My Clockwork Muse

by D. R. Erickson

  The drivers were loafing together near one of the vehicles, smoking their pipes. When they saw us enter Coppelius' carriage, they straightened to attention. One of them looked directly at me. He began shouting and as soon as I heard the crack of Coppelius' whip, the sound of police whistles filled the air.

  The sudden acceleration thrust me against the back of the seat. My feet came off the floor as I bounced on my backside to the clattering of the wheels and the frantic clopping of the horses' hooves on the pavement. Once I had righted myself, I stuck my head out the window. In one direction, I saw Coppelius furiously cracking his long whip, his gray hair spilling out from under his top hat and his black cape fluttering in the wind. In the other, I saw Gessler in the street shouting orders. He jumped into one of the carriages. The driver snapped the reins. Soon both police vehicles were hot on our tail.

  "They're chasing us!" I cried, with a feeling of unbelief. If someone had told me I was dreaming, I would not have doubted it for a moment.

  "They would have you arrested, Eddy," Olimpia said.

  "But how could you have known?"

  I saw the depth of anxiety and pain in her eyes. "We passed them in the street. Two carriages full of policemen. I knew where they were going—and what they were going to do."

  "Arrest me." No matter how many times I heard the words, whether from my own lips or another's, I could scarcely believe it. Me! A harmless man of letters, now a fugitive from the law.

  Olimpia grasped my hand in two of hers and pressed them to her lips. A thrill shot through me. Surely, I had fallen into some bottomless vale of a dream-land! "And not just arrest you, Eddy. But arrest you for murder," she said in her whispery voice. "I urged Father to turn back. 'We cannot leave our Eddy!' I said, and, his heart being tender towards you, that is what he did."

  I had never thought of Coppelius' heart as tender. I could hear him madly cracking his whip and stridently urging the horses on.

  "Oh, but I fear you have rescued a guilty man, Miss Coppelius. I cannot allow you to jeopardize your freedom on my behalf! We must stop at once!"

  I made to thrust my head out the window to speak to Coppelius, when a sudden sharp turn flung me across the seat. I slammed into Olimpia, nearly crushing her delicate frame against the door. My stomach lurched as the carriage tilt precariously onto two wheels. We seemed to hang suspended in mid-air for an instant as we rounded the corner. When the two fell back to the cobbles again, the momentum hurled me back across the seat, my feet flying from the floor.

  The sound of Coppelius' cracking whip filled the air and his croaking voice rose amid the rumbling of our carriage, this time in mad laughter.

  Olimpia's furry hat had fallen over her eyes. She pushed it back and said, "I would not have returned for a guilty man, Eddy."

  I looked into her soft, liquid eyes and knew that she believed it. Her belief touched my heart deeply, but I could not allow it. I found myself in the peculiar position of having to convince her of my guilt. It was the only way to save her. "But I have found evidence that condemns me without a doubt. The torn label of the vial retrieved from the scene, when conjoined with the paper from my own desk drawer—" I covered my face in my hands. I could not go on. It was too terrible to contemplate.

  She took hold of my shoulders. "Eddy," she prodded, and her voice, uttering my name, stirred even more feeling within me. When I looked up, she gazed deeply into my eyes. "You have committed no crime. You are guilty of nothing. Nothing, but confusion. Father will help you."

  Coming from her, I believed it. Her words filled me with confidence.

  "You were attacked in that basement," she went on. "But not by a man you murdered. I would not have come back for a murderer, Mr. Poe—"

  "Eddy," I reminded her.

  "Eddy." She smiled.

  A sudden bump in the road sent us both out of our seats. Our heads struck the ceiling and we came down in a sprawl, one atop the other.

  From behind us, I heard a sharp crack and a clatter. I disentangled myself from Olimpia and looked back. In attempting to duplicate our sharp turn, one of the police vehicles had toppled over onto its side. The driver was trying to drag himself out of the road. Broken glass and splintered spokes littered the cobbles around him. The horses charged on, straining to pull the dead weight of the capsized carriage behind them.

  The other police vehicle—the one bearing Gessler—barreled around the corner after us.

  I thrust my head out the window and yelled at Coppelius. "Faster!"

