Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  With that, Screed turned, walked to the bar-back, and grabbed four bottles – two cognacs and two whiskeys. Poe stepped back from the bar, straightening his coat, picked up three nearly clean tumblers from a stack on the service table, and winked at O’Hanlon.

  “Here’s the fun. And it’s on me, O’Hanlon.” He headed for a small louvered door to the left of the bar on the back wall.

  “And don’t mess with the ballot boxes. Election next week,” shouted Screed.

  I followed Poe through the doorway and found myself in a small paneled room. Against the outside wall was a pile of six big boxes half covered with soiled old sailcloth, loosely rigged with a few lengths of old rope. Set in the angled corner of the space was an ash-filled hearth with a large iron flue pipe piercing the ceiling. In the middle of the room stood a solid maple spindle-table and four chairs.

  O’Hanlon backed into the cramped alcove. He was clearly uncomfortable being in Ryan’s. He kept his eyes on the barman until the door closed, and he latched it with a twist of a wrist.

  “Well now, let’s get down to it, eh O’Hanlon?” Poe was all merriment – in his voice, if not his expression.

  I tossed a bottle of whiskey towards our companion, and he caught it with his left hand. O’Hanlon smiled for the first time in ten minutes. His charm was returning. He felt safe there behind a barred door.

  Poe set the glasses down on a small shelf, then grabbed at the rope ends, worked the crude knots free, and pulled the old sailcloth off the boxes. Then, with the flair of a waiter at a fine restaurant, he snapped the soiled canvas onto the table with a grand flourish. “We must have a tablecloth. We drink in only the finest establishments. Right, Gentlemen?”

  O’Hanlon nodded in agreement.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen.”

  O’Hanlon moved around the table so that he could sit facing the door. Poe stood behind him, and started to reach for the glasses. I took hold of the back of the chair in front of me, preparing to join this odd little celebration. I was puzzled by the drift of events, but had decided that a little whiskey – God forgive me – might settle my nerves.

  Just as I started to seat myself, it happened.

  O’Hanlon had pulled the stopper out of his whiskey bottle and began raising it to his lips, not waiting for Poe to set the glassware down. I looked at Poe, and he was not holding the tumblers as I had assumed. Instead, he pulled the barkeep’s axe handle out from under his coat and swung it in a mighty arc.

  When the club hit O’Hanlon’s skull, there was a loud crack – followed by the sound of all of the Irishman’s air escaping from his lungs. His head whipped forward on his neck and smashed hard into the sail-covered wood of the tabletop, and teeth – and bits of teeth – flew out of his mouth as it rebounded. He slumped sideways and fell awkwardly to the floor.

  I remember that his body came to rest in a pose reminiscent of a marionette dropped into a shoebox. All his limbs were bent in on one another in the most unnatural of angles. A small stream of blood leaked from his left ear.

  “Quick, Griswold, help me lift him onto the table.” Poe’s eyes were all pupil again. “We’ll tie him with the ropes.”

  The process took longer than I expected. A completely limp body is a clumsy burden. But we managed. Soon O’Hanlon was flat on his back on top of the table. We removed his stained boots so that the bindings might be tight around his ankles. Soon enough, his legs dangling on one side securely lashed to the thick table legs, his arms bent almost to breaking and lashed likewise on the other side, O’Hanlon was racked.

  Poe sat down and opened a bottle of cognac. “Have a drink, Griswold. It will be a while until we can question the bastard.”

  “Of course. Of course.” I must admit that I was a bit shaky at first. After two glasses of whiskey, my nerves settled.

  I pulled up a chair next to O’Hanlon’s bleeding ear.

  “What will we ask him, Poe?”

  “We will ask him how much Fox paid him to kill Jupiter.”

  I could not catch my breath. My hands shook. O’Hanlon took a shuddering breath and jerked at his bonds. Then he settled – quiet again.

  Poe whistled a tune.

  I believe the melody was “Long, Long Ago.”

  Chapter 15

  September 29, 1849 5:00 p.m. - A Thousand Injuries and a Single Insult -

  I am no longer an innocent, though once I was. I have sinned. My spiritual story is one of struggle with temptation. Every man possesses certain longings and unnatural tendencies. The Holy Book speaks of these from Onan to Lot, and I shall not soil the scriptures by placing holy words near this particularly depraved portion of the tale. Save to say, I triumphed over my own weakness only through rigid application of the disciplines of my faith.

