Upon perceiving my unease he laughed shortly and laid
a hand upon my shoulder. “Come, this should interest you
as an aficionado of fantasy,” he said. “But first, another drink
to speed our journey.”
He poured, we drank, and then he led the way from that
vaulted chamber, down the silent halls, down the staircase,
and into the lowest recesses of the building until we reached
what resembled a donjon-keep, its floor and the interior of
a long archway carefully sheathed in copper. We paused
before a door of massive iron. Again I felt in the aspect of
this scene an element evocative of recognition or recollec-
tion.
Canning’s intoxication was such that he misinterpreted, or
chose to misinterpret, my reaction.
“You need not be afraid,” he assured me. “Nothing has
happened down here since that day, almost seventy years
ago, when his servants discovered him stretched out before
this door, the little box clutched to his bosom; collapsed, and
in a state of delirium from which he never emerged. For
six months he lingered, a hopeless maniac—raving as wildly
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 1 5
from the very moment of his discovery as at the moment he
died—babbling his visions of the giant horse, the fissured
house collapsing into the tarn, the black cat, the pit, the
pendulum, the raven on the pallid bust, the beating heart,
the pearly teeth, and the nearly liquid mass of loathsome—
of detestable putridity from which a voice emanated.
“Nor was that all he babbled,” Canning confided, and here
his voice sank to a whisper that reverberated through the
copper-sheathed hall and against the iron door. “He hinted
other things far worse than fantasy; of a ghastly reality sur-
passing all of the phantasms of Poe.
“For the first time my father and the servants learned the
purpose of the room he had built beyond this iron door, and
learned too w hat Christopher Canning had done to establish
his title as the world's foremost collector of Poe.
“For he babbled again of Poe's death, thirty years earlier,
in 1849—of the burial in the Presbyterian cemetery—and of
the removal of the coffin in 1874 to the comer where the
monument was raised. As I told you, and as was known then,
my grandfather had played a public part in instigating that
removal. But now we learned of the private part—learned
that there was a monument and a grave, but no coffin in
the earth beneath Poe's alleged resting place. The coffin
now rested in the secret room at the end of this passage.
That is why the room, the house itself, had been built.
“I tell you, he had stolen the body of Edgar Allan Poe—
and as he shrieked aloud in his final madness, did not this
indeed make him the greatest collector of Poe?
“His ultimate intent was never divined, but my father
made one significant discovery—the little box clutched to
Christopher Canning’s bosom contained a portion of the
cmmbled bones, the veritable dust that was all that re-
mained of Poe’s corpse.”
My host shuddered and turned away. He led me back
along that hall of horror, up the stairs, into the study.
1 1 6
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
Silently, he filled our beakers and I drank as hastily, as
deeply, as desperately as he.
“What could my father do? To own the truth was to
create a public scandal. He chose instead to keep silence; to
devote his own life to study in retirement.
“Naturally the shock affected him profoundly; to my
knowledge he never entered the room beyond the iron door,
and, indeed, I did not know of the room or its contents
until the hour of his death—and it was not until some years
later that I myself found the key among his effects.
“But find the key I did, and the story was immediately
and completely corroborated. Today I am the greatest col-
lector of Poe—for he lies in the keep below, my eternal
trophy I”
This time I poured the wine. As I did so, I noted for the
first time the imminence of a storm; the impetuous fury of
its gusts shaking the casements, and the echoes of its thunder
rolling and rumbling down the time-corroded corridors of
the old house.
The wild, overstrained vivacity with which my host
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to these sounds did
nothing to reassure me—for his recent revelation led me to
suspect his sanity.
That the body of Edgar Allan Poe had been stolen—that
this mansion had been built to house it—that it was indeed
enshrined in a crypt below—that grandsire, son, and grand-
son had dwelt here alone, apart, enslaved to a sepulchral
secret—was beyond sane belief.
And yet, surrounded now by the night and the storm, in a
setting tom from Poe's own frenzied fancies, I could not be
sure. Here the past was still alive, the very spirit of Poe's
tales breathed forth its corruption upon the scene.
As thunder boomed, Launcelot Canning took up Poe’s
flute, and, whether in defiance of the storm without or
as a mocking accompaniment, he played; blowing upon
it with drunken persistence, with eerie atonality, with nerve-
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 1 7
shattering shrillness. To the shrieking of that infernal in-
strument the thunder added a braying counterpoint.
