Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster

by Karen Lee Street

  A pink-faced girl opened the door and curtsied. She pulled a small table with wheels into the room and deftly shifted all the dishes from table to cart, her eyes nervously averted from Dupin. Within seconds she was gone. Dupin stood up and indicated the armchairs next to the marble table where his map was spread.

  “Shall we?” As we took out seats, he continued. “Was Mr. Mackie left-handed?”

  “Left-handed? I truly have no idea. Why?”

  “Autography suggests that the person who created the handbill for Brown’s Genteel Inn was left-handed, and I believe your aggressor sent you the handbill.”

  “I am afraid that I am not following your logic.”

  “I showed the desk clerk the handbill when I arrived at the Inn. He had never seen it before and doubted its veracity. Apparently Mr. Brown does not feel the need to advertise his establishment.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Brown is not aware that an enterprising member of his staff has made an alliance with the booking agent so they might profit from any foreign custom secured by the advertisement.”

  Dupin shook his head, somewhat impatiently. “The person who delivered the letters surely sent you the handbill. The culprit wanted you to stay here for a reason.” He indicated the position of Brown’s Genteel Inn on the map in front of us. “As we discussed previously, most of the crimes occurred very near here and the Arnolds’ various lodgings. This is clearly relevant. As for the attacks that occurred away from this vicinity, our perpetrators were stalking specific victims—Miss Cole, Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Smyth.” He indicated Cannon Street, Bow Lane and Johnson’s Court.

  I noticed that Dupin had added small numerals to the map. “You have numbered the attacks in date order?”

  “Indeed.” He indicated a key in the lower left corner of the map with date and victim’s name appended to the numerals. “Now that you have read all the letters written by your grandparents, have you had any thoughts regarding them?”

  “Frankly, I believe that the contents of those from September 1789 strongly suggest that they are hoaxes. A nunnery in St. James’s Street? Nonsensical, surely.”

  Dupin exhaled sharply, an expression of mirth. “Nonsensical? Not at all. A well-known nunnery was indeed situated there.”

  “Truly? I must confess, then, that the letters made little sense to me.”

  Dupin’s amusement deepened. “I suppose it is a very English joke to call these particular ladies nuns and their place of work a nunnery when their occupation has little to do with celibacy. Or perhaps, more precisely, has everything to do with vanquishing celibacy.”

  Dupin was ridiculing me and irritation muddied my mind. “Elizabeth Arnold’s letter refers to a theater production and the shabbiness of the performance and another one speaks of disguises. Is it a play?”

  Dupin stared as if I were hoaxing him. “It seems to be a very English joke,” he finally said. “If you remember, Henry Arnold mentions a gift he left for his wife. The gift is an engine— ‘armour’ for a gentleman’s protection—gentlemen who are votaries of Venus, the goddess of love.”

  The allusions within the letters became horribly clear to me. I had missed the obvious hidden in plain sight as I had not wished to see it. Dupin, oblivious to my discomfort, carried on with his relentless explanation.

  “We then learn that Elizabeth Arnold, disguised as a man, was pursued for attacking Miss Forster, and Henry rescued her by pulling her into a nunnery. Her husband found it a particularly amusing test of his wife’s disguise—would ladies of little virtue fathom that the young man accompanying his older brother was actually a woman? A Shakespearian comedy of disguise played out on the streets of London.”

  “I would hardly describe it as a comedy. My grandfather was not just a philanderer with ladies of some breeding, but also with ladies of the lowest orders.”

  “You appear to be upset,” Dupin said, eyebrows raised in what I took to be mock surprise.

  I was more than upset, but certainly did not want Dupin to judge me as a man lacking urbanity.

  “Merely disappointed,” I lied. “I knew nothing of my grandparents until the arrival of these letters. I had hoped to discover that I descended from far nobler stock, but it transpires that my mother’s father was an unaccomplished actor and a most accomplished whoremonger.”

  “The sins of the father are not necessarily visited upon the son—or the grandson. And objectivity is the key to unraveling this mystery, Poe.”

  “My disappointment will not compromise my objectivity.”

  Despite my efforts to keep a clear head, it began to spin with the smell of the herring that still haunted the room. Dupin noted my discomfort.

