The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Johanna was correct: the statues were ugly, and ridiculous; worst of all, pretentious. They could never invite their Princeton friends to visit Quatre Face until the old estate was, as Johanna said, revived.

  “But nothing can be done in any of our lives until it—the Curse—is lifted.”

  Thinking such thoughts, Pearce turned to re-enter the house—he saw an opened door, that led to his study; obviously, in a kind of sleepwalking trance, he’d come outside through that doorway—and at the top of a short flight of stone steps he paused, seeing—was it a horse-drawn carriage approaching Quatre Face, at such an hour of the night?

  “Another visitor? Impossible! A second unexpected—uninvited—guest?”

  Yet, Pearce hurried to greet the carriage, as it swung smartly along the front drive, and pulled up before the granite portico of the house; for, as he reasoned, none of his small staff of servants would be up at this time of night, and it fell to him to offer hospitality.

  “Yet, I’m sure we are expecting no one. Johanna would not dare invite anyone, without asking my permission.”

  So, we can imagine Pearce van Dyck’s astonishment, shading into awe, and a kind of dread, as a tall hawk-nosed gentleman in a Scotch plaid cape leapt down lightly from the carriage—a gentleman whose fame, no less than his striking physiognomy and figure, were already better known to the philosopher than his own mirror-likeness.

  For the unexpected and uninvited visitor was none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the world’s sole consulting detective.

  REMARKABLE AS THIS late-night visit was, and mysterious, the motive was quickly explained to Pearce van Dyck.

  Lounging with aristocratic insolence on the leather settee in Pearce’s study, the Englishman told his rapt American host that Conan Doyle, a companion of his from medical school days, had passed along Professor van Dyck’s several admiring letters to him, as well as his request for several monographs; and though “Sherlock Holmes” was certainly not lacking for clients in London, the situation in Princeton and environs, as it was set forth in the letters, struck him as irresistible. “So, Professor, I made the decision to sail from Liverpool as quickly as possible, with the possibly selfish hope,” the Englishman smilingly said, as he employed an antiquated iron tong to lift a glowing coal from the fireplace, to light his pipe, “that you wouldn’t have solved the mystery by your own devices, before I arrived!”

  At this, Pearce van Dyck blushed deeply; and murmured in confused embarrassment that, unfortunately, he had not solved the mystery; and found himself at an impasse. As to Mr. Holmes—

  “Excuse me, Professor: I am not ‘Holmes.’ ”

  “You are—not?”

  “Certainly not. ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is a fictitious character, and a pseudonym. My name is private, and will never be revealed, as Conan Doyle has promised.”

  The languid Englishman went on to explain that he both was, and was not, the “Sherlock Holmes” of the popular mystery stories. Unlike the glamorous Holmes, he was very much ensconced in terra firma, with “marital” responsibilities; an old, sprawling, quasi-ruin of a country estate inherited from English-Scots ancestors in Craigmire, in West Dorset, near Lyme Regis; and a “quite modest pied-à-terre” on Baker Street. “So erratic is my income as a very private consulting detective, I must supplement my income as a part-time pathologist at the University of London medical school; for I never completed my medical studies and got my degree, which youthful recklessness seems to me now a distinct mistake. In 1906 we are none of us quite so young and idealistic as we once were . . .” Shaking his head bemused, and drawing hard on his pipe, which Pearce noted was a straight pipe and not a calabash, as he’d have expected, the hawk-nosed Englishman said with a sigh, “How I wish that I were blessed with the freedom of ‘Sherlock Holmes’! Nothing would please me more, and exercise my talents better, than to be a full-time connoisseur of crime, and to ply my wits against the most brilliant criminals in the world. For I feel, like my friend Conan Doyle’s character ‘Sherlock,’ that the art of cerebral detection is the supreme art, and that beside it other human actions and divertissements appear rather pallid. A healthy mind does rebel at stagnation; and I am so ill-equipped for the common round of existence that I should soon go mad, or slash my throat, out of sheer boredom. If it were not for my private profession, how should I live? I glory, as you do, Professor, in mental stimulation—in the pursuit of Truth—in the most deeply absorbing of ratiocinative processes. And though I have been married for a number of years, in fact, in a ‘private’ sort of marriage, of which the world knows nothing, I’m inclined to believe, with my mythical alter ego, that the connubial life”—at this, the Englishman gestured condescendingly toward the interior of the house, enveloping, it seemed, all of Pearce van Dyck’s marital and domestic history—“indeed, the life of emotion and sentiment, is largely contemptible; and a sheer waste of time.”

