Now, at least I was armed. With my new-found weapon leveled at his chest, I turned to face my assailant, preparing to give as good as I got. I dared not consider how the wooden stick would fare against the cold steel of the rapier. Thankfully, I did not have to find out, for at that moment I heard a clatter and bustle behind me. I turned and saw Burton and the masked villain fled just as he rushed around the corner towards us.
"There you are, Poe! I say, what are you doing? Ah, my stick! I see you have found it."
"Defending myself from murder is what I am doing!" I cried. "There! He went through that door!"
"Who?"
"The murderer, by God!" I shouted over my shoulder as I dashed through the door on the heels of my assailant.
Once through the door, I found myself alone in what looked like a ballroom with all the chairs and tables stacked up against the walls. I thought to find the man lurking in the shadows. But, scanning the room, I saw no sign of him. Then I noticed an open window. I rushed to it and looked out. I saw nothing but the empty street below.
Then I saw, secured to the wall within easy reach of the window, a drain pipe which extended the full height of the building. No doubt the swordsman had shimmied down it. "The villain has escaped," I declared with a mixture of frustration and relief.
Burton thrust his head out the window next to mine. He looked down at the empty street and then followed the path of the pipe up the wall. I saw a shadow of doubt cloud his eyes.
He pushed himself away from the window. "Well, come along, Poe. We have our own escaping to do," he said as the sound of the front door knocker reached our ears.
Whether he believed me or not, I now knew one thing for certain: I was going to need more than Burton's walking stick if I wanted to stay alive.
Chapter 11
"Are you talking to me?"
I tried whirling quicker this time, but with the same result. The heavy Colt revolver snagged on my coat pocket. Instead of staring down my assailant with cold, steely eyes as I had intended, I found myself yanking at the pistol grip until I heard the snitch of the lining rip as I tore the weapon free.
By then, it was too late. My steely gaze would mean little with a neat, round hole in my forehead or a blade in my heart. Looking back at me in the full-length mirror I saw an embarrassed-looking little man with a too-large gun barrel protruding from his smallish fist.
I glanced at the proprietor and uttered a little chuckle. "I believe I'll try a more deliberate turn this time," I said.
The gun shop owner looked up at the ceiling.
I replaced the revolver in my now-torn pocket, turned my back to the mirror and tried again.
Making my voice husky and threatening, I asked, "Are you talking to me?" Then I turned on my heel, a little more slowly this time. Withdrawing the revolver from my pocket, however, proved no less difficult. Now, the long barrel fouled in the fabric—got twisted up in it somehow. The handle slipped from my fingers. The pistol fell and went skittering across the floor. Empty-handed, I watched it disappear beneath one of the display cases.
The proprietor's voice broke the silence "Yer an author of some sort, right?"
I sighed. I decided I might as well proclaim proudly who and what I was, because I sure wasn't a gunman. "Edgar Allan Poe," I said, nodding, "poet and writer of tales of mystery and the imagination. Perhaps you've heard of me. 'Once upon a midnight dreary—'"
"Yeah, I heard o' ya. You know what's not a mystery, Edgar Allan?"
I closed my eyes. "What?"
"That ya can't handle the Colt, that's what. Even when you manage to draw it, ya aim it square at the floorboards. It's too heavy, you see? At best, you'da taken somebody's toes out—probably yer own." He regarded my shoes thoughtfully for a moment and then continued, his eyes working up my frame. "Ya got frail little writer hands, that's the problem. That Colt, why, she's just too much gun for too little man, I'm afraid. No offense," he added quickly.
"Of course not," I said, wondering how such a comment could not give offense. And so delicately put, too.
"Are you sure you need a gun at all, Mr. Allan?"
"That's Poe! And, yes, I need a gun." Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath to calm myself. "Someone is trying to kill me, sir."
"Well, from what I seen, I'd say it's you tryin' to kill you—judgin' from the way you handled that Colt. And ain't that a matter for the police, anyway?"
