The Accursed Read online

  DR. SCHUYLER SKAATS WHEELER’S NOVELTY MACHINE

  The letter to Winslow Slade seems never to have been completed, and signed; of course, it was never slipped into an envelope to be addressed and stamped and posted.

  Instead, it would be discovered between the pages of Adelaide’s (coded) journal, after the invalid’s death.

  It is not known, nor can I force myself to imagine, what happened on the night of May 5, 1906, in the upstairs of Maidstone House, on Library Place, Princeton.

  Much has been written on the subject of course. But I am not of a mind to paraphrase it here. For I feel, I think, such pity for dear exasperating Adelaide!—poor Puss as the invalid calls herself. Such pity, and such sorrow.

  So long as the invalid had her pen in hand, she was most lively—mischievous, merry, despairing, damn’d—yet, alive. But now, the pen has been rudely snatched from her fingers, & she is silenced forever.

  IT WOULD BE early the next morning, at approximately 8 a.m., when Mrs. Burr’s maid Griselda cautiously made her way to the invalid’s room, to stand outside her door as Mrs. Burr had instructed her, to listen, and try to determine if Mrs. Burr was still slumbering in her bed, or “up”—(by which is not meant “up” in a literal sense, but simply awake)—and needing assistance. This morning, Griselda did indeed hear sounds inside the bedchamber, but could not guess what they were; though afterward she would tell how the hairs stirred at the nape of her neck, as a terrible fear passed into her, of what she would discover inside: the master of Maidstone House sprawled but partly dressed in his wife’s bed, amid blood-soaked bedclothes; rocking the limp, lifeless, and bloodied body of his wife in his arms, and humming, and crooning, and softly laughing in the way of a delighted lover.

  Mr. Burr was seen to be deranged; yet subdued and tractable, as if knowing that the worst had come to pass, and was behind him.

  Griselda gave a scream, dropped her tray of breakfast things, ran back downstairs to the kitchen in such distress, the household staff followed her out into Hodge Road without comprehending what she was trying to say; soon then, an alarm went out, and authorities were summoned.

  It could not have been more than a quarter hour later that as two astonished and appalled Princeton Borough police officers entered the bedroom, Mr. Burr did not signal alarm, or irritation; though these were intruders in his house, in his wife’s very bedchamber, and he and his wife were but partly clothed, he seemed unperturbed and continued to rock gently to and fro while embracing the much-ravaged corpse of his wife, and singing a fragment of a Stephen Foster song—

  Ah! May the red rose live al-way

  To smile upon earth and sky!

  Why should the beau-ti-ful ever weep

  Why should the beau-ti-ful die—?

  With a measure of dignity, Horace Burr detached himself from his wife, and from the blood-soaked bedclothes where he was believed to have lain for at least ten hours, and managed to stand; as if to invite the police officers farther into the room, as they appeared frozen at the threshold, gape-mouthed in horror. With no preamble, Mr. Burr confessed to the act—“The consequences of which are undeniable.” He would explain to authorities that he had put his wife out of her misery as an act of mercy, and hoped that God would spare his soul, even as, he knew, his peers would judge him harshly, as he must be judged.

  As to how the ghastly murder was committed, I am not altogether certain. Nor do I want to speculate, heedlessly. It must suffice to note that, taken into custody with the bloodied Horace Burr, and handled with especial care, and no little repugnance, was a certain ingenious mechanism comprised of sharp-swirling fans, recently bought for the invalid in her airless and overheated chambers.

  QUATRE FACE

  1.

  To confront the Curse that threatens us all.”

  The unspeakable murder of Adelaide Burr by the husband who had long been devoted to her so rocked Princeton, Pearce van Dyck became distraught with worry that, in the wilds of Raven Rock, Pennsylvania, his wife Johanna and their infant son might yet be “at risk”; and decided to sever his responsibilities to the university several weeks before the end of term, to move to Quatre Face—“For the Curse must be countered head-on, by a stratagem of rationality.”

  It was even a part of Dr. van Dyck’s plan, initially, that he might talk Percy Boudinot, Dr. Boudinot’s doctor-son, into taking a temporary residency in the old country estate, if Johanna’s continued ill health, following the birth of the baby, did not improve.

