Curiosity (19 page)

Or so I thought. But just then a breeze caught the back door, which had apparently been ajar, and flung it open with a bang that nearly stopped my heart. “Oh, Lud,” I breathed. I was positive that, after letting Virginia enter, I had closed and locked it. How on earth could it have come open again?

There was only one possible explanation: Someone had been in the room. Someone was spying on us.

I
RUSHED TO THE DOORWAY AND STUCK
my head out, hoping to catch sight of the fleeing culprit. That hope was immediately dashed. Dozens of audience members were milling about before the main entrance, doubtless discussing the downfall of their champion chess player. Any one of them might have been the intruder.

In the feeble glow of the gaslights, I caught a glimpse of two dark-clad figures on the fringes of the crowd, one female, one male. The former might have been the mysterious Woman in Black—or not. The other resembled Mr. Poe—more or less. I also spotted a stocky, curly-haired fellow who could conceivably have been the fire-alarmist from several months before—or not. Shaking my head helplessly, I pulled the door shut, locked it, and glanced around the room. How long had the spy been hiding here, waiting for us open the Turk's cabinet? And how had he—or she—gotten into the room without my noticing?

Though I was sure that I'd secured the outer door earlier, I wasn't quite so certain about the inner door. When I ushered Virginia into the main hall, had I locked that door after her? Or had been I so distracted by the noise in the Turk's room that I'd forgotten? I checked the door in question. It was locked now, but of course if the spy had entered through it, he could have fastened it behind him.

I took a deep breath to calm myself and then rejoined Maelzel. Naturally I said nothing to him about unlocking either door. That would have been asking for trouble. “It was just the stuffed owl,” I said, “falling off its perch.”

I should have known he wouldn't let me off that easily. “
Nein, nein
, someone was in here, I am certain of it! You said that you went outside to use the privy. How long were you gone?”

“Only a few minutes.”

“Even
one
minute is enough time for someone to get inside! When you returned, did you lock the door?”

“Of course.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Well, it's locked now. I don't suppose it locked itself.”

“Do not be smart with me, boy, or you will regret it!” He thrust his face close to mine again. “And if you have given away the Turk's secret, you will regret it far, far more, I promise you.”

The weeks that followed were anxious ones for me. If the intruder had seen me pop from the cabinet like a malformed jack-in-the-box, he would surely tell his tale to the newspaper. And the
Enquirer
would jump at the chance to print such a story. After all, people had been trying for decades to determine how the Turk operated; the news would create a sensation. It would also create no end of trouble for me; I knew all too well whose thin shoulders the blame would fall on.

But I had a second, almost equal reason to feel anxious: After Virginia's visit to the exhibition, she had disappeared as suddenly and completely as Monsieur Mulhouse or Mademoiselle Bouvier. I spent nearly every free hour sitting on my bench at Haymarket Gardens, willing the chess players to make intelligent moves and willing Virginia to appear—without the slightest success on either score. Even when it rained, I kept my vigil, taking shelter under the portico of the Dancing House.

One damp, chilly afternoon, as I sat gazing dully at the traffic on the river, a ragged boy with a smudged face approached me. “Are you Rufus?” he asked.

Taken aback, I merely nodded. The lad handed me a small, square envelope; before I could ask who had sent him, he dashed off. I pried open the letter as carefully as I could, considering how my fingers trembled. If it was from the Venus of Richmond—and who else was even aware of my existence?—I didn't want to mangle it.

The note was a brief one, with no salutation or signature. The writing was elegant but slightly shaky, rather like that produced by Fiona—the automaton, I mean—when she needed a little grease:

The girl has betrayed you.

You will find her at Mrs. Yarrington's boardinghouse, Twelfth and Bank Streets.

For a long time I simply sat and stared at the message. Who could possibly have sent it? There was no doubt who “the girl” was; I knew only one. But how had she “betrayed” me—aside from acting like a friend at first and then completely ignoring me?

Though I didn't want Virginia to think I was spying on her or pursuing her, I couldn't have stayed away from that boardinghouse any more than I could from the chess table in the Gardens. I didn't go there looking for proof that she'd betrayed me, as the letter claimed; she was so sweet and childlike, I couldn't imagine her deliberately deceiving or hurting anyone. I only wanted to see her, to reassure myself that she was well.

