by Brian Hodge
“I apologize for the unpleasant sight before ye, Mr. Poe,” the Scotsman said from the shadows of an adjacent stall, his prominent whiskered chin visible in the shade of his constable’s hat. “But there is a quite salient point to this troubling presentation.”
The poet could not reply, could not, in fact, utter a sound. He managed only to gape at the sorry state of the mangled, ashen cadaver before him.
It lay in its sodden cloth nest, a rag doll of scourged flesh and ruptured, splayed organs. It looked as though it were once a sinewy, pale gentleman of indeterminate age — albeit one who had recently been fed through Colonel McCormick’s new fangled reaper machine. The man’s left eye lay on his cheek like a wilted flower bulb. Deep gashes ravaged his exposed skin. His nails curled off his fingertips like blackened talons, continuing to grow, unabated in death.
“What in heaven or hell could have done this?” the poet murmured as though oblivious to the Scotsman’s pronouncements of import.
“That, fine Sir, is precisely the matter to which I intend to direct your attentions.”
Poe managed to wrench his gaze from the remains to the Scotsman. “I… I beg your pardon?”
“Yer fine tale in Grahams a few years ago put me in mind to call on ye one day. Alas, Sir, that day has come.”
“My tale… ? In Grahams Magazine you mean to say?”
“Correct, Sir. The one takes place on Rue Street. The one with the Doo-Pin fella.”
For a moment the poet looked nonplussed. The flicker of burning kerosene, diffused by the icy fog, glinted in his dark eyes. “August Dupin you’re referring to? ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue?’”
“That’s the one!” The Scotsman nodded, a spark of recognition in his eye. “A thousand apologies fer massacring the particulars.”
“I haven’t the wildest notion… I’m afraid I… I need to… I need to take leave of this downtrodden place.”
“I understand, Sir, believe me.” Pinkerton rubbed his chin. “Perhaps we could continue our discourse in one of the outlying taverns.”
The poet closed his eyes. “I implore you, Mr. Pinkerton. Lead on. Please.”
The Scotsman gently assisted the frail poet away from the body.
4.
“CURIOUS PHENOMENA”
9 March - 12:07 AM
They exited the barn, and plunged into the dank, reeking Chicago evening. A ubiquitous stench hung in the air, as it had since the founding of Fort Dearborn a half century earlier, as it had since the Patawatomis named the area Checagau (for the marshy, wild-onion aroma that seemed to cloak the land). But now the smell had transformed into the odor of wilderness rendering itself into a city — the stink of sap, the blood of the ox, the smoke of the forge. Adding to this mélange, most of the roads were still hard-trampled earth — the decades of horse dung and carcasses pulverized into the surfaces, giving off an unmistakable bouquet that assaulted the senses.
Mr. Poe felt his gorge writhing with nausea as he stumbled along, trying to keep up with Pinkerton’s robust gate. “How in the Lord’s name could ‘Rue Morgue’ have anything to do with this wretched business?”
Pinkerton pointed at a massive black walnut along the adjacent roadside. “I’ve arranged a horse-car for our conveyance, Mr. Poe,” he said, indicating the shadows beneath the tree where a carriage was parked, the team snorting, tossing their heads, their breaths visible in the chill. “If ye would honor me with yer presence for a few minutes longer, I will attempt to explain it all to the best of my ability.”
Poe reluctantly followed Pinkerton on board the brougham, a rickety affair belonging to the constable’s department, hewn from worm-eaten pine and rusted iron wheels. The bench seat was as cold as a winter paving stone. The two men perched themselves precariously on the seat, and Pinkerton gave the reins a snap. The buckboard lurched.
“What caught my attention when I first encountered yer fine tale,” the Scotsman called out over the clopping hooves and rattling chassis, the carriage starting westward down the leprous dirt path, “was the notion of one looking too closely at a thing to see it.”
Poe was bouncing on the cold seat, trying to comprehend what the Scotsman was saying. “I’m sorry… the notion of one looking at… what was that again?”
“I believe the way ye put it was, the French police ‘impaired’ their vision by looking too close.”
