Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru

by Karen Lee Street

  “Did Miss Loddiges enjoy the recital?”

  “Very much, I am delighted to say. I wasn’t certain at first as Helena sat so quietly and stared at the singers, head tilted to the side much like a bird, while those around us hummed along or tapped their feet and applauded most furiously.”

  “Did any of the songs offend her?”

  “Not at all. She was surprised by the forthright lyrics and had never before heard songs about abolitionism and women’s suffrage, but she did not disagree with the sentiments expressed, unlike some others in the audience.”

  “I hope there was no violence,” I said with alarm.

  “Just unpleasant hissing. A newspaper described the Hutchinson family as ‘native talent’, which led a few people to expect Nativist singers, and so they did not care much for ‘The Lament of the Irish Emigrant’.”

  When in the vicinity of St. Augustine’s, I had noticed a further worsening of tensions between the “Nativists” and the Irish Catholic immigrants there, but I did not wish to ruin my wife’s evening with talk about conflict in a city built on the notion of brotherhood.

  “It’s a good thing the dissenters were in the minority, and I’m very pleased that you both enjoyed the performance.”

  “We did. In truth, I fear Helena goes to few entertainments at all, that she spends her life a virtual prisoner at Paradise Fields.”

  “A prisoner by choice, surely. I did not have the impression that her father kept her locked up in any way and certainly he encouraged her study and work. If he confiscated her letters to me, I think it was to save her reputation.”

  Sissy nodded, her face sympathetic. “I fear you are right that her home has become a prison by her own design. Helena is convinced that birds speak to her in the most uncanny ways and it frightens her when she is away from her little sanctuary. It was only her love for Jeremiah that enabled her to make this journey. We really must help her.”

  “I will do my best to find out the truth,” I said carefully. “Miss Loddiges’s story is most odd.”

  “Well, I believe her. And I am so glad I had the chance to get to know her today,” Sissy declared. “If I had a sister, I would wish her to be exactly like Helena.”

  “Truly? Someone so . . . unusual?”

  Sissy laughed. “I think you underestimate the dear lady. Her clothing may be exuberant, but it is merely the extension of an original mind. And she is very well read.”

  “And she believes in ghosts and messages sent from birds and hidden Peruvian treasure.”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” my wife quoted, smiling.

  “Perhaps. But oft times those things we believe to be the product of some supernatural and ungodly force are truly the work of man.” How well I knew this to be true!

  “Then that is where you begin with Helena’s mystery. Ascertain why someone might wish Jeremiah Mathews dead and then you will quickly work out the ‘who’.” My wife leaned closer as if to study every aspect of my face, then kissed me. “How lucky we are, dearest. How very lucky.”

  I was glad to hear her say the words that were always in my heart.

  13

  WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 1844

  We made an unlikely trio in the open carriage borrowed from St. Augustine Academy as we travelled westward from the city along Ridge Road. Wedged in between Father Keane and I, Miss Loddiges resembled an exotic parrot accompanied by two ravens, her peculiar azure and yellow cloak flapping in the breeze like wings, her bonnet a convenient nest for her tiny avian acolytes.

  Once the city was behind us, we drank in the beauty of the surrounding woodland, a mix of tulip trees, black birch, sassafras, beech, red maple and the nut-bearing hickories and grand oaks that attract passenger pigeons. Father Keane had received word that a flock of the birds had been roosting about twenty miles southwest of Philadelphia and were again migrating north. Such was the speed of the birds in flight—far faster than a horse and carriage—that he believed we had every chance of observing them in the Wissahickon area, where they might forage successfully for food. As we moved through seemingly endless forest, the air grew ever cleaner and colder. White-tailed deer froze where they stood as we drove past them, whereas squirrels continued their frantic scurrying up and down tree trunks, or leaping from bough to bough. The leaf buds were fat on the branches and clumps of violets and spring beauties were scattered through the forest floor. Father Keane pointed out each new bird he spied as we drove along, much to Miss Loddiges’s delight.

