‘That I do not know.’
‘We only just arrived,’ I said, impelled to take part.
‘Who was that?’ said the voice.
‘That is my brother,’ said Charlie.
‘So there are two of you, now.’
‘There was always two of us,’ I told her. ‘Since the day I was born there was.’ Neither Charlie nor the woman recognized my joke, and it was in fact as though it had never existed. The voice adopted a peevish tone: ‘Who gave you men permission to enter Mr. Morris’s room?’
‘The door was unlocked,’ Charlie lied.
‘So what if it was? You cannot simply enter another man’s rented quarters and speak into his wall piece.’
‘You have our apologies for that, ma’am. We were to rendezvous here some days ago, only our travels were delayed. As such, we were in a hurry to visit with Morris, and threw caution to the wind.’
‘He made no mention of any rendezvous.’
‘He wouldn’t have.’
‘Hmm,’ said the voice.
Charlie continued: ‘You say he has left with a bearded man. Was this person called Warm? Hermann Warm?’
‘I never asked the man’s name, and he never offered to share it with me.’
‘What color was his beard?’ I asked.
‘Is that the brother again?’
‘Was it a red beard?’ I asked.
‘It was red.’
‘How long has Morris been away?’ said Charlie.
‘Four days today. He paid up until tomorrow morning. When he said he was leaving early I offered him a partial refund but he would not take it. A gentleman, that one.’
‘And he left no word for us?’
‘He did not.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘To the Illuminated River, he told me. He and the red-bearded man had a laugh about it. I do not know why.’
‘You are saying they were laughing together?’
‘They were laughing at the same time. I assumed they were laughing at the same thing. I searched for the river on a map but couldn’t find it.’
‘And Mr. Morris did not appear to be under duress? As though his departure was forced, for example?’
‘It did not seem so.’
Charlie studied this. He said, ‘The friendship is a curiosity to me.’
‘To me, also,’ the voice agreed. ‘I’d thought Mr. Morris didn’t like the man, then all at once they became inseparable, spending every minute together locked away in that room.’
‘And you are certain he left no instruction for us?’
‘I think I would know if he had,’ she answered haughtily.
‘He left nothing behind at all then?’
‘I did not say that.’
Charlie glared into the horn. ‘Ma’am, tell me what he left, if you please.’
I could hear the woman breathing. ‘A book,’ she said finally.
‘What kind of book?’
‘A book he wrote in.’
‘What did he write in the book?’
‘I don’t know. And if I did know, I would not tell you.’
‘Personal writing, is that it?’
‘That’s right. Naturally, just as soon as I understood what it was I closed it up.’
‘What did you learn from your reading?’
‘That the weather was not favorable at the start of his trip to San Francisco. I am embarrassed to have learned that much. I respect the privacy of my lodgers.’
‘Yes.’
‘My lodgers can expect from me the most absolute kind of privacy.’
‘I understand. Can I ask you, where is the book now?’
‘It is with me, in my room.’
‘I would like very much if you would show it to us.’
She paused. ‘That I should not do, I don’t think.’
‘I tell you we are his friends.’
‘Then why did he not leave word for you?’
‘Perhaps he left the book for us.’
‘He forgot the book. I found it tangled in sheets at the foot of his bed. No, he was in a rush to pack and go, always looking over his shoulder. For all I know it was you two he wished to stay ahead of.’
‘You will not show me the book then, is that correct?’
‘I will do right by my guests, is what I will do.’
‘Very well,’ Charlie said. ‘Will you bring us up lunch with ale?’
‘You are staying on with us?’
‘For one night, anyway. This room will do fine.’
‘What if Mr. Morris comes back?’
‘If he left with Warm, as you say, he will not be coming back.’
‘But if he does?’
‘Then you will make a nice profit in champagne, for it will be a happy reunion indeed.’
‘Do you want a hot lunch or cold?’
‘Hot lunch, with ale.’
‘Two full hot lunches?’
‘With ale.’
The woman signed off, and Charlie returned to lie on the bed. I asked him what he made of the situation and he said, ‘I don’t know what to make of it. We will need to get a look at the book, of course.’
