Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  After a moment’s silence, Mr. Shearwater observed, in a somewhat altered tone of voice, that it did partake of the miraculous, how things fitted together in the investigation,—how, indeed, a sort of unexpected narrative emerged,—if one began with the premise that Isaac Rosenwald, and no one else, had committed each of the five murders. “For a great deal that is now unexplained, and frankly bewildering,” he said slowly, “is, by this method, resolved.”

  Xavier then observed, with an amused grimace, that it was a cumbersome method, surely, and scarcely scientific, or even rational, to begin with any such premise, under any circumstances, and work defiantly forward, disregarding the vast multifariousness of contingencies, evidence, alternative murderers, et al., when such factors failed to support the scheme. “For thousands,—nay, millions—of persons might have committed these crimes,” Xavier said, laughing, “and it will hardly do as police work to choose one, and assemble a case against him. Why, it has yet to be established, to my skeptical mind, that there is but a single ‘Cruel Suitor,’—though the odds, as common sense would dictate, are surely in that direction. And, under certain circumstances, as we all know, even outright confessions do not resolve mystery, but make our task at uncovering the truth the more overwhelming, in that history becomes sealed.”

  Whether Mr. Shearwater was closely attending to these forceful words of Xavier’s, which one cannot fault for their wisdom, and for their evidence of an intuitive grasp of the principle of detection, or whether some troubling reverie inwardly distracted, he seemed to rouse himself, to say, at the door, his heavy hand descending upon the younger man’s shoulder, and his leathery creased skin of a sudden creasing the more, with an expression of fleeting pain: “Ah, indeed!—yes!—truly! You are right, my boy, quite right!—ours is an accursèd profession.”

  The Faithful Maiden

  Toward dusk of a preternaturally sultry and airless June day, not a fortnight later, I am sorry to say, the slender figure of the young detective might have been observed climbing, with some guarded haste, the overgrown hill above Volpp Avenue, beyond the weatherworn ruins of the old Quaker church, and into the desolate churchyard itself: his steps so cautious, and his manner bespeaking such vigilance, yet withal such hope, it would have required no unusually astute eye to surmise that the young man was a lover,—or, more plausibly, a potential lover—bent upon an assignation; and scarcely, at the moment, a detective absorbed in the pursuit of Truth.

  For this was indeed the case: and though I hesitate to present such extraneous information, which cannot fail to perplex and annoy the connoisseur of mystery, and does, in truth, disappoint this chronicler himself, I believe it is necessary in that a more complete portrait of Xavier Kilgarvan emerges, by degrees: his romantic obsession with Miss Perdita Kilgarvan having some parallel (though I am at a loss as to its nature, or how to assess it) with his obsession for the exposure of Mystery itself. For, ah! is he not heroically single-minded, and methodic, and zealous, and devoted, to her who has not, over the span of twelve long years, granted him more than a few words, and a measured smile or two,—a smile that never failed to pierce his heart, though it was rather more guarded than otherwise, and faded as quickly as it appeared? And is there not a hint, in the eagerness of his very posture on this overwarm June afternoon, and in the frowning apprehension of his stare (fixed upon the high stone wall surrounding Mrs. Willela Spies’s garden—more specifically, the door in the wall), indeed, in the boyish intensity of his manner, that invites disappointment?

