The Pale Blue Eye

by Louis Bayard

  He scowled and ducked his head. From his tightly pressed lips came the low but unmistakable words:

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  I smiled. I squeezed my arms against my chest.

  “Maybe,” I said, “you’d care to explain that remark, Captain.”

  Undaunted, he turned on me the full force of his gaze. “Mr. Landor, I don’t mind telling you that Colonel Thayer and I have serious reservations about the progress of your inquiries.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I should be only too glad to be corrected. Indeed, you now have a golden opportunity to defend yourself. Why don’t you tell me if you’ve found more evidence of satanic practices? Anywhere on the reservation?”

  “I haven’t, no.”

  “Have you found the so-called officer who persuaded Private Cochrane to abandon Leroy Fry’s body?”

  “Not as yet.”

  “And having now held Mr. Fry’s diary in your possession for nearly a week, have you yet found a single clue that might be of use in these investigations?”

  I could feel the muscles tightening round my eyes.

  “Well, let me see, Captain. I know how many times Leroy Fry diddled himself on a given day. I know he liked women with heavy buttocks. I know how much he hated reveille roll call and analytical geometry and—and you. Will any of that do?”

  “My point is—”

  “Your point is that I’m not competent to undertake this investigation. And maybe never was.”

  “It’s not your competence I question,” he said. “It’s your allegiance.”

  Such a soft sound that I couldn’t place it at first. Then I realized: it was the grinding of my own teeth.

  “And now I’m going to have to ask you to explain yourself again, Captain.”

  He studied me for a long while. Wondering, maybe, how far he could go.

  “It’s my suspicion, Mr. Landor—”

  “Yes?”

  “—that you are protecting someone.”

  Laughter. That was the only response I could manage at first. Because it was too funny, wasn’t it?

  “Protecting someone?” I repeated.

  “Yes.”

  I flung up my arms. “Who?” I cried. And the word rang out to the nearest elm tree, rattled its branches. “Who in this whole godforsaken place could I possibly want to protect?”

  “Perhaps now,” he said, “is the time to talk of Mr. Poe.”

  The tiniest knot, forming in my stomach. I shrugged, made a show of confusion.

  “And why should we do that, Captain?”

  “Begin with this,” he said, glancing down at his boots. “Mr. Poe is, so far as I know, the only cadet who ever threatened Mr. Ballinger’s life.”

  He looked up just in time to catch the ripple of surprise on my face. I will say this: there was nothing cruel in the smile he gave me then. It looked more like a twisted sympathy.

  “Did you really think you were the only one he confided in, Mr. Landor? Just yesterday, at dinner, he was regaling his tablemates with heroic accounts of his epic tussle with Mr. Ballinger. Every bit the equal of Hector and Achilles, to hear Mr. Poe tell it. Interestingly enough, he concluded his account by declaring that he fully intended to kill Mr. Ballinger should they ever cross swords again. To those listeners present, he could not have been any less equivocal.”

  No indeed, I thought, remembering once again Poe’s words on the Plain. Hard to mistake his meaning. I will kill him . . . I will kill him. . . .

  “See here,” I said. “This wouldn’t be the first time Poe’s made a silly threat. It’s—it’s part of his nature. . . .”

  “It would be the first time that his proposed victim turned up dead within twenty-four hours of the threat’s being uttered.”

  Oh, there was no wheedling this fellow. Hitchcock would hold to his opinion as skin hugs a bone. Maybe that’s why notes of desperation were starting to creep into my voice.

  “Come, now, you’ve seen Poe, Captain. Can you honestly tell me he subdued Ballinger?”

  “There would have been no need. A firearm would have turned the trick, don’t you think? Or a surprise assault? Instead of Hector and Achilles, perhaps we might better ponder David and Goliath.”

  I gave a chuckle, scratched my head. Time, I was thinking. Buy time.

  “Well, then, if we’re going to seriously consider your little theory, Captain, we’ll have to admit one problem. Whatever his relations with Ballinger, there’s no sign of any link between Poe and Leroy Fry. They didn’t even know each other.”

  “Oh, but they did.”

  Silly me, thinking he had only one card to drop. When in fact he had a whole deck up the sleeve of that spotless blue coatee.

  “It has come to my attention,” he said, “that Poe and Fry had a tussle of their own during last summer’s encampment. It appears that Mr. Fry, in the usual manner of upperclassmen, decided, along with two of his fellows, to make sport of Mr. Poe, who apparently took such offense at their treatment that he hurled his musket directly at Mr. Fry—bayonet forward. Another inch or two and he might have seriously damaged Mr. Fry’s leg. Mr. Poe was then heard to say, by more than one listener, that he would suffer no man—no man—to use him in such a way.”

  Hitchcock let the news sink in for a few seconds. Then, in a softer voice, he added, “I don’t suppose he ever volunteered that bit of information to you, did he?”

  Oh, there’d be no getting past the captain today. The best I could hope for was a draw.

  “Call in his roommates,” I suggested. “Ask them if Poe ever left his quarters on the night Ballinger was killed.”

