My Clockwork Muse (8 page)

"Well, what made you think him drunk, and not
just unconscious for some other reason. Was he singing, or carrying
on in some fashion? Perhaps he was the victim of an accident and
nothing more."

The woman looked at me as though I were daft.
"Because of the way he was dressed, sir. Obviously fresh from some
wild party or other."

"And how was he dressed?" I had to ask the
question, even though I already knew the answer.

"Like a fool," the woman replied. "He was
dressed like a ... like a ... Oh, what do you call it?"

"A court jester?"

"Yes! From olden times. In fact, it was the
jingling of the bells in his hat that caused me to look down the
hall in the first place. We get all kinds here. You learn not to
ask too many questions."

"Of course," I said. Now for the answer I was
really looking for. "Did you give a description of the man to the
police?"

"How could I? His face was down the whole
time while the other man dragged him along. His head sort of bobbed
from one side to the other" —the woman's jowls jiggled as she tried
to imitate the motion— "causing the bells in his hat to jingle a
little. All I remember of him was that hat of his—"

"No, not the jester," I prodded impatiently,
"but the other man. The killer, if you will. The one dragging the
jester along? Did you give a description of
him
to the
police?"

"Oh, yes!" the woman said brightly. "Him I
saw clearly."

"Ah!" I said with satisfaction. Now I was
getting somewhere.

The woman gave me a sort of mocking smile.
"But seeing you, Inspector—"

I looked at her dumbly until I realized she
was expecting my name. I gave her the first name that popped into
my head. "Dupin," I said with a start, and regretted it instantly.
I remembered I was not quick enough to provide an alias to Burton's
secretary. Now I was rather too quick. But once the name was out,
there was no taking it back. I hoped that once heard the name would
be quickly forgotten.

"But seeing you, Inspector
Dupin
," the
woman said, grinning. "I can see I shouldn't have bothered."

I frowned. "Why not?"

"Because I could have told the cop that the
man in the corridor looked just like your own Inspector Dupin—and
he would have known instantly what the man looked like!"

She laughed at her joke, which she seemed to
think the height of irony. My mouth was filled with the bitter
taste of bile.

"What are you saying? That the man looked
like ... me?" I asked, dumbfounded. With a sense of rising horror,
I asked again, "The killer looked like
me
?"

"Oh, yes. Same broad forehead, if you don't
mind me sayin'. Little moustache, just like yours. Heavy shadows
around the eyes. A dark man, I thought. But then the light was
awful dim. I see you're much paler than him. No offense."

I waved off her concern.

"Uncanny resemblance, though. That's why I
dropped my plate. I thought you were him, come back to take care of
witnesses, if you know what I mean. Where are you going?"

"No more questions." In my hurry to leave the
room, I banged into one of the chairs, knocking it askew, and did
not bother putting it back into place. "The police appreciate your
cooperation, madam." I uttered the words so quickly, I doubted she
even understood what I was saying.

Back in the dimness of the corridor, I
pressed myself tight to the wall, feeling as if I might faint. My
breath came to me in short spasms.
Think, Poe! Think!
I felt
in mortal danger. When this woman had described Fortunato's
murderer to Gessler, it was
my
face she had conjured with
her words. From that moment forward, as far as Gessler was
concerned, the murderer who killed in the fashion of Poe's stories
could be none other than Poe himself!

Smiling at me and pretending to admire my
stories, when all the while...

By God, it was no simple muddle now! Now, it
was my life at stake and no squeamish misgivings or cowardice could
keep me from the scene of the crime.

I waited until my breathing resumed its
normal pace and then made my way along the corridor to the basement
door. The brass knob that had filled me with such terror was there
as before, reflecting the dim light of the single guttering lamp
that illuminated the hallway. The shadow of my hand darkened the
brass. The knob was cold in my palm. I turned it and opened the
door.

The stairs descended into utter blackness. I
found a lantern on a ledge just inside the door and finding there
also a match, I lit it and started down the stairs.

