The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel (51 page)

He began to circle me--just as I had circled him in that hotel room and so many others in the old days--weaving loops round the guilty. Even his voice was beginning to sound like mine: the lilting rise and fall, the soft press of statements. An homage! I thought.

"We come now," said Poe, "to the other party with designs on Leroy Fry. Let us provisionally name him, oh, Augustus. This second party, having been interrupted in his deathly errand, though not before its successful resolution, steals back to his delightful little cottage in, let us say, Buttermilk Falls. He takes some solace in the fact that despite being surprised during his crime, he has escaped unnoticed. He is all the more shocked, therefore, to be summoned back to West Point the very next day. Indeed, he might reasonably conclude he has been apprehended, eh, Landor?"

Yes, I wanted to say. Yes. He would believe that. The whole way to West Point, he would be saying his prayers, to a God he doesn't credit.

"We can scarcely conceive his shock," Poe continued, "when the second party, provisionally named Augustus, learns that in the intervening hours, the dead man's body has been most horribly mutilated. Not only has this ancillary crime provided Augustus with an extraordinary cover for his own act, but it has even prompted the West Point authorities to seek his assistance in finding the evildoers. What a turn of events is this! He must think God himself is on his side."

"I don't think he's under that illusion."

"Well, God or the Devil, there is a providence working in his behalf, for it sends him Sylvanus Thayer, does it not? Our Augustus is forthwith placed at the head of the Leroy Fry inquiry. He is given carte blanche to roam the Point at will. He is granted official investiture, passwords, and paroles. He is able to go anywhere and talk to anyone he likes. He may, as it were, close the noose round his other victims and strike as soon as he sees his chance.

"And all the while, this second party, this Augustus, may essay the role of the brilliant investigator, whose infallible instincts and purely natural intelligence enable him to solve the very crimes he himself has committed."

He stopped circling. His eyes sparkled like fish scales.

"And as a result of his cunning, the members of that unfortunate first party, whom we will provisionally call Lea and Artemus Marquis, will forever go down as murderers."

"Oh," I said easily, "there's no "forever' about it. They'll be forgotten just like the rest of us."

All the pretense, all the indirection vanished in that instant. He came straight at me, his hand clenched by his side. Ready to strike, I'm sure of it, but at the last moment, he grabbed for the weapon he had always been most comfortable with: words. Leaned over and jammed them in my ear.

"I shall not forget them," he hissed. "I shall not forget that you dragged their names through the gutter."

"They did a fine job all by themselves," I answered.

He took a step away, flexing his fingers as though he really had thrown a punch. "Nor shall I forget how you played the rest of us for fools. Me in particular. I was your prize fool, was I not, Landor?"

"No," I said, looking straight at him. "You were the one I was to deliver myself to all along. I knew that from the moment I met you. And here we are."

And because Poe had nothing to say to that, the recital came to a close. He sank back into the settee, and his arms flopped to his side, and he stared into space.

"Oh, my manners!" I cried. "May I fix you up with a whiskey, Poe?"

The slightest tensing in his joints.

"Don't worry," I said. "You can watch me pour the drinks. I'll even take the first sip, how's that?"

"You needn't."

I poured a couple of fingers for him, a couple more for me. I remember watching myself with some interest. Noting, for instance, that my hands never shook as they poured. Never spilled so much as a drop.

I gave him his glass, and I sat down with my glass, and I warmed myself a little in the silence. It was the kind of quiet that used to spill over us in the hotel room sometimes, when all the talk was exhausted, and the bottle was nearly finished, and there was nothing left to say or do.

But I couldn't make it last this time. I had to break it.

"If you want me to say I'm sorry, Poe, I will. Although I don't think "sorry' would begin to cover it."

"I don't want your apologies," he said stiffly .

He twirled his glass slowly in his hand, watching the light from the window bounce and scatter.

"You might clear up a few questions for me," he said. "If it's no trouble."

"No trouble at all," I said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he examined me. Wondering, maybe, how far he could go.

