The Devil's Scribe (2 page)

The fact that he didn’t return home to fetch luggage worried me that he was making the trip only to further our acquaintance. It wasn’t that I feared he was some kind of crazed ax murderer and that I’d come to a bad end at his hands—that seemed beyond poor Edgar. No, it was because I feared he’d set his sights on me in a romantic way, in which case he would be sorely disappointed and perhaps sink deeper into darkness.

Edgar sat with me in a first-class berth on the train. Travel by rail was slow by steam engine. We lumbered from station to station, pausing to take on more water and coal at each stop. Edgar was pleasantly subdued most of the time, sipping from a flask and reading from a chapbook of poetry he had secreted in his coat, prodding me for stories of my travels. He asked me once or twice about my business in Boston, but I turned his inquiries away with banal pleasantries. The purpose of my trip was not unlike going to see an old acquaintance now confined in an asylum after a ghastly accident. Only, in this case I wasn’t visiting in the hope of seeing an improvement in the patient’s condition, rather to confirm that there was no change.

We disembarked in New York City and took a carriage to a station outside the city to catch the train north. During this short ride, Edgar was distracted, staring out the window and fumbling with his pocket watch. When I asked if he was afraid we’d miss the train, he blanched as though he’d been caught at something, but he didn’t reach for his watch again.

By the time we arrived in Boston, Edgar was unpleasant company. He’d had no change of clothes for several days and very little to eat or drink besides whatever alcohol he was able to purchase during our trip. Aside from his rumpled appearance and aroma, however, he comported himself well. During the lonely late-night passages, when none of the other passengers was stirring, I wondered if he’d try to snuggle against me, but he didn’t so much as hold my hand. He occasionally made dismal or pessimistic comments, something sharp and pithy, which would stun me for a moment and make me think there was something dark in Edgar’s history.

It was late when the train arrived in Boston. I asked a cabby to take me to a hotel not far from the harbor, and Edgar followed suit, saying he would call upon his friends in the morning at a decent hour.

He insisted we meet for dinner in the hotel lobby, and as it probably would be our last time together, I felt I couldn’t deny him. Now that we were off the train, we were both in a better mood and I truly enjoyed Edgar’s company that night. He was so entertaining that I almost forgot the reason I’d made the long trip from Europe in the first place. Still, the hours for proper entertaining began to draw to a close, and my mind raced ahead to the task at hand. I was as skittish as a soldier sent to man the firing squad for the first time, but in truth I knew the executioner’s job already.

As Edgar poured the last drops of champagne into our glasses, he gave me a soft look of longing. “It seems our time together is nearly over. I sense your thoughts are elsewhere. Already you are thinking about whatever it is that’s brought you here—or should I say ‘whoever,’ for I sense that you’ve come to Boston to be with someone: a man, I would guess.”

I touched the back of his hand gently. “Edgar, I must tell you that while I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your company, if you’ve followed me all the way to Boston in the hope of a romantic encounter, I’m afraid you will be disappointed.” I spared him my gaze, looking aside. “I hope I have not been too unkind.”

His silence was alarming. I feared I’d hurt him to the marrow. When I finally was able to look up at him, I saw that, rather than being angry with me, Edgar was amused, his grave mouth now upturned in a state of barely suppressed humor.

“I see I’ve misunderstood,” I said archly.

“I apologize if I’ve hurt your feelings,” he rushed to assure me. “But no, romance never was my intention, Lanore. It isn’t that you aren’t a lovely woman—but I think you’re aware of that already,” he added, offering his smile again. “I see that, having misled you so ungallantly, it’s time to come clean. The reason I’ve fastened myself to you in such an unforgivable manner is because . . .” He hesitated one more time, as though hoping for divine intervention, but when we remained uninterrupted, he continued. “. . . I sense you have a story to tell. There must be a
reason
you’ve come all this way, alone, after the travels you’ve related to me of the Araby states and the mysterious East . . . and yet you won’t give up a word, and that has made me all the more curious.” He narrowed his eyes on me, and suddenly his benign face became serious, even sinister. “I came all this way to hear your story, Lanore: what must I do to get you to tell it to me?”

He took me completely by surprise. It never occurred to me that a man would pay so much attention to a woman except to get her into his bed. At the same time, I was relieved to hear that all he wanted was a story—even though I couldn’t tell him
this
story. I couldn’t share this secret with anyone. Which is precisely why the prospect of finally telling someone, especially a stranger, was tantalizing.

Edgar must’ve had the power of the devil in order to change his countenance so drastically. His dark eyes fastened on me. “You have a great secret inside you, Lanore, and that’s irresistible to a man like me, a lover of puzzles and secrets. I tried plying you with wine to loosen your tongue, then opium, without success. Can you not see how badly I want to hear your story?

“Think about it: I was only in Baltimore for a meeting, a bit of business, and was supposed to head back home that same evening to New York, to my wife—yes, I lied to you when I said I was a widower. I’ve a wife, and I’ve left her waiting without a clue as to what’s happened to me. What’s more, she’s very sick and it troubles me greatly to have told such a lie to you, as though I might be tempting fate to take her away from me; but I have been helpless in the face of this secret of yours. That is how dearly I wish to hear your story. So I hope, Lanore, after all I’ve sacrificed, that you won’t deprive me of it.”

