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Property Insurance Company and affiliates Northbrook, Illinois. heard

1:01

during the podcast that are not in my voice

1:03

are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control

1:05

and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness

1:07

or myself. Stories and

1:09

content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing

1:11

for some listeners and is intended for

1:14

mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly

1:16

advised. Welcome

1:26

Weirdos – I'm Darren Marlar

1:28

and this is Weird Darkness. Here

1:31

you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural,

1:34

legends, lore, the

1:36

strange and bizarre, crime,

1:39

conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,

1:42

unsolved and unexplained.

1:45

In this episode I'm sharing a chapter

1:47

from the book, Nevermore – The Haunted

1:50

Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan

1:52

Poe by Troy Taylor for the audiobook

1:54

version, but this chapter by itself was

1:56

so interesting to me while I was

1:59

narrating it. I thought it would make

2:01

a great episode of Weird Darkness, just by itself.

2:03

Plus, it gives you a little peek into what you

2:06

might get if you purchase the book itself. I've left

2:08

a link to the book in the show notes. What

2:11

I'm about to share is the true story

2:13

about a murder of a girl who worked

2:15

in a cigar shop, the investigation of it

2:17

by law enforcement, how Edgar

2:19

Allan Poe saw it as an opportunity

2:21

to escalate his career and name, and

2:24

how it all almost blew up in

2:26

his face, even with some

2:28

claiming Poe was the murderer of the

2:30

poor girl. If

2:32

you're new here, welcome to the show. And

2:35

while you're listening, be sure to check

2:37

out weirddarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, to

2:39

enter contests, and connect with me on

2:41

social media. Plus, you can visit the

2:44

Hope in the Darkness page if you're

2:46

struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You

2:48

can find all of that and more

2:51

at weirddarkness.com. Now, bolt

2:53

your doors, lock your windows,

2:56

turn off your lights, and come

2:58

with me into the Weird

3:00

Darkness. Men

3:11

have called me mad, but the question is

3:13

not yet settled. Whether madness is or

3:15

is not the loftiest

3:17

intelligence, whether much that is

3:19

glorious, whether all that is

3:21

profound does not spring from disease of

3:24

thought, from moods of mind

3:26

exalted at the expense of the general

3:28

intellect. Edgar Allan Poe.

3:34

On July 28, 1841, two New

3:36

Yorkers were walking along the Hoboken

3:38

shoreline near the spring at Sybil's

3:40

Cave, then a popular tourist attraction,

3:42

when they spotted a body floating

3:45

out in the Hudson River. As

3:47

they waited on shore for the coroner to arrive, a

3:50

man walked up to them and claimed that

3:52

he recognized the corpse from its clothing. It

3:55

was, he told them, the body of

3:57

Mary Cecilia Rogers, the missing woman.

4:00

who had recently been in the papers. Her

4:02

life story is a bit murky, but

4:04

Mary Rogers was probably born

4:06

in Lime, Connecticut, in 1820.

4:09

She and her widowed mother, Phoebe, moved

4:12

to Manhattan in the 1830s.

4:15

Phoebe opened a boarding house at 126

4:17

Nassau Street, and Mary took a sales

4:19

job at Anderson's Tobacco Emporium, which had

4:22

become a fixture of New York's emerging

4:24

social scene. It was

4:26

especially popular with young men and local

4:28

writers such as Washington Irving and James

4:31

Fenimore Cooper. But while

4:33

the customers came for owner John

4:35

Anderson's Tobacco, they stayed for Mary,

4:37

who was dubbed the beautiful cigar

4:39

girl by the local press. Within

4:42

a year of starting work at the cigar

4:44

shop, Mary had become a local celebrity, even

4:47

sparking a short-lived panic when she failed to show

4:49

up for work one day in 1838. Though it

4:53

made headlines this disappearance was dismissed

4:56

as a publicity stunt for Anderson's

4:58

store. What was

5:00

it? No one knows,

5:03

but soon afterward Mary left her position at

5:05

the store and returned home to help her

5:07

mother run her business. While

5:09

her life was more private at the boarding

5:11

house, she still managed to attract a lot

5:13

of attention from men. She had

5:15

a lot of admirers who stayed

5:17

at and hung around the house,

5:19

but Mary gave all her attention

5:21

to Daniel Payne, a cork cutter

5:23

and boarder who became her fiancé

5:25

in the summer of 1841. Daniel

5:28

would also become the last person to

5:31

see Mary alive, other

5:33

than her killer, that is. On

5:35

the morning of July 25th, Mary left the Rogers

5:38

boarding house, telling her mother that she planned

5:40

to visit an aunt uptown. What

5:43

happened after that, as the hours without

5:45

word from her turn to days, remains

5:47

unknown. At first it

5:50

was suggested that she had simply run away,

5:52

perhaps in another attempt to get attention. Daniel,

5:55

though, worried about the gangs of robbers and

5:57

rapists whose exploits were then filling the house.

6:00

the pages of the papers. After

6:02

two days searching growing more condensed

6:04

that Mary had been kidnapped. He.

6:07

Had a missing notice printed. The.

6:09

Notice caught the eye of a man named

6:11

Arthur Chromium. He. Was a former border

6:13

at her mother's house that had once courted

6:15

marry. He. Took a search across

6:18

the ferry to Hoboken, arriving just in

6:20

time to witness the recovery of Mary's

6:22

body from the Hudson River and to

6:24

identify the courts. After he

6:26

was questioned by the police and they

6:28

were convinced that com aliens arrival on the

6:31

scene didn't implicate him in the murder, the

6:33

authorities turn their attention to other lead suspects.

6:36

One of the first people to questioned

6:38

was John Anderson, Mary's employer, who would

6:40

often accompanied her home in the evenings.

6:43

Even though he could offer no alibi for

6:46

the day of her disappearance, he was released

6:48

when attention began to focus on Mary's beyond

6:50

say, Daniel P. Not only

6:52

was he the last person to see Mary

6:54

alive, but there were rumors that the couple

6:57

had been fighting and that Mary had threatened

6:59

to call off to running. None.

7:01

Of that turned out to be true

7:03

and after Daniel produced a solid alibi,

7:05

the case quickly went cold. Meanwhile.

7:08

Newspapers all over the contrary kept

7:10

a running commentary about the case,

7:12

especially in regard to what they

7:14

claimed was be bungling investigation by

7:16

the New York Police. One.

7:18

Report complained about the slovenly manner

7:21

in which the Corner and Hoboken

7:23

performs his duties. While outside Philadelphia,

7:25

other papers wondered if the death

7:27

had been a suicide. Even

7:29

New York Governor William H. Seward got

7:32

involved announcing and several New York papers

7:34

he seven hundred fifty dollar reward for

7:36

any information that helped solve the crime.

7:39

Then in early September, eighteen forty one,

7:41

there seemed to be a break in

7:43

the case. A group of boys

7:45

were playing in a field in Weehawken, New

7:48

Jersey not far from where Mary's body had

7:50

been found and discovered bundles of bloody clothing

7:52

and some bushes. after the

7:55

discovery in what came to be called

7:57

be murders ticket one of the boys

7:59

mother's that illegal Loth, who operated the

8:01

nearby Nick Moore House pub, contacted the

8:04

police. But Frederica

8:06

Loth seemed to know a lot more about

8:08

the case than just about the discovery of

8:10

bloody clothes. When the police

8:12

questioned her, she admitted that Mary Rogers had checked

8:14

in to the Nick Moore House on the night

8:17

of her death with an unknown man. The

8:19

pair had gone out but had never returned to

8:22

the pub. Frederica said that she

8:24

didn't think too much of it at the time but

8:26

remembered hearing someone screaming in the woods later

8:29

that night. Although it seemed

8:31

strange that she never shared this with the

8:33

police before now, detectives were

8:35

apparently satisfied with her answers. Things

8:38

took another turn less than a month later, on

8:41

October 7, when Daniel Payne

8:43

made a trip to the murder thicket

8:45

after spending the evening drinking in Hoboken.

8:48

While sitting on a nearby bench, he

8:50

drank an entire bottle of laudanum and

8:52

died from an overdose. His

8:54

body was found only a few hundred yards

8:56

from where Mary's corpse had been discovered. A

8:59

note in his pocket read, To the world, here

9:02

I am on the spot, God forgive

9:04

me for my misfortune in my misspent

9:06

time. Without

9:08

easy answers, the press once again created

9:10

their own version of events. As

9:13

a single working woman, Mary became a kind

9:15

of symbol for the era's problems and a

9:17

warning to parents about the fate that might

9:19

befall their own daughters in the big city.

