The Transcendental Murder

'It had something to do with the flint, didn't it?'

'Good girl. That's right. It was only then, I'm convinced, that Howard noticed that the flint had dropped out of his gun—the real one, the true murder weapon. Crisis. What to do? He didn't dare now to go back and take the flint out of the gun he had deposited in the cider press. But this gun mustn't be found without a flint. Because then its twin in the cider press would be betrayed as a put-up job. So he took the flint from the musket. Up until then he must have been working with gloves on, careful not to leave any prints. With his gloves still on he opened the door of the cabinet where the musket was kept, took it out, and then I'll bet he took off his gloves to work the small screw that holds the flint in place. He took the flint out, transferred it to the murder weapon and put both guns away again, wiping everything off carefully. But he forgot one thing. While his glove was off he left a thumbprint on the inside of the cabinet door. Campbell saw it there, but there were so many others on the door anyway it didn't help us much. Well, anyway, then he was all done. He just had to duck back to his car, swing around by back roads again, bide his time, and then drive home to Concord from Boston around five o'clock as though he had just come back from New York.'

'All right. I understand all that. But now will you please explain what it was all for? Why did Howard Swan, of all the people in the world, think he had to kill Ernest Goss? And then why did he kill poor Alice? And why did he almost...'

'Oh, God, don't say it...'

There was a car coming. It contained Rowena Goss, out for a spin with her fiance. She started to slow down as she recognized Homer's car, but when she saw how he was behaving with that Morgan girl she frowned and speeded up again, with a disapproving crescendo from her exhaust.

'Well, where were we?' said Mary, sitting up and straightening her hair.

The nosepiece of Homer's glasses was resting on his ear. He put it back where it belonged. 'You were asking about Howard's motive. I suppose you want me to tell you what it is that will turn an apparently just, honest and respected citizen, scholar and gentleman into a murderer—right? Well, my darling, what are the usual reasons why people murder other people? Revenge? Self-defense? Jealousy, greed, lunacy, hatred, sudden passion?'

'Oh, Homer, you know it wasn't any of those. The only motive he could possibly have had was the suppression of those letters. But that just doesn't seem a strong enough reason to me. Not for Howard.'

'Just think about it.' Homer leaned back, put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. 'First, let's go back a long way. A long, long way. All the way back to an engagement between a young Harvard senior named Howard Swan, who was majoring in literature, and a pretty young debutante at Miss Winsor's school named Elizabeth Matthews. Now Elizabeth had something she felt she ought to confide to her husband-to-be—something that was a romantic family secret. She thought it was her duty to let him in on the story of her sublime origin, the royal bar-sinister in her ancestral past. So she did. She whispered it tenderly in his ear. Then Howard, to her astonishment, far from being merely suitably impressed, urged her not to keep it a secret any longer. He recognized it for the bombshell it was, and he yearned to be the agent for the explosion. But Elizabeth wouldn't let him. No sir. I don't know whether she felt protective about the reputations of her great-grandmother and grandfather or whether she just didn't want her name bandied about as the descendant of any kind of illicit union, no matter how august. Anyway, my guess is that this was why they broke up. Elizabeth forbade Howard to use her secret and Howard was good and mad. 'Oh,' says Elizabeth, 'you nasty, nosy man!' 'Why,' says Howard, 'you selfish little stupid bitch!' So the engagement was off. And the next thing you knew the selfish little bitch had rushed into the arms of Howard's classmate from Concord, Ernest Goss. And you can be sure of one thing—Elizabeth never mentioned her glorious ancestry to Ernie when she was confiding to him her intimate little girlish secrets. Okay, then—all right so far? Well then. Take another look at Howard. Here he was, left alone with his conscience and this tantalizing delicious tidbit of historical gravy. So what did he do? He did what any well-trained student would do. He began searching for evidence to back up Elizabeth's bald statement of fact. Over the next twenty years he sought and studied and researched, poring over the journals and poems and letters of Thoreau and the letters and poems of Emily Dickinson, everything he could find that would give him a lead. It took him that long partly because he was thorough and partly because he didn't have much spare time, what with all the committees he was on and the organizations he was chairman of. But he stuck to it. And what he finally came up with in those notebooks you found is pretty solid-sounding stuff. Howard was darn clever. And his theory took care of some of the Dickinson mysteries pretty neatly. For example—you know how everyone who has looked into Emily's life agrees that somewhere around 1860 or '61 or '62 she must have gone through some sort of crisis of love and renunciation, and nobody is sure what it was...'

