My Clockwork Muse

by D. R. Erickson

  "How could I? His face was down the whole time while the other man dragged him along. His head sort of bobbed from one side to the other" —the woman's jowls jiggled as she tried to imitate the motion— "causing the bells in his hat to jingle a little. All I remember of him was that hat of his—"

  "No, not the jester," I prodded impatiently, "but the other man. The killer, if you will. The one dragging the jester along? Did you give a description of him to the police?"

  "Oh, yes!" the woman said brightly. "Him I saw clearly."

  "Ah!" I said with satisfaction. Now I was getting somewhere.

  The woman gave me a sort of mocking smile. "But seeing you, Inspector—"

  I looked at her dumbly until I realized she was expecting my name. I gave her the first name that popped into my head. "Dupin," I said with a start, and regretted it instantly. I remembered I was not quick enough to provide an alias to Burton's secretary. Now I was rather too quick. But once the name was out, there was no taking it back. I hoped that once heard the name would be quickly forgotten.

  "But seeing you, Inspector Dupin," the woman said, grinning. "I can see I shouldn't have bothered."

  I frowned. "Why not?"

  "Because I could have told the cop that the man in the corridor looked just like your own Inspector Dupin—and he would have known instantly what the man looked like!"

  She laughed at her joke, which she seemed to think the height of irony. My mouth was filled with the bitter taste of bile.

  "What are you saying? That the man looked like ... me?" I asked, dumbfounded. With a sense of rising horror, I asked again, "The killer looked like me?"

  "Oh, yes. Same broad forehead, if you don't mind me sayin'. Little moustache, just like yours. Heavy shadows around the eyes. A dark man, I thought. But then the light was awful dim. I see you're much paler than him. No offense."

  I waved off her concern.

  "Uncanny resemblance, though. That's why I dropped my plate. I thought you were him, come back to take care of witnesses, if you know what I mean. Where are you going?"

  "No more questions." In my hurry to leave the room, I banged into one of the chairs, knocking it askew, and did not bother putting it back into place. "The police appreciate your cooperation, madam." I uttered the words so quickly, I doubted she even understood what I was saying.

  Back in the dimness of the corridor, I pressed myself tight to the wall, feeling as if I might faint. My breath came to me in short spasms. Think, Poe! Think! I felt in mortal danger. When this woman had described Fortunato's murderer to Gessler, it was my face she had conjured with her words. From that moment forward, as far as Gessler was concerned, the murderer who killed in the fashion of Poe's stories could be none other than Poe himself!

  Smiling at me and pretending to admire my stories, when all the while...

  By God, it was no simple muddle now! Now, it was my life at stake and no squeamish misgivings or cowardice could keep me from the scene of the crime.

  I waited until my breathing resumed its normal pace and then made my way along the corridor to the basement door. The brass knob that had filled me with such terror was there as before, reflecting the dim light of the single guttering lamp that illuminated the hallway. The shadow of my hand darkened the brass. The knob was cold in my palm. I turned it and opened the door.

  The stairs descended into utter blackness. I found a lantern on a ledge just inside the door and finding there also a match, I lit it and started down the stairs.

  ~ * * * ~

  I was determined not to miss a single shred of evidence, however minute. I started by inspecting the walls on my way down and even the steps themselves as I trod upon them. Naturally, I found nothing, but I could see where a fine film of dust had once coated the stairs as well as the floor below. "Footprints, you idiot Gessler!" I muttered under my breath. Hundreds of feet had long since obliterated any traces of the murderer's shoes. This did nothing to discourage me, however. On the contrary, I felt certain that the same carelessness that had destroyed evidence would have unwittingly preserved some for me as well.

  The main chamber of the basement, a bustle of activity just the day before, now bore the abandoned, spirit-haunted air of an ancient ruin. The battered aperture in the brick wall was only slightly larger than I had last seen it, extending to about three feet above the floor and of sufficient diameter through which to comfortably manhandle a corpse. As I thrust my lantern forward, the jagged edge made by the broken bricks cast a shadow within the cavity that looked like the gaping mouth of a sharp-toothed beast. I was loath to reach my hand inside, assuring myself that even Gessler would have thoroughly examined the space within. I did not come here to repeat Gessler's investigation, but only to conclude it.