9:22

Many papers even claimed, with no evidence,

9:24

of course, that Mary had been a

9:26

prostitute and even hinted that she deserved

9:29

her fate. The

9:31

New York public might have been satisfied

9:33

with such weak solutions, but in Philadelphia,

9:36

Edgar Allan Poe was not. Mary's

9:39

first disappearance had occurred while Poe

9:41

was living in New York and

9:43

he remembered it well. As

9:45

the news of her fate reached him

9:47

through newspaper reports, he became obsessed with

9:49

the story and followed every detail. Poe

9:52

was now living well in Philadelphia. His annual

9:55

salary of $800 from Graham's magazine, although

9:58

far from a fortune, was afforded him a

10:00

stability like none he'd ever had in his adult

10:03

life. By the end of 1841, he'd

10:05

moved his wife and mother-in-law into a small

10:07

townhouse on Coates Street in the north end

10:10

of the city. As

10:12

he'd promised long ago in Richmond, he

10:14

was finally providing Virginia with the kind

10:16

of comfort she deserved. Their

10:18

new home was even furnished with a small

10:20

piano, a harp, and a pair of songbirds

10:22

in a gilded cage. On

10:25

January 20, 1842, the day after Poe turned 33, a small group

10:27

of friends

10:30

gathered in the parlor of the townhouse

10:33

to hear Virginia play the harp and

10:35

sing. It was a

10:37

perfect evening. Virginia was wearing

10:39

a white gown and looked angelic in

10:41

the firelight. As she tapped at

10:43

the keys of the piano, she sang. The

10:46

notes became higher, true and clear,

10:49

and then stopped. Virginia

10:51

clutched at her throat and then choked out

10:53

a cascade of blood, staining the front of

10:55

her dress with crimson. Poe's

10:58

face went white. He carried Virginia

11:00

upstairs, laid her on the bed, and then

11:02

ran for a doctor. Poe

11:04

must have known, even before the

11:06

doctor grimly confirmed it, that the

11:09

hemorrhage signaled the final stages of

11:11

tuberculosis. He also must

11:13

have known that her chances for survival

11:15

were slim. By

11:17

the time a patient begins coughing up

11:19

blood, they were usually beyond help. Even

11:22

if she could have been helped, perhaps by

11:24

moving to a healthier climate or by a

11:27

stay at a sanatorium, such things

11:29

were well beyond the means of an editor making $800

11:31

a year. Virginia

11:34

spent the next two weeks scarcely able

11:36

to breathe except when fanned with fresh

11:39

air. At times her

11:41

coughing became so severe that it seemed as

11:43

if she would choke to death. She

11:46

pressed a handkerchief to her mouth to cover it when

11:48

she coughed, and it was often

11:50

spattered red with blood. Heart

11:52

aching, Poe remained by her

11:54

side, brooding over the poverty-stricken existence that

11:57

he had forced Virginia into as his

11:59

wife. That was now killing her. More

12:02

than one visitor comment of the cramped

12:04

house where they lived luxurious compared to

12:06

other places where they had lived was

12:09

likely making Virginia's condition worse. For.

12:11

Sick room was so small that the sloped roof

12:13

was almost as low as her head. George

12:16

Graham pose employer noted that Pose love for

12:18

his wife was a sort of wrapped She

12:20

was worship of the spirit of beauty which

12:23

he felt was speeding before his eyes. I've

12:25

seen him hovering around her when she

12:27

was ill with all the fond fear

12:30

and tender anxiety of a mother for

12:32

for first board for slightest close to

12:34

losing him to sugar search do that

12:36

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12:45

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14:31

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15:08

Virginia's health seeped into Poe's

15:10

work, most notably in the

15:12

mentioned The Mask of the Red Death

15:15

published just months before the January attack.

15:18

He dwelt on themes of horror and

15:20

blood because even then he knew

15:22

what was coming. He'd seen it

15:24

before with his mother when he was a small child.

15:27

In Eleonora, also written in the

15:29

early stages of Virginia's illness, Poe

15:32

returned to the theme and delved

15:34

into the grim circumstances of his

15:36

new life. The story

15:38

was about a young man living an idyllic

15:40

life with his young cousin Eleonora and her

15:42

mother. All too soon,

15:44

though, Eleonora tells him that she had

15:46

seen that the finger of death was

15:48

upon her bosom that, like the Athemoron,

15:50

she had been made in perfect loveliness

15:52

only to die. In

15:55

the months that followed, Poe wavered back

15:57

and forth between optimism and utter despair.

16:00

desire. In February he told

16:02

friends that she was getting better, but

16:04

by July he declared that I have

16:06

scarcely a faint hope for her recovery.

16:09

For a time Poe threw himself

16:11

into his work, writing poems, stories,

16:13

and reviews for Graham's magazine and

16:16

finding that his reputation was growing.

16:19

When he learned that Charles Dickens would

16:21

be touring Philadelphia in March 1842 he

16:23

wrote to request an interview, sending along

16:26

a copy of his Tales of the

16:28

Grotesque and Arabesque. He

16:30

also included copies of his past

16:32

reviews for Dickens' work, attesting to

16:34

admiration for the writer he once

16:36

called the greatest British novelist. Among

16:39

them was an article he wrote about

16:41

the mystery Barnaby Rutch, written shortly after

16:43

Dickens' story began to appear in serial

16:46

form. Although the book's

16:48

conclusion would not be published for several months

16:51

Poe was able to predict, frankly,

16:53

that Barnaby, the idiot, is the

16:55

murderer's own son. Dickens

16:58

was impressed by Poe. He

17:00

gave two lengthy interviews to him

17:02

at Philadelphia's United States Hotel on

17:04

March 7, 1842.

17:07

Dickens took particular note of Poe's reviews

17:09

and would later describe him as a

17:11

man who taketh all of us English

17:13

men of letters to task in print,

17:15

roundly and uncompromisingly. Even

17:18

though the interview was part of his work for

17:20

Grahams, Poe used it to his own advantage. By

17:23

the end of the meeting, Dickens had agreed to

17:25

help Poe find a publisher in England. The

17:27

two men parted on good terms and Dickens'

17:30

work would make itself felt in Poe's own

17:32

work, especially in the case of the talkative

17:34

raven that appears within the pages of Barnaby

17:36

Rutch. Despite his position

17:38

at Grahams being the best job that

17:41

Poe had ever had, he began to

17:43

fall into the same resentful state of

17:45

mind that had led to difficulties at

17:47

his earlier positions. No

17:49

one recognized the greatness of Edgar

17:51

Allan Poe like Poe himself did.

17:54

In this case, though, Poe did have

17:56

some actual cause for irritation. The

17:59

magazine's extraordinary success was making a

18:01

fortune for Graham. But Poe's salary

18:03

had stayed the same. He

18:05

now considered them so pitiful that it was

18:07

almost an insult. As gloom

18:10

set in over Virginia's illness, his

18:12

bitterness deepened. On the morning

18:14

after the initial hemorrhage, Poe asked Graham

18:16

to advance him two-month salary to help

18:18

ease the unexpected burden. Graham

18:21

refused. At the same

18:23

time, the success of Graham's rekindled Poe's hopes

18:26

for a magazine of his own. This

18:28

was another source of grievance against his

18:30

employer, however. Graham had promised

18:32

when Poe joined his magazine that he

18:35

would help to launch Poe's own pen

18:37

magazine within a year. But

18:39

as Graham's grew in circulation and

18:41

became more profitable, the promise

18:43

was forgotten. Poe was

18:45

a victim of his own success. He

18:48

later wrote, Every exertion made by myself

18:50

served to make Graham's a greater source

18:52

of profit and left its owner less

18:54

willing to keep his word with me.

18:58

The matter reached a crisis point in April 1842.

19:01

After a brief time away caused by illness,

19:03

Poe returned to the office to find that

19:05

his duties had been taken over by Charles

19:08

Peterson, an associate editor. It

19:10

may be that Peterson simply covered for

19:12

Poe while the other man was away,

19:14

but we only know Poe's side of

19:16

it, and he was offended. Always

19:19

sensitive about his status as an editor,

19:21

he believed that he had been slighted

19:23

and perhaps even passed over for a

19:26

promotion. So, he

19:28

quit. As usual, there

19:30

would be a difference of opinion as to

19:32

whether Poe left or was fired. Graham

19:35

later said either Peterson or Poe would

19:37

have to go. The two cannot get

19:39

along together. Poe

19:41

insisted that he left to pursue

19:43

his own interests, citing his disgust

19:45

with the namby-pamby mainstream character of

19:48

the magazine and the insulting salary.

19:51

In contrast to his hostility toward Thomas

19:53

White and William Burton, though, Poe

19:55

spoke well of Graham and claimed to

19:57

have no misunderstanding with him. Whatever

20:00

the reason for leaving, Poe soon found

20:03

himself broke again. With Virginia's

20:05

illness adding to his worries, we can only

20:07

puzzle over why Poe would make such a

20:09

change. We can only

20:11

assume that he simply couldn't help

20:13

sabotaging himself. There were very

20:15

few studies of mental illness in those days,

20:18

and certainly there was no one who could

20:20

get inside the head of Edgar Allan Poe.

20:23

He often spoke of the nervous restlessness

20:25

that haunted me as a fiend, as

20:27

a reason for many of the things that he

20:29

did that might seem baffling to others. He

20:32

used the excuse of wanting to start a magazine

20:35

of his own as a reason for leaving, but

20:37

deep down he surely knew that he would never

20:39

be able to afford. He

20:41

was a man of incredible talent, but

20:44

he seemed eager to destroy his reputation.

20:47

This marked the beginning of what

20:49

some have called Poe's irregularities, which

20:52

for the rest of his life would destroy his

20:54

hopes and put his reputation into the hands of

20:56

people who hated him. Those

20:58

irregularities began almost at

21:01

once. For the most

21:03

part, Poe had stayed away from

21:05

liquor during his time at Graham's,

21:07

but now he returned to the

21:09

bottle with devastating consequences. As

21:12

mentioned earlier, Poe had a dramatically

21:14

low tolerance for alcohol. It

21:16

wasn't how much he drank, it was that

21:18

he drank at all. He seemed

21:20

to have a strange reaction to it. At

21:23

a time when dram shops and

21:26

taverns lined the streets, Poe's lack

21:28

of tolerance left him uniquely vulnerable.

