The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

The Deadliest Tale of All Peter Lovesey

He wrote “A Troubled Sleep”, stared at it for a time, sighed and struck it out.

“The Unsafe Sleep” didn’t last long either.

“In the Death Bed” was stronger, he decided. He left it to be considered later. A good title could make or break a story. He’d tried and rejected scores of them for this, the most ambitious of all his tales. “Night Horrors”? Possibly not.

Then an inspiration: “It Comes By Night”. This, he thought, could be right. He barely had time to write it down when there was a knock at the door.

He groaned.

The man from the Tribune was creating a bad impression. His manner verged on the offensive. “Have a care what you say to me. My readers are not to be deceived. I will insist upon the truth.”

The inference was not lost on Edgar Allan Poe.

“Do you take me for a deceiver, then?” he said, scarcely containing his annoyance. He had consented to this interview on the assumption that it would prop up his shaky reputation.

“You will not deny that you are a teller of tall tales, a purveyor of the fantastic.”

“That is my art, sir, not my character, and you had better make the distinction if you wish to detain me any longer. What did you say your name is?”

“Nolz. Rainer Nolz.”

“Ha — it sounds Prussian.”

“Is that objectionable to you?”

“It is if you are unable to temper your questions with courtesy.”

“My family have lived in Virginia for two generations,” Nolz said, as if that absolved him of Prussian tendencies. He seemed bent on establishing superiority. Overweight — fat, to put it bluntly — and dressed in a loud check suit stained with food, he was probably twenty years Poe’s senior — too old to be a hack, notebook in hand, interviewing a writer. A competent journalist his age should surely have occupied an editor’s chair by now.

He threw in another barbed remark. “Since you raised the matter of names, yours is an odd one. Poe — what’s the origin of that?”

“Irish. The Poes arrived in America about 1750.”

“And the Allans?”

“The family who took me in when I was orphaned. Do you really need to know this?”

“It’s not a question of what I need to know, but what my readers will expect to be informed about.”

“My writing,” Poe said, raising his generally quiet voice to fortissimo.

“On the contrary. They can pick up one of your books. Anything from me about your writing would be superfluous. The readers — my readers — are interested in your life. That’s my brief, Mr Poe. I’ve come prepared. I have an adequate knowledge of your curriculum vitae — or as much of it as you have put in the public domain. You aren’t honest about your age, subtracting years as if you were one of the fair sex.”

“Is that important?”

“To posterity it will be. You were born in 1809, not 1811.”

Poe smiled. “Now I understand. You’ve been talking to the unctuous Griswold.”

“And you’ve been lying to him.”

Rufus Griswold, self-appointed arbiter of national literary merit, had first come into Poe’s life probing for personal information for an anthology he was compiling ambitiously entitled The Poets and Poetry of America. At twenty-six, the man had been confident, plausible and sycophantic — a veritable toady. Poe had recognized as much, but failed to see the danger he presented. Writers with a genius for portraying malice do not always recognize it in real life. Griswold was a third-rate writer who fancied himself one of the literati, a parasite by now embedded in Poe’s life and repeatedly damaging him. Ultimately the odious creature would take possession of the writing itself. At the time of their first meeting there had seemed no conceivable harm in embellishing the truth.

Nolz was a horse of a different colour, making no pretension to charm. “But you’ll oblige me by answering my questions honestly.”

“Before I do,” Poe said, liking him less by the minute, “I’m curious to know how much of my work you have read.”

“Not much.”

“The poems?”

“A few.”

“The tales?”

“Fewer. I don’t care for the fantastic and horrific. I prefer something of intellectual appeal.”

“You think my work is not for the intellect?”

“Too sensational. At my age, Mr Poe, one has a care for one’s health.”

“Are you unwell?”

“My doctor tells me I have a heart murmur. Too much excitement aggravates the condition. But I am here to talk about you, not myself. You are fond of claiming that you could have emulated Byron and swum the Hellespont because as a youth in Richmond you once won a wager by swimming a stretch of the James River.”

Poe was pleased to confirm it. “Correct. At the mere age of fifteen I swam from Ludlam’s Wharf to Warwick against one of the strongest tides ever known.”

Nolz was shaking his head. “Unfortunately for you, I know Richmond. I have lived there. To have achieved such a feat you must have swum at least six miles.”

“As I did,” Poe answered on an angry rising note. “I assure you I did. In those conditions there is no question that my swim was the equal of Byron’s.”

“And I say it is impossible.”

