The Blackest Bird

by Joel Rose

  All ghouls, including Mr. Coleman, were reportedly killed in the ensuing conflagration with police authorities and militia.

  The bodies of the others were reportedly taken to Haarlem Village or various nearby enclaves. The body of Mr. Coleman was returned to this city, much mutilated by musket balls, especially in the area of the face, sustained during the foray.

  Fittingly, for this last journey, Mr. Coleman was transported in the same coffin set aside for the remains of John C. Colt, the Homicide. This band is now considered undone.

  Of late, in Olga’s scornful observation, Mr. James Gordon Bennett has seen fit to take it upon himself, in a brazen exercise of sinful pride, to have himself identified in the city prints as the singular practitioner of what he so readily liked to call the new, “objective” journalism.

  Olga snorts her utter contempt at the mendacity of the man for the very notion. In reality Olga knows Mr. Bennett, through a series of meetings at the Harper Brothers and close scrutiny of his newspaper forays, to be a callous cur, a mere retailer of scandal, profiteer of vulgarity and sensation, purveyor to all who delight in the misery of others.

  Still, Olga admits to having been drawn back, and back again, to the wide spectrum of Bennett’s exposés. The man’s particular brand of charlatanism manifest in print held its own particular delights. The brutal murder of the prostitute Helen Jewett and ensuing sensational acquittal of her conspicuously guilty murderer, a young pansy christened Richard Robinson but self-named Frank Rivers, comes to immediate mind.

  “A journalist’s duty,” Bennett lectured her (and others, presumably) from the podium of the Herald’s 5 p.m. edition, his self-revelatory third extra of the day, “is to gather the facts, independent of prejudice, preconception, pressure or personal agenda, and present them, in order to reproduce the world as it is.”

  If it is not in keeping with what we might like, so be it. You, Dear Reader, are entitled to know every last fact and conjecture connected with the Homicide Colt case, and only I can provide them. But need I remind you, facts don’t necessarily add up to reality. Especially when the possibility of justice is sat upon by the privileges of power, the inequities of class, the consequence of sin, the very nature of evil.

  My Herald is equally intended for the great masses of the community— the merchant, the mechanic, the working person—the private family, as well as the public hotel—the journeyman and his employer—the clerk and his principal.

  I hold no favorites. I attack rich or poor, religious nut or agnostic, high society or low, police or criminal. I am an editor. I am your editor. I am fearless. I am candid. I am honest. I am independent. All my reporting is dedicated to serving the legitimate interests of you, the people. My questions are asked in this capacity, and this capacity only.

  Olga is beyond herself with disbelief, caught between outright disgust and delight. Compulsively, she finds herself following every fleck and nuance of the extravaganza through the rest of the afternoon until her father wakes in the early evening. In spite of the hour, she brings him a breakfast of two fried eggs, two pancakes, two chicken legs, and a basket of warm buttered rolls and places the tray on his lap in bed.

  With the tray she carries what she can only hope wearily is Bennett’s final ejaculation of the day, the one wherein he conveniently sums up the melodrama and addresses what he now has come to call:

  THE COLT QUESTION

  “Papa, while you slept Mr. Bennett has taken it upon himself in the most extraordinary way to sound quite a loud noise. He now charges John Colt not dead, but having made good an escape, solely owing to the cooperation of the Watch, the warden, certain prison authorities and guards, and that even Dr. Archer was aware of the deception, in on it, too, his jurymen carefully selected for their ignorance of Mr. Colt’s physical appearance.”

  “What exactly does he say?” inquires Hays between ravenous bites of pancake and egg. “Has he implicated me, dear?” his old eyes twinkling with his facetiousness. He has awakened famished, and is grateful to his daughter for providing such bounty in such timely manner.

  “Not you, Papa. Even he knows in this city you are beyond reproach. Your implication would not sell newspapers. The opposite. His readership would only see through him, and abandon him in disgust.” She winks. “Papa, what I loathe about Mr. Bennett is not his doggedness, but how he so shamelessly plays to his readers. He is the worst sort of demagogue. He claims the populace entitled to know every fact, every conjecture, yet he disdains them. He proclaims himself nothing less than an editor on public duty, yet again, he makes like it is he, and only he, who can provide the goods, flailing this way, flailing that. All geared to the single, purposeful, deplorable bottom line of making money.”