"It's the police—" I caught my tongue. Obviously, I couldn't tell him that it was the police who were trying to kill me. I wanted to buy a pistol from the man, not send him into the street shouting for the nearest constable. Once it became clear to me that someone was trying to kill me—not just frame me, as I had previously suspected, but kill me—I knew I needed some way to defend myself. Leaving Burton at his office, I was determined not to make another move without protection, so I ran straight for the gun shop. If I had to haggle with the proprietor just to get him to sell me a gun, I would. I gathered my thoughts. "The police cannot always be where I am when I am ... attacked."
The man considered. "Attacked, was ya?" At length, he said "Well, seein' as how somebody's tryin' to kill ya, I guess." He rose from his chair and ambled along the glass-covered display case. "But, Mr. Poe, you don't want that long-nosed Colt. Here's what you need." He reached under the glass and wrapped a big hand around one of the pistols. "Somethin' like this one here," he said, laying the gun on the counter top.
What had drawn me to the Colt was its size. I needed a gun with enough kick to stop masked swordsmen and reanimated corpses alike. What I saw before me now was far less impressive. But it only took me a few seconds before I started to warm to the looks of the thing. I raised my eyebrows appreciatively.
"Go ahead, try it out. It's called a 'pepperbox'."
I bounced it a few times in my palm to judge its weight and balance.
"Yes," I said, liking the feel. And not just the feel. While the Colt had a revolving chamber and a single long barrel, the pepperbox had a cluster of seven revolving barrels. All were shorter than the Colt's, but there were seven of them, by God. I held it to my eye to sight along one of the barrels.
"Oh, no. It's not an aimin' gun, Mr. Poe. The pepperbox's strictly for shootin'." I eyed him quizzically. "From the hip," he explained. "Go ahead. Stick it in your pocket and try it in front of the mirror."
I did as he suggested. Slipping the revolver into my pocket, I turned my back to the mirror.
"Here comes your attacker! Behind ya!" the proprietor shouted.
He spoke with such urgency that for an instant I imagined a legitimate threat. In a panic, I withdrew the pepperbox smoothly from my pocket and whirled. I had already pulled the trigger when I realized the proprietor's trick. The hammer clicked on the empty chamber, and in the mirror I saw the barrel cluster rotate one position. I chuckled in embarrassment.
"Bravo! That woulda done the trick, Mr. Poe!"
I smiled, realizing it would have.
"With that thing, you can hit somethin' big as a man, I’d say, at, oh, five paces or so, anyway. Certainly woulda got that guy in the mirror."
Or the masked swordsman, I thought. Then I remembered that I had bashed dead-Burton's head in with a two-by-four to no effect. But who knew what seven barrels of lead might have accomplished?
With the pepperbox revolver in one pocket and plenty of ammunition for it in the other, I left the gun seller behind and made my way down the street to the chemist's shop. Having passed the place on my way from Burton's, it had put me in mind of the laudanum vial stored in my desk drawer at the Fordham cottage. I knew what I must do. And now, buoyed by the weight of the multi-barreled revolver banging against my hip, I was not afraid to do it.
The chemist came out from behind the counter to wait on me. He was a thin, angular man with a prominent Adam's apple, a bald head with a fringe of unkempt gray hair and long, knuckly fingers. There was a reclusive, scholarly air about the man—one A.G. Witherspoon, judging by the sign on his door.
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Adopting an imperious manner, I took a quick survey of the various powders and potions displayed on the shelves. Then I broached the reason for my visit. I asked if it was possible to divine the properties of a liquid from a sliver of hardened syrup such as existed in my laudanum vial.
"I couldn't say precisely," the chemist replied, looking at me suspiciously over the half-moons of his pince-nez eyeglasses, "without first seeing the substance in question. Why would you be wanting to know? Is it of some vital importance—"
"Of vital importance to me, yes," I said. Spying an open door behind the man, I craned my neck to see into the darkened room beyond. The brass barrel of a microscope gleamed at me dully from a table within. "Ah," I said, moving around the counter towards the open door. "And you would conduct your investigation here, I suppose?"
