Doppelgänger (22 page)

On Friday, December 3, 1880, a plain black carriage drawn by a single horse and driven by a man called Francis Dugan pulled up outside the Grand Central Depot on East 42nd Street in New York and waited for nearly three quarters of an hour. The 12:10 from Newport, on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, was delayed. It was snowing softly and very cold. A swarthy-looking gentleman in a well-tailored green suit, black frock coat and tall silk hat waited patiently in the carriage. Dugan, a footman in the employ of the Minthorn family, smoked cigars and blew into his hands as he waited.

At long last, amidst a stream of passengers exiting the terminal, two figures came toward the carriage. One was a maid named Deborah Parmly, and on her arm hobbled a frail fiftyish woman in black widow's weeds. A porter behind them wheeled a cart stacked with three trunks. Evelyn de Coster Quain seemed heedless of everything: the snow, the cold wind, the bustle of carriages and horses around her. It took a long time for her to reach the Minthorn carriage, and when she did the man in the green suit got out and carefully helped her up into it while Dugan loaded the trunks onto the rear of the carriage.

It was a few minutes past one o'clock in the afternoon when the carriage finally began rolling. Dugan turned the horse left, down Madison Avenue, and began heading south. His destination, 11 West 38th Street, was barely more than a third of a mile away from Grand Central Depot as the crow flew.

Just as the carriage passed the corner of Madison and East 41st Street, two men wearing dark suits and identical bowler hats rushed across the street from the corner where they'd been standing, smoking and stamping their feet. They descended upon the carriage. One of the men, the shorter one, drew a pistol; the taller man, whose mouth was strangely crooked in his face, yanked a Bowie knife from his jacket. The shorter thug held the pistol on the driver, who froze, his hands raised. The man with the crooked mouth wrenched open the carriage door. The woman in black inside the carriage screamed.

“Get back! I have a gun!” shouted Lucius Minthorn. In fact he did not, but the man with the Bowie knife lunged, slashing at him. He missed, the blade of the Bowie knife tearing the quilted upholstery. Minthorn's hand was still in his jacket. Fearing he was drawing a Derringer, the man with the crooked mouth reared back with the knife and stabbed Minthorn brutally in the side. The millionaire gasped—his lung was punctured—and crumpled against the inside corner of the carriage. His hand, empty, fell out of his jacket pocket.

By now the men had already violated their orders, for Minthorn was not to be touched. Though he was still gasping for breath Piker Ryan knew the wound was mortal. He didn't hesitate; they could leave no witnesses to identify them. “Hit 'em!” he shouted at his companion, but his words went unheard over the screaming of the maid and the woman in the black widow's weeds. “Shut up!” he cried, plunging the knife into the woman in black. She fell into a bloody heap of black muslin on the floor of the carriage. The maid, who'd decided to save herself, flung open the opposite door of the coach and staggered out. Ryan tried to stab her too but the Bowie knife caught her across the lower back. She collapsed to the street, screaming.

“Hit 'em!” Ryan repeated. A moment later the shorter man pulled the trigger, blasting Dugan backwards onto the driver's seat. Ryan plunged the Bowie knife into the widow one more time for good measure but the utter lack of reaction told him she was already dead. He knew he should have finished the maid, but there was no time. He heard Clops shout
“Coppers! Coppers!”
Ryan leaped out of the carriage and the two men ran away down 41st Street, eventually splitting in opposite directions.

The police caught neither of them. At the scene of the bloody carriage attack there was only one survivor, the maid Deborah Parmly. She crawled away from the carriage, leaving a trail of blood in the snow-covered street, screaming
“Help me! Help me!”
She was inching toward the nearest house which happened to be owned by a minor son of the Astor family. With another policeman and the butler from the Astor house rushing toward her she fell unconscious. Had the edifice of the Astor house in front of them not blocked their view, the witnesses to the scene could have seen, distantly in the snow-hazed air, the roof of the building on 38th Street that contained the house where the woman in black who now lay dead on the floor of the carriage had once lived.