  For it had developed, evidently, that Mrs. van Dyck was “not well”—suffered from “mysterious pains” and a “lingering malaise”; and that the baby, only five pounds six ounces at birth, was gaining weight at a less than normal pace.

  In Princeton, little was known of Johanna van Dyck since she had taken residence at Quatre Face. Few persons in Princeton, excepting very close friends of the van Dyck family, had ever visited the country estate on the Delaware River that had originally been built a hundred years before, and did not have the reputation of being one of the architectural gems of the Delaware Valley. Female relatives and friends of Johanna’s had not been invited to visit her, nor had her replies to their inquiring letters been encouraging; often, Johanna did no more than scribble a reply on the back of a letter, to the effect that she and the baby were doing very well, if not exactly flourishing; but quite required the calm & quiet & distance of Quatre Face, & not the harrying bustle of Princeton.

  It was doubted, among some of Johanna’s women friends, that this was true: for Johanna had not wanted to move to the country, having failed to recover entirely from the ravages of childbirth; nor had she wanted the baby to be so far from decent medical attention, if that was required. But Pearce had insisted. Pearce had become quite uncharacteristically emotional, in insistence. And so, unhappily, Johanna had given in.

  “A remove from Princeton is for the sake of the child, as much as for you, Johanna. You must be rational.”

  Johanna bowed her head, for this was so. Her husband in his “new” phase—(as a “new” father?)—was so adamant in his speech, and his gaze so fraught with dislike, if anyone opposed him, she had learned simply to give in, as the most accommodating measure. And excused herself, to retire to the nursery where she might play with the baby, bathe and nurse the baby and sing to him, as a mother might do; for Pearce was uneasy if Johanna “serviced” the baby, as he called it, in his presence.

  Few persons knew, and Johanna did not wish them to know, that Pearce allowed the baby in his presence only rarely; and kept his distance from the nursery, to the extent of taking to using the back stairs to and from the second floor of the house, to avoid passing by the nursery in which the door was usually kept open.

  Nor did Pearce inquire after the baby, which had become Johanna’s entire subject of conversation, or nearly; until she asked of him, one evening at dinner, “Pearce, don’t you like—love—your little son?”; and Pearce said, with a thoughtful little frown, “Yes. Of course. As his ‘father’ I am bound to like—love—him. As, as your husband, I am bound to you.”

  Soon after this exchange, Pearce made arrangements for Johanna and the child, and a small household staff, to take up residence at Quatre Face.

  AFTER THE TRAGEDY at Maidstone House, in fact within twenty-four hours of the terrible news, a gravely shaken Pearce van Dyck appeared at the Nassau Hall office of the university president, with no appointment scheduled, to appeal to Dr. Wilson for an “emergency leave of absence” from his university duties, that he might take up residence at Raven Rock with his wife and infant son, who were living there temporarily.

  Dr. Wilson was taken by surprise, for Professor van Dyck did appear agitated, and had not properly shaved; his linen was visibly not fresh, and the shoelace of one of his shoes was untied. (For such was the effect of Mrs. van Dyck’s absence from the professor’s household and from his intimate life.) Dr. Wilson was surprised too, by the request, of a sort that would ordinarily be made months beforehand,
from one of the most responsible and renowned of Princeton professors as well as one, Dr. Wilson believed, who had generally supported him.

  “It’s scarcely a secret now, Woodrow, that there is a Curse on our community—not just Crosswicks. Evil has been erupting, emerging—whether a swarm of poisonous snakes in Rocky Hill or, so recently, the unspeakable murder at Maidstone House—our Hodge Road neighbor! Can you believe it—Horace Burr! A great-great-grandson of our revered Aaron Burr, Sr.! And Horace has been so generous in his donations to the university . . . All that will end now, I suppose. As the Burrs had no immediate heir, the fortune will go to relatives.”

  Pearce van Dyck spoke rapidly, nervously. Woodrow Wilson listened with his customary inexpressive calm, that so unsettled certain of his associates and adversaries, who complained that the man was maddeningly inscrutable; until such time as he began to speak, when he was maddeningly transparent.