“Mr Nolz, it happened, and others were there as witnesses. I was an athletic youth. Were I fifteen again and fit, I would not hesitate to duplicate the deed. Sadly, in recent months my health, like yours apparently, has suffered a decline. But I have achieved other things. Shall I tell you about The Raven?”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

The sauce of this fellow! “Your readers will expect to be told how it came to be written.”

“I know all that,” Nolz said and smiled in a way that was not friendly. “I have a copy of your essay, ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, which purports to explain the genesis of the poem.”

“Purports?”

“The piece is self-congratulation, a paean to Mr Poe. You omit to mention how much you borrowed from other writers.”

“Name one.”

“Miss Elizabeth Barrett.”

“I am on the best of terms with Miss Barrett.”

“You are on the best of terms with any number of ladies. And I am sure you are on the best of terms with a poem of Miss Barrett’s entitled Lady Geraldine’s Courtship because in The Raven you aped the rhythm and rhyme and offered not a word of your debt to her in the essay.”

“She has not complained to me.”

“As a critic you are quick to accuse others of imitation and lifting ideas, but you seem blind to the same tendency in yourself. You are also indebted to Mr Charles Dickens. Allow me to remind you that you were planning to write a poem about a parrot until you read of the raven in Barnaby Rudge.”

Poe was silent. The man was right, damn him.

“I suggest to you” — Nolz gave the knife a twist — “that a parrot saying ‘Nevermore’ would not have impressed the public. It might well have made you a laughing stock.”

Poe said in his defence, “Whether or not the raven in the Dickens novel put the idea in my head is immaterial. I might as easily have seen one perched on a churchyard wall. The artist cannot choose the source of his inspiration.”

“But he ought to acknowledge it when he claims to be expounding his modus operandi. I recall the scene in the novel where Barnaby is imprisoned with Grip the raven for company and the sun through the bars casts the bird’s shadow upon the floor while its eyes gleam in the light of the fires set by the rioters outside. Somewhat reminiscent of your unforgettable final stanza, is it not? ‘And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor.’”

“Would you tax me with plagiarism?”

“No, sir. Forgetfulness.”

“How charitable! Is there anything else you hold against me?”

Nolz gave a nod, as if tempted to go on. Then he hesitated before saying, “Mr Poe, you may not appreciate this, but I am your best hope.”

“Best hope! God save us! Best hope of what?”

“Of a lasting reputation.”

“Sir, my written work will ensure my reputation.”

“Without wishing to be offensive, it has not achieved much for you thus far.”

Poe sighed. “I grant you that. The Raven is the most popular poem ever written and I remain in penury.”

Nolz spread his palms. “You were a fool to yourself, publishing in a newspaper without the protection of copyright. Any cheapjack publisher was free to reprint without redress.”

“And has, a thousand times over.” Poe put his hand to his mouth and yawned. “Put me out of my suspense. How will you improve my prospects?”

“Materially, not at all,” Nolz said. “I am a journalist, not a businessman. I spoke just now of your reputation.”

“It doesn’t have need of you,” Poe said on the impulse. “It’s second to none.” Yet both knew the statement was untrue. He’d acceded all too eagerly to the request for an interview. He needed shoring up if it wasn’t too late already.

Nolz was looking at him with pity. The man had the power to unnerve, as if he knew things yet to be revealed. The world might be — ought to be — aware that the writer of “The Gold-Bug” and The Raven was a genius, but this dislikeable old hack seated across the table was behaving as if he was the recording angel.

“Who are you?” Poe cried out. “Why should I submit to your churlish questions?”

“I told you who I am,” Nolz said. “And as to the questions, most of them have come from you.”

“There you go, maligning me, twisting my words. Why should I trust you?”

“Because I have a care for the truth above everything. You have enemies masquerading as friends, Mr Poe. They seek to destroy your reputation. They may succeed.”

Much of what the man was saying was true.

“You keep speaking of this reputation of mine as if it matters. My work is all that matters and it will endure. Poor Edgar Poe the man is a lost cause, a soul beyond hope of redemption.”

“With a well-known flair for self-abasement. Coming from you, this is of no consequence. But when others damn you to kingdom come, as they will, you are going to have need of me.”

“As my protector? You are not a young man, Rainer Nolz.”

“Ray.” He extended his fat hand across the table. “Address me as Ray. My fellow writers do.”

Poe reached for the hand and felt revulsion at the flabby contact. “So, Ray...”

“Yes?”

“Are there any other failings of mine you wish to address?”

Nolz raised a shaggy eyebrow. “Are there any, Edgar, that you care to confess?”

