Back in the clearing, the spectators peered into the darkness trying, as I had, to ascertain the origin of the strange sounds. I held perfectly still, hoping that the glare of the fire between us would keep anyone from picking out my position just outside the clearing. Evidently, no one saw me, although several pairs of eyes swept past my position as I stood there waiting for whatever would come next.
It was not long in coming. Eulalie struck a stance and threw back her head, crying, “The spirits are among us!” in a loud, impressive voice. I had heard her use the same manner of speech when Mr. Clemens and I had visited her in her apartment, and she had tested us with her offer of finding the killer by torturing a fowl. Bolden’s comet wailed again, another eerie laugh, but this time I was prepared for it. Even so, had I not been standing next to the player, I would readily have believed that the sound of his horn was some voice from beyond the normal pale of human experience. I could only imagine what it sounded like to those out in the clearing. Even Mr. Clemens, who surely knew what was coming, had given a little start when Buddy first blew his horn.
Eulalie Echo turned her back to the spectators and bent over her cauldron again, dipping in a spoon and sniffing the bubbling mixture. Then she poured a spoonful of the mixture onto the fire, which flared up suddenly in a bright yellow blaze. “The spirits are pleased!” she said, and several of the watching faces noticeably relaxed, although they had nothing but her word to indicate even the presence of spirits, let alone anything about their state of mind. Mr. Cable was clearly doing his best to conceal his discomfort at the pagan ritual, but most of the rest of the faces were rapt, intent on Eulalie’s performance. I wondered whether we were seeing authentic voodoo rituals or something concocted for the occasion. Perhaps I would have the chance to ask Eulalie afterward.
The drumming began again, a different rhythm now: subtly more energetic than before, without being faster or louder. Suddenly, I became aware of a new figure in the clearing, moving slowly in time to the drumbeats. Whence it had come I had no idea, although I thought I had been watching carefully. The new figure was hooded in a long, dark blue garment that concealed its exact shape, and from where I was, I could not see its face, although its movements gave the impression simultaneously of frailty and of feminine grace. I recalled Mr. Clemens having spoken of Eulalie’s mentor, an older woman from whom she had learned her art, and wondered if this could be that person.
Eulalie was dancing again, as well, in slow counterpoint to the new arrival. The chanting resumed. This time, I was able to make out the occasional word in French, although the accent was far from any my teachers would have considered proper Parisian. At last, they came to a stop on opposite sides of the fire. The drumming became muffled, and the hooded figure leaned over and stirred the cauldron, pouring out more of the contents into the fire, which this time blazed blue and orange. Buddy Bolden lifted his cornet to his lips, and the wild laughing sound filled the woods a third time, this time with a more sinister note. “The Widow Paris has come to join us,” said Eulalie. At this, the figure threw back her hood, revealing an elderly woman’s face, wearing a curiously knotted kerchief over her hair, and large hoop earrings that gleamed like gold.
The name meant nothing to me, but the effect on the spectators was electrical. Maria Staunton’s eyes grew wide, while Dr. Soupape whispered something to Mr. Dupree that made him raise his eyebrows and peer intently at the new arrival. Reynold Holt sat rigidly upright, gripping his cane tightly, while Tom Anderson visibly turned pale. Gradually, everyone in the clearing seemed to focus their attention on the new arrival. Then the old woman began to speak, and I strained to hear what she was saying.
“I am not the only widow here,” she said. “There are two others, two sisters made widows before their time.” The voice matched her appearance of extreme age, and I detected a trace of the Creole accent in its harsh inflections; yet it had a volume and power that belied the frail appearance of its owner. Obviously feeling that power, Maria Staunton and Eugenia Robinson exchanged glances, then turned their eyes hurriedly back toward the speaker. I could see others in the audience glancing at Maria and Eugenia, as well, trying to ascertain what might be about to happen.
“Let the widowed sisters come to me,” said the Widow Paris. She raised her arms straight out to her sides, shoulder-high, and with the motion, her sleeves fell back to reveal heavy gold bracelets on her arms. As all eyes were on the Widow Paris, Eulalie Echo made a furtive motion with her left hand. Was she throwing something? Suddenly the fire flared up in strange colors, and the drums became insistent once again. The woods around were dark and strangely silent; no bird or insect sent its song out into the night, as if they feared to compete with the music of the drum.
