On Night's Shore Read online

  But it had all gone unnoticed, and I was not to be caught. I was not to be cleansed. And so I sat there and scowled at myself, but I could not scowl away the taste of metal in my mouth, the loathing I felt from having opened my mouth at all, having made public to strangers the privacies and family intimacies shared with me in Poe’s cottage, the secrets that he, by taking me in, by treating me so kindly, had implicitly entrusted into my care.

  To this day, the faintest whiff of gooseberry still makes me want to retch.

  25

  I chose to wait for Poe out in the street. An hour passed before the great heavy doors heaved open behind me. Poe and Hobbs stood framed in the wide square of charcoal light, saying their good-byes. How slight and dazed Poe seemed as he offered Hobbs his hand. How confidently Hobbs gripped it, his other hand to Poe’s shoulder.

  Poe turned away then and came down the steps and onto the sidewalk, squinting at me, smiling curiously, regarding me, I thought, as something he could not quite identify.

  “It’s me,” I told him. “Augie Dubbins.”

  He chuckled. “Do you think I’ve lost my senses?”

  “You look a little confused is all.”

  “I am a bit nonplussed, to say the least.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  He turned northward and set to walking at a halting pace, as if his very thoughts were interfering with the power of locomotion.

  I asked, “So are you taking the spondulicks or not? What the lady offered you yesterday. Are you taking it?”

  “A ham,” he said. “What we need is a juicy fat ham for this evening’s supper. Did I or did I not detect the fragrance of a ham in that house?”

  “There was one in the kitchen.”

  “We will visit the butcher on our way home,” he said. “A special treat for Mrs. Clemm.” With a nod to himself, his stride then lengthened, became the long purposeful gait I had grown used to.

  “I guess you took the job,” I said as I hurried along at his side.

  “I shall recount the afternoon’s events for one and all when we return home.”

  “Looks to me like you took it. So I guess you’re satisfied it weren’t the lieutenant done in that witness of yours?”

  “Of that I feel certain.”

  “Thing is, who else would want him quiet?”

  But Poe was in no mood to discuss dead men. Even his fingers were unusually alive, tapping out a patter on his thighs.

  And so we walked awhile. Minutes later he suddenly asked, “And of your own visit? How was your tea and jam?”

  My stomach fluttered. I swallowed a belch. “Nothing special.”

  “I thought as much. Else you would not have retired to the street.”

  “The way they live though. That house. Can you imagine having to live like that?”

  “I can indeed,” said Poe.

  • • •

  We huddled around him like starving cats awaiting a scrap of meat. Mrs. Clemm was so nervous that she could not bear to sit but stood braced against the wall, one hand patting her bosom as if working a bellows. Virginia sat with head bowed and hands clasped; for all I knew, she was muttering a prayer to St. Jude.

  As for me, I believed I already knew what the news would be. I had after all helped to lug home a great pink ham, a box of pralines, a peppermint cake, and especially for Virginia a small bucket of the local lager. We had made too another stop along the way especially for Virginia, an impromptu side trip necessitated by Poe’s whim. At a small emporium below Gramercy Place, I had stood outside the door, minding the packages, while Poe conferred with the shop owner over the individual merits of various models of pianos. There was only one piano in the store, and this used for lessons, and so Poe leafed through an oversized book whose pages were filled with sketches and descriptions.

  He lingered longest over one illustration in particular, but upon receipt of a bit of information from the shop owner, Poe’s eyebrows arched high and he gave the merchant an incredulous look. Finally the merchant directed him to a page near the very back of the book, and at this illustration, Poe eventually nodded in the affirmative, and it was then Poe withdrew his purse and from it a coin, and then the two men shook hands and Poe soon rejoined me on the street.

  “You must swear to breathe not a word of this transaction to a soul,” Poe told me.

  “How could I when I don’t even know what went on?”

  “Sissie shall finally have her piano,” he said.

  “No!”

  He grinned at me. “A modest little upright, but how sweetly it will sing beneath her hands.”

  “You bought her a piano?”

  “I have made a small payment in good faith. The remainder will come due when the piano arrives from Albany and is delivered to our door a few days hence.”

  “She’s going to go wild,” I said.

  “As is a young lady’s right.”

  At home the women gawked at the table piled high and made such a fuss over Poe’s largesse that I felt jealous and unnecessary and wanted some of the attention for myself. I stepped back from them momentarily and removed the stolen mug from beneath my shirt and gave its insides a quick wipe.

  “I bought something too,” I announced. They turned to look at me, and I held aloft the purloined mug. “It’s for drinking tea and such,” I said. “And it ain’t going to get chipped or dented neither. Feel it; it’s as heavy as a log.”

  Mrs. Clemm was the one to rescue it from my hand. “Augie, it’s lovely. A lovely pewter mug. And so finely made.”

  “Pewter?” I said. “You mean it ain’t silver?”

  “Is that what you were told? That it is made of silver?”

  “No, no, I wasn’t told nothing. I just thought—”

  “Dear child, it’s lovely, but it isn’t silver. If you were tricked into paying a high price for it, then either Mr. Poe or I will have to speak with the merchant who misled you.”