It may be hard to believe that I was still so naive and trusting, considering all the hard knocks I'd taken since I left the Parsonage. But when you grow up with kindness and fairness around you, you're inclined to believe that the whole world is that way, even when you see so much evidence to the contrary.

Of course, if I'd been totally trusting, I would have just knocked on the door of the boardinghouse and asked to see Miss Clemm. Instead, I crossed the street, sat down on the low stone wall that surrounded the Capitol grounds, propped my back brace against the iron fence, and watched and waited.

In such a situation, most people would be bored, but I kept myself entertained by playing mental chess. As I was about to trounce myself for the third time, the front door of the boardinghouse opened and a man stepped onto the porch. Though I was half a block away, I recognized him at once, from his black hair and mustache and his great expanse of forehead. He seemed to be waiting for someone, too, and was clearly one of the majority who are bored by it. After fidgeting and pacing the porch for several minutes, he called, “Sissy? Are you coming or not?” Apparently he got no reply, for a moment later he shouted irritably, “Sissy!”

The door swung open again and a young woman hurried out, fumbling with her bonnet strings. There was no mistaking her, either—unfortunately. I should have fled the scene at once and spared myself the pain of seeing them together, but I was literally unable to move; I was like an automaton whose clockwork has run down. The only part of me that could feel anything at all was my heart, and I wished it, too, had been numb.

Virginia took Poe's arm, just as she had done with me, and smiled sweetly at him, just as she had at me. She spoke so softly that I couldn't hear her words; whatever they were, they put Poe in a better humor. He leaned over and kissed her brow and then they set off walking, in my direction but across the street from me. I hated for her to see me sitting there, looking as forlorn as an abandoned puppy, but I just couldn't manage to stir.

Though her attention seemed entirely on Poe, I saw her glance my way. She was close enough now that I could make out every detail of her face. Her already fair skin lost every trace of color; she went as pale as the plaster Venus. I heard Poe ask, “What is it, my dear? What's wrong?”

She forced a smile. “It's nothing, Eddy. I felt a little chill, that's all.” She drew her shawl more tightly around her. “Perhaps someone walked over my grave.”

I felt far more than just a chill; I felt as though the cold stone of the wall had sucked all the warmth out of me. When they were out of sight, I finally forced myself to my feet and shuffled creakily, mechanically across the street to the boardinghouse. I twisted the handle of the bell several times before the door was opened by a short, plump woman—Mrs. Yarrington, no doubt. She seemed startled by my appearance; perhaps she'd never seen a back brace before—or perhaps I just looked as miserable as I felt. “May I help you?”

“Is this where Mr. Poe lives?”

“Yes, it is, but I'm afraid you've just missed him. He and Mrs. Poe have gone out to dinner.”

I blinked at her, bewildered. “Miss Clemm, you mean?”

“Well, she
was
Miss Clemm, before they married. Do you know the young lady?”

I might have said yes an hour earlier, before I discovered that I didn't know her at all. I simply shook my head.

Leaning closer to me, Mrs. Yarrington said confidentially, “She claims to be eighteen, but I don't believe a word of it. She can't be a day over fourteen—far too young to be married off, in my opinion. Well, it's none of my business, I suppose, as long as they pay their rent on time. Do you have a message for Mr. Poe?”

“No,” I said glumly. I was certain that we would hear from him soon enough. As I crossed the street again, I turned and looked up at the windows on the second floor, wondering which room was hers. I noticed that the curtain on the window farthest to the left was pulled back; someone was watching me. At first I thought it must be Virginia's mother. Then the figure moved a little and caught the light. Virginia had mentioned that her mother liked bright colors, but the dress this woman wore would have fit in perfectly at a funeral.

Though I was weary and disheartened, I wasn't dead, which meant that my prominent Organ of Causality—otherwise known as curiosity—was still functioning. I suspect that Mrs. Yarrington had been watching me, too, for my second ring of the doorbell barely died away before she opened the door again. “Was there something else you wanted?”

