Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (36 page)

Dupin sniffed at the cobalt blue bottle and his frown deepened. “When did you begin to feel peculiar?”

“Directly after breakfast.”

“Where did you have breakfast—at the hotel?”

“Yes. The girl brought a tray. A pot of tea and a cooked breakfast.”

Dupin examined the blue bottle again. “Belladonna is a poison that can kill or cause a trance and hallucinations. Did your heart pound, your mouth feel dry and was your vision compromised? Specifically, did strong sunlight injure your eyes?”

“Yes. I felt as if I were caught in a dream and as I followed the map, I saw Elizabeth and Henry Arnold—I saw her poison him with belladonna and leave him in the bathing machine.”

“Hallucinations. I believe your aggressor put tincture of belladonna into the tea. It seems he followed you to Margate.”

A wave of nausea passed over me. I felt as if I were back on the
Ariel
in the aftermath of my spree and leaned over the side of the
Eclipse
, but thankfully did not disgrace myself.

“I presume you did not see the person who pushed you.”

I shook my head. And then I remembered the mahogany box. “But there is new evidence that might reveal my agressor's identity. Indeed it suggests Rhynwick Williams is the culprit.”

Dupin frowned. “Would you care to explain?”

“Showing you would be best.” I opened my suitcase and removed the mahogany box.

“I remember the contents of the letters,” Dupin said, impatience sharpening his words.

“But you have not read the three letters that were hidden in the concealed compartment.”

Dupin was instantly like a wolf on the hunt. “Show me.”

I slid the panel and revealed the cavity in the bottom of the box and the three letters secreted within it.

“Extraordinary,” he muttered. “How did I not see it? May I?” He took the box and closed the panels, examined the box's edges, then opened the compartment again. “Simple design, but extremely well-crafted. It is almost impossible to see the join.” He looked back to me. “And the letters?”

“I believe Elizabeth Arnold hid them there as a form of protection. One is a threatening letter from her husband and the other a threat from Rhynwick Williams, dated the twelfth of November 1795, not long before his release from Newgate. He swears he will find her in America and exact his revenge.”

Dupin nodded. “And the third letter?”

“My grandmother wrote it to my mother on the sixteenth of March 1798, the date of her eleventh birthday. It is clear that she feared for her life and wanted her daughter to know that she loved her. You may read them.”

Dupin extracted the letters from the compartment. As he read, I focused on all that was around me and tried to steady myself. Our captain wore a gold-braided uniform and a top hat—the former gave him a military bearing and the latter made him resemble an undertaker. A notice was posted on the paddle steamer that instructed:
Do not speak to the man at the wheel
, which did little to deter our fellow passengers. I wished that I could feel some of the gaiety that surrounded me.

“Most interesting,” Dupin said. “Rhynwick Williams certainly wished to take revenge upon your grandmother and if he succeeded, perhaps it gave him access to your grandparents' letters.”

Dupin's words made sense. “Although I suspect Williams did not read the hidden letters, for surely he would have destroyed the threat he made to my grandmother.”

“That is indeed likely,” Dupin agreed.

“And if Rhynwick Williams is determined to take revenge for my grandmother's treachery ‘on her whole line, beyond her death'—as the letter states—then we might presume that he has tried to keep his identity a secret, to prevent me from having him arrested.”

Dupin considered this for a moment. “That is a logical conclusion if Rhynwick Williams is your aggressor, or is behind the attacks made upon you,” he eventually said. “We cannot, however, forget Mrs. Fontaine and her
inamorato
, a man of many disguises. As it seems likely that you were surreptitiously poisoned with belladonna yesterday, we must also consider whether your compromised condition on board the
Ariel
was in fact inflicted upon you rather than self-inflicted.”

I had blamed myself for succumbing to the imp of the perverse and breaking my promise to Sissy, but if Dupin were correct, my conscience would be salved, despite the damage to my reputation.

“Given that Mrs. Fontaine and the professor colluded to imprison you in that cellar, we must wonder if they also drugged you on the
Ariel
. While it is clear that Mr. Mackie was antagonistic toward you, from what you have told me, there were other passengers who had access to your quarters.”

