Thoreau in Phantom Bog

by Oak, B. B.

  “If the knife did not kill the victim, what did?” Coroner Daggett asked in a weak voice.

  “We shall hopefully see,” Dr. Holmes said. “Proceed, Dr. Walker.”

  I cut the stomach free of the esophagus and small intestine, lifted and placed the organ on the table. I made an incision of perhaps three inches and through it inserted a small ladle with which I spooned out the contents of the stomach into a high-lipped dish. I saw only normal digestive fluids and detected no smell of almonds, a sure sign of cyanide poisoning. I poured a portion of the contents into a vial to be tested in the hospital laboratory for arsenic if it proved necessary.

  I then sliced the stomach in half so its insides could be observed. The stomach lining was raw and inflamed, and an enormous ulcer extended from the stomach entrance to the exit into the intestines.

  “This man did not die of poison,” Dr. Holmes said, reaching past my hands to point at a large hole in the ulcer that had penetrated through the stomach wall. “He suffered severely from cancer of the stomach. This massive perforated ulcer was the immediate cause of death. No known poison can produce this condition.”

  I glanced up at Mawuli, who met my eyes and then returned his calm gaze to the body of his former master. Was there a sliver of a smile upon his lips?

  “My good gentlemen, allow me to summarize our conclusions for you,” Dr. Holmes told the jurors. “The heart of the corpse before us was indeed penetrated with the point and body of a knife. However, since no bleeding resulted from that penetration, I can only conclude the heart had stopped before that event occurred. In other words, this man was already dead when he was attacked with the knife. It is crystal clear that he died from a perforated ulcer in his cancerous stomach. There can be no other conclusion from what we have just witnessed under the examining hands of Doctor Walker.”

  Coroner Daggett gathered up his jurors, and they went to huddle in a corner together. After a moment they returned but kept their distance from the corpse.

  “It is the conclusion of this jury,” Daggett said, “after hearing the expert testimony of Dr. Holmes, that Mr. Pelletier died of natural causes. Therefore, no act of murder was committed. The body can be turned over to his wife for burial.”

  Justice Phyfe thanked Daggett and his jurors for performing a most difficult and demanding civic duty in the pursuit of justice. And Daggett informed him that he did not wish to be appointed Town Coroner again.

  Daggett then hurriedly left the icehouse with the jurors. Phyfe and the still green Beers followed right after them. Henry, Dr. Holmes, Mawuli, and Mr. Jackson remained whilst I returned Pelletier’s body parts, somewhat helter-skelter since they no longer needed to perform their functions in proper order, into his body cavity and sewed him up with good thick catgut. We all together maneuvered ice blocks so they formed a tight and cold sepulcher for the old scoundrel until Julia decided what to do with him.

  JULIA

  Wednesday, May 24

  “We are all free to get on with our lives now,” I said to Mawuli after he told me the Coroner Jury’s verdict. We were sitting on a bench in my garden, amidst blooming Sweet William.

  “I shall return to France on the next boat,” Mawuli said. “With your permission, I’ll take Monsieur’s body with me. He would want to be put to rest in French ground rather than American.”

  “Of course you have my permission. It is exceedingly kind of you to take him home, Mawuli.”

  “Ah, well. It is the least I can do, considering I killed him.”

  “You just told me that Adam and Dr. Holmes proved that he died of natural causes.”

  “What do Western doctors know of Vodun poison?” Mawuli replied serenely. “It is a poison that cannot be detected, for it is produced from within. I had no need to taint Monsieur’s food or drink. Instead, I put a powerful spell on him so that everything he ingested turned foul in his stomach, corroding the organ.”

  “You think it was your spell that killed him?”

  “I know it was.” Mawuli looked at me closely. “You do not believe it possible, do you, Madame?”

  “I am just relieved that no one will be charged with his murder. Whatever you claim you did is not considered a crime, after all.”

  “It should be considered a blessing,” Mawuli said. “The Spirits I called up were evil, to be sure, but I used them to put an end to a greater evil. I decided that Monsieur must die when we arrived in Boston and I discovered he had commissioned a slave ship.”

  “Why did he decide to go back to the slave trade? Surely he was rich enough.”

