The Blackest Bird (31 page)

“Precisely! There you have it, High Constable. It is a confession, don’t you see? She was with him, man! With that infernal Poe! He was on lecture tour along the Hudson at the time of the first instance. In the town of Poughkeepsie. She was his intimate companion. They were as lovers in a hotel there.”

“You know this as fact?”

“I tell you they were seen. I have made habit of knowing my enemies.” Mayor-elect Harper rose, signifying Hays’ dismissal.

“I am an excellent assessor of men, as, I am assured, are you, High Constable. Now, good day, sir, and all good success as you pursue your unencumbered apprehension of this most wretched individual.”

“I
t is all a hoax, Papa!” Olga Hays exclaimed, indignant upon her father’s return to Lispenard Street, if only briefly, following his meeting with the new mayor-elect. “The Atlantic crossed by air balloon? Trust me, Papa, pure twaddle.”

“How do you mean?” Hays asked, amazed by his daughter’s certainty. “A hoax?”

He retrieved the offending print from the kitchen table, picking it up, searching for some as-of-yet-overlooked (by him) clue in the finer print.

“My deductions are as follows,” Olga said evenly. “As always I take my methodology and lead from you, Mr. High Constable.” She smiled with some private glee, if only to be one step ahead of her father. “Although the notice is unsigned, I don’t need to be told the author: Edgar Poe. Papa, I have recently read a story by Mr. Poe entitled ‘The Gold Bug.’ This story is a brilliant puzzle, unlike his ‘Marie Rogêt’ foray, wonderfully told, delightful for its intellect. It is set on the outer coastline of South Carolina and mentions Fort Moultrie, notable to me this day because it is the very same particular locale where the flying machine of this news account is said to have set
down. As I have read, it does not escape me this tale of the balloon crossing, as related by the author, is remarkable, but full of quasi-science and math: this propelling principle, and that warm air current. In my estimation, it is, in its entirety, orchestrated claptrap. Nothing more, nothing less, than another shallow, transparent maneuver on the part of the unseemly
Sun
in order to ensure elevated sales and increased circulation.”

“I have discerned none of this, Olga. Please, go on, and allow me to continue once more the pleasure of following your thinking.”

“Some time ago, at a lecture I attended with my dear friend Miss Annie Lynch, Mr. Poe spoke of having been stationed at Fort Moultrie during the course of his military enlistment, again the very setting of his ‘Gold Bug,’ and again illuminated in this newspaper account of said airship emprise. A coincidence, as Mr. Poe himself would undoubtedly underscore, once recognized, too great to be anything other than unlikely; more emphatically, nigh on impossible.”

Hays thought with some satisfaction to himself,
Remarkable girl
, although all he said to her was, “I see.”

She went on unfazed. “Additionally, to this bit of chimera add again that it is the
Sun
of which we speak, and there you have it.”

“There you have what?”

“Come now, Papa: meaning the
Sun
can escape neither its reputation nor its history for putting over on her gullible reading public. This is without a doubt the same stroke of editorial genius that stoked the Moon Hoax.”

Hays elevated an eyebrow. There was no denying to what his daughter referred. Ten years before, the same
Sun
was a struggling penny paper when it achieved unfathomable fame and fortune after foisting on the city’s readership what became known as the “Moon Hoax,” wherein it was reported that the famed English astronomer Sir John Herschel had set sail for South Africa with a gigantic telescope in order to study the galaxy from an entirely new perspective than it had previously been observed.

In sensational editions over the course of the next week, further dispatches, ostensibly sent from Capetown, went on to reveal that the preeminent scientist, through his insistent peering, had spotted actual living human-like beings frolicking amidst the moon’s lakes and forests. The beings were approximately four feet tall, and were said to have wings consisting of a thin, hairless membrane.

Sir John reportedly described these moon creatures as yellow in color. It was difficult, he admitted, to describe them as entirely human. They were more like pelicans or giant bats, although the renowned scientist allegedly went on to explain they did exhibit some humanoid traits, spending happy hours eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about.

The remarkable accounts made an immediate sensation, and overnight the struggling
Sun
became the best-selling
Sun
, the most successful daily newspaper not only in the city, but also in the nation. Moon frenzy raged for ten full days until the sixpenny
Journal of Commerce
exposed the story as a complete hoax.

No matter, a book version of the folly,
The Moon Hoax; or, A Discovery
That the Moon Has a Vast Population of Human Beings
, written by the
Sun
’s clever, entrepreneurial editor, continues in print even to this day, more than ten years later, its sales remaining nothing less than brisk.

“It is entirely within reason,” continued Olga, “that Mr. Poe seeks to emulate the Moon Hoax’s enviable example, enrich himself with the resultant hummer, and promote his name.”

Old Hays saw his daughter’s logic for what it was, and considered himself agreed.

F
OLLOWING A QUICK TEA
, Hays returned to the Tombs. Here he immediately arranged to have a card sent on his official stationery to the offices of Wiley & Putnam, Publishers, requesting an interview with proprietor George Palmer Putnam. In regard to what affair precisely, the high constable did not specify in the note.

Return reply reached Hays within the hour. “Come when you will.” The publisher would see him at the high constable’s convenience.

Old Hays entered the premises of Wiley & Putnam at 155 Broadway later that same afternoon. Although not as opulent as the Harper Brothers’ block-long Ann Street book publishing empire, the fiefdom of Putnam and John Wiley was still very well-turned with thick oriental carpets, subdued gas-lighting, and, lining the plastered walls, hand-carved mahogany bookshelves stocked with the firm’s handsome publishing efforts.