  Thus it was, minutes cruelly passed; dusk grew ever deeper, yet brought with it no diminution of the heat, or relief from the unnatural airlessness. As the church bells of Winterthurn City variously sounded, in dolorous sequence, the hour of seven-thirty, and then of eight, Xavier Kilgarvan watched with yet more mindfulness the little door in the wall, which, by degrees, was dissolving into shadow: and drew in his breath sharply when, for a moment, it appeared,—but, alas, only appeared—to be opening. In a voice in which manly impatience vied with a childlike air of reproach, he murmured aloud: “Why is she late?—but will she come at all?—but she has promised!—and no one forced a promise from her. Yet is she late, for perhaps I misunderstood the time?—and it may be she is unavoidably detained: they say poor old Mrs. Spies has become quite tyrannical in her dotage, and affrighted of death, and must be indulged.” And so on, and so forth, in this vein, while he so forgot himself as to pace about in the weedy graveyard, scarcely conscious of the agèd stone tablets and markers close about him, and even underfoot,—fallen, broken, and moss-bedimmed as they were, their Quaker modesty and piety the more effaced by the pitiless passage of time. A casual stroller on the street, or a passenger in one of the carriages that infrequently passed, might well have started at the dim figure on the hill, insubstantial as an apparition: and possessed, it very nearly seemed, of the dogged purposefulness of such.

  “She shall come,” Xavier consoled himself, half in ire, “for I cannot have mistaken the sincerity of her tone, or the appeal of her lovely eyes: and did she not hint that she had an especial message for me, pertaining to the Teal case? Teal, alas, and the others—!”

  (Though in the same instant he severely bethought himself, as to how his sweet cousin could possibly have any information, or any advice, to tender to him on so disagreeable a matter.)

  No need for him to pace about so restlessly, and to allow his pulses to flutter, for, indeed, it was self-evident that Perdita would come by stealth to meet with him in the Quaker churchyard, if she had so promised: and, all amazingly, she had promised: and even shyly returned the light squeeze of his fingers, and gazed, for a remarkable moment, directly into his eyes,—no matter that, all about them in the Peregrines’ gilded drawing room, others continued amiably to chat, and to put frivolous questions to one another, above their tea cups. Ah, how beautiful she had been, attired all in white muslin, with tiny lavender rosebuds stitched to her bodice, and to the hem of her voluminous skirt!—her chestnut-brown hair framing her delicate face, and her eyes darkly aglow, and her nose so charming, with its distinctive Kilgarvan crook!—Xavier’s cousin, yet so pronounced a stranger to him, and, withal, so “strange” in her aura, it might have been that he had never gazed upon her heretofore, or heard her exquisite name pronounced. Nearly of his height, and with the subdued radiance of the midsummer moon, Perdita was far more comely of form, and assuredly more graceful, than she had been as a mere girl of twelve: now an accomplished young woman of four-and-twenty, of excellent family, whose hand in marriage was eagerly sought,—so rumors spread daily through town, overlapping and contradicting one another—by a gratifying diversity of gentlemen, both old and young, and unfailingly “eligible”: as Xavier could not, in truth, consider himself eligible, with his meager annuity and doubtful prospects. Yet it seemed to him not at all farfetched that he alone might win,—or might already have won—her heart: and that his success in solving the murders, if it came at all, might,—ah, he knew not how, nor why!—bring with it some sort of financial largesse.

