My Clockwork Muse (25 page)

It saw me at the same instant that I found my
spot.

Squeezing the life out of Gessler, the
creature looked right at me and in Burton's voice, it hissed,
"You're next, Poe."

I steeled my resolve. "Are you talking to
me?" I asked. I lifted the gun, took careful aim and fired.

A neat, round black hole appeared in the
monster's forehead, right between its eyes. Its hand sprung open
and Gessler crumpled to the floor, coughing and hacking. A geyser
of steam gushed from the wound. The thing took a wavering step
forward. I prepared to fire again. One of its eyes suddenly shot
out of its head from some internal pressure. The eye dangled from
its socket by a cluster of fine tubes and wires. Then the
creature's knees gave way, and the thing collapsed.

Olimpia and I helped Gessler up to a sitting
position. He sat rubbing his throat for a moment before
speaking.

"You saved my life, Mr. Poe," he rasped
before coughing several times into his hand. When he had regained
himself, he looked up at Olimpia. "Miss Coppelius, I am not
surprised to find you here."

"You will find me always with Eddy," she
said. "He is an innocent man, Inspector."

"Yes, that I know. You were one step ahead of
me the whole time, Mr. Poe."

"It is easy to stay ahead with killers
hounding your heels, Inspector."

Gessler tried to get up and winced in pain.
Olimpia and I each took an arm and helped him to his feet. "One
thing I don't understand, though. If that thing is not Burton—then
who is?"

We gazed down at the dead automaton, still
shuddering and convulsing on the floor. The gushing steam from its
head wound had been reduced to a trickle. The manuscript pages that
comprised 'Berenice' lay scattered all over the office.

"The corpse in the wall," I said.
"
That
was Burton."

I went on to tell him how the thing had
attacked me and how it could not be stopped, even after I had caved
its head in with a two-by-four. Only after I had spilled oil on it
and set it alight was I able to escape its grasp. Even after all
that had happened, Gessler looked at me skeptically.

"Don't ask me how it is possible," I said.
"But it is real—as real as this." I leaned down and yanked Burton's
dangling eyeball from its connecting tissues and wires. I tossed it
to Gessler. He caught it and held it briefly before flipping it
back with a look of revulsion. It dropped to the floor near
Burton's head. "I wouldn't have thought this possible, either,
Inspector. Yet, here it is."

"You have a point, Mr. Poe—as well as a black
eye. None the worse for wear, I hope?"

I touched my eye. The flesh surrounding it
was swollen and tender. Someone must have cuffed me during the
fracas. I looked over at the policeman whose head I had smashed
into the glass. He was holding a blood-smeared cloth to a cut on
his forehead. A fair exchange, I supposed. Olimpia examined my eye
closely, touching it gingerly with her fingertips.

"My problems far exceed a black eye,
Inspector. There is still someone out there trying to kill
me—someone capable of devising a machine such as this."

"Then you believe there is more than just Mr.
Burton behind this scheme against you?"

"Oh, this is not Burton's doing. I believe he
is as much a victim as I am."

Gessler raised his eyebrows. Before
answering, I set about herding everyone out of the office. Most of
the workers had gone back to their desks—12or had left the building
altogether—but there were a few stragglers. The cops went last. I
closed the door behind them, a rather silly pretense given the
shattered glass. I ignored their chortling. Then I started
gathering up the scattered pages of 'Berenice'.

"Burton was selected because I had a motive
to kill him. At least it was perceived that way by whomever the
mastermind of this plot may be."

"The 'Pym' review," Gessler said.

"Among other things. Injuries and insults,
you might say. But I don't think he foresaw this conclusion."

"Burned to death in a boarding house
basement."

"And his facsimile laying here with a hole
through its mechanical brain."

Olimpia handed me a few pages of 'Berenice'
she had found under the desk. "It occurs to me," she said, "that
Mr. Burton was probably unaware of ... this." She nodded toward the
ruined automaton.

"Interesting ..." Gessler muttered. "Do go
on, Miss Coppelius."

"I believe his part in this ... affair ...
was merely to portray a dead man in that wall. A simple matter to
fool a handful of police. No offense."

"The role of a lifetime—for a hack actor," I
added.

