Perhaps he thought my scrutiny of his daughter too brazen. I felt my cheeks redden. "I assure you, sir—" I began, but he waved off my apology.
"And her singing?" he asked.
I stammered, not knowing what he expected me to say. "Enchanting," I managed boldly at last, seeing that the man was not condemning me.
"Flawless is how I would put it. Wouldn't you?"
Our conversation seemed encapsulated by the angelic sound. "Indeed I would!" I exclaimed, feeling overcome. "Flawless it is!"
This seemed to please the old man. He clapped his hands together and uttered a cry of triumph. I found myself laughing along with him. In the next instant, Coppelius was on his feet. He rushed to the side wall and flung away a cloth, revealing a great pipe organ. He sat and after pulling some levers and pumping pedals began playing in accompaniment to Olimpia's song.
This took me by surprise and I applauded, shouting, "Bravo, Doctor! Bravo!" Coppelius had astounded me once again. It was shaping up to be a gay evening indeed. I felt my worries slipping away.
Coppelius played the organ the same way he drove a carriage—as if the gates of Hell had been thrown open before him. His arms flailed above his hunched and twisted back as he played. He might have been again driving the brougham, thrashing the horses. But no one barreled after him this time.
After a few moments, he began tugging at levers and pulling out the organ's stops. I heard a loud clanking of metal and saw wisps of steam rising from a vent in the floor. Then Coppelius whirled from his seat. While he had ceased playing, the organ did not. To my astonishment, I saw the keys rising and falling and the foot pedals pumping in the same manner as when Coppelius had been playing. Only now, he acted not as musician but as conductor, describing wide arcs in the air with his hands in time to the music emanating from his ghostly machine.
After a few minutes of this, he turned to Olimpia and bowed deeply. Then she too, flipping a switch or turning a knob to activate some hidden mechanism in the frame, stood while her harp continued to play without her. I half-rose from my chair to see the strings vibrating under spectral fingers. Olimpia took her father's hands and they began to dance to the tune provided by Coppelius' ghostly orchestra.
A grand show, indeed!
"Bravo!" I shouted again, clapping. This Coppelius was a cleverer man than ever I had imagined! Not only a medical man but a cunning engineer as well, a magician of gear and shaft.
I sat on the edge of my seat watching the pair whirl across the dance floor. I was mesmerized by Olimpia's every move. For an instant, I even forgot the old man's hideousness. Olimpia alone filled my vision, a divine solitary dancer. When I again became aware of Coppelius' dark form, I fancied Olimpia an enchanted creature cursed by a malevolent god to forever cast the grim misshapen shadow of her father.
With each turning of the dancers, the old man's pale blue vulture's eye flashed at me. I could read his thoughts in his glances at me and I was filled with trepidation, for I myself was no dancer. The very idea of it made me feel awkward and foolish. To think of my clumsy tread spoiling Olimpia's graceful step filled me with embarrassment. By the time Coppelius offered me Olimpia's hand, I had already concocted a thousand excuses to refrain.
"A young girl tires quickly of dancing with her father, Edgar, my boy. Now it is for you to see if the flawlessness of her singing is matched by the lightness of her step!"
The intensity of Coppelius' paternal pride took me by surprise. An instant later, I found Olimpia's hand in mine, though I could not say how it got there. Even through her silk glove, I could feel the warmth and softness of her palm and my embarrassment became a distant memory.
If I trod upon her delicate toes as we danced, I did not know it, for I felt as though I existed now in a world of dreams. I was aware of nothing but the feel of Olimpia's palm in my hand, the nearness of her face to mine, the curve of her waspish waist. Even the music seemed to withdraw into the air around us. All my life, I had felt haunted by ill angels only, but now in the embrace of an angel of the divine, I felt that I at last knew what happiness was.
Later, in my room, I tried to recount every last moment of it. I recalled her laughter, hoping it was joy. I dared not suppose it to be love. I could still smell her hair in my nostrils as I folded my new clothes and hung them carefully over the back of a chair. Maybe it was only derision. Who would not laugh at my heavy-heeled stomping?