Hesitantly, Maria Holt Staunton stood; seeing her sister holding back, she extended a hand to her, and Eugenia Holt Robinson rose to her feet, somewhat reluctantly, I thought. The two women held hands and stepped tentatively forward into the circle of light around the fire. All eyes were on them, mine included. I think that at that moment one of the spectators could have taken out a pistol and fired it without anyone else’s noticing who had pulled the trigger. Certainly, the only things that penetrated my consciousness were the two sisters, holding hands and dressed in black, the old woman standing before them with raised arms, and the hypnotic rhythm of the drum.
The Widow Paris led the Holt sisters to the center of the clearing, where she had each of them stir the cauldron, then repeat the ritual of pouring a spoonful of the contents onto the fire, which blazed up vividly each time. Maria was the first to perform this ceremony, and she flinched back from the leaping flames; Eugenia poured out her spoonful of the brew more quickly, and (perhaps forewarned by her sister’s experience) she did not flinch.
Then the Widow Paris said something quietly to the sisters, and they returned to their seats; as they sat, their faces were a study in contrast: Eugenia Robinson’s visage bespoke a mixture of skepticism and condescension, but Maria Staunton looked on the proceedings with unmistakable awe.
I glanced at the other faces to see how they were responding to the curious ritual. Their expressions ranged from boredom (Mr. Dupree) to lively curiosity (Dr. Soupape) to apprehension (Reynold Holt and Tom Anderson). Mr. Clemens still stood silently by my side; whether or not he was impressed by the performance so far, he was clearly looking for some sign to betray the presence of the murderer we believed must be in our midst. I hoped his hunter’s eye, or LeJeune’s, would discern whatever they were looking for; as for myself, I had no idea what to expect, and no reason to believe I would recognize it if I saw it.
A gasp from the direction of the clearing drew my eyes back to the circle around the fire. The Widow Paris now had an enormous snake draped over her shoulders and around her waist; I wondered how she had produced it in the few moments my eyes had been turned away. I wondered, too, how she supported its weight. The creature must have been at least fifteen feet long, and its head looked out at the seated spectators, moving back and forth as if searching for something. I looked at the audience, and saw many of the watchers shrink away from the creature in fear and distaste; but on Maria Staunton’s face, there was something akin to wonder. As for Dr. Soupape, he nodded and gave a little smile, as if in appreciation of a cleverly performed conjuring trick.
The widow danced a few more steps with the snake around her shoulders, the drum beating faster. I was impressed that a woman apparently of such advanced age could still move so gracefully, especially with the heavy reptile as a burden. City-bred as I am, I had little experience with snakes, but from its size, I assumed it might be one of the great pythons I had read about. If so, it was probably not poisonous, so there was nothing to fear from its bite, at least. She came to a stop directly in front of the two sisters; whether by instinct or by training, the snake fixed its eyes on the two of them, shifting its ugly head back and forth. Eugenia Robinson shrank away from the serpent’s gaze, as did Mr. Dupree. But Dr. Soupape looked on with i
nterest, and I could see Maria Staunton’s eyes gleaming, as if she had been granted a glimpse of something transcendent, and I wondered what might be going through her mind.
In his seat directly to the left of his two sisters, Reynold Holt seemed tom between fear and determination. Possibly he was steeling himself to protect them, should the creature break loose from its mistress’s control and attack. As I had seen, his temperament was mercurial: at one moment he could be calm and steady, as when he seconded Percival Staunton at the duel; and at another, seething with barely controlled fury, as he had been when Mr. Clemens and I had dined at the Stauntons’ house. The bizarre spectacle he now found himself part of must be taking its toll on his nerves.
After a long, tense moment while the great serpent stared at the two sisters, the drum fell silent and Eulalie Echo spoke. “These two sisters have seen much pain, but all pain comes to an end. Damballa has looked upon them and seen their pain. Tonight Damballa will help them end their pain.”