  Thus, I did not concern myself with the obvious. No, it was the obscure reaches of the crime scene that interested me.

  I turned my lantern away from the hole and was disappointed to find little of interest apart from a worktable set against one of the walls. I walked over to it and found an assortment of carpenter tools laying among untidy stacks of dried-up lumber. I put my lantern down on the table and, expecting little, examined the implements in more detail. It was plain by the dust that covered them that they had not been used in some time, a fact that disclosed to me as well that Gessler's men had not handled them, either. This made the table a trove of potential evidence and I immediately began to scrutinize the objects with increased interest.

  My vigilance was rewarded almost at once, for among the planes and the bit-less drills and the saws I chanced upon a trowel. An odd tool, I thought, to find on the worktable of a carpenter. Without touching it for fear of spoiling any evidence thereupon, I bent low over the object and inspected it closely. I quickly found that not only was it free of the dust that covered the other tools, meaning that it had been recently handled, but that it bore on its blade fresh-looking smears of brick mortar!

  Gessler, the fool, had missed it! The very implement used to commit the murder, found not ten feet from the body itself! I wondered what else he had managed to overlook. I set about making a thorough search of the table, fearing only that it might take more than Dupin to counteract Gessler's vast incompetence, which ran much deeper than even I had suspected.

  I didn't have far to look. Stashed behind a jumble of desiccated two-by-fours, I found a little glass vial. I saw at once that it too was free of dust and my pulse quickened. I brought it out from its hiding place and held it close to the light of my lantern. It was unstoppered and empty and bore a hand-written label. The label was torn and one corner of it had curled away from the glass, but I smoothed it out and read. "Laudan..." The paper had torn right through the 'n', but I knew what it was. My heart raced. This was exactly what I had told Gessler to look for. And here it was: Laudanum.

  This was a discovery even greater than the trowel. The murderer had no doubt used the drug to sedate his victim, allowing him time to entomb the man within easy reach of his unbound hands. I was all too familiar with the stuff, for Dr. Coppelius had often administered small doses to Virginia in her final days to calm her suffering. I passed the vial under my nostrils, but the bottle had been so long empty that the substance within had left no trace of a scent behind. Being also familiar with the taste, I was just about to touch the rim of the vial to the tip of my tongue when a faint sound reached my ear from out of the darkness beyond the range of my lamp. I paused, listening.

  I didn't move a muscle. I strained to hear the sound again. When it failed to recur, I resumed my effort to taste the vial—when there it came again. This time there could be no doubt what it was. My hand shook violently in my fright and I nearly dropped the precious glass.

  It was the sound of jingling bells!

  Faint, yes, but there was no doubt as to the nature of the sound. Bells. Or, rather, bell. It was as a single little bell tinkling, as if moved by the wind.

  I engulfed the vial in my fist and took up my lantern, thrusting it toward the source of t
he sound.

  "Who's there?" I whispered, not daring to cry aloud, though my voice quavered with fear.

  When there was no reply, I crept forward and the light of my lamp illuminated the passage at the base of the stairs.

  "Inspector?" I intoned tremulously. Of course! The man had followed me. He had waited for me to leave and then watched my every step. He had now secreted himself on the stair and was having sport with me. No sooner had the thought flashed in my mind than it seemed obvious. What a fool I was! "A fine jest, Inspector. But—"

  The sound came again, louder this time. And not a single bell, but several, jingling and jangling, a discordant melody borne not on a gentle breeze but in a violent gust. I whirled. My lantern cast an arc of light on the wall of Fortunato's tomb.

  What I saw next, I scarcely dared to believe.

  A leg dressed in tight-fitting motley appeared from out of the hole in the wall. Then I saw skeletal fingers clutching the broken bricks on either side of the aperture. These were followed by a head, the face turning towards me, and then the entire body of a man. But not just any man—a man dressed as a fool with bells jingling in his jester's cap.

