Yet, though Xavier had spoken as lucidly as possible, though he had taken infinite pains to present himself as but a dedicated amateur, with no wish to exploit the misfortunes of others as a way of advancing himself,—though, repeatedly, he stressed numberless failures of his—it came about that, in the Journal’s tabloid-size pages, day following day, and week following week, a vainglorious person called “Xavier Kilgarvan,” yet a total stranger to him, sprang forth to mock all he had said, as a caricature mocks its subject, though undeniably akin to it: and he soon grew quite sickened with the whole enterprise. Perhaps the most bitter consequence of the publicity, and one which would surely bear fruit in future years, was the roused animosity of the police,—for which Xavier could not in truth blame them. So it was, he surprised admirers and detractors alike by fleeing to Europe shortly after the Senator’s acquittal. “In the years to come,” Xavier reasoned, “I must take care not to fall into the hands of those who wish only to exploit me for their own ends; and I must be cautious that the very craft of crime detection does not, by way of me, become cheapened. But how difficult it is to know how to comport myself!—for I am fated to perform in public, and the public will invariably mirror back to me a personage not myself.”
THESE TROUBLED FEELINGS coursed through Xavier while he spoke, with a pretense of sociability, with the gentlemen in Colonel Westergaard’s smoke-filled study; and Valentine Westergaard, indolently seated beside him, continued to watch, and to listen, with his air of bemusement. The unsought attention brought a heated flush to Xavier’s face: he dearly wished he were elsewhere: and would have been hard put to reply courteously to a blunt question of Henry Peregrine’s (as to which side,—prosecution or defense—he would sell his services to, in the upcoming Rosenwald trial), when, of a sudden, a manservant solemnly rolled open the doors that divided the Colonel’s study from the adjoining drawing room, and the gentlemen rose with uniform alacrity, and murmured expressions of delight to once again mingle with the ladies.
“Fascinating, dear Xavier!—fascinating,” Valentine said, lightly laying his hand on Xavier’s knee, as they rose from the sofa, “and what a pity your discourse cannot continue through the remainder of the evening; or, indeed, the entire night.”
Quicksand
The following episode, which occurred a few days after the dinner party at Ravensworth Park, is so anomalous an event in Xavier Kilgarvan’s life, and, withal, so repellent,—particularly to those of us whose celebration of Crime Detection is best confined to the study, and the cushioned easy chair!—I had long debated whether to include it here at all: for it seriously detracts from our estimate of Xavier Kilgarvan’s high moral worth, if not his credentials as an “amateur expert” in Crime; and advances the narrative but slightly. Yet, as one or two revelations herein are, I suppose, crucial to the reader’s comprehension of the whole, I am left with very little choice in the matter: and must beg the reader’s pardon for two things,—first, the bizarre philosophical musings to which Xavier succumbs, in his distress (the which I make no pretense of understanding, no more than the citizens of Winterthurn professed to understand Simon Esdras Kilgarvan’s divers ravings: for are not such speculations mere twaddle set beside the hard facts of science?); and, second, the loathsome physical experience our hero is obliged to undergo, which fairly sickens me to record.
THE SETTING IS THE DEVIL’S HALF-ACRE, to which, unwisely unaccompanied, Xavier Kilgarvan hiked, by way of the river; the time, a sunny August morning, following a night of harsh and cleansing rains,—which, drumming against his roof and his windowpane, had afforded Xavier his most soothing slumber in many weeks; and encouraged the young idealist to muse that, perhaps, the solution to the vexing mystery was close at hand.
Thus it was, he betook himself to the Half-Acre yet again; and made another examination of that desolate and eerily forsaken place of rocks, boulders, and stunted vegetation,—half fearing, it should be confessed, that his darting eye might fall upon the corpse of yet another murdered girl. (And would not a fresh murder, at this time, constitute a gesture of the most vicious mocking cruelty, aimed against Xavier himself, by the monstrous heir of Ravensworth Park?—for Xavier had no doubt that Valentine sensed his suspicion; and quite exulted in it.)
So absorbed in his investigation was Xavier, the minutes speedily passed: and though his pulses leapt with the certainty that some clue, some shard of overlooked “evidence,” some wondrous Fact, was about to declare itself to his penetrant gaze, nothing emerged. “How unyielding!—how pitiless!” Xavier murmured, shading his eyes from the midmorning sun. “The Half-Acre is more repugnant, because more inhuman, than I remember: these ‘strewn-down’ boulders as ugly as anything in Nature might be: and, ah!—the heat,—the glare,—the marshy stench,—that curious rumbling noise in the distance, which appears to fade when one listens closely, then resumes the more ominously a moment afterward!—a place forsaken by God, indeed.”