"Investigation?" The man stood in alarm and followed quickly on my heels. "What is this? Who do you think you are that you simply—?"
I turned. "Inspector Auguste Dupin, of the New York City Police," I declared hotly. "And, yes, the substance in question is indeed of vital importance, having been used in the commission of a crime, sir. A crime of the most heinous nature," I added.
The chemist straightened abruptly. As at the boarding house, it was the Imp of the Perverse who advised my actions now. I found that I enjoyed the chemist's sudden enthusiasm as much as I enjoyed the irony of my masquerade.
At once, the man scurried to the nearest lamp and lit it, brightening the room. He glanced furtively through a crack in the door before turning back to me.
"A heinous crime, you say? Murder, by chance?"
"Of the most vicious sort," I confided to him.
"And this substance is a poison then, I take it?"
"Perhaps. But I can divulge no more. I must only know if you can ascertain its properties."
He assured me he could. He then directed my attention to all of his various mortars and pestles and his racks of powders and solutions of all sorts. He enthusiastically led me to observe some substance in his microscope—newly arrived from England, he said—as he informed me of the material's structure and properties.
"Oh, you'll know what the stuff is, Inspector Dupin," the chemist assured me proudly when he had finished his demonstration. "By the time I'm through with it, you will have your substance, without a doubt."
I only wanted him to remember me when I returned the next day with the vial. I had a feeling he would not forget. In fact, I had a feeling he might not be able to sleep that night.
Rest would not come easily for either of us, for it occurred to me now that retrieving the vial might not be as simple a matter as it seemed. Gessler was no doubt looking for me and would expect me to return to the cottage. But I had no choice. The vial was perhaps the only piece of exculpatory evidence I had. I would just have to make sure I was not seen. Or if I was—Well, at least the pepperbox revolver in my pocket offered me a little solace.
I just hoped I wouldn't have to use it.
Chapter 12
When I got off the train in Fordham, I walked the couple of miles towards my cottage, but ducked behind a bush when I reached the familiar fork in the road, deciding at once to take detour from my usual route. I knew I could not approach the place directly, so I decided to cut through the churchyard and enter by the back. When I got to within sight of the house, I found a shadow behind a twisted black oak and concealed myself in it. From there, I could observe the place unseen by any who might have been watching for me.
But as I peered out from behind the trunk, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The cottage looked to be as I had left it and I could find no hiding place from where Gessler's agents could spy the house unobserved by me.
Satisfied, I was about to push myself away from the tree when I felt something brush my ankle. With a start, I looked down and saw that it was Pluto. I wondered immediately what mischief he had planned for me. I braced myself against his inevitable lunge at my face, but he did no such thing. Instead, he padded back and forth around and between my legs, arching his back and purring loudly.
I found the cat's behavior baffling. I had grown accustomed to the single-mindedness with which he usually plotted my destruction. If his thirst for revenge had not been so painful and frightening, I might even have admired him for his unwavering dedication. Pluto wanted nothing less than justice—and I couldn't say I blamed him.
But he was obviously of two minds now, alternating between his desire to snatch my eye as I had cruelly snatched his and his unaccountable displays of feline tenderness. I did not know which was worse. The one filled me with dread while the other filled me with guilt. I almost hoped that this purring kitty was not Pluto at all, but some neighborhood cat who had wandered away from his master. But when he gazed up at me, I saw that he did so out of a single big yellow eye. Where the other should have been there was nothing but a black hole.
I felt full of remorse and opened my arms to him. This was, after all, Virginia's loving kitty. Perhaps I was forgiven. But when he saw my hands coming towards him, Pluto darted off under a bush and I saw him no more.
When he was gone, I turned my attention back to the house. Although I was reasonably certain by now that I was not being watched, I still did not feel safe to approach the cottage openly. So once I had crept through the churchyard gate—being careful to muffle the screeching of the iron hinges—I dashed from tree trunk to bush to trunk to house, utilizing whatever cover was available along my path. This, coupled with the deepening shadows of the day, ensured that I arrived undetected. I ducked under the kitchen window and, crouching there, waited, listening.