  “No one who is rich is ever rich enough, Madame. Besides, he lost nearly all of his fortune in the banking collapse in France. What money was left he invested in that infernal ship. Jacques Pelletier went back to being a slave trader because such a trade was his natural inclination. A leopard cannot change his spots any more than I can change the color of my skin.” Mawuli smiled. “Or so the Bible tells us.”

  “What made him think he could keep this from you, Mawuli?”

  “Hubris combined with selfishness. Monsieur would have been wiser to leave me in France, of course. But he wanted me by his side during the voyage to America in case he became ill. He trusted my healing powers.” Mawuli laughed softly at that. “He also hoped I might help influence you to return to France with him. He told me that winning you back was the purpose of his journey. So that is why I accompanied him.”

  “To help him?”

  “No, Madame. To help you. I wanted to protect you from him.” Mawuli lightly touched a bruise on my face with his fingertip. “Forgive me for failing you. I thought Monsieur would die sooner from my spell. I did not think he would even make it to Plumford. I am only thankful he did not kill you. I feared that was his intention if you refused to come back with him. Such was the fate of his first two wives.”

  I stared back at Mawuli, horrified. “He murdered them?”

  “I have no proof of it,” Mawuli said. “Only suspicions. That’s why I never told you of his past as a slave trader. I knew that you would leave him if you found out, and then your life would be in danger. Monsieur would not have allowed you to exist apart from him. But you have survived him.” Mawuli patted my hand. “And as his legal wife, you will inherit what remains of his estate.”

  “I want nothing! Whatever I get I will donate to the abolitionist cause. And I want to repay you, Mawuli. Jacques told me my diamond ring was only paste, so you must have given me your own money to pay for my escape.”

  “Since you would have fled with or without money, I thought it best you had some,” he said. “Donate whatever I gave you to the cause too. I have more than enough to satisfy my modest needs.” He rose to his feet. “Good-bye, Madame. I have had few friends in my long life, and you are one I cherish most deeply. I will not forget you.” He bent from the waist to kiss the top of my head. “And do not doubt my great powers, for now they will work to help you.” He gave me a flashing smile and turned and walked away.

  I stayed in the garden awhile, breathing in the spicy scent of the Sweet William, and saw a wagon stop in front of Adam’s office. I recognized Mrs. Tripp and her son and went over to tell them that Dr. Walker had driven a colleague to the Concord train station and should be back shortly. One of the little boy’s hands was wrapped up in a bloody rag, and he was crying.

  “I hope we don’t have to wait too long,” Mrs. Tripp said. “Billy has a pretty deep cut on his palm. It won’t close, and I think he needs stitches.”

  I brought them into the house to await Adam’s return and sat them down at the kitchen table. Mrs. Tripp applied pressure to her son’s palm to staunch his bleeding, and I popped a sugar plum in his mouth to staunch his tears. Whilst he sucked on it Mrs. Tripp and I chatted about inconsequential things, but suddenly her eyes grew wide with astonishment. It could not have been over my remarks concerning the weather, so I turned to look over my shoulder. Tansy was standing in the kitchen doorway, the red neckerchief wrapped around her hea
d like a turban.

  “I heard your kind voice,” she told Mrs. Tripp, “and I just couldn’t help myself. I had to come downstairs to see you again, ma’am.”

  “My dear lost girl!” Mrs. Tripp said. “I hoped you were in Canada by now.”

  “I’ve not made much progress in that direction since we parted, have I?”

  “I am sorry for that. But I am not sorry to lay eyes on you again.”

  They regarded each other with a deep, mutual fondness, and then Tansy turned her attention to Billy. “How did you get hurt, honeychild?”

  “I was whittling, and my knife slipped,” he said.

  Tansy shook a finger at him. “You’re too little to play with sharp knives.”

  “I ain’t too little,” Billy protested. “Jared don’t think so anyways. He give me his bone-handled penknife afore he took off for Ohio.”

  Tansy looked back at Mrs. Tripp. “Jared went to Ohio?”

  “Weeks ago,” she replied sharply and glanced at me. “Before you came to Plumford.”

