The Devil's Mirror (5 page)

The library was what one might have expected: panelled walls, deep leather chairs, a fine antique sideboard gleaming with decanters and glasses, the pleasant masculine aromas of pipe tobacco and leather (as well as a less agreeable, faintly acrid undertone that Corey’s nostrils recognised but his mind could not identify); and, of course, bookcases packed with the complete works of Poe, a fine oil portrait of the author, and (‘Nice touch,’ thought Corey) a pallid bust of Pallas, just above the chamber door.

Corey and Jen were introduced to the Vice-President, the Secretary, the Treasurer, several assorted members, and, finally, to Algernon DeWitt He was a large, bald, bloated man (‘Buddha on an off day,’ thought Jen). His proffered hand, when Corey took it, felt like a rubber glove. ‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘You don’t remember, but we met once before.’

‘I remember,’ said Corey. ‘I was five years old. I kicked you in the shins.’

DeWitt laughed. ‘Total recall, how charming. Yes, you took instant exception to me, but I bear no grudge. Ah, and this is your lady fair...’ His eyes brightened with lust as he examined Jen, but blazed with feral fire when he spied the plastic-protected object Corey held under his arm.

‘Is that it?’ he asked, licking his lips.

That’s it,’ said Corey, placing the magazine casually on a mahogany table. ‘Open it up and check the merchandise, if you want.’

DeWitt said, ‘That will hardly be necessary. Your father was well known to us. There can be no question of it being anything but genuine.’

Simpson asked the young people if they wanted anything to drink. Both declined.

‘Then shall we begin?’ said DeWitt, with impatience. ‘Sure,’ said Corey. Everyone sat down, the leather chairs swallowing them.

‘First question,’ said DeWitt, champing at the bit.

‘One moment, Algernon,’ said Simpson. ‘Mr Blake... Corey... may I call you that?... are you absolutely certain you want to play this little game?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It’s your business, of course, and Mr DeWitt’s offer is generous—I might even say outrageous in its generosity—
if
you win. But if you lose... well, I realise the magazine isn’t worth much today, but you’re a very young man, and perhaps the going price in ten or twenty or thirty years...’

‘Come, come, Simpson,’ snapped DeWitt. ‘The boy knows what he’s getting into.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Simpson said with a sigh. ‘I’m not sure that
I
do.’ His dislike of DeWitt was poorly masked. ‘The agreement, as I understand it, calls for three questions relating to the writings of Poe. The
writings.
Not the life. I emphasise that. No notes, no referring to books, no prompting from the sidelines. Everything from memory. Are you ready, Mr Blake?’

‘If Mr DeWitt is.’

‘I’m ready,’ said DeWitt.

‘Then proceed,’ said Simpson, settling back in his chair. DeWitt leaned forward, looked Corey straight in the eye, and smiled icily. ‘First question,’ he said. ‘What is the name of William Legrand’s friend in
The Gold Bug
—the one who helps Legrand and Jupiter dig up the buried treasure?’

Corey shut his eyes in concentration. He massaged the bridge of his nose. He chewed his lower lip. After about thirty seconds, he looked up at DeWitt.

‘I don’t know,’ said Corey.

DeWitt’s eyebrows rose.

‘And neither do you,’ Corey added, ‘He’s the first person narrator. Poe never bothered to give him a name.’

‘Very good!’ said Simpson.

‘Yes...’ DeWitt admitted. ‘You’ve done your homework, young man. All right, then, second question. You’re familiar with
The Cask of Amontillado?
Simply tell us the motto on Fortunato’s coat of arms—in Latin, please.’

Corey smiled. ‘I know what you want me to say, Mr DeWitt. You want me to say
Nemo me impune lacessit
. But that’s Montresor’s motto. Fortunato’s motto is never mentioned.’

‘Correct!’ crowed Simpson. Turning to DeWitt, he said, ‘Watch your step—this young chap is more than you bargained for, I think!’

‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ muttered DeWitt, rising from his chair. ‘I confess I thought I’d trip him up on that second question. Perhaps I might be allowed to have a brandy while I formulate something a bit more difficult than I had previously planned?’

Simpson shrugged. ‘Unless Mr Blake objects?’

‘No, no,’ said Corey. ‘But maybe Mr DeWitt would be interested in a counter-offer?’

‘Counter-offer?’ echoed DeWitt, stopping halfway to the brandy decanter.

