Not Quite Dead (10 page)

But in the end, what defined the room, as with any room, were the persons who occupied it.

These were not Mayfair gentlemen. These men—if indeed they were subject to a collective noun at all—were for the most part uprooted, desperate gamblers from any one of a dozen nations, no more than a week away from bankruptcy. They rode on hosses, not in carriages; they did not duel with swords, but in fistfights; their suits had been on their bodies daily for months, as had their underwear, with no bathing required.

Visually, the overwhelming effect on entering the dining room was of an enormous humidor, in which all the cigars had been lit at once. Stepping onto the carpet one took care not to slip on phlegm that had missed the intended spittoons. As for sound, everyone talked as though he wished to be heard from the table at the other end of the room; in the Merchant Exchange, to be overheard was not an embarrassment but a business strategy.

As expected, my table companion was nowhere to be seen. For any Baltimore businessman, to be punctual at luncheon is an admission that business is slack. A waiter in a soiled, vaguely Hessian uniform ushered me to a table and I took my seat in front of a linen tablecloth set with great lumps of silver, each piece stamped with the crest of a nonexistent duke.

To pass the time, I requested a copy of the
Sun
so that I might review the election results. On the front page I noted the resounding victory of an incumbent councilman named
Riley
.

Troubled by the name, I turned to the Books section, that part of a newspaper in which the reader is told which books he should pretend to have read.

DICKENS NOVEL IMMINENT
“A First for American Literature,” crows Editor
by Sanford W. Mitchell,
The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA
——Amid much fanfare, Topham and Lea have announced the forthcoming complete edition of the novel
David Copperfield
by Mr. Charles Dickens.

According to Mr. Topham, “The publication of a major author even before the appearance of a British edition is an unprecedented achievement. It is a triumph for the American publishing industry, a tribute to American know-how, and of great benefit to the American readers.”

Readers will remember Charles Dickens as the author of
Dombey and Son
, which makes no secret of its contempt for commerce and for businessmen such as Mr. Topham.

While we readily accede to his first and second pronouncements, we trust that Mr. Topham will leave it to the American reader to discern what “benefits” accrue from Mr. Dickens’s acerbic pen.

D
R.
C
HIVERS, SIR,
I do apologize.”

Neilson Poe loomed above me with his auburn cap of hair, extending his soft right hand. Another reason to ensure tardiness at luncheon: one attains a superior position over one’s companion right at the outset.

“We are so terribly busy these days, don’t you know?” he continued, as though that were an explanation.

“There aren’t enough hours in the day,” I replied, grasping his damp little palm.

He frowned slightly, noting the newspaper spread out in front of me. “Surely it hasn’t got into the
Sun
as well.”

“Only in the
Clipper
at present. But news of his death is bound to spread. Edgar Poe was extremely famous in certain circles.”

“Yes, regrettably. Would you care for a whiskey?”

“I am a Son of Temperance, sir,” I replied, as the waiter poured the delicious amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler that might have weighed five pounds.

“I salute your resolution,” Mr. Poe said, allowing the light to cast a golden glow through his raised glass, as though he might tell the future by it.

“His passing has put a strain on the hospital,” I continued. “There were fifteen women at the front doors this morning, demanding to view the remains. They wanted locks of his hair; some actually carried scissors for the purpose. Morbid, if you ask me.”

Neilson Poe shook his head as though weighted down by the folly of mankind. His little goatee waggled back and forth like a finger of reprimand.

“It is the fault of the public school system, of that I am certain,” he said. “This is what you get when inferior people are taught how to read. An age of shallow celebrity, when all a man has to do is write something shocking and he will be deluged by brainless young women!”

From his emphasis on the last three words, and from the state of his linen and fingernails, I concluded that Mr. Poe was a bachelor. He was not a handsome man. The hair dye did him no favors. Yet he had an ingratiating quality, an eagerness for agreement.

“My cousin’s celebrity,” he continued, “was an ill-gotten affair. Poison for the young people.”

“I quite agree,” I replied. “Yet we must be careful not to confuse celebrity and success, for he had no money.”

