Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology (19 page)

I removed my pocket watch and looked at the time. “Oh dear,” I cried, “I doubt that the gendarmes will have time to intercept our suspect before she—or, I should say,
he
—boards the continental express.”

Dupin merely shrugged.

I shot him a look. “Surely this distresses you? A criminal— one who you alone have found out—is likely to slip away.”

He turned and looked at me with eyes that were as deep as wells and equally dark. “Are you, my friend, so inflexible in your views of justice that you view this man, this deadly actor, as nothing but a common criminal, one to be hunted, tried, jailed, and hanged?”

Before I could answer, he added, “Certainly the actor is an assassin, and surely he is operating on French soil without permission and in ways that contravene so many laws... but tell me and speak true from your heart—if you were he, would you consider yourself a criminal or an agent of justice? Has not the true criminal of this drama already been found, tried, and executed?”

I formed a dozen arguments against so radical a notion, but before I could barrage Dupin with any of them, he turned and began walking along the avenue. Within seconds the darkness and the fog had turned him into a specter and then he was gone entirely. I, on my part, was left standing there with his words ringing in my ears and no clear opinion painted on the walls of my heart.

From the files of C. Auguste Dupin

By

(translated loosely from the French)

This story can only be described as fantastic in nature, and with no exaggeration, it deals with nothing less than the destruction of the world, but before I continue, I should make an immediate confession. Some of this is untrue. I do not mean the events themselves, for they are accurate, but I have disguised the names of several individuals, and certain locations have been re-imagined— for lack of a better word—to suit my own conscience. The end of the cosmos and our world as we know it is of considerable concern, of course, but no reason to abandon manners.

These decisions were primarily due to the possibility of certain actors in this drama being unnecessarily scandalized or embarrassed, even though they are only mentioned in passing and have little to nothing to do with the events themselves. I do not think historians, warehouse owners, and the like should have to bear the burden of my story, especially as it will undoubtedly be disbelieved.

There are, however, specific players in my article, story if you prefer, that have their own names to contend with, old as those names may be, and I have not made any effort whatsoever to alter these. This is owed to the fact that these particular personages are well enough recognized by name, and any attempt to disguise them would be a ridiculous and wasted effort.

This begins where many of my true stories begin. I was in the apartment I share with Auguste Dupin, perhaps the wisest and most rational man I have ever known, if a bit of a curmudgeon and a self-centered ass. A touch of background, should you be interested: we share an apartment, having met while looking for the same obscure book in a library, which brought about a discussion of the tome in question, which in turn we decided to share in the reading, along with the price of an apartment, as neither of us could afford the rental of one alone. Dupin is a Chevalier, and had some financial means in the past, but his wealth had somehow been lost—how this occurred, we have by unspoken agreement never discussed, and this suits me, for I would rather not go into great detail about my own circumstances.

In spite of his haughty nature, Dupin is quite obviously of gentlemanly countenance and bearing, if, like myself, he is a threadbare gentleman; I should also add, one who in manners is frequently not a gentleman at all. He is also a sometime investigator. This began merely as a hobby, something he did for his own amusement, until I assured him that regular employment might aid in his problems with the rent, and that I could assist him, for a small fee, of course. He agreed.

What I call “The Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning” began quite casually, and certainly by accident. I was telling Dupin how I had read that the intense lightning storm of the night before had been so radical, producing such powerful bolts, it had started fires all along the Rue —. In fact, the very newspaper that had recorded the article lay before him, and it wasn’t until I had finished telling him about the irregular events that I saw it lying there and admonished him for not revealing to me he had read the article and knew my comments even before disclosing them for his consideration.

“Yes,” Dupin said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his fingers together. “But I appreciate your telling of it. It was far more dramatic and interesting than the newspaper article itself. I was especially interested in, and impressed with, your descriptions of the lightning, for yours was a practical explanation, but not an actual recollection, and therefore perhaps faulty.”

“Excuse me,” I said.

His eyes brightened and his lean face seemed to stretch even longer as he said, “You described to me lightning that you did not see, and in so doing, you described it as it should appear, not as the newspaper depicted it. Or to be more precise, you only said that the fires had been started by a lightning strike. The newspaper said it was a blue-white fulmination that appeared to climb up to the sky from the rooftops of a portion of the warehouse district, rather than come down from the heavens. To be more precise, the newspaper was supposedly quoting a man named F—, who said he saw the peculiar lightning and the beginnings of the warehouse fire with his own eyes. He swore it rose upward, instead of the other way around. Out of the ordinary, don’t you think?”

“A mistake on his part,” I said. “I had forgotten all about his saying that. I didn’t remember it that way.”

“Perhaps,” said Dupin, filling his meerschaum pipe and studying the rain outside the apartment window, “because it didn’t make sense to you. It goes against common sense. So, you dismissed it.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Isn’t that what you do in your investigations? Dismiss items that are nonsensical? Use only what you know to be true? You are always admonishing me for filling in what is not there, what could not be, that which faults ratiocination.”

Dupin nodded. “That’s correct. But isn’t that what you’re doing now? You are filling in what is not there. Or deciding quite by your own contemplations that which should not be there.”

“You confuse me, Dupin.”

“No doubt,” he said. “Unlike you, I do not dismiss something as false until I have considered it fully and examined all the evidence. There is also the part of the article where F—’s statement was validated by a child named P—.”

“But, the word of a child?” I said.

“Sometimes they have the clearest eyes,” Dupin said. “They have not had time to think what they
should
see, as you have, but only what they
have
seen. They can be mistaken. Eye witnesses often are, of course. But it’s odd that the child validated the sighting of the other witness, and if what the article says is true, the man and child did not know one another. They were on very distant sides of the event. Due to this—and of course I would question their not knowing one another until I have made a full examination—perhaps more can be made of the child’s recollections. I certainly believe we can rule out coincidence of such an observation. The child and the man either colluded on their story, which I find unlikely, because to what purpose would they say such an unbelievable thing? Or the other possibility is they did in fact see the same event, and their description is accurate, at least as far as they conceive it.”