  My face burned. “It hardly cost a thing at all.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I just seen it and thought you’d like to have it is all. You can use it for any number of things.”

  She leaned forward and put a hand to the back of my head and pulled me forward and laid a kiss upon my cheek. I felt my ears glowing red hot, the very follicles of my hair atingle.

  “You are a lovely sweet boy,” she told me, “and I will cherish your gift forever.”

  I no doubt would have soon incinerated myself with embarrassment had Poe not rescued me. “This transaction,” he said. “How could I have failed to notice it?”

  “It was when you was with the p—” I stopped myself in the nick of time, having nearly uttered piano broker. “The butcher.”

  “Of course,” he said, “of course,” and let the matter drop.

  Minutes later, he gathered us around him in the center of the cottage’s sitting room, his fingertips pressed together as around a small but invisible globe, the tips of his index fingers to his lips, which appeared for a change to be smiling with not the least hint of melancholy.

  “We began our vis-à-vis,” he said, “with a carafe of the finest coffee I have ever enjoyed. Though I had barely begun to savor its aroma when Mr. Hobbs poured for each of us an accompaniment of the finest amontillado.”

  At this Mrs. Clemm’s head snapped up, and an instant later, her eyes snapped my way, as pointed and fierce as daggers.

  “The latter of which,” Poe continued, “I politely declined.”

  Had Virginia and Mrs. Clemm actually voiced their sighs upon hearing this remark, they would surely have sounded with the sweetest of harmonies.

  “A touch to my lips was all I permitted myself,” he said. “So as not to offend my host, I explained my peculiar sensitivity to even the noblest of drink, as this surely was. He responded with such a profusio
n of apologies that I was quite embarrassed by it all and begged him to stop.

  “He soon directed my attention to a number of savories placed like flowers on a silver tray. These, I deduced, were being offered to me as a gauge of my avidity. He watched to see if I would shovel them in like a commoner—as was, I assure you, my first inclination, so seductive were they in sight and scent.

  “But I sampled not a one,” he said. “Not the foie gras. Not the salmon. Not even the caviar.”

  “Oh, Eddie,” said Mrs. Clemm. “Not even the caviar?”

  “I set one of the savories on its tiny lace doily on the point of my knee. As if I intended to have it. But not once did I then look at it or raise it to my lips.”

  “Did you not want it after you took it?” Virginia asked.

  “More than anything I wanted it. As with the amontillado. But it was a game, you see. Mr. Hobbs brought forth all these accoutrements of his affluence, then waited to see how eagerly I would snatch at them. By this he would know how best to inveigle me. I, of course, refused to provide him with a single point of leverage.”

  “You should’ve seen the house,” I blurted out. “Tell them about the house.”

  “Was it magnificent?” Virginia asked. “As lavish as I imagine?”

  “Whatever you can imagine, beloved, you will have to double it. But the house…the house was inconsequential to me. In any case it became so from that moment when his offer to me was tendered.”

  Mrs. Clemm drew in a breath and pressed her palms together.

  At last Poe told the story of his afternoon in the Hobbs mansion.

  “Mr. Poe,” Hobbs had said in his resonant baritone, “my daughter is among the many who hold you in the highest regard. Her admiration of you, or so it appears to me, is very nearly religious in its nature. She feels—and I must tell you, sir, that I am not yet of the same opinion, considering the way you have bowdlerized the facts to this point—but she is adamant that you alone possess the integrity and mental prowess to make right the wrong done to her fiancé. Done, I might add, by your own hand.”

  To which Poe replied, “If I have perpetrated an injustice, I will see it righted, Mr. Hobbs. But I am not convinced that my conclusions are unjust.”

  “Which is why I am prepared to offer you the opportunity to further pursue those conclusions. My daughter has relayed to you my offer?”

  “She has.”

  “Do you accept?”

  “I am not disinclined to consider the offer, sir. Or any offer that will propel us closer to a final truth. Yet I have my concerns.”

  “Then you should trot them out, Edgar. May I call you Edgar?”

  “Of course.”

  “We are colleagues, after all. United in a single goal. Better to dispense with the formalities, don’t you think?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you will call me John, as my friends do. Though I suspect they call me other names as well, but only when I am out of earshot. But to your concerns, sir. Let us keep nothing concealed. As you come to know me better, you will discern that there is little I esteem more in life than a forthright man.”

  “What I wonder, then, is what your reaction might be should a continuation of my investigation serve to confirm and solidify what I already suspect?”

  “I will not flinch from the irrefutable; you may rest assured of that. Should you prove my daughter’s fiancé a scoundrel, I will be no less grateful than if you exonerate him.”

  “You append no restrictions, then, to the terms of employment?”

  “Damn it, man, I want the truth. Can I be any plainer than that?”

  “But you are not satisfied with the truth as it now stands.”

  “I myself was in the company of Lieutenant Andrews on the Sunday morning in question. He was here, in fact, in this very room. From nine in the morning until shortly after noon. Tell me, if you will, how he might simultaneously have been in the company of the unfortunate Miss Rogers.”