  When I was a youth, they called me a “chimney corner boy.” I was awkward in social gatherings in those callow days and stood apart from others. It is true that certain older men – whose reputations I shall not besmirch here – became my patrons as my career progressed. It is true that, in my naiveté, I may not have recognized all of the implications and dangers of the intimacies I gave myself over to in their regard. The clasped hands of fellowship so easily become twining vipers. Collaborations turn into embraces. A kiss in greeting leads to an ardent farewell.

  I have steeled myself against such transgressions. My Savior and blessed St. Paul provided my armor. My dearest chaste wife, Caroline, became my shield. In her purity, I discovered a refuge from the depravities of the flesh. Our celibate love became my ark in the earthly world’s deluge of corruption. Is it any mystery why I could not bear to lose her?

  I had been adrift without her. My guard distracted by grief. And suddenly, that moment in that small room at Ryan’s, looking down on the bleeding head of Sean O’Hanlon, I felt myself teetering on the edge of a yawning pit. I should have run. Instead, I accepted a tumbler from the Imp and poured myself a measure of whiskey.

  “Do you want some branch water for your mix?’ asked Poe.

  “No.” I tossed down the liquor in a single gulp. My breath caught in my throat for a moment. I stood up and began to pace.

  “You’re right, dear Griswold.” Poe sat staring at the unconscious man tied down on the table. “Probably best to get a stiff brace.” Poe’s arms were folded, and his fingers drummed on his biceps. His black hair was wild and winged over his ears.

  “What are you going to do?’

  “I will wait for an inspiration, Griswold.” Poe stood up and took a long drink from a bottle of cognac. He stepped in front of me. Blocked, I stopped. “Do you love me, Griswold?” he asked.

  The words came to me without thinking. “I hate you.”

  Poe embraced me. “The same thing, my precious boy. The same thing.” He laughed.

  I pushed him away and moved to the corner of the room. I stood by the hearth. It was as distant as I could be from the scene on the shrouded table.

  Poe took another drink from the bottle, but he did not swallow. He swished the liquor around in his mouth, walked over where he could look directly down on O’Hanlon, and then sprayed the man’s face with an explosion of cognac and spit.

  At first O’Hanlon showed no sign of any reaction. Then his left brow twitched. A pool of foam-flecked cognac had gathered in the corner of his eye. He started to blink. His arms tensed as he tried to free a hand to rub the sting of the alcohol. His legs spasmed. The knots held. O’Hanlon opened both his eyes and tested his bonds, thrashing wildly from left to right.

  “Easy, man. Easy, Mr. O’Hanlon.” Poe took in another mouthful, and this time swallowed the nectar. “Mr. O’Hanlon?”

  “What? What?” The Irish’s eyes were wide now. He was becoming aware of his situation. He yelled out, “Help!” Then his cry was cut off by a choking gurgle.

  “Now. Now, Mr. O’Hanlon.” Poe poured a stream of the cognac straight into the thrashing man’s mouth. “Mustn’t rile the pack outside.”

  O’Hanlon coughed. He tried to turn his he
ad to the side, but it was difficult due the manner in which his limbs had been stretched out over the edge of the table. He did manage to turn sufficiently to spit our some of the liquor into the pit of his arm. Sputtering, he paused to catch his breath.

  “Quiet now, Mr. O’Hanlon. I’m afraid you are in a dicey situation.” Poe took another drink. Then he leaned over the table. “Do you understand?”

  O’Hanlon’s eyes were wide. His chest was heaving. “I… I… I under…” He broke into a heavy coughing spell.

  Poe walked slowly towards the Irishman’s legs. He reached out and took a pinch of checkered pantaloon between his fingers. “You’re a fine feathered bird, Mr. O’Hanlon. Such a pretty rooster.” Poe poked at our prisoner’s thigh. “A might thin, rather scraggly, but good meat for the foxes outside in their den.” Poe inclined his head towards the main room.

  “I understand.” O’Hanlon’s tone was meek and quiet.

  “Foxes, O’Hanlon. Foxes, do you hear them gathering? Foxes?”

  The Irishman’s eyes grew wider. He choked out a thin “Yes.”