Poe swallowed hard, trying to follow the thread of the conversation, as the buggy pitched and bumped along the rutted path. They were alone in the outskirts now, alone in the darkness. At present only a thin sliver of a moon shone down on the road.
Right then something shifted on their flanks, something barely perceptible, like the rustle of leaves out in the tall trees, behind the shadows. At first Poe sensed it more than anything else, more than he heard anything, or saw anything. “All right… y-yes… I believe I do recall Dupin having this dialogue,” he mumbled, distracted, unnerved, “but I still must protest that I am at a loss as to the relevance.”
Pinkerton nodded, yanking the reins, steering the team around a bend, and then into a grove of hickories.
The darkness deepened around them, a thin lattice of moonlight filtering down now as the witching hour approached. Poe reached down into his breast pocket and retrieved his vial of laudanum. He thumbed off the stopper, and took a healthy swig, the bitter almond tasted burning his throat. Pinkerton was talking again but Poe could hardly hear a thing over the rushing of his pulse.
In his peripheral vision he sensed something moving along on either side of them, behind the trees, in the darkness, tracking their progress. At first he thought it might be the shadows of birds, perhaps Peregrines or Illinois vultures slinking along the ground with the stealth of a night wind.
“… but alas, in yer terrific tale,” Pinkerton was saying, “the gentlemen eventually got interested in them horrible murders on the Rue Morgue, the lady and her daughter. Am I correct?”
“Well… as I recall, yes… you are, Sir… you are indeed… but what of it, then?”
In the darkness Pinkerton snapped the reins, chewing the inside of his cheek for a moment, measuring his words. “Them poor women mutilated like that, well it was certainly shocking, but the point of the tale, the reason that I have disturbed yer privacy this evening, Sir, is the central observation this gentleman Du-pan ended up makin’.”
Poe looked at him, trying to ignore the ghostly movement on their flanks. “Du-pin, yes, yes… now you have my unsullied attention, Sir.”
“It seems to me, if ye pardon the impertinence, you’ve gone and invented, in a tale, a way to conduct an investigation in the actual world.”
Poe glanced over his shoulder. Something in the distance, behind the elms, was glimmering intermittently now. It looked like fireflies, like amber sparks of light bouncing along in perfect step with the carriage. “I… I… I am afraid, Mr. Pinkerton… once again, you have left me in your proverbial dust.” Poe took another gulp of his medicine, and squinted to see better what was hounding them in the darkness. His vision blurred. He was dizzy and intoxicated from the laudanum, and was becoming unhinged with high nervousness. Back in Baltimore they had filled his impressionable brain with stories of Indian attacks. Were these the shimmering glimpses of savages gripping spears, knives, cudgels? “You’re… you’re saying I… I’ve invented something?”
“A way to analyze the leavings of a killer, Sir!” In the moonlight, bullwhipping the reins, the Scotsman looked almost maniacal. His bulldog face practically glowed with enthusiasm. “The art of detection, Mr. Poe.”
“I’m… I’m sorry… the art of what?”
“Detection, Sir, detection,” Pinkerton said, glancing over his shoulder at something. “It will revolutionize police work as we know it… in fact, I wish to show ye something else. You’ll see, Sir. You’ll see soon enough. We’re almost to O’Shaunnesey’s, and then I’ll show ye —” All at once the deputy fell abruptly silent, his expression hardening, his prominent brow kni
tting with concern.
Poe’s heart thumped in his chest. “Wh-what is it, Sir? What’s the matter? Wh-what is —!?”
“Lord-God-almighty!”
Pinkerton whipped the reins.
The Belgians snorted and kicked up from a canter to a gallop now. The wheels chattered. It felt as though the brougham was about to fall apart beneath them. Poe started to say something else but his breath froze in his throat as he gazed out at the tree line.
The specks of amber light revealed themselves not to be insects but rather eyes — eyes! — engulfed in a churning tide of fur and teeth, eyes that belonged to wolves. The pack of ferocious creatures hurled furiously through the forest on either side of the carriage like a feral escort. At least a hundred strong on either side of the road, weaving through the woods like drooling, bloodthirsty demons of all sizes and shapes, some enormous and scarred and bloodstained, the color of soot, some small and sleek, the color of chimney ash.