Hundreds of miles away, in the atrium of Lucretia Atherton's winter house in St. Augustine, at the moment the attack began Anine's hands began to quiver and quake uncontrollably. She was reading a book and reaching for a cup of tea, but both immediately fell to the floor.
It's happening!
she realized with horror, not knowing exactly what calamity was occurring, but certain that something terrible was going on at this instant. She rose from the settee on which she'd been sitting and lurched toward the wall and the bell cord. She didn't make it. “Miss Wicks!” she cried. Anine's foot slipped in the puddle of wet tea on the red tile floor and she went sprawling.
“Miss Wicks! Clea!”
A sharp dagger of pain plunged into her chest, and then another seized her left shoulder. Gasping in sudden agony, her vision clouded. With an outstretched hand she reached for the end table now looming above her, but could only grasp the edge of the knit cloth that covered it. As she lost consciousness she pulled the cover off the table, dumping its contents to the floor. The sharp sound of the tea set shattering occurred at the precise second of Mrs. Quain's death. After that all was blackness.

Anine awakened on a chaise longue in the rear parlor of Lucretia's house. A kind-faced doctor with a bald head and thick white whiskers was just folding up his bag. Clea Wicks sat over her placing a warm damp cloth on her forehead. Two white women—it took Anine a moment to recognize Lucretia Atherton and Rachael Norton—stood behind the doctor. Lucretia was vexed, her hands tightly clasped. Rachael, wearing a dark blue velvet dress, looked upon the scene with a cold and emotionless gaze.

“I think she'll be all right,” said the doctor. “A sudden loss of blood to the head. Make sure she gets plenty of rest. No exertion for several days.”

“Can she travel?” said Rachael.

“Out of the question. At least not for a week or so.” The white-haired doctor nodded in Lucretia's direction. “Ma'am,” he said pleasantly, and then took his leave.

Anine tried to sit up. “What happened?” There was no pain but a strange woozy cloud hung in the center of her head.

Clea gently pushed her back down on the chaise longue. “You stay put, Miss Anine,” she said. “You mind what the doctor says.”

The pain—it was so sharp, so terrible.
The memory of the fear was equally compelling. Whatever she'd been dreading since she read Julian's telegram had obviously taken place. “Will someone please tell me what's going on?” She tried to make her voice sound as sharp and commanding as possible. “Something's happened, hasn't it?”

“We mustn't upset Anine,” said Lucretia, but she seemed to be talking to Rachael more than anyone else.

Rachael dismissed her. “Nonsense,” she retorted. “If you'll not tell her, I will.” She stepped over to the chaise longue and knelt down so her face was level with Anine's. “Something terrible has happened back in New York. Oakley received a telegram from his mother an hour ago. Lucius Minthorn is dead.”

Anine's head spun even faster. Even without knowing anything more she could sense that this had something to do with the doppelgänger. “Lucius Minthorn? Dead?” She shifted, not quite sitting up—for Clea was still hovering imperiously over her—but more upright than she had been. “What happened?”

“Robbed in his carriage on Madison Avenue in broad daylight. It's monstrous.” Rachael suddenly leaned closer to Anine. In a whisper she said,
“Mrs. Quain was with him. She was killed too.”

In a rush of terrific clarity Anine suddenly understood everything.
Julian murdered her
.
It can't be a coincidence. He caused this to happen. He still wants the house—and he eliminated Mrs. Quain to get it
. That it was a long-prepared plot was obvious. He'd even sent her here, to St. Augustine, to get her out of town so she couldn't interfere with his plans. That could be the only explanation.

Rachael seemed to understand this. She stood up and looked at Clea. “How soon can you have Mrs. Atherton's belongings packed, along with your own?”

Clea shrugged. “An hour, maybe.”

“Well, do it.” Rachael turned to Lucretia. “I'm bringing Anine and her maid to my suite at the Seminole-Ritz.”

“That's completely unnecessary,” Lucretia protested. “Besides, the doctor said—”

“To hell with what the doctor said! I'm bringing Anine to my hotel. That's final. There will be no argument.”

“Why would you want to bring her there?”

“She is not safe here.”

“That's absurd.” To Clea, who was just then exiting the room, Lucretia called, “Miss Wicks, stop.”

“What do you want, Anine?” Rachael said implicitly. “Do you want to come with me or stay here?”

All eyes were upon her.
It's more than just the decision of whether or not go to the hotel
, she realized.
If I go with Rachel, I'm breaking with Julian—that's what I think this means
.