At these words, the Widow Paris turned and walked back toward the fire. A cloud moved in front of the moon. Those who had been closest to the snake (which from Eulalie’s speech I assumed was named Damballa) visibly relaxed as it was borne away from them. Now Eulalie and one of her assistants brought forth a large wooden chest and set it between the fire and the spectators. They opened the chest, and the Widow Paris placed the snake inside and closed the lid. The drums began again, and Eulalie gave the widow a bottle of some sort of spirits, from which she took a drink, spitting some of it into the fire. Her body jerked as if with convulsions. For a moment, I was reminded of Percival Staunton’s movements the morning of the duel, and worried that she might have taken poison. But then I recalled that Eulalie did not deal in poison, and my fears abated.
The drum began beating an ever wilder and more complex rhythm, as the Widow Paris came to the chest and, with a hand from Eulalie and her assistant, climbed up on it as if upon a rostrum—or perhaps a pulpit would be a better comparison. “Now the Widow Paris speaks the words of Damballa,” cried Eulalie, and the drum suddenly stopped.
All eyes were on the Widow Paris, standing stock-still atop the chest. The tension was palpable, with muted night sounds now audible from the bayou, and the flickering firelight adding to the weirdness of the scene. An ominous, deep-pitched grunt echoed in the distance, from what sort of creature I know not. The silence in the little clearing stretched out, almost intolerably, as everyone waited to see what would happen next.
“Damballa is angry!” It was the Widow Paris who shrieked out the words, but the voice was far different from the one she had used before. It would have been easy to mistake it for a man’s voice, had it not come from the frail old woman’s body, and it had a resonance as if we were hearing a trumpet from a great distance, but with the volume and power of an entire orchestra. Several of the listeners recoiled as from a physical shock, and Maria Staunton’s eyes went from eager anticipation to fear.
The Widow Paris began to move again in response to the muffled drumming, slow but still complex rhythmically. After an interval, she spoke again—or perhaps I should say, the voice of Damballa spoke again, for that was surely what the watchers were expected to believe. “There is an evil one here tonight,” she said, and heads nodded in the audience. “Damballa knows what is in the evil one’s heart. The spirits of John and Percival have told Damballa. The evil one has taken the gifts of the earth and turned them to foulness. What is meant to inspire love has been turned to the dealing of death, and that is the greatest evil of all.”
By those last words, I understood her to mean the poisonous love potion, which Mr. Clemens and I believed had been the death of John David Robinson and Percival Staunton. To most of the audience it would be meaningless, but if the poisoner was among them, perhaps it would strike home. It would be difficult for anyone without nerves of steel to hear that voice and not be afraid. Reluctantly, I took my eyes away from the old woman standing on the wooden chest and scanned the audience.
Maria Staunton was transfixed, somewhere between awe and fear. Next to her, Eugenia Robinson sat open-mouthed, her earlier skepticism clearly wavering. Reynold Holt sat stiffly, his hands gripping his cane so tightly that I could see his white knuckles even at a distance, and his eyes seemed to bulge. Dr. Soupape looked around as if searching for the evil one Damballa spoke of, while Mr. Dupree stood with his hands in his pockets, his face grim. Tom Anderson was visibly shivering; clearly the ceremony was affecting him strongly. Could he be the murderer, after all? I leaned over to whisper my suspicion to Detective LeJeune, but before I could say anything, the eerie voice rang out again.
“You cannot hide from Damballa! John and Percival have told him of your evildoing! You will lie in your bed at night, and think your evil is hidden, but Damballa will find you and torment you in your dreams! In the day you will walk the earth like a living man, but inside you will be dying every day. Damballa will do all this, and more, until you give up your evil and confess!” The drums pounded louder, and the widow’s voice rose to a terrifying pitch. “Confess! Confess!”
And then, without warning, Reynold Holt gave a terrible cry and prostrated himself on the ground before the Widow Paris, calling out, “Forgive me! Oh, God! Forgive me! ’Genie told me the medicine couldn’t hurt them unless they were untrue! They must have been guilty; don’t you see?”
