, and his honesty and had immediately begun grooming the young man to become his replacement. As such, Tidewell had served efficiently for the past year. Unlike Le Brun, however, he did not show special aptitudes for criminal deduction. Whenever a crime was not cut-and-dried, John could expect Warfield to hunt him down and pick his brain.
So it was when four Brunswick burglaries occurred within three weeks. The crimes all took place inside private residences of the city s better folk. Each house had been entered in broad daylight, two with no sign of forced entry. In every case there was no one at home. In two instances, the entire family was away; with the other two, everyone in the household was gone for at least an hour. Warfield s hunch was that the mastermind was someone in Brunswick society, a person with intimate knowledge of the comings and goings of the well-off households.
John had thought otherwise. Check with Farrell Brown, he had told Tidewell at the station, just before boarding the train for Atlanta. Brown was Brunswick s postmaster. This time of year, they put on a couple of part-time carriers, to fill in for the full-time boys on vacation.
Tidewell s face had brightened. I see! The replacement walks up to the front door and knocks. If someone answers, he delivers the mail and earns himself high marks for personal service. If no one answers, he signals to an accomplice waiting down the street.
John had apparently been right.
The ex-sheriff and the porter started off again, making their way through the deserted grand hotel and out to the front veranda. You want I should fetch somebody to carry you home? Nicodemus asked.
John shook his head and gestured for the porter to set down the bags. Someone will happen by in a few minutes and make the offer. I believe I ll have my usual while I wait.
I ll fetch it, Nicodemus said as he accepted the coin from Le Brun s hand. He moved back into the hotel with energy.
Not that I have anythin to do anyway, John muttered to himself in an unhappy voice.
Not a single soul other than Le Brun occupied the wide veranda. He put himself down in the spot that he habitually used to ambush potential chess opponents. As he crossed one leg over the opposite knee, he vacantly surveyed the north end of his hometown. Brunswick, Georgia, was the fifth busiest seaport in the South, but it also prospered by attracting the vacation savings of upland Southerners and lots of Yankees during the winter and spring months. The Oglethorpe Hotel and most of the other resort services had officially closed for the season on the last day of May. John figured the hope of finding a worthy new chess opponent might as well be tucked away with his Christmas ornaments, because Advent was about when the out-of-towners returned. The only group of Brunswick natives who played chess well were of a status who would not deign to socialize with a former sheriff.
The chair John sat on was not a rocker, but he rocked it nonetheless, working off his pent-up energy. The summer solstice sun was setting over Glynn County in painterly glory. Part of the hotel fa ade sheltered John from the direct rays, which was just why he always laid claim to that particular seat. He was not, however, sheltered from the grandeur of the sunset reflected on the western walls of nearby buildings or glimmering in liquid orange off hundreds of windowpanes.
John let the chair s front legs settle to the veranda planking. He straightened up and felt in the small of his back the annoying pressure of his hidden derringer. Giving up his police revolver after fifteen years of service had made him feel defenseless enough; he would not remove the two-shot derringer from the little holster on the back of his belt, even if it meant some discomfort. But this evening he would gladly swear at it under his breath.
Just as John s bourbon-fortified tea arrived from the hotel bar, Sheriff Warfield Tidewell appeared on Newcastle Street. He sat tall in his buggy, driving it at a pace that indicated some urgent agenda. John sampled his drink as Warfield alit athletically and tied the reins to a hitching post. Le Brun remained placid in his seat and let the younger man come all the way to him.
Evening, John, Warfield greeted.
John noted that the sheriff s eyes burned with excitement. Beads of perspiration dotted his brow; more than his horse had been moving with speed. Evenin is what it is.
I meant Good evening, Warfield said, having already registered Le Brun s sour expression.
That s debatable.
Warfield glanced down at John s luggage. I stopped by your house and saw you weren t home yet, so I came here directly. His hand went to his vest pocket.
It s quarter past nine, John said. What s your rush?
Twenty minutes ago, I received a call from Charles Lanier.
Warfield needed to drop only the name. To the financial world, Charles Lanier was the senior partner of Lanier, Winslow Company, one of the country s top banking establishm