  He cocked his vulture's eye at me and lashed the horses mercilessly to ever greater speed.

  It was Sunday so the street was all but deserted. Stately brick buildings lined either side of the road. Coppelius' wild voice echoed hollowly off their edifices as we sped past them in a blur. Gessler rumbled after us in hot pursuit. To my dismay, I saw that the police horses were more powerful, their carriage sleeker and faster than ours.

  "They're gaining on us!" I cried to Olimpia, realizing at once that I was wasting my breath. I stuck my head out the window to inform Coppelius of what was certainly obvious to him already. I had no sooner opened my mouth than we took another hard turn. I fell back into the cab, again crashing into poor Olimpia who must have been a mass of bruises by now. Another jolt launched us from our seats. When I pulled myself upright, I saw a brick wall rushing so close past my window that I could have reached out and touched it. The iron fittings on the hubs of our wheels screeched on the masonry and I could see sparks flying up from below. I parted the little curtain in the back window and saw Gessler's carriage speed past, oblivious to our sudden dash into the alley.

  I clenched my fists in triumph, thinking we had seen the last of him. "Good show, Coppelius!"

  But as soon as we emerged from the alley, I saw that I had spoken too soon. Turning onto a wider boulevard, we were at once confronted with Gessler's carriage again. He had sped around the block and, turning onto the same boulevard, now barreled directly at us.

  The drivers of both seemed bent on collision. The police driver whipped his reins. Coppelius cracked his whip in reply, bellowing "Come and get us!" as he laughed maniacally. He did not alter his coarse by even an inch.

  Olimpia grasped my arm tightly, her eyes screwed shut.

  "They are coming right at us!" I shouted wildly.

  "Tell me only when it is over," Olimpia gasped, her fingers digging into my arm.

  "Coppelius!" I wanted to beseech him to swerve, but he only laughed in reply, cracking his whip furiously. The police driver must have thought he was facing down a madman, and I didn't blame him for I thought the same. The man would kill us all. I was certain of it. I grasped Olimpia's shoulders, bracing us for collision. I heard horses' hooves drawing ever closer, the rattle of the wheels. I closed my eyes.

  Nothing.

  When my ears should have been filled with the sound of cracking wood and shattering glass, I heard only the unhindered rumbling of our own wheels and Coppelius' croaking laughter. Looking behind us, I saw the police carriage careening out of control. It bounced up onto the sidewalk where two of its wheels vaulted over the top of a waist-high railing and stuck fast. The door of the carriage burst open and two men, one of them Gessler himself, spilled out onto the pavement.

  "We did it!" In my relief at still being alive, I planted what Tap would have called 'a wet one' on Olimpia's cheek. Embarrassed, I drew back immediately. But in all the excitement, I don't think she even realized that I had kissed her. I sat back in utter happiness, alive and in love, my lips quivering with joy.

  A couple of turns later, it became clear that the pursuit was over and Coppelius slowed our pace. Rolling alone through the streets, we crossed the Harlem River and traveled in the direction of the Hudson.

  ~ * * * ~

  "I trust you had a pleasant trip."

  "'Twas a race with the Devil, Dansby." Coppelius hopped down from the driver's seat and whisked his cape from his twisted shoulders. Dansby took it from him and Coppelius gave
him a sharp clap on the back. "A race with the Devil, I say. Along Hell's Highway, no less."

  Dansby, immaculate and imperturbable, nodded gravely as Coppelius strode past him and disappeared through the door of his ivy-covered manse. Olimpia and I clambered out of the brougham. I felt as if I had been on a long sea voyage. My knees buckled. I had to grasp the rim of a carriage wheel to keep from falling. I smiled sheepishly and waved her off when Olimpia jumped to assist me.

  "A wild ride, by any measure," I chuckled.

  I looked back along the circular carriageway we had just traversed. The few tall trees lining the drive had already gone bare for the year. Their dead leaves swirled crisply over the cobbles. Other trees interspersed across the overgrown landscape were bent and black, the bases of their trunks lost amid wild growths of weeds.