  “It is the American way. If Mr. Bennett is crass, you, my dear, are not the first to point at his fallacy. Now what is it he does allege? Please tell me.”

  “His allegations are as follows, Papa,” she fumes. “A body had been looted from the Dead House, substituted for John Colt’s, replacing the privileged murderer in his coffin after the corpse had assiduously been prepared for the occasion. The famous bejeweled dagger, he alleges, has undoubtedly been plunged into the innocent’s heart by conspirator or conspirators unknown. The hapless victim’s clothes removed from the corpse and more than likely carefully destroyed in the ensuing inferno at the prison. None of this could have been carried out, according to Mr. Bennett, without the cooperation of certain officials and men in charge. Here, I’ll read to you from his latest and, I hope, final screed of the day:

  “We now know Mr. Colt’s suicide to be an untrue make-believe. Presently, it is assumed the two, Mr. Colt and Mr. Coleman, escaped in concert, leaving another body in Mr. Colt’s stead to be mistaken for his own.

  Authorities further speculate that Mr. Coleman was paid to rob Mr. Colt’s grave in order to curtail a rising tide of rumor, gossip, and out-of-hand speculation, in this way preventing city authorities from exhuming the coffin to see once and for all if it really was Mr. John C. Colt sepulchred in said crypt.

  At first blackmail seemed the game, and it still might have been, because after ambushing the gang of ghouls and upon unlidding the box, sheriff ’s deputies said they discovered the coffin empty.

  If ever a corpse was interred within may now never be known. The bones of Mr. Colt may have indeed lain there, to be ransomed by his family, or, perhaps, as is the consensus at this writing, the body was not (and never was) that of Mr. Colt, but that of another, a derelict, laid out in his stead, until last evening, no one the wiser.”

  Olga continues. “Mr. Bennett further charges the cupola dome fire to be neither accident nor coincidence, Papa, but deliberately set, also with cooperation, while Colt’s clothes were soaked in the dead man’s blood and then fitted to the body. He runs on at the mouth ad nauseam with his opportunist onslaught, claiming he has no doubt that Governor Seward of New York State, as well as New York City Mayor Morris, will order an investigation at once into this most unheard-of, most unparalleled, travesty.

  “According to Bennett,” she moves on spitefully, “lending credence additionally to this nefarious conspiracy is the disappearance of Colt’s bride, Caroline Henshaw, now, he claims, substantiated. The rival Sun, he alleges, speculates she has traveled out west, to California or Texas, in the company of her husband. Mr. Bennett writes, unequivocally, this is untrue. He has learned from unknown source, he says, she is on her way to Europe with her infant son, specifically to Germany, having booked passage using the name Julia Leicester.”

  “None of this is news, Olga. All of this information, including that in regard to Miss Henshaw, is known, and has been available to the constabulary. Go on, please.”

  “Grudgingly, I will admit, the man has a certain capacity, Papa. He finishes masterfully. You, Mr. Hays, of all people, I fear, will appreciate Mr. Bennett’s salient point. Prick your ears and prepare yourself, sir.”

  She clears her throat and once more begins to read:

>   “On the plus side, our city is now spared the cash outlay, in this time of relative recession, of hanging the likes of Mr. Coleman, killed in the resultant shoot-out with local police and support authorities.

  Now if only to recapture Mr. Colt and hang him, even in these hard times, dash the expense.”

  Old Hays smiles, albeit tightly, at his daughter as he wipes his lips with the napkin she has provided.

  “Mr. Bennett has indeed developed the knack to extract good from small things,” he offers.

  Olga agrees.

  “In a more sober moment, Papa, Citizen Bennett concedes the likelihood of such possibility, Mr. Colt being returned to New York to face his punishment, scant at best.”

  “Yes, but Mr. Bennett has missed the most salient point, Olga.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Tommy Coleman is no more likely dead than John Colt.”