  “Nuthatch on the elm there,” he said, pointing at a slate-gray bird with a white breast and stripe of black like a bandit mask over its eyes.

  Our companion clapped her gloved hands together as the bird descended head first down the tree trunk like an acrobat.

  “It’s almost as if I’m in the Peruvian forests. Jeremiah grew up there and would watch the birds with his father. The stories he would tell me! He had a way of describing birds that made me feel I myself had seen them soaring through their habitat.”

  My fears that the journey would be cloaked in ponderous silence had thankfully come to naught. Miss Loddiges and Father Keane discussed their ornithological interests ardently, each impressed with the other’s knowledge.

  “You must show Father Keane Jeremiah’s notebook,” Miss Loddiges said. “He will surely appreciate it and will understand immediately the clues within it.”

  I had briefly shown my friend the notebook, suggesting exactly that, and was glad that I would not be obliged to hide Father Keane’s involvement in what I hoped would be a shortlived investigation. He had been impressed with the illustrated journal and could scarcely hide his enthusiasm at my invitation to read it.

  “I cannot promise that I will find any useful clues within the journal, for I have little expertise in the birds of Peru, but I am more than curious to examine Mr. Mathews’s work,” he had said to me. “And it must be a relief to learn that the diorama was not a threat from your enemy. I am certainly curious to meet this unusual lady—she would seem to be singularly determined with an original mind.”

  “And I am more than curious to see what you make of her,” I had replied.

  The two had an immediate affinity when I introduced them. Father Keane appeared genuinely to admire the gruesome embellishments she wore upon her hat and did not flinch when she described how she had fashioned them from hummingbird skins that had been too damaged to include in her father’s collection.

  There was a flash of red overhead and Miss Loddiges gasped. A cardinal landed in a tree, holding twigs for a nest its mate was building. My benefactress frowned slightly.

  “An omen?” I asked.

  She jumped at my words, as if jarred from a dream, and made as if to speak—but nothing came out.

  “We are nearly there,” Father Keane said, breaking the moment. “Do you hear it?”

  Both Miss Loddiges and I tilted our heads and listened.

  “Yes!” Miss Loddiges exclaimed just as I was about to reply in the negative. I listened again, more intently, and heard a strange, low noise like thunder in the distance.

  “Let me tie up the horse. It will do us no good if she bolts and we are stranded here,” Father Keane said.

  Miss Loddiges and I stepped out of the carriage and waited. The noise gradually escalated—as though a herd of galloping horses was approaching—then the sky began to darken, gradually at first, until all above us was rendered black, and I could not help but cower as the passenger pigeons began to descend like a typhoon wave. Father Keane had taken the precaution of adjusting the horse’s blinkers so that it might see little but the trees directly in front of it; even so it whinnied and pulled against its tether, frightened by the change in atmosphere as the shadow engulfed us. But Miss Loddiges did not scream with terror as many of the feminine persuasion might. She wandered through the trees as if in a trance, face lifted up toward that infernal cloud and the rattling of a million wings.
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  I gawped like a simpleton as the birds landed in the oaks. At first I could see only dark forms, but as they settled on the lower branches, the beauty of the birds was discernible: their slate-blue feathers, soft rose-tinted bellies and iridescent patches near the throat that shimmered purple, bronze, green. Nearer they came, seemingly without any fear, staring with bright red eyes, their feet and legs that same vivid hue. As the creatures continued to fill the branches, my heart trembled with awe at the sight. And yet more of the birds swooped down from the heavens, bills thrusting into the earth, searching for worms or insects, until the very ground seemed a living, moving thing. Overhead, many branches dipped and swayed under the weight of the pigeons and the creatures thrashed and chattered in the air as they sought a safe new roost. All was unearthly pandemonium, a wild scene from a fever-induced nightmare.