  “And if they say no, what will that prove? Only that they’re sound sleepers.”

  “Arrest him, then,” I said, as lightly as I dared. “Arrest him, if you’re so persuaded.”

  “As you well know, Mr. Landor, it’s not enough to demonstrate motive. We must find direct evidence of the crime. I’m afraid I don’t see any evidence; do you?”

  As we stood there, a raft of ice came plunging from a tulip magnolia and landed with a shudder just six feet behind us. The sound was enough to scare a flock of sparrows from a nearby white oak. They came at us now, boiling like bees, crazed by ice-glare.

  “Captain,” I said. “You can’t really believe this little poet of ours is a killer?”

  “How curious you should ask that question. When you are the man best disposed to answer it.” He took a step toward me, the barest trace of something on his lips. “Tell me, Mr. Landor. Is your little poet a killer?”

  Report of Edgar A. Poe to Augustus Landor

  November 27th

  Abject apologies, Mr. Landor, for my delinquency in reporting back to you. The widespread alarums attending upon Ballinger’s murder have produced an atmosphere so rife with Rumor, Scandal, and the basest form of Conjecture that I find my motions scrutinized as never before. Were I of a more credulous nature, I might suppose that I myself were laboring under the mantle of suspicion—yes, I!—so queerly do some of my fellow Cadets eye me as I pass.

  Ah, what human language can adequately portray the horror which seized me at the news of Ballinger’s brutal end? That the churl who has been such an everlasting torment to me should be so effectually removed from this earthly vale—and with such terrifying suddenness! Each time I venture to contemplate the implications . . . I find I cannot. For if our murderer could extinguish someone so intimate with the Marquis family, what is to prevent him from turning his sinister attentions to Artemus or even—mark how I tremble, Mr. Landor!—that conduit of my Soul? Oh, it seems to me that our inquiries cannot proceed quickly enough. . . .

  In the meantime, Mr. Landor, the arrant and ungallant hysteria manifested in this Corps of Cadets continues to grow beyond all bounds. Many a fellow has spoken of sleeping with his musket. Several of the more fancifully inclined have even speculated that Fry’s and Ballinger’s assailants are none other than the walking incarnations of ancestral Indian spir
its, come to avenge their extermination by the European race. Mr. Roderick, a singularly weak-minded third classman, claims to have witnessed just such a spirit along Flirtation Walk, sharpening its tomahawk in the cleft of a British elm.

  Word now has it that Mr. Stoddard has petitioned Colonel Thayer to cancel the remainder of the term—final examinations included—as it is well nigh impossible for Cadets to apply themselves to their studies with sufficient vigor and adhesion while they tremble in fear for their very lives.

  With what disgust do I behold these craven boys and their unmanful sniveling! How will they bear up under the trial of combat, when all is sauve qui peut, and blood lies spewn on every side? To whom will they appeal then for a stay of Judgment? Oh, it does not augur well for America’s soldiery, Mr. Landor.

  Nevertheless, our superiors have granted us one accommodation. At evening parade, it was announced that guard post had been doubled, so that no Cadet may now venture abroad without a companion affixed to his side. Under normal conditions, an order of this sort might have occasioned untold grumbling, as it requires us to report for sentinel duty twice as often. Such is the fear that has germinated within this Corps, however, that every man considers his burden his blessing, if it may purchase him some small increase in safety.

  My larger purpose in communicating with you, Mr. Landor, is to apprise you of certain developments relating to Lea and Artemus. This afternoon, finding myself in a state of agitation and with some few minutes at my disposal, I at once betook myself to the Marquis family home, there to console myself that Ballinger’s fate had not proven overly injurious to Lea’s female sensibilities.

  Rapping on that now-familiar door, with its “Hail, Sons of Columbia” sampler, I was dismayed to learn that no one was at home—no one, that is, but Eugénie, the maid. I was considering my next course of action when my thoughts were arrested by the vague sound of voices, issuing from a quarter that, upon closer inspection, proved to be the rear of the Marquis plot. I hesitated but for an instant; then, stepping round the corner of that stone edifice, I at once beheld Lea and her brother Artemus in their own backyard, engaged in the most animated of dialogues.

  Their mutual engrossment permitted me to pass, as best I could determine, unnoticed by them. Seizing my chance, I at once retired to the privacy of a nearby crabapple tree, whence I might overhear the substance of their discourse.

  Oh, Landor, you must not think me free of qualm in undertaking such an ignoble reconnaissance of my own beloved. More than once, I determined to abandon them to their private colloquy. However, each time I made that resolution, I recalled my obligations to you, dear Mr. Landor, and yes, to the Academy. On your account, then, I persevered. And on your account only—not from any unseemly curiosity of my own—I might have wished the tree to be ten feet closer. The Marquis siblings, for the most part, attempted to confine their communications to the level of a whisper. Attempted, I say, because as you yourself know, the human voice will not long sustain such a brake. Some innate equilibrium goads it periodically into a more natural register, where, though it remain low, it becomes, in a flash, intelligible, just as the sporadic irruption of a familiar word or phrase in the intercourse of foreigners may disclose the speakers’ meaning even to one largely unacquainted with that tongue. Thus was I able, in a fashion, to snatch up divers threads of their conversation, without, however, acquiring enough to weave a coherent narrative tapestry.