Uneasy, uncertain, and unnerved, I retreated into the
shadows of the bookshelves at the farther end of the room,
and idly scanned the titles of a row of ancient tomes. Here
was the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, the Directorium In-
quisitorum, a rare and curious book in quarto Gothic that
was the manual of a forgotten church; and betwixt and be-
tween the volumes of pseudo-scientific inquiry, theological
speculation, and sundry incunabula, I found titles that ar-
rested and appalled me. De Vermis Mysteriis and the Liber
Eibon, treatises on demonology, on witchcraft, on sorcery
moldered in crumbling bindings. The books were old, but
the books were not dusty. They had been read—
“Read them?״ It was as though Canning divined my in-
most thoughts. He had put aside his flute and now ap-
proached me, tittering as though in continued drunken
defiance of the storm. Odd echoes and boomings now
sounded through the long halls of the house, and curious
grating sounds threatened to drown out his words and his
laughter.
“Read them?״ said Canning. “I study them. Yes, I have
gone beyond grandfather and father, too. It was I who pro-
cured the books that held the key, and it was I who found
the key. A key more difficult to discover, and more impor-
tant, than the key to the vaults below. I often wonder if Poe
himself had access to these selfsame tomes, knew the self-
same secrets. The secrets of the grave and what lies beyond,
and what can be
summoned forth if one but holds the key.״
He stumbled away and returned with wine. “Drink,״ he
said. “Drink to the night and the storm.״
I brushed the proffered glass aside. “Enough,״ I said. “I
must be on my way.״
Was it fancy or did I find fear frozen on his features?
Canning clutched my arm and cried, “No, stay with me! This
is no night on which to be alone; I swear I cannot abide the
1 1 8
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
thought of being alone, I can bear to be alone no more!״
His incoherent babble mingled with the thunder and the
echoes; I drew back and confronted him. “Control yourself,”
I counseled. “Confess that this is a hoax, an elaborate im-
posture arranged to please your fancy.”
“Hoax? Imposture? Stay, and I shall prove to you beyond
all doubt”—and so saying, Launcelot Canning stooped and
opened a small drawer set in the wall beneath and beside
the bookshelves. “This should repay you for your interest in
my story, and in Poe,” he murmured. “Know that you are
the first other person than myself to glimpse these treasures.”
He handed me a sheaf of manuscripts on plain white
paper; documents written in ink curiously similar to that I
had noted while perusing Poe’s letters. Pages were clipped
together in groups, and for a moment I scanned titles alone.
“ 'The C ry p t/” I breathed. And here, “ 'The Further Ad-
ventures of Arthur Gordon Pym’”—and in my agitation I
came close to dropping the precious pages. “Are these what
they appear to be—the unpublished tales of Poe?”
My host bowed.
“Unpublished, undiscovered, unknown, save to me—and
to you.”
“But this cannot be,” I protested. “Surely there would
have been a mention of them somewhere, in Poe’s own let-
ters or those of his contemporaries. There would have been
a clue, an indication, somewhere, someplace, somehow.”
Thunder mingled with my words, and thunder echoed in
Canning’s shouted reply.
“You dare to presume an imposture? Then compare!” He
stooped again and brought out a glassined folio of letters.
“Here—is this not the veritable script of Edgar Poe? Look at
the calligraphy of the letter, then at the manuscripts. Can
you say they are not penned by the selfsame hand?”
I looked at the handwriting, wondered at the possibilities
of a monomaniac’s forgery. Could Launcelot Canning, a
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 1 0
victim of mental disorder, thus painstakingly simulate Poe’s
hand?
“Read, then!״ Canning screamed through the thunder.
“Read, and dare to say that these tales were written by any
other than Edgar Poe, whose genius defies the corruption
of Time and the Conqueror Worm!”
I read but a line or two, holding the topmost manuscript
close to eyes that strained beneath wavering candlelight;
but even in the flickering illumination I noted that which
told me the only, the incontestable truth. For the paper,
the curiously unyellowed paper, bore a visible watermark;
the name of a firm of well-known modem stationers, and the
date—1949.
Putting the sheaf aside, I endeavored to compose myself
as I moved away from Launcelot Canning. For now I knew
the truth; knew that one hundred years after Poe’s death a
semblance of his spirit still lived in the distorted and dis-
ordered soul of Canning. Incarnation, reincarnation, call it
what you will; Canning was, in his own irrational mind,
Edgar Allan Poe.
