light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
have issued—but it was only the flames, rising in super-
natural splendor to consume the mansion, and the secrets,
of the man who collected Poe.
THE M A N WHO THOUGHT HE WAS POE
M ich a el A vallon e is a fast-rising y o u n g m ystery w riter w h o se list (
credits has grow n so u n w ie ld y th at ev en a com p reh en sive sketch m u
in ev ita b ly n e g le c t m o st o f his “ch ild ren .” B est k n ow n for his successf!
series o f E d N o o n m ysteries, M ich ael A vallon e has truly tried to pa
tern his w ritin g career after P oe b y w ritin g w eird tales and scien(
fiction as w ell.
L ike m an y w riters, M ich ael A vallon e is a frustrated ed itor and 1
assuages this h u n ger b y cook in g up an th ologies of th e supem atur;
an d G oth ic w h en ev er th e op p ortu n ity offers. A p aperb ack collectic
w h ich appears to sh ow th e d iscrim in ating tou ch o f Boris Karloff נ
sm all ty p e w ill b e fou n d to h a v e actu ally b e e n se le c te d b y M icha
A vallon e. A co llectio n of G oth ic short stories appropriately title
Gothic Sampler requires no C. A u gu ste D u p in to determ ine w h o hid!
b eh in d the fa ça d e o f E d w in a N o o n e.
L ess w e ll k n ow n is M ich a el A v a llo n e’s flyer as editor o f tw o d ig e
m agazin es, titled Space Science Fiction and Tales of the Frightene<
B o th w ere p u b lish ed in 1 9 5 7 and b oth lasted b u t tw o issues. It w as :
th e A u g u st 1 9 5 7 n um ber of Tales of the Frightened th at “T h e Ms
W h o T h o u g h t H e W as P o e” first appeared. T h e story fitted no editori
p o licies. It r e c e iv e d th e “kiss o f d ea th ” treatm en t from all edito
su b m itted to: “T his is a w o n d erfu l story and sh ou ld find a plac
som ew here; h o w ev er, it is n o t really a m ystery story . . .”
“T h e M an W h o T h o u g h t H e W as P o e” ep ito m izes th e rom ance an
m y stery th at lingers ab out th e fife o f th at unfortun ate genius,
w o u ld scarcely seem strange if som e m ig h t w a n t to su bm erge the
o w n reality to b eco m e part o f a leg en d .
The Man Who Thought He Was Poe
By Michael Avallone
. . and the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still
sitting on the pallid bust of—״ He closed the book swiftly <
1 2 4
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
the shuffling figure of his wife loomed in the open doorway,
the pat-pat of her slippered feet warning him. He frowned
at her over his reading glasses, big horn-rimmed mon-
strosities of another age. Another life.
Hastily adjusting the papers on his littered desk to cover
the small, rare edition of the Tales, he coughed testily.
Damn the woman! She was forever snooping, prowling, pry-
ing. Why couldn’t she leave him alone?
“Confound you, Agatha! W hat is it now? It’s after two and
you should be asleep.”
She looked down at him where he was, closed in with
old books, out-of-date furniture, reading by the fight thrown
fitfully from a kerosene lamp of ancient vintage. She sighed
wearily with vast regret, a large, rawboned woman too con-
scious of her bad choice of mate, her own non-conforma-
tion to the role of wife to the pedantic Roderick Legrande.
Yet, she loved him because he was weak. There are such
women.
“Roderick, come to bed. You’ve read long enough, haven’t
you? Put it off until morning.”
“Leave me alone! I can’t stand to be interrupted like this
at odd hours when I’m reading.” His words hammered at her
with the repetition and fury of other nights. Other interrup-
tions.
She leaned over him, sorrowfully, coaxing him as she
might a small child. “Rod, hasn’t this business gone far
enough?”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. It was the first time she
had ever hinted at a difference, the opening gun of any
marital hostility or divergence of opinion.
“W hat do you mean by that?” he croaked hoarsely.
His anger fanned her mounting impatience. “W hat do I
mean by that?” she repeated fiercely, unable to hold it in
now that he was pretending that everything was as it had
always been.
“W hat don’t I mean? You sold all our modem furnishings,
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 2 5
made me get rid of everything I’d ever wanted in a home.
And then what did you do? You fitted the house with period
furniture, sold the radio, and installed a phonograph that
to this day Til never know where you gotl And look at
yourself. Writing by lamplight with a goosequill and dressed
like something out of Charles Dickens. Good Lord I Rod,
can't you see what's happened to you? This is 1957־ not
1857!"
She ran down, exhausted and spent, the full tide of her
anger ebbing as she saw his sickly face, bent shoulders, and
wasted body.