21:30

He could never stop with a single drink.

21:33

Even the first drink transformed him

21:36

from a personable man to a

21:38

coarse, staggering drunk. His

21:40

friend, Frederick Thomas, noted, if he took

21:42

but one glass of weak wine or

21:45

cider, it always ended in excess and

21:47

sickness. Poe's

21:49

excuses for drinking were plain enough. Virginia's

21:52

illness, his poverty, his

21:54

literary disappointments, but turning

21:56

to alcohol always made things worse.

21:59

For instance, months, over the course of the

22:01

fourteen months that he worked at Graham's, he

22:03

made about a thousand dollars in salary and

22:06

contributors' fees. His literary income

22:08

over the next three years added up

22:10

to only one hundred twenty-one dollars, all

22:13

thanks to the bottle. Poe

22:16

now abandoned his writing, or at least

22:18

began to supplement it with less taxing

22:20

forms of work. Although

22:22

he still dreamed of starting his own

22:24

magazine, he also pursued the possibility of

22:26

a job at the Philadelphia Customs House.

22:29

It was a government job, and it paid well. But

22:32

Poe failed to get a local appointment,

22:34

so he traveled to Washington in hopes

22:36

of pleading his case directly to President

22:39

Tyler, whose son Robert was a fan

22:41

of Poe's writing. Nervous

22:43

about the important interview, he attempted to calm

22:45

his nerves with a glass of pork. Soon

22:48

after he was seen stumbling around the city with

22:50

a green tint to his face and his coat

22:53

turned inside out. Poe

22:55

did not meet the President, nor did he make

22:57

a favorable impression on anyone who might have helped

22:59

him to obtain the employment he was seeking. Back

23:03

at his writing desk, Poe sought new publishers

23:05

for some of his magazine stories. Earlier,

23:08

while working at Graham's, he had written

23:10

to Lee and Blanchard, the publishers of

23:12

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, to

23:14

offer a revised collection of his work,

23:16

expanded to include some new stories, like

23:19

The Murders and the Room Org. They

23:21

have declined, replying that they had not yet sold

23:24

out of the first edition. Despite

23:26

the refusal, Poe did hope to work with them again

23:28

in the future. His

23:30

hopes may have been raised further

23:32

when Lee and Blanchard published a

23:34

book by William Gilmour Sims called

23:36

Bochamp, which took inspiration from the

23:38

real-life Bochamp Sharp murder case in 1825. That

23:42

story had also been the inspiration for an

23:44

unfinished work by Poe. Believe it

23:47

or not, Poe actually admired William

23:49

Gilmour Sims and had once called

23:51

him immeasurably the best writer of

23:53

fiction in America. So

23:56

there's no doubt that he was aware

23:58

of this book and, undoubtedly, took note

24:00

of the way that Sims had crafted the

24:02

true story into a popular novel. At

24:05

the same time he must have

24:07

been irritated that Lee and Blanchard

24:09

had accepted Sims' book and made

24:11

it successful while declining Poe's collection

24:13

of stories. In

24:15

the uncertain days that followed the loss of

24:18

his editor's position, Poe's mind must have turned

24:20

in the direction of writing a story that

24:22

was based on a well-known crime. Poe

24:25

had every reason to feel that his skills

24:27

in this area were as good or better

24:29

than those of Sims. He

24:31

had long made a specialty of solving

24:33

puzzles and posing conundrums to his readers,

24:36

ranging from coded messages to this recent

24:38

success of the murders in the Rue

24:40

Morgue, but even then Poe

24:43

chided himself over the fact that

24:45

while Rue Morgue had been clever,

24:47

it suffered from the artificial contrivance

24:49

of its solution, a

24:51

puzzle he would later write created

24:53

for the express purpose of unraveling.

24:56

Poe wanted to fix his attentions on a

24:58

crime that had not yet been solved. That,

25:01

he knew, would be the true test of

25:03

his skill. He could not

25:05

be accused of constructing his own puzzle, nor

25:08

would the reader know the solution until Poe

25:10

himself provided it. This would

25:12

not only make the story dramatically satisfying,

25:14

but it would be proof of Poe's

25:16

analytical reasoning. There is

25:19

no record of how Poe chose the Mary

25:21

Rogers case for his inspiration, although we

25:23

do know that he had been following it since

25:25

its start. He remembered the

25:27

celebrated cigar girl from his time in New

25:30

York, and had followed the investigation from a

25:32

distance. The story had gotten

25:34

a lot of attention in Philadelphia, and the

25:36

crime had been heavily reported on in the

25:38

city's newspapers. The death of

25:40

Daniel Payne in October had likely brought

25:43

the case back to Poe's attention at

25:45

a time when he was especially susceptible

25:47

to writing another mystery story. In

25:50

June 1842, Poe sent a

25:52

letter to Joseph Evans Snodgrass, the

25:54

Baltimore editor with whom he had

25:56

remained friends over the years. Snodgrass

25:58

had recently taken a photo of his daughter, taken over the Baltimore

26:01

Sunday visitor, the same paper that had awarded

26:03

a $50 prize to MS

26:05

found in a bottle nearly ten years

26:07

earlier. In a letter,

26:10

Poe proposed a sequel to The Murders in

26:12

the Rue Morgue, featuring a different crime that

26:14

would be based on the murder of Mary

26:16

Rogers. He would change the location

26:19

to France, slightly alter the girl's name,

26:21

and allow his detective, Dupern, to solve

26:23

the mystery. At the same

26:26

time, Poe would be entering into an analysis

26:28

of the real tragedy in New York. He

26:31

added, "...the press has been entirely on

26:33

the wrong scent. In fact, I really believe

26:35

not only have I demonstrated the falsity of

26:37

the idea that the girl was the victim

26:40

of a gang of ruffians, but have indicated

26:42

the assassin." Poe

26:44

truly believed that, through fiction,

26:47

he could solve the real-life murder.

26:50

For all his enthusiasm about the decision

26:52

to revive Augusta Dupern for the new

26:54

story, though, it likely had more to

26:56

do with good business than solving a

26:58

mystery. Rue Morgue had

27:00

been widely praised when it was released,

27:02

and, to put it simply, Poe needed

27:04

a hit. By presenting the

27:07

new story as a sequel to a popular

27:09

one, it could also serve as an enticement

27:11

for a new collection of stories in the

27:13

future. Poe's letter

27:15

made it clear that he was not hedging his

27:17

bets. It would be easy to

27:19

move the Mary Rogers case to the safe distance

27:22

of Paris. That way, if any

27:24

of the details didn't match, he could blame it

27:26

on the change of venue. But

27:28

Poe implied that he would name the

27:30

killer and solve the case. Was

27:33

it just a ruse to make more money? Perhaps.

27:37

Poe did go on to mention that if Snodgrass was

27:39

unable to pay him at least $40, he could publish

27:42

the story somewhere else. But

27:44

that same day, he sent an identical

27:46

letter to George Roberts, editor of the

27:48

Boston notion, adding that he really wanted

27:50

to have the story published in Boston

27:53

and raised the price to $50.

27:56

Neither man took the bait. It's

27:58

possible that the price modest as

28:00

it was, seemed excessive when compared

28:02

to the material they already had.

28:05

At the time, magazine editors could

28:07

take advantage of the total absence

28:10

of international copyright restrictions by publishing

28:12

any foreign authors they pleased. Although

28:14

many editors made an effort to give

28:17

preference to America's writers, there were many

28:19

less expensive options at hand. Poe's

28:21

bargain price for his story could not

28:24

compete with the free material that was

28:26

available from overseas. Concerned,

28:29

Poe turned to William Snowden of The

28:31

Ladies' Companion in New York. As

28:34

you can imagine, it wasn't a particularly good

28:36

match. Earlier that same

28:38

year, Poe had complained about the contemptible

28:41

pictures, fashion plates, music, and

28:43

love tales that filled the pages of

28:45

Graham's. The Ladies' Companion

28:47

offered these same features many times

28:50

over, and as the title

28:52

clearly indicated, with the sensibilities of

28:54

women in mind, Snowden worked to

28:56

attract ladies of exquisite refinement and

28:58

taste, though Poe would later

29:00

deride the magazine for offering neither of those

29:03

things. A typical issue

29:05

in 1842 featured stories and poems

29:07

with titles like Birth Night Reveries

29:09

and The Smile of Love, along

29:12

with commentary on the latest dresses

29:14

and sheet music for popular new

29:16

songs. Based on this,

29:18

a story by Edgar Allan Poe seemed wildly

29:20

out of place. And

29:23

yet, it was in The Ladies' Companion where

29:25

the story would first appear. Snowden

29:28

had good reasons for wanting to publish Poe's

29:30

story. Snowden had been a

29:32

member of a group of concerned New Yorkers

29:34

called the Committee of Safety who had been

29:37

involved in trying to solve the murder of

29:39

Mary Rogers. In fact, Snowden

29:41

had been one of the largest contributors.

29:44

The committee had been very disappointed when

29:46

their efforts failed to produce any results.