“Yes, I nearly forgot. I do have a message for Mrs. Fisher.”

Mrs. Yarrington gazed at me rather oddly, and I thought I had guessed wrong. But I hadn't. “Mrs. Fisher has specifically asked not to be disturbed.” She held out one plump hand. “You may leave the message with me, and I'll see that she gets it.”

“It's not a written message. Just tell her . . . tell her Rufus wants to talk to her.”

I still wasn't sure that Mrs. Fisher and the Woman in Black were one and the same; maybe they both liked dark clothing. Nor was I sure that Mrs. Fisher actually knew who I was; after all, when she played me at chess, I was inside a box. But the boy who delivered the note had known my name, and I was almost certain the note came from her.

One other thing I was almost certain of, though it was a hard thing to admit: Virginia hadn't befriended me because she was so sweet and kind, or because I was such charming company. She'd been doing just what Maelzel had warned me about—trying to pry the Turk's secret out of me. But she hadn't been content with that. There seemed little doubt now that she was the mysterious intruder who had spied on us. After the Turk's performance, she had simply crept back into the storage room, where she observed me climbing from the cabinet.

If she had tricked me only in order to satisfy her own curiosity, there might have been little harm done. But even the biggest fool in Richmond—and I probably qualified for the title—could guess the truth. She'd been put up to it by Poe. And Poe was in a position to do us a great deal of harm. If she let him know that I was running the Turk, and he let the world know, my life would be worth no more than that of Monsieur Mulhouse or Mademoiselle Bouvier.

I
HAD TO ASSUME THAT VIRGINIA WOULD
tell her cousin—or was he actually her husband, as Mrs. Yarrington claimed?—everything. But if she did, he was very slow to make use of it. It had been two weeks already since the spying incident. Another week went by and still the
Enquirer
printed no sensational revelation about the Turk, only the usual letters from readers with pet theories about the automaton, theories that ranged from the utterly mundane to the wildly fantastic. I began to think that perhaps Poe wouldn't expose us after all—which just goes to show how big a fool I really was, in case there was any doubt.

I heard nothing from the mysterious Mrs. Fisher, either. I considered lying in wait for her outside the boardinghouse, but I didn't want to risk encountering Virginia or Poe. I wanted nothing more to do with either of them. The fact is, I was put off on people altogether; they were far too unreliable and unpredictable. It was a lot easier to deal with the Turk and the plaster Venus and the clockwork Fiona. I knew just where I stood with them. They never lied to me, they never made a fool of me or hit me or cursed me, and they didn't want anything from me—except when Otto wanted me to let him win.

I couldn't avoid people altogether, of course, but I did my best. I worked diligently and silently all day long—which certainly suited Maelzel and Jacques—and in the evening I retreated to our room, where I read Philidor or played mental chess.

Jacques was still drinking himself into a stupor each night; when he reached his talkative stage, I had a little trouble concentrating on my book or my game. Most of the time I ignored him, but every so often my curiosity got the best of me. During one of his rambling, almost unintelligible monologues, I heard him mention the name
Madame
Tussaud
. As you may recall, Mulhouse told me that Jacques had once worked for her, crafting wax figures for her famous museum, and he seemed to confirm it.

“But how could you have?” I asked. “Her museum is in London.”

He gave me a rather hurt look. “You do not believe me.” He took a swig of bourbon straight from the bottle, as if to console himself. “For your information,” he said, pronouncing the words very carefully, “at that time she did not have
un musée
. She had a traveling exhibition.”

“And you traveled with her?”

“
Oui
.” He made a sweeping gesture with the bottle, slopping bourbon on the bedclothes. “All over
Angleterre
.”

“What were you doing in England?”

“Getting these.” He pulled up his trouser legs to display his mechanical limbs. “Which are hurting me at the moment.” He unbuckled the leather straps, removed the appendages, and sighed. “
C'est meilleur
.”

“They didn't have wooden legs in France?”

“Not good ones. These were not so good, either, until I made a few improvements.”

“How did you end up with Madame Tussaud?”

“I worked for
un charpentier—
”

“A carpenter.”