  43

  A Visit Paid by Old Hays to the Colonel,

  Samuel Colt, at His Paterson Arms

  Manufacturing Company

  Sergeant McArdel was not to be found at any of his haunts, although Old Hays would have dearly loved to have a word with his underling. He failed to show for work. His home on Murray Street, near the Columbia College, stood unoccupied. The proprietor at his favorite drinking spot on Dey Street said the sergeant, a usual customer, had not been in his establishment for some three or four days.

  Hays took McArdel’s actions as nothing less than testimony to his betrayal. He held no doubt this man, whom he had trusted, had turned corrupt under the influence of money, and in all probability had fled.

  In accordance, trying to get to the bottom of it, Hays sought substantiating audience with the harelipped keeper and another jailhouse guard, but these two, highest on his list, too, had failed to report to their posts.

  Trencher, however, was present.

  “Mr. Trencher,” Hays said after summoning the man to his office.

  Trencher stood uneasy in front of him. “Yes, sir, Mr. High,” he managed.

  “Mr. Trencher, your fellow guards, you have not seen them?”

  “Which ones would be those, sir?”

  “I think you know.”

  Trencher’s gaze slipped to the floor. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

  “Mr. Trencher, I do not tolerate betrayal well.”

  “Nor should you, sir.”

  “What do you know of your fellows, sir? Tell me!”

  “Not much, Mr. High. I speak the truth.”

  “And Sergeant McArdel?”

  “Not much either there, sir.”

  “I have heard talk of bribes paid.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Were you offered money, Mr. Trencher?”

  “If I were, sir, I didn’t take it.”

  “But you were offered?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “By whom?”

  “Sergeant McArdel spoke with me, sir.”

  “I see. Would you know the source of these funds offered you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could you guess?”

  “I’m not very good at guessing, sir.”

  “Come now, Mr. Trencher. We have worked together often over the years. I expect nothing less of you, speak the truth! Tell me what you know.”

  Trencher looked back up from the floor. He puffed his chest and it swelled the blue serge of his keeper’s uniform. “Mr. Colt faced the gravest jeopardy,” he said. “The sergeant did not say where the reward was coming from, but a thousand dollars is a lot of currency. It weren’t hard for me to surmise.”

  “No, I imagine it weren’t. Good lad, Mr. Trencher.”

  By Friday of that week, with still no word of McArdel and without consulting Mayor Morris or any other superior for that matter, the high constable took it upon himself to enlist Balboa and travel with the barouche on the vehicle ferry to Paterson, New Jersey, to pay visit to Colonel Colt at his revolver factory. Over the last months, Hays had heard some vague talk circulating that Colt’s Patent Manufacturing enterprise might be on the verge of financial failure, by some accounts even leading to bankruptcy.

  At the old mill where stood the plant, the high constable was announced. He found Mr. Colt in his office, behind his desk, smoking a well-formed segar. The two men shook hands. Old Hays had met Mr. Colt on any number of professional and social occasions, including several at the Tombs during John Colt’s prolonged incarceration. Nevertheless, Sam Colt again took the opportunity to speak expansively how he was an ardent admirer. He offered one of his dark-wrapped segars, not failing to mention that it was from Anderson’s top shelf. Hays declined.

  The Colonel shrugged and resumed his desk chair, puffing tenaciously at his own smoke, achieving a bright red ember glow, gazing across his desk, over the segar ash, nodding slightly at Hays, an acknowledgment before inquiring had the high constable received the patent chair that had been sent to his residence.

  Hays met Colt’s gaze evenly, said he had, expressed his gratitude, remarking the chair in question an uncanny instrument.

  Colt grinned, pleased. He said he had much enjoyed in the pink pages of the Police Gazette—“Huey,” he called it, using the argot—the story of the Timothy Redmond bank fraud case from years past, where an innocent publican had been implicated, identified, and then arrested to face a life term for forgery. Hays had unmasked the true gang of scratchers, including the pugilist Bob the Wheeler, the screw-man James Holdgate, and the figure dancer John Reed, after carefully studying the physiognomy of Redmond in his Tombs cell.