  And suddenly we were not alone. Gunfire rang out and men appeared amongst the trees. In moments the thrumming of wings and cries of dying birds filled our ears as one shot extinguished several pigeons at once and they fell from the trees in dozens. But the dark swarm of live things overhead did not abate. More of the creatures swooped down to the branches, only to drop with a soft thud to the forest floor, their lives ended by men who merely aimed for the sky and brought down bird after bird. The smell of death polluted the air as if we were lost on some terrible battlefield. I turned to Father Keane and saw that he was trying to soothe the horse, a grim look upon his face as he watched boys stuff the dead and dying birds into huge sacks of burlap.

  “Let us leave this infernal place,” I called out to him.

  He nodded, and we both looked to Miss Loddiges, who was perhaps fifty yards away, her bright azure cloak billowing around her as she turned in circles, watching the birds, her face tilted toward the heavens like a saint in ecstasy.

  I began to make my way toward her, but was buffeted by hunters charging further into the trees, recklessly firing in all directions. The fusion of gunfire and screaming birds became ever more gruesome and yet the flock still descended into the trees or onto the ground, flapping wildly around those who were there to kill them. There was an almighty crack as a branch covered with pigeons broke from a tree, sending the birds clattering up into the air and feathers raining down. I felt enveloped in a whirlwind of beating wings and threw my arms over my head as birds fell ever closer to me. When I turned back to where Miss Loddiges had stood just moments before, there was nothing to see but dead or dying birds upon the ground.

  14

  Father Keane and I commenced a frantic search for Miss Loddiges, a potentially deadly endeavor with slingshots and shotguns discharging around us. I was initially dismayed when my friend retreated to the carriage, but he stood upon the seat, stretched his arms out wide and in a sonorous voice bellowed: “Gentleman! Gentleman! Desist!” Unbelievably, quiet descended onto the forest—the birds themselves stilled to listen to the priest.

  “A lady has just vanished. We fear something terrible may have occurred and greatly need your assistance. She was wearing a bright blue cape and was just there, watching the birds.” He pointed at the spot where she had last stood. “Now, has anyone seen her?”

  I stared at my friend as he stood upon the carriage seat, the very picture of authority. The hunters muttered amongst themselves. A number had observed Miss Loddiges watching the birds, but no one could recall seeing her walk away from that spot.

  Father Keane nodded gravely at each brief recollection, then said, “Gentlemen, we must search for the lady. She is a stranger in these parts and may have become lost, for certainly she would not venture off intentionally. Or perhaps she has been injured and is disoriented or—” He paused briefly, dramatically. “It could be that some ruffian has abducted the lady, forced her to go with him against her will. If that is the case, we must all fear for her safety.” He glared out at the crowd, his gaze informing all the men that they were somehow responsible for the lady’s disappearance. “Now let us work together and comb through the forest.”

  The men nodded to each other and muttered “Aye”.

  Father Keane instructed the hunters to gather together in a ring with their backs to each other, and all walked straight ahead, like an ever-expanding circle, checking every inch of ground, using sticks or even rifles to rustle the bushes like pheasant-beaters. We walked for at least half a mile, covering all points on a compass, the dead and dying birds momentarily forgotten as we searched for Miss Loddiges.

  And then a boy yelled out, “Look, Father! A tiny bird!”

  The boy and his father were about one hundred yards from where I was searching, and I rushed over to them.

  “What strangeness is this?” the man muttered. “A hummingbird in March?” He cautiously picked up the carcass of the luminous creature that lay amongst the dead pigeons.

  “It is from her hat—a decoration,” I explained, hope stirring within me. I saw a faint pathway through the trees and dashed up it, hoping desperately that Miss Loddiges would be waiting patiently under a tree for help to come. Hunters clambered after me, feet rustling through dried leaves, snapping twigs and sticks. If Miss Loddiges were nearby, surely she would hear our approach and call out. I caught a glimpse of something yellow further along the path, as did the boy, who ran ahead to pick it up.

  “A lady’s glove!”

