Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  (Almost immediately, however, it was whispered that a minor contretemps had flared up betwixt the police chief and his exacting new colleague: for Kilgarvan objected to the fact that Perdita Bunting’s wedding gown had been burnt to ashes,—and with the assistance of a police officer! Nor had the punctilious detective failed to register disapproval of slipshod police procedure, in the confiscating of divers articles of evidence from the rectory, and Jewett Cottage; and in the astonishing way in which Reverend Bunting’s study, and the stairs leading to the second floor of the house, had been tracked up with bloody footprints. And Kilgarvan had charged, yet more seriously, that Mr. Wick’s officers had violated their professional obligations, by having purloined certain clues of a sensational nature; amongst them, a half-dozen of the mocking hearts—whether paper, candy, or otherwise—that had been strewn across the dead couple. Public-spirited anxiety was expressed to the effect that, when Xavier Kilgarvan returned to Manhattan, he might cast aspersions upon Winterthurn police; and it was remarked, behind Orrin Wick’s back, that he was in danger of being shown up as a bumbling fool, who could not even catch a red-haired giant of a murderer whom any child could identify—!)

  Quite apart from these issues, however, speculation raged over Xavier Kilgarvan, in whose veins there flowed,—did there not?—some sort of “tainted” blood, going back for many generations. It had manifested itself in two of his brothers, Colin and Roland: the one remembered as a monster of sorts, a prowler by night, and, it may have been by way of God’s mercy, a suicide; the other,—a ne’er-do-well who had fled Winterthurn under the shadow of disgrace, owing numberless gambling debts. Though born a De Forrest of Old Winterthurn, Mrs. Kilgarvan, Xavier’s mother, had proved headstrong and wanton even as a girl, in marrying Lucas Kilgarvan for love: and bearing him his sons, in near-poverty: and dying what was called, in whispers, a suspicious death,—there being, at her very funeral, rumors of an overdose of the opium derivative lac-elephantis. And it was known, too, that the deranged woman, in her last days, had pronounced a curse upon her youngest son: that he wander the earth for the remainder of his life, unless some woman, as wicked as he, offered him love.

  As for Lucas Kilgarvan,—he had gradually become a total recluse, living in but two or three rooms of his large ramshackle house on Wycombe Street, while, on all sides, a thriving mercantile neighborhood had taken hold, and the streets were filled with rushing vehicles; and the very sky despoiled by an elevated train that passed a half-block from his workshop. Winterthurn society had long forgotten this eccentric gentleman, and ambitious young Bradford Kilgarvan, an aide of the Mayor’s, and a vice-president at the First National Bank of Winterthurn City, rarely spoke of him, save in half-embarrassed allusions to his father’s trade or craft: for the Kilgarvan Toy Manufacturing Company yet did well,—in fact, thrived—though only two persons labored at the custom-made toys. (These were, of course, Mr. Kilgarvan himself, and his trusted assistant Tobias, now grown gray and stooped with age. A tale was told that Lucas Kilgarvan, who yet called his Negro assistant “boy,” could not grasp that the grizzled old man was no longer young, and incapable of lifting heavy cartons: and Tobias remained too solicitous of his white master’s feelings to set him right. Yet, this puzzling myopia aside, Mr. Kilgarvan continued to excel in his craft, and was said to drive a shrewd bargain with his wealthy patrons, who were willing to pay amazing prices for custom-made rocking horses, crooning and winking dolls, and other automata. Thus it had been a rumor in the Wycombe Street area for years, that the elderly toymaker had hidden a considerable bundle of cash in his house—!)

