The policeman groaned, and Inspector Dupin turned away. “Let me never see you again, Mr. Poe. I don’t know why you bothered to come.”
“Because I have proof! And I can show it to you. A full confession written in Reginald Usher’s own hand.”
Dupin paused and turned with a skeptical frown. “Usher was quite clear that if you made false accusations against him again, he would press charges. You will be ruined.”
Poe straightened his shoulders and looked the inspector in the eye. “If you should find my claims insufficient, then you may arrest me. But you will arrest Usher instead when you read what he has written. I can show you.”
The policeman who had been holding Poe looked upset. “Waste of time, sir.”
Poe pushed past the pain of his injuries, heard the thoughts and unanswered questions in Dupin’s mind, and took hope. “Surely there must be some question in your mind, Inspector?” His eyes pleaded. “We simply need to go to his newspaper office. It’ll take only a moment, and you will take a murderer off the streets of Richmond.”
“I will lock someone up before this day is done, that’s for certain,” grumbled Dupin. “This is your last chance.”
***
When they arrived at the offices of the Richmond Epitaph, Reginald Usher rose from his great mahogany desk, clearly indignant. “Inspector Dupin, I had hoped never to see you again.”
The newspaperman’s office was appointed like a fine withdrawing room with its own fireplace, a small side table with a cut-crystal decanter of brandy, an overstuffed leather chair. The walls were covered with fine oak shelves filled with countless books of varying sizes, fat volumes, slender volumes with embossed spines and bound in shades of leather or cloth. The books were arranged haphazardly, giving no indication as to how the books were arranged, whether by subject, author, or language.
Two policemen entered behind Dupin and stood at attention by the door. Poe remained close as the inspector spoke in a formal voice, “Police business, sir. I hope to accept your invitation to make use of the resources in your library?” He glanced at the shelves filled with more books than any one man could read. “Might I avail upon your generosity to double-check a detail?”
Usher looked witheringly at Poe, wary. “Why have you brought this . . . creature? Did we not put an end to his ravings the other day?” He sniffed. “He appears to need medical attention—and a bath. Has he hurt himself?”
A flare of violent suspicions leaked out of Usher’s mind, like smoke from a badly vented fireplace. He was on the edge of more violence, expecting Poe to accuse him of the assault, which he would merely laugh at.
But Poe was not so foolish. He also heard Dupin’s doubts, the impatience, and his surprising dislike for Reginald Usher. Dupin was a keen inspector with an instinct for what was not right. Poe had explained what he needed from the newspaperman’s office.
The inspector led the conversation. “No need to bother with that, sir. I merely need an item from your library. One quick verification, and then I can absolve you of all guilt. No one will ever give a second thought to Mr. Poe’s wild stories.”
“No one ever did,” Usher said pointedly, then fashioned a magnanimous smile again. “I have always said that the learned men of Richmond may peruse my library. What is it you need, Inspector? A quote from Pliny the Elder? A Greek translation of the Holy Scriptures? Berlini’s account of the red death in Italy?”
“Mr. Poe has a specific title in mind.”
Usher frowned at the idea. “And what does he know of my library?” Poe sensed a flare of puzzlement, then unease rippling through the murderer’s closely hidden thoughts. Something about the wild look on Poe’s bruised expression gave him pause. “My books are very well cared for, some of them quite valuable . . . ”
When Usher looked about to withdraw his invitation, Dupin quickly stepped in. Poe sensed the surprise and growing suspicion in the inspector’s thoughts. “Sir, I am required to complete my investigation. Now, I would not dream of tearing up your floorboards or knocking down your brick walls in search of hidden bodies. But perusing a book from your library is not too much to ask, is it?”
Taking the initiative, Poe hurried over to the nearest library shelf. “It’s here, I know it is!” He squinted with his one good eye to read the titles on the spines. He moved from volume to volume, trying to match what he had seen in a flash of Usher’s memories the night before. One particular volume . . .