‘I don’t believe the woman will share it.’
‘We will see about that,’ he said.
I opened a window and leaned out into the salty air. The hotel was located on a steep incline and I watched a group of Chinese men, in their braids and silk and muddy slippers, pushing an ox up the hill. The ox did not want to go, and they slapped its backside with their hands. Their language was something like a chorus of birds, completely alien and strange, but beautiful for its strangeness. Likely they were only cursing. There came a knock at the door and the stout, lipless hotel woman entered with our lunches, which were tepid, if not actually hot. The ale was cool and delicious and I drank half of it in a single pass. I asked the woman what I had spent with this long sip and she scrutinized the glass. ‘Three dollars,’ she estimated. ‘Both meals together are seventeen.’ It seemed she hoped to be paid at once, and Charlie stood and handed her a double eagle; when she began fishing the change from her pocket, he caught her wrist, telling her to keep it as payment for our rudeness in entering Morris’s room without permission. She kept the money but did not thank him and in fact appeared displeased to be receiving it. When Charlie produced a second double eagle and held this in her direction, her face grew hard.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘For the book.’
‘I have already told you, you cannot have it.’
‘Of course, ma’am, you would keep it; we only wish to look it over awhile.’
‘You will never lay eyes upon it,’ she said. Her hands were red and balled and she was thoroughly insulted. She stomped from the room, in a hurry I suspected to tell some or all of her employees of this latest moral victory, and Charlie and I sat together to eat our lunch. I became sorrowful at the thought of this woman’s fate; to my concerned expression he told me, ‘You can’t say I didn’t try with her,’ and I had to admit it was the truth. The food, I might mention, was unremarkable in every way other than its cost. When the woman returned to collect our plates, Charlie stood to meet her. Her head was high, her expression superior, and she said, ‘Well?’ Charlie did not answer, but dropped to a crouch and buried his fist in her stomach, after which she fell back onto a chair and sat bent over, drooling and coughing and generally struggling to regain her breath and composure. I brought her a glass of water, apologizing and explaining that our need of the book was no trifling matter, and that one way or the other we would have it. Charlie added, ‘We hope no more harm will come to you, ma’am. But understand we will do whatever it takes to get it.’ She was in such a state of muted outrage I did not think she heard the logic in our words, but when I escorted her to her room, she handed over the journal all the same, and without any further episode. I insisted she take the extra double eagle and in the end she did take it, which I like to think lessened the indignity of her c
atching such a terrific punch, but I do not suppose it did, at least not so very much. Neither Charlie nor I was predisposed to this manner of violence against a physical inferior—‘yellow violence’ some would call it—but it was a warranted necessity, as will be shown in the proceeding pages.
What follows is a verbatim transcription of all pertinent sections of the journal of Henry Morris, as related to his mysterious partnership with Hermann Kermit Warm and the defection from his post as the Commodore’s scout and longtime confidant.
* Approached by Warm today, quite out of the blue, and after having scarcely laid eyes upon him for nearly a week. I was passing through the hotel lobby and he snuck to my side, lifting my arm by the elbow like a gentleman helping a lady over patchy terrain. This surprised me, naturally, and I broke off with a start. At this, he looked hurt and demanded, ‘Are we engaged to be married or aren’t we?’ It was nine o’clock in the morning but he was drunken, that was plain. I told him to leave off following me, which surprised him and me both, for though I had sensed a body spying on me these last few days and nights, it was a distant feeling and I had not formulated the words in my own mind. But I saw by his guilty expression that he had been following me, and I was glad to have stood my ground with him. He asked if I would loan him a dollar and I said I would not. Upon receiving my answer he popped his top hat, frayed and dusty, and left the hotel with his thumbs hooked in his vest, his head tilted proudly back. Crossing past the awning, he stepped into the street, and the bright warmth of the sun. This gave him pleasure, and he extended his arms as if to soak in the light. A team of horses was pulling a load of garbage up the hill and Warm climbed casually onto the back of the cart, this accomplished so nimbly as to have gone unnoticed by the driver. It was a graceful exit, I could not deny it, though generally he is looking all the worse than when I first laid eyes on him, not so much from drink as overall misuse of self. He smells ghastly. I should not be surprised if he expires before those two from Oregon City arrive to put him down.
