Not Quite Dead

by John MacLachlan Gray

  Whatever awaited us at the other end, from that point on I knew that I would be leading an existence that bore no resemblance to the one I had lived before. This thought bothered me not a bit. I had given up on any hope or expectation from the moment I had fired my pistol at Eddie, and missed. How typical. Since my old friend’s reappearance in my admittedly unhappy life, it was safe to say that nothing had gone according to even the most short-term planning. At every turn there awaited a profound, unexpected shock to my past experience and future prospects. Like a man caught in a maelstrom, I could only submit to its power, go where it took me, wait and see.

  We emerged from the forest into the light of a near-harvest moon, to find ourselves in a tiny overgrown graveyard whose markers were made of a soft white stone that actually seemed to glow in the dark. Six thin, plain obelisks leaned at oblique angles, each one surrounded by smaller stones, all dated, I was certain, within a month of each other, thanks to one or another epidemic—diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles. A new disease arrived with each new wave of immigration, an influx of misery as varied and endless as the waves of the sea. Thrashing our way through the long grass I noticed other stones topped by skulls and crossbones, which had been painstakingly carved, accompanied by a cautionary message indicating a drowning, a hunting accident, someone kicked by his horse, and a warning that the reader be also ready. I failed to understand the point of this, whether it meant to imply that a sudden death was somehow more unpleasant than a lingering one, or that, with a bit of luck, one might give it the slip altogether.

  The tiny building had been a Pietist church belonging to a congregation that had died out during the last century—there were not many followers to begin with, to judge by the size of the church.

  The graves told a tale that might be summed up as: following successive epidemics, and seeing no end other than their own eventual demise, surviving members of the community simply became tired of burying people and went their separate ways.

  The rough-hewn oak door at the rear of the church grunted its obdurate refusal as Miss Genoux pulled repeatedly on the rusted iron handle, and it was not until we set the patient down on the overgrown grass and added our combined weight to her effort that the door finally swung open with a shriek like a metal bird, causing Eddie and I to fall back upon the ground, while Miss Genoux disappeared inside.

  After finding our feet again, my old friend and I took up our burden together for the last time, carried the Irish patient into the dark, musty room, and installed him in what appeared to be a rough pew. I examined his wounds. The forehead was still open, but had ceased to bleed. The opening in his side had begun to seep clear liquid, but the area was cool to the touch, and the swelling had not increased. By the light of a lamp held by a seamed ancient in a rust-colored dress, I changed the dressings.

  “Am I dead yet?” asked the patient.

  “Not as dead as you deserve to be,” I said.

  “Please do not joke about it,” said Miss Genoux, kneeling beside the pew, wiping his forehead with the hem of her dress.

  I turned my attention away from the patient into the gloom of the house of worship, and could make out the figures of elderly women. A half-dozen rough pews had been set in a square around a stove made of bricks, built at the same time as the building itself, in order to keep the congregation within a few degrees of freezing to death during a Sunday sermon in January. For certain, little warmth would have emanated from the pulpit, which stood so close to the ceiling at the end wall that the minister, if he was not a dwarf, must have had to preach on his knees.

  “Dr. Chivahs. I am surprised and glad to see you.”

  Elmira Royster stood up from her position close to the stove, which she had taken in order to keep warm in her simple cotton dress. As had happened ever since I first saw her from my position beside the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, she put me at a loss for words.

  “Good evening to you, ma’am,” was my inadequate greeting. “I am very glad to see you as well.”

  “What have you done to your eye?” she asked.

  “I am told that an ancient cure for a cynic was to pluck his eye out. That is what happened to me, madam.”

  For an instant our eyes met, and I felt a peculiar ache in my sternum. Then, as might be expected, someone else caught her eye. “Hello, Eddie,” she said. “I am very glad to see that you are alive.”

  “Elmira,” said Eddie, and his eyes became huge, with a most soulful expression on his handsome face, and I could barely resist stopping up my ears with my fingers not to listen to the saccharine sentiments that were sure to follow. However, as it had done so often in the recent past, fate decreed otherwise.

  “Alas, madam, I am no happier than before,” said Eddie. “My dear little Virginia haunts me still. The only time I can ever be at peace is when I am alone, holding her in my heart—or when I am in my grave.”

  “It was never my expectation that you would be a husband to me. I do not want another husband. I had one and that was enough.”

  “Then we are agreed, madam. Hence, with the greatest of respect, I must ask you to also agree that we put an end to our engagement.”

  With that statement, Eddie caught my eye with an almost imperceptible nod as though to say, There.

  A S FAR AS Shadduck and the company were concerned, nothing further could be done until it was established which way the steeple would go down. The True Blue Americans, even in their role as true blue firemen, were understandably uneager to commit themselves either way. Nobody wants to find himself standing underneath a flaming beam, least of all a Philadelphia fireman.

  As it happened, the tower collapsed upon itself like an upended telescope and then, like a felled tree, toppled to the left—and at once it was clear that the dormitory was finished, for the roof caught fire as though it had been coated with turpentine. Immediately the firemen set about the task of protecting the remaining building from wayward sparks.