  And not just any fool, either. But Billy Burton!

  I questioned my sanity. But there could be no doubt. Though the face that grinned at me was green and oozing with putrescence, it was beyond a certainty that it was Burton. But it was not possible! The man whom I had embraced with such relief only twenty-four hours before appeared in front of my eyes, days dead and walking towards me.

  "Burton!" I cried, knowing instantly the futility of my words. "Now, look here. If it is for revenge that you rise, know that it was not I who killed you." I held my hands before me, the lantern in one, the vial tightly clenched in the other. With a ponderous step, dead-Burton strode towards me, and I backed away before him. A length of chain dangled from his waist. I could now see his swollen black tongue protruding between his teeth. His eyes, which now appeared lidless, were clouded in death and incomprehensive of my pleas. I doubted my senses, my very sanity.

  I was sure of only one fact and that was that this dead ... thing meant to kill me.

  I thrust the laudanum vial into my trousers pocket and at the same time set my lantern down on the worktable. I was soon to be trapped between Burton and the wall, so I looked around desperately for a weapon. Finding nothing but a length of board, I snatched it from the table. Though it felt disappointingly light in my hands, I reared back, raising it high above me and brought it down with all of my strength atop Burton's head.

  The board snapped. The sound of the fool's bells filled the chamber as his hat flew from his head. In its place there appeared a great black gash where the board had caved in part of Burton's skull. He seemed not to notice. I had delivered a killing blow and yet Burton continued towards me, step by implacable step. To oppose him, I found myself with only a useless piece of splintered lumber in my hands.

  I flung it aside, grabbed my lantern and thrust it into the face of the fiend. It burst apart upon the exposed bone of his chin, spilling oil all down the front of his motley. Instantly, he was engulfed in flames, his shoulders and face lost in a shroud of fire. I dashed around him and ran like mad for the stairs. The slick soles of my shoes caused me to skid around the corner, and again on the first step as I tried to climb. I found myself sprawled on the stairs and I could see by the flickering shadows on the wall that dead-Burton was again pursuing me. I attempted to clamber up the stairs on all fours, my shoes skidding from the treads as I went. The blaze of Burton's flaming torso brightened the stairwell as though in the light of day. I could hear his heavy footfalls, could feel the heat of the flames on my back. I dared not look behind me.

  I had just about reached the door to safety when I felt his skeletal fingers close around my ankle.

  Then I turned and gazed up in horror at his scorched dead face.

  Chapter 6

  "Fiend!" I cried.

  Disregarding the flames, I reached up and grabbed the hideous creature by his lapels. I could feel his fingers close around mine. I tried to push him away or yank him aside.

  "Edgar! Edgar!"

  I cried out in fear. The thing was shaking me and I felt it slapping my cheeks. I blinked my eyes open. A black shadow filled my vision. I drew back in terror, my heels digging for purchase.

  "Edgar! Wake up, man!"

  The shadow resolved itself into a face, but it was the face of Doctor Coppelius, not Burton. Confused, I looked around and saw that I lay not on the stairs of the boarding house basement under the flaming torso of a murderous cadaver, but in my own bed and under my own roof. This seemed to have little calming effect on me.

  I pulled Coppelius close. "It was Burton!" I cried, falling back at once against my pillows and covering my face.

  "There, there, Edgar. You have had a bad fright, but you are safe now."

  Coppelius tried to comfort me with his too-sharp voice as he patted me with his too-coarse hands. I spread my fingers, looked out and saw that it was true. I was safe in my own bed. I let my hands fall away and saw Coppelius' bulging blue eye peering at me from beneath his shaggy brow. As hideous as Burton had been, Coppelius might have been worse. At least Burton had the excuse of being dead. On the other hand, Coppelius was, presumably, not trying to kill me.

  "What happened?"