Hays knew Putnam as two men-about-town would know one another. They shook hands, having met before, perhaps two dozens times over the years. Putnam was a man in the prime of life, full-bodied, with straight nose and russet chin whiskers, and an unmistakable intelligent cast in his warm, clear brown eyes.

Quietly making studied assessment of the publisher’s regular features and well-formed brow, Hays judged Putnam, as in the past, a man of forthrightness and honor. No reason arose to amend his previous impressions of his physiognomy now. He looked to Hays to begin his inquiry.

The high constable, therefore, began without further preface or small talk. “What are your impressions of the author Edgar Poe?” he asked.

For his part, Mr. Putnam did not express surprise at Hays’ question. “Indeed, sir,” said he, “are we talking as a literary figure or a man? To what context would you like me to speak? I’ll give you the likes of Mr. Edgar Poe is a strange but impressive individual.”

“Strange? How do you mean?”

“Strange is strange, High Constable,” the publisher answered with a half smile. “Given any close scrutiny of the author’s writings, one does not necessarily want to underestimate anything of which the eminent Mr. Poe might be capable. No?”

Hays considered this. He told Putnam he was very much cognizant of the macabre in Poe’s work, but inquired in his opinion was this simply
creative guile, albeit an eerie and peculiar one … “or is it some other, more foreboding manifestation of the man’s personality?”

Putnam pursed his rather full purple lips. “Foreboding granted,” he said, adding, “Perverse even. But mind you, Mr. Hays, not without interest. I have through the years worked closely with the man. Poe is the most ambitious author of whom I am aware. His writing style is full of a strong, manly sense. Yet as I know him, he is the loneliest individual in the world. There has never been a more perfect gentleman than Mr. Poe, High Constable, when he is sober. When he is drinking, however, he would just as soon lie down in the gutter as anywhere else.”

Hays stared at Putnam momentarily. “Have you read the story he has composed based on the murder of Miss Mary Rogers?” he inquired.

“Indeed I have.”

“And, of course, there is no disguising his protagonist, Marie Rogêt, is Mary Rogers.”

“There is no contention on this point, High Constable Hays. Certainly not from the author. Not as far as I know.”

“Have you ever considered that Mr. Poe might know a bit too much merely to serve an innocent bystander in the tragedy of this young woman?”

“I am not quite sure I understand the direction of your question. Are you making assertion in order to implicate Edgar Poe in some way in the death of this unfortunate girl?”

“Not at all. I am simply keen to know from exactly where Mr. Poe might have culled his information on this most specific matter.”

Putnam coughed. “According to him, harvested straight from the public prints. By his conversation with me, the weekly
Brother
Jonathan
and James Gordon Bennett’s
Herald
in particular. Nowhere else as far as I know. This is what he has told me, and this is what I believe to be true.”

George Palmer Putnam puckered his lips once more while he
mulled through his thoughts. As his eyes locked with Hays, he said in a low voice, barely audible, “We all knew her, High Constable. She was a lovely girl. Sorely missed. The abomination stays with all of us.”

Hays paused, allowing Putnam’s sentiment to hang in the air.

“Are you aware of any love affair between Mary Rogers and Edgar Poe?”

Putnam did not hesitate. “I may have heard something. I try not to put too much stock in such talk.”

“James Harper told me you are contracted to publish Mr. Poe’s collected tales.”

“I am.”

“He said there were an original sixty-six stories, but these have been trimmed to thirteen.”

“Twelve is the number we have agreed upon.”

“Just so. And is the story of which we speak, ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ to be included in this volume?”

“It is.”

“Might there be a copy of this volume with this described story that I shall be able to take with me?”

Putnam assured him if there was not a bound book, at the least there would be galley pages. He rang a bell for his clerk to come, dispatching the young man to find a sample of the proofs.

While they waited Hays continued his questioning. He asked Putnam the nature of any noticeable differences between an earlier version of Poe’s story published in
Snowden’s
and this version. Putnam furrowed his brow and inquired where the high constable had heard mention of such actions, and Hays said again, from the mayor, James Harper.

After momentarily pondering this turn, Putnam responded that as far as he knew there were some seventeen counted changes between this version and the last. Additionally, he said, there was a plan afoot to also include footnotes. “The Mary Rogers case has been out of the public’s mind,” he explained, “and it is our judgment the casual reader might need reminding.”

Hays asked him to delineate what were the changes effectuated.

“I cannot tell you that specifically. There are those in my employ, notably the editor Mr. Duyckinck, who worked closely with Mr. Poe, but, frankly, this is not my position in the house.”

Putnam did say, however, he thought the changes had been made from one version to the next, solely to present Mr. Poe in a more favorable light to his readers, as a more astute observer of the facts governing the actual murder; given, “like the rest of us,” the author had only been made aware from Frederika Loss’s deathbed confession that neither a group of gansters nor an aggrieved lover had killed Miss Rogers, but that she had actually, tragically, died during the implementation of a bungled premature delivery.

“Mr. Putnam, in all candor, from what I’ve read, much of Mr. Poe’s self-impressed narrative seems to center on trivial discourses involving body hair, mildew, the physics of drowning, elastic garters, whether criminals carry handkerchiefs, the growth rate of grass, and the shape of rips made in fabric by thorns. Despite Mr. Poe’s contention that he has laid out the true principles for which all inquiry should be directed in future cases of this nature, I must say I am not so much impressed with his insight. Logic, as core to this gentleman’s presented technique of choice, might prove fine, but instinct, over all else, is my credo, sir. Mr. Putnam, carefully consider this before answering,” Hays said. “Do you believe that Edgar Poe in any way may have been involved in the death of Mary Rogers?”