Short Fiction · Chapter
III explained
Malone investigates the case of Robert Suydam, a reclusive scholar of Dutch descent whose eccentric behavior and associations with criminal elements in Red Hook lead to a sanity hearing.
What happens
Malone investigates the case of Robert Suydam, a reclusive scholar of Dutch descent whose eccentric behavior and associations with criminal elements in Red Hook lead to a sanity hearing. Suydam's involvement with a basement flat in Parker Place, where he conducts mysterious rites with a colony of unclassified Asian immigrants, draws the attention of Federal inspectors and police. Malone is assigned to uncover the source and nature of these newcomers, sensing nameless terrors ahead.
Themes in this chapter
Forbidden Knowledge and Occultism
Suydam's study of medieval superstition, Kabbalah, and Faustus legend, along with his nocturnal rites, embodies the pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
Alienation and Otherness
Suydam is a recluse alienated from society, and the unclassified Asian immigrants represent a feared otherness.
Horror of the Unknown
The mysterious rites, hidden organ sounds, and the unknown origins of the immigrants evoke horror of the unknown.
Characters to notice
- Malone
Assigned to investigate Robert Suydam and the criminal underworld of Red Hook.
- Robert Suydam
A lettered recluse of ancient Dutch family, subject of a sanity hearing, involved in occult studies and criminal associations.
- The Servants
Suydam could afford no servants, living in absolute solitude.
Key passages
“It was the case of Robert Suydam which took Malone to the heart of things in Red Hook.”
Malone's involvement in Red Hook began with the investigation of Robert Suydam.
Sets up the central plot of the chapter.
“Suydam became a 'case' when his distant and only relatives sought court pronouncements on his sanity.”
Suydam's relatives initiated a sanity hearing due to his odd behavior.
Introduces the legal conflict.
“The court action revealed that he was using up his income and wasting his principal in the purchase of curious tomes imported from London and Paris, and in the maintenance of a squalid basement flat in the Red Hook district where he spent nearly every night, receiving odd delegations of mixed rowdies and foreigners, and apparently conducting some kind of ceremonial service behind the green blinds of secretive windows.”
The court discovered Suydam was spending his money on rare books and a Red Hook basement flat used for nightly ceremonies with a mix of criminals and foreigners.
Details Suydam's secret activities.
“These creatures attended a tumbledown stone church, used Wednesdays as a dance-hall, which reared its Gothic buttresses near the vilest part of the waterfront. It was nominally Catholic; but priests throughout Brooklyn denied the place all standing and authenticity, and policemen agreed with them when they listened to the noises it emitted at night.”
The immigrants frequented a dilapidated church near the waterfront, which was falsely claimed as Catholic but rejected by clergy and police due to the disturbing sounds heard at night.
Highlights the eerie and illegitimate nature of the church.
“Malone used to fancy he heard terrible cracked bass notes from a hidden organ far underground when the church stood empty and unlighted, whilst all observers dreaded the shrieking and drumming which accompanied the visible services.”
Malone imagined hearing deep organ sounds from underground when the church was empty, while others feared the loud noises during services.
Suggests hidden subterranean activities.