“
Oui.
He was repairing some of Madame's exhibits—just the wooden parts. Madame and her son did all the wax parts.” He laughed and took another slug of whiskey. “You know what the carpenter told me? He said he knew Madame's secret.”

“Her secret?”

“The reason why the figures look so real.” He leaned forward, so close that I could smell the liquor on his breath. “You know what is underneath the wax?”

I shook my head.

“The dead person's skull.”

A shiver went down my spine. “Really?”

Jacques shrugged. “That is what he told me.”

“But if you made some of the figures, you must know for sure.”

“Her son taught me how to sculpt with wax. I worked on the figure of Lord Byron. All I know is, we did not use Lord Byron's skull.” He downed another gulletful of bourbon.

His words were becoming slurred and indistinct now, the way Otto's did when his voice box needed work. But I was determined to learn as much as I could, while he was in a talking mood. “How long were you with her?”

“Quoi?”

“How long did you work for Madame?”

“
Je ne sais pas.
A year,
peut-être
.”

“Why did you come to America?”

He paused with the bottle halfway to his lips and glared at me. “Have I ever told you that you ask too many questions?”

“Many times.”

“Well, it is true.” I feared that was the end of our conversation. But after another swallow of whiskey he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and murmured, “Something happened. An accident. The
gendarmes
were after me. Mr. Maelzel helped me to escape.” Unexpectedly, he let out a hoarse laugh. “He had to smuggle me onto the ship. Can you guess where he hid me?”

I'm sure you have no trouble guessing, and neither did I. “Inside the Turk.”

He nodded, and his long hair fell over his face. “
Il n'était pas difficile
, once I took off my legs.”

I could also guess what sort of “accident” would have the police after him. Mulhouse's claim, that Jacques was wanted for murder, was apparently true—not that I'd ever doubted it. He seemed harmless enough now. He took one more swig of bourbon and then slowly sagged sideways, like a wax figure melting in the heat. I snatched the bottle from his hand just in time to prevent it drenching the bed.

In reality, there wasn't enough heat in the room to melt a block of ice, let alone a wax figure. December in Richmond was certainly more pleasant than December in Philadelphia, but the temperature often fell below freezing. At night I could pile on more blankets, but in the daytime, my new outfit didn't keep my scrawny frame nearly warm enough.

On my next afternoon off, I returned to Mr. Tindle's pawnshop and endured more of his puns while I picked out a woolen greatcoat roomy enough to fit over my back brace. I could afford a decent one; we were drawing such good crowds that Maelzel was actually paying me regularly.

As I handed Mr. Tindle the money for the coat, I thought of how Virginia had haggled with him on my behalf. Apparently he remembered, too. “I haven't seen your friend Miss Clam lately.”

“She's not my friend,” I muttered.

“Oh? I'm sorry.”

I pulled the coat close around me. “So am I.”

As I trudged back along Broad Street, I spotted—Oh, dear; I hate to even say the words, since I've worn them out already, but I don't know how else to put it: I spotted a
familiar figure
heading my way. No doubt you're thinking, Well, it can't be Virginia; that would be too much of a coincidence. It must be the Woman in Black. Or perhaps Mrs. Fisher—assuming she's
not
the Woman in Black. It can't be Mademoiselle Bouvier, since she's not a familiar figure. It could conceivably be Mulhouse. Or maybe it's Poe.

No, coincidence or not, I'm afraid it was Virginia. My heart thumped so hard it seemed to rattle my back brace. I made a quick detour to the other side of the street. I thought I had avoided her until I felt a tug on the sleeve of my coat and heard her voice, which sounded as sweet and childlike as ever. “Rufus? I almost didn't recognize you, all wrapped up in your coat that way.”

I barely glanced at her. “What do you want?”

“Just to apologize. Well, and to explain—or try to.” She shivered. “Can we go somewhere warmer?”

In my bitter mood I almost said,
How about the exhibition hall? You could get a really good look at the Turk.
But I didn't; I simply shrugged—as well as I could, anyway, in my back brace and heavy wool coat.

She took my arm, just as if we were still friends. “I was on my way to Mr. Tindle's to redeem some of our silverware, but it can wait.” She led me to the Swan Tavern, where she ordered coffee for us. Aside from the woman at the bar, Virginia was the only female in the place.