I felt as if I had been pummeled in the stomach. “Impossible, Dupin, absolutely impossible. Mrs. Wallis nursed me when I was ill and her husband the doctor examined me. It cannot be them.”

“It would not have been difficult for Dr. Wallis and his wife to feed you wine mixed with laudanum and then persuade you in the aftermath of the concoction's deleterious effects that you had overindulged in drink. One would only need to add the elixir to your wine at dinner or to your drinking water and, once the effects had taken hold, place empty bottles of drink in your stateroom. Posing as a doctor and his nurse would allow them both complete access to you. It is quite simple to keep a person in a compromised state if one pretends to be caring for him. Of course I have not seen Dr. and Mrs. Wallis—is it at all possible that they might be Mrs. Fontaine and the professor in disguise, remembering her virtuosity as an actress and the many roles the scrivener has capably performed?”

The vision of Mrs. Wallis appearing in the door of my stateroom in a halo of light came back to me. “But Mrs. Wallis was fair-haired—like an angel—and Mrs. Fontaine is dark-haired,” I said.

“Let us not forget the many disguises your grandmother and grandfather wore when playing the Monster. Surely Mrs. Fontaine is capable of donning a fair wig to deceive you.”

Dupin's theory filled me with horror, but I could not find a flaw in his scenario. Had I been confined to my bed, delirious and vulnerable, in complete disarray mentally and physically through their actions? How they must have laughed at my deplorable condition! And they would have been free to go through my most personal possessions, all my thoughts put to paper, all my emotions turned to words. And while I was lost in the endless darkness of my nightmares, they could have murdered me at any time of their choosing. I had been utterly at their mercy and yet I lived.

“They enjoyed tormenting me upon the
Ariel
and by delivering the letters in uncanny ways so that I might suffer more as the full story of my grandparents was disclosed to me. Presumably I am only alive as my aggressor wishes to communicate something else to me.”

“Yes,” Dupin agreed.

“Therefore, I must fathom my aggressor's identity for if he reveals himself with the final piece of his story, he will murder me.

“I believe that is correct,” Dupin said. “But we will discover him first, have no fear.”

As much as I valued Dupin's friendship and intellect, I was not confident these assets would fully protect me from a villain who seemed capable of walking through walls and vanishing into thin air.

LONDON, SUNDAY, 19 JULY 1840

There was a brilliance to the morning, as if all around me had been repainted with colors a shade or two richer. Street sweepers scurried with their brooms, hoping to earn a coin by clearing the path for a lady's skirts or a gentleman's good boots. A young girl decorated in spangles performed a lively dance upon a square of cloth for pennies thrown at her feet. Nearby, an ancient man who could scarcely move his rag-stuffed shoes shuffled slowly and sang in a voice so broken the words were indiscernible. The sunlight had drawn out other street entertainers like summer butterflies: an Oriental juggler, an acrobat who could twist his body into shapes that defied natural human form, and a conjuror who plucked coins and colored scarves from the pockets, hats and ears of his spectators.

This atmosphere of life and color died away when I reached Newgate Prison. It was as imposing by daylight as it had been at night surrounded by the mob, for it had been designed to instill fear in those who gazed upon it. The ponderous building was dark and squat like an ancient toad crouched in some dank place; the carved chains over the entrance and the dearth of windows instilled a sense of unease as the architect had intended. I had made my way to Newgate alone, as Dupin had advocated
spending the day at the British Museum, combing through newspapers for information about Rhynwick Williams. He had little faith that Miss Porter's former husband would yield up any illuminating information, but I disagreed, for surely there was knowledge to be gleaned from someone who had been imprisoned with Rhynwick Williams.

The man who stood before me was the prison's turnkey. Mr. Turley was perhaps five and thirty years of age, very short, and appeared to greatly relish his food, as the black suit he wore fit him so tightly his breathing was inhibited. His broad-brimmed hat imbued him with a comical air rather than the gust of dignity he was aiming for, but he seemed kind and was eager to please. I had claimed I was writing a scholarly article about the prison for a learned Philadelphian journal and had offered to pay a gratuity for a tour and interview with Mr. Nicholson, who was indeed residing in Newgate as Miss Porter had claimed. Mr. Turley was under the misplaced notion that he would gain great renown in Philadelphia if he assisted me.