It wasn't a hard decision. Although she knew next to nothing about what had happened in New York, even the supposition that Julian was behind it was alarming enough to cause her not to feel secure in Lucretia's house.
If I leave he'll know he can't control me
. This was perhaps an important message to send now.

Lucretia looked indignant. Her mouth a taut line, she stood before the chaise longue and said coldly: “If you leave here, Mrs. Atherton, you will never be received again in my house, neither here in St. Augustine nor in New York.”

“Miss Wicks, please pack my things,” said Anine. She swung her legs over the side of the chaise longue and brought herself up into a sitting position.

Lucretia Atherton seemed surprised but her stony mask of disapprobation did not break. Anine saw her throat move as she swallowed hard. With as much dignity as she could muster, Lucretia slowly turned and began to walk toward the door of the parlor. The coldness in her manner acknowledged what Anine was grimly certain had just happened: she had finally placed herself on record against her husband, and perhaps in doing so had just broken out of the circle of snubbing and ostracism.

Unfortunately, Anine's certainty that she had done the right thing began to unravel almost the moment she left Lucretia's house. She did not feel liberated; in fact, she felt more trapped than ever.

Chapter Seventeen

The Bleeding

“New Orleans or Savannah,” said Rachael Norton insistently. “Those are the two Southern ports most likely to have ships sailing for Europe in this season. New Orleans will have more choices for ships, but Savannah's closer and easier to get to from here by railway. Whichever one you choose, I'll come with you and see you safely aboard.”

They were sitting in Rachael's suite at the Seminole-Ritz. The window was open and a sunny tropical breeze gently lifted the thin curtains. On the table in front of Anine next to the tea tray was the morning's newspaper. As Rachael predicted, the headlines—even in the Florida papers—were shrill and panicky about what had happened in New York:

L. MINTHORN, REAL ESTATE TYCOON, AMBUSHED AND MURDERED

ON MILLIONAIRES' ROW IN MANHATTAN

SHOCKING DETAILS OF THE INFAMOUS CRIME LEAKING IN FROM NEW YORK

“With all due respect, ma'am,” said Clea, who sat on the couch opposite Anine, “I'd rather not try to find work in New Orleans
or
Savannah. There was a reason I left the South.”

“I'll make arrangements for you to get back to New York,” Anine replied. “And I'll write you a very handsome letter of recommendation.”

“There's no need,” said Rachael, looking at Clea. “I'll bring you back to New York myself. If you're as good as Anine says you are I'll quite happily employ you.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“Well, that's settled. Where are we going, Anine? New Orleans or Savannah?”

She was troubled.
Am I ready for this? My mother hasn't heard from me even once since I left Sweden. What will happen when I suddenly show up on her doorstep without so much as a warning that I'm coming?
Something about the newspaper report bothered her. She reached for the paper and unfolded it but did not re-read the shocking story. She'd already read it numerous times.
Minthorn's carriage ambushed by robbers on Madison Avenue. It sounds so random.
The only mention of Mrs. Quain in the story was the afterthought-sounding addition that “Minthorn's sister-in-law, who accompanied him in the carriage, also perished.” Some part of her was sure that Julian was behind it, but could there be another explanation? It need not be pure coincidence—perhaps it was some sort of supernatural convergence, an ugly burst of violence somehow brought on by the
spöke
itself?

Shouldn't I at least talk to Julian before doing this? Just to satisfy myself that I really am doing the right thing by leaving?

“I…I'm not sure,” she said.

Rachael looked impatient. “You're not having second thoughts, are you?”

“No. I just feel like…” Her voice trailed off and it took her a moment to find it again. “I feel like I owe it to Julian to explain myself. Rushing off to Europe is irrevocable. Am I really in so much danger here? What's going to happen to me here in St. Augustine if I wait a couple of days?”

“Anine, this is your chance to be free of him! You must leave now, before he comes looking for you. Don't you want to be rid of him? You'll never have a better opportunity.”

She looked at Clea. Her friend's face was characteristically blank and inscrutable. “What do you think I should do?”

Clea shrugged. “Go where you feel safe. If that's Sweden, go there. If you feel safe here, stay here. I work for you. It's no matter to me where you go, so long as I got an eye out for you.”

