“Looking down into the courtyard, I beheld two figures, in dark cloaks, who, from their rapid movements, appeared engaged in a duel. I could hear the clip of metal striking metal, the scrape of what I took to be swords or rapiers.
“Who they were, how they came to be there, what was the cause of their quarrel—to these questions I had no answers.
“Furthermore, as you yourself can judge—”
Here he directed me to the window and I hastened to oblige him by going to it—
“—the courtyard is enclosed.”
And this was certainly so: the two dwellings—M. P——’s and the one opposite—were separated by the cobbled yard and also joined left and right by high walls. Entrance could be gained only by means of the doors to each of these dwellings or by way of a high fretted gate, padlocked and, he said, never used. Once the gate might have opened for the conveyance of carriages, but no more. Holding back the velvet curtain beneath its black volutes, upwards I looked from courtyard to window which seemed but a mirror-image of this one and thought I saw a mirror-hand holding back a mirror curtain and drew in from a night that seemed itself drenched in black perfume.
But the manner of these duellists coming hence was not the chief of the mysteries that surrounded this peculiar affair, for even assuming they had entered the closed yard by one or another door, the question remained: why had they done so?
This was the observation of M. P.——. I myself had immediately put the strange story down to the combined effect upon him on that night of wine, the fever he appeared to have contracted, and the essence of the oils constantly emitted into his sitting room and most possibly his bedroom. For I myself was feeling the effect of the room’s atmosphere, an atmosphere further enhanced by the light from the flames that crimsoned over the remarkable statuary, and a pearly light thrown down by the chandelier—and I wondered momentarily if these oils were indeed the harmless effluvium of flowers and herbs that he had led me to believe, or rather an opiate released into the air from the curious little circles of glass.
I felt—I must admit it—entranced, enthralled, by the voice of my host and by his lustrous eyes. I had drunk liberally of the light wine which he served and the intoxication that might have allayed my feelings of morbid anxiety served only to augment those feelings. I regarded my host, who sat, quite still and with his high forehead resting on the palm of an elegant hand. Had I been duped? Had I been lured here for some reason I could in no way ascertain? He continued his story:
“And then there came a shout, a flash of a sword as if one of the duellists had struck from the person of the other, some object and sent it flying. It flew into the air and then descended—something small, silver or white, like a fork of lightning or a slice of the moon. And then came a word, also thrown up as if it too had been a sliver of silver—a name—‘Violette!’—fairly hurled at my window.” He paused. “And then—nothing! Nothing! The mist that had swirled through the courtyard and around their feet rose until it shrouded the whole. My eye could not penetrate this white gloom, nor my ear pierce the heavy silence that fell in the wake of that single, uttered word: Violette!
“You may wonder,” my host continued, “why I did not descend immediately to the courtyard below to investigate; but I thought surely, this must be the result of the fever or whatever plagued me and sleep would dispel these strange sights and sounds from my mind.
“And in the morning when I awoke and threw open the casement and could smell the verdant green of the grass and the flowerbed below and see the clear blue of the sky above, I could but commit that vision of the night before to its proper place—it had been what else but a dream?”
“Yes,” I answered him, “that could be the only explanation . . . yet . . . ?”
“Ah. Yet.” His countenance as he smiled at me grew not livelier but more despairing. “On that second night the fever had left me and I slept more soundly. And yet, the same scene—the duellists, the sharp cry, the white object flying through the air, the shouting of the name Violette! All was the same, all enacted below my chamber window.”
As a violent shudder rent his form, I started up. “Dreams often repeat themselves—” But he waved me back to my chair.
“The next morning I did descend to the courtyard. No trace did I see of the scene I had witnessed and returned here to this room. I put the whole affair down to an overtired and overactive imagination. And that night, the third night—” He stopped, shook his head. “You must wonder why I did not immediately go down at the first cry. I can only say that I felt mesmerized, forced to watch the pantomime and to hear the name that by now seemed to echo from the cold stones of the yard—‘Violette, Violette, Violette—’ ”
Melrose gave his head a violent shake. What was that?