I crawled into the canopied bed, wondering vaguely how long my happiness could last.
I reached across my body to turn down the lamp. By the time I settled back into my pillows, I had my answer.
There on the wall opposite my bed, the moon had cast a shadow.
A shadow in the shape of a raven.
Chapter 9
I resisted for as long as I could, but when his tapping threatened to wake the entire household, I cracked open the window.
"Thanks for taking me with you!" Tap groused as he crawled inside.
"Quiet!" I warned. It must have been after midnight.
"Listen to him! 'Quiet,' he says. I had to play dumb all day, Eddy, acting like a stupid bird. And now you want me to be quiet?" Tap flapped across the room and alighted on the bureau.
I rushed after him and opened the door a crack, thrusting my head through. The hallway was empty and dark. I heard nothing but the ticking of a clock. Satisfied that he had disturbed no one, I closed the door softly.
I turned to Tap. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"You left me alone with the cops, Eddy. It was just me and them, mano a mano."
"Mano...?"
"...a mano, yes. The big cheese, he tore off after you—"
"Gessler," I said.
"—but the rest of the cops wanted to go through your stuff."
"My stuff? What did they find?"
"Nothing! Thanks to me, that is." Tap took a moment to inspect his surroundings. He looked down at his feet, scanned the top of the bureau and paused to cock his head at his own reflection in the mirror. "Say, this is living! Is this where we're staying?"
"For the time being. What happened?"
"What happened? I saved your ass, that's what happened. Forced to humiliate myself—for your sake, Eddy. And not for the first time, let me tell ya."
I felt my patience ebbing. "Damn you, Tap! Out with it!"
"Okay, okay. Summary version: The cops wanted to go through your desk. But I raised such a flirt and flutter, I wouldn't let them get anywhere near your desk drawer. I knew what you had in there—your laudan and your sheet of fancy L's and whatever the hell else you keep in there. God knows! The cops were busy chasing me all over the room."
"And they never got into my desk?" It was more than I could have hoped for.
"Naw, they forgot all about it. I was dive-bombing them. Anyway, just to make sure, I..."
"Yes?" I asked. I had no idea what 'dive-bombing' was, but with Tap you had to sift through lots of mysterious phrases to get at the nub of his meaning.
"I..." Tap seemed hesitant to continue.
"You what? What?"
"I took a big bird dump right on the drawer handle. None of the cops even tried to touch it after that."
"You did what?"
"I'm not proud of it."
"The police never searched my desk?" This seemed to me the main point.
Tap shook his head. "Everything is just as you left it. Laudan, L's, everything!"
"Tap, I love you!" I said.
"Well, just remember that when you go home and find your desk drawer streaked with bird shit. That was me. But it was out of love that I did it, Eddy. You said it yourself. It was a love-dump."
I laughed and got back into bed, feeling lighter than before. Tap continued talking, even after I had closed my eyes.
"Not such a 'thing of evil' now, am I, Eddy? By the way, 'evil' and 'devil' don't rhyme. Just so you know..."
~ * * * ~
When I woke in the morning, Tap was gone. I left the window open a crack in case he dec
ided to return. Then I put on my clothes from the previous day. My story, 'Berenice', was still in my pocket where I had put it to keep it out of Gessler's clutches. Briggs would have his original story, no reprints today. I withdrew it and folded the pages neatly and replaced them in my pocket. Then I had Mr. Dansby drive me to the train station where I could make my way into the city to meet with Briggs.
It seemed to me that much had changed since I had last seen him. Then, I had thought Burton's fate an odd sort of mystery bearing little connection to me, and Gessler's fixation on me a mere nuisance. Yet both had been enough to put me on edge and we had parted—Briggs and I—with Briggs convinced that I was mad.
Things had only grown more complicated since. The Burton mystery had been compounded by both living and dead versions of the same man, one of whom I had consumed in flames along with the environs of his entombment while Gessler's interest in me had become less the annoying infatuation of an admirer than the scheming of a dangerous hunter—especially after I had led him on a frantic chase through the streets of the city.