  It had not failed to strike observers that a secret animosity existed betwixt Xavier Kilgarvan and his elder brother Bradford: for the latter, informed of his celebrated brother’s presence in Winterthurn, had expressed genuine surprise, and not a little alarm: and had stammered out some blushing explanation (in Mrs. Harrier Von Goeler’s judgment, unconvincing indeed) as to why Xavier was a houseguest of the Pitt-Davies, and not of his. (For, it seemed, alone of his Winterthurn acquaintances, Murre Pitt-Davies had kept up a correspondence with Xavier,—acknowledging himself as one of the detective’s most fervent admirers; and expressing pride that he had once been his instructor at the Winterthurn Academy for Boys.) Bradford Kilgarvan, grown sleek and stout and guarded in manner with the passage of years, was very much allied with the conservative faction in Winterthurn City politics, under the guidance of his father-in-law; and could simulate little enthusiasm for his younger brother’s career, or for his life more generally. Dining at the Corinthian Club with associates on the night of September 16, when, at last, the murderer Dovekie had been caught, and brought to the county jail in manacles and leg-irons, Bradford had been overheard to say that he supposed his brother would be leaving town shortly: for what remained to attract him—? “A professional detective’s modus operandi is akin to that of a carrion bird, after all,” Bradford said with an air of frowning consideration, “drawn to corpses, that he might feast and glut himself; then, the corpse picked to the bones, off he flies, to seek his next repast!—shameless, and, withal, doomed.”

  THE MOTHER OF MANY a Winterthurn débutante took note that Xavier Kilgarvan, despite the cloudiness of his reputation, would be the catch of the season: for was it not whispered that he had never been in love,—nay, not even enticed into an engagement; and was it not known, that, with a true gentleman’s disdain for money, he had nonetheless accumulated a considerable fortune? Mr. Murre Pitt-Davies was tirelessly queried by the ladies as to whether, in the detective’s past, there might not have been a tragic love: which might account for his air of brooding, and his near-sullen reserve, and a certain bemused and melancholy expression about the mouth. (So far as Murre knew, however, there had been no tragic love; indeed, no love at all; and, alas, very little friendship. Nor had Xavier remained in contact with either of his attractive young lady cousins, Perdita and Thérèse,—according to the testimony of Thérèse. “I am afraid that Xavier is the most solitary person of my acquaintance,” Murre said. “And it can hardly be a coincidence that he is the most renowned.”)

  Though no longer precisely young, Xavier Kilgarvan possessed the air of a youthful and vigorous man, at least in public: his hair, streaked with gray, scarcely less thick, and springy as ever; and his glacial silver-gray gaze, as forceful; and, ah!—his manly profile as clean and chiseled as that of a Grecian statue. Though very few gentlemen in Winterthurn dressed more stylishly, Xavier gave the appearance of hardly caring whether his costly suits, or his impeccably white shirts, or his numerous pairs of gloves, became soiled in the course of his work; nor did he exhibit the slightest sign of vanity, of a kind one might anticipate in a gentleman thus attired.

  Little sensing how their queries nettled her spinster heart, the more aggressive of the society ladies invited Miss Thérèse Kilgarvan to tea with the ill-disguised intent of learning all they could about her dashing cousin. Was it true that Mr. Kilgarvan mingled with the most wealthy and influential New Yorkers; had he come near to being killed numberless times; and did she know why, of a sudden, he had returned to Winterthurn after his long embittered absence?

  Now a respected instructress at the Parthian Academy, and something of a bluestocking, the elder Miss Kilgarvan had, at the age of thirty-seven, come at last into a kind of bloom: being far more composed than she had been as a younger woman: and even, in the eyes of most observers, far more attractive. Enjoying an income of her own, part as the consequence of her teaching position and part as the consequence of her share of the “Iphigenia” royalties (which bi-yearly sum was a mystery to her colleagues,—albeit I am in a position to state that they estimated it far too low), Thérèse dressed smartly, though never conspicuously; she had even, to the surprise of most persons who knew her, experimented with that new invention, the “permanent wave,”—with but passable results, her hair being unusually fine. Though she possessed none of the elusive beauty of her younger sister, she was not accursed with Perdita’
s moodiness, or her short temper: she did not frown and screw up her face, and cause a knife-blade of a line to declare itself betwixt her brows, as Perdita did: and when Thérèse smiled, one could be certain she smiled with genuine pleasure, and not in mockery. Some of her students stood in awe of her, feeling no warmth or playfulness in her manner, though admiring her unstintingly as a teacher; others,—indeed, the majority—thought her the most remarkable woman of their acquaintance. For seven or eight years now, Thérèse had been quietly, but assiduously, courted by Murre Pitt-Davies, the headmaster of the Winterthurn Academy; and the two were frequently seen together at one or another of the city’s cultural events. Thérèse seemed happy enough in this kindly gentleman’s presence, yet it was believed she would never consent to marry him, being,—like her fated half-sister, Georgina, before her—a born spinster.

