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philanthropists who had a great interest in botany. She was just overwhelmed
by a visit to the Royal Gardens at Kew, back in the 1880s and returned home
insisting that her husband try to replicate it in America. Re-creating Eden,
that's what these gardens are all about."
"The Garden of Eden-set the backstory for the first homicide, too, if I
remember correctly," Mike said. "How we doing on that list of Raven Society
members I asked about?"
"You shall have them, of course," Zeldin said, surprising me as well as Mike.
He gestured around the room, packed full of botanical prints and books on
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plants and trees. "I have someone picking us up in an hour to take us over to
the building where I keep the society records. I've never mixed my hobby with
the garden's business."
"How long did you work here in the library?" I asked.
"Nearly thirty-five years."
"And which came first, your interest in plants or in Poe?"
"It's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing, if you know what I mean. I've always
loved both," he said, wheeling himself to a shelf near his desk and handing me
a book from it. "My first published work, and it's still a classic in the
field."
I examined the well-worn volume and opened it to its title page. "'Flora and
Fauna in the Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe-An Illustrated Guide.'"
"So, if I say 'buttercup,' you can tell me if Poe used it in his work?" Mike
asked.
"Precisely, Detective. Buttercup, better known by its Latin nameRanunculus,is
used only once, in the story 'Eleonora'-'so besprinkled through with the
yellow buttercup.'"
"Must be a huge audience for this stuff I just don't know about."
"Or shall we try something like 'jackass,' Mr. Chapman? Both in 'Marginalia'
and in 'Politian.' You'd be surprised at how many scholars rely on this kind
of thing. The book is in its twelfth printing."
Like every other author I'd ever met, Zeldin neglected to mention the size of
each printing. I didn't expect they were large.
"As much as I've admired Poe's work," I said, "I certainly know very little
about his life. Perhaps it would be useful if you would spend some time
telling us about him."
"It's Edgar Allan Poe who brought me here, to this very place," Zeldin said,
spinning his chair around to face the three of us.
"To New York?" Mercer asked.
"To the Bronx. To these Botanical Gardens."
"We knew he lived in Manhattan," I said. Recently acquired knowledge, for me,
but the skeleton had made an indelible impression.
"But his last home, Miss Cooper-in fact, the longest residence of his adult
life-was here in the Bronx."
I looked to Mike, my outer-borough expert, for confirmation. He shook his
head.
"Poe Cottage. You don't know it? You'll enjoy seeing it," he said, explaining
to Mike that it still stood on Kingsbridge Road, in a small park dedicated to
the poet. "It was not only his last real residence, poor soul, but the only
one still standing. They'd best not tear that one down or every writer in
America will be up in arms."
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"And these gardens?" I asked.
"Well, they hadn't been created as a formal botanical sanctuary then. In
fact, this whole area wasn't even considered to be the Bronx in those days. It
was a very rural village, part of Westchester County, known as Fordham. The
building in which the skeleton was found in Greenwich Village? Poe had to
leave that house because his wife was suffering from tuberculosis. The doctors
insisted that she could only survive with the help of fresh country air."
"So they moved out here?"
"Yes, ma'am. To the little farmhouse on Kingsbridge Road, near One Hundred
Ninety-second Street and the Grand Concourse. He loved to walk, Poe did. He
spent long days traversing the farmlands in this Fordham area, much of it here
in these very woods that make up part of our Botanical Gardens property. Even
to the gorge at the river, where that accident occurred this week. The
waterfalls fascinated him."
"You sure he walked right here?" Mike asked.
"Would you like to read his letters, Mr. Chapman? He describes the area in
exquisite detail, from the cottage to this forest to the High Bridge that
carried water from the Croton Aqueduct over the Harlem River to Manhattan."
"His story called 'Landor's Cottage'?" I asked tentatively.
"Now you're onto it, Miss Cooper. That describes the little house he rented
for his family, the one that still stands in Poe Park. One hundred dollars a
year. He used to find great tranquillity in walking the heights, looking out
over Long Island Sound. You could see it then from his doorstep, before all
the high-rise buildings went up and got in the way of the view. There was a
group of Jesuits at something called St. John's, not too far away-" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]