Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

So crowded was the tavern, The Sign of the Horn, and so motley and ill-assorted its patrons, the presence of a gentleman of Poindexter’s stature went unnoticed, save by Xavier: albeit, in his somewhat disheveled state, with his Shetland wool coat badly rumpled and his mustache grown coarse and drooping, Ellery Poindexter struck a sorry note. With a brusque sort of camaraderie, suggesting that he knew not quite how to behave in such circumstances, Poindexter leaned in Xavier’s direction, and, affixing his bloodshot eyes to Xavier’s, asked him if he was a stranger to Winterthurn, and what was his trade; then plunging on, before receiving an answer, to say that he had lived in Winterthurn an entire lifetime, “though, in truth,” Poindexter said, with a hoarse wheezing laugh, “it has seemed far longer.”

  Though greatly excited by this turn of events, Xavier naturally showed not a whit of the emotion he felt, but answered his man quietly and civilly; and took care, not to evince any inordinate curiosity. Whereupon Poindexter signaled to the barman, to bring them fresh drinks,—gin but faintly tinged with water—and launched into a rambling and abusive monologue, having to do with persons who had “betrayed” him, and “wished him Death,” and “showed no mercy.”

  A tragedy had befallen him, Poindexter said, but he was blameless.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, Xavier waited to hear what his man would confess: and felt keen disappointment when, swallowing one-third of his glass at once, Poindexter brooded over an incident that had occurred many years ago, when he was a boy. “Ah, on the very day of my confirmation into the Episcopal Church,—on the very day!” he exclaimed in a slurred voice. “Why, my friend, I did no more than pray to God, as I had been instructed, with the most astonishing results: for God Himself appeared: and gazed upon me with some droll bemusement, and no love that I could discern: and, finally,—ah, my friend, if you could have seen it!—finally waved me away in dismissal! ‘Naught that Man does can overcome what Man is,’ God allowed me to know, ‘for Heaven will never be any closer than it is, at the present moment.’ And, having said these damning words, do you know, my friend,—God vanished.”

  Xavier observed, in a murmur, that it was unfortunate; but perhaps God would one day reappear.

  “It is too late!—too late!” Poindexter said savagely. “You are much mistaken, my friend, if you believe I have been cooling my heels these many millennia, awaiting His return!”

  Whereupon Xavier hurriedly murmured an apology, for he quite saw his companion’s logic, if it be true that Man cannot overcome what he is by what he does: and yet more sobering was the revelation that Heaven culminates in the present moment,—this present moment, at any rate.

  “You are right, sir!—you are right! But you are a stranger to Winterthurn, and can have no idea of what you say,” Poindexter rejoined, with a blustering authority, the while, in an awkward pretense of familiarity, he continued to lean toward Xavier, and even to nudge Xavier’s elbow with his own. He took a second immense swallow of his drink, and then a third, to drain the glass; and rubbed vigorously,—nay, cruelly—at his damp mustache, with the back of his gloved hand. His drunken monologue took up again its tone of reproach, and weary ire, turning upon “events ancient and modern,” and “God’s poisoned benison,” and “Woman’s poisoned love.” While Xavier pricked up his ears, as it were, to hear every syllable that fell from the man’s slack lips, Poindexter veered away from his subject, to dwell upon old disappointments and betrayals,—why, was he not speaking, at one point, of an insult borne by his paternal grandfather, who had been “royally snubbed” by his Federalist friends, and “ignobly snubbed” by the fool Jefferson? So rambling, so listless, so depressed was Poindexter, Xavier felt a stir of pity for him: then bethought himself that this was, after all, the manifestation of guilt: and he might be content that his man was wearing down from within.

  Thus, an hour passed; and yet a second hour; Poindexter downing many more gins than Xavier, and alternating betwixt a piteous garrulousness and an abrupt sodden silence, the while, with as much caution as possible, Xavier essayed to query him on the source of his present unhappiness. But of that, it seemed, the wretched man could not bring himself to speak. Instead he informed Xavier, in a tone of commingled sorrow and bluster, that he, of all persons, was an object of envy in certain circles: for men who glimpsed only the outward man, and assessed a man’s soul in naught but material terms, were fool enough to envy him: which irony struck him as so preposterous, Poindexter burst into a hacking and wheezing cough, of such protracted violence, Xavier feared he might collapse. Then, recovering feebly, he laid a heavy arm across Xavier’s shoulders, and brought his head close to Xavier’s, and said: “My secret is that I would gladly exchange positions in this world with anyone,—with anyone: with you, though you are but a stranger to me, for this poison of which I speak, why, it has so worn me down, and I am guilty of so foul a crime, there is no one to whom I can confess.”

