Ushering Crockett into my sanctum, I enkindled the oil lamp that stood upon my writing table; whereupon—reaching into the breast pocket of his high-collared coat—the frontiersman extracted two panatelas and extended one towards me.
“Smoke?” he inquired.
Though I had partaken of cigars on certain rare social occasions (such as the farewell dinner given to me by my fellow cadets, following my cunningly contrived discharge from the United States Military Academy at West Point), I had never developed a fondness for the habit—my finely wrought constitution being in no small degree susceptible to the intoxicating influences of tobacco. I therefore declined Crockett’s offer with a polite shake of the head.
Returning the proffered cigar to his pocket, Crockett placed the other one between his teeth, bit off the tip, then positioned the head directly over the glowing chimney of the oil lamp. Having ignited it to his satisfaction, he seated himself in the straight-backed chair that faced the writing table, crossed one leg over the other, and—eyes narrowed against the plumes of smoke drifting upwards from his panatela—regarded me intently.
As I scrutinized his countenance in turn, I perceived that his expression—which, throughout the evening, had been luminous with pleasure—was now deeply clouded with concern. “Is something the matter, Colonel Crockett?” I inquired. “You appear, of a sudden, to have lapsed into a mood of uncharacteristic solemnity.”
Plucking the cigar from his mouth, the frontiersman released a thick plume of smoke into the room. “I didn’t want to spoil the party for you and the gals, Poe, so I did my damnedest to shove my worries aside for a spell. But I have been in a mighty black humor since earlier today.”
“And what is the cause of your unhappiness?”
“When I got back to the hotel, there was a message from my crony in Washington City, Mr. Thomas Chilton. Seems like my enemies in Congress are fixing to push through Ol’ Hick’ry’s Injun Bill.”
“I assume that you are referring to the government’s plan to dispossess the Southwestern tribes of their rightfully deeded territories and remove them to far less favorable tracts west of the Mississippi?” The impassioned debate over this proposal having been extensively reported in the newspapers, I was, of course, familiar with its details.
“That’s the one,” Crockett said grimly. “Why, if I don’t get re-elected, them redskins will never get a fair shake.”
“I must confess, Colonel Crockett,” said I, “that—in light of both your youthful exploits in the Creek War and your frequent denigrations of the red man’s character—I am excessively surprised at your sympathetic concern for the Indian cause.”
“Why, Poe,” Crockett exclaimed, “you are plumb mistook about my sentiments. I won’t deny that I do not look with favor upon a murderous savage hell-bent on mischief. But I have always been a friend to the Chicksaws and Cherokees and other law-abiding tribes. And besides, our government give the injuns our sacred word. A treaty is the highest law of the land. I would rather be an old coon dog belonging to a poor man in the forest than belong to any country that wont do justice for all.”
For several moments following this fervent declaration, I sat in silent contemplation of the frontiersman, whose deep-rooted integrity, though sometimes obscured by his overbearing manner, could in no way be doubted. At length, I cleared my throat and declared: “In view of the pressing political matters requiring your attention, it is even more imperative that we accomplish our mission in the most expeditious manner possible.”
“Amen to that,” Crockett said. “Have you ciphered out the meaning of that pestiferous word yet?”
“Sadly,” I said with a heartfelt sigh, “and in spite of my prolonged and strenuous efforts to discover its signification, the answer is no.” Here, I folded my hands and rested them upon the tabletop. “There is, however, certain information of which I have yet to apprise you—information which, I have good reason to believe, bears directly upon the fearful mystery in which we two have become so deeply embroiled.”
“I am all ears,” Crockett said, taking another puff of his long, slender cigar.
I leaned forward in my seat and fixed the frontiersman with a penetrating look. “The story that I related to you and Captain Russell, regarding my motive for returning to Montague’s dwelling, was not, strictly speaking, the truth.”
“Why, what in blue blazes do you mean?” Crockett said, his brow furrowed with perplexity.
“I mean,” I replied, “that I have uncovered a singular—albeit inscrutable—connection among the various personages who have met such ghastly deaths over the course of the past, unparalleled week.”
Then, having thus thoroughly engaged the frontiersman’s attention, I drew a deep breath and proceeded to apprise him of the circumstance that had sent me rushing back to Montague’s dwelling in search of clues—i.e., my discovery that, among my collection of cherished memorabilia, was a decades-old newspaper clipping composed by Montague and containing allusions to both the Asher and Macready names.