~ * * * ~

I was determined not to miss a single shred
of evidence, however minute. I started by inspecting the walls on
my way down and even the steps themselves as I trod upon them.
Naturally, I found nothing, but I could see where a fine film of
dust had once coated the stairs as well as the floor below.
"Footprints, you idiot Gessler!"
I muttered under my breath.
Hundreds of feet had long since obliterated any traces of the
murderer's shoes. This did nothing to discourage me, however. On
the contrary, I felt certain that the same carelessness that had
destroyed evidence would have unwittingly preserved some for me as
well.

The main chamber of the basement, a bustle of
activity just the day before, now bore the abandoned,
spirit-haunted air of an ancient ruin. The battered aperture in the
brick wall was only slightly larger than I had last seen it,
extending to about three feet above the floor and of sufficient
diameter through which to comfortably manhandle a corpse. As I
thrust my lantern forward, the jagged edge made by the broken
bricks cast a shadow within the cavity that looked like the gaping
mouth of a sharp-toothed beast. I was loath to reach my hand
inside, assuring myself that even Gessler would have thoroughly
examined the space within. I did not come here to repeat Gessler's
investigation, but only to conclude it.

Thus, I did not concern myself with the
obvious. No, it was the obscure reaches of the crime scene that
interested me.

I turned my lantern away from the hole and
was disappointed to find little of interest apart from a worktable
set against one of the walls. I walked over to it and found an
assortment of carpenter tools laying among untidy stacks of
dried-up lumber. I put my lantern down on the table and, expecting
little, examined the implements in more detail. It was plain by the
dust that covered them that they had not been used in some time, a
fact that disclosed to me as well that Gessler's men had not
handled them, either. This made the table a trove of potential
evidence and I immediately began to scrutinize the objects with
increased interest.

My vigilance was rewarded almost at once, for
among the planes and the bit-less drills and the saws I chanced
upon a trowel. An odd tool, I thought, to find on the worktable of
a carpenter. Without touching it for fear of spoiling any evidence
thereupon, I bent low over the object and inspected it closely. I
quickly found that not only was it free of the dust that covered
the other tools, meaning that it had been recently handled, but
that it bore on its blade fresh-looking smears of brick mortar!

Gessler, the fool, had missed it! The very
implement used to commit the murder, found not ten feet from the
body itself! I wondered what else he had managed to overlook. I set
about making a thorough search of the table, fearing only that it
might take more than Dupin to counteract Gessler's vast
incompetence, which ran much deeper than even I had suspected.

I didn't have far to look. Stashed behind a
jumble of desiccated two-by-fours, I found a little glass vial. I
saw at once that it too was free of dust and my pulse quickened. I
brought it out from its hiding place and held it close to the light
of my lantern. It was unstoppered and empty and bore a hand-written
label. The label was torn and one corner of it had curled away from
the glass, but I smoothed it out and read. "Laudan..." The paper
had torn right through the 'n', but I knew what it was. My heart
raced. This was exactly what I had told Gessler to look for. And
here it was: Laudanum.

This was a discovery even greater than the
trowel. The murderer had no doubt used the drug to sedate his
victim, allowing him time to entomb the man within easy reach of
his unbound hands. I was all too familiar with the stuff, for Dr.
Coppelius had often administered small doses to Virginia in her
final days to calm her suffering. I passed the vial under my
nostrils, but the bottle had been so long empty that the substance
within had left no trace of a scent behind. Being also familiar
with the taste, I was just about to touch the rim of the vial to
the tip of my tongue when a faint sound reached my ear from out of
the darkness beyond the range of my lamp. I paused, listening.

I didn't move a muscle. I strained to hear
the sound again. When it failed to recur, I resumed my effort to
taste the vial—when there it came again. This time there could be
no doubt what it was. My hand shook violently in my fright and I
nearly dropped the precious glass.

It was the sound of jingling bells!