  Xavier took care not to reply with overmuch alacrity; then averred, that it was likely his companion exaggerated: for gentlemen of refined conscience were wont to do so, while the common run of criminal suffered no pangs of regret at all.

  These provocative words the drunken Poindexter seemed not to hear, for he continued in his lament, his saturnine complexion darkening, it seemed, by degrees, the while his close-set eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill on Xavier’s very arm. With the dogged and repetitive vehemence of intoxication he declared that ’twas all God’s blame, and none of his own: and the secret tragedy that had befallen him, some five years previous, had left him so worn and depleted, he was but the husk of a man,—the husk of a sinner: and, indeed—this declared in another outburst of wheezing laughter—he thought it a droll sort of comedy that there was a man in Winterthurn, a “detective,” in fact, who so miscalculated him, he imagined him capable of a remarkable crime of passion, when, if the truth be known, he possessed as much “passion” as might be required to play a game of stud poker, or lift his glass to his mouth: and had been exiled from the bed of any woman for more years than he cared to admit. Moreover,—

  Unfortunately, at this point Poindexter’s unabashèd speech was cut short by a sudden fracas in the taproom, amongst a small gang of drunken dock workers: and it was not altogether clear whether the “traveling salesman” had even heard all that his drinking companion had been saying. Alas, so rudely jostled were these gentlemen, it looked for a precarious moment as if, all innocently, they might be caught up in the scuffle: for Poindexter caught a heavy blow to the chest, and Xavier was so violently shoved, his gold-rimmed eyeglasses flew from his face.

  Being by far the more intoxicated of the two, Poindexter whirled about, and grabbed at shoulders and arms, cursing in a most imprudent way; and Xavier, fearing as much for his life as for his disguise, deemed it best to withdraw,—for he was a slender-bodied man, and could not have hoped to hold his own amidst a crowd of wildly fighting men. “Do not allow yourself to be drawn into it, sir!—do not, it is a mistake!” Xavier cried, with as much impulsive sympathy as if Ellery Poindexter were not, for that instant, his sworn enemy: but Poindexter paid him no attention, being, of a sudden, warmly absorbed in the excitement, and content to brush him aside as one might a gnat.

  So it was, Xavier hastily retreated from The Sign of the Horn, knowing, with any professional detective, that valor and discretion cannot be evenly matched. His pulses all in a flurry, and his thoughts beating hot and riotous in his skull, he headed afoot for the bright-lit Berwick Avenue some blocks away, where he might have no difficulty in hailing a hackney cab to take him back to,—but where was he going?—where was it, he would be spending the night? An excess of gin-and-water, and, it may have been, an excess of mental stimulation, conspired together most potently to render the detective, for some perplexed minutes, in a state of suspension,—whereby he could not recall from whence he came, or whither he was headed. “Ah, what is it,—where am I,—where, and why?” Xavier numbly bethought himself, even as he raised his gloved hand to signal a ca
b.

  And, waking some hours later, in a bed-chamber that seemed but dimly familiar to him, amidst fresh linens that should have consoled more than they did, he could not, for a space of five or ten minutes, recall where he was, or in whose home he stayed: and was tormented by the words, rising as it seemed out of nowhere, Heaven will never be any closer than it is, at the present moment,—Heaven will never be any closer than it is, at the present moment—

  “Pray, God,” Xavier whispered. “You are but jesting.”

  The Proposal

  At this time, unbeknownst to Xavier, his cousin Thérèse and his friend Murre Pitt-Davies, companions and erstwhile “sweethearts” of old, found themselves growing yet more intimate, in their mutual concern for the detective’s well-being. For, though his investigation into Ellery Poindexter’s guilt was secret enough, and his renewed passion for Perdita unknown, it was clear to anyone who observed him that Xavier Kilgarvan had become so strangely obsessed with his work, his health had visibly deteriorated.