29:49

Nearly a year had passed, and yet

29:51

Mary's killer still remained at large. In

29:54

accepting Poe's story for publication, Snowden may

29:56

have hoped to revive interest in the

29:58

case and spark the renewed investigation.

30:02

After completing the sale to the lady's

30:04

companion, Poe sank into a depression, largely

30:06

brought on by the deterioration of conditions

30:09

at home. He confessed to

30:11

a friend, �The state of my mind has,

30:13

in fact, forced me to abandon all mental

30:15

exertion. The renewed and hopeless

30:18

illness of my wife, ill health on

30:20

my part, and pecuniary embarrassments have nearly

30:22

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October 1842, the issue of The

33:04

Ladies Companion that contained the mystery of

33:06

Marie Roget rolled off the presses two

33:09

weeks ahead of schedule. Poe's

33:11

story was too long to be published

33:13

in a single issue, so Snowden had

33:16

divided it into three installments that would

33:18

appear in three consecutive issues. Billed

33:21

as a sequel to the Murderers in the

33:23

Rue Morgue, the first installment was stuck between

33:25

an article about the Bible and a story

33:27

called The Old Oak Chest by Mrs. Caroline

33:30

Orne. Snowden's readers

33:32

were accustomed to a quiet

33:34

and morally uplifting tone in

33:36

the magazine, and Snowden

33:39

likely took a pause before releasing

33:41

Poe's graphic blood-drenched tale. Still,

33:44

even though a year had passed since the death

33:46

of Mary Rogers, Snowden knew that

33:48

people were still fascinated by the fate

33:51

of the beautiful cigar girl. Only

33:54

every reader of The Ladies Companion would be

33:56

familiar with the story, and perhaps had even

33:58

visited the area where body had been found.

34:01

Most would also be aware of the conflicting

34:04

theories about the case and the fact that

34:06

it was unsolved. Poe's

34:08

story, no matter how unseemly in

34:10

its details, was familiar ground

34:13

for New Yorkers, even if

34:15

the action had been transferred to Paris. Poe

34:18

changed the names but kept most

34:20

other details the same. And

34:22

in case there was any doubt as to the inspiration

34:24

of the story, Poe's unnamed narrator,

34:26

the friend of C. Augusta Dupern, offered

34:28

a clear statement of intent in the

34:30

opening pages of the story, echoing

34:33

the words that Poe had included in his

34:35

letter to prospective publishers. The

34:37

extraordinary details which I am now

34:39

called upon to make public will

34:41

be found to form, as regards sequence

34:44

of time, the primary branch of

34:46

a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences whose

34:48

secondary or concluding branch will be recognized

34:50

by all readers in the late murder

34:53

of Mary Cecilia Rogers at New

34:55

York. In

34:57

reading the story, these coincidences, a

35:00

term Poe used to indicate a

35:02

calculated design rather than an accidental

35:04

happening, soon became apparent. Poe

35:07

introduces the working-class woman Marie Roget,

35:09

the daughter of Estelle Roget, who

35:12

keeps a boarding house. Marie

35:14

had a job with a perfumer, Monsieur LeBlanc,

35:16

and the shop became notorious thanks to the

35:18

charms of the lovely young woman. Readers

35:21

soon learned that a man named Bervet

35:23

wanted to marry her, but Marie became

35:26

engaged to a man named Saint Eustoch

35:28

instead. After Marie had

35:30

worked behind the counter of the perfumery for

35:32

about a year, her admirers were thrown into

35:34

confusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop.

35:37

LeBlanc is unable to account for her

35:40

absence, while the newspapers are calling for

35:42

action and the police are getting ready

35:44

to investigate, Marie reappears, in good health

35:46

but with a somewhat saddened air. No

35:50

explanation for her vanishing is offered, except

35:52

to say that it was a private

35:54

matter. Five months

35:56

later, Marie leaves home to visit an

35:58

aunt but never arrives. After

36:00

four days, her battered corpse is found

36:02

floating in the sand. And

36:06

well, you get the idea. It's the same

36:08

story as that of Mary Rogers, just taking

36:10

place in Paris. Poe

36:12

was careful to insert a number of

36:14

details taken from the official accounts of

36:16

the Mary Rogers investigation, drawing

36:18

in particular from statements by Daniel

36:21

Payne and Alfred Cromelian, who are

36:23

represented by St. Eustoc and Burvey.

36:26

He also used the testimony of the

36:28

Hoboken coroner, Dr. Cook, so that his

36:30

story would mirror the actual murder. He

36:33

used crucial details, indicating that a strip

36:35

of fabric found at Marie's waist was

36:37

tied in a sort of hitch, and

36:40

that the strings of Marie's bonnet had been

36:42

tied in a knot that was not a

36:45

lady's but a slip or sailor's knot. As

36:48

the story goes on, the details continue

36:50

to run parallel with the events of

36:52

the New York investigation. Though

36:54

a speedy solution to the crime is

36:57

expected, the police soon found her. False

37:00

arrests are made, and rumors spread. Eventually,

37:03

the scene of the murder is found in some

37:05

woods near a public house owned by a woman

37:07

named DeLuc, who claims to have seen Marie in

37:09

the company of a young man of dark complexion.

37:12

Finally, St. Eustoc is found dead with a

37:15

vial of laudanum in his hand. In

37:17

spite of this, the police make no

37:19

progress in solving the case, which leads

37:21

them to ask Dupin for help. The

37:24

first installment ends with the narrator stating,

37:27

I waited for some explanation from Dupin.

37:30

He, along with the readers, had to wait

37:33

until the magazine's next issue. As

37:36

with the serial publication of Charles Dickens'

37:38

novels, it was likely thought that spacing

37:40

out the story would generate suspense and

37:42

give Poe more time in which to

37:44

turn the publicity to his advantage. Unfortunately

37:47

though, Snowden did a pretty poor job

37:49

of dividing up the manuscript, cutting

37:51

it without any regard for the flow of the

37:53

story. The first section

37:55

broke off almost in mid-sentence during

37:57

a discussion of floating bodies, and

37:59

second, ended abruptly in the middle

38:01

of Dupern's contemplation of the murder scene. These

38:04

interruptions did nothing to encourage the

38:06

reader's continued interest. Regardless,

38:09

Poe was encouraged by the warm response

38:11

of friends and colleagues after the first

38:14

installment appeared. His spirit lifted

38:16

further when the conditions at home started to

38:18

improve. Virginia's health had gotten

38:20

better, and as he wrote to a friend,

38:22

perhaps all will yet go well. Although

38:25

Poe was still broke, he hoped that

38:27

Marie Roget would restore some of the

38:30

status that he'd lost after leaving Graham's

38:32

and helped secure his own dream of

38:34

starting a literary journal. The

38:36

second installment was supposed to appear during

38:39

the third week in November and the

38:41

third and final section, which Poe knew

38:43

would contain the dramatic solution would be

38:45

published during the holiday season. Poe

38:48

was so confident of his deductive skills

38:50

that he promised to solve the real-life

38:52

case of Mary Rogers in the final

38:55

section of the story. He

38:57

wrote, all argument founded upon the

38:59

fiction is applicable to the truth, and

39:01

the investigation of the truth was the

39:03

object. The conclusion

39:05

of the mystery of Marie Roget was going

39:07

to be the talk of New York, he

39:09

believed, and perhaps it would

39:11

have been if not for an incident that

39:14

brought the name Mary Rogers back into

39:16

the newspapers and derailed

39:18

Poe's plans for a

39:20

definite solution to his

39:22

fictionalized story. On November

39:25

1, 1842, Frederica Loss,

39:27

proprietor of Nick Moore's Tavern in Weehawken,

39:29

was accidentally shot by one of her

39:31

sons while he was cleaning his gun.

39:34

She spent the next ten days dying

39:36

in agony, babbling incoherently in

39:38

a string of broken English in

39:41

German. Hallucinating, she claimed

39:43

that the spirit of a young woman

39:45

was tormenting her and then made her

39:47

final confession. As the New

39:49

York Tribune reported it, Mary Rogers had

39:51

come to Hoboken in company of a

39:54

young physician who undertook to procure for

39:56

her a premature delivery, in

39:58

other words, an illegal abortion. abortion. Mary

40:01

had died during the operation, after

40:03

which Loss's sons had dumped the

40:05

body in the river and scattered

40:07

the clothes to avoid suspicion. Following

40:11

their mother's death, the two eldest, Lost

40:13

sons were briefly charged in connection with

40:15

Mary's murder, implicated, at least,

40:17

in the illegal disposal of the body. The

40:20

lack of hard evidence, other witnesses, and

40:22

Mrs. Loss's condition during her confession were

40:25

too much for the court, however, and

40:27

the case against them was quickly dismissed. The

40:31

police did turn their attentions to

40:33

Madame Restel, a female physician

40:35

and professor of midwifery who had a

40:37

career as an abortionist that was so

40:39

well known that some called her the

40:41

wickedest woman in New York. Madame

40:44

Restel, whose real name was Anne Trowe Lohmann,

40:46

had come to New York from England in

40:48

1831 and started on

40:50

a professional path that would earn her an

40:52

estimated $1 million and

40:54

a lavish Fifth Avenue brownstone that was

40:57

dubbed the mansion built on baby skulls.