"The note that was found in Fry's hand," he ventured. "From whom did Fry think he was receiving it?"

"Patsy, of course. He was always rather sweet on her. I was a bit careless not to take the note back from him, but as you say, I was in a hurry."

"The sheep and the cows, they were your doing as well?"

"Of course. I knew that if I was going to kill the other two men, I'd have to take out their hearts--to make it look like the work of satanists."

"And give yourself cover," he added.

"Exactly. And, since I didn't have Artemus' training, I had to practice on some other specimens first." I took a swig, swallowed it in stages. "Although I must say, there's nothing prepares you for carving one of your own species."

The sound, I mean, of a saw cutting open human flesh. The splintering of bone, the sluggardly motion of dead blood. The tininess of that swaddled bundle inside the rib cage. It's not an easy business, no--not a clean business.

"And of course, you planted the cow's heart in Artemus' trunk," Poe said.

"Yes," I admitted. "But Lea outfoxed me. She left that bomb, you see, just outside his door. Gave her brother a very nice alibi."

"Ah, but in the end, you were still able to extract a confession from Artemus, weren't you? In return for sparing his sister. That must have been why you went to the icehouse alone instead of calling for Captain Hitchcock. You didn't want truth; you wanted a conviction."

"Well," I said. "If I'd taken the time to go to Hitchcock, I might not have been able to save you."

He pondered that for a while. Stared into his glass. Licked his teeth.

"And you would have let Artemus hang for your murders?" he asked.

"Oh, I think not. Once Stoddard was taken care of, I'd have figured out something. I like to think so, at least."

He drained the last dregs of his whiskey. And when I offered him more, he surprised me by declining. For once, I think, he wanted to be in full control of his faculties.

"You learned of Ballinger's involvement from Fry's diary?" he asked.

"Of course."

"So all those transcribed pages you were feeding to Captain Hitchcock every morning... ?"

"Oh, they were the real article," I said. "They just had a few missing items in them."

"And among those missing items was Ballinger's name. And Stoddard's."

"Yes."

"Ballinger," he repeated, his face newly troubled. "Did he... when you... did he confess to you?"
"Under duress, yes. Fry, too. They both recalled her name. The name of the hostess that night. They even recalled what Mattie was wearing. They told me a good many things, but they drew the line at betraying their comrades. Nothing would make them do that."

"I won't tell," they'd said, as though they'd been drilled for the occasion. "I won't tell."

"Well," I said, snorting the memory away. "It would've saved me a great deal of time and effort if they had told me, but I guess their--their gentlemen's code wouldn't permit it."

The skin hung in light folds now from Poe's ashy face.

"Only Stoddard," he muttered. "Only Stoddard, it seems, has escaped your justice."

And that was my fault, I wanted to say, but I didn't. You may not credit it, Reader, but of all the things I did in the name of love and hate, of all the things I regret and wish undone, there is one thing that embarrasses me more than anything. That I tipped my hand. That having found Stoddard's name in Fry's diary, I made the mistake of going straight to the mess hall for the sole purpose of laying eyes on the man I would soon kill. I was marking him, I guess, as I'd marked Fry himself in the tavern that long-ago night. Except that I could no longer dam up my feelings as before. Stoddard raised his eyes to mine and saw what was in them... and knew he was done for. And fled.

"You're right," I said. "Stoddard's gone, and I haven't the will or the strength to chase him down. I can only hope he'll spend the rest of his miserable life looking over his shoulder."

He looked at me then. Trying, I think, to find the man he'd once known.

"It was a terrible thing they did," he said, groping his way back, testing each word like a loose floorboard. "An appalling, a savage thing, yes, but you, Landor... you are a man of Law."

"The hell with Law," I said calmly. "Law didn't save Mattie. It didn't bring her back. Law means nothing to me now, God's or man's."

Poe began to carve the air with his hands. "But from the moment your daughter was injured, you might have gone straight to the West Point authorities. You might have made your case to Thayer, secured confessions..."

"I didn't want them to confess," I said. "I wanted them to die."

