The Man Who Called Himself Poe

by Sam Moskowitz

  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