So I was not quite sure what to expect as I turned the corner and approached the entrance to the offices of the Journal. One thing that did not surprise me was the congregation of the Raven-boys outside the front door. After the fright I had given them on Friday, they were not as bold as usual. But once they saw that I had regained my customary cheerfulness, they swarmed me as always with their cries of "Nevermore! Nevermore!"
I reflected that Tap would love to see this someday—and the boys Tap, too, no doubt.
I tucked my thumbs under my arms and gave them a flap, whereupon, giggling, the boys dispersed to the four winds like a flock of birds themselves.
Inside, I had expected to find Briggs at work in his office. I instead found him busy in mine.
"Briggs! What is the meaning of this?"
He was dragging furniture and boxes out of my office. There was my couch, my desk. When Briggs heard my voice, he looked up from his labors. Rivulets of sweat streaked his face. He looked like a man who had been caught in some devious undertaking, and I concluded at once that indeed he had.
I wound my way through the rows of desks in the front office, feeling my face growing hotter with each step. The girls would not look at me as I passed.
"Edgar! What on earth are you doing here?" Briggs asked. He was in the midst of filling a small trunk with my personal effects. My pens ... an inkwell... He met my gaze only briefly before going back to work. His shame would not allow him to look me in the eye. "I thought I told you to go home and get some rest."
"Why? So you could rob me?" I strode past him and thrust my head into the door of my office. It was bare. Briggs had opened the windows and the shutters. The room was filled with fresh air and bright sunlight, making it almost unrecognizable to me. Lately, I had used my office mostly for sleeping off my bouts of melancholy. The darkness soothed me. When I worked, it was by the light of a single guttering flame.
Briggs raised his head. "Rob you? I have bent over backwards for you, Edgar." He jammed a few more items into the trunk before looking up. "And this is how you thank me?"
Now I was confused. "What?" I asked. I spied my winter scarf curled up like a snake and snatched it from the trunk. I wondered where I had left it.
Briggs stood and strode briskly away towards his own office. I blinked at his back in confusion and then followed.
"What? 'What' is how I thank you?"
"You're finished here, that's 'what'," he said, throwing up his hands.
"Briggs! Tell me what is happening. I demand to know! Look!" I remembered 'Berenice' and fished it from my pocket. "I have finished a new story for publication."
Briggs took the pages and scanned the first few lines quickly. "'Misery is manifold'," he read darkly. "'The wretchedness of earth...'" He looked up at me from the page. "This is what you do instead of resting? Look at you."
"But you said you wanted new material."
"It is too late for that." He thrust the pages back into my hand, turned and opened the door to his office. Letters on the frosted glass read "C.F. Briggs, Editor." I followed him inside. He pulled the latest issue of the Journal from his desktop, thumbed through it and handed it to me. I was dumbfounded.
"Go ahead," he urged. "Read."
He had opened the issue to one of my latest reviews. "It is the book review I wrote last month," I said.
"Your review of what? What book? Go ahead. Tell me..."
"'Treatise on Corns, Bunions, the Diseases of Nails—'"
Briggs pulled the magazine from my hands before I could finish. "'—and the General Management of the Feet'," he concluded. "And what do you say of it? Let's see here..." His eyes darted over the printed page. "Oh, yes, here it is. In your final analysis, you say that this work—how do you put it?—'cannot fail to do a great deal of good.'" Briggs slammed the magazine down on the desk and actually began to laugh.
"It seemed to me a useful tome..." I said sheepishly.
"We have become a laughing-stock, Edgar."
"A laughing-stock?" I could feel my temper rising.
"'Treatise on Corns, Bunions—'"
"The magazine must be filled with something, sir!"
"And your serious literary criticisms have become mere reviews of proofreading. Don't think I have not had complaints. Even a typographical error throws you into an ecstasy of passion, while your own review of this—this toenail book is full of them!"
"Is it your position that these errors are to be overlooked?"
