My Clockwork Muse Read Online Free Page B

befuddled version of a return embrace.
    "You would never believe how happy I am to
see you, Burton!" I cried, holding him at arm's length. "I had
heard you were missing."
    Burton began to stammer. "I had—I had gone to
England..." Then he straightened and looked at me crossly, his
nostrils twitching as he seemed to sniff at my breath. "Look here,
Poe! Have you been drinking?"
    "I am drunk on happiness and relief at your
safe return," I replied, in high spirits.
    "Yes, I thought I detected more of cabbage
there than cocktail." Burton disentangled himself from me and took
a step back, maintaining his cross expression. "Tell me what this
is about, Poe? Since when are you happy to see me ?"
    "Since you have been reported missing," I
explained. "Why should I not be happy at your safe return?"
    "If it's about the hundred you owe me, I will
gladly accept payment any time."
    The man was wholly unlikable, even in the
midst of a joyful reunion. But my relief at finding him alive would
not permit his irascibility to dampen my happiness. I had the
feeling of a man who awakens from a nightmare to find himself safe
in his own bed. Part of me wanted to run to Gessler to tell him.
Another part of me felt liberated from the man and the detection of
his ghastly crimes once and for all. Now that I was assured the
victim bore no connection to me whatsoever, I felt I was a free
man.
    Still, what I had just heard spill from
Burton's lips was a slander that could not go un-remedied.
    "It is not one hundred," I assured him, "but
sixty. Minus the nine you unjustly deducted from what you owed me
for the publication of my stories."
    "Unjustly? What right have you to my
money—money which you have no intention of repaying?"
    Burton's chubby face had gone red. If I
hadn't been tempted to strangle the man on the spot, I might have
laughed at his apish expression. "I have every intention of
repaying. But sixty , not a hundred!"
    "How dare you, Poe? How dare you come in
here—?"
    "How dare I? It is robbery, sir! Fifty-one is what I will repay—"
    Burton's appointment secretary grasped me in
a bear hug or I would certainly have broken Burton's nose. For one
who wrote in such a flowery script, the secretary had strong arms,
and I strained against them, struggling to get my hands on his
apish master.
    " 'Faulty construction and poorness of
style' indeed!" I cried. "Oh, yes, I knew it was you, Burton.
Who else would write such twaddle?"
    "Such twaddle as your Narrative of
Arthur-whatsit-Pym, you mean!"
    " Gordon , you oaf!" I shouted.
    By the time the secretary had wrestled me out
the door, I wished it had been Burton I'd seen bricked up in
the boarding house basement. Whatever relief I'd felt upon finding
him alive was now squandered in anger.
    Still, for better or worse, Billy Burton
lived. Now, I had only an unknown corpse to occupy my mind. As my
anger began to subside, my feeling of relief returned. I made my
way to the train station for home, glad, at least, not to know who
it was who had been interred in the boarding house basement.

 
     
     
     
     

Chapter
3

     
    The route to the train station took me past
the boarding house where I had seen—where I had fancied I'd
seen Burton dead. I slipped to the opposite side of the street and
tried to make myself small behind the foot traffic on the sidewalk.
I had a feeling Gessler's men were probably looking for me, that
after they had thrown me to the curb, they had turned their backs
only to look again and find me missing, having wriggled from their
grasp. It was just a matter of time before they showed up at
Briggs' again and I wanted to be well away before they realized
where I had gone.
    A throng of the curious had gathered around
the door of the boarding house and above the teeming mass, I
glimpsed the brawny Irishman. The brass badge on his policeman's
hat glinted in the sun as he looked one way and then another. I had
to laugh when I saw his puzzled expression, for I knew then that I
had indeed