by Oak, B. B.
Awoke to find myself laid out atop a fallen log, flat on my back, my hands and arms forced behind me and bound tight around the curve of the tree. I could scarcely make out where I was, for being so tightly tied I had difficulty turning my head. Could just discern in the moonlight the thick trunks of cedars that thrive only in marshy ground. Figured I was in a swamp and no doubt far from where my voice might be heard.
I heard a crunching of thin ice underfoot and saw Solomon glaring down at me. “Well, doctor, you are about to become Plumford’s next murder victim,” he declared.
“So it was you who murdered Bidwell and Kitty Lyttle.”
“I did not! I had nothing against either one of them. You, however, I hate for good reason. Your meddling and scorn have lost me money and repute. But I have a plan to win back both.” He pulled a knife from his belt. “I will make it look like the Night Stalker killed you, Dr. Walker. You will be found with your throat slashed and not a drop of blood left in you. Your death will cause everyone to panic, and the town officials will turn to me for help. I will become Plumford’s savior.”
All I had to defend myself with was my wits, and most had been knocked clear out of my head when Solomon had brained me. Gathered what was left of them to keep him talking. “Have you ever killed a living person before, Solomon? It cannot be an easy thing to do.”
“It was easy enough for me to kill my stepfather. He had it coming for his mistreatment of my mother. And then I had to kill him all over again when he became one of the undead. That bastard was the first vampyre I slayed, and I was no more than a boy at the time. ’Twas then I knew my life’s calling was to destroy every last vampyre that walks the earth.” His eyes glittered in the light of the near full moon. They were the eyes of a madman. “You too have it coming to you, doctor, for calling me a fraud. And for your interference with my great mission. You may very well be one of Witiku’s servants, just as that deformed boy that you harbor is. And who was that young woman who hit me with a stone? One of Witiku’s wanton paramours? I will make sure to meet with her again and test her virtue to the limits.”
Horrible thoughts of what he might do to Julia filled me with rage, and I yelled out with all my might as I struggled mightily to free myself. But I was trussed to the log so tightly that I could barely move my head from side to side, let alone my arms and legs, and my struggle and shouting were soon ended by a hard blow to the jaw from Solomon, stilling me into a state of semiconsciousness.
“I just did you a kindness, doctor,” he said. “You will feel less pain when I plunge my knife into your throat.”
Those were the last words I heard Solomon Wiley utter, for in the next moment he let out a gasp and was yanked away from me. I heard him still, but he was no longer talking, only screaming. I could not twist my head enough in either direction to see what was happening to him, but whatever it was must have been causing him excruciating pain. In all my experience amputating limbs, I have never heard the likes of Solomon’s howls of torment. I could also hear what sounded to be bones being cracked. And I could smell blood and bowels and excrement, as if a human body had been ripped open. Feeling myself in the presence of savagery unimaginable, I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again all was quiet but for the sound of lapping and gnawing, and I wondered if a pack of wild animals was feeding nearby. Wrenching my head to the side, I glimpsed the naked figure of a male of amazing muscularity, his back to me, crouched over a headless, limbless, eviscerated corpse. He must have sensed my stare, for he lifted his head from the corpse and turned to me, fangs bared and mouth dripping with blood, eyes burning red as coals. It was the head of a wolf! I shut my own eyes quickly, for I did not want to be mesmerized by Witiku’s gaze. ’Twas the same gaze Dr. Lamb had transfixed me with more than once. Before I again lost consciousness, I heard Indian chanting.
Awoke in the cot in my office today, with Henry Thoreau’s frowning visage looking down at me. “It is well past noon, my friend,” he informed me.
I sat up, grasping my reeling head. I was dressed in the clothes I had worn to the tavern, and my boot-clad feet poked out of the covers.
Noting the boots, Henry shook his head disapprovingly. “Julia mentioned you had gone off to the tavern last night, and when she went up to her chamber at midnight, you had still not returned.”
I lay back with a groan, and all the memories I have recorded herein came rushing back to me. Told Henry to pull up a chair and proceeded to recount the evening’s bizarre events to him.