  Shocking words! Pearce felt his heated face grow warmer still; and though he drew breath to rebut such a statement, he could think of no adequate words in defense of his position.

  For—was it true? The private life, the life of emotion and sentiment, was contemptible? A sheer waste of time?

  How embarrassed he would be, to confess to this elegant English gentleman that he had lately become a father . . . That is, his dear wife had lately had a baby, after years of having failed to become pregnant . . .

  Speaking in a cultivated drawl the Englishman continued along the same lines, sensitive to his American host’s social awkwardness, and awe in his presence: explaining that while his old classmate Doyle had greatly romanticized him, and given him “near-omnipotent” powers, as writers of fiction are wont to do, yet Doyle had more or less presented the essence of the detective’s personality—“Uncannily, in fact.” The author had even exposed certain habits of his which he’d hoped were known to himself only . . . (Here, “Holmes” quite surprised Pearce van Dyck by sliding up his sleeves to reveal lean, sinewy, and badly scarred forearms.) “My cocaine habit, you see—the injection of liquid cocaine into my bloodstream, until my more serviceable veins have dried up. This, I view with more alarm and remorse than Doyle suggests, rather irresponsibly, I think. An author must present a morally coherent universe, else he is likely to pervert the weaker and more vulnerable of his readers.” The Englishman sucked at his pipe rather contently, however. One could see that he quite liked Pearce van Dyck’s company, and may have been impressed, Pearce thought, at the size and style of Quatre Face, which appeared less weatherworn by moonlight; and its interior rooms, naturally darkened, less shabby. “Any man of rational principle would wish to be freed of addiction, surely—do you agree, Professor? I think you indicated that you were a ‘Kantian’—a very moral, very primly pious and Germanic philosopher, indeed.”

  Pearce wracked his brains for a suitable response, that might exhibit sympathy, yet some intelligent censure; for the Englishman seemed to invite this, as one friend might with another. But before he could speak, the Englishman continued to develop the parallels, and differences, between himself and the fictitious detective, which he believed might be of interest to his American admirer.

  So far as physical appearance went, he granted that he and Holmes were virtually twins: being six feet three inches tall, and weighing one hundred sixty pounds—thus “lean to the point of gauntness.” Yes, his chin was rather sharp, and his nose distinctly long and narrow; as to his eyes—whether they were “uncommonly keen and piercing,” he could not say. His hands were, indeed, stained indelibly with ink and chemicals; his clothing, more or less as Doyle described—“Though my spouse—my ‘partner,’ as it were—tries to dress me more fashionably, on our limited budget.” Yet, in other respects, the Englishman said, frowning, “my alleged hagiographer has rather libeled me. He knows that since boyhood I’ve been fascinated by the workings of the solar system yet, out of playfulness, he has turned my interest upside down, so that ‘Holmes’ is known as a man of genius who boasts of neither k
nowing nor caring what Copernican theory means!—and takes a haughty tone in rejecting the latest discoveries of science, except as they relate to his field. So narrow is the fictional ‘Holmes,’ scorning an interest in art, history, politics, and music apart from the occasional squeaking of his own fiddle—the man is just another English eccentric, which I rather resent.”

  Touched by such candor, Pearce van Dyck could only murmur a polite assent. Shyly then, for the gesture seemed belated, he offered his guest a small glass of brandy, which was accepted with a curt nod of the head, in thanks, and downed in a single shot.

  Pearce, meaning to mirror his guest, downed his glass in a single shot as well, but fell to choking, and coughing; at such length that his guest queried him, if he was all right—“Your cough is ‘bronchial,’ I think. Have you been ill?”

  Embarrassed, Pearce insisted that he had not been ill.

  “Your skin tone is rather sallow. Have you traveled to a tropical or sub-tropical place, within the past year?”

  “No . . .”

  “You haven’t had any sort of fever? Chills? Your eyes are just slightly jaundiced, I think.”

  “My eyes . . . ?”

  “Of course, I am not a doctor; I am not an M.D. I should not be ‘diagnosing’ in this way.”