41:00

At the time of Mary Rogers' death, Madame

41:02

Restel was also in the news. In

41:04

July 1841, just days before

41:06

Mary's body was discovered, she was

41:08

tried in New York's Court of

41:10

Special Sessions for administering certain noxious

41:13

medicine and procuring a miscarriage by

41:15

the use of instruments the same

41:17

not being necessary for the preservation

41:19

of life. Abortion was

41:21

still a misdemeanor at the time, but the

41:23

case in which Madame Restel was being tried

41:25

had resulted in the death of the patient.

41:28

This elevated her charge to murder.

41:31

In the end, she was convicted and sentenced

41:33

to spend a year in prison, but

41:35

never served the time. At

41:38

the time, Madame Restel ran her business

41:40

from a house on Chambers Street, not

41:42

far from Phoebe Rogers' boarding house and

41:44

steps away from City Hall. The

41:47

fashionable address allowed her to draw customers

41:49

from every social class in New York.

41:52

She also ran a network of abortion shops

41:54

that stretched across the river to Hoboken.

41:57

The newspapers were filled with a possible story

41:59

of ties between Madame Rastel and

42:01

Mary Rogers, but the police

42:03

gazette worked especially hard to draw a

42:06

link between the abortionist and the cigar

42:08

girl. After the death

42:10

and alleged confession of Frederica Loss,

42:12

the rumors and suppositions assumed the

42:14

tone of established fact. Although

42:17

there was no official connection between Rastel

42:19

and Loss, it was assumed that Nick

42:21

Moore's tavern was one of the abortion

42:23

shops under Rastel's management. Some

42:26

accused Loss of performing an operation

42:28

on Mary Rogers, while others suggested

42:30

that she had simply provided the

42:32

facilities for an anonymous physician. As

42:35

mentioned, Horace Greeley's Tribune was the first newspaper

42:37

to go on record and claimed that Mary

42:40

had died as the result of an abortion.

42:43

It would not be the last, despite the

42:45

fact that there was no actual evidence of

42:47

it. As soon as

42:49

the story ran, however, Justice Gilbert Merritt,

42:51

who had overseen the investigation of the

42:53

case, stepped forward to smother the claims.

42:57

He insisted that the newspaper had gone too

42:59

far with its reporting. He

43:01

stated that the story was inaccurate and

43:03

that he did not receive a confession

43:05

from Mrs. Loss, who was in a

43:07

deranged state of mind. But the Tribune

43:09

refused to back down. Although

43:12

Greeley admitted that he had made an error

43:14

when saying the confession had been made directly

43:16

to Merritt, he continued to insist that a

43:19

confession had been made. "'We

43:21

gave the facts as they were told to

43:23

us by two magistrates of his city,' he

43:25

insisted, "'and we understood them on the authority

43:27

of a statement made by Mr. Merritt himself

43:29

to Mayor Morris.'" The

43:32

editors of the competing New York Herald

43:34

were thrilled to see that Greeley's paper

43:36

had botched the story. To

43:38

underscore the mess, they reprinted the

43:40

Tribune's original story and then reprinted

43:42

Merritt's denial right next to it.

43:45

When Greeley repeated his claim that

43:47

two magistrates had corroborated the story,

43:50

the Herald demanded their names. The

43:53

Tribune declined to respond. Justice

43:56

Merritt, meanwhile, stayed out of the public fray,

43:59

in spite of his denial of tales about the story, he

44:01

firmly believed that the events had transpired the

44:03

way the Tribune had reported it, and

44:05

that Mrs. Loss's sons were also involved.

44:08

He just didn't have the evidence to prove it.

44:11

On November 19, a week after

44:13

the death of Frederica Loss, a hearing was

44:16

convened in the court of Justice Stephen Lutgens

44:18

of Jersey City. Mrs. Loss's

44:20

two oldest sons were subjected to a

44:22

grueling round of questions, designed to expose

44:25

the nefarious nature of the Nick Moore

44:27

House and their mother's role in the

44:29

death of Mary Rogers. By

44:31

all accounts, the hearing was a confused

44:34

and disappointing affair. A

44:36

team of lawyers working for the Loss

44:38

family objected to most of the questions,

44:40

and the sons easily turned aside the

44:42

accusations against them, dismissing the most serious

44:44

charges as nothing but hearsay. The

44:47

hearing closed on an inconclusive note, with

44:50

no charges being filed, but this

44:52

didn't stop the city's newspapers from reuniting

44:54

behind the idea that Mary had died

44:56

during an abortion. The case

44:59

remained legally unexplained, but it was believed

45:01

that the recent statement of the manner

45:03

of her death is true. Again,

45:06

though, this seems hard to believe. At

45:09

the initial inquest, the coroner had stated

45:11

that Mary had been brutally violated by

45:13

no fewer than three assailants, but

45:15

also asserted that prior to that, Mary had been

45:18

a virgin. According to the

45:20

new theory of the crime, the coroner

45:22

had mistaken evidence of a horribly botched

45:24

abortion with a sexual assault, which seemed

45:26

unlikely. If true, though, it

45:29

left other questions unanswered. Mary

45:32

had been found with a lace cord tied

45:34

around her neck and deep fingerprint bruises on

45:36

her throat. Whatever may

45:38

have clouded the coroner's mind about her

45:40

feminine region, he had been perfectly clear

45:43

about the evidence for strangulation. He

45:45

described in detail the mark left by the

45:47

lace cord and the bruises in the shape

45:49

of the man's fingers, a

45:52

bungled abortion, no matter how horrific, could not

45:54

account for the clear signs of the young

45:56

woman being strangled. The

45:58

theory also failed to account for the case. for the behavior of

46:01

Mrs. Loss and her sons. The

46:03

discovery of Mary's clothing and the murder

46:05

thicket brought attention to Mrs. Loss and

46:07

the Nick Moore house. If

46:10

in fact Mrs. Loss had been operating an

46:12

abortion shop there, why would she have called

46:14

attention to herself? Up

46:16

to the point where she came forward with

46:18

Mary's personal effects, there had been no connection

46:21

between the tavern and the murder. But

46:24

even with all the doubts and contradictions,

46:26

the idea that Mary had perished during

46:28

an abortion became the solution to the

46:30

case for the public. Newspapers

46:32

began declaring that the mystery has

46:34

at last been solved. This

46:37

eagerness to accept an unproven solution had

46:39

more to do with a sense of

46:41

public outrage than evidence. Thanks

46:44

to the abortion angle, as well as

46:46

the many editorials crying out for reform

46:48

and punishment for Madame Restel, the

46:50

Mary Rogers story took on a new

46:52

and even darker atmosphere. At

46:55

the same time, Mary herself began to

46:57

be seen in a different and unflattering

46:59

light. If the accusations

47:01

against Mrs. Loss were true, then

47:04

the beautiful cigar girl could no longer

47:06

be seen as an innocent victim. She

47:09

was now an unfortunate, if not

47:11

entirely blameless victim of a barbaric

47:13

practice. She was to be

47:15

pitied for certain, but she was also

47:17

a casualty of her own sins. In

47:21

the middle of all of this, though, it

47:23

was easy for people to overlook the fact

47:25

that it had not been clearly established that

47:27

an abortion had actually taken place. By

47:30

the end of November, the uproar in the

47:32

press had subsided, though further developments

47:34

were expected. Newspapers hoped that

47:36

a final resolution would be coming soon.

47:39

For now, they admitted, there was nothing further to

47:41

be learned. As once stated,

47:44

this mysterious matter sleeps for the

47:46

present. For Poe,

47:48

this new drama in Weehawken could not

47:51

have come at a worse time. The

47:54

third and final installment of Marie

47:56

Roget, which included his solution to

47:58

the case, was only days away from

48:00

publication. Until the news

48:02

of Mrs. Loss's confession and death,

48:05

Poe believed that he had crafted

48:07

an elegant and entirely plausible theory.

48:09

Now, as the idea that Mary Rogers

48:12

had died during an abortion was spreading

48:14

like wildfire, Poe's conclusion would

48:16

be proved false, opening him

48:18

up to devastating public humiliation at the

48:20

very time that he was trying, again,

48:23

to restore his reputation. The

48:25

critics would be ruthless. There were

48:27

many in New York that had not forgotten

48:29

the stinging reviews that he had printed in

48:32

the Southern Literary Messenger. There was

48:34

also the delight he had taken in

48:36

savaging Theodore Faye's book, which had also

48:38

been inspired by a sensational murder case.

48:41

Poe had gone out of his way to

48:43

sneer at the poetical licenses that Faye had

48:46

taken. Now that Poe had

48:48

done the same thing, he could only

48:50

imagine the reviews that were going to

48:52

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conditions, 18 plus. There are very

50:31

few among those with a love for

50:33

the supernatural who don't also have a

50:35

passion for Edgar Allan Poe Poe

50:38

wasn't simply a melancholy author who

50:40

wrote about premature burials, sinister black

50:42

cats and talking ravens He

50:45

was much more. If you've

50:47

ever read a modern mystery or horror

50:49

novel you can thank Poe Poe

50:52

invented the modern mystery story, mostly

50:54

invented science fiction and was the

50:56

first writer to take the horror

50:58

stories of the gothic era and

51:00

set them in modern times Starting

51:03

a trend that continues today With

51:07

a lifelong interest in Poe, Troy Taylor

51:09

decided to take his own look at

51:11

the mysterious and macabre writer His

51:13

tragic life, unexplained death

51:16

and lingering hauntings He

51:18

invites listeners along to delve into

51:20

the strange and bizarre world of

51:22

Edgar Allan Poe From his early

51:24

life to his tragic marriage, his

51:26

insane grief, his dramatically failed

51:29

career His links to an

51:31

unsolved murder and the mystery of

51:33

what happened to the writer in

51:35

the five days before his unexplained

51:37

death Even more

51:39

than a century and a half later, no

51:41

one knows what happened to Poe before he

51:43

was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore,

51:46

Maryland Why

51:49

did he disappear and then show up

51:51

in an incoherent state wearing another man's

51:53

clothes? Where did he go

51:55

when he vanished and who was the mysterious

51:57

Reynolds that Poe whispered about in his life?