“Indeed so,” replied the cousin, warming to his like-minded companion. “To judge by recent assessments of his work, there can be no doubt that he was on the way down in every conceivable way.”

“A sad deterioration in general,” I replied. “It might seem cruel to say this, but perhaps he was fortunate to have met his end before he was entirely found out.”

“Absolutely!
Dead
lucky, one might say!” and the little goatee went up and down like a bobbin.

I carried on in this sycophantic vein while he drank another whiskey. By degrees, in our mutual view, Eddie was to blame for a general public deterioration, including the rate of public drunkenness
and the low voter turnout at municipal elections. Had we continued at this rate for the afternoon, his death might have cured America.

There is no limit to the hatred within families, I thought, as I nodded at regular intervals, echoed random phrases, and retreated into a reverie of boredom. Idly, my gaze cruised about the dining room—and fell upon a lone diner next to a corner window, her face obscured by a book, which may or may not have been a Bible.

It is perhaps unnecessary to mention that she was the only female in the establishment.

For me, the sight of this woman inspired that peculiar sensation of having seen someone or something before—while knowing it to be impossible. (Mr. Emerson wrote about the phenomenon but shone no light on it, leaving the field to quack clairvoyants from Europe and Hindu mystics from Brooklyn.)

Returning my focus to the luncheon, noting that Mr. Poe had ordered a third glass of whiskey, I sped to the subject that was, for me at least, of most urgent importance.

“Mr. Poe, sir, I hope I am not going out of bounds in recommending a closed casket. If truth be told, your second cousin is not a pretty sight. Mr. Ripp can correct the flaws to some degree of course, and at a price, but…” I trailed off, wincing gently as though leery of the result.

“Most definitely. The casket must be closed,” replied the cousin, instantly. “I had not for one moment supposed it to be anything else.”

I feigned a slight cough to mask my expression of profound relief. “That is fine, then. Excellent. It seems to me that all is in order.”

“Just as it should be,” my companion said, nodding. “The burial will take place tomorrow, in lot twenty-seven. Uncle Henry Herring has kindly purchased the mahogany coffin. The family will take care of the tombstone and engraving. Reverend Clemm will preside—he is a relation of my dear little cousin Virginia, Edgar’s late wife.”

So many cousins and uncles
, I thought.

And did I detect a hesitation, before he pronounced the name of his late cousin? Had cousin Neilson displayed an emotion?

“There is one other thing,” said Neilson Poe. “And on this subject I need to trust in your discretion.”

“I am a physician, sir,” I replied, somewhat miffed.

“No offense intended, Doctor. My second cousin left a will, don’t
you see? You might wonder that he went to the trouble, since his estate consists mostly of debts. But he did leave his works, for what they might be worth, to my aunt Maria Clemm, who was like a mother to him.”

Resentfully, I wondered from whose arms Eddie had stolen Aunt Clemm.

“But he made one specific, and peculiar, request.” Neilson Poe paused as though unsure that he would be able to mouth the words. “Edgar asks that his jugular be cut before burial.”

“Ah yes,” I replied, smoothly. “I am not the least bit surprised.”

“Dr. Chivers, sir, I am at a loss as to why not.”

“Patients want to make sure they’re dead, don’t you see, sir. Some request that pepper be pushed up their nose, some want their feet tickled, even cut with razors. Then there is the tobacco smoke enema—dreadful thing—the corpse is played like a bagpipe …”

“What the devil are you talking about?” The cousin seemed genuinely discomfited, and I must admit that I found this highly satisfactory.

“Have you read Montaigne, sir?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I haven’t had the time.”

“There seems to be a creeping suspicion among the general public that the soul is buried with the body. That death might be, simply put, the end. Do you see? Without heaven, the grave becomes a secular hell.”

“I understand,” nodded Eddie’s second cousin, who did not understand in the least.

“Metaphorically speaking, there is more than one way to be buried alive.”

“I beg you, Doctor, that is quite enough. How did we get on to this blasphemous subject?”