  “Is anyone inside?” asked Shadduck, without knowing what he would do if there was.

  “An Irishman,” replied Putnam. “Heavy with drink, I am afraid. No hope for him now.”

  “And a quantity of writing materials as well,” said Dickens, with a measure of satisfaction.

  SHOCKING DISCOVERY IN BALTIMORE

  Author’s Remains Stolen

  by James Preston Wilcox, The Philadelphia Inquirer

  The undertaking, initiated by Baltimore police, to exhume the body of Edgar Allan Poe was thrown into confusion Tuesday when investigators at the family plot in Baltimore Burial Ground discovered the grave to be empty. Police believe the felon to be either a party of grave robbers, or an admirer of the late Mr. Poe, whose work often dealt in bizarre and morbid themes. “Such undignified treatment of human remains is a serious crime,” said Policeman Rennick, “and will be dealt with severely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  * * *

  Philadelphia

  Shadduck stood in the offices of Topham and Lea, noting the lack of clutter.

  “Mr. Bailey, I reckon it is pretty well clear that your Mr. Topham was murdered by the Irish. With Mr. O’Reilly a veteran of the war, the shinbones said it all.”

  “The shinbones, sah?” asked Mr. Bailey, with the look of a man who was being subtly tortured.

  “And the teeth of course,” replied Shadduck.

  “I do not follow you, sah. Am I intended to?”

  “A barbaric practice, for certain. Yet here is where you might help me out, sir. I reckon it is an uncommon thing for such men as would do such a thing to have such a deep acquaintance with the ins and outs of the publishing business. Do you not agree, sir?”

  “Though the Irish are avid readers, I am told.”

  “But other than pirated titles, Topham & Lee is not in the book business, financially speaking.”

  “You are wrong, sah. We continue to publish the most important books in America.”

  Shadduck crossed to the table by the door and exam
ined the abolitionist tracts—cheaply bound and written, every one written or edited by a Nathaniel Washington Bailey.

  “That is so, Mr. Bailey. This occurred to me, sir. The importance of it—to yourself, no less than anyone.”

  “It is important,” said Mr. Bailey, whose hand shook as he lit his cheroot.

  “It was not your race that caught my attention but the books you made. The difference between your interests and those of Mr. Topham. That you might have done better with another … partner came to my mind, if you get my meaning, sir.”

  Mr. Bailey opened a desk drawer and extracted a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “May I offer you a drink, sah?”

  “You may, sir. I am not presently on duty.”

  “Do you wish to wipe the glass? Many do.”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  Mr. Bailey got up from his desk and began to wander the room, touching various books as though for the last time. Only after touching each of his titles, and having taken four fingers of the amber liquid, did he find his voice.

  “As you may know, Topham & Lea was founded by Quakers. Abolitionists—though we colored folks sat in separate pews.”

  “Does that latter fact rile you up, sir?”

  “No, sah. Only that there are various ways of being helped.”

  “I don’t follow your drift.”

  “No matter. My writing in the Alton Observer, up until my editor was lynched, had made a sufficient impression on them that my benefactors established the firm—as a platform for my essays and poems. Of course such an enterprise required an experienced publisher, and Mr. Topham’s name was well known, even then.”

  “And who is Mr. Lea?” asked Shadduck. “I reckon I should speak to him as well.”

  “There is no Mr. Lea,” replied Bailey. “Mr. Topham felt that a second name lent weight to the imprint. I need not tell you that the name Bailey was out of the question.”

  “A sensible business decision. But I reckon it might make a feller a mite peevish.”

  “Quite so. As did Mr. Topham’s next move—which was to devote the firm to other products, more remunerative than discussions about slavery and lynching and the coming Fugitive Slave Act. But of course as a policeman you know this side of it. Mr. Topham certainly paid you enough to look the other way—and of course he was a principal supporter of Councilman Grisse.”

  Shadduck winced. “All this is well known to me,” he lied.

  “Of course when it came to this … shift in priorities, I could say nothing to my benefactors. Can you imagine, sah? With Henry Topham’s word against mine, Sambo best hang himself on a limb, save hisself the indignities that goes wit’ a lynchin’.”

  “There is no need to be sarcastic,” replied Shadduck. I get your drift.”

  “And yet for all of my experience with white men, I was still susceptible …” With a small laugh Mr. Bailey poured himself another glass. Shadduck had not yet touched his.

  “I confess to having been moved by a manuscript written by Mr. Finn Devlin. White Niggers of America was the title. Though I knew the term white nigger well (it is part of the no-nothing vocabulary), for the first time it occurred to me that the term might apply to something other than a man’s color. And so I arranged a private meeting with Mr. Devlin, at which I spoke more frankly than I ever had—he had created a metaphor you see, which created a rapport between us, albeit a false one.

  “I spoke admiringly of the work, but made it clear that it required a good deal of revision. I mentioned also that Mr. Topham remained an impediment to its publication—I admit this to you—and I spoke frankly of Mr. Topham’s endeavors in the realm of fraudulent manufacture, and was specific about the profits that accrued. After all, it was my function to maintain two sets of books.