  It was petite, butter-yellow and unmistakably Miss Loddiges’s. The boy ran forward again and held up the glove’s mate. It had been lying just on the edge of the forest, near the track that led to the west. Father Keane appeared at my side.

  “I believe Miss Loddiges has been abducted,” I told him. “She has left behind her gloves and the hummingbird to show us that she is not lost.”

  Father Keane looked from one item to the next and then examined the ground before us. “Fresh tracks in the mud. The carriage arrived from the east,” he said, indicating its route, “then it waited in that quiet spot and travelled back in the same direction from whence it came.”

  “With Miss Loddiges held hostage within it,” I murmured.

  Father Keane nodded. “We will need to inform the officers of the police,” he said slowly. “And after that we will discover for ourselves who has been stalking our dear lady and where he has taken her.”

  “Of course,” I said, pretending confidence I did not feel.

  * * *

  It was after eight o’clock by the time I arrived home, and Sissy was waiting up for me, a blanket wrapped around her and Catterina on her lap. Her face softened with relief when she first saw me, but that shifted quickly to concern when she perceived my own expression.

  “Miss Loddiges has vanished,” I said, collapsing onto a chair next to her. “It is as if she flew away with the birds.” I bowed my head in worry and shame, and my wife wrapped her arms around me. “We searched until it was dark, but found only these.” I placed the corpse of the hummingbird and the two yellow gloves upon the table. I did not describe the gruesome scene to Sissy.

  “Was she spirited away by someone who means her harm?”

  “It certainly appears that way.”

  My wife bit her lip anxiously, then said: “Helena’s tale of Jeremiah Mathews’s murder truly does not seem a figment of an overly vivid imagination, for surely only someone who has been spying upon her would know she is here in Philadelphia—someone who perhaps followed her from London.”

  I flinched at my wife’s words, for that was what had happened to me during my journey from Philadelphia to London and my fear for the lady’s well-being increased.

  “We cannot deny that Helena’s intuitions were accurate and whoever harmed Jeremiah Mathews may have our dear friend held captive,” she added.

  Or worse, I thought, but did not say. And when my wife embraced me again, I knew she thought the same.

  “You will find her, I know you will,” she whispered.

  “I will try, of course,” I said softly in return, unable to turn my eyes from the forlorn hummingbird lying upon the table, its
tiny feet splayed and broken, its dead eyes filled with pure darkness.

  15

  THURSDAY, 14 MARCH 1844

  Muddy was startled when I appeared in the kitchen a full hour before I normally arose. She paused at sweeping up ashes from the hearth and said with ill-disguised exasperation, “The fire is not yet laid, Eddy.”

  “I am sorry, but I have an early appointment and could not fall back to sleep. There seemed little point in remaining in bed. Here, let me do it.”

  In fact, I had been unable to sleep the entire night, such was my worry for Miss Loddiges, for truly I was at fault for her disappearance, despite Sissy’s reassurances to the contrary.

  Muddy frowned and grumbled, displeased with the disruption of her daily routine, but she rose to her feet and bustled about until the kitchen was filled with the aroma of coffee and porridge. Once I had fortified myself against the cold and written down all that I could remember about the time just before and after Miss Loddiges’s disappearance, I made my way to the quarters of the police, where I had agreed to meet Father Keane at eight o’clock. He was waiting at the door, shuffling his feet to keep warm.

  “You went to the river after all.” I nodded at the boots he wore for his bird observation walks.

  “I could not sleep and thought a dawn walk might prove calming and perhaps provoke some thoughts about yesterday.”

  “And did it?”

  He shrugged. “Not particularly on either count. I cannot lie—I fear greatly for Miss Loddiges.”

  “As do I. And I feel terribly responsible.”

  “Let us do what we must and pray for the best.”

  We entered the building and found the lieutenant of the police and the captain of the watch reading newspapers and drinking coffee.

  “Good morning, sirs,” I said. “We are here to report an abduction.”