“That something other than mere coincidence is involved in this matter,” I asserted, “seems to me a deduction beyond reasonable dispute.”
For several moments Crockett sat in silence, chewing ruminatively on his glowing panatela, which protruded from one corner of his mouth, “Well,” he drawled at length, “that is most uncommon curious, for a certainty. What in tarnation do you make of it?”
“As of yet,” I answered with a sigh, “I have been unable to arrive at a satisfactory explanation. It would appear, however, that—at the heart of the mystery that now confronts us—lies some dark and ominous secret involving the theatrical realm.”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Crockett exclaimed. “The theatre, eh?” Giving his head a regretful shake, he exhaled a stream of cigar smoke and said: “I’m afraid I can’t be of much use to you there, ol’ hoss. I ain’t never even been to the theatre excepting only once, and that was to see Mr. James H. Hackett play-acting in The Lion of the West in Washington City.”
“There is something else that I have yet to divulge,” I declared after a momentary pause. “Something of such a fantastic and inexplicable nature that—in spite of having witnessed it with my own eyes—I can scarcely credit the evidence of my senses.”
“Don’t keep me guessing,” said Crockett, “for I am fit to bust with curiosity.”
Fully cognizant of the sheer implausibility of the information that I was about to impart, I hesitated briefly before declaring: “There was another person in Montague’s apartment. A woman.”
A long moment passed while Crockett absorbed this remarkable, this startling revelation. “A woman?” he said at last, regarding me with a deeply quizzical expression.
“That is correct. She appeared in Montague’s bedroom immediately following my appalling discovery of the old man’s horribly mutilated corpse.”
Regarding me with an intensely doubtful expression, Crockett declared: “Why, it must’ve been that neighbor lady, Mrs. Purviance.”
I gave my head an emphatic shake. “No. While it is true that I obtained only the briefest glimpse of this person before I lapsed into insensibility, my view of her countenance was sufficiently clear to assure me of her identity. The woman I saw—and here I shall not blame you for reacting with a high degree of skepticism, for I am fully aware that the fact I am about to relate is of the most fantastic and anomalous nature—the woman I saw was the identical being who entered my bedroom on the night of the fatal conflagration at the Asher residence!”
Removing his cigar from his lips, Crockett stared at me silently for a moment. “Damn it, Poe,” he exclaimed at last, “but that’s the beatenest thing I ever heard.”
“I concur entirely with your assessment.”
“Don’t you reckon that what you saw was just a figger of your imagination?” Crockett inquired. “After all, you was mighty shook up after turning up that ol’ man’s carcass.”
An involuntary shudder coursed through my being as I recalled the awful—the unspeakable—moment when, staggering backwards from the appalling sight I had just glimpsed beneath the floorboards of Alexander Montague’s bedchamber, I heard—then felt—then saw—the same uncanny creature I had confronted once before.
“I assure you, Colonel Crockett,” I said grimly, “that the figure I observed was as palpably real as you yourself.”
Re-inserting his half-smoked panatela between his teeth, the frontiersman chewed on the tip for a moment before inquiring: “Why in tarnation didn’t you tell Cap’n Russell none of this?”
“For several reasons,” I replied. “First, because of my conviction that the mystery might be more expeditiously resolved by a pair of determined and resourceful individuals, operating independently of the police. As you yourself have noted, the professional law officer—even one who, like Captain Russell, is endowed with unusual acumen—is invariably hampered in his efforts by the necessity of adhering to the strict protocols of the law. As a consequence of this constraint, the typical police investigation, no matter how vigorously pursued, tends to proceed at a lamentably dilatory pace. In the present circumstance, such a delay is almost certain to have tragic results, given the possibility—or, rather, likelihood—that the perpetrator of these atrocities will continue to commit similar outrages until caught.”
“Can’t hardly argue with you there,” Crockett said.
“There is another consideration, too,” I said after a brief pause, “one which—while imbued with a tincture of self-interest—must nevertheless be acknowledged,”
“I’m listening,” said Crockett.
“Distinct advantages would accrue to each of us should we manage to resolve this mystery on our own. For you, the favorable publicity that you would inevitably receive could only be of benefit in regard to your political ambitions.”
“I’d be lying if I denied it,” the frontiersman acknowledged. “And how about you, Poe. What do you stand to gain?”
The yellowed newspaper review still lay upon the table. By way of replying to the frontiersman’s query, I picked it up, rose from my seat, and—stepping to the opposite side of the table—handed it to Crockett.