  “When next we met to discuss the manuscript, Mr. Devlin introduced me to his partner, Lieutenant O’Reilly. Being of a more practical nature, Mr. O’Reilly presented me with a business plan that included a change of administration here at Topham & Lea. Upon acceptance, they murdered Mr. Topham.”

  “Surely you could not see into the future, sir.”

  “I did in this case.”

  “He was a bad member, Mr. Topham.”

  “Yes, sah. A corrupter of everything he touched.”

  “He must have riled you fearful.”

  “No, sir. One learns early on where anger gets you. I wished to continue my work for the betterment of my people. To do this I needed the protection of a white man. The Irishman had made a better offer, and Mr. Topham could go to the devil. And the queer thing of it is—he did.”

  “He did what, sir?”

  For the first time in their short acquaintance, Mr. Bailey allowed himself a small laugh. “He went to the devil. A black man does not deal in money a great deal, sah, we trade on the barter system mostly among ourselves. Before knowing Mr. Topham, I did not imagine the lengths a white man will go to for money.”

  Mr. Bailey drained his whiskey, set it in the precise center of his desk, crossed the room, and opened the door. “Shall we proceed to the jail, sah?”

  Now it was Shadduck who took a generous sip of Mr. Bailey’s whiskey.

  “According to my mother, sir, there are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy. I have enough on my plate dealing with the first kind to be making distinctions over the other three.

  “Let the big dog eat, is another thing my mother used to say. By which token I think she would tell me to let the small dog eat too.”

  Mr. Bailey shrugged. “As you like, sah. I believe I mentioned before that I am at your mercy.”

  “I do not accept that, sir. For I would not want to be at yours.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  * * *

  Philadelphia

  DICKENS DEPARTS

  Farewell and Good Riddance to Outspoken Scribe

  by Sanford W. Mitchell, ThePhiladelphia Inquirer

  Charles Dickens’s unlucky visit to America is finally at an end. Having been treated like a spoiled child throughout, and having thoroughly worn out his welcome, he leaves our shores in the humor that often follows too lavish a bestowal of sugarplums on spoiled children. Unlike his arrival, his departure for Boston will be a quiet one, with no special events planned. Mr. Dickens will depart by sailing ship from Boston Harbor on Friday next, in the company of his American secretary, Mr. Richard Perry.

  The phaeton carriage containing the literary gentleman, his assistant, and their combined luggage clattered smartly over the cobbles of Chestnut Street, elbowed its way through the hansom cabs and the moving vans and the two-wheeled delivery carts, past the grandiloquent husk of the Bank of the United States, on its way to the railway terminal. There were no cheers in its wake among the small gathering of curious Philadelphians outside the hotel, only scattered criticism:

  “Thinks a deal of hisself, don’t he?”

  “Dresses like a tout, looks like to me.”

  “He was of the lower sort, you know.”

  “Swarthy too. It makes you wonder.”

  “Bit of a skirt chaser I fear.”

  “And tight as a chicken’s arsehole.”

  Only when it turned out of sight did the small gatherings of curious Philadelphians (none of them in any way official) began to disperse.

  “I believe Eddie will be happier in Europe,” said Elmira Royster.

  “He certainly preferred it as a setting for his tales,” I said.

  “Mr. Dickens will be happier over there as well,” said Putnam. “I reckon Europe is a better place for writers all round.”

  On this occasion, Putnam wore a plain brown tweed suit of the type favored by railroad inspectors and Pinkerton men. When I remarked on the transformation, he explained that Dickens’s file had made mention of the authors flamboyant style of dress. On advice from his superiors and with a modest allowance, Putnam had affected a similar fashion in order to establish a rapport. “It was not something I enjoyed. It fe
lt effeminate.”

  “We are grateful for your assistance, sir,” said Elmira Royster to Putnam, taking my arm. “And we rely on your discretion on certain matters.”

  “The requirement is even more imperative in your case, ma’am,” said Putnam. “In fact, it is of national importance. I am instructed that if either of you reveals a word about the events of the past few days, serious official consequences will ensue.”

  “I will take it to my grave,” I said, feeling the warmth of her hand in the crook of my arm.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  Baltimore

  Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to one’s neighbor.

  —Ambrose Bierce

  We sat in the dining room of the Exchange Hotel, looking into our glasses of whiskey.

  “It is a dreadful business, Mr. Poe.”

  “Dreadful indeed, Dr. Chivers.”

  “It makes one wonder.”

  “One does indeed wonder, that is true.”

  “How far Americans have traveled down the road to hell.”

  Neilson Poe ordered another brace of the amber liquid. He had already had four. “Exactly the point, sir. Down the road to hell.” And his finger hit the tablecloth with a thud.

  “How are the relatives bearing up?” I asked. I had drunk less, in fact there were two full glasses on the floor by my ankle.

  “Not well, Doctor,” he replied, and his beard wagged back and forth. “Not at all well.”