Not Quite Dead (40 page)

“I have no idea, Eddie. It seemed to come naturally to you.”

“Whatever has happened between us, even the latest incident, as far as I am concerned you are still my best friend. If I have done you a disservice, I swear that I will make it up to you.”

“I doubt that very much, Eddie.”

“You will see.”

We maneuvered the stretcher clumsily down the staircase and through the door, then followed Miss Genoux through the long grass behind Economy Manor. Over her shoulder she carried a sack of belongings, presumably retrieved from the church.

By the flattened grass in front of us it occurred to me that we were in the path of the old women I had seen leaving the church earlier, before they seemed to disappear by magic. Halfway across the clearing, however, I began to make out what can only be described as a hole in the forest, a tubular passage that might as well have been a tunnel. It appeared to be another way out of the property, a century-old way of escape, carved through the forest in case of attack by enemies who never materialized, if they existed. There was no telling where the tunnel led, if indeed it led anywhere at all.

We stopped for breath. “Sister,” I said, “can you not see the futility of all this? We will surely be overtaken by the police.”

“I am not worried about that,” said Miss Genoux, lighting a cigarette.

In the distance behind us, I thought I heard a voice shout
Fire
.

T
HE BLAZE OCCURRED
in the central building. It had been ignited from inside, so that the high steeple served a flue, drawing the heat
upward. By the time Shadduck had mounted the stone wall for a better look, already the garland on top was in flames, so that the burning tower illuminated the property like an enormous torch.

Fire!

After receiving an offer of double pay for the additional work, the True Blue Americans were persuaded to perform their professional function as firemen. However, there being no hose nor an apparent water source to draw from, all that could be done was to give the building a wide berth until it could be determined which way the flaming tower would topple.

As the area brightened to near-daylight visibility, it occurred to Shadduck that, in addition to Smit, Coutts, the True Blue Americans, and himself, there was an additional presence—two gentlemen, one of whom appeared vaguely familiar.

“Good evening, sir,” said the shorter man. “I am Charles Dickens, and this is my assistant, Mr. Putnam.”

“Mr. Dickens,” replied Shadduck. “You are just the feller I was looking for.”

W
E STUMBLED DOWN
the long-forgotten pathway (being in front I took the branches in the face), over roots that had turned what was once a path into a series of low hurdles. I was too preoccupied with my footing to glance behind me in order to ascertain the source of the light. I assumed it to be coming from the torches of our pursuers. Out of sheer physical and spiritual exhaustion, I welcomed them in my mind, whoever they were.

Trudging along behind me, sagging under the weight of our mutual burden, Eddie kept an uncharacteristic silence, and on the few occasions that he spoke it was with a preoccupied air. As for me, my anger against him was now a spent force that had transformed into a sort of bewildered awe. As well, succeeding waves of mental nausea came over me, much like the panic I had experienced during the ordeal in Washington College Hospital. The enormity, the sheer inconceivability of my situation began to overwhelm me, along with a series of mental pictures—memories of the war, the hospital tent, my mother, like a whirlpool spinning me down, black, unfathomable …

I
WISH TO
commend everyone present,” said Dickens, “for doing such an excellent job of it.”

Shadduck turned to Putnam. “Who are you really, sir?” he asked. “Whom do you represent? What is your interest in the case?”

“I am a federal agent, sir,” said Putnam. “And the case may have resolved itself.”

L
OOKING BACK,
I imagine that procession of fools through the absurd overgrowth of vegetation as eyeless creatures snouting their way out of the depths of the earth toward an assumed opening in the prehistoric quest for air and light and life. So it was with Miss Genoux, Eddie, myself, and our mutual burden, shuffling and stumbling our way along with no object but forward—and it does not matter where forward leads, if it is the only possible direction. As for the patient, he spoke only to complain of the pain, and to speculate on his proximity to death. I replied with something to the effect that, if it was death he worried about, pain was infinitely preferable to no pain. This medical commonplace only seemed to confuse him.