  (As to his personal attractions: though Xavier Kilgarvan was by no means a creature of preening vanity, like certain Winterthurn gentlemen of the younger set, he was not afflicted with that tedious disability, false modesty; and had known, from the cradle onward, that he possessed a rare species of masculine beauty, or charm, that could not fail to please,—or, at any rate, to intrigue—the opposite sex. At twenty-eight years of age he might be said to be at the very zenith of his attractiveness; and could surmise, from the response of young women both abroad and at home, that he cut a striking figure indeed, being of slightly above moderate height, and lean, and lithe, and muscular,—though not to excess, which is always displeasing to the civilized eye: possessed of smooth olive-tinged skin, inclining, when he was in roused high spirits, toward the warmly rosy: and given to a most engaging and artless smile that quite banished all evidence of brooding from his features. The fine-sculpted look of his cheekbones, nose, and lips was even more
pronounced, and more compellingly “classic,” than it had been when he was a lad of but sixteen years; the opal-gray dreaminess of his stare, no less arresting; yet, it must be said, since the age of twenty-five or so, his propensity to frown, and squint, and grimace, with the vexatious rigor of thought,—for, alas, the youthful detective was always figuring matters out, whether they were of any significance or no—had begun to take its toll: and fine, white, near-invisible lines, discerned as yet only by his attentive mother, oft-times appeared on his brow. An habitude toward absentmindedness in social situations had earned him, in certain quarters, the reputation of inclining toward the eccentric,—albeit the fetchingly eccentric: for even when Xavier Kilgarvan’s mind was clearly elsewhere, puzzling over clues, and plotting out situations, and trying on, as it were, viable “suspects,” he was never rude, or impolite, since his Kilgarvan good manners were inbred in him; and behavior that in some persons is arduously acquired seems to have been, in Xavier, instinctive. It is true, his air of childlike simplicity had long since faded, just as his lustrous dark hair was less curly than it had been in his boyhood,—indeed, less thick and springy withal, as, when he lay abed with brain fever, a considerable quantity had fallen out, and had failed to grow back to its former healthsomeness. A faint, near-imperceptible, yet eerily luminous scar, of the size of a pebble, could be discerned at his left temple, near the hairline,—the legacy, as it were, of his horrific experience in the attic of Glen Mawr Manor, a dozen years previous; and an object of some annoyance to Xavier himself, who fancied it must be more prominent than it was, and particularly distracting to young beauties like his cousin Perdita. “Yet the wretched mark is my ‘baptism,’ for better or worse,” Xavier gravely consoled himself, “the sign of my dubious wisdom,—indeed, for better and worse.” In his years as a student at Harvard College,—where he had studied, with varying degrees of zealousness, such subjects as History, and Mathematics, and Physics, and Chemistry, and Psychology [Professor James’s theories of the “unconscious” being particularly intriguing to him], and English Literature, and Philosophy from the Greeks to Spinoza and Kant, and the Classics, and Archaeology, and, ah! what did young Xavier Kilgarvan not take up!—he had come to see that all the academic disciplines were paradigms of the detective’s search for Truth: that life itself might be imagined as a pursuit,—a hunt—an impassioned quest—requiring both diligence and bravery, and not a little resignation, as to the nature of one’s “baptism.” For Xavier Kilgarvan, even as a youth in his twenties, was too reasonable a person, and too obedient to God’s will, to regret any necessary loss of innocence,—so long as it was balanced by wisdom. Indeed, since that fearsome morning when, all unprepared, he had gazed upon the very face of Death in the county morgue, he believed he had come a gratifying distance, and had learned a great deal: albeit he supposed himself but a novice in the vast field of crime detection, as in life itself, set beside his seasoned and stoical elders. “Yet, perhaps, with Perdita beside me,” Xavier excitedly murmured, “I shall possess the courage to do virtually anything: and to fulfill the destiny God has chosen for me.”)

  Thus is it ever, the appeal,—nay, the forthright prayer—of youthful Love!

  Though from time to time, as it were casually, Xavier sent a card, or a brief letter, to both his girl cousins,—most particularly from his recent trip abroad, when he sent a half-dozen cards bearing succinct and resolutely “impersonal” messages—it had happened that, within the space of twelve lengthy years, Xavier and Perdita had met but a few times, and always in the presence of others, when communication of any significance was impossible; and the hapless Xavier found it most difficult to interpret his cousin’s glances, and shy chill smiles. “She is fond of me, that is evident,” he thought, “and it is impossible that she should not sense my feeling for her. Then again, alas! perhaps I am mistaken, and it is as people say,—the Misses Kilgarvan will never marry, or even allow themselves to become engaged, as they fear and abhor men: and I cannot help it that I, who would only adore and honor her, am a man—!”