  I gleaned at once that the theme of their interview was the tragic demise of Mr. Ballinger, for I heard Artemus, in more than one instance, advert to “Randy,” and heard him assert also, “My God, that was my best—my dearest friend.” Artemus, I should say, spoke in cadences more patently aggrieved than did Lea, whose utterances partook of her own even and serene character—until, that is, in reply to one of her brother’s whispered confidences, she was heard to ask, in harshly rising accents that admitted of no small urgency, “Who else?”

  “Who else?” echoed Artemus, his own voice ascending in direct ratio to hers.

  From there, the dialogue subsided once again to whispers, and such words as escaped their circumscribed sphere were either too faint or too indistinct to be apprehended. There was, though, a brief exchange during which their excited sentiments once again raised their voices—all too evanescently!—into the range of hearing.

  “You told me yourself he was weak,” said Lea. “You told me he might have—”

  “And so he might have,” returned Artemus. “That doesn’t . . .”

  There ensued more words of an indistinct nature . . . more whispers . . . more mystification . . . and then I heard Artemus speak as if he were, for the first time, heedless of any listening ear.

  “Darling girl,” he said. “My darling.”

  All other words thereupon ceased, as, lifting my eyes, I beheld the pair, through the interval of crossed branches, fall into each other’s arms. Which of the siblings had assumed the part of comforter, and which the part of comforted, I could not ascertain. From the Gordian knot of their bodies no sound could escape—no word—no sigh. I can recount only that their embrace was singular both in its filial intensity and in its duration. Some two or three minutes had elapsed before the pair betrayed any inclination to be riven, and they might well have tarried longer had they not been recalled to their senses by the sound of approaching footsteps.

  It was Eugénie, the maid, laboring toward the water pump—bent, as anyone could see, not on espionage but on the mild and menial office of filling her pail. That I was not instantly descried by her I owe to Providence (or to the air of half-bestial dullness with which Eugénie had taken up her chore), for though I remained hidden from Artemus and Lea, one glance from their servant might, in a trice, have penetrated my arboreal curtain. Eugénie, however, “labored on,” impervious to any cares but her own. By the time she reached her self-appointed destination, Artemus and Lea had, for all intents and purposes, vanished. Finding no value to biding in concealment, and no ready likelihood of playing audience to any further of their exchanges, I stole straight away and made for my barracks quarters, where I gave myself over to meditations—fruitless, in the main—on their strange encounter.

  Will you be “at home” soon, Mr. Landor? I do not cast my lots with the frenzy that prevails about me, but I do find myself, yes, succumbing to a species of nervous apprehension entirely alien to my nature. My thoughts form direct channels to Lea—to whom but Lea? Again and again, I scan that poem—which you scorn—in whose lines I read so much danger. How fervently do I pray that the Spirit which sees fit to use me as its conduit will—soon! soon!—make me the Oedipus to its Sphinxlike enigmas. Speak to me! Speak to me, maid with your pale blue eye!

  Narrative of Gus Landor

  22

  November 28th to December 4th

  As soon as I had finished reading Poe’s latest installment, I went to Kosciusko’s Garden and left a message under our secret rock, asking him to meet me in my hotel room after Sunday chapel. He came, all right, but I gave him no greeting, no answer, just let the quiet pile up round us—until the fidgeting in his hands became too much for either of us to bear.

  “Maybe you could tell me where you were on the night of November twenty-third,” I said.

  “The night Ballinger was killed, you mean? I was in my quarters, of course. Where else?”

  “You were asleep, I guess.”

  “Oh!” His face fractured into a crooked grin. “How can I sleep, Mr. Landor? When every minute, my mind teems with thoughts of that—that precious creature, more divine in aspect than the most fantastical houris of—of—”

  It was the way I cleared my throat, maybe, or the way my eyes hardened over—he stopped suddenly and re-examined me.

  “You are vexed, Mr. Landor.”

  “You might say.”

  “Is there . . . might I be of some use . . . ?”

  “You certainly might, Mr. Poe. You might explain why you lied to me.”

  His cheeks puffed like
gills. “Come, now, I think you’ve—”

  I cut him off with my hand. “When I first asked you to take this job, you told me you’d never had dealings with Leroy Fry.”

  “Well, that’s . . . that wouldn’t be entirely . . .”

  “I had to hear the truth from Captain Hitchcock. You can imagine my embarrassment. Normally, you see, I’d never ask someone to investigate a crime if there was a good chance he’d committed it.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “So before I throw you out on your ear, Mr. Poe, you have one more opportunity to redeem your good name. Tell me the truth: did you know Leroy Fry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have words with him?”

  A brief pause. “Yes.”