My Clockwork Muse by D.R. Erickson

felt my blood begin to boil. " '...I
regret to find Mr. Poe's name in connexion with such a mass
of...' "
    I could take no more. " '...ignorance and
effrontery,' " I finished for him. "Yes, yes, I know the
slanderous blather word-for-word. And you're right, Inspector. It
is beyond endurance. I must ask you to stop at once."
    "So it is as I thought—the words do sting. I imagine your opinion of the man who wrote them—"
    "The villain Billy Burton!" I snapped.
    "Ah, indeed!" Gessler exclaimed with a note
of triumph. "William E. Burton, to be exact. One might call him
your inveterate enemy, Mr. Poe, the late Billy Burton..."
    "A scoundrel without equal," I began with
some enthusiasm, until the Inspector's words crystallized in my
mind. "What do you mean the late Billy Burton?" I asked with
sudden trepidation.
    Gessler gazed at me evenly. "William E.
Burton was the man we found walled up in the boarding house
basement, Mr. Poe. The corpse dressed as a fool, as Fortunato. It
was your man Burton."

 
     
     
     
     

Chapter
5

     
    "What do you mean ' my man Burton'? He
is as much yours as mine. Now that you say he is dead, I daresay he
is more yours than mine, since murder is your business."
    I had made a mistake telling Gessler about
Pluto. I would not make the same mistake with Burton. He thought
Burton was dead. So what? If I were to be bothered with every dead
man I might have argued with in life, I should be kept busy
indeed.
    Anyway, I knew Burton to be alive.
    Didn't I?
    I had Gessler tell me how he had identified
the dead man. I myself had known the scoundrel well in life and had
mistaken the corpse's moldering face for Burton's, so how was it
that Gessler could be so sure? Obviously, Briggs had planted the
idea, no doubt informing the inspector of my own erroneous
conclusion. But when the inspector told me that they had taken
careful measurements of the body and had even brought in Burton's
dentist to identify his fillings and crowns, I began to feel a
little queasy.
    My impulse was to confess that I had seen the
man, quite alive, not twenty-four hours before. But I had begun to
doubt my own senses. Briggs, Gessler assured me kindly, was quite
concerned for my health. The man's constant needling and my own
lack of restful sleep had me wondering as well. If it hadn't been
Saturday, I would have rushed back into the city to revisit Burton
in his office, regardless of the row it would cause. As it was, my
meeting with the man might have occurred in a dream—or perhaps in a
somnambulistic trance. I wasn't going to risk declaring with any
certainty that Burton lived when Gessler claimed on scientific
grounds that he most certainly did not. If what I believed was
true, Gessler would find out soon enough on his own.
    On the other hand, I had no doubt that
Gessler suspected me of the crime and it was only in my own best
interest to prove that Burton lived or, if he did not, to ascertain
who, other than me, might have killed him.
    That meant I had to revisit the crime scene.
I had no faith that Gessler had pursued any lead once his
suspicions had alighted on me. Moreover, I now assumed that he had
suspected me all along, that his talk of Dupin had been a simple
ruse to get me to the scenes of his murders. There, he had no doubt
studied my reactions and weighed my every word, hoping I might
incriminate myself. I vowed on the spot to meet his guile with an
equal measure of my own. If he thought to trick me into exposing
myself by word or deed, the man was sadly mistaken. As he would
find to his dismay, my Dupin would meet his Gessler and the
game—for that is how it now felt—would not even be close at the
end.
    The next train for the city left at 3:15,
giving me just enough time to make myself presentable. Thinking to
shave, I filled a basin. When I looked in the mirror I saw that I
did indeed present a frightful appearance. My hair was unwashed and
fell in greasy strands over my expansive forehead. My eyes were
ringed darkly