“We'll go to the men's yard first,” he informed me as he led the way from the keeper's house at a nimble pace, absent-mindedly jangling the large set of keys he carried. “That is where the more respectable class of men is confined—debtors and the like.”

“Is that where we will find Mr. Nicholson?”

“Indeed it is,” Mr. Turley said, shaking his head. “If he were able to gamble away his very soul, he would do so.”

“So I have heard.”

We passed the turnkey's lodges and bedrooms, walked through a heavy oaken gate, then down a long, narrow maze of a stone passageway. As we walked, Mr. Turley regaled me with factual information about the prison until we reached the men's quarters, which was a large whitewashed room without decoration that housed two dozen inmates, who stared sullenly at us.

“This is where they take their meals,” Mr. Turley said, indicating the table, “and where they sleep.” He pointed at the floor and the row of mats that dangled on large hooks above it. “And that is where the prisoners normally meet with visitors.” I peered through the iron grating he showed me and spied another grating about one yard away. “Nothing can be passed between the prisoner and his visitor—no tools for escape and no forbidden items.”

“I assure you, I have no such implements upon my person,” I told him with a smile.

“I wouldn't presume so, sir,” he said solemnly. “But it has happened, indeed it has.” He shook his head, remembering some dark event, then turned to gesture at the men before us. “And these are the prisoners.”

“Thinking of moving in, sir?” an insolent-looking boy of about fourteen years piped up. “Me—I'd prefer Botany Bay to here. Or where you're from if they was still having us.”

“Quiet, you. Stop your impertinence,” Mr. Turley said without much feeling or authority.

There were three men who looked to be over the age of seventy, and I wondered which had been the friend of Rhynwick Williams. “May I interview Mr. Nicholson?” I reminded my guide.

“Nicholson—come here, please,” Mr. Turley called out. “Mr. Poe here would like to speak with you. He is visiting from Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia, the Quaker city? That is quite a journey.” A wizened man emerged from the group and tottered toward me. He had one good eye and one that was pearled white. His clothes had been very fashionable many years previously and gave him the air of a specter emerged from the past. “Robert Nicholson,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it gently as the flesh was withered to the bone, the skin as papery as dried corn husks.

“You have the privilege of meeting Mr. Poe, a scholar who is writing an article for a learned journal,” Mr. Turley informed the old man. “Mr. Nicholson is from Scotland, but Newgate has frequently been his home. He has left us many times, but never fails to return.”

“Born in Inverness, made impecunious in London,” Mr. Nicholson explained with a smile that revealed a paucity of teeth.

“Habitual debtor. Many have come to Mr. Nicholson's assistance, but he is unable to avoid the gaming table, despite losing much more often than he wins.”

I found I could not judge the man an utter reprobate, for certainly my mother was saved from the poorhouse by kind friends, and I had accumulated considerable debt through gambling in my youth.

“I was told that you knew Rhynwick Williams, the man convicted as the Monster.” I expected Nicholson to hem and haw, but he responded immediately.

“Of course, yes. Rhynwick Williams, sent to Newgate as the Monster. I attended the ball he held here. I remember it very well,” the ancient man said. “Indeed I remember many things from my distant past more completely than what occurred just yesterday. Quite a night it was,” he added.

“A ball, Mr. Nicholson? Where?” The turnkey frowned.

“In the yard,” he said. “August 1790 and the weather was good. I had not been here long, nor had Rhynwick Williams.”

“Please tell me more about this ball, Mr. Nicholson. Surely Newgate is not the usual location for such an event,” I said.

Mr. Nicholson nodded. “To call it a
ball
is perhaps an exaggeration. It was a gathering of perhaps fifty people. Williams sent invitations to his relatives, friends from the flower factory—some lovely French ladies as I recall—other acquaintances who supported him during his trial. Some fellow prisoners such as
myself attended also as we were, of course, already here. We had tea and light refreshments to begin and there was music for dancing—violins and a flute. Our host was quite an accomplished dancer. I believe he was once on the stage.”