In the days that followed Stella’s murder, no one was willing to “disturb” the Mayfairs with further questions about a mysterious Texan from England. And our investigators, including some of the best in the business, could never crack the silence of the hotel employees, nor get so much as a clue as to who might have paid them off. It is foolish to think the police could have done any better.
But there is one very interesting bit of contemporary “opinion” to consider before we leave this crime unsolved; and that is the final word on the subject by Irwin Dandrich, gossiping with one of our private detectives in a French Quarter bar during the Christmas season of 1929.
“I’ll tell you the secret to understanding that family,” said Dandrich, “and I’ve watched them for years. Not just for your queer birds in London, mind you. I’ve watched them the way everybody watches them-forever wondering what goes on behind those drawn blinds. The secret is realizing that Carlotta Mayfair isn’t the clean-living, righteous Catholic woman she has always pretended to be. There’s something mysterious and evil about that woman. She’s destructive, and vengeful too. She’d rather see little Antha go mad than grow up to be like Stella. She’d rather see the place dark and deserted than see other people having fun.”
On the surface, these remarks seem simplistic, but there may be more truth to them than anyone realized at the time. To the world Carlotta Mayfair certainly did represent clean living, sanity, righteousness, and the like. From 1929, she attended Mass daily at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel on Prytania, gave generously to the church and all its organizations, and though she carried on a private war with Mayfair and Mayfair over the administration of Antha’s money, she was always extremely generous with her own. She lent money freely to any and all Mayfairs who had need of it, sent modest gifts for birthdays, weddings, christenings, and graduations, attended funerals, and now and then met with cousins outside the house for lunch or tea.
To those who had been so grievously offended by Stella, Carlotta was a good woman, the backbone of the house on First Street, the able and endlessly self-sacrificing caretaker of Stella’s insane daughter, Antha, and the other dependents, Millie Dear, Nancy, and Belle.
She was never criticized for her failure to open the house to the family, or her refusal to reinstate reunions and get-togethers of any kind. On the contrary, it was understood that “she had her hands full.” No one wanted to make any demands on her. Indeed, she became a sort of sour saint to the family as the years passed.
My opinion-for what it’s worth-after forty years of studying the family, is that there is a great deal of truth to Irwin Dandrich’s estimation of her. It is my personal conviction that she presents a mystery as great as that of Mary Beth or Julian. And we have only scratched the surface of what goes on in that house.
With regard to the future, it was decided by the Talamasca in 1929 that no further attempt at personal contact would be made.
Our director, Evan Neville, believed that first and foremost we should abide by Arthur Langtry’s advice, and that second, the warning from the specter of Stuart Townsend should be taken seriously. We should stay away from the Mayfairs for the time being.
Several younger members of the council believed, however, that we must attempt to make contact with Carlotta Mayfair by mail. What harm could result from doing this, they argued, and what right had we to withhold our information from her? To what purpose had we acquired this information? We must prepare some sort of discreet digest for her of the information we had acquired. Certainly our very earliest records-Petyr van Abel’s letters-should be made available to her, along with the genealogical tables we had made.
This precipitated a furious and acrimonious debate. Older members of the order reminded the younger ones that Carlotta Mayfair was in all probability responsible for the death of Stuart Townsend, and more than likely responsible for the death of her sister, Stella. What obligation could we possibly have to such a person? Antha was the person to whom we should make our disclosure, and such a thing could not even be considered until Antha reached the age of twenty-one.
Besides, in the absence of any guiding personal contact, how was information to be given to Carlotta Mayfair and what information could we possibly give?
The history of the Mayfair family as it existed in 1929 was in no way ready for “outside eyes.” A discreet digest would have to be prepared, with the names of witnesses and investigators thoroughly expunged from the record, and once again, what would be the purpose of giving this to Carlotta? What would she do with it? How might she use it in regard to Antha? What would be her overall reaction? And if we were going to give this history to Carlotta, why not give it also to Cortland and his brothers? Indeed, why not give it to every member of the Mayfair family? And if we did do such a thing, what would be the effects of such information upon these people? What right had we to contemplate such a spectacular intervention in their lives?
Indeed, the nature of our history was so special, it included such bizarre and seemingly mysterious material, that no disclosure of it could be arbitrarily contemplated.
… And so on and on the debate raged.
As always at such times, the rules, the goals, and the ethics of the Talamasca were completely reevaluated. We were forced to reaffirm for ourselves that the history of the Mayfair family-due to its length and its detail-was invaluable to us as scholars of the occult, and that we were going to continue to gather information on the Mayfairs, no matter what the younger members of the council said about ethics and the like. But our attempt at “contact” had been an abysmal failure. We would wait until Antha Mayfair was twenty-one, and then a careful approach would be considered, depending upon who was available within the order for such an assignment at that time.
It also became clear as the council continued its wrangling that almost no one there-Evan Neville included-really knew the full story of the Mayfair Witches. In fact there was considerable arguing not only about what to do and how it should be done, but about what had happened and when in the Mayfair family. For the file had simply become too big and too complicated for anyone to examine effectively within a reasonable period of time.
Obviously the Talamasca must find a member willing to take on the Mayfair Witches as a full-time assignment-someone able to study the file in detail and then make intelligent and responsible decisions about what to do in the field. And considering the tragic death of Stuart Townsend, it was determined that such a person must have first-rate scholarly credentials, as well as great field experience; indeed, he must prove his knowledge of the file by putting all of its materials into one long coherent and readable narrative. Then, and only then, would such a person be allowed to broaden his study of the Mayfair Witches by more direct investigation with a view to a contact eventually being made.
In sum, the enormous task of translating the file into a narrative was seen as a necessary preparation for field involvement. And there was great wisdom to this approach.
The one sad flaw in the whole plan was that such a person was not found by the order until 1953. And by that time Antha Mayfair’s tragic life had come to a close. The designee of the legacy was a wan-faced twelve-year-old girl who had already been expelled from school for “talking with her invisible friend,” and making flowers fly through the air, or finding lost objects, and reading minds.