“Are you sure you're allowed in here?”

“Of course. Eddy brings me here all the—” She broke off and stared down at her coffee mug. “I'm sorry. You don't want to hear about Eddy, I'm sure.”

“You're right,” I said. But I couldn't help asking, “Are you married to him?”

“I told you about that.”

“But was it the truth?”

“I always tell the truth.” She gave a rueful smile. “Just not necessarily
all
of it.”

“You let me think we were friends.”

“We are. Well, we could have been.”

I shook my head. “If you hadn't wanted to know about the Turk, we never would have met.”

She lowered her gaze again. “No. I suppose not. I really am sorry, Rufus. I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just that . . . well, Eddy—Mr. Poe—has done so much for me and Mama. When he asked me to do this, I couldn't refuse him. He's very curious about practically every subject under the sun, and I thought this was just one more thing. I had no idea he meant to write about it in
The Messenger.
”

“The Messenger?”
I had assumed he'd sell the story to the newspaper. Maybe it wasn't so bad, after all. “I don't suppose many people read this magazine of his?”

“Well, actually, yes. I think it has several thousand subscribers.”

“Several
thousand
?” And if he did a piece about the Turk, that would guarantee him even
more
readers. I sank my head into my hands. “Oh, Lud. Maelzel is going to kill me.”

“But it wasn't your fault.”

“I was the one who let you in the hall.”

“Does Mr. Maelzel know that?”

“It's not too hard to figure out.”

She laid a hand on mine. Without her white gloves, her skin felt as cold as that of the plaster Venus. “I'm sorry, Rufus, truly I am.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“You can be very persuasive. Persuade Mr. Poe not to print the piece.”

She smiled faintly. “All right. I'll try. But I don't know if it'll do any good. He says he has to increase the magazine's readership, or he'll be out of a job.”

After several more anxious weeks went by, I began to hope that Virginia had successfully worked her wiles on her cousin. Then, one afternoon in January, Poe turned up unannounced. Jacques and Mr. Moody had gone to lunch together—I could just imagine how sullen and silent that scene would be—and Maelzel and I were draping cloths over the exhibits, to hide them from museum visitors. Maelzel didn't glance up at the intruder; he just gestured and said brusquely, “The museum is in those two rooms.”

“It's Mr. Poe,” I whispered.

“The devil take him,” muttered Maelzel. But he greeted the man in a civil, even friendly fashion. No doubt he was hoping Poe would give us some free publicity in the newspaper or in his magazine. I, of course, was fervently praying that he wouldn't. As they talked, I went about my work, but I made sure my tasks kept me within earshot.

“I've attended your exhibition several times—” Poe was saying.

“Six times, in fact,” said Maelzel.

“—and each time I'm struck by how fascinated people are with the chess automaton. I have to admit, I share that fascination.”

“Some might even call it an obsession,” Maelzel suggested wryly.

Poe ignored the comment. “From my observations, I've drawn a number of conclusions about the Turk. I've expounded upon them at some length in this article—” He produced a folded manuscript from the inside pocket of his topcoat. “—which I plan to publish in April, in the
Southern Literary Messenger.
”

Maelzel gave what might pass for a tolerant smile; I thought it looked a little strained. “Ah, yet another in a long string of half-baked theories about how the Turk operates.”

Poe's smile was more confident—haughty, almost. “In all modesty, sir, I have to say that this one is fully baked. As you'll see, I've approached the matter the way a scientist might; I've laid out all the evidence, point by point, and then made my deductions from that evidence.” He handed the manuscript to Maelzel, who regarded it as if it were a day-old fish that had begun to smell.

“What do you expect me to do with this?”

“I thought it only fair to allow you a chance to respond, to point out any flaws in my logic—though I doubt that you'll find many.”

Maelzel laughed humorlessly. “Do not be so sure, Mr. Poe. I expect that I shall demolish your theory as easily as my machine demolished you at chess.”

He had clearly struck Poe in a sore spot. The man's pale face went so hard, it might have been carved from wood. “It was no machine that defeated me, sir. It was a flesh and blood player.” And for the first time, Poe looked in my direction.