“M-m-mister… M-Mister Pinkerton… w-wh-what does this… what does this m-mean?”
“HOLD FAST, MR. POE!”
Pinkerton yanked the reins backward so hard and fast he nearly tore the bits from the bridles, causing the horses to rear up suddenly, and the carriage to careen sideways on the icy hard-pack. The buggy skidded to a sudden and violent stop, nearly tipping over on Poe’s side.
The bolsters banged down on the opposite wheels, rattling Poe’s teeth.
“Oh-dear-God-deliver-me!” Still gripping his flask of opium, the poet had his large head between his legs now, as though he suddenly were an ostrich hiding in the sand, praying for this monstrous intrusion to spare him.
“One moment please,” Pinkerton said, hopping off the bench to the ground. His Wellingtons jangled as he reached for his sidearm tucked into the pigskin holster tied to his tree stump thigh. It was an old Maynard percussion pistol — a .67 calibre job — the same make General Washington had carried in the Great War of Independence nearly a century earlier.
Poe was peering through his fingers at the onslaught rolling toward them like a tide of fur and fangs. His heart rose into his throat. Fifty yards away now, and emerging from the trees, their killing breaths like engines.
“YAWP!”
The warning call barked out of Pinkerton as he thumbed a paper percussion cap into the breechblock. He lifted the long barrel into the cold air and squeezed off a shot into the black sky. In a bloom of spark the report shattered the night, made Poe’s ears ring, and jerked Pinkerton’s muscular arm.
It was as though the wave of beasts had broken against a beach. All at once, like a mad precision team, they skidded and convulsed to a stop, some of them yelping and immediately turning tail.
Poe glanced up from his sweaty palms in utter astonishment as the wolves abruptly retreated toward the darkness of the thicker woods. Within moments the tidal wave of menacing blackguard had dispersed.
“Curious phenomenon,” Pinkerton commented as he shoved the pistol back into its sheathe. “Are ye well, Mr. Poe?”
Poe tried to offer up a reply but all he could manage was, “Oh… I… I… I haven’t seen such… oh my… “
“Would ye believe that’s the second occasion on which that’s happened to me since the beginning of the troubles at the packing plant.” Pinkerton was reaching under a canvas flap on the side of the buggy as he spoke, extracting a trail-worn saddle bag. “Fortunately I’m confident we’re going to get to the truth of the matter when ye see what I’ve got in here.” He was patting the side of the bag. “Come, Mr. Poe, I’ll buy ye a pint and charge it to the county.”
The Scotsman turned and starting trudging through the mud toward a squat wooden building in the distance, planted in the festering marshland beside the road. Poe strained his eyes to see the edifice. Constructed from logs of scorched walnut, it featured a broken-down sign above its door, illuminated by gaslight, barely visible in the fog: O’Shaunnesey’s Tavern.
5.
“THE ADVENT OF THE DAGUERRIST”
9 March - 12:50 AM
Five days before that fateful meeting between Messrs. Pinkerton and Poe, the Scotsman breached a certain etiquette among caretakers of the dead. Perhaps this was due to the deputy’s stubborn Scottish cranium being filled up with tales of mystery and imagination from the Poe canon. Or perhaps it was simply a vagary of the age, a passing of one epoch into another. Whatever the reason, though, when the knock came on Allan Pinkerton’s door that frosty March morning, rousing both the deputy and his beloved Joan out of a deep winter’s sleep, the accepted protocol at the sight of a murder was about to change.
The escort, a young man from the Ashland packing house crew, delivered the news in fits and starts in the Pinkerton kitchen, while Pinkerton pulled on his muddy field boots and splashed cold water on his face. Since Sheriff Bradley was still officially detained in Washington, Pinkerton was in charge of the town’s constabulary; hence the young man was more than happy to fetch and convey the surly Scotsman at his convenience to the scene of the dastardly attack.
The ride out to Madison Street that morning passed in a blur of gaslight, mud, and wood smoke.
When Pinkerton arrived at the blood-soaked tableau along the moraine, something turned over inside him. In the purple dawn he saw the packing house men gathered in their black aprons on the ridge, gazing down at a slope strewn with the bloody viscera that once was their fellow butcher. An idea popped in Pinkerton’s mind like the spark of a flint.
