One conundrum, at least, had thus been resolved: the signification of the sanguinary message left at the scene of the landlady’s murder. This revelation, however, brought us no closer to an ultimate solution of the case, whose mysteries had only been deepened by the newest developments. What did the inscription “NEVERMORE” mean? Who was its author? And what had become of the aged, nearly sightless, and severely incapacitated being in whose parlor this singular—this sinister—communication had now been discovered?
That Alexander Montague had become the latest victim of the same unknown maniac who had perpetrated such unspeakable atrocities upon Elmira Macready seemed beyond dispute. No reasonable observer could fail to conclude that the enigmatic word defacing the parlor wall had been printed with the old man’s life’s blood. And yet, in contrast to the landlady, whose fearfully butchered body had been displayed with such stark—such obscene—visibility, there was no discernible sign, in the present case, of a corpus delicti. The old man’s body had evidently been removed from the premises by the killer—for what grotesque, what ghastly reason, it was impossible to conceive.
For approximately the next half-hour, our little party—Captain Russell, Officer Carlton, Colonel Crockett, and I—remained inside the parlor, conducting an exhaustive search of the cramped and wretchedly appointed room. In spite of its thoroughness, however, this investigation failed to turn up the slightest clue as to either the fate or the whereabouts of the missing man. We then crossed back to the opposite side of the hallway and embarked on a similarly meticulous examination of the bedchamber. Our efforts here proved equally fruitless.
Focussing his attention on the bedstead, Colonel Crockett did discover, on the underside of a bedraggled feather pillow, a discoloration of reddish-brown hue that appeared to be dried blood. This mark, however, was of no greater size than might have resulted from a common nosebleed. In general, moreover, the bedclothes and mattress were so foully besmirched with every variety of matter—from the vestiges of numberless foodstuffs to the evidence of human incontinence—that the precise nature of any individual stain was nearly impossible to determine.
His visage contorted into an expression of extreme distaste, the frontiersman let the fetid pillow drop back upon the mattress, then exhaled a deep sigh of exasperation. “Damned if this ain’t the queerest business I ever struck!” he declared, “Who exactly was this Montague feller, anyways?”
Captain Russell, who was in the process of picking through the scant belongings in the topmost drawer of the rickety bureau, cast a glance over his right shoulder and replied: “As of yet, we have been able to ascertain very little information about the man. His life—at least during the time that he has occupied these quarters—has been, as the result of his manifold infirmities, reclusive in the extreme. Is that not the case, Officer Carlton?”
“Aye, sir,” replied the latter, who was kneeling by the fireplace and employing a poker to sift through the hearth, as though the heap of dead ashes might hold a clue to the vanished man’s fate. “That’s the impression I’ve gathered.”
While my companions had busied themselves in the above-mentioned ways, I had bent my efforts to a meticulous scrutiny of the many dusty tomes scattered about the room. Now, as I stood in one corner of the chamber with a heavy volume open in my hands, I looked up from its pages and announced: “Of one fact, gentlemen, we may at least be certain. Mr. Alexander Montague may be fairly described as a man of both formidable learning and keen discernment in matters pertaining to literature.”
“And how do you reckon that?” inquired Crockett.
“My conclusion is based on a scrupulous examination of the books which appear to constitute the bulk of Montague’s personal belongings and which consist, in large part, of expensive, if rather poorly maintained, editions of the great English dramatists, including Marlowe, Dryden, and, of course, the immortal Shakespeare, Here in my hands, for example, I have a rare eighteenth-century collection of Jacobean melodramas, including John Ford’s The Broken Heart and The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona of Webster.
“To be sure,” I continued, “the mere ownership of such books may, in certain cases, be proof of nothing beyond intellectual pretension.” (In stressing this latter point, I had in my mind my late guardian, the boorish merchant John Allan, whose personal library was stocked to the point of ostentation with the most costly volumes of classic works—though he himself rarely spent time perusing anything more weighty than a ledger-book.) “Almost without exception, however, the volumes in this room are filled with handwritten annotations, whose author I take to be Montague. These copious marginal comments clearly bespeak a sensibility deeply attuned to the complex intellectual and moral themes—no less than to the sublime aesthetic pleasures—of the material.”
“A most ingenious observation, Mr. Poe,” declared Captain Russell.
“Thank you,” I replied. Clapping shut the volume in my hands, I restored it to its place upon the bureau-top; then—stepping to one of the many piles of old newspapers ranged around the periphery of the chamber—I removed the uppermost copy from the pile. It was, I saw at a glance, a copy of the Baltimore Daily Advertiser, dated October 21, 1809. So fragile—so desiccated with age—was this publication that, as I raised it towards the lamplight, its edges disintegrated in a shower of powdery, yellow dust. Almost at once, the entire area of my frontal sinus cavity was seized with an overpowering itch. I struggled to subdue this tormenting sensation—but to no avail. Throwing back my head, I drew in a series of sharp, increasingly loud inhalations which culminated in the discharge of a thunderous sneeze.
“Great guns!” cried the frontiersman. “What an earsplitter!”
I was in the act of extracting my pocket handkerchief when a second sneeze, equal in both force and volume to the first, erupted from my nasal passages.
With a sympathetic cluck of the tongue, Captain Russell exclaimed: “I fear that you may be contracting a nasty catarrh, Mr. Poe.”
“It is merely a reaction to the intensely unwholesome atmosphere of this room,” I replied, sniffling.
“It’s mighty ripe in here, for a certainty,” said Colonel Crockett.