He did not once interrupt me or so much as smile at the absurdity of my tale. Indeed, he regarded me most solemnly the whole time and did not utter a word when I was done speaking.
“Well, what do you make of it?” I asked him. “I had but one small beer, so it could not have been a drunken hallucination.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon Wiley clobbered you in that dark alley to pay you back for besting him once again,” Henry said. “But all the rest of it that followed might well have been a nightmare brought on by that hit on the head.”
“How did I get back to my office?”
“Solomon himself might have hauled you here and put you to bed, feeling regret over his nasty deed.”
Since I keep the key to my office door in my waistcoat pocket, that could have been what happened. “Only one thing is for certain, Henry. Solomon did indeed march into the tavern last evening with a skull on a pole. And that skull had a quartz ax stuck in it. If you do not believe me, let us go to the Sun and ask Mr. Ruggles. He and plenty of witnesses can verify seeing it.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Henry said calmly.
“Are you not astonished? Does it not prove the story Lamb told me is true? He is the one who pulled the skull out of the crevasse and then buried it at the Nipmuc grave site!”
“Yes,” Henry said. “So I believe he did. But that does not mean everything else he told you about himself is true.”
“How then did he know where to find the skull?”
“I have a theory which I have been developing since we last talked,” Henry said. “Indeed, I came by today to discuss it with you. I think Dr. Lamb truly does have Nipmuc blood in his veins. That would account for his appearance. And he must have heard stories passed down by generations of his ancestors, just as you and I have heard stories concerning our own forefathers. That would account for his knowing about the ax. In my regression I saw but three Indians, myself and two others, both of whom I slayed. But what if another Nipmuc had been watching us fight? He would have described what had happened to other tribe members, and because they believed the ax had magical powers, the story might have become part of the Nipmuc lore.”
“Yes, that would explain how Lamb was able to describe the ax. But I ask you again, Henry. How could he know where to find it?”
“Well, we found it, didn’t we? It is simply a matter of putting all the geographic clews together. Lamb said himself he knows this area.”
“Then you discount the possibility that Lamb is in fact Witiku?”
“I discount nothing.” Henry stood up and stretched his wiry frame. “Let us go see the destruction Solomon Wiley has done to the burial ground, Adam. That is, if you are up to it.”
“Just barely,” I said.
All it took was a pot of Julia’s strong coffee to put me right. Even so, I yelped like a puppy when I tried to put on my hat over the egg-sized lump on my head. Julia gave me a look I reckon wives give their husbands when they stay out too late at taverns. Decided to let her assume I had overindulged rather than tell her I’d had another run-in with Wiley—or, even more terrifying, an encounter with the flesh-eating, blood-lapping Witiku.
Drove Henry out to the dry and rocky hillock known to be where the long-disappeared Nipmuc tribe buried their dead. Had not set my eyes on the forlorn and vaguely disquieting place since as a boy I had hurried past when out grouse-hunting. There had been little to see back then but a few crude burial stones and memorial heaps
of small stones amid cedar trees, brambles, and tall tussocks of dried grass. Now, however, Henry and I saw that wherever there was a grave marker, no matter how humble, the sandy ground around it had been dug up. At least a dozen fresh mounds of sandy soil dotted the knob. A scattering of human bones lay in the cold sun, along with burial artifacts such as beads and bits of blue and white quahog shells.
A huge boulder a good fifteen feet high towered over one of the graves, which was dug much deeper than the others. “This must be the grave where Wiley said he found the skull buried,” I told Henry.
He leaned against a tall, old juniper that stood nearby and peered down into the grave a moment. Then he looked up at the boulder. “According to Mr. Agassiz at Harvard, such rocks as this giant were left behind when the great glaciers that once covered this area melted away. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“No harder to believe than Lamb’s claim that he is a vampyre.”
“Exactly my point,” Henry said. “How are we to know the truth about this world when so much yet remains to be discovered in it?”
