The Blackest Bird (30 page)

“My office will be not altogether heartless, Mr. Hays. To prove it so, commencing on July Fourth, Independence Day, of this year, in City Hall Park, I plan a gala celebration for all city inhabitants, loathsome papist Irish included. At that gathering, for refreshment, icy cold Croton water will be served exclusively. Public scrutiny has reached a pitch, High Constable. Pardon me, but we both know the reality. Those on your Watch, both Day and Night, have in no way been in the business of preventing crime. You must admit that unfortunately most of your standing force has joined in gleefully with this very criminal element of which you speak, for their own personal pecuniary reward. Need I mention the name John C. Colt, High Constable? Need I mention your Sergeant McArdel?”

“Given the type of man I have been empowered to hire, the laggard cousin of this like politician, the dallying uncle of that, does this come as any surprise, sir? How many times have I been to the Common Council with my petition for funds sufficient to hire a proper breed?” Hays pointed out. “We do our best with what we have. And as for Sergeant McArdel, I make no excuse.”

“Understood. Still, need I tell you, Mr. Hays, your police, whoever
they may be, whatever their mettle, have come to the habit of turning their backs on capturing thieves and the rest of this city’s queer roosters, and instead readily join in with the criminals’ venture and take their cut of plunder from them. Or, at best, to make clandestine arrangement to return those goods stolen for whatever recompense offered by the merchant, then to turn around to split their revenue with the thieves themselves. In the end, all concerned, save the merchant, are eager to do it all over again. Rarely, sir, do I see an actual thief apprehended. So let’s you and I anticipate a good and thorough revamping, shall we?”

A newspaper lay on the mayor’s desk. The mayor tapped it. “Which brings me to this,” he said. “Have you seen it?”

Hays peered across the desktop at the sheet. “Is there something specific I should note?” He took from his inside coat pocket his magnifying spectacles.

The mayor indicated the front page. It was the
Sun
, its bold banner headline declaring:

ASTOUNDING

NEWS!

BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK!

THE

ATLANTIC CROSSED

n

THREE DAYS

Signal Triumph

of

Mr. Monck Mason’s
FLYING MACHINE!!!!

FULL PARTICULARS TO FOLLOW!

“We reside in a new world, High Constable,” said the mayor. “The Atlantic has only yesterday been crossed by air in three days’ time, man. Quite by accident, as it turns out, but it makes no difference. You have not seen this, Hays? The aviator Monck Mason seemingly was heading across the Channel for France. The wind shifted violently, and the rudder on his airship incapacitated. As result, the balloon was catapulted in the opposite direction over the pond on the greatest air voyage of all time, landing down within seventy-five hours in South Carolina. Although unsigned, I have on good authority the author of this article is none other than Edgar Allan Poe. If I am not mistaken, you are familiar with this man, are you not, if only in passing, Hays?”

Hays stared at James Harper, trying to read the man. He was a large individual with full muttonchop sideburns and florid complexion. His cheeks were red, his brows furrowed, his eyes flinty, small, and calculating. Hays would not want to underestimate him.

“I have had conversations with Mr. Poe. He was a somewhat infrequent visitor from his residence in Philadelphia to John Colt during his imprisonment in the House of Detention. So I know him, if vaguely. Of what interest is Mr. Poe to you, sir?”

“He is returned to this city. Talk is you work from some instinct, Mr. Hays, from some inner voice. I too have heard an inner voice. The voice is whispering to me the name Edgar Allan Poe, High Constable. It is a woman’s voice, the voice of Mary Rogers, and she is saying Mr. Poe is responsible for her death.”

Hays leaned forward in his chair, his gaze direct into Mayor Harper’s eyes.

“I am familiar with his writing, including his take on the Mary Rogers murder. In the course of my investigation, Mr. Mayor,” Hays said after pausing momentarily to gather his thoughts, “Mr. Poe has been tied in my mind at one time or another with both John Colt’s escape from punishment and peripherally with the death of this aggrieved young woman. Over the last two years I have had innumerable conversations and followed innumerable clues to concretize any
and all suspicions, no matter who the individual, no matter how outlandish or specious the speculation. None have come to bear, including those implicating Mr. Poe.”

“At this time do you feel everything needed to be known about the death of Miss Rogers has come to light and been pursued?” asked Harper.

“Of course I do not. The murder has not been solved. No murderer has been punished. So there is no satisfaction. After the proprietress of the Nick Moore House, Mrs. Frederika Loss, was shot by her son a year ago last November, she became delirious. She mentioned several crucial bits of information which had not to that point been revealed. One was the mention of a young doctor called to her establishment to facilitate an early delivery on Miss Rogers. According to Mrs. Loss’s ravings, the girl died during that procedure. Who was the doctor? Who was the beau? The investigation has never been able to ascertain, although I can assure you every line of inquiry has been arduously pursued.”

