Forgotten News

by Jack Finney

  A large mirror hung over the Doctor's desk. If he had glanced at it, he might have seen whoever came sneaking across the room toward him now. But not heard—for apparently the figure moved in utter silence on tiptoe or in bare or stockinged feet, because everything indicates that Dr. Burdell did not stand, had no warning. And then … this is what happened to Harvey Burdell.

  This should not be mistaken for a merely imaginative drawing, even though the unknown murderer is made to resemble John J. Eckel. For the artist who signed it stood in the very room: the wall, chair, desk, the mirror above it, the gaslight, all were precisely as he shows them here. And the evidence of a medical commission is that the moment of attack was exactly as Brightly carefully shows it: neckerchief suddenly gripped from behind, choking him, knife thrusting down fast and hard, hunting the heart.

  It missed, wounding him, but a bloody trail across the room showed what happened then. "I traced the blood carefully," said Dr. George F. Woodward of a medical examining committee, explaining the deductions from which Brightly made his drawings. "There was a chair placed in front of the Doctor's writing desk, and the leaf of the desk was down . . . there was a very considerable quantity of blood. The chair that set in front of it was also stained very considerably with blood. While examining the wounds, I desired a gentleman to be seated [at the desk] … and with [a dagger] placed directly over the wound on the right shoulder. So that if the assassin held this dagger in his right hand, he would have plainly plunged it over the right shoulder. Now that would run obliquely downward and forward…." From observations like these Dr. Woodward made the following deductions:

  "… My idea is that the Doctor got home about the usual time, threw off his shawl and over-shoes, and sat down in the chair by his Secretary, and in a few moments someone came in, surprised him and gave him that cut on the left shoulder while yet sitting…. My theory is that at this time the Doctor made resistance … we traced blood from that chair to the door … his first impulse would be to go to that door [leading to the hall and the stairs]. After arriving at the door it is evident that a great deal of exertion was made on the part of the Doctor, because on examination of his boots, blood was found to be literally ground into them.

  While there, with his hand on the knob [as artist Brightly shows above, and which bloodily marked the knob], they gave him this stab in the neck from which the blood … spurted per saltum, as we call it, upon the closet door. My judgment is that the heart wound followed that in the throat, for if the heart had been deprived of its mechanical function it could not have thrown that blood…."

  One of those never-ceasing dagger thrusts then cut through "the carotid artery" in the neck, the blood spouting upon the closet door, and Harvey Burdell "threw up his arms," Dr. Woodward believed, and before he could even fall he received another thrust "under the arm…. He then from loss of blood apparently sank down, and while down" the dagger continued to work:

  two more thrusts into the abdomen, then the body momentarily tilted up for the fatal blow penetrating "the heart at the right ventricle…." His fear turned to fact now, Harvey Burdell lay dead by the door he had tried for.

  Fifteen times he'd been stabbed in a savage flurry of blows over a furious fifty or sixty seconds: "random blows," Dr. Woodward said, "given without thought or object, only to kill the man." A stab "one inch from the left nipple, on a line and external to it … a second two and a half inches downward and inward … a third directly below." More "at the neck … above the angle of the jaw … touching the lobe of the left ear … on the face directly over the malar bone … on the right wrist … the left hand … the left arm…." His blood spurted out onto his desk top and chair; onto the center table as he stumbled past it, struggling to pull away; then onto chests, the wall, and the door as he was literally cornered—and finally turning the carpet under him soggy as he lay motionless at last, alone again.

  Because this was the night of Harvey Burdell's murder we have a glimpse of the life of New York's streets on January 30, 1857, which would otherwise be lost; and I have the impression that Manhattan was pretty lively then at night. People on foot, places open late, quite a lot going on. Even little Bond Street had a remarkable number and variety of people moving along it that night, and nearby Broadway sounds wild.