  Moreover,—to his shame be it said—Xavier was more and more observed under the influence of alcoholic spirits: albeit, fortunately, he was a gentleman who, in the common parlance, knew how to hold his liquor.

  Not a week passed, but that Miss Thérèse Kilgarvan, of the Parthian Academy for Girls, and Mr. Murre Pitt-Davies, headmaster of the Winterthurn Academy for Boys, had tea or dinner together in town, that they might compare notes, as it were; and speculate as to how best to approach the problem of Xavier. (Thérèse did not actually know, but strongly suspected, that Xavier and Perdita had renewed their love for each other, in the very shadow of Death: Harmon Bunting scarcely buried, and the “funeral meats” scarcely cold: and all of Winterthurn unwholesomely absorbed, in conjecture over the widow’s fate,—whether she would ever marry again, and whom; whether, indeed, she would ever emerge from her state of collapse, to overcome the ignominy of what had befallen her. This suspicion troubled Thérèse, for she retained, still, her romantic feeling for Xavier; yet, as maturity had brought with it a healthsome equanimity regarding what one desires and what one can expect, she oft-times wondered whether a love match betwixt Xavier and the troubled Perdita might not, in the end, prove lasting. “For there is no gainsaying passion, after all,” Thérèse sadly concluded.)

  Of such delicate matters Thérèse and Murre shrank from speaking; but confined their discussion to the well-being of both Xavier and Perdita,—the latter having made some “modest improvement” in her health, since taking up residence in Contracoeur. Albeit the beauteous invalid quite distressed her relatives and her physician by refusing most foods, and by passing tormented sleepless nights, murmuring to herself in a delirium, and struggling, it seemed, with bodiless attackers,—whom she begged to “spare my belovèd Harmon, if not myself.” It was remarked upon too that she bribed servants to bring her forbidden newspapers, that she might greedily peruse them, searching, evidently, for news related to the murders, or news of Xavier Kilgarvan; and that she spent hours daily scribbling letters, which she hid in her bosom if anyone approached, and which she did not dare attempt to mail, as they would naturally have been intercepted. And, ah! did she not daily plead to be allowed to return to Winterthurn—though it be, as she wildly declared, the place of her “damnation”?

  One December afternoon, past dusk, Thérèse and Murre met for tea at the Winterthurn Arms: the one tall, and chastely attractive, in her black cashmere cape, and her kidskin gloves, and the hat she most favored,—stylish, yet not conspicuous, of smooth dark felt, with a wide brim, and numerous black swan’s-down feathers; the other scarcely an inch or two above Thérèse’s height, but stolidly built, with an agreeable countenance, and an air of gentlemanly solicitude. Both having spent full days at their respective schools, they spoke for a while of teaching, and of their students,—of whom, it seemed, they were, in the main, extremely fond; Miss Thérèse Kilgarvan returned to Murre Pitt-Davies his well-worn copy of Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man, which he had pressed upon her, for its high quality of discourse and its message of progress,—the which Murre took very much to heart, as it confirmed his own sentiment that, by way of evolving consciousness, and the development of science and rationality, Mankind could hope to obtain a Utopia of sorts, sometime in the near future. They spoke then of more personal matters: for Murre felt constrained to report that both he and his Aunt Elvira were quite distressed at so frequently hearing poor Xavier return to the house very late at night,—which is to say, very early in the morning: entering by way of his private entrance, and climbing the stairs unsteadily, oft-times muttering and quarreling with himself, in a state,—ah, how Murre winced to say it—of unmistakable inebriation.

  At this, Thérèse did not trust herself to speak; but sat staring pensively at the delicate fluted rim of her tea cup. How wretched a turn of Fate that, since Xavier had failed to arrive in time to prevent the murders, he had arrived at all!—and now showed no sign of preparing to leave, as if caught fast in a web, the sinister dimensions of which he could not discern.

  At last Thérèse bestirred herself to observe quietly that, at the very least, Xavier had in him the most loyal and selfless of friends: a better friend, perhaps, than he deserved, in his current state of preoccupation. “If only he would abandon the struggle, and return to Manhattan, and let Winterthurn be—!” Thérèse added, in a tone of uncharacteristic acerbity.

  “Yet, it seems, some riddle, some vexation, some unresolved mystery holds him here,” Murre frowningly said, “which, for my part, I cannot quite see: for assuredly poor Jabez Dovekie was the murderer!”