  "You are safe now, my dear man," Coppelius said with a strained smile—which did not surprise me, for all of his expressions were strained. His countenance could be endured only from a distance, and now I found myself nose-to-nose with the man. And what a nose! It was a great twisted bulbous thing, pock-marked and purple. It seemed to emerge like some mangled jut of rock from a crashing sea of wild gray whiskers. He gave me his usual cock-eyed look. One of his eyes was forever hidden under an extravagant brow. The other bulged from its socket, a pale gauzy blue eye. He pointed the hideous orb at whatever object he meant to observe and now he was pointing it at me. I looked askance at it, wondering how he could see through the thing. Even in my relief at finding myself free from Burton, I recoiled in revulsion when he laid his gnarled old claw atop my hand.

  "But how did I come to be here?" I asked.

  "I brought you in my coach," Coppelius said, turning his attention to a tangled wad of rubber tubing he now clutched in one fist. It seemed to cling to his wrist and fingers like a snarl of tiny snakes. He jammed it into his doctor's bag. Before it disappeared, I thought I saw a flash of needle amid its coils.

  "But Burton..." I stammered. I felt a rising panic as memories flooded back to me. "I was being pursued through the ghastly dungeon. Pursued and caught, I should say! Caught on the stairs, I tell you! The thing had me in its grasp!"

  "Calm down, Edgar," the old man said. His gnarled claw made paternally for my shoulder, and I dipped it out of the way in horror lest it touch me. In his other hand, he had taken up a small glass vial containing some kind of red fluid. He held it to the light shining in through the window and pointed his vulture's eye at it. "It is over now," he went on, absently patting the air above my withdrawn shoulder, and putting the vial into his bag. Once the vial was gone, he turned his full attention to me. I shuddered. "You were found on the stairs, Edgar, it is true. But as to this pursuit you speak of..." Coppelius shook his head, unleashing a halo of dust or dandruff from his wild hair. "Tell me: what is the last thing you remember?"

  "I have just said it. The ghoul was burning. I felt its fingers on my ankle. Oh, God, I feel it still!" Under my sheets, I shook my foot convulsively to cast off the lingering sensation of those skeletal fingers. "I looked into its face. It was as close as you are to me. There can be no mistake. Gruesome, yes; disfigured, putrefying, twisted and torn—dead, I tell you!—all true! But Burton it was, nonetheless. Billy Burton, whom I know to be alive. It was his corpse that attacked me. I bashed its head in, and yet it continued after me undaunted—"

  "Mr. Poe!" Coppelius cried in shock.

  I refused to be interrupted; I continued in a l
oud voice, "—with its rotting brain spilling over its face. I tried to reason with it. 'I did not kill you!' I cried. And yet it sought its hideous revenge on me, an innocent man! So I thought to consume the thing in flames—"

  "Mr. Poe!" I had risen from my pillows and Coppelius forced me back. "You are exciting yourself. I must insist—"

  I strained against his hands. "You think me mad?"

  "I think the only thing consumed in flames was the basement itself." Still restraining me with one hand, Coppelius reached into his bag and produced a vial of clear liquid. He forced it to my lips. "Drink!" he commanded. I allowed the substance to slide over my tongue and down my throat. He was my doctor, after all. "There. That will calm you." As he withdrew the glass, I saw in the doctor's handwriting on the label the word 'Laudanum.'

  Far from calming me, the sight of the glass sparked another urgent thought. The vial in my trousers pocket! Was it still there? I made to jump from my bed when I realized I was dressed only in my underclothes. That was when I first saw Olimpia standing at the open door. I felt my face redden and I pulled the sheets up to my chin. I wondered how much she had heard. I was suddenly afraid that perhaps I had sounded mad.

  Oh, but she was beautiful! Her radiance seemed to brighten the room. She was wearing the same tall stylish fur hat I had seen her in yesterday, as if she had just come in from outside, though the day was warm. She wore a high-necked blouse and a pair of silk pantaloons which fit snugly around her hips. Dressed out of time and place as usual, it was a fit that might have been considered scandalous were any other than her father and I there to see her. I, however, was enchanted.

  She smiled wanly when she saw my eye catch hers. Her red lips parted slightly. Noticing my embarrassment, she lowered her gaze, but I could see that she looked upon the scene of her father's work with practiced neutrality. Whatever she had heard from my lips, she had no doubt heard a thousand times before.