"In fact, I believe he was meant to perish
there. Perhaps not in the fashion Eddy describes, but—"

"Oh, seriously, Miss Coppelius!" Gessler
exclaimed with the bemused smile, his mustache huffing. "I examined
that body myself and, believe me, he was quite dead."

"Not dead enough to keep him in that wall,
let me assure you!" I cried. "That was no ghost who attacked
me."

"He was feigning death, Inspector Gessler,"
Olimpia said with certainty. "Or perhaps ..."

"Perhaps what?" Gessler asked when Olimpia
paused in thought.

"Or perhaps he was in a state that merely
resembled death."

"Drug induced!" I cried. Yes, it made sense
now. I told Gessler about the vial I had found at the scene. I had
almost forgotten. "I am having it analyzed even as we speak."

Gessler stroked his chin. "A drug that would
cause a man to fall into a death-like trance..." He thought it over
for a moment.

"Perhaps even one that would eventually kill
him outright," Olimpia added. "Mr. Burton as unwitting victim."

"He was a victim of his own villainy," I
said. "I will shed no tears for Billy Burton."

"And the Rue Morgue?" Gessler asked.

"A crime committed by his double, at the
behest of its maker."

"He showed me how he did it, Inspector. I
admit to having doubts that the crime could be committed in the
manner I had described in my story. But Burton—or, rather, that
machine—showed me that it could be done. And I believe only
he—
it—
could have done it."

"And then tried to pin the murder on
you."

"
And
the 'Berenice' crime," Olimpia
chimed in. I started to protest for I had risked my life to conceal
it. But Olimpia cut me off. "Go ahead, Eddy. Show him. The innocent
have nothing to fear."

"'Berenice'?" Gessler looked from one to the
other of us. "Why, isn't that—?"

"I finished it, Inspector, yes. Oh, would to
God that I had not!" I showed him the pages. They were all a
jumble, of course, but we sorted through them until, finding the
last page, I showed him the conclusion to the story he had begun
back at my cottage. Miraculously, the box of teeth was still in my
pocket. My pain at opening it and exposing its hideous contents was
nearly unbearable.

Gessler, whom I supposed had seen quite a lot
in his time, made no reaction. He closed the lid gently and looked
up.

"And Burton, you say, is the only person who
had seen this story?"

"As far as I know."

"Then we have some investigating to do, Mr.
Poe. Miss Coppelius, you will of course assist." He turned back to
me. "How's Monsieur Dupin these days?"

I smiled broadly. "Sharp as a tack,
Inspector."

~ * * * ~

"Perhaps we should stop at the butcher's for
that eye of yours, Eddy," Olimpia said good-humouredly as we rode
down the street in Gessler's carriage.

It had swollen to the point that I could
hardly see through it. Worse, I had caught a glimpse of my
reflection in the glass of the carriage window and saw that the
horrified stares I had received on the street were warranted.
Indeed, I made a frightful appearance. The last thing I wanted was
to be taken for some street ruffian, so when I spied an optical
goods shop from the carriage, I bid the driver stop and went
inside.

When I came back, I was wearing a pair of
pince-nez spectacles with oval-shaped lenses of smoked glass. I saw
in my reflection that while they did not entirely hide my blackened
eye, I would at least no longer be mistaken for a street tough.

Gessler, of course, considered the stop an
unnecessary delay. "May we now proceed to this chemist of yours,
Mr. Poe? Perhaps you would concede that we have matters more
pressing than your personal appearance?"

"Ah, but it goes beyond mere appearance,
Inspector. I have been suffering a peculiar sensitivity to light
these past weeks. I now find that these smoked lenses—the darkest
the proprietor had on hand—provide a great deal of relief. Had I
known, I would have allowed your man to blacken my eye a long time
ago. Besides," I added with a smile, "I think I look quite smart.
Rather dashing, don't you think, Olimpia?"

"You look so mysterious," Olimpia
observed.

"Fitting for the writer of tales of mystery,
don't you think?"

Olimpia smiled and shifted her weight to
press up against me, clutching my shoulder to her cheek. "Oh, most
indubitably!" she agreed.

Gessler cleared his throat uncomfortably and
called for the driver to proceed. "If that's all right with the
both of you." he added irritably.

~ * * * ~

Though the traffic outside Witherspoon's shop
was heavy, the shop itself was empty when we arrived. We opened the
door, a little bell jingled and Witherspoon emerged from his back
room cleaning his spectacles with a cloth.