Chanting from the bar: “D-D-D-D-D . . .”
Jury’s narration had stopped, and Melrose blinked several times at the flickering images of the big television, where light like blue fire reflected on the faces of the football fans and across the tables.
“Go on!” commanded Wiggins.
“Oh, what the hell are we doing?” Jury rose, piqued that he was being drawn into this story, collected the glasses, and headed into the tumult of the bar.
Wiggins called to Jury’s departing back, “But that’s not all, is it, sir? Who is this—” Jury out of reach, he turned his question on Ellen—“Violette person? Don’t we find out?”
“No,” said Melrose, who had taken advantage of Jury’s leaving and attention drawn elsewhere to pull over the page and check the ending. He felt, like Jury, unaccountably annoyed that they had all been sucked in—suckered in—by this highly dubious story. Not only that, but was he to be obsessed now not only by Maxim and Sweetie but by Monsieur P. and Violette? How extremely tiring. Surreptitiously, he pulled the small pile of manuscript pages towards him. Perhaps—
“Put those back,” said Ellen.
Jury was back with their glasses. “If this manuscript is a forgery or if it’s genuine won’t get us much further, will it?”
“It can’t hurt, sir,” said Wiggins. “We might as well finish it.”
“It’s not all here,” said Melrose irritably. “This is only another installment.”
“I told you. I don’t want to carry more than a few pages at a time. Unless you want to see me zonked out in the churchyard, too.”
“Why would she be attacked for the manuscript if she didn’t have it with her?” asked Jury.
“Read the rest,” said Ellen, resting her chin on her cupped hands in a listening pose.
Jury read:
He seemed unable to look elsewhere in the room save at that casement, his eye fastening on the billowing velvet curtain there, as if he expected momentarily to hear the name thrown up from below.
“After that third occurrence, again I returned to the courtyard, again found no sign of the duel, and, turning in at my door, I saw—”
“The handkerchief,” said Melrose.
Ellen snapped at him. “What? How do you know?”
“I saw the movie—ouch!” He rubbed his shin.
Jury’s mouth twitched, but he managed not to laugh.
Said Wiggins, his tone plaintive: “Mr. Plant, you’re ruining it for the rest of us.”
“Sorry, but surely that was pretty obvious? What the hell else could he find in the courtyard? Probably got her name on it, too.” He stuffed another handful of popcorn into his mouth. He looked over at Jury, who was looking down at the page of manuscript and asked (smilingly), “I’m right. Right?”
Jury continued to read:
“—I saw, caught in the thicket surrounding the fountain—this!”
From the silver reliquary he drew a small white square of linen or silk and held it out to me. I was loath to touch it, knowing what it must be: that which was flung from the tip of a sword into the dark and was now palpable proof of the recurrence of these strange events. And in the corner of the handkerchief was worked in stitches so tiny as t
o be hardly discernible to the naked eye—
As another cheer went up from the bar, Melrose said, “V?”
“Oh, be quiet,” said Ellen.
—HP, the initials of M. P——.
Ellen and Wiggins looked at Melrose balefully. He ate popcorn and kept his eyes on the television screen. “Wrong again.”
I regret, madam, that my spirits are too low to enable me to continue this letter.
“A night at the Horse would revive him. Yes! Yes!” Melrose rose to his feet, punched his fist in the air, joining the fans at the bar in cheering on the team.
Ellen yanked at his jacket. “Sit down!”
He fell back into his chair. “Is that all?”
Ellen didn’t, or wouldn’t, answer. She turned around in her chair, back to Melrose.
“What’s the matter with her?” Melrose asked of the other two.
Jury laughed. Very carefully, he was returning the pages of manuscript to their plastic sleeves.
Wiggins said, “Probably because you spoiled the story.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m going to sit at the bar.”
“I’m going to bed,” said Jury, returning the last of the pages to its cover. He turned it over.
