Edgar Allan Poe and the Jewel of Peru

by Karen Lee Street

  “From the United States Hotel,” I repeated and tore open the envelope.

  “An unexpected missive, I take it?” Dupin said.

  “More than unexpected,” I muttered when I saw the contents.

  “How so?” Dupin put down his coffee and turned his full attention to me. I allowed the letter to flutter down in front of him, and he quickly scanned it, his frown deepening as he read each word. “Do you believe it genuine?” he finally asked.

  “It is most definitely her handwriting.” I indicated the elegant and precise copperplate script. “Few have the skill to mimic such elaborate penmanship.”

  “Whose handwriting?” Sissy entered the kitchen, her face still soft with sleep.

  “It is a letter, from Helena Loddiges.” I handed her the page and my wife read it aloud.

  The United States Hotel, Philadelphia

  Monday, 18 March 1844

  Dear Mr. Poe,

  I must apologize most profusely for the inconvenience I have caused you with my abrupt departure. My father arrived in Philadelphia earlier than I expected, determined to bring me home to Paradise Fields.

  I am sorry that I did not tell you, but I so wished to see the passenger pigeons. Mrs. Carr worked out where I might be and my father collected me at Wissahickon wood. He had business in New York, so we left directly from the forest, and, in truth, he was so angry I thought it best not to make introductions at that time.

  We set sail this evening, and I am desperate to have the journal with me as it is my last keepsake of Jeremiah’s. Father will not let me out of his sight, so I hope you will bring the journal to me at the United States Hotel today at noon. I apologize once more for the immense inconvenience I have caused you. Jeremiah’s untimely demise filled me with so much grief I failed to see what a misguided and dangerous adventure I had undertaken and profoundly regret that I involved you in it. I look forward to wishing you bon voyage.

  Your most sincere friend,

  Miss Helena Loddiges

  “The girl is safe?” Muddy asked. “That is a relief.”

  Sissy shook her head, frowning. “Helena did fear that her father would send someone to fetch her home, but I am not convinced. She may seem eccentric and unworldly but she is most certainly not so thoughtless as to wait this many days before telling us where she is. Helena knows we would be frantic with worry given all that she told us.”

  “Very true,” I said. “Furthermore, I cannot believe her father managed to locate her so easily at the woods and persuaded her to leave us without a word. And we did, after all, find her gloves and the hummingbird from her hat on the forest floor.”

  “She will be pleased that you have found them,” Muddy said.

  “We think she dropped them intentionally, Mother,” my wife told her.

  Muddy shook her head in bafflement and began to clear the table. “It seems to me that you are making a mystery out of nothing. The girl is safe, that is the most important thing.”

  “We do not know that she is safe, unfortunately. Her abductor probably forced her to write the letter so we deliver the journal to him,” I said.

  “I do not know the lady,” Dupin said. “But from what you have told me, it seems unlikely that such a determined person would abandon her quest to learn the true circumstances of Jeremiah Mathews’s death without a more detailed explanation in person, or in a private note.” He tapped at the letter on the table.

  “The Carrs will know if Helena’s father has truly arrived in Philadelphia,” Sissy observed.

  “Of course, but we will find out soon enough if Miss Loddiges is waiting for me at the United States Hotel, or if it is the man who killed Father Keane and, we must presume, Jeremiah Mathews,” I said.

  “Which would mean that Helena is still being held hostage,” Sissy explained to Muddy.

  “Dear Lord,” my mother-in-law muttered.

  “Such a trick is most revealing,” Dupin observed. “Only a man who believes he has a far superior intellect would underestimate an adversary’s ability to see through such a ruse.” The way in which Dupin said each word made it perfectly clear what he thought of that notion.

  “May I suggest that you take a false journal with you?” my wife said. “If Helena is acting under duress, her abductor may force her to collect the journal from you and they may still harm her to ensure her silence.”

  “A valid point,” Dupin agreed.

  “I have a small notebook for sketching that will suffice. If I quickly copy some of the birds and text from Jeremiah’s journal, and put his name to it, that should persuade them. I do not think there is any need to color the drawings,” she added.