He glared up at her, a fantastic figure indeed. The exag-
gerated length of the quill in his bony fingers made him
suddenly conscious of how it dated him as she had said. Like
something out of the last century. Antique, outmoded,
feeble.
The warm feel of the exquisitely bound volume concealed
beneath his hand steadied him again. He sensed his bond
with the past, the older, better things, and pounded the
desk with theatrical self-righteousness.
“Damn you everlastingly, you infernal meddler!" He was
shouting now, wildly gesticulating. “W hat is so wrong with
my longing for the past or outfitting myself in the garment
and style of a better age? W hat is so wonderful in all this
progress that can be measured in the discordant sounds of
subway trains and maudlin jazz music? Progress, indeed!
Electric lights are proven artificial forms of illumination
that damage valuable eyesight, and as for your seeming for-
getfulness of your duties and solicitude as wife, I am pre-
pared for your apology and entreatment of my forgiveness."
He paused triumphantly at the end of his stream of imposing,
flowery discourse and folded his arms.
The color drained from her face. She attempted to say
something, to prick his false bubble with the proper amount
of scorn, but no words came. Muffling a sob, she turned
1 2 6
TEIE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
swiftly and swept from the room, slamming the door with
vibrant fury and hurt.
Grimacing, he set his teeth as the sound of her feet run-
ning up the steps of the landing to the bedroom came down
to him. He cursed and flung down his feathered pen. That
was modern times for you! People rushing to get someplace,
setting up hideous dins, unmindful of the well-being of
others. Progress was also the lowly wife telling you off and
striving to rule.
The issue of his glorying in the past was lost on him. He
wasn't aware of his own shortcomings, his
own bigotry in
things. He had gone too far back to correlate the present.
Selecting a meerschaum pipe from the elegantly carved
rack on his desk, he filled it with studied pomp from the
large humidor squatting beside it. Damn her anyway! Blast
her for owning such a plain, coarse figure, for being unfor-
tunately endowed with such a trite, unromantic name as
Agatha. Agatha Beggs, when he had married her six years
ago. Wliy couldn't she have been called Lenore, or Eulalie,
or Ulalume—or even Helen? Poe was right, bless his
fevered brow! Those were names a lover could conjure with!
His fretful mental mood caused him to fill the tiny chamber
with smoke. Why hadn't she seen fit to do as he had in the
long ago? Change her name, of course. He himself had been
George Legrande once, bom of ignorant French immigrant
parents. But once he had come in contact with the magic of
Poe in the school library that had all been changed. Oh, he
could tell the difference between amontillado and sherry
all right! It was that simple. It merely wanted the devoted
reading of “The Gold Bug'' and “The Fall of the House of
Usher."
George Legrande was prosaic, unimposing, dull. The dual
heroes of the respective Poe classics were not. William Le-
grande and Roderick Usher. The former, a brilliant adven-
turer of mathematical stature; the latter, a moody, impetuous
scion of ancient, brooding aristocracy״ He was already
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 2 J
George Legrande by right of birth. He became Roderick
Legrande by right of choice in a Providence courthouse
as soon as he came of legal age. This was before he had met
Agatha and yielded to the temptations of flesh from which
even the most restricted man cannot escape.
The declaration of independence in name-changing was
only the first salvo in his willful yearning for the time-
dusted nostalgias of the days of Edgar Allan. He had been
afraid to go beyond it until long after his marriage. He had
worn the proper clothes, had spoken with the terse urgency
of the day, and had given in to but a few of his odd caprices.
He had only dared to collect old books, cameos, period
pieces, and musty bric-a-brac so that his friends and wife
thought him merely a zealous antiquarian. Even Agatha had
been proud of him then. Why wasn’t she proud now?
He frowned with the memory of her impatience and sus-
picion as the home had been slowly, subtly overrun with
the relics he had garnered from all the many corners of the
city. Soon the new, up-to-date, in-the-time furniture went
rapidly and the whole house at the edge of Ashlynne Square
presented a family portrait of nineteenth-century life.
Roderick’s own job as bookkeeper for the Ashlynne Gas
and Electric Company didn’t interfere in any way with his
trip back through time. He was pretty much to himself with
his ledgers and files; to the rest of the help he was just a
“character,” a still-young fellow who had a few eccentricities.
It seemed there was one in every organization.
Not long after that, he was never seen without a muffler
of some sort, or mittens, and wore vests that were always
outstanding for their cut and the gold watch with the linked
chain forever dangling from their pockets.
The lamp flickered and cast a dying gaze over the room.
