Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Yet, as the day’s investigation somewhat haphazardly advanced, a host of other names was thrown out to the authorities,—among them (indeed, many times repeated) that of Isaac Rosenwald; and that of Valentine Westergaard, who had been glimpsed, the previous Sunday afternoon, strolling along the south bank of the river with Miss Eva Teal,—or a diminutive and lively young miss who closely resembled her; and—the most malicious suggestion of all—that of Dr. Holyrod Wilts, who had been interrogated at great length, albeit fruitlessly, regarding the death of Effie Godwit, some six months before. (The suggestion that Eva might have had some connection with Dr. Wilts was malicious, indeed, deeply insulting to the girl’s memory, in that Wilts was known through all of Winterthurn as the man to see for certain illegal operations; and it was even rumored that he was associated with the Hotel Paradise out at Rivière-du-Loup,—which is to say, the most infamous of the North Country “sporting houses.”)

  Though Dr. Wilts handily provided an alibi for that shadowy space of time during which Eva had been murdered,—indeed, had he not been absorbed in a twelve-hour poker game at Rock Barrens, with a dozen other gentlemen, including Fergus Barraclough himself?—he submitted with resigned goodwill to police questioning; for he was accustomed to it by now, and accustomed, as well, to walking free afterward. Shunned by such upstanding professional colleagues as Dr. Colney Hatch, his very name spoken with disdain, and usually sotto voce, by persons of genteel background, the portly and ill-groomed “physician,” who was never without a rank-smelling pipe, had been served subpoenas by many a county grand jury over the years; and by yet more coroner’s juries. Still, no formal indictment had ever been handed down against him, and he had never stood trial: his professional colleagues, however harshly they might speak of him amongst themselves, never uttered a word of censure regarding him publicly: nor had one ever stepped forward to testify against him in the matter of divers “suspicious” deaths of females, of clouded reputation, through the years. A most enigmatical person!—who had, it seemed, no office address, in Winterthurn City or elsewhere; nor even any place of fixed abode.

  As to Eva Teal,—Dr. Wilts peered at his inquisitors, through gold-rimmed glasses that clutched tight his plump face, and insisted for the fifth or sixth time that he was not only unacquainted with the girl but, may God strike him dead if he lied, knew nothing of her whatsoever. He thought it most perverse and unwarranted of the authorities, or of anyone else, to doubt her virtue: for, if she were employed by the Shaws, at that clacking relic of a mill-factory on the river, where, in winter, the girls were in danger of frostbite, and, in summer, of heat stroke (as temperatures in the mill might rise to 118 degrees, on the very worst days), how should the poor thing have had the time, if the energy, to stray from the path of righteousness? No, he had not known her; but if he might offer an unsolicited professional opinion, in confidence,—this murmured with an unctuous smile that revealed a flash of gold fillings—the matter of the penitential position in which the girl was found, the savage brutality of the assault, and, withal, the placement of the cross in the mouth suggested to him an unmistakable ritual murder, of a kind once commonly practiced in Middle and Eastern Europe, by Jews.

  HAVING BEEN HANDILY ADVISED by an acquaintance in the sheriff’s office,—most likely by Norland Clegg—that his name had, once again, been mentioned in a disagreeable context (for the dashing young Mr. Westergaard had been previously linked, however tangentially, to three or four of the piteous “Damsels of the Half-Acre”), Valentine Westergaard went of his own accord to headquarters, to offer such aid as he might supply in apprehending the “monstrous villain loose amongst us”: and creating quite a stir along the lower reaches of Union Avenue, in his handsome two-seater gig, with the crimson damask cushions, and the laminated rosewood trim, and the swaying silver fringe, drawn by a high-stepping dappled mare with braided mane and tail, and driven by Valentine himself. “In any case, it is not grievously out of my way,” he explained in his mellifluous voice, “as I am wanted at the Racquet Club upriver, for luncheon, precisely at one.”

  Though genuinely desirous of aiding the police investigation, and, withal, inordinately charmed by the manner of these uniformed persons, so much his inferior in rank, Mr. Westergaard professed some initial breathlessness, and faintness, when confronted with the air of the building: and had to be assured that the “queer, somewhat rancid” odor in Mr. Shearwater’s office, undetected by the other gentlemen, could not possibly derive from the remains of Eva Teal, as the morgue was some distance away; and, in any case, altogether odorless in itself, as the corpses were kept under refrigeration, and could not possibly decompose.