No, thought Melrose, regarding the back of Ellen’s obdurate head. No, it’s not the Poe story—it’s Sweetie, that’s what’s wrong with her. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away. “Well, Tweedears, you leaving too?”
Wiggins, recalled to his title, did not answer directly but said, “It’s unfortunate, sir, but the title is tainted. Some bad business.”
“ ‘Tainted’? Sounds unlikely. Let me see that.”
Wiggins pushed the Xeroxed copy over.
“ ‘At—tainted,’ Sergeant Wiggins. That simply means . . . uh, cancelled, or taken away. It’s done by an act of Parliament. See here—” Melrose pointed to this parliamentary axing of the Tweedearses’ title in the sixteenth century and later. “Clearly, if Eustace and his bros—”
Ellen retched.
“—and his bros,” Melrose repeated, “were going to run around rebelling and putting Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, Elizabeth would take a dim view, wouldn’t she? But attainders can be reversed. As did indeed happen in the eighteenth century.”
“But forfeited again,” said Wiggins, sighing.
“Well, but it’s probably not extinct, Sergeant Wiggins. Take heart. And you’re in good company. The Duke of Monmouth, the Earl of Westmoreland—those titles are under attainder, don’t forget.”
Wiggins had certainly not forgotten; he looked wisely at Melrose, raising one slick eyebrow.
“Plantagenet, Sydney, Beaufort—those titles are all extinct. Just imagine the glory they once attested to. Extinct now, uncrowned in the urns of mortality . . .”
Ellen depressed her tongue with her finger and made her mock retching sounds as she leaned her head over her knees.
Melrose went on: “And just consider the Tudors! The third son of Henry VII—and we know who his bro was, right, Wiggins?”
Ellen was writhing, nearly under the table now.
“Henry the Eighth! Anyway, his brother Edmund was created Duke of Somerset, and died before he was five years old, and that dukedom became extinct.”
“Tweedears might be merely, uh, de jure?”
“Hell, it might still be alive and well!” Melrose slapped him across the back. “Let’s see your coat of arms, Sergeant. Is that here?”
Wiggins showed him. “Professor Lamb explained it. I didn’t quite understand all of the argent-gules business. I’m new at this.” He looked horribly self-satisfied.
“Never mind. Ah, I like the motto.”
Wiggins read it. “Sans what?”
“ ‘Sans Malaise.’ ”
What else? thought Jury.
23
“Aquarium? No. Why should I go to the Aquarium?” asked Melrose of Hughie as he got into the cab the following morning. “The Poe House. Edgar Allan Poe, his house.”
Sighing in the boredom of it all, Hughie switched on the engine, let it idle. “You just got to see the Aquarium before you leave. Or what about the new stadium—what about that?”
“Amity Street. The Poe House. I expect you’ve never been there, have you?”
As the cab pulled away—lurched away would be a better description of the galvanic movement that tossed Melrose back against the rear seat—Hughie said, “He was a writer, right? So what’s interesting? It ain’t like he kept giant sting rays.” Hughie thought this marvellously funny and slapped his hand on the steering wheel as he barrelled up Broadway. “At the Aquarium they got this big bunch of rays—biggest in North America, somebody told me.”
“How do you find time to visit these museums? Don’t you have to work? Don’t you have to hack all over Baltimore?”
Hughie sought Melrose’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He looked pained. “Listen, I been doing that long enough. I told you—thirty-plus years of it. I don’t deserve some time off?”
Melrose didn’t answer; time off appeared to be Hughie’s forte.
As they drove up Lombard Street, Melrose saw the tiny sign: “Cider Alley.” He watched it go past from the rear window, and decided he would get Hughie to drop him off there on the way back. He asked, “Do you get many homeless people murdered in Baltimore?”
“Hell, I guess. Seems sort of stupid, don’t it? I mean, you could hardly rob one of them. It’s crack wars, cocaine, you know. Christ, no one knows what the hell’s going down anymore. We’re getting to be like D.C. I’ll say this for D.C., though—they got the Skins. They got Art Monk—man, do I love Art Monk. I told you Baltimore’s hoping for an expansion team. I tell you that?” Hughie squirmed around, turned his neck so he could eyeball Melrose on this important matter.