  “Some air might do you good. May I suggest a walk through Hyde Park as we continue to review the letters. I have committed the important details to memory.”

  I gingerly rubbed the sleeves that covered my abraded arms. “I confess that I would prefer to remain indoors today. I am not feeling myself.” My eyes drifted to the ghost letter, and Dupin’s gaze followed.

  “I understand your anxiety. The reappearance of your letter must seem mysterious, but I assure you that someone is trying to unsettle you. Hidden enemies are our greatest foes. The sooner we draw your aggressor out into the open, the sooner we will solve your mystery. Of that I am certain.”

  I was far less confident than Dupin, but reluctantly nodded my assent.

  * * *

  The London air seemed far more clean and pleasant amidst the trees and grass, but as we made our way west through Green Park to the southeast corner of Hyde Park, I could not shake my sense of foreboding. Every flitting shadow seemed to be tracking us, every unexpected noise made my heart race. If another person strayed too close to us, I immediately suspected nefarious intent and faltered in my pace.

  “I am surprised that none of the attacks mentioned in the letters occurred here,” Dupin said with unfortunate timing. He indicated the pathways around us, which were lively with perambulators. “This was where Londoners went to be seen, particularly ladies in search of a husband. It seems a place Henry Arnold would have enjoyed, even if it aroused a great deal of jealousy in his wife.”

  “Justified jealousy.”

  “Indeed. Disguising herself as a man and using her acting skills to secretly reprimand her husband’s mistresses was an ingenious touch. Elizabeth Arnold’s letters recorded the embarrassment of her rivals as well as her husband’s frequent absences from home—another pointed reproach. The twist in this tale is that the attacks did not have quite the effect Mrs. Arnold was striving for: to cure her husband of his infidelity. Instead they inspired him to join in her game. As the two recorded and indeed exaggerated the details of their crimes for the other to read, an erotic tension grew and their marital bond was renewed. But Henry Arnold, motivated by lust, began to enjoy the game far more than his wife as the attacks began to lose purpose.”

  “Purpose? What purpose?”

  Dupin shrugged. “Revenge of course.” He paused to allow two ladies carrying parasols to cross the path in front of us. They smiled at his gallant gesture, but their coquettish demeanors dissolved away under Dupin’s unresponsive gaze. He paid them no further notice, continuing his analysis. “And then we have the acrostic Valentine with its peculiar message: ‘Monster.’” He shook his head. “Most unusual.”

  “What do you think it means? It is hardly an endearment.”

  Before Dupin could respond, a chorus of dogs erupted around us. Every canine in the vicinity seemed to be baying at once and our path was obstructed by the formation of a small crowd talking excitedly and pointing to the heavens. High above us was a magnificent blue balloon with gold embellishments that glinted in the sunlight; it floated like a celestial emissary with an angelic message for the gathering spectators and my sense of doom lifted with the glorious sight.

  “How marvelous!” I cried. “This is not a sight seen often in Philadelphia.”

  “Nor Paris. The Montgolfier brothers may be the fathers
of flight, but the architecture of Paris makes untethered ascents a foolhardy enterprise.” The great balloon was descending slowly toward us, which caused the crowd to applaud and cheer. “The English are determined to establish their supremacy in long distance flight,” Dupin observed.

  “Green, Monck Mason and Hollond?”

  He nodded. “They were careless in their calculations of the winds and were fortunate not to be blown out into the Atlantic. While the sea offers few impediments that might endanger the balloon’s fabric, its vastness would defeat the balloon’s supply of gas.”

  As I watched the wonderful carriage of the air gliding overhead, I shivered to imagine it plunging into the cold depths of the Atlantic.

  Dupin’s cry broke my morbid reverie. “Extraordinary!” He pointed to one of the aeronauts, who seemed to perch right on the basket’s edge. “I believe he is going to jump.”

  Some ladies near us gasped in terror upon overhearing Dupin’s gloomy words. The reactions of other spectators were less sympathetic.

  “Thinks he’s a bird,” quipped one young man.

  “Watch your heads now!” yelled his friend.