“Exactly! And here is the revelation, Hays, to put your investigation back on track and make it that much easier: knowledge has reached me that none other than Mr. Edgar Allan Poe put the unfortunate young lady in question in such compromised state and it was he, and only he, Mr. Poe, who has catalyzed the ensuing outrage. I have it on authority it was he, none other, on the premises of the Frederika Loss inn at the time of Mary Rogers’ tragic death.”

Hays held rigid. “On whose authority and what certainty is such accusation based?” he asked.

Harper lifted a fashionable white clay pipe off its cradle on his desk and, with what Hays took as a noxious air of victory, began stuffing the bowl from an oval canister beside it.

“Anderson’s,” the mayor deferred. “Do you not find it as peculiar as I do that the man calls his tobacco ‘Solace’? I’ll give him, man is a genius. He has cut the leaf with a bit of dried cherry fruit. Wonderful aroma and a nice, sweet bite. Help yourself.”

He pushed the container across the desk, offering the tobacco to Hays.

For a brief moment the high constable considered declining the blend in favor of his own personal sock, Solace or otherwise.

Then, thinking better of it, he reached for Harper’s cherry leaf and packed his bowl. “I grant you this, Mr. Harper, Mrs. Loss, on her deathbed, had no reason to lie. I have no doubt Mary Rogers, in the company of some cur, calling himself gentleman, repaired to Nick Moore’s inn to facilitate an early birth. A young doctor was brought in to help her with this procedure, but whatever his skills, this operation went awry, leading to her death; if not during the procedure, then the day after. Three questions remain to be answered. As said, who was the doctor, who was the knave with the unfortunate young lady, and why was her body ravaged so?”

“Poe was very much smitten with her.” Harper puffed a half dozen consecutive billowing clouds of smoke from his pipe and leaned forward. “I daresay the fellow uses his tragic air to ingratiate himself to all people, but especially women. Candidly these barely disguised tactics of his drive me to utter madness. Women feel sorry for him, Mr. Hays. I know Miss Rogers did. She spoke of it often enough.”

Hays’ eyes narrowed. “You knew her beyond the counter, Mr. Harper?”

“Let us say I admired her. We all did. She was like a daughter. My brothers, our associates, any casual visitor to Anderson’s establishment. Poe is married. His wife is sickly, yet he uses the continual suffering of his spouse to implement his repeated seductions of caring ladies.”

Hays held the mayor’s glare.

“You could not possibly know this, High Constable, but Mr. Poe is presently shopping a manuscript. It is a collection of tales, not by accident numbering sixty-six, the devil’s number, if you see my meaning. Included in these pages is the story he calls his ‘Mystery of Marie Rogêt.’ In my opinion this particular tale is nothing less revelatory
than an admission of guilt and cry for help on the part of the author. I will tell you this final detail divulged to me, why I know him to be guilty of this crime, and then you, too, may be convinced, Mr. Hays. Earlier you referred to, said you were familiar with, this story author Poe has concocted, the subject thereof, without question, Mary Rogers and her death?”

“I have read his effort. With my daughter’s able assistance, I have been over every sentence, every detail.”

“I myself rarely read,” Harper stated. “I have no time for it. But my clerk has outlined the cogent points for me. As I say, the tale had been offered to my firm in conjunction with sixty-five others this author hopes to see published as his all-encompassing collected prose work. For my own reasons, I passed on it. You are aware that Mr. Poe has gone back and made changes in the original work? He has irrefutably tailored his conclusions to fit his needs and lead the delving mind away from him as suspect. I have heard Poe distastefully boast often of his astuteness in matters of rational thinking and reason. Granted, he has become adept at following logic in one direction, or reversing it in opposite direction, to suit his mood, in order to give the illusion of some brilliance. Believe me, High Constable, Mr. Poe is guilty of the crime of which he writes. The original story, as he constructed it, was to be divided into three segments. The first two appeared on schedule in
Snowden’s
, but before the third could see print, with the revelations and death of the charwoman Mrs. Loss, he withdrew it. A month later, after a hectic scramble, he resubmitted a now-altered third chapter. This saw print a year ago last February. I assume you saw it then?”

“I did,” said Hays. “It pointed to Miss Rogers dying at the hands of an abortionist.”

“It did. Now to consider, what had Mr. Poe changed in his supposed fiction, from one version to the other. Therein would lie key to his crime. No, High Constable?”

“Go on, Mr. Mayor.” Hays held his own, content to see where this would lead him.

“Against my advice, my colleague George Palmer Putnam, a man I much admire, is publishing an edition of Poe’s tales at his house. Thankfully, much pruned down, I’m told, to the no less irksome number thirteen, again a telling number. Mr. Putnam can, in all likelihood, provide you with the exact details, and before and after manuscripts of the Mary Rogers story. If you need introduction to Mr. Putnam, I will furnish it. Apparently there is yet another revamped version of the story. Mr. Poe has made certain alterations now alleging the wronged young lady’s rejected suitor of the past is the scoundrel of the present, the very individual Miss Rogers entertained on the occasion of her murder.”

“In all probability his point is well taken, sir,” spoke Hays. “I myself might not argue with him.”