By now, my eyes had begun to water profusely. Laying down the crumbling newspaper, I declared: “Gentlemen, I fear that there is something in the insalubrious air of this chamber to which my respiratory system is, in the highest degree, susceptible. I think it best, therefore, to return to my abode, where I can employ my energies to better advantage by ruminating in undisturbed solitude on the manifold mysteries that now confront us.”
Stepping before me, Captain Russell shook my hand and solemnly declared: “Your assistance in this grave and troubling affair is deeply appreciated, Mr. Poe.”
I acknowledged this tribute with a little bow.
“And tell them two purty gals of yourn,” said Colonel Crockett, “that I’m right sorry about missing tonight’s shindig» If they ain’t undisposed to the notion, I’ll be there tomorrow—come hell or high water!”
“I take it, then,” said I to the frontiersman, “that you have decided to postpone your departure.”
“I reckon so.”
“But what of your commitments elsewhere?”
“Why, Poe,” answered Crockett, planting his fists on his hips, “I guess you ain’t heard. There are some things that Davy Crockett ain’t never been known to walk away from: a fight, a friend in need—and unfinished business!”
My intention was to return directly to my dwelling, where—shut off from the distractions of the world—I could focus the full power of my ratiocinative faculties on the mysteries at hand. But to defer my cerebrations until I reached my abode proved an impossibility. No sooner had I emerged into the darkening streets than my overstimulated brain began to revolve the numerous facets of the baffling case.
If it established nothing else, the bizarre disappearance of Alexander Montague—accompanied as it was by the inscrutable message “Nevermore”—proved conclusively that Roger Asher had been innocent of the murder of Elmira Macready. The hand that had left the bloody writing on the latter’s bedroom wall was unmistakably the same one responsible for the inscription on Montague’s parlor. And that hand could not possibly have belonged to Roger Asher, who had perished so horribly prior to the old man’s disappearance.
To be sure, the fact that Asher was not the slayer of Mrs. Macready did not necessarily signify that no connection existed between his death, the murder of the landlady, and the subsequent disappearance of Alexander Montague. But what this link might be remained utterly obscure—particularly in the absence of any substantive information about the life or background of the vanished man.
My own perusal of the publications scattered throughout the latter’s bedroom had convinced me only that Montague had been a singularly literate individual—at least in the epoch preceding the deterioration of his eyesight. It had evidently been many years since he had indulged in the habit of reading. The handwritten marginalia I had discovered in his books were faded with age; and the issue of the Baltimore Daily Advertiser I had been examining was no less than a quarter-century old. The exceedingly brittle condition of the other newspapers in the room suggested that they were of equally antique vintage. Why Montague had bothered to preserve these worthless gazettes was yet another enigma in a case already replete with them. Perhaps the answer was no more mysterious than the extreme and unaccountable reluctance—characteristic of a certain class of individuals—to discard possessions of even the most trivial and transitory value.
I had been vaguely aware, since being apprised of the missing man’s identity, that his cognomen possessed a strangely familiar ring. Try as I might, however, I could not conceive of the circumstances under which I might have previously encountered it. In an attempt to prod my memory, I now began to repeat his name silently as I bent my steps homeward—Alexander Montague, Alexander Montague. But to no avail.
So engrossed was I in this effort that I had been paying scant attention to my surroundings. All at once, a piercing breeze—infused with a pungent blend of maritime aromas—drifted from the harbor; and I realized with a start that I was passing close to the abject neighborhood where, just one week earlier, Colonel Crockett had engaged in his memorable battle with the redoubtable Hans Neuendorf.
This recollection induced a tremor of dread that coursed through every particle of my being. The unparalleled events of the past several days, beginning with my arrival at the house of Asher, had driven all thoughts of Neuendorf from my mind. Now, the vivid recollection of that fierce and implacable ruffian—and of the dire threats that he had reportedly levelled against my person—came rushing back upon my consciousness. My heart quailed—my limbs grew cold—my bosom heaved with the sudden onset of insufferable anxiety!
By now, darkness had fallen. The streets—which had been teeming with wayfarers just several hours earlier—were largely devoid of human presence. Accelerating my pace, I plunged headlong down the deserted thoroughfares—the devious by-ways, the narrow, crooked lanes. All at once, as I rounded a corner, I was seized by an absolute—and wholly alarming—conviction: I was being followed!
Readers of an inherently skeptical bent may suspect that this belief was merely a product of my intensely agitated state of mind—of the profound apprehension induced within me by my sudden recollection of the menacing ruffian who had promised, according to Crockett, to “use my skin for a razor strop.” Certainly, such tricks of fancy are among the most commonly known of all phenomena of a merely delusional nature. In the present instance, however, nothing could be further from the case. So powerful—so palpable—was my sense of being stalked that it could only have sprung from those innate and primitive instincts which continue to operate deep within the souls of even the most highly civilized of modern men—instincts designed by a protective Nature to alert us to the presence of imminent, mortal peril!
A single backwards glance would have sufficed to confirm—or refute—my conviction. But I did not dare to slacken my pace, even for the instant that such an action would have required. Onward I rushed, making at full speed for Amity Street, while my unseen pursuer followed upon my heels—so close as to cause the hairs on the nape of my neck to bristle with terror!
All at once, I saw my destination directly ahead of me. With rasping breath and pounding heart, I accelerated my pace and reached—with what delirious relief I can scarcely express!—the threshold of my dwelling. Clutching the doorknob with one trembling hand, I stopped—whirled around—and let out a gasp of astonishment and incomprehension.
Apart from a scrawny and bedraggled dog that was trotting along the paving stones and pausing intermittently to sniff at the curb, the street behind me was utterly deserted. I strained my eyes to peer into the darkness that lay beyond the compass of the flickering street lamp. But my phantom pursuer was nowhere to be seen.