He muttered some pleasantries, and squinted
at us with an amiable expression. Seemingly blind, his gaze did not
quite meet our faces. It was not until he pinched his glasses to
his nose and adjusted them through several fits of facial
contortions that he realized who had entered his shop. His genial
expression changed to surprise and then, seeing all three of us
together, fear.

"What's all this, then?" he asked. I could
see his hands clench the trim of the countertop. His gaze moved
from one face to the next and then dropped to our hands, as if he
expected to see one of us, at least, in handcuffs. "Inspector
Dupin! I ... I ..." He swallowed deeply between 'I's, his Adam's
apple bobbing in his throat.

Gessler, holding his derby, chuckled at the
mention of Dupin. Embarrassed, I glanced at him, but he merely
looked down at his feet. I could tell that his lips were curled in
a smile, though I could not see them beneath his drooping
moustache.

"Yes, well ... Mr. Witherspoon ... I, uh ..."
I was stammering, unsure how to proceed. I had been so eager to
learn the results of his investigation into the contents of my
vial, and so overcome by the course of recent events—not least of
which was my unforeseen alliance with Gessler—that I had completely
forgotten my charade of the previous day. "Mr. Witherspoon, please
let me explain—"

Witherspoon straightened suddenly. "I suppose
you had better, sir! I was told to believe—at no little discomfort
to myself, and against my better judgment—that you had embarked
upon some investigation of the very man who now stands by your
side, apparently your companion, if I may judge from appearances. I
took you at your word, Inspector Dupin, and have made a thorough
examination of the vial you left in my care. Now, if I have wasted
my time—"

Gessler again reacted at the mention of
Dupin. This time, he burst out laughing. "You couldn't resist
calling yourself Dupin, could you?" he asked between spasms of
mirth.

Witherspoon looked confused and angry.
"Perhaps I have missed the joke."

He had examined the vial! I felt a thrill at
the revelation. But I could see that he was becoming angry. I
decided I better explain before he turned on me completely. "I have
a confession to make, Mr. Witherspoon. I am not who I said I was. I
am not Inspector Dupin. In fact, I am not a law enforcement
official of any sort."

"Yes...?" Witherspoon urged,
noncommittally.

I went on to tell him that I was indeed
investigating a crime—a crime for which I had been framed. "The
vial," I said, "was found at the scene of a murder for which I was
unjustly accused. This piece of evidence, which you now hold, I
believe will exonerate me."

"If you are not this Dupin, then who are you,
sir?"

I removed my smoked lenses. Witherspoon
winced a little at the sight of my discolored and swollen eye. "I
am, in fact, Edgar Poe, erstwhile editor of the
Broadway
Journal
, poet and writer of tales of the imagination." I was
accustomed to blank stares, so I added quickly, "You may have heard
of 'The Raven'."

"Ah!" Witherspoon's face lit up. "'Once upon
a midnight dreary'..."
That
'Raven'? You're
that
Poe?"

I nodded.

"Edgar A. Poe," Witherspoon said
meditatively. "Well, I'll be damned. And who in reality are you,
then, Inspector? Washington Irving?"

Gessler cleared his throat of laughter and
took a step forward. "I am exactly who I said I was, Mr.
Witherspoon. We—that is, Mr. Poe and I, and Miss Coppelius—are
making a joint investigation toward a common end, a fact that did
not become clear to us until just an hour ago. It is exactly as Mr.
Poe says. That vial you have examined is of the utmost importance
to us, Mr. Witherspoon. Matters of life and death may hinge upon
your identification of its contents."

"Of course! The Poe Murders!" Witherspoon
exclaimed as if he had been mulling it over the past few moments
and it had just occurred to him. "It is in all the papers just this
morning. I would have never suspected that I was investigating such
a celebrated case. 'The Rue Morgue', they're calling one.
'Amontillado', the other. Oh, the details of the crimes are
perplexing indeed!" Witherspoon came out from behind the counter
and rushed to the front door. He locked it and lowered the blind,
darkening the room. He turned back to us and spoke in a low tone.
"I know I should be angry with you, Mr. Poe, but I'm not. For what
I found in your vial has far exceeded my expectations."