  Pearce coughed again, not entirely able to clear his throat.

  “You have the sort of cough Welsh miners have, after years of working underground. I mean—the sound of your cough resembles theirs. Have you been in any place where ‘particles’ might be in the air—an asbestos or a fertilizer factory, for instance?”

  “No. I have not.”

  “Have you breathed in anything of unusual pungency? A very strong marsh gas, for instance?”

  “N-No . . .”

  Seeing that his host was being made uncomfortable by this line of interrogation, the Englishman relented, though reluctantly. Thwarted in this impromptu investigation he poured another brandy for himself, and drank it down; seemed to sink into a kind of torpor, staring into the smoldering fire; and allowed his pipe to go out. Hesitantly, Pearce ventured the opinion that, as Arthur Conan Doyle had presented his “essence” in the stories, perhaps that was all that mattered. Sherlock Holmes was known by the world for his genius, not for his trifling eccentricities. “It isn’t an exaggeration to say, sir, that ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is rapidly becoming one of the heroic figures of the day.”

  “Really! How bizarre.”

  The Englishman spoke in so languid a drawl it was impossible to judge whether he meant mockery or sincerity. Again he took up the fire tongs to light his pipe, laughing quietly to himself. “What vexes me in this matter, Professor van Dyck, is my own ambivalence. For while it seems self-evident to me that the art of criminal detection is, or should be, an exact science, freed from human emotion, at the same time I am frankly drawn to the ‘romance’ of Doyle’s portraiture. Watson, for instance, does not exist except as Conan Doyle himself, tagging after me as he’d done in school—a relief, as I could not endure him for an hour.”

  No Watson! Pearce thought this quite a disappointment.

  The Englishman sucked at his pipe, emitting clouds of malodorous smoke. In a whimsical voice he speculated that, were he not a detective-pathologist, he should have liked to be, like his friend Doyle, a literary man; though of a gravity surpassing Doyle. “To invent outlandish fables, precise as clockwork, yet, it’s hoped, not predictable; to disguise an old-fashioned Englishman’s sentiment in such prose, and a ‘case for morals’; to temper elaborate work as if it were but child’s play—this would seem to me a challenging adventure. For, I think, the writer of fiction is the supreme detective, delving not only into intricacies of fact but into those of motive as well, like a psychologist; exploring the individual, and illuminating the species. In any case, Professor van Dyck, I have no right to object to Doyle’s undertaking, and must learn to accept my fate as a ‘character’ in another’s imagination. Which brings us, Professor, to your problem.”

  Eagerly, Pearce showed his visitor the several charts comprising the Scheme of Clues, now so covered in tiny, spidery handwriting, and confused with a multitude of tacks, pins, beads, and the like, even the Englishman’s sharp eye faltered. Pearce attempted to explain the Curse, its history and (possible) origin; he attempted to explain the impasse at which he found himself. But he spoke in so excited a fashion, the Englishman asked him please to stop, and begin at the beginning. “There is nothing like chronology, my American friend, to put a brake on the soul’s impulse for headlong speed.”

  So, while the Englishman lounged on the settee with heavy-lidded eyes, quietly puffing at his pipe, Pearce spent an hour attempting to recount the several manifestations of the Curse, so far as he knew of them. He spoke of the “visitation” of ex-President Cleveland’s deceased daughter, and of the near-simultaneous appearance of the demon Axson Mayte, and the seeming “entrancement” of Annabel Slade at her own wedding . . . He spoke of Annabel’s disappearance for several months, and of her reappearance, and subsequent death-in-childbirth; he spoke of the “fantastical, but not discountable” rumors of her having given birth to a hideous black snake, that subsequently vanished. And there were other crimes—murders . . .

  At the mention of the black snake, the Englishman stirred, and opened his eyes as if rousing himself.

  Growing more excited by degrees, Pearce spread out the Scheme of Clues for the Englishman to see, as he delivered an impromptu lecture on its contents; he spoke of the “snake frenzy,” and of the “baffling” behavior of a young woman of good family who seemed to have been involved with a married man, the van Dycks’ very neighbor Horace Burr who, just recently, had murdered his invalid wife in her bed . . .