  Thus it was, Thérèse colored slightly, and bit her lip, that she might not reply rudely when queried about her cousin. All simply, and with maidenly dignity, she replied that she knew little of his life, whether “professional” or “private.” “Indeed,” she said quietly, “my cousin is as much a stranger to me now, as he has ever been.”

  Xavier Kilgarvan’s Investigation: At St. Bride’s

  Of more than thirty persons closely questioned by Xavier Kilgarvan in the days immediately following the murders,—which is to say, before the wretch Dovekie was apprehended—it was Ellery Poindexter who proved the least intimidated by the Manhattan detective: indeed, it was Mr. Poindexter who exhibited the most brazen species of indifference regarding the situation. For, though he was deeply aggrieved by the loss of his wife, and by the loss of his dear friends Reverend Bunting and Mrs. Bunting, he simply could not see in what wise their deaths related to him,—thus the phlegmatic gentleman reiterated, with very little pretense of courtesy.

  So assured was Ellery Poindexter’s social position in Winterthurn, and so little disposed was he to grant Xavier Kilgarvan a modicum of respect, he allowed the detective but a half-hour of his valuable time,—as he phrased it; and, even so, with calculated rudeness, kept Xavier waiting ten long minutes in a drab alcove of St. Bride’s, furnished with mismatched odds and ends. “He is frightened of me, perhaps,” Xavier bethought himself, as, growing impatient, he paced about the room, glancing from time to time at his pocket watch,—a charming trinket of gold, pearl, and black enamel given him, in lieu of cash, by a client from Virginia. “For he knows that I alone seriously ‘suspect’ him,—though, in truth, he cannot truly know it.”

  When, at last, the master of St. Bride’s appeared, his rudeness verged on actual insult: for he pointedly avoided shaking Xavier’s hand: threw himself into a nearby chair, with no ceremony: and allowed Xavier to know, by way of his unkempt “mourning” attire (a black velveteen smoking jacket with lapels of deep crimson, and badly stained cuffs), and his heavy-lidded indolence, that he certainly had had no significant business beforehand, to keep him from their appointment.

  With impeccable courtesy, however, Xavier proceeded to put questions to Ellery Poindexter, in a tactful, yet forthright, manner, as if no grave insult had been proffered by one gentleman, or received by another: for it had long been the detective’s covenant with himself, so to speak, that all matters of pride, vanity, and egotism be set aside in the pursuit of his professional duty. Such questions as he asked,—if Mr. Poindexter knew of any motives for the murders, for any one of the murders; if he had any theory about who had sent the anonymous letters to his late wife, amongst other ladies; if he had ever heard rumors of a liaison betwixt his wife and Reverend Bunting, or had suspected one; and where he had been, for most of the day of September 11—seemed to Xavier reasonable enough, if not inevitable under the circumstances: yet they roused in Ellery Poindexter a flush of indignation, and a pronounced tic about the mouth, that belied his air of languid indifference. He interrupted the detective in midsentence, to declare that his queries were naught but a waste of time, as the murderer was known, and would surely be made to confess by the police when he was captured.

  Not without a semblance of sympathy, Xavier here paused; and affixed his heavy-breathing host with a civil gaze, in which no hint of irritation showed; then ventured to say, in a subdued and unemphatic voice, that there were a half-dozen aspects to the case, minor mysteries, as it were, not to be explained so simply: albeit, from the testimony of eyewitnesses, and considering the prejudice raised against him, it did look as if Dovekie were guilty. However,—and here Xavier smoothly continued, before Ellery Poindexter could draw breath—it was a naïve assumption, indeed, though seemingly commonplace in Winterthurn, that guilt might reside solely in a mere agent of murder, and not in his employer.

  At this, Ellery Poindexter blinked in genuine incomprehension: or so the keen-eyed detective believed.

  “For, after all, one might find any number of ‘agents,’—any number of persons willing to take up an ax and use it,” Xavier quietly said, “for a significant fee.”

  For a brief moment Ellery Poindexter stared at him, in belligerent silence: then he said, the very notion was “preposterous.”