As a murderer, Usher was ruthless. He had hidden the bodies of his victims, but his greatest camouflage was to cloak himself in the guise of a respectable businessman, to hide himself in plain sight. He relished the violence he committed, and he felt frustrated that he couldn’t share his bloody deeds with others who might appreciate them.
Poe scanned the next shelf, then the next, book after book, but nothing caught his attention. He didn’t bother to pull any volume from its place, didn’t open a single cover.
“How much longer must we endure this masquerade, Inspector?” Usher asked. “Arrest him and end this harassment.” The two policemen at the door fidgeted, uncertain.
“You are a clever man,” Poe muttered. “But your greatest failing is your arrogance. You simply could not resist boasting about what you had done, writing down every aspect of how you smothered the old man and then butchered his body, how you smashed out the teeth of your dear niece after you killed her, how you taunted your rival as he hung on manacles in your cellar.” He glared at the newspaperman. “You wrote it all down.”
Usher scoffed. “If I were guilty of such outrageous deeds, why the devil would I document them?”
“Because you were certain no one would ever find it.” He ran his fingers along the volumes on the next shelf, saw Usher stiffen. Inspector Dupin looked on with keen interest.
Poe continued, “In your journal confessing to the crimes, you recorded every last violent and painful detail because you were confident in your hiding place. A perfect hiding place.” He spotted several unmarked volumes in the second middle shelf, right at eye level. “If Inspector Dupin were to ransack your offices and your house looking for such a journal, he would rack his brain to find the cleverest hiding place. He would never find it, would he?”
Poe rested his finger on a drab, nondescript volume. When he smiled, his split lip ached. “But you chose to hide your bloody confession in plain sight, right here where anyone could see it, in your own personal library which you have made available to any scholar in Richmond.” Triumphant, he seized the unmarked journal, a thin volume invisible among so many weightier tomes. “But why would anyone notice something like this?”
Poe held up the book and opened the cover for Dupin. “Here, Inspector, in Reginald Usher’s own hand is the full account of his murders.”
Dupin was fascinated by his monologue, and the two policemen pressed forward to read as Poe opened the pages to reveal a dense account in tightly efficient handwriting.
A wordless howl of inhuman rage startled him. Red faced, Usher seized the iron poker by the fireplace and rushed at him. His eyes looked like shattered glass. In that instant, Poe saw the bestial look that his other victims must have seen.
A loud shot rang out, the report from Dupin’s pistol. The bullet struck Usher in the upper chest and hurled him back into his mahogany desk. The two policemen rushed forward, taken off guard. They had been prepared to grapple with Poe, and had never assumed the newspaperman might become violent.
“I always allow for possibilities, no matter how small,” said Inspector Dupin.
Usher groaned, bleeding onto his fine desktop as the policemen seized him. Poe handed the nondescript journal to Dupin without reading it, because he already knew what the pages contained. He had witnessed the crimes themselves in the haunting thoughts of Reginald Usher.
Dupin blanched as he skimmed the first several pages. “You were right. You were right all along. This is . . . hideous.”
“I can also show you where to find the bodies. I
wager you’ll be willing to knock down the bricks and tear up the floorboards now?”
The inspector was clearly shaken. “I do not doubt you anymore, Mr. Poe, but how could you know? How could you possibly know?”
“Guilty thoughts are loud and clear to those sensitive to them,” he said.
The thin explanation was insufficient, but the inspector shook his head. “Whatever the reason, you have caught a killer. Usher will surely hang for it. You have done a great service, Mr. Poe.”
He did not feel victorious, however. The guilty thoughts, the miserable ghosts, the haunting crimes would continue to swirl around him. Every person had secrets, and Edgar Allan Poe could hear them, whether he wanted to or not. Even though Usher would harm no one else, countless other horrors continued to emanate from the crowds in the city, from strangers he met or, worse, from people he considered friends. The whispers and screams would never stop plaguing him.
His only respite from the ghoulish din was drinking himself into a stupor, but that was its own path of self-destruction. Usher himself had gained cold satisfaction by documenting what he had done, however, confessing to an invisible audience.