  The house itself seemed to rise from the ground like a mossy stump. The brick and limestone façade was so overgrown with ivy that I could discern few details of the house's construction. The profusion of clinging vines gave its dark windows a curiously vacant and malevolent air, like the eyes of a shaggy beast. Far below, beyond the iron-spiked fence that enclosed the grounds, I caught glimpses of the silvery Hudson as I followed Olimpia to the door where Mr. Dansby awaited us.

  I soon learned that I was to be a guest for as long as I deemed it necessary to stay. After conversing with the doctor for some time, his man Dansby showed me my room. There I found a cheerful fire already blazing in the hearth and a fresh set of clothes laid out for me on the bed. I was amazed by their elegance. I had never worn such fine garments and in the privacy of my room I spent some time examining myself in the mirror. Donning the black frock coat, I adopted a variety of poses before deciding to wear it fastened only at the top. This would ensure that my scarlet waistcoat would be amply visible beneath, even though no one but the Coppeliuses and Mr. Dansby would see it.

  When I went downstairs, Olimpia cooed appreciatively at my appearance.

  "You look splendid, Eddy!" she cried, clapping her hands together.

  I bowed grandly, mocking my own pretentiousness. Meaning to make some quip at my own expense, I instead emerged dumbfounded by the beauty I saw before me. Olimpia was radiant. She wore a bell-shaped gown, uncovered at the shoulders, and long white gloves. An array of silk flowers festooned her raven curls. I made to speak, but found that I could not. Across the table from her, Coppelius was already digging into his dinner. With the point of his knife, he gestured brusquely toward an empty chair, and I sat down happily beside Olimpia. Dansby brought us our dinners, but I scarcely knew what to do or say. When my eye fell upon Coppelius' face, I was surprised to see what looked like a twinkle of pleasure emanating from the old man's good eye, buried as it was under his bushy brow.

  During the course of our meal, I found that Coppelius was still flush with the excitement of the day. My feelings for him had undergone a transformation since our wild ride. His defiance of the police inspired me, and—though I had not yet puzzled out the true meaning of the evidence I had discovered against me—Taps' logic coupled with Olimpia's faith and the old man's boldness had filled me with a zeal to prove my innocencefor innocent I was.

  An idea came to me all at once. I leaned forward and pointed my fork at Coppelius' purple nose. "Gessler is framing me," I declared.

  The doctor stopped chewing and cocked his good eye at me. His vulture's eye peered disconcertingly somewhere over my shoulder.

  "He's framing no one now," Coppelius said. "Not after I spilled him to the pavement. Rolled his bones on the hard cobbles of Hell's Highway, I did!" He slapped the table and spat a laugha laugh that spewed tiny wet morsels of roast beef all over my fork hand. In my new-found passion, I was inclined to ignore it. But when Coppelius leaned back laughing and looked to share his quip with Dansby, I quickly wiped my hand clean before his foul spittle could dry on my fingers. For his part, Dansby, standing by the kitchen door, merely rocked back on his heels. Coppelius' laughter might have woken him from sleep.

  Undeterred, I went on, amazed that I had not thought of it before. "The man is framing me," I repeated, keeping my fork hand to myself this time.

  Coppelius shoved a hunk of meat into his mouth and his teeth rasped across the tines of his fork as he withdrew it, making my flesh crawl. "Framing you?"

  "Yes." I looked from the doctor to Olimpia who, eating daintily, seemed not to be listening. "It is clear as day now," I went on to Coppelius only. "What else could it be?"

  "It could be your somnambulism, Edgar. As I have said."

  I waved my hands dismissively as if the doctor's words might be swept from the air. "No, no, listen. It is all Gessler's doing, I tell you. Was he not alone in my house during my absence?"

  "Was he?"

  "And who had freer access to Burton's basement than he? And this I did not tell you, Doctor, but it was my impression at the time that Gessler's hand was in this from the beginning, that he had followed me to the crime scene, that he had hidden on the stairs." I looked again at Olimpia and for a moment my heart melted at the notion that she had professed belief in my monster. It broke my heart to betray her trust, but at that moment, I myself no longer did.

  "And the creature...?"

  "One of the man's associates. The Irishman, perhaps. In actor's makeup."

  "A joke gone awry?"

  "No, not a joke. An attempt to make me doubt my senses, to believe myself mad."

  "Surely not!"