* One of the odder days I have yet passed. This morning, Warm was once again waiting in the lobby. I spotted him before he did me, and I made a study of his markedly improved appearance. His clothes had been cleaned and mended and he had bathed. His beard was combed, his face scrubbed, and he looked to be an altogether different person from the man who had accosted me twenty-four hours earlier. Presently he spied me at the base of the stairway and hurried across the lobby to take up my hand, offering his sincerest apologies for his behavior on the previous day. He looked touched, genuinely, when I accepted this, which in turn touched me, or gave me pause, for here was an unknown version of a man I had thought I knew, and knew well. To my increased amazement he then asked if he might treat me to lunch, and though I was not hungry I took him up on this, curious as I was to learn what change of fate had befallen this previously destitute and grubby individual.
We retired to a restaurant of his choosing, a charmless garbage chute of a lopsided shack called the Black Skull, where Warm was enthusiastically greeted by the owner, a rank-smelling man with a black-and-red-checkered leather eye patch and not a single tooth in his head. This dubious personage asked Warm how his ‘work’ was progressing, and Warm replied with a single word, ‘Glowingly.’ This made little sense to me but tickled the owner acutely. He showed us to a far table with a curtain, bringing us two bowls of tasteless stew and a loaf of bread, tangy with threat of mold. No bill was ever presented to us, and when I asked Warm about the nature of his and the owner’s alliance he whispered that it was not yet realized but that he had ‘every faith it would come to nothing.’
After lunch, when the owner had cleared the table and drawn the curtain for us, Warm’s jovial composure changed, and he became stiff and serious. He took a half minute to gather his thoughts and at last looked me in the eye, saying, ‘I have been watching you, yes, it is the truth. I began to do this at first with the thought of learning your weaknesses. Let me admit it to you then. I have thought about killing you, or having you killed.’ When I asked him why he would wish such a thing he said, ‘But of course the moment I saw you I knew you were the Commodore’s man.’ ‘The Commodore?’ I said vaguely. ‘Whatever in the world is that?’ He shook his head at my novice playacting, dismissing it out of hand, and returned to his speech. ‘My feelings for you quickly changed, Mr. Morris, and I’ll tell you why. You haven’t a dishonest bone in your body. Typically, for example, when a man wishes another man a good morning, he will smile just as long as he is facing the other person, but as soon as he passes by, the smile immediately drops from his face. His smile had been a false one. That man is a liar, do you see?’ ‘But everyone does that,’ I said. ‘It is only a small civility.’ ‘You do not do it,’ he told me. ‘Your smile, though slight, remains on your lips long after you have turned away. You take a genuine pleasure in communing with another man or woman. I saw this happen time and again and thought, if only I could have a person like that on my side, I would see my every idea through to completion. I meant to broach this very subject during my visit of yesterday morning, but my purpose was mislaid, as you will recall. I was nervous to face you, frankly, and I thought a drink would give me courage.’ He lowered his head at the memory. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this morning I awoke in my hovel suffering extreme shame. This was not a new occurrence for me, but today there was something wholly disabling about it. The shame had a heaviness I had never experienced, and hope to never experience again. It was as though I had hit a wall, reached my very limit of self-loathing. Some would call this an epiphany. Call it what you will. But I faced the day today and have vowed to change my life, to cleanse my body, to cleanse my mind, to share my secrets with you, because I know you are a good man, and because a good man is the thing I need most in my life, just now.’