  “The part I liked the best was when, in the courtroom following his acquittal, the hotelier—what was his name?—Redmond! turned to you in front of the entire procedural and cried, ‘Thank God for you, sir, and men of your kind!’ Was this true?” Colt asked.

  The Colonel carried himself in such manner, thrust forward—his ponderous weight and bulk applied in a condition very nearly a threat—that might rankle a lesser man. Hays told him the account had been embellished, but intrinsically the facts were fairly depicted.

  Colt nodded thoughtfully as if he concurred wholeheartedly with Redmond’s assessment of the high constable.

  “Now what can I do for you, sir?” asked Colonel Colt. “I am at your service.”

  “That is very kind of you. I am here to know, sir, what you may or may not know of your brother’s suicide.”

  “Suicide?” Colt repeated slowly, his look guarded. “From all I am reading currently in the prints, do you not mean escape, High Constable?”

  “I was hoping you might tell me.”

  A laugh like an animal yelp erupted from Colt. His eyes twinkled. His big belly shook.

  Ultimately Colonel Colt insisted he had no knowledge of how a dagger might have been smuggled into the Tombs for his brother to use on himself, if indeed he had committed such an act of self-annihilation. It was hard to believe everything read in the newsprints, especially the pennies. If John did not commit suicide but had escaped, Sam Colt said, he had no idea how this might have been managed. He himself had no culpability in such antics, he assured Hays. He had not heard from his brother, and assumed him dead. He had no presumption of any other scenario. He refuted any rumor that he had tried to pay bribes to any single individual employed at the Men’s House of Detention. Nor, he said, had he received any blackmail attempt to reclaim his brother’s remains. He said he did not know Sergeant McArdel.

  Hays considered this. He thought it curious that the Colonel had seen fit to single out and mention the Timothy Redmond case of so long ago. Most especially as it evoked the name James Holdgate, the very man Hays had been dispatched to retrieve from Gravesend the night of the cupola dome fire and his brother’s undoubted escape.

  “On parallel note,” Hays changed course in his inquiry, “what do you know of Mr. Edgar Poe, and how did you and your family come to him?”

  If Colt thought the question queer or the change of subject vexing, he gave no indication. “I know nothing
really of Mr. Poe,” he said. “My brother mentioned his name, calling him a colleague, someone he desired to be in concert with during his final days. Out of courtesy I followed through with Mr. Poe in my brother’s name.”

  “Did you ever talk to him?”

  “To Poe? I had several conversations, mostly about money and increasing his fees.”

  “What was your impression?”

  Samuel Colt smiled, almost as if Hays was a conspirator. “In all honesty, I found him a strange bird,” he said. “My brother never failed to call him a genius, but I had my doubts.”

  “Was the name of Mary Rogers ever mentioned by your brother in conjunction with Mr. Poe?”

  The Colonel seemed to consider. “The segar girl?” he said deliberately, as if to ruminate. “No. Never. Not that I can recollect.” He stood. “Excuse me for a second.” He left the room, to return almost immediately. With him he now carried an elegant book-sized cherrywood box. He laid it on his desk and opened it in front of Hays, revealing the box’s red felt lining. Within lay a magnificently crafted and hand-etched blue steel Paterson revolver, laid out with all its accessories, rammer lever, powder flask, bullet mold, and multifunction tool.

  “Please excuse me for not having this pistol personally engraved with you in mind, High Constable. I would have preferred to present an offering more personal and representative of your station, but your visit is unexpected and I am ill prepared. I’m afraid my armament venture on the verge of poor failure. All the same, I wonder if you would not honor me by accepting another small token. It is, of course, a repeating pistol of my design: forty-caliber five-shot percussion cap, capable of firing ten shots in forty seconds.”

  44

  The Wake and Funeral of

  Tommy Coleman

  Old Hays departed Colt’s office without the gun. Back home, he sits over an all but silent luncheon, prepared by his daughter, of stewed chicken and parsley dumplings, until suddenly, with no provocation, he says,