  “Will you have enough time?” I asked.

  “I think so. Helena’s abductor has not seen the journal and therefore cannot know how adept an artist he is. They certainly don’t know of Andrew Mathews’s drawings as Helena herself seems unaware of them.”

  Dupin nodded. “Excellent idea. We will take whatever you manage to put together and use it to lure the villain at the hotel, then we will seize him and free Miss Loddiges,” he said as he retrieved his green spectacles from his waistcoat pocket and put them on. “If I proceed to the hotel before you, and station myself somewhere unobtrusive in the foyer, I will be able to observe and, I hope, take our adversary by surprise.” He looked at his pocket watch. “We have three hours. Where is the hotel?”

  “Not far. It is located on Chestnut Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets, opposite the United States Bank.”

  “What an appropriate location for a treasure seeker,” Dupin said wryly.

  28

  It was a grand building, five stories high, rectangular and pale, with the American flag waving in the breeze from the top floor. As I entered the foyer, I remembered the feeling of expectation tempered with nervousness that enveloped me when I had first visited the United States Hotel two years previously for an assignation with Charles Dickens. Our attempts to meet in London had come to naught, and I had hoped that Dickens—an author I admired enormously—would prove a kindred spirit, but alas that hope had not been fulfilled. Suffice to say that one might greatly enjoy the fruit of another’s imagination, but find little common ground in every day discourse.

  I had no hopeful expectations for this meeting, however, and my senses were acute with watchful unease, for our adversary had murdered two innocent men and might intend the same fate for me and Miss Loddiges. I paused for a moment in the foyer to gather myself, dipping my hand into my coat pocket to touch the false journal like the lucky talisman I hoped it would be. Sissy had done a wonderful job of reproducing enough of the birds and innocuous observations in Jeremiah Mathews’s journal to construct what we hoped was a convincing decoy with the initials J.M. painted on the spine. To my left, in a dimly lit corner, was Dupin pretending to be engrossed in a newspaper, so I took a calming breath and approached the desk clerk, a man who seemed designed to become invisible in any environment, a useful trait for his occupation.

  “I am Edgar Poe here to see Miss Helena Loddiges. She is expecting me.”

  The desk clerk’s expression suggested that he was anticipating my arrival. “I am sorry, Mr. Poe. Miss Loddiges was unable to keep her engagement. This was left for you.” He handed me another letter, which I immediately opened.

  The United States Hotel, Philadelphia

  Monday, 18 March 1844

  Dear Mr. Poe,

  I am terribly sorry to inconvenience you, but I had no choice but to go with my father to a warehouse near the harbor in hopes of re-securing the remainder of the shipment Jeremiah Mathews collected. Again, I apologize, but would you please bring the journal to the Jolly Traveler tavern in Black Horse Alley near Front Street at half past twelve o’clock? I would deeply appreciate it as you are aware how dear the journal is to me, but of course will understand if you cannot make your way there. I hope to see you, but if not, I bid you farewell and will write upon my return to London.

  Yours respectfully,
<
br />   Miss Helena Loddiges

  I stared at the letter written in Miss Loddiges’s unmistakable hand, feeling both disappointed and irked. If she had been forced to write the missive, why would her abductor have her send me to another location rather than simply ask that I leave the journal at the hotel? I recollected the lady’s talk of murder, ghosts, doppelgängers—was she indeed unbalanced and weaving an elaborate fantasy? But my doubts quickly vanished. Surely it was a trick to give credibility to the letter. The United States Hotel was too public a place for Miss Loddiges to take the journal without putting her abductor in jeopardy. And it was obvious that I would not leave the journal at the hotel without seeing Miss Loddiges. I looked around me at the other men in the hotel foyer. It was likely that one of them had been tasked by Miss Loddiges’s abductor with ascertaining whether I had an accomplice with me. And so I could not show the second letter to Dupin without making his presence known. There was no option but to make my way to the Jolly Traveler tavern in hopes of exchanging the false journal for Miss Loddiges. It was in all probability a trap, but I felt sure enough that Dupin and I would hold our own against any ruffian. We would have to try.