  Tansy looked confused but said nothing more about it. “Anyways, I am sorry you went and injured yourself like that, Billy. What were you whittling?”

  “A gimcrack for Ma.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” Tansy said.

  The conversation continued in this desultory manner until Adam returned. Billy, most likely to prove to one and all that he was not too little, insisted on going into Adam’s office to get sewn up without his mother, so Mrs. Tripp stayed in the kitchen with Tansy and me.

  “I like the way you are wearing the neckerchief I gave you,” Mrs. Tripp said to Tansy, referring to her turban. “The color does suit you.”

  “I wear it one way or another every day. I do believe it keeps me safe.”

  “I pray for your safety every day,” Mrs. Tripp said.

  “And I pray every day for your forgiveness, ma’am.”

  “My forgiveness?” Mrs. Tripp said. “For what?”

  “For making you a widow.”

  “You cannot blame yourself for my husband’s death, dear.”

  “But he would be alive today if he had not been driving me to Carlisle that night.” Tansy buried her face in her hands and wept.

  “You had nothing to do with it, dear!” Mrs. Tripp said. “His time had come, and that is all there is to it.” She began to weep too.

  Weeping is most contagious, and I have been crying enough of late, so I went out to the back porch and left them alone. They spoke to each other in low murmurs that I could not overhear.

  ADAM

  Thursday, May 25

  Henry came to my office this morning looking mighty concerned. His shaggy hair and shoulders were sprinkled with sawdust from his work on the tavern dumbwaiter.

  “It’s Ruggles,” he said. “The poor man has gotten so drunk I fear he is a hazard to himself. Just now he almost fell into the hole I’ve cut in the floor behind the bar. I have little experience with inebriated people and don’t know how to help him.”

  “Where is Edda?” I said.

  “Gone,” Henry said. “I witnessed her departure last night as I was gazing out my window. I could make out her figure in the moonlight as she headed down the road with a satchel. She never looked back. When I came downstairs this morning for breakfast Ruggles was already drinking.”

  I reached for my bag, and Henry and I headed for the Sun. I noticed, as we neared the tavern, a sweat-lathered horse tied to the hitching post by the door. I felt for the animal, for after a grueling run such as it had just endured, it needed to be walked and watered and rubbed down.

  We heard a window on the second story of the tavern being flung open and looked up to see Jerome Haven climbing out of it. He balanced on the sill for a second, and then, in a magnificent show of dexterity, leaped up, grabbed the gutter above him, and vaulted himself onto the roof. Just as he was doing so a man wearing a top hat bearing a gold star leaned far out the window and swiped upward with his hand. He missed catching Haven’s boot by an inch.

  The man shouted a curse and then noticed us watching. “Hey, you two down there! Keep your eyes on that rogue! I have come to arrest him!” The police officer then drew back from the window rather than climb out and try to pursue Haven by duplicating his acrobatic maneuvers.

  Meanwhile, Haven scampered across the shingles of the roof like a spider. He balanced on the edge of the roof peak and, after only an instant’s hesitation, leaped across a good ten feet of air to grab hold of a limb of the chestnut tree growing beside the tavern.

  I stared up at him in amazement, as I would at a circus performer, but Henry sprang into action, sprinting toward the tree.

  Haven swung from the limb, grabbed the tree trunk, and shimmied down it until he reached a thick limb closer to the ground. He fearlessly jumped off the limb, from a height of no less than fifteen feet, and landed on the ground like a weightless cat. As I watched I could not help but be concerned that the stitches I’d sewed in his leg would not hold.

  When Haven hit the ground Henry was only a few yards from the tree. Haven broke into a run, and Henry set off after him. As fast as Haven was, Henry was faster and caught up with him. He grabbed Haven’s collar to stop him, and Haven twisted round and struggled to wrench free. Combat commenced. Though Henry is modest in height and weight, he is sinewy and tough as an Indian, and he took several blows to the head but hung on. He then delivered a roundhouse punch to the side of Haven’s face that drove the man to the ground with a shout of pain. Henry fell atop him like an eagle covering his prey.