Whatever awaited us at the other end, from that point on I knew that I would be leading an existence that bore no resemblance to the one I had lived before. This thought bothered me not a bit. I had given up on any hope or expectation from the moment I had fired my pistol at Eddie, and missed. How typical. Since my old friend’s reappearance in my admittedly unhappy life, it was safe to say that nothing had gone according to even the most short-term planning. At every turn there awaited a profound, unexpected shock to my past experience and future prospects. Like a man caught in a maelstrom, I could only submit to its power, go where it took me, wait and see.

We emerged from the forest into the light of a near-harvest moon, to find ourselves in a tiny overgrown graveyard whose markers were made of a soft white stone that actually seemed to glow in the dark. Six thin, plain obelisks leaned at oblique angles, each one surrounded by smaller stones, all dated, I was certain, within a month of each other, thanks to one or another epidemic—diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles. A new disease arrived with each new wave
of immigration, an influx of misery as varied and endless as the waves of the sea. Thrashing our way through the long grass I noticed other stones topped by skulls and crossbones, which had been painstakingly carved, accompanied by a cautionary message indicating a drowning, a hunting accident, someone kicked by his horse, and a warning that the reader be also ready. I failed to understand the point of this, whether it meant to imply that a sudden death was somehow more unpleasant than a lingering one, or that, with a bit of luck, one might give it the slip altogether.

The tiny building had been a Pietist church belonging to a congregation that had died out during the last century—there were not many followers to begin with, to judge by the size of the church.

The graves told a tale that might be summed up as: following successive epidemics, and seeing no end other than their own eventual demise, surviving members of the community simply became tired of burying people and went their separate ways.

The rough-hewn oak door at the rear of the church grunted its obdurate refusal as Miss Genoux pulled repeatedly on the rusted iron handle, and it was not until we set the patient down on the overgrown grass and added our combined weight to her effort that the door finally swung open with a shriek like a metal bird, causing Eddie and I to fall back upon the ground, while Miss Genoux disappeared inside.

After finding our feet again, my old friend and I took up our burden together for the last time, carried the Irish patient into the dark, musty room, and installed him in what appeared to be a rough pew. I examined his wounds. The forehead was still open, but had ceased to bleed. The opening in his side had begun to seep clear liquid, but the area was cool to the touch, and the swelling had not increased. By the light of a lamp held by a seamed ancient in a rust-colored dress, I changed the dressings.

“Am I dead yet?” asked the patient.

“Not as dead as you deserve to be,” I said.

“Please do not joke about it,” said Miss Genoux, kneeling beside the pew, wiping his forehead with the hem of her dress.

I turned my attention away from the patient into the gloom of the house of worship, and could make out the figures of elderly women. A half-dozen rough pews had been set in a square around a stove
made of bricks, built at the same time as the building itself, in order to keep the congregation within a few degrees of freezing to death during a Sunday sermon in January. For certain, little warmth would have emanated from the pulpit, which stood so close to the ceiling at the end wall that the minister, if he was not a dwarf, must have had to preach on his knees.

“Dr. Chivahs. I am surprised and glad to see you.”

Elmira Royster stood up from her position close to the stove, which she had taken in order to keep warm in her simple cotton dress. As had happened ever since I first saw her from my position beside the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, she put me at a loss for words.

“Good evening to you, ma’am,” was my inadequate greeting. “I am very glad to see you as well.”

“What have you done to your eye?” she asked.

“I am told that an ancient cure for a cynic was to pluck his eye out. That is what happened to me, madam.”

For an instant our eyes met, and I felt a peculiar ache in my sternum. Then, as might be expected, someone else caught her eye. “Hello, Eddie,” she said. “I am very glad to see that you are alive.”

“Elmira,” said Eddie, and his eyes became huge, with a most soulful expression on his handsome face, and I could barely resist stopping up my ears with my fingers not to listen to the saccharine sentiments that were sure to follow. However, as it had done so often in the recent past, fate decreed otherwise.