Anine had a curious flashback, to a time long ago when she first entertained Julian in her family's houses in Stockholm and on Lake Vänern. That was the wonderful Julian, the kind and interesting and fun Julian who she'd dreamed about even when she was betrothed to Ola Bergenhjelm. Was it not the house—the
spöke
—who turned him into the monster she now felt compelled to run away from? If the doppelgänger was gone, as she was sure it must be now that Mrs. Quain was dead, was there not at least a hope for some sort of reconciliation?

Two thoughts, related to one another, flickered through her mind.
What if it was the spöke that killed Mrs. Quain?
Did the doppelgänger, living alone and in agony in the house, finally decide that it was time to end its own misery and thus somehow contrived the random attack by the robbers to bring closure to its own pain? The newspaper article had been precise as to where the attack happened: the place it described was three blocks from the house, and the attack indubitably occurred just before Mrs. Quain was due to set foot in it again. The
spöke
, she guessed, might have clouded the minds of two random thugs seeking to roll rich dandies on Madison Avenue and driven them to a murderous attack. The doppelgänger was capable of almost anything.

Or, if it was as she and obviously Rachael Norton suspected—that Julian was directly behind the attack, perhaps having paid off two thugs to ambush the carriage—might that too somehow be the work of the
spöke
? Could it have driven him to do this monstrous thing, enlisting Julian as the agent of its own suicide? Julian had raped Anine, abused her, treated her abominably and with shocking disrespect; yet somehow she blanched at the notion of him being capable of outright murder. She thought of something he'd screamed while the doppelgänger assaulted him.
“Parmenter killed the Indian. I was trying to stop him.”
She did not know who Parmenter was but this statement seemed to indicate that the Indian whose form the
spöke
assumed had not died at Julian's hands. If that was true his guilt at seeing the specter stemmed not from having caused the man's death but from having failed in his attempt to prevent it. He had a conscience. The
spöke
could have manipulated him into ignoring it.

She stood up and went to the window. In a few moments she made her decision. “Savannah,” she said, and added nothing more.
But I'll wire Julian first
, she thought, and carefully decided not to tell Rachael about this part of her plan.

“There's an afternoon train,” said Rachael. “Two o'clock, I think. It's almost noon now. Between Miss Wicks and my maid we can probably get our belongings packed up in time.”

Anine looked out the window at the sand and the glinting Atlantic waves. Despite the horrible way Mrs. Quain died she wondered if the troubled woman was at peace now. She hoped so.

That afternoon, Anine sent the following wire from the Western Union telegraph office adjacent to the St. Augustine rail depot:

Dear J. Heard of the horrible attack in New York. Am shocked and afraid. Many questions and fears. Some about you. Am going to Savannah. Not alone. If my fears are not resolved I will sail for Sweden in few days. Cannot live like this.
Beklagar
[sorry]
. A.

Upon her arrival at the railway station in Savannah, she was handed this telegram in reply:

Cannot say all that needs to be said over telegraph wire. Can answer questions and fears. Will be leaving for Savannah in A.M. If you ever loved me you will not sail for Sweden until we have talked. I do love you always have. Wire me name of your hotel in Savannah.
Karlek
[love]
J.

She remained, of course. What else could she do? There was a ship, the
S.S. Patuxent
, sailing for Liverpool on Wednesday the 8th, but when Anine sent Clea to the steamship office to inquire she found the vessel was lightly-booked and there was no urgency to buy her ticket yet. The two days she spent at the Marshall House hotel, sitting on a verandah watching carriages come and go along Savannah's elegant gas-lit streets, were both empty and anxious. She turned over and over again in her mind the possibilities of what might have happened and why. She found, curiously, the question that began to preoccupy her the most was this one:
Is the house quiet now?
Perhaps Julian didn't know, or he might lie to her and say that it was just to get her to return. But it was this slender chance—the chance that the house could finally be at peace, and that they
might
be able to resume their lives there on some normal basis—that kept her in Savannah and kept her hope alive.

“It's been so long since I've seen you,” he said, almost his first words upon meeting her, “that it feels very awkward. I'm sorry.”

They stood together on the porch of the Marshall House. Something about Julian looked different. His slightly awkward look, his red hair, his silly mustache: all were the same, but the look in his eyes was now calmer, more docile. Anine was too used to seeing those eyes flash with rage and fury; now he was quiescent and diminutive.

She wore her blue and yellow Princess dress and a small feathered hat, and carried her parasol against the sun that had just come out after nearly two days of dreary drizzle. “Let's walk in the square,” she suggested. “Savannah is full of such beautiful squares. This is the only city I've seen in America that
almost
looks like Stockholm.”