  Females tumbled to the ground, swooning, while others shrieked, throwing their arms over their heads. The man remained crouched at the basket’s edge and each second passing felt infinitely longer as we watched, scarcely daring to breathe.

  “What are you waiting for?” a rogue shouted. “Jump and be done with it!”

  And he did, or so it seemed. The crowd roared in anticipation or fear as the man hurtled downward.

  “And now,” Dupin muttered. As he spoke, a silken canopy arose around the erstwhile balloonist. The onlookers gasped in astonishment as the silk captured the air, forming an inverted bowl, and the aeronaut floated toward earth like an autumn leaf.

  “A parachute—no frame. Very interesting. Its top was attached to the balloon’s equator by a cord, I believe, which broke when the aeronaut transferred his weight from the balloon’s basket to that of the parachute.”

  I did not completely understand what Dupin meant, but that did not seem to matter as he was already hurrying to reach the aeronaut’s landing point. I scurried after him, as did many of the other spectators. The balloon stayed aloft, the second aeronaut leaning over the basket to monitor the progress of the man in his parachute. We must have run close to half a mile, dodging perambulators, a pack of dogs at our heels that yapped and growled at the flying man. There was a great crackling noise as the parachute crashed through some shrubbery before the man landed, happily, in a grassy copse. Dupin, who had reached the parachutist with uncanny speed, leaned over him.

  “Are you quite all right, sir? Can you move your extremities?”

  The man gasped and struggled to breathe, his hand clutched to his heaving chest. Clearly the wind was knocked out of him. He gingerly shook his arms and legs, before struggling to a sitting position. “Yes, I think I am fine,” he finally said in a strong French accent.

  “Vous êtes français? Bien sûr” Dupin nodded to himself. “A most extraordinary descent.”

  “And most dangerous,” I added.

  “But to fly, Poe! Would you not do the same to experience the sensation of flight?” Dupin’s face was animated with an unusual energy. I had rarely seen him so excited.

  “I fear that I would not. My natural element seems to be the earth rather than water, air or fire.”

  “The great men of science have long dreamed of flight. You must know that da Vinci designed a parachute, but it was Louis-Sebastien Lenormand—a Frenchman—who made the first parachute. He hoped it would allow people to escape from the top floors of burning buildings.” Dupin gestured toward the sky. “Perhaps the natural element of the French inventor is air. Qu’en pensez vons?”

  “C’est possible,” the French aeronaut said with a noncommittal shrug.

  “Comment vous appellez-vous, monsieur?” Dupin asked his compatriot. Before the bruised Frenchman could answer, another roar came from the crowd, who had tired of the earthbound parachutist and were focused back on the balloon. It was considerably lower in the sky and heading toward us, which made a few anxious spectators gasp.

  “I believe the balloon is descending, Dupin.”

  Despite a certain anxiousness regarding its proximity, I was glad to see the balloon more closely. It really was an extraordinary and beautiful structure—ellipsoid in shape, almost fourteen feet in length, its height was approximately six and a half feet. Beneath the center of the balloon was a wooden frame rigged onto the balloon itself with netting, and from the framework a wicker basket was suspended, which housed the intrepid aeronaut. Red and white banners festooned the basket and were in flamboyant contrast to the silken balloon. The top half was ageratum blue and the bottom featured cobalt sea waves that encircled the circumference of the balloon. A golden serpent’s body wove through these tumultuous waves and its fierce head was reared up, jaws agape, fangs exposed. The object of the creature’s ire was a blazing sun with a human face that had plunged half-way into the sea.

  “Impossible,” Dupin said in a low voice.

  Elegant golden letters were above the fearsome picture. “ ‘Le Grand Serpent de la Mer,’ ” I read out loud before adding in an attempt at levity, “This balloon’s element seems to be water.”

  “Or metal in the shape of the guillotine. That is the face of Louis XVI imposed upon the sun, an image found upon some courtly decorations during his reign. The sun is obviously setting into the sea, powerless against the sea-serpent poised to devour it. A clumsy metaphor,” Dupin said, all jocularity gone from his voice.

  “And who does the sea-serpent represent? The king’s enemies?”