  “The most problematic issue in all this, Woodrow, as you know, is that it’s impossible to tell who was ‘one of us’—and who is ‘one of them.’ ”

  “ ‘Them’—?”

  “Demons.”

  “Demons!”

  At this, Dr. Wilson did betray a quicksilver sort of emotion, that rippled across his long narrow “lantern-jawed” face: a look of alarm, and a look of comprehension.

  “There are ‘demons,’ you know. This ‘Axson Mayte’—for one. And there have been others.”

  Gravely, Dr. Wilson nodded. He had made some effort to push out of his memory his several days’ friendship with the charismatic Mayte; and was relieved that Professor van Dyck seemed to know nothing about it.

  “And now there is this ‘Count van Gneist’ staying at Drumthwacket. Who in hell is he?”

  The philosophy professor spoke harshly, with a peal of laughter.

  “The name is von Gneist, I believe,” Woodrow Wilson said stiffly, “and the man is a renowned European theologian, and something of a political theorist. He is hardly a ‘demon,’ Pearce! In fact, I have invited him to give the Helms Lecture at Commencement.”

  “The Helms Lecture! That’s quite an honor, sir.”

  “Well. English von Gneist is an honorable man.”

  Pearce van Dyck, absently stroking his jaw, looked as if he had more to say on this subject, but thought better of it, considering the tone of Dr. Wilson’s voice.

  Sternly now Woodrow Wilson inquired if Pearce had spoken with his departmental chair about this “leave of absence”; if he’d looked into arrangements for his preceptors and other colleagues to take over his classes, exams and grading, etc. As it seemed to have passed between them, that Dr. Wilson would grant his unorthodox request for an immediate leave, which the dean of the faculty would have rejected summarily, as outrageous and unprofessional.

  As Pearce would declare, in a letter dashed off that afternoon to his wife at Quatre Face—I’d expected more of a fight from Wilson for you know, I am crucial to the philosophy department. But—the man gave in at once! This is good news! I will be at your side within another day.

  “I WILL CRACK the damned code. For a code is to be cracked.”

  Freed from the strenuous round of academic and scholarly routine, his imagination given a belated freedom by the romantic isolation of Quatre Face, Pearce van Dyck soon believed that he’d begun to perceive the pattern by which the Curse might be recognized. For certainly, like all “mysteries” it would yield to calm and systematic analytic thought, if one but took time.

  While Johanna and a nursemaid “serviced” the baby—(a preoccupation that seemed to require an infinite amount of time)—Pearce hid away in his study, or hiked along the bank of the Delaware River, where there was a narrow path through briars; at some distance from the old country house, Pearce squinted at the weatherworn limestone structure with its heavy sloping roofs and blackened chimneys through myopic eyes—Why, it has become a ruin! I have brought my beloved little family to live in a ruin!—but soon turned away, and resumed his walk; for the decoding of the Crosswicks Curse must draw his fullest attention, not a trivial concern with domestic life.

  “If necessary, I will sacrifice ‘domestic life.’ If I am called, and no one else—if I am chosen . . .”

  For such is the efficacy of logic, Pearce reasoned. Whether it is the abstract logic of Aristotle or Spinoza, or the more practical logic of Sherlock Holmes, what is confusing becomes clear; and one laughs afterward at having been puzzled. But of course, to attain this end one must work.

  So, Pearce applied himself to the riddle of the Curse, often staying up through much of the night and resisting Johanna’s entreaties that he come to bed, as that he take his meals with greater regularity. But Pearce was convinced that the mystery was close to being penetrated, for the “methodology” of the death of Adelaide Burr was certainly a clue—“Staring us all in the face, probably.”

  It was rare for Pearce to speak of such matters to Johanna, for when he did, the woman invariably responded with an inane, or uninformed, or (deliberately?) provocative response, as at this time—

  “But Pearce, Horace is not a fiend. He is—he was—one of our neighbors, and our friend. It must have been some fit of madness that came over him. All the letters from Princeton say that he had been drinking heavily, and . . .”