  I left the United States Hotel, knowing that Dupin would follow me like a ghost until he was needed, and made my way down Chestnut Street, heading east toward the Delaware River and the docks. It was a long, straight road and therefore untroublesome to catch sight of Dupin trailing a distance behind me. It would, of course, be equally simple for a foe to keep me in sight. The pleasantness of the walk somewhat countered my apprehension, for it was a bright day imbued with the smell of spring. Industrious women scrubbed already-clean marble steps outside prosperous-looking homes and cheerful folk out for a stroll bid me good day. A cardinal followed my path, flitting from tree to tree, singing loudly each time he landed on a branch, his crimson feathers contrasting with the dark skeletal fingers of the trees. It did not take me long to reach Front Street. I turned left into it and proceeded north toward my destination.

  When at last I turned into Black Horse Alley, I saw a crowd further ahead and was surprised by how very busy the tavern was in the middle of the day. The throng seemed to part then merge around me again as I made my way down the alley. I had the sense of being shadowed, but when I looked behind me, I could not locate Dupin. As I was pushed along by the mob, I soon perceived that they were not afternoon drinkers, but spectators of a boxing match, and the pugilists were not the usual bare-knuckle boxers one sees outside the less salubrious taverns of the area, but two ladies. Perhaps “lady” is not the correct description when considering their activity, but the pair were most certainly female, for each was stripped down to her undergarments: a chemise, short petticoats, Holland drawers and white stockings. One was an Irish woman of Amazonian proportions with pale skin and curls as black as a crow’s wing, and the other a fair-haired, pink-faced female who looked as if she had stepped out from a Titian painting and was in a fearsome mood.

  “Place your bets here! Taking final bets!” shouted a corpulent man wearing a yellow and brown checked coat and sporting a prodigious mustache. In exchange for coins offered he handed over a marked slip of paper. “The Dublin Duchess or Philadelphia’s finest, Hell Town Helga. Care to place a bet, sir?” I was startled to find his pale blue eyes fixed upon me. I shook my head, but he continued to stare, which made me pull my coat a little closer, conscious that such a crowd was the delight of pickpockets. “Final bets now, final bets!” he roared.

  As the spectators around me pushed forward to place their bets, I was herded closer to the alley’s end, which functioned as a makeshift sparring ring. The two combatants circled each other there, waving their clenched fists, doing their best to ignite each other and the crowd.

  “I’ll give you a good anointing and send you to Hell—if the Devil will have your ugly arse,” the Irish Amazon sneered. Cheers met her pronouncement, followed by the chant: “Send her to the Devil! Send her to the Devil!”

  “I’m gonna blinker you, Cat-lick, and send you back to the bog with a push from this.” Hell Town Helga shook her sizable fist at her opponent.

  Her supporters shouted, “Cat-lick, Cat-lick, kill the Cat-lick!”

  The Dublin Duchess flushed crimson and danced closer to her adversary, fists feigning left then right. “Shut your bone-box before I do it for you.”

  The subsequent cheers were pierced by a whistle and the corpulent fight-fixer shoved his way to the ladies. Despite my best efforts to exit the makeshift arena, I was held captive at the front of the crowd by boxing enthusiasts. The man who was both compere and fight-fixer threw his arms over the shoulders of each lady and leaned in to give them quiet words of instruction, gesticulating at the crowd, after which each nodded.

  “The first down is out,” he announced loudly. “Winner takes half the purse, the rest is split with those holding the right ticket. Everybody else gets nothing but a good show.” The mob roared its appreciation at his promise and both women held up their arms as if already declared the winner. “Are we ready now, ladies?” the compere asked.

  “Ready to give her a bunch of fives,” snarled the Dublin Duchess.

  “She’ll be off her drumsticks before she tries it,” snapped Hell Town Helga.