Stifled and dull echoes of thunder from a remote portion
of the mansion now commingled with the soundless seething
of my own inner turmoil, as I turned and rashly addressed
my host.
“Confessi” I cried. “Is it not true that you have written
these tales, fancying yourself the embodiment of Poe? Is
it not true that you suffer from a singular delusion bom of
solitude and everlasting brooding upon the past; that you
have reached a stage characterized by the conviction that
Poe still lives on in your own person?”
A strong shudder came over him and a sickly smile
quivered about his lips as he replied. “Fool! I say to you
that I have spoken the truth. Can you doubt the evidence of
your senses? This house is real, the Poe collection exists, and
the stories exist—they exist, I swear, as truly as the body
lying in the crypt below!”
1 2 0
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
I took up the little box from the table and removed the
lid. “Not so,” I answered. “You said your grandfather was
found with this box clutched to his breast, before the door of
the vault, and that it contained Poe's dust. Yet you cannot
escape the fact that the box is empty.” I faced him furiously.
“Admit it, the story is a fabrication, a romance. Poe's body
does not lie beneath this house, nor are these his unpub-
lished works, written during his lifetime and concealed.”
“True enough.” Canning's smile was ghastly beyond be-
lief. “The dust is gone because I took it and used it—because
in the works of wizardry I found the formulae, the arcana
whereby I could raise the flesh, re-create the body from the
essential salts of the grave. Poe does not lie beneath this
house—he lives! And the tales are his posthumous woi'ks!”
consciousness.
“That was the end-all and the be-all of my planning, of
my studies, of my work, of my life! To raise, by sorcery, the
veritable spirit of Edgar Poe from the grave—reclothed and
animate in flesh—set him to dwell and dream and do his
work again in the private chambers I built in the vaults be-
low—and this I have done! To steal a corpse is but a ghoulish
prank; mine is the achievement of true genius!”
The distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous yet ap-
parently muffled reverberation accompanying his words
caused him to turn in his seat and face the door of the
study, so that I could not see the workings of his counte-
nance—nor could he read my own reaction to his ravings.
His words came but faintly to my ears through the thun-
der that now shook the house in a relentless grip; the wind
rattling the casements and flickering the candle-flame from
the great silver candelabra sent a soaring sighing in an an-
guished accompaniment to his speech.
“I would show him to you, but I dare not; for he hates me
as he hates life. I have locked him in the vault, alone, for the
resurrected have no need of food or drink. And he sits there,
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
121
pen moving over paper, endlessly moving, endlessly pouring
out the evil essence of all he guessed and hinted at in life
and which he lea
rned in death.
“Do you not see the tragic pity of my plight? I sought to
raise his spirit from the dead, to give the world anew of his
genius—and yet these tales, these works, are filled and
fraught with a terror not to be endured. They cannot be
shown to the world, he cannot be shown to the world; in
bringing back the dead I have brought back the fruits of
death!״
Echoes sounded anew as I moved toward the door—
moved, I confess, to flee this accursed house and its
accursed owner.
Canning clutched my hand, my arm, my shoulder. “You
cannot go!” he shouted above the storm. “I spoke of his
escaping, but did you not guess? Did you not hear it through
the thunder—the grating of the door?”
I pushed him aside and he blundered backward, upset-
ting the candelabra, so that flames licked now across the
carpeting.
“Wait!” he cried. “Have you not heard his footstep on the
stair? Madman, I tell you that he note stands without the
doorr
A rush of wind, a roar of flame, a shroud of smoke rose
all about us. Throwing open the huge, antique panels to
which Canning pointed, I staggered into the hall.
I speak of wind, of flame, of smoke—enough to obscure all
vision. I speak of Canning's screams, and of thunder loud
enough to drown all sound. I speak of terror born of loathing
and of desperation enough to shatter all my sanity.
Despite these things, I can never erase from my conscious-
ness that which I beheld as I fled past the doorway and
down the hall.
There without the doors there did stand a lofty and en-
shrouded figure; a figure all too familiar, with pallid fea
1 2 2
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
tures, high, domed forehead, moustache set above a mouth.
My glimpse lasted but an instant, an instant during which
the man—the corpse—the apparition—the hallucination, call
it what you will—moved forward into the chamber and
clasped Canning to his breast in an unbreakable embrace.
Together, the two figures tottered toward the flames, which
now rose to blot out vision forevermore.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.
The storm was still abroad in all its wrath, and now fire came
to claim the house of Canning for its own.
Suddenly there shot along the path before me a wild