‘Just a little switch,’ Corey explained. ‘Instead of you asking me a third question, I ask
you
a question. If you answer correctly, you get the magazine free. If you don’t, I get the $1,000—but the magazine becomes the property of The Raven Society and you get
nothing
. Nothing at all. How about it, Mr DeWitt? Are you chicken?’

DeWitt took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and slowly blotted his damp brow.

Simpson said. ‘Well? Do you accept this amendment?’

DeWitt frowned. Then he smiled. ‘I am intimately familiar with everything Poe wrote. Every story, every poem, every essay, every book review. Even his juvenilia. Even his uncompleted play. I know whole passages by heart. Yes. I accept.’ He sat down again.

A murmur of anticipation went around the room. Jen squeezed Corey’s hand, and whispered, ‘Honey, are you sure?’

Corey gripped her hand tightly in silent response. He turned to DeWitt, and said, ‘I’m going to recite a few lines of verse, and I want you to tell me which work of Poe’s they relate to.’

DeWitt’s smile was a smirk of pity and superiority. Simpson, with concern, said, ‘Mr Blake, are you aware that Mr DeWitt is an internationally known authority on Poe? He was considered second only to your father, and since his death, he’s recognised all over the world as the foremost scholar in the field...’

‘Shut up, Simpson,’ snarled DeWitt. ‘The young fool got himself into this. Now let’s see him get himself out. Go on, Blake, let’s hear this verse.’

Corey cleared his throat and recited, in measured tones:

From Winter into Spring the Year has passed

As calm and noiseless as the snow and dew
—

DeWitt’s eyes narrowed. ‘One of his trashy youthful poems, perhaps...’

‘Want me to go on for a few more lines?’ asked Corey, obligingly, and did so:

The pearls and diamonds which adorn his robes

Melt in the mornings when the solar beam

Touches the foliage like a glittering wand
.

Blue is the sky above
—

‘Rubbish!’ cried DeWitt. ‘Doggerel! This is a shabby trick!’

Corey said, ‘What work of Poe’s do the lines relate to? And “relate to” is the operative phrase, isn’t it? It’s your phrase, Mr DeWitt, you used it in your letter.’ Corey pulled the rumpled letter from his pocket and read from it: ‘“...
you will answer three questions I will put to you relating to the works of Poe
.”’ Corey handed the letter to Simpson, and turned again to DeWitt. ‘Well?’

DeWitt bellowed, ‘Poe never wrote that tripe!’

‘I never said he did. But that tripe definitely
relates to
a work by Poe. A famous work. Which one?’

DeWitt grew purple. ‘This is absurd!’

Simpson said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to answer, Algernon.’

‘I won’t answer!’

‘You mean you can’t,’ said Corey. ‘You give up.’

DeWitt erupted with wordless sounds.

‘
Do
you give up. Algernon?’ Simpson asked gently. DeWitt hauled his great bulk out of the chair and stomped over to the sideboard. He sloshed brandy into a goblet, and swallowed it in a single gulp. He was breathing heavily. Simpson repeated his question: ‘Do you give up?’

‘
Yes, damn it!
’ shouted DeWitt. ‘But that young smart aleck better have a legitimate answer! If he doesn’t, the magazine and the money are
mine?

Everyone in the room turned to Corey.

Corey said, ‘Those are the opening lines of a poem called
Spring’s Advent
, by someone named Park Benjamin. The poem was used as a filler in that issue of
Graham’s Magazine
. Page 259, the bottom half. Immediately following the Poe story. Okay?’

The plastic covering of the old magazine was delicately, reverently opened by Simpson, and the periodical extracted. With loving care, Simpson’s fingers turned the desiccated leaves to Page 259. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘here it is. The end of the Toe story—“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death had illimitable dominion over all.”—and then the Benjamin poem. I assume, Mr Blake, you studied this edition rather thoroughly?’

With a shrug, Corey said, ‘This morning after I picked it up at the bank. I wanted to see what I’d be losing, if I lost. Then I sealed it up again. But I didn’t lose, did I?’

‘It’s a delicate point,’ said Simpson. ‘Some might agree with you about “Relating to” being the operative phrase. It could be argued that if Mr DeWitt had meant the contest confined strictly to the Poe texts, he should have said so. “Relating to” could be interpreted to embrace circumstances or conditions surrounding the original publication of the works. And this poem
is
very closely related to the story, of course—less than an inch away...’

Simpson reflectively stroked his jaw and continued: ‘But I don’t know. Although I’m retired now, I was a pretty good attorney when I was younger, and I’m afraid that this business of “Relating to” is rather hair-splitting, a merely verbal... what would you call it nowadays, cop-out? I would have to say that the story and the poem, although related to each other in one sense, are net related in any meaningful way. And the old Webster definition of a magazine as a “miscellany” of various separate stories, articles, poems, and so on, would support that, I think.’