  “And yet,” Pearce said, pointedly ignoring his wife’s naïve remarks, “why did the Fiend so torture the poor woman? An invalid after all, and piteous. And what does it mean, that so eccentric a ‘murder weapon’ was involved? In all the annals of crime and mystery that I have delved into, there has never been a—an—electric fan used for such a purpose.”

  “ . . . and it’s said that Horace had been writing letters to Wilhelmina Burr, of the most frank, shocking sort! Wilhelmina turned these over to the police immediately. And a gift he’d given her, an ivory brooch, which had belonged to poor Adelaide—he’d sent anonymously to Wilhelmina. Only imagine! Our neighbors and friends, behaving in such a way . . .”

  “They are not ‘our neighbors and friends,’ Johanna, when the Fiend has influence over them. No more than poor Annabel Slade was Dabney Bayard’s bride, when the Fiend exerted his power over her.”

  “Do you know, Pearce, people are saying, in Princeton, that Wilhelmina drove him to it. That they might marry, and ‘Willy’ might inherit the fortune.”

  At this, Pearce did pause; for Pearce had a new idea, to be added to the Scheme of Clues.

  “The snakes, of course! ‘Snake Frenzy.’ And Wilhelmina ‘summoning them forth’—then unable to control them.”

  “But, Pearce—Wilhelmina did no such thing! Nor did she drive Horace to murder—I’m sure. These are just stray bits of rumor reported to me, and not to be taken seriously.”

  “In a crime investigation, where ‘coded mystery’ prevails, there is nothing not to be taken seriously.”

  “The reputation of a young woman like Wilhelmina Burr is a very serious matter. In Princeton, at least. If she moves to New York City, and begins a new life—it won’t matter, perhaps.”

  “With Adelaide so freshly murdered, I hope it won’t be a matter of simply awaiting the next horror. If only I could penetrate this forest of clues . . .”

  “Dear husband, I think it’s more important, at this moment, for you to finish your meal; for you eat very poorly now, and have lost too much weight.”

  Pearce had quite forgotten that it was dinnertime: they were seated in the dimly lighted dining room at Quatre Face, where silken French wallpaper was shadowed with dust, and the view of the river was obscured by overgrown shrubbery like encroaching cataracts. Johanna was correct, Pearce was eating very poorly of late. Meals were virtually untasted by him; instead, he relied upon wine and sherry in the latter part of the day, and very strong black coffee in the morning hours, to fortify his nerves.

  “Johanna, I appreciate your solicitude. But I am not a cranky infant, to be ‘serviced’—I can take care of myself very well, thank you.”

  Without finishing his me
al, but taking his part-filled wineglass with him, Pearce removed himself from his wife’s company to the privacy and comfort of his study.

  MOVING TO QUATRE FACE, approximately thirty miles from Princeton, Pearce had packed few articles of clothing and personal items, concentrating instead on books, journals, and the ever-growing impedimenta related to the “Scheme of Clues,” that had grown considerably since Josiah Slade’s visit, and now took over most of his study on the ground floor of the country house. Pearce had made no effort to bring with him his scholarly philosophical books, which remained in his office at the university. But he’d brought the complete set of Sherlock Holmes mysteries as well as notebooks in which he’d listed primary, secondary, tertiary, and “probable” or “possible” clues to the Curse, in an effort to relate some of these to Conan Doyle’s cases, for there was a clear parallel between them, he was certain. The eruption of evil in Princeton, New Jersey, was but a single expression of a multiple Curse, or Horror—the eruption of Evil into the world of humankind, from which we must be saved by one stronger, more courageous and more “inspired” than we are.

  “How clear that is! And yet—how to proceed, before another innocent is murdered?”

  One afternoon in early May Pearce was in his study concentrating upon these issues when a visitor arrived at Quatre Face, unanticipated—Josiah Slade!

  In his low-slung two-seater Winton motorcar the young man had been driving in the vicinity, north of New Hope, when, at the outskirts of Raven Rock, he’d sighted Quatre Face and felt a “sudden yearning” to see his former professor again, and of course Mrs. van Dyck; and to see their new baby now, he believed, at least three months old.

  “Why, Josiah! What a surprise! Come in, my boy. Not a moment too soon!”—so Pearce spoke jocularly.