“Some might regard throat-slitting as desecration of a corpse. However, since it is in Eddie’s will, I shall see that Mr. Ripp performs the service you request.”

In truth, I would do no such thing. After all, it wasn’t Eddie we were burying, and his replacement was demonstrably deceased.

“So that is settled, then,” he said, with an air of relief and satisfaction. “Very good. Of course, this will entail a substantial increase in your fee.”

“That is kind of you, sir. A closed casket it is, then.”

“Without a doubt,” said Neilson Poe, evidently pleased at the thought that he would not have to see his second cousin’s face, ever again.

M
Y LUNCHEON WITH
Neilson Poe had gone well enough that I might postpone my alternate plan, which was to step off the Thames Street dock and drown on a full stomach. Instead, for no particular reason I wandered the area from Shakespeare Street to Fell Street, amid thick traffic and a pungent mist reeking of manure—nothing like it to clear the sinus.

The docks had enjoyed a seamy reputation from the moment they were built, and were accepted as such by the better neighborhoods. Authorities routinely ignored dance halls, saloons, inns, and broad-minded hotels. As the city prospered around it, the harbor became a favorite-slumming ground for Baltimore’s young upper crust, who liked to wander down to Sailortown and gape at the seamen and their trollops as they danced, gambled, and mated in public view.

After a half-hour ramble I found myself at the Light Street dock near Gunner’s Hall, the site of my old friend’s supposed collapse. For a moment I felt as though I had been drawn there by a magnetic pull.

At the site of a violent or momentous incident, many claim to have experienced a feeling of invisible intensity, like the swirl of air that follows a passing carriage in the street. This is, I believe, the basis for the sighting of ghosts, and what occurred in this case.

Looking at the sodden ribbons wrapped around the lampposts, I remembered that Eddie was found on Election Day. I turned to the buildings on the north side of Lombard Street: not far away was Gunner’s Hall, damply festooned—it had been a polling place for the Fourth Ward. Next door to it sat Ryan’s Saloon, a thoroughly disreputable inn that leaned against Gunner’s Hall like a sot supported by a soldier.

I made my way across the street through enormous piles of steaming manure, narrowly avoiding having my foot crushed under an iron cartwheel, whipped by the braided, manure-encrusted tails of the hosses.

On the walkway outside Gunner’s Hall lay a sodden mass of
posters representing various campaigns for mayor and council— including the victorious gentleman named Riley.

Suddenly it occurred to me that Eddie might have manufactured the entire performance out of whole cloth. Had he found a drug that would raise his temperature and produce sweating? Had I been utterly fooled from beginning to end?

I freely admit that I had not ventured near a polling station in a decade. I was not a member of the American Party, nor did I wish to fall victim to its supporters; therefore, I declined to push my way through a gauntlet of Plug-Uglies, to be stabbed with an awl by a member of the Red Necks, or thrust into a bucket of blood. Uncivic of me, I admit.

As I gazed at the ragged bunting, the posters, the empty whiskey bottles, the ends of cigars, the broken clubs suitable for braining, the thought occurred to me:
Eddie must surely have brought luggage
. Immediately I headed in the direction of Ryan’s Saloon.

Having to maintain his theatrics for an entire night—insufficiently clad in a cold, rainy season—could have given any man a dangerous chill, let alone a dissipated poet. Therefore he must have rented a place to get warm, and it must have been close by.

By early afternoon, Ryan’s Saloon was filled to capacity—perhaps seventy men, most of them drunk since the previous day, having awoken in such distress that they simply carried on in their slept-in clothes. Around me, trickles of desultory conversation took place in a variety of dialects from various parts of Europe, snaking through the air like separate smells. The air itself was, as usual, translucent with smoke. The floor had been spread with insufficient sawdust to absorb the spittle, so that it appeared as though someone had scattered raw oysters about the room.

Across the bar stood a man in his forties, with the build of a blacksmith, thick white side-whiskers with brown tobacco stains, and a perpetual frown.

“Fat fill it be, skipper?” asked the barkeeper, in a Bavarian accent.

“I am looking for Mr. Ryan,” I said.