He bent his glass to his lips, realized it was empty, set it down again. Sank back in his chair.

"Well," he said in a gentle voice, "I thank you for enlightening me, Landor. If you don't mind, I have but one question remaining for you."

"By all means."

He didn't speak right off. And by this silence, I came to believe we had arrived at the crux of something.

"Why did you turn on me?" he asked. "Of all people, why me?"

I frowned into my drink. "As long as you were partial to me," I said, "you would never see the truth."

He nodded, several times in succession, and each time, his chin sank a little lower.

"And now that I see," he said, "what now?"

"Well, that depends on you, Poe. By the fact that you've come alone, I take it you haven't yet told anyone else."

"What if I had?" he asked, gloomy as a church. "You have covered your tracks too well. All I have is a pair of notes that might have been scrawled by anybody, and a ridiculous poem."

It was still lying there on the table, that ridiculous poem. The creases were etched across it, the blackened letters rising from the page. I ran my finger slowly around the border.

"I'm sorry," I said, "if I made you think badly of it. I'm sure Mattie liked it."

He coughed out a bitter laugh.

"She should like it," he said. "She wrote it."

I had to smile myself.

"You know, Poe, I often wish she'd run into you the night of that ball. She loved Byron, too. She would have been glad to hear you go on. Oh, it's true, you might have talked her to death, but otherwise, she'd have been quite safe in your hands. And who knows? We might have become a family indeed."

"Instead of what we are."

"Yes."

Poe pressed his hands against his brow. A sound came through his slackened mouth.

"Oh, Landor," he said. "I think you've broken my heart more--more comprehensively than anyone else."

I nodded. Set my drink down and rose to my feet.

"Then you may have your revenge," I said.

I could feel his eyes following me as I went to the hearth and reached into the marble vase and drew out the old flintlock. Ran my hand along the smoothbone barrel.

Poe began to rise. Then fell back.

"It's not loaded," he said warily. "You told me it just makes noise."

"I've since filled it with some balls from the West Point arsenal. Delighted to say it's still in working condition."

I held it out to him like the gift it was.

"If you'd be so kind," I said.

His eyes were scrambling in their sockets.

"Landor."

"Pretend it's a duel."

"No."

"I'll stand very still," I said. "You needn't worry. And when you're done, you may simply drop the pistol and--and close the door on your way out."

"Landor, no."

I lowered the flintlock to my side. I did my best to smile.

"The thing is, Poe, I won't go to the gallows. I've seen too many hangings in my career. The drop is never quick enough, the noose tends to give. The neck never breaks clean. A fellow may swing for hours before he dies. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather..."

Once again, I held the pistol out to him.

"It's the last favor I'll ask," I said.

He was standing just a few feet away now, touching the ramrod just beneath the barrel...

Very slowly, as if he were already recollecting the moment, he shook his head.

"Landor," he said. "That's the coward's way, you know that."

"I am a coward."

"No. A good many things, but not that."

My voice was weakening now. It could scarcely climb from my throat.

"You'd be doing me a mercy," I whispered.

He looked at me with great tenderness, I will always remember that. He hated to disappoint.

"But you see, I am no angel, Landor, to be dispensing mercy. You must take it up with another authority." He rested his hand on my arm. "I'm very sorry, Landor."

With heavy cadenced steps, he gathered his cloak (still with its torn shoulder) and made his way to the door. He turned and looked one last time at--at me, with my useless pistol hanging by my side. He said:

"I shall treasure..." But he couldn't finish his sentence. Stuck for words! the silver-tongued Poe. All he said in the end was:

"Good-bye, Landor."

Narrative of Gus Landor

43

December 1830 to April 1831

The truth is, Reader, I was a coward. Otherwise, I would have done it the moment Poe closed the door on me. Followed the lead of all those Greek and Roman ancients, snuffing out their candles at the first hint of scandal. But I couldn't.

I began to wonder then if there might not be a reason I'd been spared. And so, by stages, I came to this idea of setting it all down, as best I could, laying out the document of my crimes and letting justice rain down as it will.