  The compere clapped his hands to one and then the other while the crowd joined in, stomping their feet and cat-calling. He then separated the two pugilists until they were a good six feet apart. “Wait for my signal,” he commanded, then scuttled back out of reach before putting his fingers to his mouth and whistling. The ladies immediately advanced upon each other, fists held high. The crowd jostled and shouted and each time I tried to back away from the action, I was shoved forward again.

  “Go, Peg! Shut her saucebox!”

  “Hit her, Helga! Smack her one!”

  The Dublin Duchess landed the first blow and the sound of bare knuckles on shoulder-blade made me gasp. But rumbumptious Hell Town Helga came back at her with two punches that spun the Duchess in a circle. And on it went, the growling women throwing their fists just as a man would, until blood sprayed from noses and trickled from mouths, staining the white of their costumes in a ghastly manner. The crowd cheered each punch and booed when the pugilists collapsed into each other or lurched about in a punch-drunk waltz. Throughout this macabre dance I did my best to push my way out of the throng but I was netted in like a fish.

  “Go, Helga! Knock back that potato-eater!”

  And she did with a slash of the fingernails to the eye, which half-blinded the Dublin Duchess as blood flowed like tears. She looked as if she might collapse, but the native Philadelphian’s supporters were disappointed when the Irish woman re-gathered her strength and charged Hell Town Helga like a bull, ramming her head into her adversary’s belly and knocking the wind right out of her. She followed this with a flurry of blows that sent Hell Town Helga to the ground, insensible.

  The mob erupted, some cheering, some booing, all jostling. The Dublin Duchess threw her fists into the air and shook them, roaring as a lion might. Her supporters echoed her victory bellow then danced in circles, chanting, “Du-blin Du-chess! Du-blin Du-chess!”

  Chaos reigned until the voice of the compere rose above the noise of the crowd. “Winners collect inside the Jolly Traveler!” he shouted. “Winners into the Jolly Traveler for your cut of the purse!”

  I briefly caught sight of the compere in his plaid coat before he ducked into the tavern and the mob surged after him, each winner desperate to get their money first. I made my way in the opposite direction and was elbowed and kicked and shoved until I feared I might be crushed. And just as the sea of humanity parted and I dashed forward to freedom, I came face to face with the Dublin Duchess and her fist flew at me like a vicious bird.

  29

  It was as if a shell were pressed to my ear and all I could hear was the roaring of an artificial sea. Sunlight trickled under my eyelids, but they were so heavy I could not lift them. The gentle roaring continued for a time—I know not
how long—until it transformed into words: “Poe, Poe, can you hear me, Poe?” My mind reassembled itself, and I eased my eyes open to see Dupin leaning over me.

  “Gone, is the journal gone?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And Miss Loddiges is not at the tavern?”

  “I do not know. When I managed to push my way through the crowd I found you lying here. I have not looked inside.”

  I tried to sit up and felt as if I’d just awakened from a long night of heavy tippling.

  “Take your time, Poe. Who pummeled you?”

  “The Dublin Duchess. I now understand why she was the victor,” I said, attempting some levity.

  “It is likely she is in league with the two priests and their employer.”

  I remembered the piercing look the compere had given me. “Did you notice the compere—a stout fellow wearing a plaid coat? Dark hair, very large mustache. I believe he was involved. He whispered something to the pugilists and gave me a most knowing look.”

  “If the two priests who frequent the taverns here are aware of his business, then it is very likely he is in league with them. Careful now,” he added as he gripped my elbow, helping me rise unsteadily to my feet. “We had best get a coach.”

  * * *

  The jostling ride had conjured up a headache in me, and Dupin was forced to assist me to the house. Before I managed to unlock the door, it flew open. Muddy stood before us gripping a broom, her face full of agitation, which deepened when she saw that Dupin was supporting me.

  “What have you done to our dear boy?”

  “We were not in a tippling den,” I began, only to be interrupted by a peculiar sound and my wife crying out.

  “A bird is in the house, and I cannot catch the blessed thing,” Muddy snapped. “Virginia is beside herself. Speaking of how it signifies death. She fears for you, Eddy.”

  “What sort of bird?” Dupin asked, before I could respond.