These words, and more beside, the disappointed young man so forgot himself as to voice aloud: a mannerism he noted frequently in persons of uncertain mental equipoise, or advanced age: and scarcely wished to cultivate in himself. Yet the Half-Acre was a most uncannily desolate place, near-impossible to describe, for it struck the heart very much as Xavier expressed it, and roused all manner of anxieties: for though one might look very hard at a certain spot, satisfying himself that the configuration therein of stony shapes, and dwarfed vegetation, and woodland debris, and the sun’s pale glare, hid no secrets,—indeed, at midday, no shadows—as soon as one turned away, or glanced elsewhere, a panicked sort of doubt arose. Xavier was not the first visitor to the Half-Acre to be drawn, with palpitating heart, to the mottled and misshapen boulder upon which (as legend would have it) “Bishop” Elias Fenwick had directed to be carved, or had himself carved, this childish epitaph of his own creation,—
ME UNHAPPY RACE
HAS RUN A PACE
MY DWELLING PLACE IS HERE
THIS STONE IS GOT
TO KEEP THE SPOT
THAT MEN DIG NOT TOO NEAR
1759
—now so badly weathered, the letters could be made out only with difficulty: nor was he the first to wrench himself away, after a few minutes’ contemplation, with as much shuddering alarm as if he had been, all uncomprehending, gazing into a nest full of poisonous snakes—!
Yet, apart from the “Bishop” and his specific history, apart, it seemed, from any human connection at all, the boulder-strewn wasteland provoked an indefinable anxiety, or panic: and brought to Xavier’s mind certain tales he had read, in college, of the Greek god Pan, whose invisible presence aroused terror, or panic, in human beings. In this hellish place very much the same phenomenon might be observed: for might not someone,—or something—be crouching close by, slyly edging out of one’s vision when one turned to investigate; were there not whispers, or murmurs, almost heard; and did not the ancient tumult of the earth, frozen to stone these many millennia, yet exude an impetiginous presence,—a restless, yearning, damn’d spirit, neither inhuman, nor fully human? The paludal feculence of the nearby swamp, into which, doubtless with minimal ceremony, the corpses of so many Confederate soldiers had been dumped, boasted, with every breeze, of ripeness, and decay, and malarial rot; and the ceaseless thunder of the famed Roaring Rocks some miles distant, at the river,—of which I had occasion to speak in my opening chapter—could not fail to upset any but the most phlegmatic of persons.
(Alas, poor Xavier: for, despite the temporary balm of his restorative sleep of the previous night, our young man was, at the age of eight-and-twenty, far from phlegmatic, indeed.)
Nonetheless, Xavier strode about the rocky half-acre with as much frowning diligence as if he were making an initial investigation: brandishing a magnifying glass that promised at every turn to yield up treasure, yet succeeded only in emphasizing,—nay, magnifying—the very barrenness of the search. Not only did the wretched area fail to provide Xavier with fresh evidence, it seemed, by way of a
certain implacable sterility,—a lunar species of silence, and emptiness, and nullity—to negate, as it were, all that one did know of it: so that Xavier was by degrees overcome by doubt that any human beings had ever entered this place; and that any human history, of however malefic a sort, had here transpired. Alone!—and most lonely! A sliver of yearning entered Xavier’s heart, that he had not waited for Perdita to accompany him,—a yearning of such visceral potency, one knows not whether to deem it mere lust, or noble desire. “Ah! if she were but here,—at my side—her hand in mine,” Xavier exclaimed aloud, to the taunting rocks on all sides, “how fearless I should then be!—and capable, with God’s grace, of seeing, and knowing, infinitely more than I do.”
But since that day some weeks previous, Perdita had refrained from writing to him: save a careless scrap of a note, penned to thank him for the “unlook’d-to but altogether Prized” gift of the pair of turtle doves; and another message, of scarcely more substance, in reply to one or another of his own letters,—reiterating the plea that he hold himself distant from her, for the time being at least, as his presence awakened in her “chaotic & not-to-be-named yearnings, of a kind at variance with a Virgin’s soul”: the which hastily scrawled billet-doux exerted so profound and so morbid an influence over the young detective’s state of mind, I am almost abashed to acknowledge.
In this malevolent atmosphere, however, Perdita’s image could not long be harbored. In its place, Xavier summoned forth that of Valentine Westergaard: saw again the pallid, simpering, effeminate face; the too-red hair, its curls unnaturally tight; the rosy insinuating smile, that revealed slightly yellowed teeth; the greeny glow of the eyes. That Valentine’s slender anguilliform figure, gliding here and there amidst the oversized boulders, was very much of the Half-Acre, seemed to Xavier incontestable: nay, it would not have surprised him greatly to whirl about, and to see Valentine but a few yards away, staring fixedly at him, and smiling. Dear Xavier!—my dear young friend! How droll of you to hike out to this most favored of places, at the very hour at which I had fancied I should visit: and how serendipitous that my loneliness shall now be absolved!