  By this time the Englishman had unwrapped his long lean frame and took up in his indelibly stained fingers the Scheme of Clues to examine it closely. Pearce felt a thrill of pride seeing the world’s most honored consulting detective considering his amateur findings, his high, fine brow now creased and his eyes, of the hue of washed glass, emitting a chill glow. How many minutes the Englishman spent in this posture, frowning and grimacing, and muttering to himself, Pearce could not judge; but one can estimate from the events that followed, it might have been as long as a half hour. All this while Pearce stood at the Englishman’s elbow, staring and blinking, mute with apprehension and hope.

  At last, when the suspense had grown near-intolerable, the Englishman took up one of Pearce’s fountain pens from his desk to make several broad slashes on the chart connecting singular points with other points, and turned to his stricken host with a playful smile.

  “It’s elementary, my dear friend—do you see?”

  But Pearce, though he tried, did not see. And badly wounded he was, by the peremptory way in which the English detective had slashed his elaborate graph and overwritten his intricate notes. Seeing the expression in the professor’s sallow face, and the strain in that face, the Englishman laid a hand on his shoulder to console him.

  “Your deductive powers, Professor, while impressive in an amateur, were not going to bring you to the answer, since you’d failed to make crucial connections between events. It was a brilliant discovery of yours to realize that ‘Axson Mayte’ is a demon; yet, for reasons I can’t grasp, having perhaps to do with American idolatry of European pretensions, you failed to make an identical discovery in the matter of ‘Count English von Gneist.’ In fact, following the logic of Occam’s razor, it is my theory that the two men are but one. Why do you look surprised? The Count has, it seems, passed undetected in your midst; all the ladies have taken him up, and some of the gentlemen, too. And your infant son, whom you have designated here as ‘it,’ is, I’m sorry to say, not your son at all but the spawn of a demon—as, I think, you have halfway realized?”

  Pearce stared at his visitor in stunned silence. He did not seem to have heard the Englishman’s final words.

  Matter-of-factly, as if he had not pierced a man’s heart, the cavalier Englis
hman took up the charts with some exuberance, deftly indicating with the bowl of his pipe the “diabolical intricacies” of the many relationships, and how a single bold line might be drawn between A and E, removing in an instant all need for intervening points; in this way erasing weeks of Pearce’s ratiocinative labor. Likewise, stickpins at 4 June 1905, 24 December 1905, and 24 February 1906 logically connected, to demonstrate an (unacknowledged) triangulated relationship: for “Axson”—“Annabel”—“Adelaide”—“Amanda”—clearly matched; and “J”—“JS” (Johanna Strachan) with “JS” (Josiah Slade). And Count English Rudolf Heinrich Gottsreich-Mueller von Gneist could be connected, by a transposition of certain letters and figures, to several individuals on the chart including “WW” (Woodrow Wilson) and, unfortunately in this context, “JS” (Mrs. van Dyck).

  And so on, and so forth, as the Englishman proceeded to “solve” the puzzle, as one might show another, slower-witted person how to “solve” a crossword puzzle, by making more lines, scrawling X’s over portions of the Scheme, ripping off a corner altogether and tossing it negligently into the fireplace. His curiosity was pricked, the Englishman said, by the absence of the demon’s sister Camille, on this chart; one of Pearce’s oversights, and a severe one at that, for Camille was one of “the most rapacious” of demons, in its female form. To the awestricken Pearce van Dyck the Englishman said, “You see, my friend, I know these hellish creatures of old, having dealt with them on the Continent in ’89, and then again in Mous’hole, Surrey, in ’93. The first case was given the title ‘The Adventure of the Poisoned Nursery’ by my old classmate Doyle; the second, “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.” I remember the Count with much clarity, as he and I were apt to play billiards together, when not in ‘combat’; often, we dined together, at the expense of our benefactors—the individuals who’d retained me, and the individuals, invariably the owners of large ‘Gilded Age’ houses, who made the demons their houseguests, and invited them to their dinners. Let me now consult my little encyclopedia of genealogies to make certain . . .” The Englishman withdrew from his coat pocket a crimson-covered little volume, quite worn, through which he rapidly paged, until he came to what he was looking for; then read off, in a low, dramatic voice, such a barrage of names, the distraught philosopher could scarcely follow, like an aged and badly winded dog trotting after a sleek younger dog in the open air.