  Across the street from 31 Bond, Dr. Samuel Parmly, who had been reading in his sitting room, stood up about nine-thirty, put on hat and coat, and went out for a walk, as he often did; tonight he turned toward Broadway. The air was warm, he remembered, with a feeling of rain or snow to come, the street coated with old packed-down snow. Approaching him came a couple of "suspicious looking characters," he said, "and I turned off from the walk" because "there was a great deal [being] said about the danger of walking the streets at night." Dr. Parmly walked over to Broadway and turned onto it, heading north, and saw that it was crammed with traffic, so many of the tiny, dome-roofed Broadway omnibuses that pedestrians were finding it hard to cross. Up ahead, at Astor Place, he saw that the windows of "the Mercantile Library" were still lighted. And across the street from it, a Mr. Deane's confectionery store was still open; and therefore, I suppose, other stores too. At Eighth Street Dr. Parmly turned back and as he did so saw the library lights go out, and knew it was just ten o'clock.

  That was his first walk, which I report simply for the glimpse it gives us of Broadway. Back home reading again, Parmly felt restless, couldn't sit still, he said, and in about fifteen minutes he called his dog, a year-old "spaniel of the King Charles breed," and went out again, this time turning toward the Bowery. And now, as he came home, a strange thing happened. About to reenter his own house, he looked around for the dog, and saw him across the street standing on the steps of number 31, head lifted, staring up at the house.

  He whistled but the dog ignored him, staring up at the windows of the house, all dark. Then Parmly smelled something odd. It was the odor of burning clothes, he thought, and in the same moment, up in an attic window of number 31, he saw a light so bright that "I thought Dr. Burdell's house was on fire." It was the window of the unused room, he later learned, in which Mary Donaho had been instructed to lay a fire ready to light when needed. "The light in the attic was extraordinary," said Parmly, "and"—listen to the care with which this nineteenth-century man uses his native tongue—"likely to excite attention from the fact of the unusual darkness of the rest of the house; from no light ever having been seen previously in that attic; and more particularly from the character of the light and its intensity … as though newspapers or some easily combustible substance had one by one been successively thrown upon a fire" (deep breath), "flaring and blazing up, and the light suddenly subsiding and brightening again."

  So intent was the dog that Dr. Parmly had to walk across the street, scoop him up, "and carry him away from the steps of Dr. Burdell's house." Tonight, as he walked back into his house, Parmly was merely puzzled: tomorrow he'd wonder if he had seen the flames from and smelled the burning of someone's blood-soiled clothing.

  Within minutes, more footsteps along Bond and voices, I imagine, calling good nights; because Mrs. Anna C. Rausch and her husband, visiting friends next door to Dr. Burdell's house, now left. They came down the steps, turned toward Broadway and the Prescott House, where they lived, and Mrs. Rausch, too, "smelled a very disagreeable smell."

  Still another person walking through little Bond Street at somewhere around this time: William Ross, an architect. And Ross thought he saw someone enter number 31. He had left a friend's house on Spring Street to head for home on Second Avenue, and: "My general way is to cross Broadway at Houston Street," he said, "but that night it was entangled with omnibuses and … I came as I thought by Broadway to Bleecker Street … till I got to the corner, and then I knew I was in Bond Street, so I came through…." Up ahead, "a hundred or one hundred and fifty feet," Ross saw a man walk up the steps of 31 Bond, he said, open the door with a key, and go in. "I could hear the key; the street was very quiet."

  But "when I
got down, two houses further on," Ross said, "I heard a cry like 'murd'—very short—and I turned round and looked behind me, but could see nobody. I turned then, and looked the other way, fancying there was somebody garroted…. When I looked toward the Bowery there were several young men there that were kind of roguish, making a noise, and I thought it might proceed from them, and I paid no more attention…."

  A second man also heard a strangled cry of murder on Bond Street at more or less this same time; the timings, by both men, recollected later. In the third-story front room of number 36 Bond, this man was just going to bed when he heard the cry. He jumped up on a chest to look out across the tops of the window shutters, but saw nothing. "It sounded as if there was a struggle," he said. "The first syllable was distinct, but the last 'd-e-r' was guttural, such as you heard from Forrest sometimes in the theater, and I immediately thought of garroters."

  And still a third man heard a cry on Bond Street that night. He worked at "Deane's confectionery establishment, at 741 Broadway opposite Astor Place." He left the store at twenty minutes before eleven; and five or ten minutes later, he thought, "was passing on the opposite side of the street some three or four doors beyond [number 31], and heard a stifled cry … a piercing cry … it seemed to come from [31]." He thought the cry "like a person in distress or agony."