A sudden knocking of his heart so alerted Xavier, he did glance around,—but saw nothing, and no one: save the whitely blinding glare of the sun that, as noontide approached, grew, with every minute, the more ferocious. It angered Xavier that he was fool enough to turn about so; and to be frightened. For even if Valentine did appear,—even if, of a sudden, all silently, he did materialize—was not Xavier Kilgarvan “man” enough to confront him? “Why, he is but a fop; a half-man; a weakling upon which finery is draped,” Xavier muttered aloud, that he might hear himself think over the distant roaring of the rocks, “and even if he carry his weapon with him, slyly hidden inside his coat, why should I be afraid? The coward attacks only helpless maidens: he would never dare set hands upon a man,”—and so on, and so forth, in half-conscious mutterings of this nature.
Nonetheless, Xavier felt a prick of cold terror yet a second time: and could not resist glancing over his other shoulder: to see, quivering in the sun’s radiant light, an image of sorts, not truly formed, yet visible enough, of the murderer,—the “Cruel Suitor” lounging against the arm of the sofa, his weak-boned chin resting languidly on the back of his hand, his placid eyes fixed upon Xavier. Ah! Yes! Is’t so! Really! Why, my sweet boy, you are a paragon of Idealism!—a “Detective of Genius,” indeed! Xavier blinked, and stared, and pressed a hand against his pounding heart, though he knew full well Valentine was not there, and that he was quite alone. Yet, by narrowing his eyes, he saw, or fancied he could see, how teasingly Valentine slid his knife,—for surely it was a knife?—from out the inner pocket of his formal dinner jacket. Why, had he carried it with him into the very dining room of Ravensworth Park,—was the monster never without it? All suggestively, all seductively, Valentine stroked the handle; and the long gleaming glittering blade. Unless Xavier’s eyes cruelly tricked him, the handle was in the shape of a cross,—the better to be gripped with the fingers; and shone golden; most golden; though studded with tiny precious gems, predominantly rubies. The blade was doubtless made of steel,—well above twelve inches in length, and about two-and-a-half inches at its widest point,—catching the noontide’s sunlight with especial vigor, and flashing it to Xavier’s dazed eye. This? Why, ’tis but a mere toy: a child’s sword, and not a warrior’s: so pretty an instrument, and so delicate, it quite wears out one’s arm, in battle. Should you like to grip it in your hand, sweet Xavier, to test its modest weight? Only come here,—come here. Come here—
The felicitous passage of a yellow butterfly distracted Xavier, and seemed to waken him: thus he stood, blinking, and sweating, and panting, and staring into space: and, for a confused instant, blind to the heaped and jumbled landscape beyond.
After a minute or two, when his senses grew calm again, Xavier wiped at his clammy forehead with a handkerchief, and exclaimed aloud, “How damn’d a fool am I becoming, and how craven a coward!”—in a voice that fairly trembled with anger.
For, of a sudden, he was most angry with himself,—and cared not a whit that his familiar headache had started, just behind his eyes; and that within a few minutes tears would spill onto his cheeks. “Dear God, I am a fool, and a coward, and an ass, and,—ah, I know not all,” Xavier said, grinding his teeth. “For there is naught in this hellish place but I: unless, as Milton’s Devil so aptly says, I myself am Hell: and is’t not somewhat vainglorious, to think so?”
Thus he stormed at himself; and resumed his fruitless examination; employing his magnifying glass with growing impatience, and no success; stumbling on the inhospitable terrain; near-turning his ankle; brushing with sudden vexation, mounting to fury, at a second butterfly,—or was it the identical pretty creature?—that blundered against his perspiring face. (It were well for the golden-winged butterfly, with its tigerish stripes, and subtle rubiginous patterns, that it flitted effortlessly away from Xavier’s grasp,—or the exasperated man might have behaved most ignobly, to crush it between his fingers.) But, by degrees, he did so manage to placate his thrumming nerves that something resembling a detective’s investigation followed,—albeit in such comically sterile ground, there was nothing to investigate.
Still, Xavier knew precisely where each of the murdered girls had been found. Had he not immersed himself thoroughly in the facts?—had he not memorized all?
Not a few yards distant was the much-abused body of Eva Teal, in its rigid kneeling position: the bruised jaw and elbows against that misshapen rock, the wrists close to touching behind her head, so that, at first glance, one might imagine they were tied. A charming poplin dress, in green, prettily decorated with cream-colored ribands, and lace that, albeit machine-made, was altogether charming as well. A gift from her suitor, doubtless. Or, perhaps, Valentine had simply given the child cash with which to buy it. But where were her hat, and her gloves; and her cotton stockings; and her petticoats; and sundry items of underwear, which the sheriff’s report had failed to list—? Alas, the dress was so badly torn, and ripped, and bloodied, it had been thought most prudent to burn it: and so it had vanished: and Xavier had heard but the other day that the tiny gold cross found in Eva’s mouth was now “missing”—! No fingerprints had been discovered on it because no fingerprints had been sought. It had not crossed the mind of Shearwater, or that of any of his deputies, or Hans Deck, that fingerprints would surely be on the cross,—and that they might be detected.
Mysteries of Winterthurn Page 33