We then gathered the bones, returned them to the soil from whence they had come, and used our hands to push back the dug soil over their graves.
JULIA’S NOTEBOOK
Monday, 20 December
The “most agreeable lady” Henry knows at the Howard Theater turned out to be a dark-faced Moor in a purple turban. Or so she appeared to me when first I laid eyes on her today. She recognized Henry immediately and beckoned us into the dressing room. To his credit, Henry recognized her too after but a moment’s hesitation.
“I wager you are experimenting with stage effects for a production of Othello, Mrs. Perry,” he said.
“You win that wager,” she replied. “Junius Booth will be playing the part next week and cannot spare the time to let me experiment on his own important person. He is far too busy getting drunk and making bastards with his mistress in Maryland.” She laughed when she saw our surprised expressions. “You think me indiscreet, but it is public knowledge. Indeed, it has been made most public by Mr. Booth’s legal wife, who removed to Maryland from England to plague the illicit duo.”
She yanked off her turban, and her mane of black hair streaked with gray tumbled down about her shoulders. Now she looked like a witch, albeit a handsome one. Against her darkly stained face, her teeth looked very white when she smiled, which she frequently did when addressing Henry.
“So you have come back, Mr. Thoreau,” she said. “This time without your friend the doctor.”
“His duties keep him in Plumford,” Henry said. “But as you see, I have come with another friend of mine.”
Mrs. Perry gave me a cold appraisal and turned her gaze back to Henry. “Well, your sweetheart has looks enough for the stage, I suppose. But I hope you don’t expect me to help get her hired as an actress. I have no influence whatsoever with the stage manager.”
“That is not why we have come,” Henry sputtered.
He appeared too flabbergasted to continue, so I spoke up. “Furthermore, Mr. Thoreau and I are not sweethearts, Mrs. Perry.”
“My mistake, dearie.” She regarded me with friendlier eyes. “Pray give me a moment to make myself presentable, and then you can tell me the purpose of your visit.” She seated herself at a table strewn with bottles and jars and began wiping the stain from her face with a wet cloth. “Traditionally burnt cork is used to darken the Moor’s complexion,” she said, “but don’t you think my concoction looks more realistic?”
“More realistic still,” Henry said, “would be to have a real black man play Othello instead of a white man in blackface.”
“I hear there is an American Negro actor residing in Europe who plays Othello to great acclaim,” Mrs. Perry said. “But that is not how it is done in Boston.” She tossed aside the cloth and turned her gaze from the looking glass to Henry. “How do I look to you now, Mr. Thoreau?”
If she expected a compliment from Henry, she didn’t get one. “You look the same but for the face stain,” he said. He took a key from his coat pocket and dangled it by its black cord. “This was found on Chauncey Bidwell’s body. Does it perchance look familiar to you, Mrs. Perry?”
“Well, it is not the key to my chamber, if that’s what you are suggesting,” she said archly. “I confess I favor younger men, but Chauncey was not the sort that appealed to me. I prefer a man who does not care so much about his appearance. A natural man such as yourself, Mr. Thoreau. My guess is that you smell of pine forest instead of cologne.”
A blush tinged Henry’s cheeks. “I was not suggesting that this was your key, Mrs. Perry,” he said. “Only asking if you might have seen it before. It has occurred to me that it might be to some door in this theater.”
“I do not recognize it,” she replied. “Nor do I think poor Chauncey’s murder is connected with the Howard. We are a most peaceful, loving lot here.”
“Yet there has been another murder in Plumford, and that victim too had associations with this theater,” Henry said.
“Another backstage fop like Chauncey?”
“No, a lovely young woman,” I said. “Her name was Kitty Lyttle.”
Mrs. Perry’s eyes widened. “Who would want to murder that sweet little seamstress?”
“A beast!” I said. “Her throat too was slashed open.”
Mrs. Perry gasped, dramatically clutching her own throat. “Surely Kitty was mistaken for someone else.”
“Not likely,” Henry said, “for she was murdered in her own home.”
“Did Kitty have another lover before or even after she married?” I said, for no matter how much I doubted it, the question needed to be asked.