51:59

his dying breath. And

52:02

perhaps strangest of all, does he

52:04

haunt the mysterious graveyard where his

52:06

body is buried? Nevermore

52:09

The Haunted Life and Mysterious Death

52:11

of Edgar Allan Poe. Written by

52:13

Troy Taylor. Narrated by Darren Marlar.

52:16

Find a link to the book

52:18

on the audiobooks page at weirddarkness.com.

52:28

Poe began discussions with the influential

52:30

Philadelphia editor Thomas C. Clark about financing

52:50

the magazine. When Clark

52:52

agreed to enter into a partnership with him

52:54

Poe had every reason to believe that his

52:56

dream would soon be realized. He

52:58

told a friend that George Graham had

53:00

recently made him a good offer to

53:02

return to Graham's, but he felt so

53:04

sure about the deal to launch the

53:06

stylus that he declined. As

53:08

he wrote to the friend, the difficulties that

53:11

impeded me last year have vanished and there

53:13

will now be nothing to prevent success. Poe

53:17

desperately needed that success. His

53:20

financial problems had worsened and sent him

53:22

to new depths of poverty. Worse

53:25

yet, according to his friend Frederick Thomas,

53:27

Poe had started drinking again to excess,

53:29

leaving his home and his sick wife

53:31

in a state of agitation and despair.

53:34

An acquaintance who ran into him during this

53:36

time described how Poe begged him for fifty

53:38

cents so that he could buy a meal.

53:41

Then in November Poe's plans for

53:43

the stylus were dealt a serious

53:45

blow. The financing of

53:47

the magazine had been contingent on Poe

53:49

getting that position at the Philadelphia customs

53:52

house, the job prospect he had ruined

53:54

by being drunk. That was

53:56

followed the very next day by the news of

53:58

the developments in Weehawken. That

54:00

news was printed in a Philadelphia newspaper

54:02

under the headline, New York

54:05

Mystery Solved. Poe

54:07

knew that he had to act at

54:09

once. The first two installments of

54:11

the story had already either appeared or were just

54:14

about to in the case of the second part.

54:16

The third and final installment with the

54:18

solution was scheduled for the following month

54:20

and may have already been set in

54:22

type. If it appeared

54:25

as originally written, Dupin's theories would

54:27

look completely misguided considering what was

54:29

now happening. Even more

54:31

embarrassing, all of Poe's brash claims at

54:33

the start of the story about his

54:35

own solution to the mystery would be

54:37

exposed as having been an empty boast.

54:41

It was too late for Poe to make any changes

54:43

to the first two installments of the story, but

54:46

the third and final section was still in

54:48

the hands of William Snowden. Changes

54:50

could be made. Poe calculated the

54:52

odds, picked up his pen, and began trying

54:54

to plot his way out of the mess

54:56

that he found himself in. As

54:59

he struggled to salvage his story, Poe

55:01

took a close look at what he

55:03

had already written and then tried to

55:05

rework the fiction and facts to build

55:07

a new theory. He drew

55:09

a clear parallel between Marie's disappearance from the perfumery

55:11

and the episode from the life of Mary Rogers

55:14

when she vanished for a brief time from the

55:16

tobacco shop in 1838. In Dupin's mind, the murder

55:21

and the earlier disappearance had to be

55:23

viewed as two parts of a single

55:25

event. If so, the man

55:27

who lured Marie away from home in 1838 and

55:30

the man she went to meet on that fateful

55:32

day in 1841 were one and the same. In

55:36

linking the two disappearances in this way, Poe

55:38

opened a new line of thought. Although

55:41

the earlier disappearance had not been completely

55:43

overlooked in the New York investigation, the

55:46

episode didn't draw much comment in connection with

55:48

the murder. Poe suggested that

55:50

the New York police had missed an opportunity

55:53

by concentrating their energy only on the crime

55:55

of 1841. Poe believed

55:58

that by giving equal weight to

56:00

the earlier disappearance, it would provide an

56:02

entirely new way to track the murderer,

56:05

which of course, Duppen does in the

56:07

story, suggesting that Marie planned to

56:09

elope with a secret lover, not

56:11

her fiancée, St. Eustoc, but the man

56:13

she disappeared with the first time. Duppen

56:17

and Poe believed that the

56:19

second episode was merely a continuation of

56:21

the first event, not

56:23

a second unrelated entanglement. But

56:26

who was this mysterious man? This

56:30

is where things get complicated. In

56:32

the story, Duppen points to a young

56:34

naval officer much noted for his debaucheries.

56:37

Poe plucked this character from real life. In

56:40

a New York Herald article from August

56:42

3, 1841, there is mention of this

56:44

possibility. It read, This young girl, Mary

56:47

Rogers, was missing from Anderson's store three

56:49

years ago for two weeks. It

56:51

is asserted that she was seduced by an

56:53

officer of the U.S. Navy and kept at

56:55

Hoboken for two weeks. His name is well

56:57

known aboard his ship. These

57:00

three lines are the only known reference

57:02

to a naval officer being

57:05

implicated in the affair. But

57:07

Poe, through Duppen, fastened on this brief

57:09

mention and whipped it into a theory

57:12

of the crime. Once

57:14

he explained his reasoning, Duppen boldly pronounced

57:16

that the murderer would be captured, leaving

57:18

the reader to believe that a resolution

57:21

might be revealed in the real-life drama

57:23

too. But Poe

57:25

had backed himself into a corner. The

57:27

murderers in the room morgue had offered a

57:30

tidy ending. Poe had no sooner

57:32

laid out his conclusions than the murderer arrived with

57:34

a knock at the door. This

57:36

time would not be so easy, but

57:38

it did promise an even more dramatic climax.

57:40

It was a story that was happening in

57:43

the real world at the same time that it was being played

57:46

out on paper. Of course, this

57:48

was Poe's biggest problem. Since the

57:50

actual Mary Rogers investigation had failed

57:52

to produce a solid arrest, Poe's

57:55

story could not name a villain without

57:57

deviating from established fact. Poe

58:00

had sketched out a compelling theory, but

58:02

he didn't leave himself a way to create

58:04

a satisfying ending. Unlike

58:06

Rue Morgue, there would be no

58:09

climactic confrontation and no unmasking of

58:11

the killer. When

58:13

Poe ended his tale, he printed the

58:15

name of the killer, but it was removed

58:17

from the manuscript by the editors, or so

58:19

he claimed. In Editor's

58:21

Note explained, For reasons which

58:24

we shall not specify, but to which

58:26

many readers will appear obvious, we have

58:28

taken the liberty of here omitting from

58:30

the manuscript placed in our hands such

58:32

portion as details following up the apparently

58:34

slight clue obtained by Dupin. We

58:36

feel it is advisable to state, in brief,

58:38

that the result desired was brought to pass,

58:41

that an individual assassin was convicted,

58:43

upon his own confession, of the

58:45

murder of Marie-Rouget, and the

58:47

prefect fulfilled punctually, although, with reluctance, the

58:49

terms of his compact with the Chevalier.

58:53

Poe leaves the reader to understand

58:55

that Dupin's conjectures were entirely and

58:57

brilliantly correct and that the villain

59:00

was apprehended precisely along the lines

59:02

of investigation he suggested. Instead

59:04

of joining in the discovery, the reader is

59:06

asked to accept that it happened off stage.

59:10

Although it clearly states that Poe supplied

59:12

the killer's identity in the story, the

59:14

editor is cast in the role of

59:16

a censor and removes the presumably thrilling

59:19

details for unstated reasons of propriety. It's

59:21

a clever way of handling it, but this bait

59:23

and switch leaves the reader with the feeling of

59:26

having missed an important part of the story. The

59:29

third installment of The Mystery of Marie-Rouget

59:31

appeared in February 1843 with

59:34

no explanation for the delay of one

59:36

month. The story made a

59:38

startling impression on its readers for whom the

59:40

details of the Mary Rogers case were still

59:42

closely recalled. In one

59:45

review, critic Thomas Dunn English praised the

59:47

story and noted its connection to the

59:49

real-life unsolved case. He wrote,

59:51

To this day, with the exception of the

59:53

light afforded by the tale of Mr. Poe,

59:55

in which the faculty of analysis is applied

59:58

to the facts, the whole matter is completely

1:00:00

shwearing. routed a mystery. We think he had

1:00:02

proven, very conclusively, that which he attempts. At

1:00:04

all events, he has dissipated in our mind all

1:00:06

belief that the murder was perpetrated by more than

1:00:09

one." Although

1:00:11

Poe had no specific references to Mary

1:00:13

Rogers' presumed death at the hands of

1:00:15

an abortionist, he did strip away that

1:00:17

idea that many still had about Mary

1:00:19

being raped and murdered by a gang

1:00:21

of men. This aligned well

1:00:23

with the public perception of the case. The

1:00:26

previous year, when it was thought that Mary

1:00:28

had fallen victim to a gang of criminals,

1:00:30

the newspapers had united in calling for a

1:00:32

more efficient police force. But now,

1:00:34

in the wake of Mrs. Loss's death and the

1:00:36

drama that went with it, the editorial

1:00:39

pages were calling for the law to crack

1:00:41

down on abortionists. Any

1:00:43

kind of publicity attached to the story was

1:00:45

good for Poe. It put him

1:00:47

back in the spotlight and restored his reputation.