“Read this,” I said, as he cast me a quizzical glance.
Holding the clipping towards the light, Crockett began to peruse it, squinting through the smoky haze issuing from the smoldering tip of his much-reduced panatela. A moment later, he plucked the cigar from his mouth and—gaping up at me—exclaimed: “Why this here writin is all about Eliza Poe! Ain’t that your deceased mother?”
I nodded in the affirmative.
“But what in tarnation does all this dad-blasted business have to do with her?”
“That, Colonel Crockett, is precisely what I intend to find out.”
Declaring that he was feeling “dog-tired,” Crocked: took his leave soon afterwards—though not before we had resolved upon a course of action. From my earlier perusal of the newspaper clipping, I had already determined that, among the eminent Baltimoreans identified in the review, only one now remained alive: Mrs. Henrietta Nicodemus, whose late husband, Josiah, had made a considerable fortune as the owner of a large fleet of merchant vessels, following a singularly adventurous career as the captain of the brig Grampus. The aged widow, who remained a prominent figure in Baltimore’s flourishing social scene, resided in baronial splendor in one of the city’s most fashionable districts. It was this magnificent residence—and the elderly (though still-vital) personage who inhabited it—that the frontiersman and I proposed to visit on the morrow.
After bidding me good-night—and enjoining me to tell Muddy and Sissy that the evening had been a “regular slam-whanger”—Crockett departed. No sooner had I locked the front door behind him than, returning to my study, I began to pace rapidly about the floor, my soul in a state of extreme and unbridled agitation.
Throughout the course of our dinner party, I, like Crockett, had managed to keep my anxieties at bay. Now that I was alone—the frontiersman having departed, Muddy and Sissy asleep in their chambers—these forcibly suppressed emotions returned with an overpowering intensity. Especially unnerving was the memory of the anomalous female being, whose uncanny countenance (a precise description of which I had deliberately withheld from Crockett) filled me with even greater feelings of foreboding and dread than the fearfully mutilated visage of the murder victim.
All at once, as I circumambulated the floor for the dozenth time, my gaze fell upon the volume that had so riveted my interest when I had discovered it among the books sent to me for review by my employer, Mr. Thomas White. It lay atop a stack of papers on a corner of my writing table, where I had left it the previous afternoon. I refer to the remarkable study by the German scholar Heinrich Maelzel, Curious Beliefs and Peculiar Customs among the Savage Peoples of Melanesia.
Seating myself at my desk, I snatched up this volume and quickly searched through its pages until I came upon the passage that had impressed me so forcibly the previous afternoon, during my initial examination of the book. The section in question, which I had underscored in pencil, read as follows:
Among the myriad superstitions that beset the mind of the Fijiian islander, perhaps none is more striking than his deeply rooted conviction that his shadow is a living entity, possessed of the power to detach itself from its owner and travel abroad on its own mysterious—and not infrequently sinister—errands. Such a phenomenon most often occurs in the night-time, when a person is asleep, although—under certain conditions—the shadow may take temporary leave of its owner even during broad daylight.
Once separated from its owner, this spectral being may assume human shape. According to the beliefs of these savages, such an entity will be a kind of mirror reflection of the original: left-handed where the owner is right, cunning where the owner is guileless, etc. (Indeed, it may even appear as a being of the opposite sex.) Thus disguised, it is at liberty to move freely throughout the world, engaging in behavior of the most immoral and even atrocious kind—in bestial violence, implacable vengeance, or vulgar sensuality: behavior which is utterly forbidden to (though perhaps secretly desired by) its owner.
In this way, the shadow can be viewed as the manifestation of those diabolical impulses so deeply buried within the bosom of its owner that even he is unaware of their existence. Thus is he able to perpetrate the most hideous deeds, while maintaining a steadfast ignorance of the evil which his own hidden longings have wrought.
The emotional effect elicited in me by this passage can scarcely be formulated in words. As I perused it again in an agony of superstitious terror, I began to quiver in every fibre of my being. Flinging down the heavy volume, I staggered to my feet and retreated to my bedchamber, where I threw myself headlong upon the mattress and endeavored to find refuge in the sweet oblivion of sleep.
But in vain! For no sooner had I shut my eyes than a grim, an appalling, vision materialized within my mind, rendering sleep an utter impossibility. It was she!—the same ghastly female being whom I had encountered on two separate occasions and whose very existence—I now believed with a certainty that caused the very marrow to chill within my bones—was intimately bound up with my own!