‘So the boy loses!’ crowed DeWitt.

‘Let us say he does not win,’ said Simpson.

‘The same thing!’

‘Not necessarily. I am forced to a Solomonic decision. Mr Blake does not receive the thousand dollars—but neither do you receive the magazine, Algernon—’

‘
What
?’

‘No, I’m afraid not...’

‘
You old fool!
’ bellowed DeWitt. ‘
Give it to me! It’s mine!
’ He lunged towards the magazine, but Simpson snatched it out of his reach.

‘Control yourself,’ Simpson said with distaste. ‘You’re getting the best of the bargain. The boy is losing a thousand dollars he sorely needs, whereas you... well, I can only think that you suffer from a neurotic obsession to own the entire collection of our late member—under the delusion, perhaps, that you would then be his equal in the field. It’s an expensive neurosis. A few dollars can buy you a copy of
Graham’s
identical to this.’

‘Not quite identical,’ said Corey, with a smile. ‘This particular copy had an extra ingredient in it—an ingredient I found and removed when I opened the plastic envelope this morning. That’s why Air DeWitt didn’t want the envelope opened here.’

An ugly animal sound erupted from DeWitt’s throat as he suddenly sprang at Corey, flailing at him in a blind and mindless rage.

‘Hold him!’ shouted Simpson, and it took several members to pull back the mountain of blubber, to pin down his wind-milling arms, to force him, purple-faced with frustration, into a chair, where he sat, breathing heavily and sweating right through his clothes.

After a moment, Simpson turned his attention to Corey again. ‘An ingredient, you said?’

‘A letter,’ replied Corey, ‘in longhand, just inside the back cover. All scratched out and worked over, as if the writer had really worked to get it just right. Kind of a poetic letter from a guy to his girl, a proposal of marriage. I guess it was never mailed, but the girl did marry him, in November of the same year this issue was published, 1842. That’s why my Dad held on to the magazine to the bitter end, I suppose, and that’s what Mr DeWitt really wanted for his thousand dollars. It would have been cheap at the price. It’s a letter to Mary Todd, from Abe Lincoln. The magazine probably belonged to him originally. He was quite a fan of Poe’s, I understand.’

Taking Jen’s hand, Corey led her to the door, where he stopped for a moment under the pallid bust of Pallas and turned to DeWitt. ‘I remember why I kicked you in the shins,’ he said. ‘You smelled bad. You still do. Come on, Jen, let’s go.’

My, my, there she is, smiling up at me, big as life, right underneath me, fat and sass j as ever, and a mighty pretty gal she is, good old Mother Earth, I’m telling
you
. This is Atlanta’s favourite son and (excuse the expression) fair haired boy speaking, John Henry Captain John Henry Carter, that is, a genuine Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the Fourth of July, 1945, full-fledged citizen of the US of A and the first man to set foot on the Moon.

Correction. First man to set foot on the Moon and come home to tell about it. The real first man on the Moon was my buddy, that
other
John Henry, and since I’ve got another half hour till I touch down and there’s still about 600 feet of tape left on the reel here, I figure I may as well tell you all about it. Because once I home in for that famous pinpoint landing this fancy new chariot is capable of, once I get down there where those cameras are snapping and the band is playing and all the big brass is standing at attention and the biggest brass of all is waiting to pin a medal on my chest... by that time, it will be too late.

Let me ’fess up and tell you that I didn’t warm up to the idea at first. Oh, I knew I wouldn’t be taking the 239,000 mile trip to the Moon alone, I knew I’d be one half of a two-man team, all through my training I knew that, but it sure took me by surprise when they told me that the other stud on that team was going to be one of
them!

I mean
me
?—riding to the Moon alongside a Russian? Whooo-eee! What a combo!

Of course, I get used to the idea pretty quick. So I go along with the gag—symbol of international understanding, pledge of mutual trust, peaceful coexistence, hands across the sea, the whole scam (
man,
there was some mighty fancy language flying!). And I dig why they pick me, too—Mammy Carter’s li’l pickaninny, John Henry. Great public relations, you know? I bet the propaganda boys sat up all night thinking up that one. The Black and the Red. The Darky and the Russky. Tovarish and the Tarbaby. The Comrade and the Coon. A little cornball for my taste, a little
obvious,
wouldn’t you say?—but I’m a good boy, I go along.