  Three separate cries, only minutes apart? Or two? Or one, the three men who heard it not noticing the other men? Possible, I suppose, in the street lighting of the time. However many cries and wherever they came from … Mrs. Cunningham and her daughters, all crowded into the same bed; George Snodgrass, the two little boys, and Hannah, the cook, in the attic; and John Eckel in his room beside Mrs. Cunningham's … heard not a sound, they all said.

  The life of Bond Street had not yet subsided. Down at number 16 a young lawyer and some friends were entertaining another friend just home "from the West"; and at something after eleven they all came out of number 16, heading for Broadway and the action. They, too, smelled what they thought was burning clothes, and so even now that long-ago party still faintly persists in our minds.

  Past midnight now, and Daniel Ullman, the almost-governor of New York, came home to number 31, and went right upstairs and to bed, in his third-floor room, hearing, seeing, smelling nothing.

  And around one o'clock a sleigh turned into Bond, Dr. Stephen Maine of number 32 holding the reins; he and his wife coming home from a party. They, too, smelled something burning.

  At about three in the morning it began to snow, thickly enough to cover the walks and streets of New York City, the yellow lights that marked those streets brightening a little from the glitter of whiteness beneath them. I once saw gaslight on new snow as a child, walking with my parents from the home of one of their friends to a suburban railroad station near Chicago, and it's a lovely sight: soft-edged circles of lemony light lying on the fresh and sparkling white—a nineteenth-century sight reaching out into the twentieth to take hold of me forever. I feel sorry for Harvey Burdell because I liked him, I'm not sure why, and yet: the low-roofed city all around him now as he lies dead must have been briefly beautiful.

  3

  For the rest of the night Harvey Burdell lay like this in his office. The open door at the left leads through a small cupboardlike room to the Doctor's bedroom. The map hanging beside that door is entitled "Histoire de France," and is now spotted with blood. So is the framed chart hanging in the corner; it bears the printed political platforms of the last presidential election. The framed engraving over the fireplace is of Dr. William Harvey demonstrating the circulation of blood.

  All night now, his watch ticking in his pocket, Dr. Burdell lay, the fire he'd lighted growing at first, blazing up; then subsiding to flicker erratically, and turn to gray ash; while the gas jet over his desk burned motionlessly, finally paling in the dawn.

  At six minutes of six in the morning his watch stopped; and at something around the same time the last ordinary hour number 31 Bond would know began with Hannah Conlon, the cook, opening her eyes in the dark of her attic room. From habit she knew "It was between 6 and 7 o'clock," time to begin one more day, and she got up to dress. "It was dark, and I had a lighted candle," she said,

  Dressed, Hannah went down the stairs with her candle, passing directly by the door just behind which the Doctor lay, to the basement kitchen to begin preparing the family's breakfast. Around seven she heard an expected knock at the back basement door. This was locked and bolted, she later said; as it should have been. Hannah opened it, and let in young John Burchell, the Doctor's latest boy-of-all-work. I assume the two spoke some brief good-morning, and I see the boy as stomping slush from his shoes or boots before stepping into Hannah's kitchen.

  Young John went to work, the start of his day being to make a fire in the washroom, back of the rear parlor. From here he could see into the backyard, and now there occurred the first unusual thing of this day: surprisingly, John Eckel was already up and about. "I saw Mr. Eckel go out into the yard as I came into the washroom," Burchell said, "about seven…. He had his usual dress, his undercoat, black pants and fur cap…." It had begun to rain and: "He had his two hands in his pockets…. He went into the last [of several 'water closets'], the one next to the fence." Not only was Eckel up early this day but, speaking to no one, he left without breakfast, something else he'd never before done.

  Burchell took about fifteen minutes to make the washroom fire, since he had to clean out yesterday's ashes first. "Then I went down to the cellar, and brought a scuttle of coal up to the Doctor's room." As he climbed, the loaded scuttle pulling at his arm, the boy's cheek moved past the damp marks of new blood along the wall of the staircase, but this was January, early in the morning, the house still not very light, and he didn't see them. At the Doctor's door he did not open it, but set the scuttle on the floor beside it. John did see the key protruding from the lock, another unusual thing this morning. Then down he went for a scuttle of coal for Mrs. Cunningham's room.