“Plenty, I should think! When I drink, I drink to oblivion. One or two glasses are usually enough. I am a fool with women, writing love letters to one whilst pursuing another. I am hopeless with money. Are you writing this down?”

“It’s too well known. Let’s address some of the misinformation you have unleashed on the world.”

“Must we?”

Nolz gave a penetrating look with his brown, unsparing eyes. “If I am to be of service, yes.”

The examination that followed was uncomfortable, depressing, shaming, a ledger of Poe’s falsehoods and exaggerations. Why did he endure it? Because Nolz, like the Ancient Mariner, was possessed of a mysterious power to detain. He dissected more of the myths blithely confided to Griswold and given substance in The Poets and Poetry of America. The myth that as a young man Poe had run away from home to fight for the liberty of the Greeks in their War of Independence against the Turks. The myth of a trip to St Petersburg where he got into difficulties and was supposedly rescued by Henry Middleton, the American Consul. All this in an attempt to gloss over two years in the ranks, of which Poe was not proud.

Nolz had said he knew the curriculum vitae, and so he did, in mortifying detail. He must have gone to infinite trouble to find out so much.

Finally he said, “Was that good for your soul?”

“Against all expectation, yes,” Poe admitted. “I am tempted, almost, to ask you to absolve me of my sins.”

Nolz laughed. “That would be exceeding my duties.”

“I feel shriven, nonetheless, and I thank you for that.”

“No need, Edgar. Instead of absolution I will offer a piece of advice. Beware of Rufus Griswold. He is not your friend.”

“Ha! I don’t need telling,” Poe said. “After all his blandishments how many of my poems appeared in his book? Three. One Charles Fenno Hoffman had forty-five. I counted them. Forty-five. A man whose name means little to me or the public.”

“I saw.”

Poe was warming to his theme. “And who was offered and accepted my job after I was dismissed as editor at Graham’s? Griswold.”

“And the magazine suffered as a result,” Nolz said, beginning to show some sympathy.

“He even shoulders me aside when I show affection for a lady. There is a certain poetess—”

“Fanny Osgood?”

“You know everything. The first I heard of it was that she had dedicated her collection of poems to him — ‘a souvenir of admiration for his genius’.”

“Why then, Edgar, do you continue to have any truck with a man who treats you with contempt?”

Poe rolled his eyes and eased his finger around his stock. All this was making him sweat. How could he explain without damning himself? “Griswold has influence. That wretched book of his must have gone through ten editions. Oh, I’ve tried cutting free of him more than once, but he’ll remind me that I have need of him. Since you know so much, you must be aware that he put together another anthology, The Prose Writers of America.”

“And invited you to contribute. To which you responded that he was an honourable friend you had lost through your own folly — your own folly.”

Now Poe flushed with embarrassment. “Swallowing my pride. He included several of my tales.”

“He continues to tell his own tales about you to all that will listen, shocking scurrilous stories.”

“I know.”

“Griswold will bring you nothing but discredit.”

He nodded. He knew it, of course. He was destined for the sewers. But surely the work would keep its dignity, whatever was said of its creator?

“And you, Ray? What may I expect from you after this interrogation? Should I be nervous of what you will write in your newspaper?”

“The truth.”

“Exposing the lies?”

“Oh, no. We disposed of them this evening. I needed to make certain. I am now confident that what I write has the force of verified fact. It will not be to your detriment.”

“And when may I look forward to reading it?”

“Never.”

Poe frowned, and played the word over in his brain. “I don’t understand.”

“You will never read it because you will be dead.”

The statement was like a physical blow. His brain reeled. Deep inside himself, he’d feared this from the moment he admitted the stranger to his room. Nolz was not of this world, but an agent of destruction.

“You’ve turned pale,” Nolz said. “I must apologize. It was wrong of me to speak of this.”

“Tell me,” Poe whispered, eyes wide. “Tell me all you know.”

“Edgar, I know only what I have confirmed with you this evening.”

“You spoke of my imminent death.”

“No. I said you will never read what I write because you will be dead. I am a writer of obituaries.”

A shocked silence ensued.

“You are my obituary writer?”

“It’s my occupation. I was commissioned to prepare yours.”

“By whom?”

“The editor of the New York Daily Tribune. You, as a journalist, will know that obituaries of eminent men are prepared in advance, sometimes years in advance. One cannot write an adequate account of a life on the morning a death is announced.”

“My obituary! I am forty years old!”

“Ars longa, vita brevis.”

“I don’t want this,” Poe said, panicking. “I wish I had never spoken to you. How can you compose my death notice when I am still of this earth? It’s ghoulish. You’ve put the mark of death on me.”