  Mr. Westergaard received this information with a flurry of gratitude; yet begged Mr. Shearwater’s pardon, if he yet felt constrained to order one of the men to raise the several windows in the room so far as they would go (which suggestion was immediately complied with): and if he did not linger long in the place. “For there is a perfumy sort of scent, of corruption both bodily and spiritual,—and aesthetic—which wafts about those squalid places, in which Pathos, whether explicitly or by circumlocution, displays itself,” Mr. Westergaard hurriedly explained,—raising to his mouth and nose a handkerchief of the most delicate Belgian lace, that he might breathe more comfortably—“against which we gentlemen must steel ourselves: for, as the experience of others has taught, it is most seductive.”

  Though known about town for the fanciful munificence of his dress, said to be provided exclusively for him by a Parisian tailor, and costing a goodly proportion of his income, or allowance (for Valentine, despite his privileged position as Colonel Westergaard’s sole heir, was kept “under tight rein” by the elderly man), he seems to have dressed with conspicuous sartorial restraint in venturing down to lower Union Avenue: wearing not a tight-fitting velvet jacket with a cambric ruff, or an embroidered linen shirt, or a flowing foulard tie, or sharply tapered trousers, or kidskin boots of the most delicate eggshell hue, or his satin-lined opera cape, or, indeed, his lavender gloves, which were held up to especial censure by the gentlemen of his social set, while admired by the ladies: but an English-cut tweed jacket, in a subtle aubergine shade; and an ascot of small checks; and spotless white flannel trousers; and, resting smartly on his tight-curled reddish hair, a hat of some idiosyncratic design, in white linen, with a graceful sloped brim and a noble crown, into the band of which a swan’s-down feather, dyed crimson, had been inserted. Languidly settling into a chair facing Mr. Shearwater’s desk, Valentine chose to remove neither his hat nor his beige gloves; and continued to hold his handkerchief fastidiously to his nose, for the duration of his half-hour visit.

  Though it was assuredly not necessary for him to do so, the gallant young gentleman identified himself in full, providing his age (which was thirty-two) and his address (his ancestral home was Ravensworth Park, his private “digs” were at Hazelwit Square, just south of Berwick), in a voice deliberate enough for the stenographer to follow, with no need for repeating. As it was a matter of some embarrassment for Mr. Shearwater to broach the subject of his “whereabouts” on the night of the murder, Valentine graciously anticipated the question, and murmured, with a faint blush of embarrassment on his side, that he and several friends,—Roland Kilgarvan amongst them, and, he believed, Calvin Shaw, and Lloyd Poindexter, and one or two others—had just returned from Nautauga Falls, where they had watched some very pretty fillies trot: and Valentine was contemplating a major purchase, if minor points could be worked out, and a small loan arranged,—though, as he hurriedly continued, with a nervous twitch about his shoulders, he did not want it noised about that he was interested in acquiring a certain horse, as parties at the Falls would only take advantage of him. In any case, after their return on Friday evening,—or had it been Friday, after all?—after their return they had a late supper in Hazelwit Square, and played at cards, and drank companionably, well into the early hours of the morning: at which point Valentine excused himself to retire to bed, while two or
three of his friends remained at cards. “Or so it seems to me,” he said, adjusting his scented handkerchief to his nose, the while his glistening bottle-green eyes traveled from face to face, “for I was inordinately exhausted at the time, as my friends will attest: and slept straight through to noon of the following day.”

  If the authorities wished to verify his “alibi,” Valentine said, with an ironical arching of his pale eyebrows, they could of course consult his friends; and they would have wished to consult his servants, save for the awkward fact that he had been obliged to dismiss the lot of them a week or two ago,—as it had come to light they were robbing him blind, and taking advantage of his trusting nature and childlike ignorance, in the matter of household finances. Thus it was, his former servants had all scattered,—had, he supposed, fled Winterthurn altogether. On a more informal basis he had recently acquired a footman of sorts,—not an actual footman, in livery, but a young acquaintance, of sorts,—a somewhat rough-hewn person, good-hearted, and not at all badly educated–who unaccountably admired him and liked to hang about his digs, as it were, to chat with him when Valentine was in the mood, and run errands, and the like: but, alas, this amiable youth had not been in Hazelwit Square on that fateful night: and no useful testimony was forthcoming from him.