Poe himself was a writer. Maybe there was another way to purge the horrors that other people placed unwillingly in his mind. He might find some personal release if he captured those awful incidents using his gift of words.
He could write them down and publish them.
TOPSY-TURVY
ELIZABETH MASSIE
The carrots were nasty, but then again, I’d eaten plenty of nasty things so I didn’t think much about it. I had no idea they were poisoned and that those idiots were determined to murder me.
Hindsight, right?
Barney told me, “Don’t sweat it, Topsy, it’s over.”
But seriously. I should have suspected something. I mean, come on. Joe O’Malley, my more-often-than-not drunk handler there in Coney Island’s Luna Park, was acting unusually sober and pleasant that morning. He opened the stable window to let in some fresh, brisk January air. He talked sweet as if he liked me. He scrubbed me with a broom on my belly where it can itch like the blazes. The other Luna elephants, tied up down the line, gave me the stink eye, wondering what was up.
I should have been wondering, too. But damn, that was one great belly scrub.
Then O’Malley held out a batch of bright orange carrots and wiggled them just so. “Mmm, yummy,” he said. “A treat for you, big girl.” I scooped them from his hand with my trunk and stuffed them into my mouth. The taste was bitter but then again, I wasn’t used to good food. O’Malley crossed his arms and watched me closely, as if he was expecting something to happen. And yes, I admit, I started to feel a little light-headed.
“Good girl,” O’Malley said. “Everything’s gonna be all right.” His voice squeaked a little and his lip hitched. He gave me another couple of nasty carrots and, of course, I ate those, too.
And began feeling a bit more woozy.
Carl Goliath entered the stable, wheeling a barrow in which were a lovely copper harness and several lengths of chain. Goliath was a gristly-bristly man with a hideous mustache and eternal frown. He’d been hired as an elephant “expert,” but trust me, he was no better than O’Malley. They were both bums. O’Malley and Goliath used step stools to secure the harness onto my head and then attach lengths of chain, which hung down my sides like a hula skirt. In my less than clear-headed state, I thought perhaps I was going to lead a grand parade up and down Surf Avenue to help promote Luna Park. What with the lovely copper harness, jingling chains, and all.
Wrong.
Once adorned, the bums led me out of the stable while the other elephants watched. Jealous, maybe?
Not for long.
I lumbered along beside O’Malley and Goliath, across the backstretch of the park that was still under construction, past piles of boards, mounds of frozen mud, half-built food stands and trinket booths. My breath fogged the winter air. The bums shivered as they walked, swearing that they best get an extra day’s wage for all this craziness.
We stopped at the edge of the park’s large lagoon, Luna’s central “masterpiece.” In the middle of the lagoon was an island and on the island was the partially-constructed, soon-to-be 200-foot tall “Electric Tower,” which, when the park opened in May, would shine so bright “the man on the moon will be able to see it” owner Frederic Thompson claimed. At the foot of the tower’s frame stood Thompson and a handful of official-looking men in bowlers and tailored coats. Beside them was a large steam engine and numerous electric cables snaking along the ground.
I should have bolted then and there. I’m an elephant, for Heaven’s sake. I’m the most powerful animal on Earth. But those stupid carrots . . . those stupid, nasty-tasting, poison-laced carrots.
“Quit obsessing,” Barney told me, trying to bring me back to the present. “Let it go. Seriously, Topsy, if you were still alive you’d give yourself a heart attack.” I ignored him.
A narrow wooden bridge spanned the ice-frosted lagoon to the island. O’Malley pulled out his bull hook and thumped me on the ribs. “Git,” he said. “Over the bridge with you.”
I don’t do bridges. O’Malley thumped me again. Groggily, I shook my head and didn’t budge. O’Malley didn’t stick me a third time. He was well aware of my past. Sure, I’ve killed a couple people, but trust me, they deserved it. One man had stabbed me with a pitchfork. Another had burned my trunk with a lit cigarette. If they didn’t deserve to be dashed and crushed, I don’t know who does. And so O’Malley knew better than to get me upset. He called out, “She’s not coming over, Mr. Thompson. We have to figure out something else.”