Nolz looked shamefaced. “I have committed an unprofessional act. I should never have told you.”

“I’m still creative. God knows, I still have the talent.”

The journalist cleared his throat. “With due respect, Edgar, you have not produced much of significance this year.”

“I have not suffered a day to pass without writing.”

“What manner of writing?”

“I revise my earlier work.”

“Previously published work. All this tinkering with things that appeared in print ten years ago is the symptom of an exhausted talent.”

“And poems. I wrote a new poem longer than The Raven.”

Nolz lifted his eyebrows, leaving the last four words to resonate. “I doubt if anything you have written in the last six months is worthy of mention in the obituary.”

“Cruel!”

“But true. I told you I must be honest.” Nolz closed his notebook and pushed his chair back from the table. “I shall take my leave of you now. Take heart, Edgar. Your place in the Pantheon is assured. In your short life you have written more masterpieces than Longfellow, Hawthorne and Emerson between them.”

Poe’s next words were uttered in a forlorn cry of despair. “I am not finished.”

“I think my hat is hanging in the passage.”

“Damn you to kingdom come, I am not finished!”

Nolz crossed the room.

Poe got up and followed him, grabbing at his sleeve. “Wait. There is something you haven’t seen, a work of monumental significance. I’ve been working on it for five years, the best thing I have ever done.”

Nolz paused and turned halfway, his face creased in disbelief. “Unpublished?”

“You must read it,” Poe said, nodding. “It’s a work of genius.”

“A poem?”

“A tale. It will stand with ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’.”

“One of your tales of horror? I told you how I feel about them.”

“Not merely one of my tales of horror, Ray, but the ultimate tale. If you neglect to read it, you will undervalue my reputation, whatever you write in that obituary.”

“What is the title?”

He had to think. “It Comes By Night”. He rushed to his desk in the corner of the room and started riffling through the sheets of paper spread across it, scattering anything unwanted to the floor. “Here!” He snatched up a pen and inscribed the title on the top sheet. “If I die tomorrow, this is my legacy. I beg you, Ray. If you have a shred of pity for a desperate man, give it your attention.” He thrust the manuscript into Nolz’s hands. “Take it with you. I swear it is the best I have ever done, or will do.”

Shaking his head, Nolz pocketed the handwritten sheets, retrieved his hat and left.

Two days later, the script of “It Comes By Night” was returned to Poe by special messenger. With it was a note:

Poe threw the script into the fire and wept.

Edgar Allan Poe himself died the next month in Washington College Hospital, Baltimore. The mystery surrounding his last days has baffled generations of biographers. He had been found in a drunken stupor in a gutter. Dr John Moran, who attended him in hospital, reported that even when he regained consciousness the writer was confused and incoherent. “When I returned I found him in a violent delirium, resisting the efforts of two nurses to keep him in bed. This state continued until Saturday evening (he was admitted on Wednesday) when he commenced calling for one ‘Reynolds’ which he did through the night up to three on Sunday morning. At this time a very decided change began to affect him. Having become enfeebled from exertion he became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time, then gently moving his head he said, ‘Lord help my poor Soul’ and expired.”

The identity of “Reynolds” has never been satisfactorily explained. Poe had no known friend of that name. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe, his biographer, the poet, critic and mystery writer, Julian Symons, wrote: “...this last cry, like so much else in his life, remains a riddle unsolved”.

Just as the sudden death of Ray Nolz was never explained.

On the day of Poe’s funeral, the New York Daily Tribune published an obituary announcing the death and stating “few will be grieved by it” because “he had no friends”. Poe had been worthless as a critic, always biased, and “little better than a carping grammarian”. This savage piece was balanced with praise of the stories and the poetry, but the impression of the man was devastating. He was likened to a character in a Bulwer-Lytton novel: “Irascible, envious, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellent cynicism while his passions vented themselves in sneers... He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his species.”

The obituary had been prepared by Rufus Griswold.

And the damage didn’t end there. The appalling Griswold approached Poe’s mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, and by some undisclosed arrangement obtained a power of attorney to collect and edit the writings. The first two volumes were in print within three months of Poe’s death, with a preface announcing that they were published as an act of charity to benefit Mrs Clemm. She received no money, just six sets of the books. Griswold’s Memoir of the Author, published in 1850, became for many years the accepted biography. It contained all the old distortions and lies and added more.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Rainer Nolz and “It Comes By Night” are inventions. Everything about Rufus Griswold has been checked for the truth.