  “As you should. Ryan’s is an American Party establishment. The Know Nothings don’t take to your Irish Popism. They mayn’t be as kind as I will be to you, Mr. O’Hanlon.”

  Poe’s cryptic conversation with Screed made sense to me then. The anti-Catholic and anti-Immigrant Americans were in some disrepute. The movement was at that time still very secret. Fellows would customarily deny any knowledge of the group or their involvement. “I know nothing,” they would say. So had Poe stated, and so had Screed replied. “I know nothing.” O’Hanlon was indeed in a bad spot.

  “I don’t go to the church.”

  “Ah, but that ineradicable stain of the Anti-Christ’s baptism clings to you, Mr. D. The stench of the whore of Babylon makes you easy prey for the pack.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Some answers.” Poe waved the silver angel on his cane over the man’s face. “The angels demand answers, Mr. O’Hanlon.”

  “Just ask, and I’ll tell you.”

  “You will?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “All right. Very Good.” Poe patted the poor man on his stomach. “That’s very good. So tell me all the answers, sir. I will listen.” Poe sat down at the table. “Join us, Griswold. Pull up a chair. I’ll need your ears. Having partaken of the black tar today, my memory may be faulty. I wouldn’t want to miss any of Mr. O’Hanlon’s amazing revelations or misplace some detail that might be important.”

  “What question do you have for me?” O’Hanlon sounded ready to bargain.

  “My questions will wait. Just tell us the answers first.”

  “But…”

  “Answers, please, Mr. O’Hanlon.” Poe’s voice was cold.

  I reluctantly took a seat across from Poe. The smell of sour milk and piss wafted off O’Hanlon’s clothing and troubled my nose. I poured myself more whiskey. I sensed there was a need that prayer alone would not match. There in Ryan’s back room, my faith had failed me.

  “What do want me to say?” There was desperation in the words.

  “Say what you will, but say it quickly.” Poe stood up again and brandished O’Hanlon’s hawk-bill knife. “Such a clean blade from such a soiled soul.”

  Slowly, I was remembering all the events that had happened since we abandoned the omnibus. Insignificant things became important. I swallowed a mouthful of whiskey and blurted it out. “You took it from him. Ha! Poe, you pickpocket – when you staggered into him, you purloined his blade.” I almost giggled. The new whiskey was mixing with the Kentucky brew I’d consumed earlier. The blessing of the spirits was upon me again.

  “What a keen observer you are, Griswold. But you missed the cigars.” Poe produced two stubby cheroots from his pocket. “I doubt our friend’s tastes run to the finer varieties of tobacco. Still, what’s a story without a smoke?”

  “Hey!” O’Hanlon seemed much offended at the development.

  Poe snapped a match on the scoundrel’s buckle, and it flared to life. Lighting his cigar, Poe laughed. “Have one, Griswold?’

  “No. I think not.”

  “Now, Mr. O’Hanlon. Tell us all the answers.”

  His face beaded with perspiration, O’Hanlon started in – at first hesitatingly, then gathering confidence. “It’s like this, Mr. Poe. This morning I’m in my crib with Molly. Molly’s not important, just a doxy I rub once in a while – funny, odd girl but a sweet, padded thing. So, I’m sleeping with Molly, and what do I feel but a grip on my forearm that might break my bones. Well, I open my eyes, and there’s this black nigger, proud as Old Dave himself, looking down at me. There’s not much I can say, him being as big as he is. So he drags me out of my bed, out of my cubby, and down to the landing. He asks me if I know anything about this chocolate piece called Marie or something. I tells him I ain’t up on all the slit’s names. He slapped me hard then, I’ll tell you. One thing led to another. He said he knew as how I pandered down to the Odalisk that I’d know if Marie was there. I figure it’s not worth my oysters to protect any fucking Negress, and I says that she’s there, all right. He smiles at me and tells me to take some opium over to the Barnum and deliver it to you in your room, as you’ll be needing it. Says you’ll pay. That’s what I do, having given the black gentleman my word of honor and all. I figured you’d like to know where the girl, Marie, is as well. You two being such fine upstanding citizens and so hospitable to poor Sean. I’d do you the favor of being a guide to you on your stay here in Baltimore. Show you the sights – the Three Tun Tavern and the Odalisk house. I didn’t do anything for you to turn on me as you have. That’s the story. Now, please. I ask you, please to be merciful and take me away from this place. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Poe took a big puff on his cheroot and blew the smoke out slowly.