He wouldn’t let me escape his stark stare. And I began to ask myself where the harm was in telling him. He was a heavy drinker, and should he attempt to tell my story to someone else, he wouldn’t be believed.
He
might not even believe what I had to say: mine was an impossible tale.

I waited to see if he would get impatient and give up, but he continued to stare at me, over dinner, over wine, over coffee. . . . When I stood up, he knew that I had relented. He helped me into my coat, shaking with anticipation, though I was the one who should’ve been trembling.

Owing to the hour, the streets were empty and most of the houses dark. We started in a hackney cab, and I had the driver take us on a long ride through several neighborhoods, so that Edgar might become disoriented and be unable to find the house without me later. Then, on foot, we walked up one street and down another without a word to each other, me in the lead with Edgar following. I tried to move as noiselessly as possible so that the sound of our footfalls wouldn’t wake anyone. Edgar was as quiet as a ghost behind me.

Finally, when I felt Edgar was confused enough, I led him to my destination: the old mansion where I had lived twenty years earlier. Although every window was dark, it was obvious that the house was occupied. Lace panels hung in the windows, and the rosebushes in the front yard were well tended. The house’s foundation had been built into a hill, and the house itself loomed above the sidewalk like a giant empty skull staring back at me, as though it knew why I was there.

The house had been built onto in the years since I last saw it and was now enormous. I tried to circle the building, but the back end was blocked off by a stockade fence. It would be impossible to get beyond the fence without destroying the latch to the gate.

I hugged close to the walls, running a hand along the stone as though feeling for something. I was reminded of the fairy tale in which a pea is buried under twenty mattresses and can be detected only by a princess of great sensitivity. Here, too, was a case in which something was hidden that could be detected by only one person: me. Edgar followed a few steps behind, observing me as I circled the house like a thwarted tiger.

“What are we doing here, Lanore?” he asked at one point when I paused in my pacing. He seemed unconcerned that we were casing a house like a pair of thieves. “What are you up to?”

I already felt half mad for daring to tell my secret to someone, and decided to ease my way into the story. “I’m looking to see that the foundation stands firm and that it hasn’t been disturbed.”

He blinked at me. “The foundation of this house? I don’t understand.”

“I used to live here, you see, but I left something behind when I moved away. I left something . . . buried.”

“What might that be? A doll, a favorite toy?” he asked, impatient.

“Nothing so benign, I’m afraid.” I took a deep breath: the time had come to unburden my conscience. “There’s a man hidden in the cellar of this house. Bricked up in a wall. I put him there.” My words did not come out as I’d expected: not giddy and triumphant, not small and ashamed, but somewhere in between. Spoken tentatively as though I was lying, and I was anything
but
lying.

Edgar staggered backward a step. “I—I don’t think I heard you correctly. I thought you said—”

“That I sealed up a man in this house. That is what I said.” Both my palms were pressed against the stone now, as though I could feel the heartbeat of the trapped man on the other side—as though his heartbeat had become the heartbeat of the house—but I felt nothing. Nothing.

Edgar didn’t move from the spot. He leaned away from me slightly but held his ground. He continued to cast his inquisitive gaze over my face, looking for a sign that I might be deceiving him, while at the same time eager for every morsel of my tale. “You made this house his crypt! How . . . macabre of you. Tell me, Lanore, how you came to kill him. Did you shoot him? Or perhaps you poisoned him. They say poison is a lady’s weapon. . . . Or had he passed already and you found his body in bed?”

I didn’t want to answer him directly and indict myself, but I was seized by the desire to confess, as though he were capable of granting me absolution. “No, he hadn’t died in his sleep. It wasn’t peaceful at all. You see, he was
alive
when I sealed him in his tomb.”

I had wanted to tell someone the truth for a long time. The secret had been an inescapable weight on my chest that had grown heavier every day. And what had I risked in telling Edgar, really? Very little. He knew nothing of me that mattered. He wouldn’t be able to lead the police to me. He was my momentary confessor. He’d asked me to share my secret with him, implying silence in exchange for the privilege. I’d poured my guilt into him and now he was obligated to carry this awful secret inside his head, and by doing so I’d unburdened myself by a small measure.

His dark eyes swept over me uncertainly. “There are easier ways to kill a man. To put him in the wall while he is still alive . . .”

To this, I could say nothing, for what he said was true: there
were
easier ways to kill a man. To go to such lengths to snuff out a man’s life could only be seen as the height of cruelty. Of course, there was a reason for it, but I could not share that part of the secret with Edgar.

I watched as he riffled through a series of questions in his mind, unsure if I was playing a trick on him or if this was the first sign that I was not in control of my senses. “Please, Lanore, assure me that you had good reason to do something so . . . extreme. That you were in fear for your life, that he was a brute . . .”

“Rest assured, he was a most deserving victim.”

“And you came all the way from Europe to make sure that your secret hasn’t been discovered? The house stands, your secret is safe—and yet you are
still
uneasy, more so than before we came to this place.” He puzzled over this for a moment longer. “You are still
afraid
. But afraid of what? Surely, the man’s been dead for years now. You have nothing to fear from a dead man.”