“You mentioned it, yes—and you’re running into a lorry.”
“Yo, man!” Hughie gripped the wheel and sliced the car off to one side and gave a loud and angry squall from the horn that sounded like a flock of Canadian geese.
“Anyway, did I tell you Barry—Barry—hell, what’s his name?—Levinson! That’s it, Barry Levinson! Anyway, he made those Baltimore movies I was telling you about. He’s in one of the consortiums. Now what I say is, if Barry could drag in all that studio money, then maybe the NFL would sit up and take more notice. He made Bugsy, right? It has Warren Beatty in it. And his wife in it, too. Annette Bening—you know her?”
Hughie stopped for a light but not for an answer, then accelerated again, car and voice. “Then there’s this out-of-town bunch, these big-time real estate and business people that don’t strike me as too damned savory, that want the franchise. It’s like in that Danny DeVito movie about the guy that does takeovers. You see that? Well, he tried to take over Gregory Peck’s company, but he didn’t. There’s such a thing as the American way, though you’d never think it to watch Japan.” Hughie thought this very funny and gave his hacking laugh. “I mean, there’s so many want to get in on this franchise. The chicken guy, what’s his name, the one with the squeaky little voice? Perdue, that’s it. People said he was going to be one of the backers, but that didn’t happen. I still say the bunch Barry Levinson is in is the best bet, but I don’t think he’s the big gun in that group, which is too bad. But those NFL owners, wouldn’t they love to rub elbows with that guy, or maybe Tom Clancy?”
“Absolutely,” said Melrose, who was only half paying attention to what Hughie was talking about. He’d tripped up over Annette Bening, whom he was still trying to place, while at the same time perusing his city guide. The Strangers didn’t appear to be going to the Poe House. He turned a page as Hughie made a left.
“The one about the aluminum-siding guys was called Tin Men—”
“You told me.” Melrose studied the map grid.
“—and Danny DeVito—he’s a scream—he was in it. And Richard Dreyfuss. Yeah, this Levinson’s from Baltimore, and that’s who should own this football club, right? A Baltimorean. Or B
altimoron, as some people like to say. Hell, we can take a joke, can’t we?” To demonstrate how good Baltimoreans were about taking jokes, he did his thigh-slapping hawking-laugh act.
As they passed the intersection of Howard and Baltimore streets, Hughie told him that a long time ago, end of the last century, there was some kind of centennial thing, and there was this big arch painted and decorated and put there. “That’s what Barry Levinson put in Avalon,” said Hughie, “with a lot of fireworks. You got to see that. And Diner. You got to see Diner.”
“With Mickey Rourke.” Melrose turned another page.
“Yeah, Mickey Rourke.”
Melrose felt he was touring not Baltimore but Beverly Hills.
• • •
Hughie, movie maven, told Melrose he’d just drive around for a while and pick him up later. That or he could wait in the car, read the paper. No problem.
Amity Street was in a somewhat shabby section of northwest Baltimore, but Melrose warmed immediately to the humble prospect of this little house, with nothing but the narrow street before it and the tiniest of gardens behind.
The house was very modest both inside and out, offering no clue that its former occupant, for the years that he had lived here, was a person of intense imaginative grasp and dreamlike meanderings. A house of more Gothic proportions—a gable here, a tower there, and set among untamed trees and tangled vines—would have been more appropriate as a home for Poe. Poe, Melrose thought with a start, should have lived at Ardry End, although Ardry End wasn’t (except for his aunt) exactly “untamed.” Still, it had in part a sort of creepy ambience, and windows that, in the rear of one of the wings, looked out over a view of broken branches and storm-felled trees. And that pool with the lead fish could have passed, in wintertime, for a dark tarn.
The Horse You Came in On Page 19