“That lightning rose up from the ground?” I said. “You say that makes more sense than it coming down from the heavens? I would think suggesting Jove threw a bolt of lightning would be just as irrational as to suggest the lightning rose up from the earth!”

“From a warehouse rooftop, not the earth,” he said. “And it was blue-white in color?”

“Ridiculous,” I said.

“It is peculiar, I admit, but my suggestion is we do not make a judgment on the matter until we know more facts.”

“I didn’t realize we cared to make a judgment.”

“I am considering it.”

“This interests you that much? Why would we bother? It’s not a true investigation, just the soothing of a curiosity, which I might add, pays absolutely nothing.”

“What interests me are the deaths from the warehouse fire,” Dupin said. “Though, since, as you noted, we haven‘t been hired to examine the facts, that pays the same absence of price.”

“Horrid business,” I said. “But I believe you are making much of nothing. I know that area, and those buildings are rats’ nests just waiting for a spark to ignite them. They are also the squatting grounds for vagrants. Lightning struck the building. It caught ablaze rapidly, and sleeping vagrants were burned to death in the fire. It is as simple as that.”

“Perhaps,” Dupin said. He leaned back and puffed on his pipe, blowing blue clouds of smoke from between his teeth and from the bowl. “But how do you explain that our own acquaintance the Police Prefect, G—, was quoted as saying that they found a singed, but still identifiable arm, and that it appeared to have been sawed off at the elbow, rather than burned?”

I had no answer for that.

“Of course, G— is often wrong, so in his case I might suspect an error before suspecting one from the witnessing child. G— solves most of his crimes by accident, confession, or by beating his suspect until he will admit to having started the French Revolution over the theft of a ham hock. However, when he has solved his cases, if indeed one can actually consider them solved, it is seldom by any true form of detection. I should also note that there has been a rash of grave robbings of late, all of them involving freshly buried bodies.”

Now, as he often did, Dupin had piqued my curiosity. I arose, poured the both of us a bit of wine, sat back down and watched Dupin smoke his pipe, the stench of which was cheap and foul as if burning the twilled ticking of an old sweat-stained mattress.

“For me to have an opinion on this matter, I would suggest we make a trip of it tomorrow, to see where this all occurred. Interview those that were spoken to by the newspaper. I know you have contacts, so I would like you to use them to determine the exact location of these witnesses who observed the lightning and the resulting fire. Does this suit you?”

I nodded. “Very well, then.”

That was the end of our discussion about these unique, but to my mind insignificant events, for the time being. We instead turned our attention to the smoking of pipes and the drinking of wine. Dupin read while he smoked and drank, and I sat there contemplating that which we had discussed, finding the whole matter more and more mysterious with the thinking. Later, I decided I would like to take a stroll before retiring, so that I might clear my head of the drinking and heavy smoke.

I also had in mind the ideas that Dupin had suggested, and wanted to digest them. I have always found a walk to be satisfying not only to the legs and heart, but to the mind as well; many a problem such as this one I had considered while walking, and though, after talking to Dupin, I still turned out to be mistaken in my thinking, I had at least eliminated a large number of my fallacies of thought before speaking to him.

Outside the apartment, I found the rain had ceased; the wind had picked up, however, and was quite cool, almost chilly. I pulled my collar up against the breeze and, swinging my cane before me, headed in the direction of the lightning fire in the warehouse district along the Rue —. I didn’t realize I was going there until my legs began to take me. I knew the location well, and no research was required to locate the site of the events, so I thought that for once, having seen the ruins, I might actually have a leg up on Dupin, and what he called his investigative methods of ratiocination.

* * *

I will not name the exact place, due to this area having recently been renovated, and keep in mind these events took place some years back, so there is no need to besmirch the name of the new owners. But for then, it was an area not considered a wisely traveled pathway by night. It was well known for unsavory characters and poor lighting. That being the case, I was fully aware it was not the best of ideas to be about my business in this vicinity, but what Dupin had said to me was gnawing at my thoughts like a terrier at a rug. I felt reasonably confident that my cane would defend me, as I am—if I say so myself—like Dupin, quite skilled in the art of the cane, and if I should be set upon by more than one ruffian, it contained a fine sword that could help trim my attacker’s numbers.

I came to where the warehouse section lay, and found the burned buildings instantly, not far from a large allotment of land where other warehouses were still maintained. I stood for a moment in front of the burned section, going over it with eyes and mind. What remained were blackened shells and teetering lumber; the rain had stirred the charred shambles and the stench of it filled and itched my nostrils.

I walked along the pathway in front of it, and tried to imagine where the fire had started, determining that the areas where the structures of the buildings were most ruined might be the source. I could imagine that the fire jumped from those ruined remains to the other buildings, which though burned beyond use, were still more structurally sound, suggesting that the fire had raged hottest before it reached them.

I was contemplating all of this, when from the ruins I heard a noise, and saw a shape rise up from the earth clothed in hat and overcoat. It was some distance away from me, and even as it rose, it paused for a moment, looking down in the manner of a man who has dropped pocket change.

I can’t explain exactly why I thought I should engage, but I immediately set off in that direction, and called out to it. As I neared, the shape looked up, seeing me. I took note of the fact that it carried something, clutched tightly to it, and that this undefined individual was in a kind of panic; it began to run. I wondered then if it might be a thief, looking for some surviving relic that could be swapped or sold, and part of its loot had been dropped when it came up from wherever it had been lurking, and before it could be found, I had startled the prowler.