“That makes it sound like you're eager to return.”

She shrugged. For perhaps the first time in their entire marriage she felt as if she was in control. “Not until I've heard what you have to say.”

They walked among the trees along the brick-lined paths. Wrought-iron fences and wall-like hedges hid the façades of the Southern mansions that surrounded the square.

“I know what your fear is,” said Julian. “I'll tell you now that I had nothing to do with the attack. I was as horrified as anyone else. The police did interview me. In fact I went to them eagerly, hoping I could clear up any misunderstanding that might have arisen because of the bad blood between me and Mrs. Quain. I was at my office when it happened. I went to the police station straight away after the news broke. I showed them everything—the legal papers between myself and Minthorn, the notes we'd exchanged, everything. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered but I didn't want there to be any question. It was two thugs who did it, just two murderous thugs. They probably came from the Bowery or the Five Points. The police have scoured the rookeries looking for them, but no one's talking. Sadly they'll probably never solve it.”

He sounds sincere
, Anine thought,
but that means nothing. He's not above lying to me if it suits his purposes
. “It's so hard to believe. Happening three blocks from the house. You can't blame me for thinking that…” She did not want to sound as if she was accusing him. “…well, that it's not a coincidence.”

“I have done horrible things in my life, Anine. I admit that. I've done some of them to you, and for that I'm sorry. But I didn't do
this
. You know I couldn't have done this.”

“The Indian—did you kill him?”

Julian shook his head. “No. I was present when he was killed, though. I've felt guilty about it for four years. I should have told you and Dr. Dorr the whole truth. I was traveling across the country with two friends. One of them, a man called Parmenter, came into conflict with the Indian on the train. He shot him through the head. I was trying to stop it but I didn't act in time. I never saw Parmenter again after that night.”

This too sounded like the truth, and she suspected it was, but again it was hard to tell what it really meant.

“I think the doppelgänger had something to do with the attack,” she said. “Three blocks, and just before Mrs. Quain was to return there—it
has
to have been connected.”

“I've thought so too. I couldn't tell the police that, of course.”

“Why would the spirit want to prevent Mrs. Quain from coming back? It would seem the opposite would be true.”

“Who knows? Maybe it feared coming face-to-face with the missing part of its being. Maybe it hoped that somehow I would be blamed for killing her, or that I'd feel guilty about it, and it would be another way to torment us. Maybe it thought that if it killed her you'd accuse me and it would drive us apart. Or maybe it always intended to kill her, and you and I were just pawns in some game we can't even fathom. I know nothing about the supernatural. I don't
want
to know any more. I've had enough.”

I must know. There's nothing to be gained by obscuring the point anymore
.

“Julian, is it gone now? Have you been back to the house?”

He stopped walking. He looked at her seriously, his sea-green eyes trying to communicate as much sincerity as possible.

“I think so. I haven't stayed a night in the house since you left. I've been staying at the Grand Central Hotel. After the attack happened I was even more frightened. But I was also very curious. Two days ago, the day you wired from St. Augustine, I returned because I knew you'd ask what you just asked. I went alone—didn't bring Bryan or anyone else. I went inside just as it was getting dark. I lit the gas, I walked through the parlors, the bedrooms, everywhere that anything ever happened. There was nothing. Silence. And I couldn't feel anything. You know how when you're in the house it
feels
like something, like someone, is watching you? I couldn't feel anything. Except…well, for one thing.”

“What was that?”

He began walking again, and she kept pace with him. “Peace,” he said, in almost a sigh. “I felt a sense of peace, of tranquility. Maybe it was coming more from me than from anything outside of me. But it would make sense, especially if the doppelgänger somehow caused what happened to Mrs. Quain. Maybe it knew that killing her would finally bring it peace. That was what I think it wanted all along. Some sort of closure. Now it has it.”

Is he lying?
Anine honestly did not know. This was in many ways the hardest thing, that she didn't trust him,
couldn't
trust him. But again, how much of that mistrust was a result of the
spöke
, and not of Julian's own character? That question could not be answered in Sweden, or here in Savannah; indeed it couldn't be answered anywhere except for one particular address. Anine was astonished at herself that she was actually considering going back there.