  At this point Valentine courteously paused, with a fluttering of his pale-lashed eyes, and a leisurely recrossing of his legs,—and an oblique glance at his bejeweled pocket watch, drawn inconspicuously from his vest. In response to a question put to him, with some hesitation, by Mr. Shearwater, he explained that he had evidently made the acquaintance of Miss Teal,—as, the previous season, he had made the acquaintance of Miss Dulcie Sparks—no, it had been Dulcie Inman, had it not, and Florette Sparks?—at one or another of those insufferable charity “Musicales” the Winterthurn Assembly sponsored, with the hope of improving the lot of workers by exposing them at a tender age to divers forms of culture. Poor Valentine was so susceptible to the blandishments of elderly ladies, Miss Verity Peregrine in particular, he found it nearly impossible to refuse: and allowed, with a droll twist of his lips, that Miss Peregrine knew well how to play to his vanity, by cajoling him into participating in the program, alongside other amateur artistes, though he scarely imagined himself musically gifted—!

  As to which Musicale it had been, when the charming little curly-haired shop-girl had sought him out, with the hope, as she phrased it, of receiving counsel from him on a matter of gravest significance to her,—Valentine could not recall: it might have been at Christmas: or then again, at Easter. Upon both occasions he had succumbed to the ladies’ requests to sing one or two ditties while accompanying himself on the dulcimer,—which trifling contribution to the evening’s entertainment had been, it was said, greatly successful: and so Valentine supposed it must have been, judging by the spirit and duration of the applause. The shop-girls had crowded about him afterward, not unlike butterflies, or pretty moths,—their delicate wings all beating, their eyes aglow—a veritable greed for culture evidenced in their faces! Valentine had sung that surpassingly lovely song “There Is a Garden in Her Face,” and then, “She Sang of Love,” and a modest little tune of his own composition entitled “Shall You Appear, O Evening Star?”—and it pierced him to the heart, and quite moved the Assembly ladies as well, that such a multitude of little shop-girls,—or were they mill-hands?—should fancy that Valentine sang to them: to each of them, individually. “But such, gentlemen,” Valentine said, with a shrug of his shoulder, “is the mysterious power of Art.”

  So it came about, he knew not altogether how, that the girl arranged to meet him, upon one or two occasions,—or it might have been three—to wangle from him small sums of money, with which to pay certain debts incurred by her widowed mother: under the pretext (thus he realized, in sober retrospect) of seeking advice. All wide-eyed, and girlish, and disingenuous, and beguiling, little Tricia,—that is, Eva—had inquired of him what course to take, as some elder gentleman had begun to display an unwholesome interest in her; and she knew not where to turn, as this person (whose name she refused to give) controlled her livelihood. And if she brought the sorry tale to her mother, she feared her mother would be angry at her.

  “There you have it, my friends,” Valentine said sighingly, “a situation not lacking in pathos: yet far less ‘special’ than the girl seems to have thought.”

  Valentine responded politely to two or three questions, put to him by Mr. Shearwater and his deputies, his somber green gaze moving from face to face, and lingering a bit on the little stenographer, who sat to the rear of the sheriff’s desk, her eyes downcast, and her fingers so rapidly moving, one might have fancied them mechanical. His white-trousered legs were casually crossed, and one small slender foot wagged arrhythmically, with the sporadic flow of his words,—which impressed the small gathering of men as most artless, unstudied, and forthright. It was clear that Valentine Westergaard felt the awkwardness of the situation: the remarkable fortuitousness of his having known, however slightly and briefly, those girls doomed for the Half-Acre,—doomed, it might be said, to become the stuff of headlines, and sensationalist newspaper stories, read avidly throughout the East. That it was but an accident could scarcely be contested, but, ah, how queer an accident—! “Indeed, it bespeaks more of the cunning ingenuity of Art, than of mere inchoate Life,” Valentine broodingly pondered, as, folding his handkerchief meticulously in twain, he signaled that the interview had run its course. “One is forcibly reminded, however, by the splendid noontide sun, and the fragrant breeze wafting through the window, of those apt words of our American authoress Miss Susan Warner,—‘What need we of Art on a June afternoon?’ And so, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I must be off.”