“Make her!” shouted Thompson.
“No, sir, can’t do it.”
“What about you, Goliath?”
Goliath’s hideous mustache twitched. “Not going to happen, Mr. Thompson.”
Thompson threw out his arms. “Damn it all. All right.”
It took a work crew quite a while to rig up the “something else.” The cables and engine were hoisted onto dollies and brought across the bridge to where I stood. The official looking men in their tailored coats and bowlers followed the cables and engine across the bridge and huddled in bunches, looking at once both fascinated and impatient. Thompson came last, giving me the human stink eye, which is more deadly than an elephant stink eye.
As the crew made their attachments and adjustments for whatever spectacle they had planned, I glanced around. Though my vision had become blurry, I could see that in addition to the rich men in their rich coats there were men with a moving picture camera. And atop the solid wooden fence that separated Luna Park from the rest of Coney Island, were even more people. Poor people, these were, staring down at me with wide eyes. Okay, so there wasn’t going to be a parade. There would be some sort of show, obviously, with me as the main attraction. I didn’t dance like Thompson’s monkeys, or turn flips like Thompson’s seals, but I could pose real nice, trumpet, and make people clap and say, “Ah! How fine is that elephant!”
Ta-dah!
“Okay, Topsy,” O’Malley said. “Time for your shoes.”
Shoes?
O’Malley and Goliath coaxed me to lift one front foot and then one back foot so they could secure a wooden slipper on each. The slippers had metal studs protruding from the sides and they were terribly uncomfortable. I tried to shake them off. O’Malley said, “Hold on there, girl,” and gave me another batch of carrots. Of course, I ate them. I’m an elephant. Very little impulse control. Even more woozy now, I stood docilely in place. Better for me had I been able to draw on my well-known temper and stampeded the hell away from there.
But no.
“Let it go,” Barney repeated, a trace of annoyance in his voice now. “It’s all in the past. You’re dead.”
But I couldn’t let it go. I just couldn’t.
Goliath fastened cables to the studs in the sides of my wooden shoes. O’Malley gathered the hula skirt chains up under me and a
ttached them to yet another cable. Quite an ordeal it was. I kept thinking, “What the hell is going on?” but was too foggy to put two and two together. And so, like the most stupid elephant that ever lived on this wild green Earth, I just waited.
The rich men stepped closer to me. Thompson gave them a look of warning and waved them back. One man hesitated, though, angling his head and gazing at me with a pair of beady eyes and a most bizarre, satisfied grin. Then he ducked his face down into his cloak as if afraid someone would recognize him and he backed up to join the others.
That man.
That beady-eyed, grinning bastard.
I didn’t know who you were then, Tommy-boy, but I know now. You couldn’t stay away, could you? You had to be there to see the pièce de résistance at Luna Park, that final, most grand animal execution of all, so much more exciting than mere dogs or cats. You didn’t want others to know you were there. Yet it was the company that bears your name that provided the current. It was the Edison Manufacturing Company that filmed the event for the entertainment of the masses, using a moving picture camera you helped invent.
Yes, that was you, hiding in your cloak.
The camera began rolling. I could hear its clickety-clickety-clicks. O’Malley gave me one final carrot. As I chewed, he and Goliath stepped back. Way back. Like they thought I was going to let out one huge elephant-sized carrot fart. As a matter of fact, I could feel a big, bitter carrot fart swelling in my bowels. Would that ever feel good once it moved down and out. Fart that shitty carrot gas out and maybe I wouldn’t feel so awful, maybe I—
Then something enormous, crackling, and white-hot blasted through me, blowing up my insides, cooking me like a five-ton ham. My body locked. My trunk curled and my feet began to smoke. I didn’t even have time to think, “What the Hell is going on?” before my eyes rolled back and my body crashed down, taking my mind with it.
“Topsy,” said Barney.
Fantastic Tales of Terror Page 5