Suddenly, there came a clatter from inside. Someone was there.
Cautiously, I raised my head until my eyes were just barely above the window sill. Then I looked inside. An overturned wash basin lay on the floor, accounting for the noise. Somehow, it must have fallen. I certainly did not remember in what manner I had left it. Perhaps it had been perched precariously on the edge of the table and had only now found reason to fall due to some natural inevitability.
"Yeah, right..."
That was Tap's voice. The damned bird was in my head. But he was right. Natural inevitability, my ass.
I ducked back down and began fumbling at my pocket. I drew my revolver, checked to make sure it was loaded and carefully peered in again.
But I saw nothing more—an empty room with an overturned basin on the floor. Basins do not just fall, I told myself.
Gessler!
I crouched, glad that I had the revolver. Gessler knew I would come back. Already suspecting me of having revisited the scene of the Amontillado murder to destroy evidence, perhaps he had even left the laudanum vial and torn label behind intentionally to bait me into returning here, a move he would soon regret. Poe will have the last laugh, I thought. I cocked the hammer and duck-walked to the door, spinning on my heel to put myself beyond the door frame and within reach of the knob. Finding it locked, I fished in my pocket for the key. After some awkward fumbling, I found it and unlocked the door. I then turned the knob carefully, disengaging the bolt with scarcely an audible click.
I gently pushed the door open, waited a heartbeat, and then threw myself inside, rolling on my shoulder and alighting in a kneeling position, gun poised. I swung the barrel to the left and then the right, ready to fire at any threat. But none materialized. I aimed at all points of an empty room. There was no movement but lazy motes of dust drifting through the bars of sunlight that slanted through the front windows.
I rose, feeling more annoyed than embarrassed. Why shouldn't I be cautious? I argued. I once again became aware of my throbbing temples. I found the basin on the floor, stooped and picked it up. I gave it a cursory inspection, as if I half-expected to find some mark that might offer a clue as to how it had fallen. Finding none, however, I replaced the basin on the table without further thought.
That still left the rest of the house. With my arm bent at the elbow, I held the pepperbox upright
at my shoulder. Just because no one had been awaiting me at the door, didn't mean the house was empty. I jerked my head around the wall between kitchen and sitting room, and then finally relaxed when I saw no one there. I put the pistol in my pocket and made my way to the desk where I had left the laudanum vial.
Tap had not exaggerated. His handiwork was all over the drawer handle. A huge white glob was piled atop it like a little snow drift, with white streaks spilling down the front of the desk and onto the floor. My feeling of love for Tap had diminished substantially by this time, I had to admit, replaced by a feeling of disgust and horror at the sheer prodigiousness of his deposit. Placing my fingers just so, I pinched the befouled handle and pulled the drawer open, giving an involuntary shudder at the proximity of Tap's "love dump" to my bare skin.
Inside, I found what Tap had saved for me and I warmed to him once again. I scooped out the laudanum vial—knowing now that my chemist friend would soon divine its secrets—as well as the sheet of L's and the damning torn label. I stuffed them all into my pocket. As soon as I did, I felt the air go out of me and I fell slumped into the chair.
Though I could not clearly define it, I felt I had completed the first step of some grim task. I sat with my head in my hands. Anxiety and fear had kept my demons at bay, but now in my relief they began to assail me anew.
I did not know how long I dared stay. If I had not encountered Gessler now, I feared I soon would. Perhaps his men watched the house at regular intervals and I had merely chanced to arrive between patrols.
Thus, I knew that every minute I lingered was a minute borrowed from the moment of my discovery. Yet I felt I had not the strength to continue. Not today. I had been constantly on the move since Gessler had dragged me into the Amontillado affair. A few minutes of rest was not too much to ask, I counseled myself. What would it hurt to lie in my own bed—at least until the deepest of my melancholy passed?
My Clockwork Muse Page 12