  “Yes,” said Thérèse at once, “yes,—you are correct—assuredly.”

  If, in the course of this narrative, I seem to have slighted so sweet-tempered and exemplary a gentleman as Murre Pitt-Davies, it is not, in truth, that other persons are more worthy of authorial attention; but rather that the much-loved headmaster of the Winterthurn Academy was, by all accounts, one of those individuals so devilishly difficult to capture in prose, I have long shrunk from the attempt. Which is to say, Thérèse’s faithful suitor was so blessed with virtues (viz., intelligence, generosity, sincerity, warmth, Christian fortitude, and, withal, a total lack of pretension), and, it seemed, so innocent of any failings whatsoever (save the questionable failing of being, at times, excessively patient and overly “soft-hearted” toward problematic students), it is all but impossible to speak of him without risking the charge of implausibility—! He was forty-nine years old at this time, but wondrously vigorous and youthful; balding, and thick-set, and possessed of a somewhat overlarge nose, yet, withal, not unattractive; unfailingly good-hearted, yet by no means pious, or lacking in a robust sense of humor; taking pride in his work and in his accomplishments, yet by no means vain, or deluded as to his personal significance. It was whispered against him by a very few detractors that, in failing to insist upon corporeal discipline at the Academy, he was violating the school’s tradition, and would “spoil” his young charges; but the great majority of the parents soundly supported him, and, needless to say, the Academy boys were near-unanimous in their fondness for him. Throughout Winterthurn, Murre Pitt-Davies was known as one of those persons to whom life appears a genuine blessing, and not a burden; his manner was forthright and exuberant, his smile unpremeditated . . . And so forth, and so on!—for it is simply the case that Xavier’s friend was an entirely admirable man, and, while villainous persons and “characters” invariably set well in prose, those individuals whom we might call “the salt of the earth” fare less easily: there being as much covert resistance to Goodness in art as there is affection for it in life.

  These things Thérèse knew, for she felt great esteem for Murre, and affection, and, almost, love,—albeit, set beside Xavier Kilgarvan, he seemed in some obscure wise less manly, as he was the more human!

  “Why then,” Thérèse sternly bethought herself, “I must not indulge in idle romantic thoughts of,—my redoubtable cousin.”

  Upon this occa
sion in December, having spoken earnestly for some time of various matters, Murre Pitt-Davies of a sudden renewed his proposal of marriage: surprising both himself and his companion, so that they blushed crimson, and Thérèse occupied herself in searching for her gloves, to disguise the agitation she felt. For, ah!—did Murre’s soft-voiced proposal not sound, this time, strangely reasonable?—inviting?—even, it might be said, seductive? Thérèse did not, she could not—love him as she loved Xavier, and yet—

  Seeing her upset, Murre warmly proffered his apologies, and hoped he had not offended her,—as they had been speaking of grave matters; and a personal importunity was perhaps out of place.

  Thérèse, however, adjusting her veil, heard herself say in a breathless voice that, perhaps, when the mystery was resolved,—if resolved it might be—when this atmosphere of dread, and malaise, and Evil had passed,—why, then,—then she might rejoice in his proposal: if, of course, he still wanted her as his wife.

  —With which amazing words the handsome Miss Kilgarvan rose to her feet, to conclude the conversation, before her incredulous suitor could respond!

  Xavier Kilgarvan’s Investigation: Hotel Paradise

  The reader is now obliged to wrest his thoughts away from the genteel environs of the Winterthurn Arms, to a setting differing greatly from it, in both atmosphere and reputation,—this, the notorious village of Rivière-du-Loup, some ten miles north of Winterthurn City.

  It had long been Xavier Kilgarvan’s suspicion that the hypocrite Poindexter had secreted away a mistress, whom, since the day of the murders, he had not dared visit: and, surely, if Xavier waited patiently enough, and began to allow the beleaguered roué some measure of his old freedom, he would soon betray himself. Yet the weeks passed; and nothing, and no one, came to light; albeit twenty-odd informers had supplied the names and addresses of “Poindexter’s whores” to Xavier, to send him on numberless futile chases through the back streets and alleys of the city,—these excursions oft-times proving dangerous, both to the detective’s morals and to his sobriety.