  This all happened in less than a minute. I dashed toward them just as the law officer emerged from the tavern. Henry rolled off Haven and hauled him to his feet. The law officer handcuffed him and then gave Henry a closer look.

  “Why, it is you, Mr. Thoreau!”

  “And it is you, Lieutenant Payne.” Henry turned to me. “This is Lieutenant Thompson Payne of the Boston police, Adam. He came with me to Plumford to arrest Pelletier Tuesday.”

  “Couldn’t arrest a dead man,” the officer said with a shrug.

  “But now you can arrest a ruthless murderer.” Still puffing from the effort it took to capture Haven, Henry glared at him like a fire-breathing dragon.

  “Murderer?” Lieutenant Payne said.

  “He garroted one man,” Henry said. “And most likely shot another in the heart.”

  “If I’d known that, I would have brought more men with me,” Payne said, but in a light tone, as if he did not believe it. “I am pretty sure this man is the burglar Jack Steeple. That ain’t his real name of course. He is called that in the newspapers because he can climb buildings like a steeplejack.” Lieutenant Payne pulled a folded sheet from his jacket pocket. “Here’s a depiction of him sent to my police station from New York. I brought it for the purpose of identification.”

  Henry and I looked at the drawing. It did indeed look just like the man we knew as Jerome Haven.

  “May I see it?” the prisoner asked softly. We showed him the drawing, and he shook his head. “This does not look a whit like me. My nose is far thinner, and my chin a good deal stronger.” He turned to Henry. “Thou thinks me a murderer? Why, I would not harm a fly.” He looked sincerely hurt by the accusation. But since when had this man I knew as Quaker Jerome Haven been sincere about anything?

  “Let’s go inside and sort this out,” Payne said.

  We went into the taproom. It was empty of even Ruggles’s presence. Payne sat his prisoner down roughly and took out another pair of manacles to secure his legs. “Jack Steeple is a wily rascal,” Payne told us as we took seats around the table. “Just two weeks ago he was arrested in New York City for stealing jewelry from an upper-story chamber in the Astor Hotel. He was thrown in the clink, but got clean away. How? By getting naked and squirming his way free right between the bars of the jailhouse window, that’s how! Not three days later, a guest chamber at the Tremont Hotel in Boston was robbed in the exact same way. The thief climbed through a wind
ow on the fourth floor. Made off with the jewelry of some actress. I got the list of the pieces right here.” He patted his coat. “The thief got away but not unscathed. Blood was found on a jagged gutter he clambered down and on the alleyway cobblestones beneath it.”

  “When exactly did this burglary occur?” I said.

  “Wednesday morning, the seventeenth, a little after midnight. We are sure of the time because a dolly-mop doing business in the alley saw the thief shimmy down the gutter and then mount a horse and ride away toward Charles Street just after the State House clock chimed midnight. She did not bother to notify the police of course, but she offered up the information later to have a solicitation charge against her dropped.”

  I turned to Henry. “We know the Waltham printer was killed at midnight. Haven could not be in two places at once. He is not the assassin.”

  Henry stared at Haven a very long time. Henry appeared to be having trouble giving up his belief that he had captured Vogel’s killer. “How did you manage to track this man you refer to as Jack Steeple to Plumford?” he asked the Boston police officer.

  “An open set of eyes and ears is always the policeman’s best weapon,” Payne replied. “When I came the other day to arrest that Frenchman, I caught a glimpse of Jack Steeple here in the tavern. Would have paid him no mind whatsoever but for the way he tried to hide his face from me. We are trained to notice things like that. And then, at the police station this morning, what should I see posted on the wall but the drawing I just showed you! I rode here as quick as I could.”

  “I will have the stable boy see to your horse,” I said.

  Payne didn’t bother to acknowledge my offer. It wasn’t his horse’s fault that he was discourteous, however, so I went off to find the boy. As I walked by the ladies’ parlor I saw Ruggles passed out on the cabbage rose carpet. I checked his pulse rate, and it was normal. He was having no difficulty breathing, so I decided to let him sleep it off. It was not yet noon! As I tucked a pillow from the sofa under his head he grabbed my hand and gave it a slobbery kiss. “Edda, Edda, my darling,” he muttered and then resumed snoring.