“Gentlemen!” he boomed, spitting vapor in the cold air. “I would appreciate it if none of ye moved!”
The onlookers froze like deer.
“Boy,” Pinkerton murmured then to his companion. “Be a good lad and go fetch me the Daguerrist.”
“The what, Sir?”
“The Daguerrist, the photograph maker. The one visiting Madam Pulaski’s Museum.”
The boy stared at the deputy for a moment, then gave a terse nod and trotted off.
Over the next fifteen minutes Pinkerton paced through the gloom, circling the periphery of the area in his grime-specked boots, pondering the devilish act that had precipitated this horrible carnage. As to rhyme or reason, Pinkerton was utterly perplexed. One thing, however, which ticked at the back of his thoughts like a clock, was the urge to record the features of the immediate landscape — the snow dappled mud around the remains, the texture of the path, the condition of the adjacent trees and any anomalies which might be visible to the naked eye. Could such observation lead to extrapolations about the perpetrator? Pinkerton was unsure. He was wandering into uncharted intellectual territory.
When the Daguerrist arrived Pinkerton was crouched at the top of the slope as if in supplication, staring at the ground. “Good evening, Mr. Brady,” the Scotsman murmured, not taking his eyes off the icy, rubble-cluttered grade.
“Deputy, I cannot imagine why you have roused me from a deep morning slumber this day,” the Daguerrist complained, balancing a heavy black trunk on his back, and awkwardly holding the long sticks of a tripod under his arm. His name was Matthew Brady, and he was a slender, handsome dandy with a luxurious mustache and a velvet black vested suit. “If this is some kind of joke, I must protest in the most vehement way that I am not amused.”
Pinkerton looked up at the Daguerrist. “As you can see, Sir, this is no joke.”
“My dear Deputy, you must understand that I am in fact not even from this area, am only passing through, and aside from that, I am accustomed to working only in my studio for —” All at once the photographer fell silent when he finally spied the gore streaked remains twenty feet away, now becoming visible in the lightening dawn. Brady made an attempt to say something else, stammered a little, swallowed deeply, then turned away, dropping his equipment into the snow.
Then he roared vomit into the mire, expelling his morning rashers and eggs.
The Scotsman rose, went over and patted the Daguerrist on the back. “All right, Sir, let it out. There’s no shame in it.”
�
��F-forgive me… I… I….”
“All I require are a few simple photographs and you’ll be on yer way.”
Brady wiped his mouth, straightening back up. “I’m afraid there’s not enough light.” He sniffed and looked away. “And even if there were, I require complete stillness for at least ten minutes in order to expose the copper plates.”
Pinkerton jerked a thumb at the corpse. “Sadly, Sir, this poor fella’ll give ye no problems in the stillness department. As fer the light… “ The Scotsman cupped his hands and bellowed up at the packing house crew. “Gents, if you please! A coupla tins o’ kerosene on the double!”
They set up along the edge of the moraine, laying rags and old blankets along the gravel, then soaking the material with gallons of accelerant. Brady put his powder charge in the branches of a neighboring oak, aiming down it at the corpse, then positioning his tripod on the side of the hill. Pinkerton specified what part of the ground he wanted documented. Soon Brady was ready. Pinkerton gave the crew a nod, and they touched matches to the rags.
Fire licked along the ground, then bloomed in brilliant rosettes of light. The moraine began to glow in magnesium bright yellow light. Pinkerton nodded at Brady, and the Daguerrist triggered the flash powder.
FFFFFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMPP!
In that single flash, history’s first forensic photograph of a killer’s footprints began to burn itself into a sheet of silver-plated copper.
Five days later, two brooding souls sat in the dim light of a deserted tavern, their coats over the backs of their chairs, their mugs of draft and bowls of hopping john, sowbelly and hardtack sitting untouched in front of them, as they stared at the pair of glass plates containing the ghostly, milky images of Brady’s Daguerreotypes. In the photographs, a perpendicular trail of muddy footprints was visible next to the butcher’s body. The footprints had clearly come from the woods.