"You make quotations from the German, but can't read a word of that language."
"I will be the judge of what languages I can read."
"I have had enough of this, Edgar. I tell you on Friday to take time off and rest, and you come back on Monday with some grim tale of misery and wretchedness. I have done all I can for you. I wash my hands—"
"All you can?"
"Yes! All I can—to compassionately conceal your ill habits from others. I have loaned you money—and I am repaid only with contempt."
"Contempt?"
"For the crime, I daresay, of knowing your true character."
"Crimes! Now we get to the nub of it. I should have known."
Briggs strode past me and went back to the pile of my displaced belongings. The girls at their desks, who had obviously been watching us, averted their eyes when they saw me.
"You are free to take as much of this with you when you go, " Briggs said. "But you will go. I will not have the police—"
"Gessler!" I spat as one would a curse. I knew it!
"I run a reputable business here, Mr. Poe. I do not employ suspected criminals, nor do I wish to be privy to their ugly crimes."
"But the accusations are lies, sir!"
"Is that why you led the police on some mad chase through the streets? Oh, yes! I know all about it. This business with Burton—"
"Lies, I tell you!"
"—the burning of the building. My God, Edgar! You have gone mad. There have always been those who said so, and I have always defended you. But this! You have gone too far. I can defend you no longer."
"Defend me? But I am the victim here, not the perpetrator. You must believe me." I realized that by requiring his belief in my innocence, I was asking of him something I myself could not have given. But I suddenly felt desperate, knowing that Gessler had turned my friend—my only friend—against me. "It is now incumbent upon me to prove my innocence."
"As I have heard it, you have endeavored only to conceal your guilt."
"Someone has tried to kill me. And for that you say I am guilty?"
"Who has tried to kill you?" Briggs asked incredulously.
"Burton" I began, but Gessler had so corrupted his mind against me that Briggs would not even allow me to explain.
"Burton! By God, Edgar, you are mad! The very man you are suspected of—2"
"You have it all wrong, Briggs. Listen to me. I need your help if I am to prove my innocence. I need you t
o accompany me to the Rue Morgue—"
I had reached out to grasp his lapel, but he jerked back in horror. "You are beyond my help, Edgar."
"Will you listen to me, at least?" I cried.
Briggs looked around himself like a trapped animal. His eye alighted on the crumpled Gentleman's Magazine that lay in my half-opened desk drawer. He grabbed it and thrust it under my nose as if it were a piece of raw meat and I a menacing dog.
"Here! Here is your precious 'Pym' review. Now, take it and go!"
I whisked it from his hand, if only to get it out of my face, and in so doing caught a glimpse of the familiar woodcut of William E. Burton on the frontispiece. Whether oozing putrescence or spewing insults, the very visage of the man had become detestable to me. I was afraid the hated image might have burned itself into my retinas, for when I looked up from the page, I saw him still, only this time framed in the windows that fronted the street. I had to blink to make sure I was not seeing double. But, sure enough, there was Burton's head bobbing obliviously in the windows as the man himself walked past on the sidewalk outside.
I did not detest the sight of him now. Now, I saw in him the hand of my deliverance.
"It is the man himself!" I cried. "Look!"
"Who?" Briggs asked in near panic.
"Billy Burton, you fool! Don't you see him?" My impulse was to dash after him and I took a step in that direction. But I paused, turning my gaze from the windows to Briggs' bewildered face and back to the windows again.
"You saw Burton? Just now?"
Burton's head disappeared past the window frame. But how could Briggs have missed it? The man I had supposedly murdered passed right under his nose—and he claimed not to have noticed? I was not so easily fooled.
"Ha!" I exclaimed in triumph, hurling the magazine back in Briggs' face. Burton, walking the streets! Oh, to see Gessler's face when I showed him. "You still think I killed him?" I dashed across the office, threading my way between desks. "Who's mad now, Briggs?" I cried.
"Edgar! Where are you going? Come back here at once!"
I had taken my last order from Briggs. "I quit!" I cried and dashed out into the street.
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