  “One particular enemy, I believe. A man responsible for much evil.” Dupin wheeled to face the parachutist, who was now on his feet, watching the balloon descend with the rest of us. “Who owns this balloon?” Dupin demanded. At that moment a roar arose from the crowd, and we turned to see the hot-air balloon hovering just over our heads. Dupin turned from the hapless parachutist and pushed his way through the crowd toward the balloon, which provoked shouts of anger from fellow onlookers. “Who owns this hot-air balloon?” Dupin shouted at the pilot, attempting to grab the guide-rope as if he hoped to tether the balloon to the ground.

  “Stand back, sir!” the aeronaut shouted at Dupin. “Back!”

  “Answer me!”

  “The man is quite mad,” the aeronaut said to the crowd. “Do not let him scale the basket!”

  Several burly men grabbed Dupin by the arms and dragged him away from the balloon. There was nothing I could do that would not get us both soundly beaten. I scanned the mob for the parachutist, thinking to interrogate him myself, but he had vanished into the sea of spectators.

  The balloonist raised his arms and shouted, “My colleague and I hope you enjoyed our aeronautical display. I have flown from England to Germany and have made many other daring aerial expeditions. We have crossed the English Channel in this balloon and with the support of our kind patron, intend to cross the Atlantic in it. Until that glorious day, you may join us for a tethered balloon ascent at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.” And with that, he threw a flurry of pamphlets to the ground while the onlookers applauded and whooped some more. “Farewell,” the balloonist called out as the balloon began to ascend again. “Farewell! Remember, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens!”

  The balloon drifted ever higher, and I watched in bafflement as Dupin stood glowering at the aeronaut in his glorious flying machine until they were a mere speck in the sky.

  “Dupin?” I stepped in front of him, attempting to break his gaze from the empty sky. “What the Devil is the matter?”

  “The Devil is certainly involved,” he growled. When he shifted his gaze to me, it was so fearsome I could not help but recoil. Dupin immediately closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, forcibly calming himself. When at last he opened his eyes, he seemed much more himself again. “There is someone I would like you to meet if you are will
ing. Someone I hold in the highest regard.”

  Never had I heard Dupin describe anyone in such an exalted manner. My surprise and curiosity were so strong I agreed without question.

  “Then let us find a carriage,” Dupin said.

  * * *

  Once on our way, Dupin lapsed back into silence, his eyes fixed on the scenery outside with the alert tension of a cat stalking some invisible creature. I awaited an explanation for his behavior in Hyde Park until I could bear it no longer.

  “The aeronauts and the balloon disturbed you most profoundly. May I ask why?”

  “Ah, I can see we have almost arrived,” he said as if my question had never been voiced. “You are about to witness an astonishing display and will meet, I hope, the extraordinary personage responsible for its creation.”

  We alighted at the junction of Baker Street and Portman Square in front of a three-story building called The Bazaar. Dupin led the way inside. Horses and coaches were being sold on the ground floor of the building; Dupin continued to a hall, and we ascended a wide staircase to a salon embellished with a quantity of artificial flowers, arabesques and large mirrors. A long-faced man with lank gray hair and ill-fitting black clothes sat in front of the entrance to a larger hall. On a table next to him there was a metal cashbox and a large brass hand bell.

  Dupin put some coins onto the table. “Entry for two, sir.”

  The guardian of the entrance picked up most of the coins and slid the rest back to Dupin. “Go and mingle with the mighty,” he intoned.

  I was surprised when a smile stirred on Dupin’s lips. “We shall. Is Madame here today?”

  The dour man silently nodded his assent.

  Dupin removed a silver case from his coat pocket and took out a calling card. “Please give your dear mother this with my highest regards.”

  The gray-haired man glanced at the card, slid it into the cashbox and stared at Dupin with pale eyes. “Sir,” he confirmed.

  “Thank you. Shall we, Poe?”

  “Of course.”

  We proceeded to the first room, which was roughly one hundred feet by fifty feet in size. It resembled a very grand salon with ottomans for contemplation and conversation. Plate glass embellished the walls, which were hung with draperies and gilt ornaments. Statues circled the room. A small balcony held an orchestra that played softly.