He smiled in contentment at the gathering gloom as it settled
over his rocking chair and made blurred magic of the cabinet
and the roll-top desk in the far corner. Tightening his scarf
about his throat, he lurched to the fireplace and stoked the
1 2 8
THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
steadily crackling logs with a heavy andiron. Flame licked
up at him from an opening made by the probe of the rod and
he reveled in a feeling of rest, security, and comfort. W hy
couldn't Agatha feel as he did about the old place? W asn't it
far more comfortable like this? Better than some four-room
apartment where you always had to badger the janitor for
steam, for hot water?
He sighed ponderously. Better indeed.
He went back to his reading of Poe's “Raven" with the
alacrity of the small boy who has to put off playing with his
Erector set until the guests have left. Beaming, he found his
spot again.
“. . . and the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is
sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber
door . . ."—here he flung a quick glance above the en-
trance of his own door. His slavery to the Poe tradition was
complete. There above the arch of the threshold, stoically
squatting on the famous bust of the most beautiful of all
famous women, was a black, stem, stuffed raven. The imi-
tation was complete in every detail. The blank eyes of Pallas
Athene set in the rounded, classic face; the Raven, bird of
omen, black as coal, beak poised in an attitude of “grave
decorum," beady eyes glistening with message, seeming
ever ready to croak the fabulous cry of old, “Nevermore/"
He raced through the remainder of the poem with the
speed of long familiarity and countless re-readings. At its
doleful climax, he closed the book with gross reverence
and went back to his pipe.
Poe was so right, he mused. Life is but a haunted dream,
a dim candle, a wraith-like travail through lands of poignant
memory, deep despair. Why do people blandly continue to
think of empty things, unimportant theories and modem
excitement?
If only Agatha—
“RODERICK!"
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
12g
She was calling him from the head of the stairs with no
real emergency in her tone save the loud, trumpeting plain-
ness that he detested so heartily. He bit the end of his
pipe in annoyance. W hat the devil did she want now?
"Yes, what is it?״ he barked from the doorway. Atop the
landing, her wide figure moved in the semidarkness, one
arm joining the balustrade in blending shadow.
“If you ever find time to leave that dream world of
yours,״ her words rippled down on a wave of sarcasm, “will
you bring some fresh meat up from the cellar?״
“Meat? At this ungodly hour?״
“Yes—I’ll need the chops for dinner tomorrow and with one
thing and another I may forget it at the last minute. You
don't mind, do you?״ There was the barest lilt of mockery
in her voice.
He clattered out from the study grumpily and headed
for the alcove directly under the stairs. “That infernal re-
frigerator! Why couldn't an ordinary icebox have sufficed?״
He winced at the thought of its cost, its mammoth size,
its modernity.
She leaned over the railing so that he could hear her
rejoinder.
“There isn't room in the kitchen, remember? Thanks to
you and your love for old houses. We barely get by with
; two chairs and a table."
“Go to bed, Agatha! I'll get it for you.״
All the way down the rickety cellar steps, the thought
nettled him. The refrigerator. It had been her only triumph
over his mode of life. It was the one thing he had not
been able to control when furnishing the house and she had
defied him on the whole issue. They had to have fresh meat.
He couldn't dispute the point. Keeping it in the cellar was a
necessity due to its streamlined grandeur of size. That was
what really bothered him. He still felt that she had pur־
chased such a big model, such an ultramodern one, as a
flaunt to his code, his feelings, his ancient ideas.
I 3O
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
The feeble light of the lone bulb that dangled perilously
from a length of corded wire cast a wavery glow over the
thing. Everything else here in the cellar was old. The refrig־
erator was still new, its white porcelain shoulders offsetting
the incredible age of the antiques that formed its company.
Round, bulging, aged־in־the־wood barrels; a spinning
wheel teetering precariously on a broken, warped base as if
the next closing of the upstairs door would cause it to fall.
In one corner, flanking a mountainous pile of yellowed news-
papers, the faded glory of a century-old painting peered out
past the cobwebs and layers of dust encroaching on its scene.
He paused to survey them once again with all the fervor
that had prompted his ownership. They were his links, his
tracks back to the past.
It was a cellar out of the pages of ancient historians. The
low, spiderwebbed rafters; the heavy, closely bunched blocks
of rounded stone that walled the four sides formed a torture
chamber that only wanted the proper equipment to justify
the name.
Forgetting his original purpose, he glided to another re-
cess where a scratched and scarred piano gleamed out at
him from the shrouded depths with its contrasting white
teeth of keyboard. He ran his fingers over the unused ivories
and reveled in the out־of־tune notes that sounded hollowly
in the low-ceilinged chamber. This was his age, his era. “If
Milady would be so kind. This is our waltz.” A slim, dainty,
powdered dream. Small, elegant feet. Not big and awkward
The Man Who Called Himself Poe Page 17