Suddenly, the scene dissolved into chaos. Eugenia Robinson drew back in horror. “Reynold! Be quiet!” she said, her eyes wide. Maria Staunton fell back in a dead faint, and Dr. Soupape rushed forward to her side. The Widow Paris stepped off the wooden chest, and Eulalie Echo came to her side. The two voodoo women stood quietly and surveyed the startling results of their weird night’s work.
Eugenia Robinson looked about with a terrified expression. Mr. Dupree had come up from behind her, and was tugging at Reynold Holt’s sleeve. “Get hold of yourself, man!” he shouted. But Holt kept on blubbering, not responding to the lawyer’s admonitions.
Eugenia knelt down beside her brother, shouting into his ear. “Reynold, be quiet. You don’t know what you’re saying!”
In the background, I noticed Tom Anderson trying to sidle away from the tumultuous scene; I wondered briefly exactly how he intended to escape back to the city. Did he plan to walk back home? Then my attention shifted to Dr. Soupape, who stood next to Maria Staunton in a commanding posture: “Give her room to breathe,” he shouted. “Stand back!” Mrs. Staunton lay on the ground, her face pale and her limbs splayed lifelessly about her.
In the midst of all this, Detective LeJeune and two uniformed policemen pushed into the clearing. Mr. Clemens and I remained in the shadows, watching. Despite the confused scene in the clearing, it was but a moment’s work for LeJeune to produce a pair of handcuffs and snap them on Holt’s wrist. “Mr. Holt, you are under arrest. I warn you that anything you say may be used against you.”
Holt’s eyes were wild. He stared around the firelit clearing until his eyes lit on the lawyer. “Dupree! Tell him I didn’t mean to kill anybody. ’Genie, tell them! This is all some kind of trick, isn’t it? That quadroon woman made it all up. . . .”
But LeJeune was turning to Mrs. Robinson. “Ma’am, in view of what I have heard tonight, I have no choice but to take you into custody as well, as an accessory to murder. If you’ll give me your word to come along quietly, the handcuffs won’t be necessary.”
Mrs. Robinson looked first at her brother, who stared about him with a confused look, then at LeJeune, and nodded. “I will cause no trouble,” she said. “I can explain everything. I have done nothing wrong. Gordon, will you come with me?”
“Yes, but for now I advise you both to remain silent,” said Mr. Dupree. I saw anger and disbelief contending on his face. Then he summoned his professional detachment and said, “I’ll do the best I can for you. For God’s sake don’t say anything more until we’ve talked.”
By this time, Maria Staunton had regained her senses, and she threw herself at her broth
er’s knees. “Reynold! Tell me it isn’t true! Not you, Reynold. I loved him, in spite of everything, and now he’s gone.” It tore my heart to see her in such pitiful condition. Her sister moved to stand next to her, reaching down to pat her on the shoulder in an effort to comfort her, but there was a distant look on Eugenia’s face, as if she were thinking of something else entirely.
Holt bent over her, saying, “I’m sorry, Maria, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, forgive me. It was all a trick by that woman with the snake.”
But it was Eulalie Echo who had the last word. “Believe it was a trick if you wish to, Mr. Holt. But there is more to the world than your eyes will ever see.” As if to underline her words, there came still another burst of maniacal laughter from the darkened forest, the sound of Buddy Bolden’s comet writing the coda to the strangest scene my eyes had ever looked upon.
29
“We finally got some sense out of Reynold Holt,” said Detective LeJeune. We were sitting in the courtyard of our Royal Street pension, sipping long, cool drinks and waiting for Henry Dodds. “He kept switching his stories, and that old fox Dupree did what he could to keep him from talking at all. At least Eugenia Robinson has managed to keep her statements consistent with one another.”
Mr. Clemens sighed. “It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for poor Reynold Holt. I reckon he came out of the War pretty badly damaged—not just physically, either. Damnation, Holt was just a boy at the time. He wasn’t even eighteen when the War ended. It’s a mighty strong mind that can watch men die by the thousands and not be affected. After a few months as a prisoner of war . . . well, if Dupree puts on an insanity defense, I’d say he has a good chance of getting his client off. Maybe there’s justice in it; I don’t know.”
[Mark Twain Mysteries 02] - A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court Page 30