'Yes, and it was supposed to have started her writing a flood of poetry and it was also supposed to have made her begin to withdraw from the world and shy away from visitors. What about the theory that it was that Reverend Wadsworth in Philadelphia that she was supposed to be in love with? That's what most people say. And when he moved to California it was more than she could bear, it was almost like dying.'

'But why? There she was in Amherst, and in those days Philadelphia would have seemed as far away as the moon already. What difference could it have made to her that Wadsworth left Philadelphia for California? Well, anyway—that's the way Howard reasoned. Emily's lover was not Wadsworth at all—it was Henry Thoreau. Of course, first of all he had to explain how they met. That was easy. Emily must have come to Concord to visit her cousins there, the Norcross girls, and she might very well have stayed in Henry's mother's boarding house, the way Ellen Sewall did, the girl he had loved before. And so, naturally, he took her out boating on the river, just the way he took Ellen, just the way he took Margaret Fuller.'

'I love it. I can't help it, I love it. Oh, Homer, just think of the two of them (Henry Thoreau and Emily Dickinson!) out in the sunshine on Fairhaven Bay; just like us. I'll never look out from our front porch without seeing them there. And I've just thought of something else. Both of them were small. They were little people. Little homely people. Forgive me for saying it, but I think they must have made a charming pair.'

'I know. It's pretty, it's all mighty pretty. There they were, the two of them, small in stature only, giants in every other way. And each of them beginning to recognize in the other an extraordinary and unique person, an opposite-sexed but true counterpart. After all, each of them was perhaps the one most worthy audience for the other then alive.'

'So they fell in love. But do you think they could really have gone so far as to...'

'Well, read what Howard says. He makes it sound pretty plausible. He goes on and on about the powerful loving responses in Henry's journal, his appeals of affection to his friends, the depth of his reaction to the natural world around him. And all of this convinces him that Henry had a nature capable of passionate attachment. In spite of the coldness his friends accuse him of.'

'Oh, that,' said Mary scornfully. 'That was just his New England mask for the strong feelings underneath.'

'Listen. I wrote down some of it.' Homer took a small notebook out of his pocket and opened it up. 'All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love,—to sing; and if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love...' Homer put the notebook back in his pocket. 'And as for Emily, do you remember how she scandalized her sister-in-law, even after years of retirement, by being discovered in the arms of a man? It was probably that old judge who loved her at the end of her life. Oh, it's reasonable, all right, the whole thing. And therefore, says Howard, the marriage of Henry Thoreau and Emily Dickinson in the flesh was a true marriage of the exalted spirit. Okay, let's say we accept that. Afterwards Emily went home again, gushing poetry, her true poetic self aroused and awakened, writing a masterpiece a day from then on. So half of the Dickinson mystery is solved—the reason for the spout of poetry. But what about the other half? Why did she begin to act like a female hermit, retiring to her room, refusing to see anybody?'

'Naturally,' said Mary softly, 'it was to bear Henry's child...'

'To do what? My dear, you scandalize me. Squire Dickinson's daughter? Bear an illegitimate child? Impossible! The affair must be hushed up. Emily must renounce her mysterious lover. The child must be carried in secret and delivered in secret and then turned over to the faithful stableman to be brought up as his own. And here's where the Matthews family comes into the picture. Richard Matthews and his wife had sixteen kids. The addition of one more would hardly cause a stir. And the fact that the child grew up with a mop of auburn hair like its mother's, and eyes, maybe, like 'the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves' wouldn't have bothered anyone. I caught on myself, finally, there at Amherst, to what Elizabeth's dark secret was. If you trace the Matthews name back far enough you come to the Richard Matthews who worked for Squire Dickinson and sired seventeen kids, one