  “Well?” asked Griswold.

  “Mr. Griswold, pour yourself a tall whiskey.”

  “I’m feeling quite fuzzy enough already, Poe.”

  “I insist.”

  There was an intense cast to his eyes. The same look he’d had as we started in to Ryan’s, when he’d told me to do exactly what he said – whatever he said. I half-filled a tumbler.

  “A toast, Griswold.” Poe raised his mostly empty bottle of cognac. “To us. The hunt is long and dangers loom, for the boar may turn with tusks of doom. I’ll stand by you. You stand by me. And we’ll leave his blood on the holy tree.” Poe clinked his bottle with my glass and drank, as did I.

  “Drink it all, Griswold,” Poe encouraged. I obeyed. “Now, take off your coat.”

  “My coat?” I asked. My tongue was difficult to control. “My coat?” I repeated.

  “Yes. Take off your coat.”

  “You’ll be kind to me and get me safely away from here, good sirs?” O’Hanlon was on the edge of abject pleading.

  “Now, place your coat over Mr. O’Hanlon’s face, Griswold.”

  I recall feeling a rush of blood to my skin. My face and my thighs warmed suddenly in the chilly room. Without hesitation, I folded my coat until it was a thick square of brown, and I pressed it down on O’Hanlon’s face. He began to struggle, but I merely increased the pressure until his neck was sufficiently compressed to prevent all but the smallest of jerking motions. “How long shall I smother him, Poe?”

  He was smiling at me then. “Why, Griswold, you would kill him, wouldn’t you?”

  O’Hanlon was making strange muffled sounds – high-pitched yelps absorbed by my coat. I tasted the whiskey yet on my tongue.

  “Griswold?”

  “Yes,” I answered him. “I would kill him.”

  “Why?”

  I had no answer to that. My breathing was ragged – coming in sharp gasps. O’Hanlon’s body was shaking with intense tremors.

  “Such a shame.” Poe’s words were dark, but his eyes sparkled bright. He was sharing my arousal. I sensed that.

  O’Hanlon’s spine arched up off the table.


  “A shame he hasn’t told us what we need to know. But if you would kill him, I won’t stop you.”

  My vision blurred, and I lost my balance. I staggered backwards, with my coat tightly held in my hands. My back hit the wall, and I slid down to the floor. O’Hanlon’s mouth, uncovered, sucked at the air in loud, quivering rasps. His lips were bleeding – pushed into his jagged, broken teeth.

  Poe came to me. He went down on one knee, and then he touched me on my flushed cheek. “Rest here, Griswold. Leave the rest to me.” He placed the unopened whiskey bottle next to my trembling legs.

  “Please. Oh, please.” O’Hanlon was weeping.

  “Ah, Mr. O’Hanlon. What a shame. Your answers did not match my questions.” Poe took the hawk-bill knife and placed it to O’Hanlon’s throat.

  “No, please.”

  With a flick, Poe cut through the man’s collar. He ran the knife down from O’Hanlon’s neck, slicing the shirt fabric, and deeper. Poe used the blade like a hook with an edge. Ripping the shirt and the smallclothes the man wore beneath, Poe’s motion was only slowed slightly by the cheap, thin leather belt.

  “What?”

  Poe drug the blade with him as he walked to O’Hanlon’s legs, running the cut along the left leg all the way down and through the ankle band of the pantaloons.

  “God!”

  “Quiet, Mr. O’Hanlon. I’ve not cut you.”

  Poe sliced at the man’s jacket sleeves and then the checkered fabric covering the right leg. He dissected the pockets and removed an envelope from the frayed ruins – the envelope of medicines Jupiter had in the apothecary shop. Poe set the packet aside. His face was totally without any expression – flat eyes, drooping lips, smooth brow. He ripped and slashed, grabbed at the shreds of O’Hanlon’s clothing, and tossed them like rags into the ashes of the cold hearth.

  O’Hanlon was naked – his skin blotched and marked with distended blue veins beneath his sickly, yellowed skin. There was a small rivulet of urine running off from beneath his leg across the old sailcloth and down off the table.