  Hearing this, a leaden sensation gripped Poe’s stomach. He sat silent, suddenly nauseated. He had believed the testimony of a disreputable man, had even made the testimony public, and now that man was dead, a blade drawn across his throat.

  Hobbs continued. “For those three hours, Lieutenant Andrews and I discussed, in a very friendly manner, for I am quite fond of the young man, the path of his future endeavors once he and my beloved daughter are married. We discussed his naval career; where he and Felicia will live; what business interests he might pursue; even where and how my future grandchildren will be educated.”

  Hobbs stood then and went to the fireplace. He lifted his eyes to the wall above the mantel. “Take a look at this coat of arms, Edgar. Consider its principal elements. A demi-unicorn of sable on a field of silver, reared so as to crush beneath its sinister foot a serpent poised to strike. And around the head of the unicorn a subtle nimbus, do you see it here? A symbol of sanctification, sir. Of purity and righteousness that will not—no, cannot—hold still against injustice. Hence the dueling swords, crossed to indicate a desire for peace, but unsheathed as a promise of our readiness to fight.

  “I do not claim to be divinely instilled, as my ancestors did, but I can tell you this, sir. I am guided by the same principles as were those who devised my family’s shield. And it is these same qualities that I long ago detected in Lieutenant Andrews and that distinguish him in my eyes as such a singular individual. A man I will be proud to bring into my family as the husband of my only child. A man whose fine character and fine history will keep the Hobbs lineage alive, though it be by another name.”

  Ten seconds of silence passed. Poe sat mute, paralyzed by the realization that not only had he accused an innocent man of a heinous act, but that having done so publicly the accuser himself must soon be denounced as a public fool.

  Hobbs, no doubt, had apparently anticipated this realization, for he stood ready with the remedy. “You would not be the first man in this town to credit the spurious, Edgar. But I for one will guarantee that you suffer no consequences for what, in my estimation, was an honest mistake. You might be surprised to know, sir, that I hold sway over a good many opinions in this town.”

  “I’m sure I would not be surprised at all, John.”

  Hobbs laughed at this and crossed to a divan and sat down, flinging both arms across its back. It was such a gesture of openness, the way he exposed, if you will, his very heart to Poe. It went a long way toward abolishing the guilt that until that simple gesture was threatening to engulf Poe.

  “You will discover the thugs and lowlifes responsible for the poor girl’s death, Edgar; I know you will. In so doing, you will exonerate Lieutenant Andrews and you will vindicate yourself. You will be fairly compensated for your endeavors. As for afterward, let me say only this: my friends remain friends forever. As I rise, they rise with me.”

  Again Poe kept silent. He allowed the magnitude of this statement to sink in, allowed himself the indulgence of imagining that vast room his own.

  Hobbs then presented him with a list of six names gracefully penned on a sheet of parchment, all individuals with whom Poe might speak in regard to the lieutenant’s habits and nature, any confidences he might have shared with them concerning his friendship with Miss Rogers.

  “All this information you will then publish in the newspapers and thus put an end to the besmirchment of my future son-in-law’s good name. We will begin with my own statement. You will find paper, pen, and ink in the drawer at your right hand.”

  Before Poe finally exited Hobbs’s mansion, the paladin had one last bit of dictation. “Write this name down as well. Josiah Tarr. I am told he is a waterman who operates a skiff off the New Jersey shore. In the vicinity of Weehawken, if I am not mistaken. I have been led to believe that this man, if you can find him, might provide significant information concerning the activities of local ruffians.”


  Here Poe’s story ended. Mrs. Clemm, Virginia, and I sat waiting for something more, but he did not provide it; he sat blinking, dazed, still incredulous of this turn of events.

  “Weehawken,” I said to myself. It lay across the Hudson and therefore was to my mind a foreign place, a whole other country. How many thousands of gazes I had flung in the direction of its shores! “I always wanted to see what’s there,” I said.

  “And so you shall,” Poe told me. “Bright and early on the morrow we begin.”

  “And for now?” Virginia asked, her eyes bright with the disbelief of hopefulness.

  “For now, m’lady,” Poe said, as he crossed to her and held out a hand, “if you will do me the honor of a dance, it will be my delight to serenade you.”

  Virginia giggled and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, sir,” she said and gave full license to a Southern drawl, “I am not at all certain that I recognize you. And my mother has countenanced me that I must never dance with strange and beautiful men.”

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. With a look over his shoulder, he flashed me a wink. “I am the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, late of Paris, France, and a man of whom, no doubt, you have heard wondrous things.”

  “Oh my, yes, many things indeed. But none of them wondrous.”

  “Then you must permit me the remainder of my life to augment my reputation.”

  She took his hand then and rose and moved into his arms, and they glided about the small room in a minuet measured to her weakness. Poe sang to her alone, his voice a whisper in her ear, and she, when she could find the breath, sang along with him. Mrs. Clemm patted her hands together and wept without noise, and for a while that small cottage seemed aglow with pure joy, a strange and giddifying air.

  Poe’s exuberance was so total and Virginia’s devotion to him so real that their happiness flushed all the regret right out of me and made me feel as if I had done my friend no damage, had betrayed no confidences, had uttered not a single ill-considered word back in that Fifth Avenue kitchen.