John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

Delamare blinks once, very deliberately, then raises a finger grimly to his mouth.

“Of course, Oliver! I’m sorry. Shall I tell you my idea?”

His sight begins to wander and his head turns toward the wall. Have I come to him too soon?

“It’s only this,” I say quickly. “On the eve of his murder, Harvey told Clem we’d find his letter interesting—; that it was written for us expressly. Why? To justify himself to us? Not very likely. None of us were fit to judge him.”

Delamare looks at me coldly, as if to say that he feels fit to judge Harvey and the rest of us besides. But he’s listening to me closely.

I clear my throat. “He meant for us to read his account, but more than that—: he meant for us to decipher it. Something’s hidden in the text, I’m sure of it.” I pause a moment. “See if you can follow my reasoning now, Oliver. Firstly—: I take ‘Angel of Death’ to mean Harvey’s killer.”

Delamare bobs his head impatiently. His eyes are watering again.

“If that’s the case,” I say, my voice dropping even further, “then the meaning of ‘reckoning’ becomes clear. The letter is more than an accounting, more than a confession, more than an entreaty to us to discover his murderer—: the letter itself is the means to that discovery, buried somehow in the narrative of Harvey’s fall. The story is a cipher, a puzzle, like a parable in the Bible. We have only to solve it.” I bend down and say again, close to his ear—: “We have only to solve it, Oliver, to know.”

Delamare is staring up into my face, intently, feverishly, but whether in enthusiasm or dismay I cannot tell. Never mind which—; I’ll tell my idea to him regardless. Its improbability has made me drunk.

I clear my throat. “It’s beyond what I’d have expected from that little ass-scratcher, I grant you. But I’m convinced of it, Oliver. And I’m convinced of one thing more. The letter may well have been written for everyone in this house—; the last lines, however, were meant for one of us alone.” I sit back on the stool. “I refer, of course, to the ‘coward’ of the post-script.”

Delamare gives no sign of having understood me. But I know he’s understood me. His eyes are wide and starting.

“I daresay you can guess who that coward is, Oliver. You already have. Harvey made particular mention of me, you remember, on his walk with Clementine.”

Delamare’s lips part slightly and I see the blood-slick tongue behind them. He makes as if to speak. To forestall him, I say quickly—:

“I’m the best suited to take up the hunt, and Harvey knew it. I’m the only one here who puts the slightest faith in reason—; in the scientific method.”

Delamare shakes his head wildly. Again he opens his mouth to speak—; again I cut him short.

“Listen to me, Oliver. If one takes the end of the letter — the ‘nay of a coward’ line — as one’s starting point, then one possible approach would be to work backwards from that line.” Delamare rolls his eyes at this, but I press on. “I’ve spent the morning doing precisely that, starting with the killings at Wallace’s depot. And something struck me straight-away—: a term I once heard Morelle use. Perhaps you’ll remember it, as well. It’s the expression ‘Canaan’s’—”

With a great effort Delamare forces his tongue to speak. “Virgil— Clementine, Virgil—”

Nothing could have hushed me quicker. I’ve just told him something that ought by rights to have bowled him over, to have stunned him, to have stricken him to the marrow—; instead he calls out for his nurse. Is she so dear to him already?

I stretch both arms out, somewhat stiffly, and force him back onto the pallet.

“All right, Oliver. I’m sure that Clem’s close by. I’ll fetch her.”

I get to my feet, ignoring Delamare’s burbled protests, and step out into the hall. Clem is there beside the marigolds.

“You’ll never manage it,” she says. Her face is dull as a chalk pebble.

“Manage what?” I say.

“To play both sides at once. You’re not clever enough for it, Virgil.” She shakes her head slowly. “You and your blessed ‘scientific method.’ You’re no damned scientist.”

“And you’re no sister of mercy. But don’t let that keep you from playing at one, miss. Not if Mr. Delamare enjoys it.”

I take her hand in mine. It deadens, as I knew it would.

“Love makes you erratic, Clementine.”

“I feel less love for you than for a spider,” she says hoarsely.

“It wasn’t of myself, miss, that I was speaking.” I let go of her hand. “Run along in to your boy.”

THE CONCEIT — IF IT PLEASE THE SOCIETY — of the “Nygger”—was in broad usage before that Genus, let alone that species, was unearth’d by the excellent Mr. Cleveland, and taxonomie’d. — Fortunate indeed! — m’lords — that such a beaste was, in fact, discover’d. — It has spared the Chair, in specific;—and the Society, in general;—no small quantity of confusion.

MY NAME CHARLES BALLANTINE DODDS. I standing to the right the grave and Miss Clem throwing in the dirt. Don’t nobody else care to, so Miss Clem do it. Rest of them watches her and grins.

Rest easy, Goodman Harvey.

You sure you didn’t take that walk with Mr. Harvey, Clementine, Colonel hisper.

That dirty Irish, Kennedy, commence to snicker.

Virgil face go white. He gone say some thing, open he mouth and close it. Kennedy look at him like he dearly hope he say it. Colonel stop he smiling now.

Bottom the grave they no lay-box or casket, just a old cloth strippit off Harvey bed. Harvey always kind to me, account of he religion, so I lookit hard for timber but Colonel say leave off it Dodds get that somebitch under. So I dugged the hole four feet deep. Just four feet, account of the clay. Virgil help some but I tolt where Harvey get placed so it were all right. I say We gone plant him past the stable. And sure enough that where we standing now.

Why lay him here, Dodds? Virgil askit while we digging. Just chat-like, not asking truly. There’s a blankety-blank less clay over by the privy.

Mr. Virgil, I say. Please don’t vain the name the Lord.

Virgil look at me some. Dodds, he say.

Yes, Mr. Virgil?

Why put Harvey here?

Sih?

Give me an answer, you old fox. This ground’s hard as nails.

I tap the side my nose. Old Marse Trist, Marse Trist’s daddy, tell me something once.

What was it?

One dead nigger smell like peaches.

Virgil look me at me crooked. I don’t follow—

Two dead niggers, now, Marse Trist say. Two dead niggers, Charlie, smell like the divil’s own privy-water.

Ah! say Virgil.

Ain’t two white gentlemen gone smell no sweeter.

Ha! say Virgil. No. I don’t suppose they would.

And the Deemer down the privy, I say. As you know.

Virgil quiet a piece. Then he rub his face. What did you think of Marse Trist’s daddy, Dodds?

I look down the hole. Old Marse Trist a fine man, in he time—

I know what you and Mr. Delamare talk about together, Dodds. You can talk as well to me.

I go right on shoveling. I pay no more mind to Virgil as if he was a haunt.

That were yesterday, in the afternoon.

NOW EVERYBODY STAND ABOUT looking down at Harvey thinking what come next.

That’s a mighty poor plot, Dodds, Colonel say.

Couldn’t dug it any farther, Colonel.

Even the privy-pit were deeper that this, Kennedy say. You getting old awful quick, Doddsbody.

Why put him here, Dodds, if the ground is so mean? Colonel say.