“Alas, madam, I am no happier than before,” said Eddie. “My dear little Virginia haunts me still. The only time I can ever be at peace is when I am alone, holding her in my heart—or when I am in my grave.”

“It was never my expectation that you would be a husband to me. I do not want another husband. I had one and that was enough.”

“Then we are agreed, madam. Hence, with the greatest of respect, I must ask you to also agree that we put an end to our engagement.”

With that statement, Eddie caught my eye with an almost imperceptible nod as though to say,
There
.

A
S FAR AS
Shadduck and the company were concerned, nothing further could be done until it was established which way the steeple
would go down. The True Blue Americans, even in their role as true blue firemen, were understandably uneager to commit themselves either way. Nobody wants to find himself standing underneath a flaming beam, least of all a Philadelphia fireman.

As it happened, the tower collapsed upon itself like an upended telescope and then, like a felled tree, toppled to the left—and at once it was clear that the dormitory was finished, for the roof caught fire as though it had been coated with turpentine. Immediately the firemen set about the task of protecting the remaining building from wayward sparks.

“Is anyone inside?” asked Shadduck, without knowing what he would do if there was.

“An Irishman,” replied Putnam. “Heavy with drink, I am afraid. No hope for him now.”

“And a quantity of writing materials as well,” said Dickens, with a measure of satisfaction.

SHOCKING DISCOVERY IN BALTIMORE
Author’s Remains Stolen
by James Preston Wilcox,
The Philadelphia Inquirer

The undertaking, initiated by Baltimore police, to exhume the body of Edgar Allan Poe was thrown into confusion Tuesday when investigators at the family plot in Baltimore Burial Ground discovered the grave to be empty. Police believe the felon to be either a party of grave robbers, or an admirer of the late Mr. Poe, whose work often dealt in bizarre and morbid themes. “Such undignified treatment of human remains is a serious crime,” said Policeman Rennick, “and will be dealt with severely.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

Philadelphia

S
hadduck stood in the offices of Topham and Lea, noting the lack of clutter.

“Mr. Bailey, I reckon it is pretty well clear that your Mr. Topham was murdered by the Irish. With Mr. O’Reilly a veteran of the war, the shinbones said it all.”

“The shinbones, sah?” asked Mr. Bailey, with the look of a man who was being subtly tortured.

“And the teeth of course,” replied Shadduck.

“I do not follow you, sah. Am I intended to?”

“A barbaric practice, for certain. Yet here is where you might help me out, sir. I reckon it is an uncommon thing for such men as would do such a thing to have such a deep acquaintance with the ins and outs of the publishing business. Do you not agree, sir?”

“Though the Irish are avid readers, I am told.”

“But other than pirated titles, Topham
&
Lee is not in the book business, financially speaking.”

“You are wrong, sah. We continue to publish the most important books in America.”

Shadduck crossed to the table by the door and examined the abolitionist tracts—cheaply bound and written, every one written or edited by a Nathaniel Washington Bailey.

“That is so, Mr. Bailey. This occurred to me, sir. The importance of it—to yourself, no less than anyone.”

“It is important,” said Mr. Bailey, whose hand shook as he lit his cheroot.

“It was not your race that caught my attention but the books you made. The difference between your interests and those of Mr. Topham. That you might have done better with another … partner came to my mind, if you get my meaning, sir.”

Mr. Bailey opened a desk drawer and extracted a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “May I offer you a drink, sah?”

“You may, sir. I am not presently on duty.”

“Do you wish to wipe the glass? Many do.”

“That will not be necessary.”

Mr. Bailey got up from his desk and began to wander the room, touching various books as though for the last time. Only after touching each of his titles, and having taken four fingers of the amber liquid, did he find his voice.

“As you may know, Topham & Lea was founded by Quakers. Abolitionists—though we colored folks sat in separate pews.”

“Does that latter fact rile you up, sir?”

“No, sah. Only that there are various ways of being helped.”