  The enigmatic phrase by Miss Warner was voiced so gently, yet so compellingly, by Valentine Westergaard, it hung quivering in the air for some minutes after he had taken his leave; as did the sweet, subtle, potent fragrance of his expensive eau de cologne.

  THERE COULD NOT have been a more painful contrast between young Mr. Westergaard, with his exquisite good manners and his eagerness to cooperate with the investigation, and Mr. Isaac Rosenwald,—who, from the first minute he entered the sheriff’s office, escorted by a burly deputy, radiated a most disagreeable air: a commingling of alarm, disdain, agitation, and, it might have been, guilt.

  Seating himself with a show of perplexity, and reluctance, Mr. Rosenwald gripped the arms of his chair, and began at once to speak, in a voice that could not fail to displease, as it was both whining and commandeering. He expressed his shock, and grief, and repulsed horror, at the loathsome crime that had been committed: the fifth crime of its type within less than a year: and a very poor advertisement as to the efficacy of the local police force. A tragedy it assuredly was that Eva Teal had been murdered; an outrage, in his opinion, that it had not been prevented; yet he could not comprehend what connection there might be between that incident and himself. As office manager for the Shaws, he had a slight,—a very slight—acquaintance with a number of the workers; he knew the foremen somewhat better; yet did not truly know them either, as he lived in Winterthurn proper, just off South Wycombe, and never mixed socially with any of the mill employees . . . Indeed, since coming to Winterthurn City from Brooklyn, five years before, he had led a bachelor’s existence by his own choice. His landlady would attest to his sobriety, and disdain for frivolous behavior; his employers, he hoped, would attest to his diligence. Moreover, . . .

  Thus Isaac Rosenwald rattled on, as it were, in a nervous, irritable, nasal voice, while he remained pitched slightly forward in his chair, and his hands gripped the arms so forcibly, the knuckles whitely glared. He was forty-one years old at this time; yet, withal, younger in manner, and inclining even toward the brash. Mr. Shearwater and his deputies,—and, later, the chief of police of Winterthurn City and his deputies—would attest to his behaving suspiciously under examination: for did he not shift about in his seat, and did his narrowed dark gaze not leap irresolutel
y from face to face, fearful, it seemed, of settling anywhere? (An unpleasant impression was produced, moreover, by the cloudy distortion of his eyes, by his glasses: which looked, in the words of one observer, “like tiny pike lunging.”) Mr. Rosenwald’s hair was black, and wavy, and somewhat oily; thinning at the crown of his narrow head, so that the pale scalp glimmered through. His complexion was sallow, and doubtless unhealthy; his nose bony, and thin, though the nostrils were distended, and hairs grew conspicuously within; his lips were of a rich carmine shade, and disproportionately fleshy, the upper lip of an equal thickness with the lower, which is most unusual. All noted with what superciliousness he spoke when, he fancied, he directed the subject,—quickly limning for his listeners his educational background, in Brooklyn and elsewhere (which doubtless was impressive to persons who had not troubled to complete high school: for he not only had graduated from college, but had an advanced degree, in business administration, from New York University: and had, for a brief while, attended theological school in Manhattan: and knew, by his own boast, German, French, and a “smattering of Russian”)—yet becoming visibly apprehensive when, of a sudden, a line of questioning was introduced that was clearly not to his liking (when, for instance, Mr. Shearwater interrupted to inquire bluntly of him his whereabouts on the night of June 7). Indeed, as one of the deputies later confided, anonymously, to a reporter for the Vanderpoel Sun, so pronounced a commingling of the arrogant and the frightened was scarcely uncommon in criminals of the most brutal stripe: yet was a curiosity (or so it would seem!) in a Jewish gentleman with his background, and entrusted to a position of considerable authority by the Shaws.