1:00:50

But it also had a few who were not

1:00:52

fans of the writer to ask other questions about

1:00:54

Poe. It was not long

1:00:56

after the story was published that people began

1:00:58

to speculate that perhaps Poe knew more about

1:01:00

the real Mary Rogers case than he was

1:01:02

willing to disclose. Did Poe

1:01:05

know who the actual killer was and

1:01:07

just couldn't name him in print? Later,

1:01:10

Poe blurred the line between Mary Rogers and

1:01:13

Marie Roget as best he could. He

1:01:15

received many letters about the story from readers,

1:01:17

including one that he responded to from George

1:01:20

Eveleth in January 1848. Poe wrote, "...nothing

1:01:24

was omitted in Marie Roget but what

1:01:26

I omitted myself. The naval officer

1:01:28

who committed the murder confessed it, and the

1:01:30

whole matter is well understood. But for the

1:01:33

sake of relatives, this is a topic on

1:01:35

which I am let's not speak further." This

1:01:38

further increased the suspicion that Poe knew more

1:01:40

than he was saying. John

1:01:43

Ingram, an early biographer of Poe, later added

1:01:45

to the confusion about the naval officer. Talking

1:01:48

about the story in 1874, Ingram

1:01:50

insisted that it was based in fact. Although

1:01:53

the incidents of the tragedy differed widely

1:01:55

from those recounted in the tale, the

1:01:57

naval officer implicated was named Spencer. Ingham

1:02:01

didn't elaborate further, and he offered no

1:02:03

source for the identification of the officer,

1:02:05

though it may have come from Sarah

1:02:07

Helen Whitman, a young widow that Poe

1:02:09

knew in his last years. Those

1:02:12

who have followed up on this tantalizing clue

1:02:14

have tracked it to a prominent seagoing family

1:02:17

headed by a Captain William Spencer. At

1:02:19

first glance, he seems to be a promising suspect.

1:02:22

He was known to have been in New York in both 1838 and 1841, and

1:02:24

his family was

1:02:28

influential enough to cover up any scandals,

1:02:30

as was assumed the naval officer's family did

1:02:33

to keep him from being arrested. However,

1:02:35

Captain Spencer would have been 48 years old

1:02:39

at the time of Mary's murder, too

1:02:41

old to be her young lover. However,

1:02:43

Captain Spencer did have a nephew who would

1:02:46

have been the right age. Philip

1:02:48

Spencer was a young midshipman who was also

1:02:50

in New York during the times in question.

1:02:53

In 1842, a year after Mary was murdered,

1:02:56

he was hanged at sea for attempting

1:02:58

to start a mutiny, an incident that

1:03:00

inspired Herman Melville's Billy Budd. But

1:03:03

Poe's theory required the officer to have

1:03:05

also been involved in Mary's disappearance in

1:03:07

1838, when Philip Spencer

1:03:09

was a 15-year-old schoolboy at an academy

1:03:11

150 miles from the city.

1:03:14

A more compelling theory places the

1:03:17

blame on Daniel Payne, Mary's fiance.

1:03:20

His suicide at Weehawken certainly seems to

1:03:22

point to a guilty conscience. In

1:03:24

this theory, Payne learns that Mary is

1:03:26

pregnant and helps her to arrange an abortion

1:03:29

at the Lost Tavern. In

1:03:31

gratitude, Mary agrees to marry him but

1:03:33

then changes her mind after the procedure

1:03:35

is finished. In a rage,

1:03:37

Payne strangles her but then, unable to

1:03:39

live with himself, takes his own life

1:03:41

two months later. This

1:03:44

is an interesting idea because it accounts

1:03:46

for both the abortion and for the

1:03:48

obvious signs of death by strangulation. The

1:03:51

problem, though, is that Payne had an alibi.

1:03:53

He was one of the first suspects and

1:03:55

the police thoroughly looked into his whereabouts and

1:03:58

movements on the day Mary went missing. and

1:04:00

the following day too. And

1:04:03

that leads us to Alfred Cramellion,

1:04:05

the ex-suitor who identified Mary's body.

1:04:08

Mary is known to have called at his office at

1:04:10

least two times in the days before her death. Although

1:04:13

it's plausible that she came seeking money to

1:04:15

pay for an abortion, it's also plausible that

1:04:17

Cramellion might have believed that Mary had fallen

1:04:19

in love with him again. When

1:04:21

she told him that she hadn't, he might have

1:04:23

killed her. But Cramellion too had

1:04:25

an alibi for the time of the murder.

1:04:28

He also made a nuisance of himself with the

1:04:30

police during the search for Mary that it seems

1:04:32

he had little to hide. Also

1:04:35

in Poe's theory, the killer also knew Mary back in

1:04:37

1838 when she first vanished. Neither

1:04:40

Cramellion nor Daniel Payne knew her three

1:04:43

years earlier. But

1:04:45

there was someone who did know Mary

1:04:47

Rogers at the time of her first

1:04:49

disappearance, tobacco shop

1:04:51

owner John Anderson. His

1:04:54

interest in Mary seems to have exceeded that

1:04:56

of a typical employer.

1:04:58

Mary and her mother lived with him for

1:05:00

a time before purchasing the boarding house and

1:05:02

when Mary quit her job at the cigar

1:05:04

store, Anderson is said to have literally got

1:05:06

on his knees and begged her to stay.

1:05:09

Anderson's business grew steadily in the years

1:05:12

after Mary's death. He invested

1:05:14

in real estate and became one of the wealthiest

1:05:16

men in the city. For all

1:05:18

his success though, it was impossible for him

1:05:20

to escape from the suspicion that he might

1:05:22

have had something to do with the death

1:05:24

of the beautiful cigar girl. Rumors

1:05:27

spread that he had been having an affair with

1:05:29

her, leading perhaps to an

1:05:31

unwanted pregnancy and its deadly consequences.

1:05:34

He had managed to suppress the information that he

1:05:36

had been interrogated by the police in connection

1:05:38

to the crime, but the stories about him

1:05:40

didn't stop, creating the impression that

1:05:43

one of New York's leading citizens had

1:05:45

a very ugly skeleton in his closet

1:05:47

that he wanted to hide. This

1:05:49

seemed to destroy any political ambitions that

1:05:52

he had. At one point,

1:05:54

political power brokers tried to encourage Anderson

1:05:56

to run for the office of mayor,

1:05:58

but Anderson declined. fearing that the

1:06:01

publicity would cause even more speculation about

1:06:03

his links to the Mary Rogers case.

1:06:05

He grew bitter later in life and

1:06:08

frequently blamed Mary's death for thwarting his

1:06:10

political misfortunes. His business

1:06:12

partner, Felix McCloskey, recalled one occasion when

1:06:14

they walked past the place that had once

1:06:17

been the Rogers boarding house, and Anderson

1:06:19

cursed the young girl's memory as the cause

1:06:21

of driving him out of politics and belittling

1:06:23

him in New York. On

1:06:26

another occasion, McCloskey quoted him as saying, I

1:06:28

want people to believe that I had no

1:06:30

hand in taking her off, but

1:06:32

then added that he hadn't anything directly himself

1:06:34

to do with it. That's

1:06:36

a statement that seems to leave a lot

1:06:39

unsaid about what Anderson knew and

1:06:41

when he knew it. Years

1:06:43

passed and Anderson became involved in the

1:06:45

spiritualist movement, the belief that the dead

1:06:47

could and did communicate with the living.

1:06:50

He confided to several friends that he

1:06:53

was now in regular communication with Mary's

1:06:55

spirit. He said she appeared to

1:06:57

him in the spirit from time to time. I

1:07:00

have had a great deal of trouble about Mary

1:07:02

Rogers, but everything is settled now. I

1:07:04

take great pleasure in communicating with her face to

1:07:06

face. An

1:07:08

attorney who looked into Anderson's business affairs

1:07:10

in later years said that the murder

1:07:12

made an impression which he was in

1:07:15

after years never able to shake off

1:07:17

and which, when his faculties began to

1:07:19

fail, an old age creep upon him

1:07:21

lent a controlling force which undermined his

1:07:23

intellectual powers. Anderson

1:07:25

eventually withdrew into a mansion in

1:07:28

Tarrytown where he installed steel-lined shutters

1:07:30

to ward off a threat that he was

1:07:32

unable to name. He came

1:07:34

to believe that his children were trying to

1:07:36

poison him and that his cook was plotting

1:07:38

to kill him by putting pins in his

1:07:40

roast beef. Anderson

1:07:42

died in Paris in November 1881. He was 69 and he had outlived

1:07:44

Mary Rogers by 40 years.