  The “Misses Kilgarvan,”—late of the accursèd Glen Mawr Manor—were rather more whispered of in Winterthurn City than, in truth, they were actually known: for, following immediately upon the death of their sister Georgina, the girls were taken up by pitying relatives in Contracoeur, and then in Nautauga Falls; they lived for a full year with Miss Clarice Von Goeler, who, as the proud executrix of “Iphigenia’s” poetical remains, was assembling a volume of the late poetess’s work; they attended various schools for girls of good family,—amongst them the Rockport Seminary for Young Ladies, in Rockport, Massachusetts; and the Dundee School in Cornwall, Connecticut; and Miss Chernsworth’s Finishing School in Albany, New York. Judge Kilgarvan having died virtually intestate, his financial affairs in an alarming tangle, the girls could count on no reliable income from that source: nor did anyone wish to purchase the Manor: and when Simon Esdras’s idiosyncratic will was deciphered, it seemed that the philosopher had chosen to leave his badly attenuated fortune, and “forthcoming proceeds from on-going editions of the Treatises,” not to his pauperized nieces but, most remarkably, to his younger half-brother, Lucas Kilgarvan,—who had been, it was now generally acknowledged through town, grievously cheated of his rightful inheritance, many years before. (Lucas Kilgarvan is to be forgiven, surely, for his somewhat cynical response to Simon Esdras’s belated thoughtfulness, as the “fortune,” after taxes, attorneys’ fees, court costs, et al., came to naught but $119.09; and the several Treatises had fared so poorly with the reading public, it was discovered that the author yet owed his printers money,—well beyond the sum of $119.09, as Lucas’s luck would have it. “Now I am twice damned,” Xavier’s father exclaimed, with a laugh of angry resignation, “for I find myself no less penniless than I was, as a ‘wrongfully disinherited’ son, while burdened now with the reputation of being an heir to a considerable fortune—! May the Devil take all philosophizing,—and all philosophers to boot!”)

  As to Miss Von Goeler’s selfless project, The Collected Poems of “Iphigenia,” in three slender volumes,—this publication was financed wholly by Clarice herself, and no costs were spared, in seeking out the most skilled printer available (in New York City, as it turned out), and insisting upon the finest quality of paper, type, artwork, etc., with covers in a richly dark crimson calfskin, and letters in Gothic gilt of a most arresting design. As the tragical poetess had scribbled well beyond five hundred poems, in addition to those she had published, and these were in creamy-rose stationery packets, with the Glen Mawr seal at the top and gay-colored yarn looped through the spines, Clarice had instructed the printer to preserve this homely format, so far as he was capable: and to scatter throughout the pages of the three volumes certain pencil sketches, and pen-and-ink drawings, that had been discovered amidst Georgina’s papers. Her exacting toil, over a period of many months, in editing “Iphigenia’s” poems, was, as Clarice repeatedly told the curious, purely a labor of love: for she had little doubt not only that Georgina Kilgarvan possessed a rare species of poetical genius, but that, one day, the public should discover it,—and buy the Collected Poems in great quantities. Toward that end, she had arranged it so that all the profits would go to Thérèse and Perdita, and not a penny to herself: a provision that had inspired initial mirth in observers, who could not fancy such barbarous verse selling at all, but that was met with deep gratitude on the part of the sisters, who could count on very little income from any source,—until such time as they might be wed, when, it was promised, old Mrs. Spies would provide a dowry of modest proportions. (Though Thérèse had excelled in school in such demanding subjects as Greek and Latin, and had a particular flair for translation, it was considered by Willela Spies to be in bad taste for the twenty-six-year-old woman to seek gainful employment in Winterthurn, as if, in Mrs. Spies’s words, she were but a common shop-girl: and it was all poor Thérèse could do to arrange to give tutorial lessons, for a token fee, to the sons and daughters of the wel
l-to-do. As for Perdita herself,—she had been overheard to murmur, in one or another Winterthurn drawing room, that, had she a “stake” with which to begin, she might as readily make her fortune by betting on the horses, like the gentlemen, as by seeking out someone to marry. “For if gambling be a sin against God,” the impetuous young woman said, “is it not a far more grievous sin to gamble one’s very self, than merely with money?”)