  So far as Xavier could gauge, however, it did seem to him that, despite his legal background, and his considerable acuity, the husband of the murdered Amanda had not grasped this principle: so Xavier chose not to press it at the present time, but to repeat one by one the questions he had asked, in a subdued, unemphatic, and, as it were, artless voice that would not offend any reasonable gentleman.

  Yet, it seemed, Ellery Poindexter was offended: recovering from his surprise and discomfiture, in a matter of minutes: and replying to his interlocutor in a voice of barely disguised contempt. Did he know of any motives for the murders,—for any one of the murders?—Why, yes, assuredly, yes, of the several thousand members of Harmon Bunting’s congregation, upward of a full thousand might cheerfully have wished him dead, for his dry, pedantic, self-righteous, repetitive, and unfailingly droning sermons, if not for the priggishness of his face. Had he any theory as to who had sent the anonymous letters to Mrs. Poindexter, and the other ladies?—He was embarrassed to have no theory whatsoever, save a whimsical thought which had passed through his mind, when Amanda, in hysterical tears, had first received hers: the thought being, each of the ladies had sent the letters to themselves, as an act of supreme self-adulation. “For I assure you, Mr. Kilgarvan, Amanda was never so much in her element, and never so gloriously ‘feminine,’” Ellery Poindexter said, “as when she gave way to fits of hysteria.”

  As to whether he had heard rumors of a “liaison” betwixt his wife and Harmon Bunting, Mr. Poindexter stated that he had not; nor had he harbored any suspicion, for the mere notion was preposterous, if not obscene,—allowing that one was familiar with the principals, and their tireless air of self-regard and worry over their prospects for Heaven. (For, it seems, Mr. Poindexter’s wife had become morbidly,—and, some might say, foolishly—wrapped up in theological matters, of minuscule dimensions, as to whether she enjoyed free will, or no; or whether she had been, from the time of Adam, predetermined to Heaven, or to Hell; and whether certain sins were more grievous than others. “The commonplace run of things,” Ellery Poindexter said with a sullen smile, “that captivates certain idle ladies, whose appeal to certain vainglorious gentlemen of the cloth is most flattering.”) Finally, in reply to the question, Where had he been through the day of September 11,—Mr. Poindexter told Xavier, with an air of sighing disdain, that his personal life was his own affair exclusively: he did what he wished, when he wished, with not the slightest sense of being accountable to others, and certainly not to a person outside the Poindexter family,—“still less,” as he drily said, “to a ‘consulting detective’ of dubious reputation”: and, as he had neither committed the murders himself nor commissioned an agent to do so, he saw no reason to provide Mr. Kilgarvan with an alibi,—and must remind him, that Orrin Wick, thus far, had been a model of tact and propriety in querying him on this subject. Therefore, unless he was to be formally
charged with the murders, he saw no reason for this diverting interview to be continued: but must beg Xavier to excuse him.

  Xavier, however, remained seated: and quietly made the observation that Mr. Poindexter did not show inordinate grief for his wife.

  Whereupon Mr. Poindexter meditatively stroked his mustache, and said, in a similarly unemphatic tone, that, as he was a Poindexter, his grief was scarcely a matter of public show: a principle that a Kilgarvan might not comprehend, unless it were spelled out carefully to him.

  If Xavier Kilgarvan felt a veritable pricking of his heart at this unconscionable statement, and a flurry in his veins signaling the exhilaration of battle, his handsome countenance maintained its composure: and he but slightly narrowed his eyes, in regarding his opponent, as if, of a sudden, he were gazing into an overly bright light. He then proffered his apology to Mr. Poindexter, for a false, and, indeed, naïve, assumption, as the Kilgarvans themselves had rarely worn their hearts upon their sleeves through the generations; and he could well understand the value of subterfuge. “Still, Mr. Poindexter,” he said, as he gracefully rose to take his leave, “it were well for you to realize that, despite the evidence against him, this Dovekie strikes me as a hapless pawn,—a mere blunderer of sorts, in a narrative too complex to have been his creation. The mockery with which the presumed ‘lovers’ were arranged on the divan; the near-incalculable rage and brutality that had felled them; the scattering of hearts; the anonymous letters,—the very feel of the crime, in short,—and one or two other clues, which I shall not weary you by mentioning, lead me to suspect that Dovekie is not the man: as perhaps we will discover when I question him.”