1:07:50

At the time of his death, he was

1:07:52

widely believed to be insane. Some

1:07:55

said that Mary's spirit had driven him

1:07:57

that way. As

1:07:59

a result of his mental instability his heirs would

1:08:01

contest his final will and testament for

1:08:03

more than a decade. It

1:08:05

was during this period of legal wrangling in May,

1:08:07

1887, that discussion occurred about

1:08:10

Anderson, Poe, and the mystery of

1:08:13

Marie Roget. There was a

1:08:15

claim that Anderson had hired Poe to write

1:08:17

the story to draw suspicion away from himself.

1:08:21

No evidence exists to say this did or

1:08:23

didn't happen, but it is not as far-fetched

1:08:25

as it might seem. It should

1:08:28

be remembered that Poe and Anderson were

1:08:30

acquaintances, and that Poe, as the author

1:08:32

of the ill-fated Conchologist's first book, would

1:08:34

have been known by Anderson as a

1:08:36

man willing to undertake almost any sort

1:08:38

of hack work for a price. It

1:08:41

should also be noted that in 1845 Poe took

1:08:44

over the helm of a magazine called

1:08:46

the Broadway Journal, and that

1:08:48

two weeks later advertisements for Anderson's

1:08:50

tobacco emporium began running in its

1:08:52

pages. At a

1:08:54

time when Poe desperately needed money

1:08:56

to save the struggling magazine, Anderson

1:08:58

paid in advance the three months'

1:09:00

worth of advertisements. He was

1:09:02

the only tobacconist in the city to do so.

1:09:05

While this does not prove that

1:09:08

Anderson commissioned Marie Roget as a

1:09:10

smokescreen, it is certainly interesting. There

1:09:13

is also a bit more. Bélix McCloskey,

1:09:15

Anderson's business partner, later testified that Anderson

1:09:17

had told him that Marie had received

1:09:19

an abortion the year before her murder

1:09:21

took place, and that he got into

1:09:23

some trouble about it. Outside of

1:09:26

that, there was no grounds on earth for anybody to

1:09:28

suppose he had anything to do with the murder. Although

1:09:31

McCloskey's memory of dates may have been

1:09:33

a little off when he recalled this

1:09:36

fifty years later, it does suggest that

1:09:38

Marie's first disappearance came about because of

1:09:40

an abortion. Whether Anderson

1:09:43

was responsible for the pregnancy or merely

1:09:45

paid for it is unclear, but

1:09:47

the recollection that he got into some

1:09:49

trouble about it certainly explains his sensitivity

1:09:51

about the murder as the years went

1:09:53

by. Even if Anderson had

1:09:56

nothing to do with the events of 1841, which remains an

1:09:59

open question, he would have placed

1:10:01

himself in a delicate situation if he had

1:10:03

provided the money for the earlier abortion, especially

1:10:06

if Mary died while undergoing a

1:10:08

second operation three years later. Even

1:10:11

if, as he later claimed, he had

1:10:13

no hand in her taking off, his

1:10:16

part in the earlier abortion, whatever it was,

1:10:18

would have branded him as a villain who

1:10:20

helped set her on the path to destruction.

1:10:24

Given the level of outrage about the case,

1:10:26

one can only imagine Anderson's thoughts as

1:10:29

suspicion turned against him. But

1:10:31

if the killer wasn't John Anderson, then who

1:10:34

could Poe have gained his intimate knowledge of

1:10:36

the crime from? Was he

1:10:38

covering up for someone else? Or,

1:10:40

worse yet, could the writer have been involved in

1:10:42

the crime? There are those

1:10:45

who have claimed that Poe did indicate the

1:10:47

murderer in his story, although he

1:10:49

did not name him, and that the

1:10:51

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1:13:33

A few theorists have suggested that Poe met

1:13:35

the young woman while visiting the shop of

1:13:37

his friend, John Anderson. If

1:13:39

Mary did have an abortion three years before

1:13:42

she vanished, perhaps Anderson encouraged her

1:13:44

to become involved with some of the well-known

1:13:46

and often wealthy clients of the store. Could

1:13:49

this explain a relationship that Poe might

1:13:51

have had with Mary if a relationship

1:13:54

existed at all? It

1:13:56

had long been suggested that Poe engaged

1:13:58

in romances outside of his marriage, and

1:14:01

by the time he returned to New York

1:14:03

with his wife and mother-in-law, Virginia, was already

1:14:05

ill. This could have driven him

1:14:07

into the arms of Mary Rogers. However,

1:14:10

by the time Mary died, Poe was living

1:14:12

in Philadelphia. He stated that he only

1:14:15

learned the case in the newspapers. But

1:14:17

could he have been in New York? It

1:14:19

wasn't a long journey between Philadelphia and New York,

1:14:22

even in 1841, so

1:14:24

it's possible that Poe could have made the

1:14:26

trip. But was

1:14:28

Poe capable of murder? At

1:14:31

this period in his life, Poe was

1:14:33

oppressed by poverty and a lack of

1:14:35

literary recognition. He was continuing

1:14:37

to fight his battles with alcohol, and his

1:14:39

wife was dying. To

1:14:41

his family and friends, he appeared physically, if

1:14:43

not mentally, ill. Poe's

1:14:46

state of mind was mirrored by many of

1:14:48

the characters in his stories. He

1:14:50

gave his literary creations the opportunity

1:14:52

to indulge in crime, murder, and

1:14:54

bloodshed, and it's been suggested that

1:14:57

these characters were simply the darker

1:14:59

side of Poe himself. They

1:15:01

committed the deeds that he would never

1:15:03

dare to act on himself. Or

1:15:06

wouldn't. Could

1:15:09

Poe, in a moment of mental

1:15:11

or alcohol-induced frenzy, have surrendered

1:15:13

to the dark instincts that he kept

1:15:15

trapped inside and allowed the bizarre behavior

1:15:18

of his written characters to emerge? Could

1:15:21

he have killed Mary Rogers? Most

1:15:24

would say no. But behavioral

1:15:26

psychologists have demonstrated that criminals

1:15:28

often give tips to reveal

1:15:30

their identities to the police,

1:15:33

especially those consumed with guilt and with

1:15:35

a subconscious desire to be caught. Was

1:15:38

this what Poe was doing when he

1:15:41

gave his decisive hint about the identity

1:15:43

of Marie Roget's murderer? The

1:15:45

writer was, just like the killer in the

1:15:47

story, described as dark skinned, with

1:15:50

a full head of black hair falling

1:15:52

over his large forehead. Before

1:15:55

we go any further with this, I will step

1:15:57

in and say that this is very unlikely. As

1:16:00

others have found, though, it is intriguing. There

1:16:03

is, of course, no evidence to link

1:16:05

Poe to Mary Rogers' murder aside from

1:16:08

that he probably knew her, frequented the

1:16:10

cigar store, and was acquainted with John

1:16:12

Anderson. Even so, there

1:16:15

are many who argue that Poe simply knew

1:16:17

too much about the case. His

1:16:19

story was just too detailed for a man

1:16:22

turning a newspaper story into a fictional tale.

1:16:25

Poe did rewrite portions of the story

1:16:27

to fit his imagined effect and,

1:16:30

as we'll soon see, made even more

1:16:32

changes before it appeared in a collection of

1:16:34

his stories. But does

1:16:36

that point to his guilt?

1:16:40

Did he know things about the case that

1:16:42

no one else possibly could? Did

1:16:44

he really know what went through the mind of

1:16:46

a killer? Again,

1:16:48

probably not, but it

1:16:51

is interesting to consider how

1:16:53

literary history might have been

1:16:55

dramatically altered if Edgar Allan

1:16:57

Poe was literally creating his

1:16:59

own tales of murder and

1:17:02

horror. Thanks

1:17:17

for listening. If you like the

1:17:20

show, please share it with someone you

1:17:22

know who loves the paranormal or strange

1:17:24

stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries

1:17:26

like you do! You can

1:17:28

also email me anytime with your

1:17:30

questions or comments through the website

1:17:32

at weirddarkness.com. That's also where

1:17:34

you can find all of my social

1:17:37

media, listen to free audiobooks, shop the

1:17:39

Weird Darkness store, sign up

1:17:41

for the newsletter to win monthly prizes, find

1:17:43

my other podcast, Church of the Undead, and

1:17:46

find the Hope In The Darkness page if

1:17:48

you or someone you know is struggling with

1:17:50

depression or dark thoughts. The

1:17:53

Beautiful Cigar Girl is a true story and

1:17:55

it's a chapter from Troy Taylor's book, Nevermore,

1:17:57

The Haunted Life and Mysteries of the World.

1:18:00

mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe, currently

1:18:02

available on paperback and as an

1:18:04

audiobook. I've placed a link to it

1:18:06

in the show notes. Weird

1:18:09

Darkness is a production and trademark

1:18:11

of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird

1:18:13

Darkness. And now that

1:18:15

we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with

1:18:17

a little light. Proverbs 13,

1:18:20

verse 16, A

1:18:22

wise man thinks ahead, a

1:18:24

fool doesn't, and even brags about

1:18:26

it. And a

1:18:28

final thought. I have learned that

1:18:31

what we have done for ourselves alone

1:18:33

dies with us, but what

1:18:35

we have done for others and the world remains

1:18:38

and is immortal. I'm

1:18:41

Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining

1:18:43

me in the Weird Darkness.

1:18:57

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