“No, Kitty was as innocent as a dove,” Mrs. Perry said. “And how she was teased for it, especially by the actors she costumed. That is really all I can recall about her. In truth, I have not given her a second thought since she left the Howard, but now, of course, I am overwhelmed with grief.”
Henry and I fell silent to allow Mrs. Perry time to compose herself. Which she did in short order, turning her attention back to her reflection in the looking glass as she pinned up her parti-colored hair. “I could easily hide the gray streaks with India ink,” she said. “If done correctly, it looks most natural. But I rather like the contrast. What do you think, Mr. Thoreau? Should I keep the gray or ink it away?”
Henry only shrugged in reply.
“So you like my appearance just as it is,” Mrs. Perry said, interpreting his shrug as she so chose.
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “There is another person we should like to ask you about, Mrs. Perry,” I said. “Did you by chance know a set builder who once worked at the Howard by the name of Robinson?”
“How now! Was Edgar Robinson murdered too?”
“He died in a fire. But you say you knew him?”
“Oh, I knew him all right. In fact, I allowed him to take more liberties with me than I own I should have. But Mr. Perry had passed on, and I was lonely.” She caught Henry’s eye in the looking glass. “Do you know what it is like to be lonely, young man? Especially during those long, dark hours before dawn breaks?”
“I am never lonely,” he replied brusquely.
“Could you tell us more about Edgar Robinson?” I urged.
She shrugged. “What more is there to tell? He tossed me over to marry another. Mary was the music coach here. And hark this. She was blind! Can you credit it? Of course he was paid plenty.”
“Paid to marry her?” I asked.
“Not just that, but never mind.” Mrs. Perry went back to dressing her hair.
“We are looking for any family Mr. Robinson and his wife might have,” I said. “You see, their boy has been left a destitute orphan.”
“Destitute?” Mrs. Perry tutted. “So Edgar could not hold on to all that money they gave him. What a pity.”
“You know of this child?” Henry said.
“A harelip, is he not?”
“Yes!” I cried. “Pray
tell us what more you know, Mrs. Perry.”
“Only that his mother lives in great luxury on Beacon Hill.”
“But she is not alive,” I said. “Mrs. Robinson died in the fire with her husband.”
“Mary Robinson did not give birth to that boy any more than Edgar Robinson fathered him,” Mrs. Perry said. “They were paid handsomely to take the babe away with them and raise him as their own.”
“Who is the woman who bore the boy then? We will go to her directly,” Henry said.
Mrs. Perry shook her head. “If I told you her name, it would be most indiscreet of me.”
“But you are indiscreet!” Henry said impatiently.
I feared he had offended her and she would tell us no more, but instead she laughed. “So I am. And why should I keep her secret? She was never my friend. In fact, we were rivals back in the days when I treaded the boards with her. She was the envy of all the other actresses because she had captured the heart of one of the wealthiest men in Boston. When he got her with child he even married her. But when the child was born deformed, they wanted nothing to do with it. Well, it is high time that vain, spoiled woman claimed the son she so selfishly gave up.” Mrs. Perry thumped her fist on the table, and all the pots and jars rattled. “Palmira Trescot is her name! She lives at the top of Mount Vernon Street in a fine, four-story brick house with an iron gate at the entrance. I have passed by it often enough, but have never once been invited inside.”
Upon our parting with Mrs. Perry, she took Henry’s hand in both hers and bid him come see her again. She did not extend such a warm invitation to me. Quelle surprise!
Henry and I walked briskly from the theater to Beacon Hill and in less than ten minutes reached Mrs. Trescot’s house. Through the iron gate we went, and up the granite steps to the oak front door, which was impressively flanked by white Doric columns. The door knocker was of polished brass, in the form of a clenched fist, and Henry worked it with vigor. A maid promptly answered, and when we told her we had come to see Mrs. Trescot, she beckoned us into the high-domed entrance hall, pointed to a silver salver on a mahogany table, and instructed us to leave our calling cards.