  "Oh, surely yes!" I retorted boldly. "It all makes sense to me now. Gessler was in my house, and quite alone, I assure you. My desk drawer, and my..." I patted the pocket of my frock coat and realized that not only was I wearing a different jacket, but I had left the vial behind at my house. I had thrust it into the same desk drawer in which I now knew Gessler had planted the most damning evidence against me. Once again, however, I thought better of telling any of this to Coppelius.

  When I hesitated, Coppelius asked, "What of your desk drawer?"

  I cleared my throat. "Only that Gessler had free access to it," I said, "as well as every other part of my house. Any evidence he finds there now, I tell you, was planted by him."

  Coppelius pointed his dead vulture's eye at me—skeptically, I supposed. "And for what reason would this Gessler want to frame you?"

  "I cannot begin to answer the 'why' when I still do not even know the 'what' for a certainty."

  "The 'what'?"

  "Burton!" I exclaimed. At my outburst, Olimpia looked up from her chewing. "I saw Billy Burton alive with my own eyes. I swear to it—as certainly as I am looking at you—and I will prove it!" I slapped my palm on the table, rattling the silver. "Gessler believes Burton is the dead man. It looked like him, I will admit it. But until a man can be in two places at onceboth dead and alive at the same time—I tell you, the dead man was a fraud."

  "Gessler's man in actor's makeup..." Coppelius prompted.

  "Yes! Ha-Ha! Easy to pull off in the darkness of the basement chamber. I will expose his fraud. This passing resemblance to Burton will be as nothing to the living and breathing man when I show him to the inspector, as I will tomorrow."

  "He will be compelled to believe you when you show him the real man!"

  Buoyed, I continued. "Furthermore, I will visit the scene of what Gessler unjustly calls the 'Rue Morgue' murder." The man had been lying to my face, every word falling from his damned Prussian tongue a lie. "The 'Rue Morgue'!" I spat. "Pure invention."

  "Do you think this is wise?"

  "Wise? Nothing has ever been clearer to me. Gessler wants Dupin? I will give him Dupin, by God! Oh, yes. He will investigate this 'Rue Morgue', all right, and he will find it every bit the fraud that was the other. And I will present it as such right to Gessler's face."

  "But if you are attacked again?"

  I laughed, for I had already considered this. "You mean should Gessler devise to have some poor Hop-Frog amble out of the chimney after me? Perhaps his Irishman in an ape suit?"

  "You must consi
der the danger," Coppelius suggested in the midst of my laughter.

  "Oh, but Gessler will not know of my visit this time. He will have no way of preparing for me. And I will not be alone, in any case. I will take Briggs with me. I fear he is the only friend I have," I added, realizing sadly, as I mentally sorted through a list of candidates, that it was true.

  Olimpia disagreed. "You have us," she said. Barely audible, her sweet voice tickled my ear and sent a thrill through me, raising the hairs on my arms. When I looked in her direction, her eyes vanished beneath luxurious lashes as she gazed down at her barely picked at food. I wondered at first who exactly her 'us' encompassed. Dr. Coppelius? Dansby? Was I one of them now? Were we 'us'? It seemed strange to consider it, but I supposed it was true.

  "You are quite safe here, my boy." Coppelius reached across the table and slapped me on the shoulder as if to seal some compact that now bound us together. Then he stood abruptly, clapping his hands. "But enough of this. Dansby!"

  Moments later, Coppelius led us into an adjoining room. Its wood-trimmed walls were papered in maroon velvet and we sat in the warm glow of many brass lamps. Dansby poured the wine and our crystal gleamed as warmly as our bellies soon did. After a few minutes, at the doctor's insistence, Olimpia made her way to a great harp and, sitting in the chair that had been placed next to it, tilted its elegant frame onto her shoulder and began to play.

  I watched her delicate fingers glide over the strings, not seeming to touch them, but producing a sound that might have spilled from Heaven itself. When she began to sing, it was as if angels had descended from the clouds. I was entranced. As she reached forward to pluck one of the harp strings, I caught sight of her bare shoulder blade and noted the milky flawlessness of her skin. I started in embarrassment when I saw that Coppelius was watching me watching her.

  "She is beautiful, is she not?" he asked with a keen look in his good eye.