Faint, yes, but there was no doubt as to the
nature of the sound. Bells. Or, rather, bell. It was as a single
little bell tinkling, as if moved by the wind.

I engulfed the vial in my fist and took up my
lantern, thrusting it toward the source of the sound.

"Who's there?" I whispered, not daring to cry
aloud, though my voice quavered with fear.

When there was no reply, I crept forward and
the light of my lamp illuminated the passage at the base of the
stairs.

"Inspector?" I intoned tremulously. Of
course! The man had followed me. He had waited for me to leave and
then watched my every step. He had now secreted himself on the
stair and was having sport with me. No sooner had the thought
flashed in my mind than it seemed obvious. What a fool I was! "A
fine jest, Inspector. But—"

The sound came again, louder this time. And
not a single bell, but several, jingling and jangling, a discordant
melody borne not on a gentle breeze but in a violent gust. I
whirled. My lantern cast an arc of light on the wall of Fortunato's
tomb.

What I saw next, I scarcely dared to
believe.

A leg dressed in tight-fitting motley
appeared from out of the hole in the wall. Then I saw skeletal
fingers clutching the broken bricks on either side of the aperture.
These were followed by a head, the face turning towards me, and
then the entire body of a man. But not just any man—a man dressed
as a fool with bells jingling in his jester's cap.

And not just any fool, either. But Billy
Burton!

I questioned my sanity. But there could be no
doubt. Though the face that grinned at me was green and oozing with
putrescence, it was beyond a certainty that it was Burton. But it
was not possible! The man whom I had embraced with such relief only
twenty-four hours before appeared in front of my eyes, days dead
and walking towards me.

"Burton!" I cried, knowing instantly the
futility of my words. "Now, look here. If it is for revenge that
you rise, know that it was not I who killed you." I held my hands
before me, the lantern in one, the vial tightly clenched in the
other. With a ponderous step, dead-Burton strode towards me, and I
backed away before him. A length of chain dangled from his waist. I
could now see his swollen black tongue protruding between his
teeth. His eyes, which now appeared lidless, were clouded in death
and incomprehensive of my pleas. I doubted my senses, my very
sanity.

I was sure of only one fact and that was that
this dead ...
thing
meant to kill me.

I thrust the laudanum vial into my trousers
pocket and at the same time set my lantern down on the worktable. I
was soon to be trapped between Burton and the wall, so I looked
around desperately for a weapon. Finding nothing but a length of
board, I snatched it from the table. Though it felt disappointingly
light in my hands, I reared back, raising it high above me and
brought it down with all of my strength atop Burton's head.

The board snapped. The sound of the fool's
bells filled the chamber as his hat flew from his head. In its
place there appeared a great black gash where the board had caved
in part of Burton's skull. He seemed not to notice. I had delivered
a killing blow and yet Burton continued towards me, step by
implacable step. To oppose him, I found myself with only a useless
piece of splintered lumber in my hands.

I flung it aside, grabbed my lantern and
thrust it into the face of the fiend. It burst apart upon the
exposed bone of his chin, spilling oil all down the front of his
motley. Instantly, he was engulfed in flames, his shoulders and
face lost in a shroud of fire. I dashed around him and ran like mad
for the stairs. The slick soles of my shoes caused me to skid
around the corner, and again on the first step as I tried to climb.
I found myself sprawled on the stairs and I could see by the
flickering shadows on the wall that dead-Burton was again pursuing
me. I attempted to clamber up the stairs on all fours, my shoes
skidding from the treads as I went. The blaze of Burton's flaming
torso brightened the stairwell as though in the light of day. I
could hear his heavy footfalls, could feel the heat of the flames
on my back. I dared not look behind me.

I had just about reached the door to safety
when I felt his skeletal fingers close around my ankle.

Then I turned and gazed up in horror at his
scorched dead face.

"Fiend!" I cried.

Disregarding the flames, I reached up and
grabbed the hideous creature by his lapels. I could feel his
fingers close around mine. I tried to push him away or yank him
aside.