  At just about that same time, around seven-fifteen, John Eckel arrived at one of his three places of business, his bookkeeper said: this one on Stanton Street. "Is Mr. Smith Ely here?" he immediately asked the bookkeeper. Ely was the man who'd brought a note for Eckel last night, arranging a business appointment for eight this morning. But since this was forty-five minutes early, of course Ely hadn't even left home yet. John Eckel picked up the morning Herald from the floor, and walked to the doorway for light to read it; he wore the fur cap Burchell had noticed, and also now, said one of his workmen, an outer coat "the color of beer." The Herald was delivered daily, shoved through a door slot to fall onto the floor of the room where new hides were kept. The hides being raw, the floor permanently damp from them, John Eckel stands reading now in his cap and beer-colored coat, the front page of the paper in his hands wet and bloody.

  Hannah "went up to Mrs. Cunningham's door to call her to come down, as breakfast was ready. She [Mrs. Cunningham] asked me if Mr. Eckel was down at his breakfast…." Hannah said no, she hadn't seen him.

  At his chores, young John saw the Cunningham family and George Snodgrass at the breakfast table. Later he recalled—or thought he did— that Mrs. Cunningham "was kind of sad that morning, towards what she was the other mornings … kind of downcast as if something was the matter…." Well, maybe.

  The family and Snodgrass moved up to Emma Cunningham's sitting room after breakfast, Snodgrass not going to work this morning because he was to escort Helen to the railroad station later. And now once more a touch of the bizarre so often present when Emma Cunningham is: with Harvey Burdell lying in his own chilled blood just below, the happy plinkety-plink of George Snodgrass's banjo began to sound through the house from Emma Cunningham's living room, and you wonder if Eckel's canaries weren't trilling along.

  Hearing that rollicking banjo as he climbed the stairs yet another time, John Burchell (wearing his overcoat in anticipation) went up to the Doctor's room "to ask … if I should clean the snow off the sidewalk." He kn
ocked; stood listening; heard nothing, of course. He tried the door, from which the key protruded, found it unlocked, pushed the door open, stepped inside, and normal life at 31 Bond Street ended.

  The room was lighted by the still-burning jet over the desk and: "The first thing that presented itself," said John, "was the blood on the wall and closet door. I then beheld the doctor lying on his face close to the door and surrounded by blood. I was frightened, and slamming the door after me, I fell on my back outside the door"—I see him as backing out so fast he fell flat. "I then got up, and ran downstairs, and informed Hannah, the cook…."

  "I was so frightened," Hannah said, "that I let a plate fall and broke it…" though John remembered her as having been ironing, and dropping her iron, exclaiming, " 'Don't tell me that, don't tell me that.' " Hannah ran to the stairs to climb toward the sound of the plinking banjo, crying, " 'My God, my God!' " Daniel Ullman, lying in bed, heard the pounding feet on the treads.

  "I ran to Mrs. Cunningham's door," said Hannah, "and kicked it open with my foot…. Mr. Snodgrass was playing the banjo. I said 'My God, you are enjoying yourselves all very well, and the Doctor is either dead or murdered in his room!' "

  Nearly everyone that day seemed to pay close attention to Emma Cunningham's responses. To Hannah now she "looked very excited, and ran over to the bed. So did Helen, who fainted." John Burchell followed Hannah upstairs, and he saw that "Mr. Snodgrass was holding [Mrs. Cunningham] on the bed, and she was crying." Snodgrass (who remembered Hannah as bursting into the room "with hands covered with dough") said, "They all began to halloo."

  It took me a long while to get straight, from many accounts of that morning, what happened during the next few hours at 31 Bond Street: who said and did what in that house, when, and in what order; who came rushing in from outside and with whom, and who had run out to get them; what people said, saw, or thought they saw. But I think you'll understand those hours equally well—by simply knowing that people got excited, and acted only semirationally; that they screamed, cried out, fainted, burst into tears real or false; ran down hallways, up and down stairs, and rushed out of the house for help.