Before I could respond to the passionate oration, Warm pulled from his pockets several loose, much-abused papers, and he laid these before me, imploring me to look upon them, which I did, finding page after page of scribbled, intricate numerical lists, figures, and scientific calculations imparting I did not know what. At last I had to admit my ignorance to him. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what all of this represents,’ I said. ‘It is the bedrock of a momentous discovery,’ he told me. ‘And what is the discovery?’ ‘It is perhaps the most significant scientific event of our lifetime.’ ‘And what is the event?’ Nodding, he collected the papers into an untidy stack, pushing this away beneath his coat. With the corners of the pages peeking over his lapel, he chuckled, regarding me as though I were a very clever man indeed. ‘You are asking for a demonstration,’ he said knowingly. ‘I am not,’ I responded. ‘You will have one, all the same.’ He pulled a watch from his coat and stood to leave. ‘I have to go now, but I will visit you in the morning at your hotel. I will make my demonstration, at the conclusion of which I will have your opinion, and your decision.’ ‘Decision in regards to what?’ I asked, for I had no clue what he was actually proposing. But he only shook his head and said, ‘We can discuss it tomorrow morning. Is this agreeable with your calendar?’ I told the funny man it was, and he gripped my hand, hurrying off to some other crucial location. I watched him pushing through the restaurant, and I saw that he was laughing. And then he was gone.
* No sooner had I risen from bed than Warm knocked on my door. His appearance had improved further in that he was wearing a new top hat. When I commented on this he removed it to show me the hat’s every detail, the interior stitching, the softness of its calfskin band, and what he called its ‘general richness and fineness.’ I inquired what he had done with his old hat and he became cagey. I pressed him and he admitted to dropping it over an unsuspecting pigeon sunning itself in the street. The pigeon could not escape from under the weight, and so Warm had the guilty pleasure of watching the topper run away from him, rounding a corner for parts unknown. As he told me this story I spied a covered crate at his feet. I asked what this was for, and he raised his finger, and said, ‘Ah.’
He readi
ed himself for the enigmatic demonstration, and soon the crate’s contents sat on the small dining table in the center of my room. Here is what I saw before me. A low-sided wooden box, approximately three feet long by two feet across, a burlap sack containing fresh, strong-smelling earth, a red-velvet sack, and a tin canteen, placed upright. The curtains were drawn and I crossed over to open them, but Warm said he preferred them as they were. ‘It is necessary both for reasons of privacy and for the demonstration to come off most effectively,’ he explained. I returned to the table and watched him pour two-thirds of the earth into the box, smoothing and packing it until it lay level. He then passed me the velvet sack and asked that I inspect its contents. I found it to be filled with gold dust and said as much. He took the sack back and emptied the dust into the box. Of course this shocked me, and I asked what he was doing. He would not say, but instructed that I should commit to memory the shape of the dust (he had poured it out in a tidy circle). He covered this over with the remaining one-third of the earth and spent a full five minutes packing it down, slapping it with his hands so that it was firm as clay. He expended no small amount of energy doing this and was perspiring freely by this point. Now he fetched my washbasin and held this over the earth, slowly pouring the water out so that it nearly met the rim of the box. Having accomplished these curious tasks, he stood back smiling at my doubtless puzzled expression. At last he said, ‘Here is a model of a prospector’s river diggings. Here we have in miniature that which has driven half the world mad. The principal challenge for the prospector is this: How does he get at that which he knows is just beneath his feet? The only answers to the question are hard labor, and good fortune. The former is taxing, the latter, unreliable. For several years now I have been searching out a third method, a surer, simpler one.’ He held up the canteen and unscrewed its top. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Morris, but with this formula I believe I have accomplished just that.’ He handed the canteen to me and I asked if I were meant to drink it. ‘Unless you were after a painful ordeal of death, I would advise against it,’ he told me. ‘It is not a tonic?’ I asked. ‘It is a diviner,’ he said, and how strange his voice was as he spoke these words, how odd and haunted, his throat constricted, his pulse fluttering at his temples. Bowing his head then, he emptied the canteen into the box. It was a stinking, purplish liquid. It was thicker than the water but quickly assimilated and disappeared into it. Thirty long seconds passed us by and I stared hard at the water but could see no difference. I raised my eyes to watch Warm’s. His lids were half closed, and I thought he looked somewhat sleepy. I opened my mouth to offer him my condolences, for his experiment was apparently a failure, when I noticed in his eyes the reflection of a gathering, golden glow. When I returned my attention to the box my heart leapt into my throat, for there before me, I swear before God in heaven, the ring of gold was illuminated and shining through the heavy layer of black earth!